Karl appeared on the Unnoticed Entrepreneur with Jim James to talk about how shifting your mindset can help you to take charge of your own success. This interview especially digs into the lifetime value mindset—where you play not for an immediate transaction, but for a lifelong relationship with your customer. 

How does taking on a lifetime value mindset affect the way you sell? How does it help you get out of the "check-in zone", where you're repeatedly checking in with a lead to see if they're ready to buy? How can it help you dig yourself out of sales ruts?

Using the principles of Iceberg Selling, you can dive below the surface of the symptoms that hold you back. You can understand root causes and discover the paths to success both in your business and your day-to-day life.

Find the full show on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform.

In a formal dinner, each guest often has a placemat under their plate and utensils when they sits down to eat. Most people don't give the placemat a second thought. However, it does serve a significant function: it prevents the table from getting stained with food or dented by silverware. 

We've referred to the "sales placemat" in previous articles. Like a literal placemat, many organizations don't think much about this visual framework for streamlining the sales funnel. However, the sales placemat performs an important function in a growing business: it protects both the marketing and sales teams from accidentally damaging the company without realizing it. Before we talk about how and why that's the case, let's define what we mean by "sales placemat."

What Exactly is a "Sales Placemat"?

The sales placemat is just a visual way to represent the entirety of a company's sales funnel for a particular customer persona, along with the matching roles and procedures that help to accomplish business goals in each stage of the funnel.

What a sales placemat may look like can be described as follows and is pictured below.

• On the far left side is an image of the sales funnel, divided into its three main parts: top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel.
• To the right of the funnel are three main columns: Roles & Responsibilities, Sales Process, and KPIs/Performance Management.
• Each column contains rows underneath the heading that outline what needs to be done or measured during each funnel stage. For instance, the Roles & Responsibilities column details whether sales or marketing needs to be involved in certain tasks at the top of the funnel; Sales Process may indicate the desired direction of the customer journey, along with key milestones along the way; and KPIs/Performance Management will list the metrics that the sales and/or marketing teams need to use to measure success.

​
















​




​





​

Of course, companies can customize their sales placemat according to their specific needs and circumstances. But the point is that each business should have some kind of placemat on hand to help organize and streamline their efforts.

Develop a Sales Placemat Through Sales and Marketing Collaboration

It goes without saying that the key to developing an effective sales placemat is collaboration between sales and marketing. There's no room for a "siloed mentality" here. There needs to be an open, running dialogue between key stakeholders on both teams on a variety of items, such as:

• What the typical customer's journey looks like
• The responsibilities of marketing at the top of the funnel
• When and where sales should enter the picture
• Which tactics work best for engaging and converting prospects into leads, and then leads into customers
• Which platforms should be prioritized in terms of marketing campaigns

As you can see, there's a lot of room for discussion and a critical need for mutual agreement on key aspects of the sales placemat. With that in mind, it may be wise to schedule several meetings over the course of a few weeks (or even months) to hash out the details. Keep regular check-ins between sales and marketing leadership at the top of your (and their) agenda. Continue to be the champion for the sales placemat until it has fully developed into a workable version that both teams can use.

The Benefits of the Sales Placemat for Sales and Marketing

You don't have to look too far to discern some key advantages that a sales placemat can confer upon your marketers and sales reps. Here are just a few key benefits you'll likely see:

• More clarity on the duties and borders of different roles. Without the sales placemat, marketers may think that their only job is to promote the company by crafting content that highlights value and appeals to prospects. Sales reps may think that they should just sit back and wait for marketing to send them warm leads. In most cases, though, marketers and sales reps have to "meet in the middle" — without stepping on one another's toes. A well-designed sales placemat can clarify roles for each side, and help them to see exactly what they can and should bring to the table.
• Smoother handoffs. With clearly defined roles in place, "handoffs" from marketing to sales will be much smoother. For instance, both teams will know the triggers that signal a marketing-qualified lead has developed into a sales-qualified lead. Both teams will also understand how the transition should look from the customer's perspective.
• Greater emphasis on the right metrics. In terms of performance management, the sales placemat can be an excellent tool for helping both teams focus on the right metrics — in other words, the metrics that most accurately gauge the effectiveness of current tactics, and most directly relate to overall company success. With those KPIs in clear focus, managers on both sides can coach their team members to individual and collective goals that are not only specific but also truly productive.

At the end of the day, the sales placemat is a powerful framework that can allow your company to "feast" on optimized, integrated sales and marketing strategies without putting a dent in the effectiveness of any department. If you can gain leadership buy-in, champion a collaborative development process, and encourage team members to stick to the guidelines outlined on the placemat, you'll almost certainly see an improvement in your business' overall sales performance.
​
Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

Exciting news! Jamie Northrup, the creative mind behind the Minimalist Hustler blog, has just posted a glowing review of Iceberg Selling.

