The marketing industry was transformed by technology well ahead of sales. Since the early 1990s, marketing tactics have incorporated big data and automation. More recently, though, the sales industry has gone through its own digital renaissance – evidenced by the proliferation of tech tools and the advancement of prospecting techniques. Like marketing, sales teams have adopted their own acceleration technology, with individual contributors implementing tactics tested by marketers and proven to work. Today, any salesperson can proactively (and autonomously) use automation to scale their outreach. This increases their ability to work leads and close deals.
Here are three key tactics that cutting-edge sales teams have gleaned from marketers to gain a leg up on the competition:
Drip campaigns: nurture your prospects over time, no hands
Drip marketing is a technique birthed by marketers to get multi-stage content into the inboxes of current and prospective customers – automatically. Whether that’s a series of blog posts or nurturing emails leading up to an event, drip campaigns have proven results for marketers. Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture their prospects achieve a 451% increase in qualified leads.
Drip campaigns for salespeople can be just as impactful.They allow reps to nurture their relationship with prospects, scaling their initial outreach and automating their follow-up. Because repetition wins people over, continual nurturing over time builds trust. Doing it automatically saves the sender time; sales reps use inbox plug-ins to schedule follow-ups and add personalization to mass emails. After all, personalized emails deliver nearly 50% higher open rates and nearly 22% higher reply rates.
Pixels and link tracking: see exactly what happens after you press “send”
Marketers use tracking pixels in email campaigns to see how many people open, and link tracking to see who interacts with the content. Metrics like opens and clicks become key points of feedback to understand the performance of different emails and to optimize strategy.
Today, that same technology can be used in sales outreach. Salespeople can usetools that track email opens and link clicks to see when a prospect engages with content in real-time. This is valuable data that informs follow-up timing. Email tracking also provides insight into what piqued the prospect’s interest. This allows salespeople to tailor their messaging accordingly, identify templates that work, and find their sweet spot for send timing.
A/B testing: vet your templates, identify the most engaging messaging
A/B testing is a staple in digital marketing. Email marketers often design two versions of a campaign, with one variable distinguishing the two, to test which version performs best. By testing and tweaking and then doing more testing, they consistently identify which subject lines, email organization, and calls-to-action best trigger engagement.
With sales outreach, emails are an important touchpoint in the customer relationship. That initial cold email sets the tone for the customer relationship; it can make or break a recipient’s interest. For this reason, it’s essential for reps to optimize their first email and subsequent follow-ups. They can approach their email set-up methodicallyto find what works best. As an example, a rep could take his or her next batch of cold emails and split the recipient list in half. The first half of recipients receive the cold email at a typical time. For the second batch, do some researchto find a vetted time, and give it a shot. Once both batches send completely, see which timing achieved higher engagement.
The roles of marketing and sales have always operated in tandem, and both are very closely dependent upon the ability to capture the attention of a target audience. Sales has the added bonus of following in the wake of marketing’s digital revolution and gleaning tips about tactics that contribute to success. Top sales reps are seizing this opportunity and weaving tried-and-true marketing secrets into their outreach.
Joel Felcher is the sales manager at Yesware, a prescriptive platform for sales teams. He coaches a team of 10-plus reps on prospecting and regularly shows them how to use sales automation to vamp their cold outreach and nurturing.
