Ryan Schefke

What’s the difference between marketing automation and sales enablement?

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What’s the difference between marketing automation and sales enablement? On the surface, the two solutions seem very similar; however, they serve different purposes. In this article we’ll compare and contrast marketing automation with sales enablement.

Primary User

The first difference is with the primary user. Sales enablement is used by sales people whereas marketing automation is used by marketers. Now, don’t get me wrong – sales enablement can be used by people in roles outside of sales, but we’re talking about the primary user here. Marketing automation is more advanced than sales enablement and is designed to meet the demands of different types of sophisticated marketing campaigns. For example, marketing automation actions can have different business logic (rules) wrapped around the actions while sales enablement actions have no additional criteria. Marketing automation also has a number of different action types, such as the ability to change field values, delete records, sync records to a CRM, distribute leads, and more. On the other hand, sales enablement has only a handful of actions commonly used by sales people when doing outreach, such as emails, handwritten letters, text messages, and postcards.

Where Do the Emails Come From?

The second difference between marketing automation and sales enablement is the way that email messages are sent. With marketing automation, emails are sent through the marketing automation provider’s network. Emails sent through sales enablement are sent through the company’s email server. This is typically an Exchange server, Google, Office 365, etc. With sales enablement businesses have more control over their messages, typically better deliverability, and optional unsubscribe text in the emails.

Email Tracking Differences

The third major difference between sales enablement and marketing automation is the level of email tracking. Marketing automation solutions typically track opens and clicks; however, they do not typically detect when someone replies to an email. On the contrary, sales enablement solutions can detect replies, out of office notifications, forwards, and more – making it easy to automatically take action based on this outcome. With sales enablement, people can be automatically removed from the flow when they reply to a message or the conversation can be paused for a defined period when an out of office occurs. With marketing automation, prospects need to be manually removed, or removed with an automated action, if they need to be pulled out of a workflow. Ideally, your marketing automation platform is used for building an already established relationship; whereas sales enablement is ideal for creating brand new relationships. As a result, the need to manually remove people from a marketing automation workflow is much lower if the focus is on building an existing relationship.

Who You’re Targeting

This is a great segue into the last difference between the two systems, which is who the solution targets and where the solution is used in the overall buyer’s journey. Because of its simplicity and sales-friendly setup, sales enablement is ideally suited to fill the top of the funnel. Relationships are usually not forged yet at this stage, and sales enablement can help build those connections. Companies with an inside sales team, business development reps, or reps focusing on major accounts will benefit from using sales enablement. Marketing automation is ideal for people in the middle or bottom of the funnel, when a relationship already exists. Since communication is sent out through the providers network its important to follow the providers rules and sending policies, and send to only prospects with whom you have a relationship with who want to get your email. With sales enablement, emails go through your company’s servers. How you send messages and to whom is up to you.

In Summary

Feel free to use the below summary to forward to your friends and colleagues to help them better understand the differences between marketing automation and sales enablement.

For a demonstration of Lead Liaison’s solution to sales enablement and/or marketing automation click here. Also, learn more about marketing automation strategies here and learn more about sales enablement strategies here. If you care about account based marketing, this strategy will be helpful to beef up on too!

Hope this helps!

Marketing automation:

  • is used by marketers
  • is intended for middle to bottom of the funnel people
  • is perfect for nurturing warm prospects, building stronger relationships, onboarding/upselling customers
  • delivers emails through Lead Liaison’s network
  • requires a process to be setup to remove people from an automation
  • emails require an unsubscribe link

Sales enablement :

  • is used by sales
  • is intended for top of the funnel sales activities
  • is perfect for Account Based Marketing (ABM) and prospecting
  • sends emails through your company’s email server
  • automatically removes people that reply from any automated communication stream (Lead Liaison Rhythms™)
  • emails do not require an unsubscribe link
  • is a platform to set sales goals
Lead Liaison

Why Do People No-Show for Sales Appointments?

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We have all been there. You schedule a call with a hot prospect, only to realize that they are a no-show for your initial sales call or demonstration. No-shows are notorious in the online meeting world (i.e. GoToMeetings, etc.). While everyone will be no-showed occasionally, the frequency of no-shows is directly related to your process.

What are the dangers of no-shows?

