Let’s face it — marketing likes big numbers. Since their work is driven by numbers, all visitors to a company’s website are pressured to fill out a form that will go to the company’s sales team. Most of these leads won’t pan out and you’re wasting your sales team’s time. Having specializations for your sales team can help or you can hire a company to monitor these leads, taking pressure off your sales team. There are four areas that your sales team can specialize in. It’s a good idea to have different individuals for the different areas.
Marketing Lead Qualification
The market response representative works to develop inbound leads. Once the leads are engaged in the sales cycle, they go to an account executive. However, an agency can help you manage this so that your market response representative isn’t overwhelmed. Each one typically handles about 400 leads per month. You don’t want your account executive to handle pointless leads, which is why this specialization is so important.
Outbound Sales Development – aka Telemarketing
This individual handles cold calls and emails. The activities taken to develop these leads are the same as conducted by the market response representative. It is estimated that one individual can generate between 10 and 20 leads per month for the account executive. However, this doesn’t mean that the outbound sales development representative will have limited work, meaning they will likely have to make many cold calls and/or send many e-mails. On average, the representative will make 18 calls in order to generate a possible lead. Since templates can be used, the e-mail option will allow for more possible leads. It is estimated that the representative will generate one possible lead for every 50 e-mails. In order to generate 10 leads using calls, the representative will need to make 180 calls per month and/or 500 e-mails. This number doubles for 20 leads. Typically, between 10 and 12 calls are made per hour. During a normal 8 hour shifts, this means the representative will take between 80 and 96 calls, allowing them to obtain a possible 8 to 10 leads. This doesn’t mean that these values are absolute.
Account Executive
This individual finalizes the sale. This means that they typically must meet a quota for sales and is responsible for completing the buying process. A good way to describe this individual in consideration of the sales team is as the final person that the customer interacts with. However, the sales process is a cycle and the account manager will attempt to re-engage the customer for future purchases. If the customer has had a positive experience throughout the entire sales process, there is a greater chance that they will purchase from the company again. This is especially beneficial in building the market for sales and gives the market response representative and outbound sales development representative a better idea of targeted customers.
Account Manager
The role of the account manager is to manage relationships with existing customers and ensure they are getting value for their money. This helps to ensure that customer loyalty is being developed, which keeps customers returning to the company. This means that the account manager will need to cultivate new ideas to get customers as well and communicate these to the market response representative and the outbound sales development representative. These individuals can use the information to increase interest in the product/services of interest. Moreover, the account executive and account manager are able to focus on sales leads that are likely to have a positive outcome.
Battle of the Leads: Marketing vs Sales/Purchase
It’s important to remember that there’s a difference between marketing leads and those within the sales/purchase cycle. Marketing leads are simply indicating a vague interest in the product. Sales/purchase leads have exhibited purchase intent. Marketing leads are anyone that completes the”contact” or “more information” form on your website. Even though they’re filling out the form, you’re still bound by ethics of consent. They consent to receive information or contact by completing the form, but you must behave in an ethical way. It’s also important to note that not all leads are potential buyers. Some may be partners, analysts, consultants, or even competitors to see what you’re offering.
MOLS are suitable for purchasing the product, but aren’t quite ready for a solution. When searching for ideas, there is an implied trust that pressure to buy won’t occur. It’s important to not pass these individuals to sales just because they got some information. It’s more important to build programs that allow for education and promoting potential future purchases. By emphasizing these educational programs, trust and awareness is built, which, over time, may build demand for solutions.
Benefits of Marketing Agencies
It is noted that if any one individual on the sales team focuses at least 30% of their time on one of the specializations, but is not their primary function, there’s a good chance you need a FTE for that function. If you need to hire individuals for each of the specializations, it is best to go through the listed roles — market response representative, outbound sales development representative, account manager, and account executive. However, a marketing agency can help you mange these roles and free up your sales team to meet the needs of promising leads and existing customers. As a result, the bottom line of your company will likely increase because your sales team will be able to focus on creating customer value, which typically leads to customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is critical for all companies because it allows for repeat business. Moreover, customer loyalty leads to increased profitability and improved operating performance because the company isn’t focused on marketing for new customers. This doesn’t mean that new customers aren’t critical for the success of the company, but that different marketing tactics can be used and the sales team can be used in a more effective way since the marketing agency or FTE is screening leads to allow the sales team to focus on the most viable and completing the sales process and create customer value. The marketing agency, then, is an important part of the sales process, as well as meeting the needs of management in meeting sales quotas and goals.
A marketing agency may be your secret weapon to success in building a larger market in your industry and improving your company’s performance, leading to increased opportunities for success. Marketing agencies offer many different options to help you get the most beneficial outcome based on your needs, industry, sales team capacity, and company objectives. To see how we can help your sales team be more effective in managing leads and develop sales, contact us today.
