Bridging the Sales-Marketing Gap

Every company which has marketing and sales departments has at some point witnessed the famous – sales and marketing fight and blame game – more commonly known as the sales and marketing misalignment.

One of the most significant reasons for the sales and marketing divide is the difference in objectives and their measurement of success in closing the sales deal. In a B2B set up these differences are more glaring as compared to a B2C company.

In B2C, both marketing and sales are measured by the sales and market share the company enjoys for its products. In such a scenario, marketing invariably assumes the role of assisting sales and propelling the company’s revenue share in the marketplace.

However, in most B2B companies, the primary objective of marketing is to generate quality business leads and of sales to convert these into closed deals. Both these departments are also measured based on the number of leads generated and the number of sales closed, respectively.

In reality the role of marketing in a B2B company is relationship building and that of sales to use this relationship and help prospects make a rational buying decision based on business value offered by the company’s solutions.

Irrespective of how companies want to position their marketing and sales objectives, the truth is marketing and sales are two sides of the same coin.

Selling starts the very minute the company goes out into the world and talks about its offering. Companies spend on marketing activities because they want to attract people who can buy their offerings. So what really differentiates marketing from sales is the point of their entry in the relationship building process.

Hence it is essential for companies to create a common ground or process for marketing and sales teams to work together in the in-between stages of qualifying and nurturing Leads.

Define Lead Profile

Defining a good Lead is the first step in this direction. It starts by putting down a definite list of attributes and a score for each attribute; this process helps in scoring the Leads and qualifying them. These pre-defined Lead attributes should be arrived at after doing ample research on how the Leads in the company’s Lead funnel behaved in the past, this requires an in-depth study of both Leads closed and opportunities lost. Also, this should be an ongoing process, where the Lead behavior is watched and the common definition accordingly developed over a period of time.

Automate Processes

Use of technology like marketing automation solutions can help in easing and automating the process of scoring and qualifying leads if the primary source of Lead generation is Internet.

Just this one process can go a long way in bridging the sales-marketing divide, at least in settling the blame game.

Setting up such a process not only helps in bringing clarity to the end objectives of both, but also equates the success metric. The Lead definition becomes the base measurement value for both the departments. Marketing is measured not on the basis of Leads generated but on the basis of qualified Leads generated in accordance with the common definition. Sales get measured on how many of these qualified Leads it managed to close.

Marketing automation solutions allow sales and marketing to have a common free-flowing communication channel through a common “Lead view”, even if they fail to fit the pre-defined criteria.

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Using Free Trials for Effective B2B Marketing

The popular ‘Call to Actions’ is mostly associated with free trials and offers and, is widely used in both the B2C and B2B industries. It is a universal rule followed by most customers around the world in any industry; that if they want to get the maximum returns for their investments, they allow the customer to test it in his own environment.

Here are some important considerations for B2B clients before using “Free Trials” on your webpage.


Placement effectiveness of ‘Free Trial’
Free trial generally is the primary call to action and gets the top billing in terms of placement – above fold along with the key value proposition or image. Sometimes it is even repeated twice in a smaller print below the fold or on the top along with the login.


Give away for ‘Free Trials’  
Free trial remains most comprehensive form of evaluation for any product or offering.


Ideal time for a ‘Free Trial’ offer
From a sales perspective, it ideal to offer the shortest time and then on an individual case to case basis, make exceptions where required.


Urgency around ‘Free Trial’
By indicating the free trial is available for a limited time in a subscript, one can create a sense of urgency around the call to action. You can also mention “No credit card data required” in the subscript which would emphasise – “no obligations for taking the trial”.


Information around ‘Free Trial’ tabs
Providing links to video, demo, tutorials or other resources may result in more click-through for these links as prospects would like to read more about the product and the value proposition before engaging in a trial.


Is dummy data in a sandbox better than ‘Free Trial’?
Using dummy data in a sandbox depends on whether the product produces data in a free trial which can show the prospects true value and new perspectives which they would find difficult to associate otherwise.

