3 Things Your Tech Sales People Wished You Did Before Sending Them a Lead

3 min read
Nov 17, 2015 12:24:27 PM

One of the most important relationships in a tech company is between the marketing team and the sales people. Maintaining a steady source of quality leads from which the sales crew can draw is challenging, but when it’s done successfully, the benefit is obvious. After all, more sales equals more capital!tech sales

In order to maximize everyone’s productivity, the marketing sector of your tech company must be sure to do two things: keep a continuous and open line of communication with the sales department, and habitually produce top-quality leads. Sales teams are busy, they need as much time as possible in order to improve your consumer’s buying experience. By adopting Inbound Marketing techniques and abandoning the outdated ways of cold-calling and advertisements, you can really enhance your tech company’s yield.

Here are 3 things your sales people wish you did before you sent them a lead:

1. FOSTER A RELATIONSHIP WITH LEADS

When leads first come to you, they aren’t experts in the field, they don’t know everything your company has to offer. As the marketing team, it’s your job to foster these initial relationships. The most surefire way to do this is to ensure that you are producing quality content for your customers to experience. When leads get to the sales team, they should have a clear idea of what they are looking for, and should feel at least somewhat confident that your company is the right one for them.  

Your leads should already be on an e-mail list, should have already downloaded content (ie, e-Book or video) and should be familiar with the bulk of your company’s message and mission—made available through infographics and repeated “touches” (e-mail blasts and the like). You should be seen as a resource for information as well as a place for them to find the solution to their tech problem. Remember, you a selling the solution to their problem, and not yourself! If the marketing team sets too self-referential of a tone, this can put the lead off before they even speak with your sales team.

2. SCORE YOUR LEADS

For some consumers, your strong marketing platform will be enough to sell them on your product--the sales team will just need to pinpoint the final details and the lead will be transferred to a sold customer. For others, the marketing will be enough to pull them in, and the sales person will have to do a bit more extensive work to ensure that they can convert the lead to a buyer. And perhaps most difficult, there are those who need to spend extensive time doing research and developing a relationship before they even consider speaking to a salesperson. Having a system that scores these leads on their readiness is an important way to make sure the sales team knows what to expect.  

There are easy ways to develop these scores. You can award customers with “loyalty points” for every download or social media post that they share. You can award them “education points” for every one of the pages on your site that they visit and you can make free offers that give the customer more information. Considering you are using Inbound Marketing and continually bringing the customer back to you, there should be no issue accumulating enough information to generate these scores. The most important part is tracking them and analyzing what stage in the buying process your customer seems to be circling around. Your salespeople will surely appreciate the heads-up!

3. AUTOMATE YOUR CORRESPONDENCES

By automating your correspondence with your leads, you are streamlining the communication from lead>marketing>sales. You can set up regularly released e-mail campaigns, and structure contact lists that reach out to the customer when they click on certain indicative media. For instance, if your tech company sells software, if one customer continually clicks on information about anti-virus programs, then you can ensure that he receives the next video or blog that you release about his area of interest.

Using these automated responses allows you to nurture the lead by catering to their interests, and gives you a great deal of information to pass off to the salesperson about the individual with whom they are about to do business. Remember #2 here as well, you can use this same technique to further qualify your lead scoring system. Better leads lead to better sales!

By taking these three steps to streamlining your lead acquisition and management, your relationship with your sales team is sure to improve. They will appreciate the in-depth run downs of potential customers and will in turn produce higher sales for your tech company!

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