You have a limited amount of time to sell during the week. Every time you set aside a block of time and there is a no-show, you lose 5% of your income for that week. If and when you do reschedule, you have lesser value and a lower perception of importance to the prospect as you appear to be the needy one in the relationship. You have also lost out on time spent chasing other opportunities.

Top reasons for no-shows:

  • Rare and tragic personal issue/illness. It happens – people get sick and are unable to come to the office. With this, I would suggest a different strategy.
  • You didn’t create importance and interest in the meeting. Thus, other things became a higher priority.
  • The prospect lacks the ability to buy. Though they were curious about your offering, you failed to qualify if the buyer had the ability to buy your product if you were able to show them a path to success.
  • The prospect does not respect your time as a professional because your introduction was weak.

How do you combat no-shows?

Pre-qualification. By asking a lot of probing questions before the meeting, you are letting your prospect know that your time is important. You are also letting them know that you see a potential fit between their need and your capabilities. Lastly, you are letting them know that your meeting isn’t just a “getting to know you” session; but instead a bonafide opportunity to fix their pain points. It’s an opportunity that they can afford to invest in and execute.

Every introductory sales meeting should have a defined, but simple agenda. This agenda can be provided as a friendly reminder of the sales call the day before the meeting. This way, the prospect can fill in any blanks or important points that they may want you to address in detail. It’s also a great way to find out if other people will be attending the meeting from their side.

When someone does no-show, send a simple note letting them know that you arrived but they were not available. Instead of chasing a no-show prospect, put them into an automated workflow to educate and build their interest. If they are serious about doing business with you, they will suggest another time for a meeting. If they no-showed because they lack attention/interest/desire/action (AIDA), they are probably going to be in the same situation a week from now. Recognize that you scheduled your discussion too early in the process and start over. It’s your job to rebuild AIDA through education that does not require a lot of your time. The exception to this rule is personal tragedy/illness. In those cases, be human and let them know that you are available to talk again if/when their situation clears up.

Note: This is a very simple workflow that you can enact with Lead Liaison’s Marketing Automation or Sales Enablement solutions. With the push of a button, I cancel my meeting and put the prospect into a very simple/well-thought-out flow which benefits both the prospect and the salesperson.

One last note. I know that a lot of business development people are going to turn to ask what should you do when a prospect fills out a “contact us” form, or asks you for a meeting? These opportunities can be huge home runs, or fool’s gold. The first thing that I do in this situation is use a solution like Lead Liaison’s ProspectVision™ to better understand how much the client knows about my company. I want to know how they were referred to my site (was it a partner, an article, a search engine, etc?). I also want to know what the prospect knows about me. For example, if they have spent hours and researched dozens of pages on my website (including the pricing page) before calling me, then they have essentially pre-qualified themselves. On the other hand, I am always wary of prospects that know little about my company but want a demo/discussion. Such prospects are likely to set up dozens of meeting with dozens of competitors simply to learn, with no goals or buying decisions on the horizon. In such situations, cancellations are very likely. Again, through a simple ProspectVision™ analysis, I’m often able to identify and overcome potential no-shows before the happen.

To see a personalized demonstration of the solutions we offer to combat no-shows, let us know about your interest here!

Lead Liaison

How to Use PPC and Marketing Automation Together, Webinar Hosted By Lead Liaison and Mad Fish Digital

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Allen, TX – Google AdWords Premier Partner, Ben Herman, and marketing automation expert, Chris Kipgen, will team up to cover how using AdWords and marketing automation together can achieve more conversions at the same or lower cost per acquisition. The webinar will be held on Wednesday, January 24th at 1pm Eastern. Attendees can register for the event here.

Mad Fish Digital’s Ben Herman has a rich history of using and helping customers implement pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, with a concentration on Google search. He is the President and Co-Founder of Mad Fish Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Portland, OR. Lead Liaison’s Chris Kipgen is an industry expert, who is responsible for providing in-depth training and support for clients using the company’s sales and marketing automation solutions.

“At Mad Fish Digital, our mission is to provide marketers innovative solutions to the digital puzzle. I’m excited to be a part of this webinar because connecting Lead Liaison with paid search advertising platforms does just that. By combining the power of paid advertising with the marketing automation of Lead Liaison, marketers have an opportunity to optimize for the entire customer journey and smoothly facilitate leads through the entire marketing funnel.”

During this webinar, participants will hear how different industries use PPC campaigns, learn best practices and common pitfalls, and learn how to manage PPC campaigns in a marketing automation platform, such as Lead Liaison. Attendees will also learn tips and tricks on how to organize and educate hot leads throughout the entire buyer’s journey. Finally, attendees will gain actionable ideas to help implement these practices within their own organizations.

“AdWords is a great tool to get people to your content,” says Lead Liaison’s Chris Kipgen. “We come in at that point and help our clients identify, qualify, and nurture those Prospects. We can even show you which ads have generated the most revenue and the cost per qualified Prospect. If you want to get value out of your paid ads, Lead Liaison is the way to go.”

To register for this educational webinar, visit this webpage.

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Allen, Texas, near Dallas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).

Lead Liaison

Nonprofits and Marketing Automation: Omni-Channel Fundraising

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Nonprofits need marketing automation, plain and simple. Specifically because marketing automation can help nonprofits make the most of their marketing budgets. In this series, we are talking about the ways that nonprofits and marketing automation can work together to generate more giving.

Omni-Channel Fundraising for Nonprofits

Omni-channel fundraising should be part of a nonprofit’s strategy. Also a part of marketing automation, omni-channel fundraising allows nonprofits to reach audiences across multiple channels, both online and offline. It allows marketers to be omnipresent. When the strategy is implemented correctly, omni-channel fundraising drives up retention rates and increases the long-term value of donors.

Let’s look at the components that go into omni-channel fundraising.

Online Methods

The online world is full of potential donors, just looking for the perfect story or philosophy that hits home. These donors have a higher cumulative value than mail-acquired donors do, so you want to reach this market in any way possible.

Email Marketing & Social Media

Lead Liaison uses a multi-pronged approach to online fundraising. Automated email marketing (aka “Lead Nurturing”) is an excellent way to build relationships with donors on a personal level, while social media allows nonprofits to showcase their culture and promote events. You can also use social media for building and continuing conversations with donors.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) should be a part of any online fundraising campaign, as well. You’ll use this strategy to optimize your landing pages and forms, and to include a call to action that’s easily searchable. Lead Liaison tracks all the results and continues to optimize the campaign.

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a tool you can use to quickly drive traffic to your nonprofit site. You can build and track campaigns, constantly optimizing them to generate the best results. In many cases, you may use the same keywords for your website and your pay-per-click campaigns, while testing out new keywords, as well. This will help you improve your paid reach while also improving your search engine optimization.

Text Messages

You should also include text messaging in your campaign. Ninety-nine percent of text messages are read within five minutes of being received, so you know your texts will get out in front of your market. Reach out to your donors on text, and let them donate by sending a text message. With an average text-to-give donation of $107, this is a lucrative option.

Offline Methods

In order to truly be everywhere, omni-channel fundraising should also include offline methods. Mail-acquired donors have good retention rates, so you’ll want to reach out via postcards or personal, handwritten letters. This helps build relationships and is an excellent way to stand out to donors. You can automate this process, so the postcards and letters (yes, you can even automate the handwritten letters!) go out to your lists without you having to fill out address labels or send the mailings yourself.

Omni-channel fundraising is an important aspect of marketing automation. The best campaigns reach people online and offline. This maximizes retention and donation amounts. Use these strategies to increase the amount of money you have coming into your nonprofit organization.

To learn more about how marketing automation can help nonprofits increase giving, nurture donors, and empower their communities, click here!

Lead Liaison

Tech Partnership: Lead Liaison and ResponseTap Integration Connects Call Intelligence with Marketing Automation

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Allen, TX – Sales and marketing solutions provider, Lead Liaison, and call tracking intelligence experts, ResponseTap, today announce a partnership and integration that combines call tracking, visitor tracking, and marketing automation into one solution.

ResponseTap is a global organization with offices in the the US and UK. They most recently opened their New York office. The company has transformed the way marketers and call centers manage selling via the phone.

Lead Liaison offered the perfect solution. The company’s website visitor tracking solution, ProspectVision™, tracks website activity. Their marketing automation solution, Lead Management Automation (LMA)™, provides a legion of automated marketing solutions. And their sales enablement capabilities allow sales teams to be more efficient and accelerate sales. All of these solutions work together to seamlessly link sales and marketing activities into one platform.