Overall, offering free trials is a practical proposition and works wonders from a prospect’s perspective, because it is an opportunity to go beyond the marketing automation collateral and jargon and check if the product or service being marketed matches the claims made.


Free trial is great option for B2B companies, if data produced during the trial period highlights the value of the product and provides with a strong motivation to buy.
The free product trial experience goes a step further than making available dummy data in a sandbox environment, as it shows how valuable the product is in the prospect’s own environment, thus reinforcing the value proposition.


Free trials help a prospect gain familiarity with the product, its features; not just in a sandbox environment, but right in the production environment. If the prospect does not like something in the promo run, he can voice his opinion and feedback, which can find its way back to the vendor company, who may just be able to accommodate the suggestions in the paid version.


Since most B2B decisions are taken by a group of individuals, going with a certain vendor becomes easier if there is data to showcase the merits of the solution offered by them. Free trials help put together such convincing data.


Also, a free trial allows you to make your first contact with the buyer, it allows you to present your case and build a relationship with the decision makers, which can affect the final purchase decision. So, ultimately it serves the purpose for effective Lead generation and lead nurturing.

How to Deal with Not-Yet-Sales-Ready Leads

Till recently B2B marketers focused all their lead generation efforts only on those who have shown interest – companies who have been qualified ‘prospect’, ‘sales-ready’ or ‘marketing-qualified-lead’. However, there is a segment that has been left unattended and ignoring them means that more than three-fourths of the carefully collected lead information is going down the drain.

Ignoring not-yet-sales qualified leads is like having ammunition but not knowing how to shoot. It is the responsibility of the Marketing team to keep in touch with such people to develop a ‘relationship’ first. Also, Marketing will end up spending more time and money to capture lead information on the unqualified ones if they are let off without any action.

Mostly, it is during the interest building stage that these un-qualified ones leak out of the Sales funnel. A simple lack of communication will prevent Sales from working on un-qualified leads because their focus does not deviate from the qualified ones at all. 

Continual communication programs specifically designed for the unqualified ones can be executed to keep them informed, irrespective of whether they are responding.Another main reason for not adequately addressing the not-yet-qualified leads is because of the age old divide between Sales and Marketing.

So, most of the time no action is taken on these leads because there are not enough marketing campaigns targeted by Marketing, and Sales refuses to pick them because they are unqualified.

Keeping a process in place within the lead management system to address such leads will surely go a long way in bringing in more leads for the company.

Since lead generation is a process oriented effort requires to be measured consistently so that process improvements can be implemented at every milestone. Here, milestones of lead generation would ideally mean the transition points of prospects.

The following analytics can be drawn from lead generation efforts.

• Number of Indentified Leads vs. Total Visited
• Number of Qualified Leads vs. Total Identified Leads
• Number of Sale-ready vs. Number of Qualified Leads
• Cost of campaign per lead
• Success rate of Lead Conversion to Customer

Apart from this, companies need to constantly monitor metrics, using robust lead management software, related to the geographical background of leads, behavioral aspects, visitor intent identification parameters, etc. Simultaneously, it is vital to regularly follow-up with leads, whether they have been qualified or not.

Know more -  marketing automation software & lead generation software

Create a Lead Scoring Process to Enhance Your Sales

A lead scoring strategy is one of the best ways for marketing and sales teams to synchronize and optimize the lead management process. B2B companies have an increasing availability of marketing platforms, so there is really no justification of ignore the opportunities available through lead scoring. Lead scoring is the method of assigning a score to lead behavior on the basis of a certain criteria. Fundamentally the lead scoring is on the basis of the likelihood of a lead purchasing your product. Leads scoring as a process helps businesses make crucial decisions.

Significance of Lead Scoring

Lead scoring usually assigns a point value to every action that a prospect makes on the site. These result in a score being allotted to the prospects based on activities, web pages browsed or links clicked. A prospect is assigned to the sales team, after being viewed and scored by the marketing team. On the basis of the lead score, the sales team has an indication of the prospect’s interest. It is also beneficial to the sales and the marketing automation department as it points to where prospects come from and how they interact within your site.

