The bottom line is that effective marketing creates more sales and generates more revenue, but the two must function synergistically for optimum results. If salespeople are the linchpin of a firm's revenue growth, marketing is the engine that keeps leads flowing. Add in a well-conceived public relations and communications strategy to tell the firm's story and increase brand awareness, then watch your salespeople's confidence level and production soar.
Hortz: How can digital engagement data from marketing efforts help support the sales team?
Sondhelm: Investing in good data and digital marketing automation enables a firm to better direct resources for maximizing the return on time and effort. Digital engagement data from marketing efforts can provide valuable insights that can help support the sales team in several ways.
First, by tracking digital engagement data such as website visits, downloads, and email opens, marketing teams can identify potential leads who have shown an interest in the company and its products or services. This information can be shared with the sales team to help them prioritize their outreach efforts.
It can also harvest deeper insights into prospects' interests and preferences, which can be used to personalize the sales pitch and tailor it to the prospect's specific needs and pain points. Also, by tracking digital engagement data, marketing teams can monitor prospect behavior and identify when they are showing signs of readiness to buy. This information can be shared with the sales team to help them identify the right time to make the sales pitch.
When shared with the sales team, digital engagement data can help them improve the sales process by better understanding their prospects' behavior and preferences. Those insights can lead to more targeted and relevant sales collateral or adjusting the sales pitch to address specific pain points.
Finally, digital engagement data can provide insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Marketing teams can identify which campaigns generate the most interest and leads by analyzing metrics such as website traffic, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This information can be shared with the sales team to help them understand which prospects will most likely convert into customers.
Hortz: How can the sales team support marketing?
Sondhelm: When working synergistically through an integrated plan, the sales team can support marketing in a number of critical ways. Through their activities, the sales team can gather a treasure trove of insights and data that marketers can use to hone the firm's messaging and create more effective marketing materials and sales collateral that resonate with the target audience. The marketing team can use insights gained from customers about their needs, pain points, and preferences to create more targeted and relevant campaigns to improve lead quality.
Other ways the sales team can provide high-value marketing support include providing case studies and testimonials from satisfied clients that can be used to build credibility and provide social proof. The sales team can also help marketing by increasing brand awareness as brand ambassadors and promoting the company and its products to their networks.
Finally, the sales team can provide training and support to the marketing team on product knowledge and customer insights. This can help the marketing team stay on top of what is relevant and what resonates with their target audience.
The Institute for Innovation Development is an educational and business development catalyst for growth-oriented financial advisors and financial services firms determined to lead their businesses in an operating environment of accelerating business and cultural change. We operate as a business innovation platform and educational resource with fintech and financial services firm members to openly share their unique perspectives and activities. The goal is to build awareness and stimulate open thought leadership discussions on new or evolving industry approaches and thinking to facilitate next-generation growth, differentiation, and unique community engagement strategies. The institute was launched with the support and foresight of our founding sponsors — Ultimus Fund Solutions, NASDAQ, FLX Networks, TIFIN, Advisorpedia, Pershing, Fidelity, Voya Financial and Charter Financial Publishing (publisher of Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines).