We’ve all been there. You’re wanting to talk to the ‘decision-maker’ at a business. You know the business in question is perfectly suited for your product or service. You’ve narrowed it down, done your research and determined exactly who it is you need to talk to but, all you have is a name, a business phone number, a website, and maybe you’re following them on Twitter.
While the executive with whom you’re looking to speak has thousands of Twitter followers, you don’t know the person. Can you connect on LinkedIn?
If not, and because you need to make contact sooner rather than later, you’re reduced to cold-calling or cold-emailing. Many businesses will take the quantitative approach. They throw out as many of these calls and emails as they can. They determine who might want to make a purchase and fire away.[Tweet “Is there value in personalization when it comes to sales? You bet!”]
There are tons of businesses that could use your SaaS so, why not reach out? Chances are it’ll churn out some conversions.
But here’s the thing: according to Forbes author John Rampton, 95% of execs want personalized sales interactions and more than a third of them never get them.
The prospect decides what to buy without ever seeing your face or talking to you and, there are so many options when it comes to your kind of software. The prospect takes a referral from a friend, they look at online reviews, they see what people are saying on social media, and they look at websites.
According to Zerolag, they’ll do online research more than 50% of the time before making a B2B buying decision. Whether they choose you comes down to your marketing efforts, in coordination with sales.
Coordinating marketing and sales
What is a good, qualified lead? It’s an individual your marketing attracts but, marketing can attract a number of individuals. Who is the best prospect? According to Intelliconnection author Sandra Donovan, it’s the person to whom you assign the highest lead score. The following factors determine what lead score a prospect earns:
- Metrics
Explicit metrics are facts you gather through research. A prospect may fill out a survey and volunteer information. You can also gather demographic and “firmographic” information, comparing it to your ideal customer persona. This information includes job title, company size, location, revenues, and BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Time-frame for purchase).
Implicit metrics come from observing online behavior and from social listening. Website activity, email engagement, and social media activity all go towards determining how interested and engaged a person is. Software such as 6Sense or Axiom can aid in this predictive process.
- Scoring
To determine the initial score a prospect receives, you take explicit and implicit metrics and assign a value based on analysis. For example, if a prospect is in the process of looking at reviews and blog posts, they would receive a mid-level score.
If they requested a product demo or viewed one of your webinars, they will receive a higher score. If they have been fairly inactive in showing interest, they’ll receive a negative score.
- Tracking
Scoring is dynamic—you’re assigning a number to a person who is, by nature, dynamic. To track how close or far away they are from being ready to buy, you can employ software. Marketing automation software will help you form a picture, through data, of where the person is in relation to your product. It will also help personalize the marketing campaign.
Sales acceleration software will use predictive analytics combined with a host of other technologies. This type of software takes over where marketing automation software leaves off.
Once you know a prospect’s lead score is optimum, sales acceleration helps you convert in an educated manner. It takes what you know about the prospect and turns them into a human being. Now your outreach is qualitative.
For example, a sales acceleration dialer will determine the best day of the week and time of the day to call every contact on a list. The sales rep is in control of the call the entire time. No more wasted time on voicemail. No more calling when they’re in the midst of a daily meeting.
Oh the irony
It’s ironic that numbers are what’s bringing sales closer to personalization. Numbers seem so impersonal but, now you can use them to create a picture of the person. Does this seem like privacy invasion? The data is already available. Companies like Amazon are using it to blow small businesses away. But Amazon won’t make an appointment to meet you at the office. Amazon doesn’t send you personal emails. When a smaller business personalizes, and it really personalizes, it excels.
Daniel Matthews
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- The Value of Personalization in Sales - December 3, 2015