How to create a successful lead scoring process to enhance your sales
For an enterprise in its pursuit to collect and nurture new leads, automated lead scoring techniques work wonders.  If you are looking at ways to optimize your current strategy, these are a few tips that can work.

• Collaboration between sales and marketing

The friction between your sales and marketing teams can be lessened with lead scoring. A brilliant way of ensuring that the process is performing to the satisfaction of all the teams is the involvement of the sales teams in the lead scoring process from the get-go.

• Simplify the lead scoring process

Decide which fields are required and which are optional when you set up your process. By keeping minimal and consistent across forms throughout your website ensures that the leads are compared on the same data. Choosing lead scoring criteria that can be constantly measured is the best way of keeping your lead scoring system manageable.

• Choose the BANT criteria

Execute BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing) data for your preliminary assessments, if you’re just starting out with lead scoring.

• Determine lead value on explicit and implicit data

The value of the lead can be determined on the information that is available on the leads. Explicit data is that which is volunteered when a visitor fills out a web form and interacts with your sales or marketing teams. Implicit data is gathered based on the visitor’s interactions on your website. You can have a comprehensive view of the lead’s interest depending on how you evaluate leads based on both the types of data.

• Score on the basis of frequency

It is important to score your leads on the basis of timing. An important factor in gauging a leads' engagement level, is the frequency of the lead visits and how recently they’ve interacted with your website.
Once the lead scoring strategy is implemented, it is vital that leads who don’t meet the meet the criteria you’ve laid out are not sent to the sales teams. Leads that are not ready need to be nurtured, as lead nurturing is an also essential aspect of your lead management process. With a successful lead scoring process, your sales can reach great heights.

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Marketing Automation Tools-The need of the Times

Marketing Automation Tools : The Need of the Times

Almost everyone thought that the recession would alter the way B2B enterprises viewed marketing automation and that enterprises would think twice before investing in marketing automation. However, even as marketing strategies are becoming complex and terribly intricate, the recessionary times have seen marketing automation tools emerge even stronger as they have now become adept at understanding and offering solutions that cater to these complexities. An optimized marketing automation tool can provide enterprises effective reduction in costs along with end-to-end marketing operational efficiency. In a constantly evolving business landscape, conventional methods of emailing, print advertisements, etc., have been replaced by newer marketing initiatives, webcasts, search engine optimization, etc. A good marketing automation tool can help capitalize on your marketing promotions and campaigns by providing you with qualified customer leads.

Benefits of Marketing Automation Tools

• Radical reductions in cost: Manual campaign executions take time and can be fabulously expensive. An optimized marketing automation tool can not only launch but also execute online marketing initiatives speedily.
• Evolve with the changing environment: Change is inevitable, therefore an optimized marketing automation tool that can respond quickly to changes in the marketing environment can be enormously beneficial for enterprises and their sales teams. Such a tool will improve agility among sales teams as far as their responsiveness towards different evolving aspects of the business is concerned.
• Business intelligence: Once you know your customers inside and out, catering to their needs will be very easy. A marketing automation tool can offer such intelligence, enabling enterprises to run marketing campaigns that have been planned on the basis of such customer related information and ensuring complete success.
• Gets you closer to your customer:  Marketing teams across the world search for that one formula that can provide them with the perfect information about their customers’ specific needs and wants. An optimized marketing automation tool can provide such information to assist marketing teams in engaging such content that is customized according to every customer’s likes and dislikes.

• Effective lead management with enhanced productivity: It is time every enterprise bids a hasty goodbye to dull and repetitive campaign planning tasks. Marketing automation, with its effective lead management software, can offer maximized productivity for all your campaigns.

Every enterprise can benefit from the advantages that marketing automation tools can offer for diverse marketing campaigns. From providing qualified leads and optimized cross-channel communication to effective prospect-customer management, the right marketing automation tools can truly turn an enterprise around and bring in enhanced productivity and ROI.

Read more on - Lead Scoring