Marketing technology software creates new sales tricks

The sales and marketing field has tremendous opportunities today that didn't exist even a few years ago. Social media and marketing automation make it possible for businesses to dramatically improve their sales efficiency and effectiveness.

The old dog's tricks

We may still think of sales as cold calling, building relationships with strangers, lots of meetings, uncomfortable negotiations and, finally, after a long, protracted process, a sale. Hopefully.

The principles are solid: Discover a need. Qualify a prospect. Share information. Find an equally agreeable price. Close the deal. Repeat. But sales work can be exhausting and expensive.

The new tricks of marketing automation

Today, products and services need a refined marketing approach to increase close ratios for sales. Businesses can capitalize on prospects who use the web or social media to make buying decisions. A business can gather contact information from qualified prospects in exchange for information helpful to the prospect. Then, the business has a good list of qualified prospects to begin the sales work. This is inbound marketing.

Trick 1: Build a step-by-step marketing plan

•Identify the outcomes you hope to achieve.

•Identify the audience you want to reach.

•List the value the audience receives from your product/service.

•Create valuable content. You've hit the mark when you have content a prospect would be willing to pay for. Of course, you'll offer it for free — in exchange for the prospect's contact information.

•Inside your website, use a landing page to collect prospects' email addresses in exchange for content. Don't ask for too much info — that will decrease the number of prospects willing to fill out the form.

•Use social media or pay-per-click advertising to drive prospects to your landing page.

Trick 2: Create great content

Good content is the carrot of inbound marketing. There are many kinds: White papers, e-books, videos, how-to articles, blogs and more. You can supplement your content with offers like free trials, product demos and training.

Once you have a bank of content and offers for prospects, you need a well-designed series of email communications to be delivered to your prospect over time in a "campaign" based on a content calendar. This communication is designed to develop your relationship and build toward a sale with your prequalified contact.

Trick 3: The Internet replaces your cold call

Once you've created content and built a campaign, technology automates much of the work, making it more efficient for you to build a list of qualified candidates for sales. Your prospects qualify themselves when they express interest in the content you offer, and that lets you spend more time contacting the audience who's poised to purchase.

Trick 4: Put the technology to work

Software allows you to automate several things:

•Social media campaigns

•Funneling sales leads to your team

•Personalized emails to your prospects

Use technology to make your life easier, but pay attention! Be aware of trends and news when you're automating communications. Nothing is worse than a business continuing to send scheduled messaging when a tragedy captures national attention, or when you've failed to think about a holiday in your calendar.

It's no silver bullet

Just because you can use today's tools to create a sophisticated marketing plan doesn't mean sales will be simple, though.

Carefully analyze your automated inbound marketing to find out how effective each campaign is, and evaluate the ROI. Be patient — it takes a marketing and sales plan anywhere from 3 to 12 months to implement and test to measure effectiveness.

The best trick: Less garbage in, more predictability out

Well-designed marketing automation creates a more reliable sales funnel that improves sales, customer relationships and revenue prediction. Today's tools make it possible even for old dogs to take advantage of all the new tricks. With an automated marketing strategy, your marketing and sales team will work with better information. As always, a great strategy and discipline are your most important sales and marketing assets.

Julie May is CEO and founder of Bytes of Knowledge, Middle Tennessee's premier partner for technology strategy and an award-winning provider of software development, network infrastructure and marketing technology solutions. We want to know you — please visit bytesofknowledge.com