Is Marketing Automation revolutionizing the way people buy and the way a business engages? Is Marketing taking control of the power of making decisions over customers? How close is marketing to sales and why is it so difficult to make the relationship happen? What’s next? How do we know we are doing a great job at selling any product or service?
During Adobe Summit 2019, Brian Glover knows that “purchase decisions aren’t made by individuals, they are made by buying teams and accounts and you need to engage over long arks of time, and partner with sales to win deals”.
So what does he think is a proper practice for B2B marketing?
- Plan the target account strategy
- Engage prospect across channels
- Measure the impact on the business
To use an example, he goes through Adobe’s marketing product called Marketo Engage Engage, defining that the strategy is engage with new customers and target them according to the top accounts that have previous engagement with the business.
Then, he needs to find the right people, and we know from inbound marketing practices that the best way to do this is by selecting key personas. This can be by paid campaigns and even from social media where B2B relationships connect (e.g. LinkedIn).
Here is where the prospect/lead, customer comes in and engages with our shared content. It doesn’t matter where he stands on its decision-making process or how you’re attracting it, the information is collected on Marketo and this data is measured instantly giving the business enough information about the effectiveness.
So, what’s the greatest deal about Marketo and how does it help your business reach its goals? Its simple. It learns about your strategies and campaigns; but not only that since it makes suggestions about next steps to boosts your engagement, to help you achieve those goals.
Are we done? Not yet. This is where sales comes in and looks to seal the deal with every single customer. Sounds exhausting. It doesn’t have to. Cold calls are the worst way to do it. By doing proper marketing, the sales team knows exactly who they should contact prioritizing “hot leads”. What’s next? Learn about them, get ready to make the right introduction and send them an email, call them.
“A sales campaign is a day-by-day playbook”. For sales teams, don’t feel discouraged and keep engaging.
Lastly, share that info. Marketo lets you know how after the sales effect, sales key findings have to be analyzed again by marketing to measure the effectiveness and know where to engage on the next campaigns.
Marketing and sales automation is the best practice and Marketo is the new way to do it.