“Our central focus has been on online activity, such as website activity and marketing emails, and offline activity, such as handwritten letters or promotional mailers,” says Christopher Kipgen, Technical Communications Manager at Lead Liaison. “The missing link was call tracking, and we’re very excited to now track that activity in Prospect Profiles, too. Adding call tracking insight provides a more comprehensive view of a Prospect for sales and marketing users”

The integration also allows mutual customers to:

  • Track which Prospects have made phone calls.
  • Segment prospects and trigger automations based on the phone call
  • Turn an unknown visitor into a Prospect during a live call.
  • View a Prospects web journey during a live call.

“We only partner with the best,” says Nick Ashmore, VP of Marketing. “We’ve chosen to link with Lead Liaison over other marketing automation platforms. That says a lot about how happy we are with their solutions.” For many businesses, the inbound phone call is an integral part of a customer’s buying journey. Through this integration, the call outcome, duration, and frequency can be tracked and a score can be applied to those actions. Additionally, other automations can be triggered based on those actions, further integrating phone calls with campaigns.

“With both ResponseTap and Lead Liaison being highly flexible platforms, this new integration allows our customers and theirs to leverage the both systems easily,” says Paul Bibby, ResponseTap’s UK Systems Consultant.

ResponseTap began as a client of Lead Liaison, using their dynamic website content builder to communicate with website visitors based on their phone numbers. They were impressed with the level of tracking and automation that Lead Liaison provided, and saw an opportunity to make an even more powerful solution.

“Integrations are at the heart of our story,” Ashmore explains. “We’re linking the best automation provider with the best call tracking provider. We are two must-have pieces of mar-tech. This was vital for both businesses.”

About Lead Liaison
Lead Liaison provides cloud-based sales and marketing automation solutions that helps businesses accelerate revenue by attracting, converting, closing and retaining more prospects. Filling a void in the small pool of marketing automation providers that focus on marketing-centric functionality, Lead Liaison gives equal focus to sales providing sophisticated visitor tracking and additional website engagement tools to boost sales effectiveness. Lead Liaison blends ease-of-use, a flexible business model, deep external integration, marketing across social, web, mobile, email and offline channels and powerful functionality, all specifically tailored for mid-sized businesses, into a single platform, called Revenue Generation Software®. Lead Liaison is headquartered in Allen, Texas, near Dallas. For more information, visit http://www.leadliaison.com or call 1-800-89-LEADS (895-3237).

Lead Liaison

Facebook + Automation = Success

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With over 1 billion active Facebook users, it’s considered the ‘go to’ platform for social media marketers.

Many social media experts have ploughed time and effort into building a great audience, have lots of engagement, and have suddenly seen this drop.

This is because the social media platform has been on rather a mission recently to drive businesses to use advertising services, and are limiting how many business page posts show in users feed.

Therefore it is crucial that those using Facebook start to ‘think smart’ about how their website and Facebook work together, to ensure that those adverts are doing exactly what you want – creating new leads!

What is Facebook Pixel?

One great tool comes from Facebook itself, which is the Facebook Pixel. By installing Facebook pixel on your website, you are able to track visitors from your Facebook campaigns on your site. This is a great way to see what ads are working, and perhaps which ones are not doing so well!

Better still, the Facebook pixel allows you to better understand your audience when building new advertisements. For example, how about running an advertisement which just targets those who visited a specific page of your website. For example, you sell a range of clothing – men’s, women’s and children’s. You can set up specific advertisements targeted at audiences separately depending on whether they visited the men’s, women’s or children’s section of your site. So far so good right?

You can even create ‘look alike’ audiences, based on your current audiences, so Facebook will target your advertisements to similar people as your current data base, so it’s a great way to reach relevant new audiences.

How to Combine Facebook Advertising with Automation

However, if you truly want to supercharge your marketing efforts – why not combine your advertising campaign with some awesome automation. If you are tracking custom events via both Facebook and your CRM – you can really start to subtly build brand awareness through a mutli-channel campaign.

Let’s take the fashion example again. You set up a responsive campaign to abandoned cart shoppers. This sparks an event 1 day after to email the buyer with a follow up offer. You then combine this with an ad campaign, based also on abandoned cart shoppers. Assuming they are on Facebook, they then see your ad at the side of the feed. Add in a few CTA’s to follow your Facebook page, and voila – you have are building a really engaging campaign, where users are being constantly but subtly being reminded of your brand!

Author Bio: Charlotte Sheridan is the director of The Small Biz Expert, a full service digital marketing agency specifically tailored to the needs of small businesses.