B2B Sales Optimization or B2B Marketing Automation? It’s all a matter of perspective.

One of the most common complaints and challenges among B2B companies is that marketing ‘leads’ all too often find their way into an abyss somewhere after marketing hands the lead off to sales. You’ve probably heard the crazy (but sadly true) stats, that something like 78% of B2B leads are mishandled and not followed up properly and on a timely basis. Sadder still, some ridiculous number like 90% of those leads end up buying from a competitor within 6 months. No CFO, or CEO would likely be happy if that were the case at their company. The people that should really be irked at this issue are the sales people themselves who are compensated based on their ability to close sales.

There are many ways to attack this problem, one of the most popular these days is introducing a marketing automation or automated lead nurturing system. Many companies have popped up with solutions in this space, some better than others, all promising the same thing; to capture, score, grade, route, and automatically follow up with, new (and old) leads. I absolutely love this stuff. What I love most about it is how it gets the sales people (both front lines, and management) suddenly proactive, and engaged in lead workflow and management processes. These solutions arm sales reps with power, tools, and insight in many cases they never knew was out there. It’s like giving them a loyal, razor sharp, and tenacious (but gentle), 24-7 executive sales assistant. I have yet to demo these sorts of systems for a sales team and not have them get absolutely excited about what it would do for their ability to minimize dropped leads, and maximize their close rates. In my experience my clients sign on for these systems more for their ability to optimize and automate the selling process, than for the marketing automation features and capabilities (although those are great too).

If you haven’t checked out these sorts of systems in awhile, you should. They are infiltrating there way into even the smallest of companies and at an astonishing rate. It’s not a six figure proposition anymore. It’s a ridiculous ROI scenario as these systems make every additional sales rep, and marketing dollar, that much more effective. Is it a sales optimization system, or a marketing automation system? At the end of the day it doesn’t much matter, just do it.