Sales Enablement Tools For B2B Marketing

As the marketplace has changed, so has the sales process. The dynamic between sales teams and buyers has shifted; salespeople are no longer the information gatekeeper. This forces sales and marketing to become more agile, data-driven, and timely. Sales enablement tools can help these teams proactively nurture and build sales opportunities.

Focus First on Lead Generation: Sharpen Your Marketing Using a Data-Driven Approach

Solid lead generation marketing focuses on generating qualified leads and nurturing sales opportunities from those leads. Lead management, lead scoring, progressive profiling and validation systems can help scale up marketing-to-sales efforts intelligently--allowing teams to focus on hitting goals.

In attracting and converting qualified leads pay attention to:

• Building campaigns that improve customer acquisition and retention.
• Study what content and efforts assisted in the conversion of a lead.
• Setting strategic monthly goals: 1. leads per month and 2. sales qualified leads per month
• Make your monthly goals progressive. Don't just throw out a large number and hope for the best
• Nurture leads using more strategic communications based on the leads’ role, buying capabilities, company capabilities, lead behavior, activities, pain points and interests.
• Gathering data from user and customer activity across the entire funnel.

Data Should Drive Decisions for Sales Enablement

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a top tool for gathering data useful to both sales and marketing. A CRM lets companies manage and analyze customer interactions throughout the lifecycle to enhance relationships, convert leads, nurture sales, and assist in customer retention.

When the CRM software is shared, both marketing and sales gain access to all of the lead’s contact information. CRM software can often even populate the lead profile with added information such as company background, competitors, and interaction with brand.

The CRM can also lead conversion, source, and referral data to a contact’s record which helps the business better track what marketing or sales activities are most effective.

Best Practice: Assign a tracking URL to every marketing campaign sending traffic to the website.

CRM software fosters progressive profiling to better segment leads. Further, the CRM can increase lead to sales conversion rates and help sales teams to close deals and spot new opportunities. Driven by real-time data and a streamlined process, the business that employs a CRM to align sales and marketing will prove more agile and effective.

Best Practice: Collect information through all points of contact (web forms, click to chat, calls) that aid the sales process.

Closed Loop Marketing to Empower Analysis

Further drive sales and marketing alignment and improved success with closed loop marketing. Using the CRM, track where visitors are coming from, which pages they are viewing, and what actions they took prior to converting.

Then, close the loop by analyzing which marketing channels contribute the most sales qualified leads and sales opportunities. Using these insights, the team can better optimize marketing channels and sales processes.

With closed loop marketing, the team gains a 360-degree overview of the sales cycle and data inspiring focus on attracting high-quality leads.

This sales enablement tool also helps B2B marketers cut costs per lead with efficient targeting and a shortened sales cycle.

Best Practice: Use closed loop reporting to develop shared sales and marketing goals and avoid duplication of efforts.

Why Sales Enablement Tools Matter

Don’t just dip the proverbial toe in the water with one or more of these B2B marketing strategies. Sales enablement tactics, if implemented cohesively, can bring many benefits:

• Improve lead quality
• Increase overall deal values
• Identify the best leads worth additional attention
• Improve up-sell opportunities
• Improve lead generation results
• Build a more streamlined and efficient process

Key Tools and Practices in Summary

1. Lead acquisition through marketing automation
2. Closed loop marketing: connecting marketing to sales activities
3. Lead conversion tracking
4. Progressive profiling
5. Lead scoring
6. Lead enrichment to help fill in the gaps
7. CRM for lead management