Your sales team has only so much time in the day—especially if your only sales team is you as a business owner. Having your marketing team pre-qualify leads for the sales team is a win-win, making the sales funnel smoother and increasing the effectiveness of your marketing while generating more valuable leads for sales. It’s one of the things talked about in the enVisioning Success podcast episode, Lead the Way: Turning Marketing Leads into Sales Conversions, co-hosted by Laura and Julia, and one we’ll be expanding on in this article.

Branding and Content That Informs the Customer

Make sure your marketing and sales teams are talking about the marketing material that’s being used. Not only should the voice and the content be consistent whether a customer is viewing social media or talking to sales, but the marketing also needs to prepare the customer for the sales process. Having website pages that talk about the process, the costs, and have clear calls to action can all help make the sales process as smooth as possible and avoid “tire-kicking” customers who waste time.

Is Marketing Targeting the Right People?

Of course, all the branding in the world doesn’t do anything if it’s not on the right platforms, with ads and other marketing material targeted at your ideal clients. This allows your marketing to target only the leads your sales team wants. Some tools and tips to get there include:

• Ideal Client Profiles & Avatars: It’s essential to understand who is buying and who you want to buy your products and services. This is where ideal client profiles and customer avatars come into play, giving your teams tangible demographics to target.
• Picking Your Online Platform Battles: Once you’ve got your demographics, it’s critical to understand where you want to market to them. Pick the right social media platforms, review platforms, and even specialty website pages that are right for your targeting and industry.
• Understanding Targeted Ads: Once you’ve got your demographics, you can also make more powerful ads by using that data to better target ads. Location, age, gender, and interests can all make your ad budget go further and raise conversion rates.

Capturing Conversions and Conversing About Them

As we discussed in our previous blog, 3 Solutions to Stop Your Sales and Marketing Disconnect, one of the most vital things your sales and marketing teams can do is talk about results. Part of this discussion needs to be around goals and conversions, metrics that the marketing team uses to signify lead generation. These commonly include ad tracking that counts certain actions (e.g., calling the company, filling out a form) as lead generation or other similar behaviors like visiting the Contact page of your website. Your sales team should follow up with marketing on the quality of these leads, including if they aren’t the right customers or seem bot-driven.

About the enVisioning Success Podcast

This article is based on topics discussed in enVisioning Success, our weekly podcast hosted by Vision CEO Laura DiBenedetto and COO Julia Becker Collins. In it, they discuss all things business and marketing, from lead generation to leadership. Find us on PodBean to download from your platform of choice, or subscribe to our mailing list to get new episodes and other news delivered directly to your inbox.

If your marketing isn’t able to help your sales team pre-qualify leads (or you don’t have a marketing department), Vision Advertising can help. We can work with your staff to focus your marketing and sales on specific demographics, create better sales funnels and lead generation, and communicate about results. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help.