Though some view them in opposition, your marketing automation and CRM systems are a match made in heaven. Each system is designed to gather and use customer data to improve your sales, so how could they not be perfect for each other?
This reciprocal relationship often falls apart due to a rift between sales and marketing teams. When each team thinks they have the answer on their own, they lose out on the power of the dual relationship.
If you’re in the business development world, you’ve heard about buyer personas. But what does a buyer persona mean for your development strategy? It means a great deal. Buyer personas are the key to unlocking your sales database and putting that data to work. It’s how you get names in your CRM to become responses in your inbox. Let’s look at how to create these personas to help you get more calls back and meetings set.
1. Identify your persona groups
Before you start your research, you need to know who you’re researching. Identify the different people in decision-making positions for your target industries. Generally, you will have three groups:
If you’re uninformed, discovering how to make your email marketing campaign succeed can be time-consuming and stressful. You know you have a great product or service, but you can’t engage contacts to learn more. How can you cut through the noise?
With many of your prospects receiving dozens of promotional emails each week, your message needs to make an impact. Follow these steps to get there.
The American Rescue Plan went into effect in March 2021, providing another round of funding for individuals, businesses, and municipalities to curb the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provided nearly $350 billion in aid to states and cities, including funding for economic development organizations.
Designated to “respond to the COVID-19 emergency and address its economic effects,” the funding released to organizations should be used to bring new business development and ease the economic impact on municipalities like yours. And it should be put to use now.
If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t sleep on innovation. The rapid changes in supply chains, business operations, and other shifting dynamics in 2020 highlighted the need to keep up with new tech and strategies to see how you can improve operations.
The same is true for how you’re using your sales database. You can do so much more in your database beyond using it to make a call, send an email, log your actions, and move on.
Among the many sales database innovations out there, we’ve highlighted three to inform outreach, engage prospects, and improve team performance overall.
The year 2020 exposed some of the most fragile parts of businesses. Many found a lack of sales and digital marketing investment was one of those weaknesses.
Those who diversified their sales and marketing with digital tactics could rapidly assess shifting metrics. This allowed them to be nimble, taking action and adjusting to swiftly changing trends.
But those who relied on outdated tools or labor-intensive data gathering practices were left behind. If you felt unprepared for the unexpected in 2020, you need to update your practices to gain, interpret, and act on critical data now. Some of the most valuable data you need includes:
Whether you’ve been in business for a year or a decade, you know industry is fluid. Markets change, tech advances, and customer preferences morph. What worked for years may one day fall short – and you may find you need a new business development strategy.
To stay nimble, think ahead on how you can equip your business to adapt to these changes. When evaluating your need for transformation, you can go in one of two directions: build internally or look outward and partner with a firm that can bring in fresh ideas to energize your business.
Whether you decide to build internally or buy an outsourced solution, there are a few areas to consider before making your choice.
In part one of this two-part post on building business development, Director of Business Development Jeff Tillar looked at how to secure a solid development foundation. Quality data and effective tools, along with market intelligence, are the base of a thriving business. But you need to use that data and those tools in the right way to achieve your development goals.
Step 3: Optimize Messaging and KPIs
After you gather the market intelligence you need to understand your target industry, take what you learned and develop multiple outreach campaigns. Each of these campaigns should target a different opportunity segment. Execute these campaigns to validate what you learned from your market research, getting real results to your hypothesis on prospect pain points and preferences.
Whether or not you use market research for sales makes a difference. Hinge Marketing found that companies who frequently used market research saw 15 times more growth and almost double the profitability of those that don’t use any research. Market research brings you...
There are dozens of sales process models out there, ranging from five to eight to twelve steps or more, but no matter the model, there are core elements of sales enablement that remain. Those core elements include identifying and qualifying prospects, nurturing them,...