What does your sales pipeline look like? With Q4 approaching, it's important to reflect on the processes over the past 9 months, particularly how your sales and marketing team are working together. Are your MQLs converting, or is there a bump in the road? If you're looking for a better way to manage marketing and sales opportunities, start a free trial and see how automation keeps you on-task.
An MQL is a marketing qualified lead; an SQL is a sales qualified lead. Marketing qualified leads are contacts that are likely to be converted to a customer, and they're determined by factors such as the web pages the person has visited, what they've downloaded and their engagement with your business's content.
By determining these features you're ensuring that the sales team is delivered high-quality leads. MQLs, typically, are deeply engaged and ready to be contacted by sales, however, they're not fully developed opportunities. Their interest measures how well the lead's needs and priorities align with your services. The handoff from marketing to sales is so important because it's the point of convert-to-close. In short, success happens when sales and marketing work together.
Are all of your contacts updated in one place? Using a client work management platform provides a user-friendly CRM that automatically syncs and organizes your contact list to one central location.
How do you hand off leads? This process can make or break a sale. Create a defined vocabulary to use during the process, which will distinguish what the next step is. The vocabulary and statutes are how the sales team knows how to act or not act.
Here are examples of the four different status you may use:
Customize lead statuses to fit your company culture and needs, and use statuses to mediate actions between marketing and sales. This method creates transparency between the two divisions and sales reps know quickly how to divide their time. If the status changes, sales reps can update the status to better fit the new situation.
Have everyone’s calendar accessible and receive updates on who is available at any given time. With Accelo, calendars and profiles are always accessible and update in real-time. Having the visibility to see capabilities and availability quickly is a huge value add. It saves time and sets you up for success, rather than assigning a person a project they can’t handle.
Write down any key details of conversations, so when you talk to a lead everything is in one accessible place. You're trying to close a lead and searching emails to find information that you can't remember and need to reference can be the difference that makes or breaks the sale. Not being prepared with information looks unprofessional and can cost your business potential revenue.
Automate the operations you use in your sales process. Marketers who use automation software generate twice the number of leads than those just using email marketing software. They’re also perceived by their peers to be 2x as effective at communicating!
It's time to start automating your business operations and closing every deal today - just click here to start your free trial of a streamlined marketing platform, and get back to doing the work you love.
