You likely know that sales and marketing alignment is our jam. We are all about the two teams communicating openly and working towards common goals. But did you also know that we are all about working smarter? Sales and marketing automation can help you with some of the heavy lifting allowing you to scale and spend your time on the things that matter most to your business.
Despite the joint naming, sales automation and marketing automation serve distinct purposes within an organization. In this post, we’ll define both sales and marketing automation and share some of our top tips for implementation.
What is Sales Automation?
HubSpot defines sales automation as the mechanization of manual, time-consuming sales tasks using software, artificial intelligence (AI), and other digital tools.
With the sales team focused on one to one communication, automation can help with prospecting and outreach and cut down on response time, making sales uber efficient. More specifically, sales automation helps with:
- Lead distribution
- Lead follow-up emails
- Meeting scheduling
- Sales quotes/proposals
- Customer onboarding
- Lead scoring
- Approvals
- Lead qualification
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is using software to automate marketing activities such as email marketing, social posting, and reporting.
With the marketing team focused on communicating to a group of people, (ideally targeted to personas), automation adds scalability and also personalization. Without marketing automation, it’s nearly impossible to include personalization at the scale needed for most B2B businesses.
Marketing automation helps to accomplish the following:
- Updated tracking
- Real-time alerts
- Automated lead-hand off
- Forms
- Landing pages
- Social post scheduling
- Emails
- Lead nurturing
- Lead qualification
Did we mention you can use marketing automation to outsource lead gen? Read more.
Sales & Marketing Automation Tips for B2B
If you’re either considering sales and marketing automation for your business or your current efforts aren’t going so well, this next section is for you. Here are our top five sales and marketing automation tips.
Tip #1: It starts with alignment
If it feels like your sales and marketing teams are on different planets, adding automation to the mix won’t solve that. It’s best to have a meeting of the minds first. There you should outline responsibilities, define key terms and align your goals.
Alignment can be a process, but at a minimum, it should be an active process.
Tip #2: Don’t overbuy
Underutilized technology can be a costly expenditure. Not every company needs sales and marketing automation and not every company needs all the bells and whistles of enterprise-grade solutions. Being aligned as a team will help you hone in on the features that are necessary.
Here are some questions for consideration when evaluating the needs of your teams:
- Are you struggling to segment and prioritize leads?
- Do your leads require nurturing?
- Is your sales team struggling to find the time to follow up with leads?
- Are you leveraging your content?
- Do you know where your teams are coming from?
- How are leads handed off?
Tip #3: Have a plan
Sales and marketing automation can be great, but not without a plan. Having an agreed-upon strategy of what matters to your organization will help you select the tech that meets your needs and execute day to day.
Automation isn’t the entire strategy, but it’s part of it.
Tip #4: Who owns automation?
Bringing on new technology can sometimes have people asking, “Who’s on first?” We strongly recommend appointing an automation internal champion. This person is responsible for adoption, consistency and holding teams accountable.
Tip #5: Don’t forget you’re marketing and selling to humans
When it comes to automation, you can have too much of a good thing because at the end of the day, you’re still marketing and selling to humans. No one wants to engage and converse with a robot, especially if the buyer is in the decision stage.
Make sure to:
- Monitor replies to your automated your messaging
- Use personalization
- Practice social listening
- Analyze the data and optimize
Avoid these B2B email nurture mistakes that will leave your leads dead in the water.
Tip #5: Automation isn’t set it and forget it
C’mon. Is there anything in sales or marketing that is set it and forget it? The answer is no. There isn’t. Sales and marketing automation tools typically come with better reporting capabilities. Use it!
Also, there’s part of the story that can’t always be seen in the data. Take the time to talk to the teams and solicit feedback.
Sales and marketing automation can save you time and help your B2B business scale. If you’re considering incorporating automation into your sales and marketing strategy, we’d love to chat.