Though he doesn't consider himself a salesperson, Jamie decided to step outside his comfort zone and read this book. He left it a 5-star review on Amazon, and noted:

​"A lot of what I read in the book can help beyond sales situations. It can be applied to family, friends, and other personal relationships."

Jamie mentioned that he is a fan of Iceberg Selling's cover design, compact size, and how it comes in at a concise 111 pages. Since his blog focuses on helping people earn online income through minimalist side hustles that align with their passions, that makes tons of sense. 

If you haven’t checked out Jamie’s full review yet, head over to the Minimalist Hustler blog.

Thank you, Jamie, for sharing your experience with Iceberg Selling! If you’re curious about how this book can impact your sales and personal connections, give it a read and see what lies beneath the surface.

In the world of sales, shortcuts won't get you very far. They only lead to short term success, if any. Karl was invited onto the I Survived Business Podcast, where he talked about how, when it comes to successful sales, business, and leadership, it's about what lies beneath the surface that counts. 

There aren't shortcuts to revenue. To have a sustainable sales organization, you need foundations and frameworks. Designing a healthy sales team by putting the right people in the right seats can lead to the sort of lasting improvements a business needs to thrive over the long term.

On a personal level, as an entrepreneur, you also need to understand why you do what you do. Our customers are people who are in business for more than just a short term windfall. They want to do more than just rocket to high revenue then sell.
​
This podcast covers how leaders can explore those motivations and foundations to bring out the best in everyone, including themselves.​​

• Choose the right automation platform. There are a ton of options to choose from, including HubSpot, Marketo, Customer.io, and Pardot. As of this writing, HubSpot is one of the most popular choices in the marketing automation sector, and for good reason: it's an all-in-one platform with powerful email marketing, CMS, and analytics tools, along with robust online support.
• Remember that good technology does not equal good strategy. For example, it's true that HubSpot enables solutions; however, it doesn't replace a well-designed marketing and sales strategy. Your technology should be an extension of the processes your team builds, rather than a quick-fix solution to strategic issues.

Good People + Good Technology = Success

It's no secret that there are some things only a human being can do. That includes anything that requires flexibility and adaptability in the sales process. Sales reps need to constantly shuffle priorities, make on-the-fly decisions, and navigate their messaging as they interact with leads and customers.

Automations, when designed and utilized effectively, can take a lot of the mindless, repetitive tasks off your sales reps' plates. Of course, as with all things in life and business, there's an important balance to strike here. Too little automation could mean your sales team is overworked, and can't get around to warm leads as quickly as they need to; too much automation could take the human factor out of the equation, and drive away leads with unique concerns and "one-off" situations.

It's vital to keep in mind that when the best-coordinated marketing campaigns — the ones with the most detailed and painstakingly crafted automations — fall flat, you can always lean into your most important resource for help: the people on your marketing and sales teams. Even something as simple as personal calls to leads, instead of automated messages, can work wonders for conversion and retention rates. 

In summary, make good use of the automation tools at your disposal. Map the right automations to the right stage of the sales funnel; it will help your reps be more effective at nurturing leads and closing deals. Just remember that automation is only one aspect of a well-rounded sales and marketing strategy. Never ignore the power of the "human touch." Implement your technological solutions as extensions of your well-founded and time-tested processes. If you take that approach, you'll almost definitely be able to improve your company's sales performance.

Learn More
​
A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

​

Automation is a powerful tool for increasing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and driving sales. But for most companies, automation can't be based on numbers alone. Think for a moment about the work your sales reps do: most deals they close are ultimately attributable to their relationship with the customer. They are "on the front lines" with leads and prospects, answering questions they have and addressing concerns that arise. Probably more than anyone else in your business, your sales reps have a finger on the pulse of your customer base.

With that in mind, gathering not just numerical data but also anecdotal evidence when developing an automation strategy is vital. Effective data gathering will make a lead's transition from interacting with marketing content to speaking with a live salesperson much smoother and more effective.

Interviewing Your Sales Team

One of the best ways your marketing department can come up with great ideas for content is to periodically interview your sales team. These meetings should be very structured and should take place regularly (perhaps once a month). Marketing leaders can use targeted questions that will help them clearly understand and define what problems leads are facing, and which solutions they are especially interested in. On the other side of the table, sales reps can come prepared with stories of their experiences with leads over the past month, and pertinent details of their interactions.

Here are some examples of targeted questions that sales and marketing team members can explore together:

• What are the attributes of leads who show up more prepared to buy?
• What questions do leads who are most prepared to buy ask on sales calls?
• What content have leads who are prepared to buy already seen by the time they speak with a sales rep?
• What are the 3 questions you wish leads knew the answers to before they spoke with the sales team? In other words, what would salespeople like leads to have been educated about through marketing content before a sales call?

The objective of these questions, from Marketing's perspective, is to develop content that would generate leads who are more primed, more prepared, and more interested in conversations about buying your company's solution.

You can see how powerful such interview sessions could be! Just imagine: if marketing can use the input from your sales team to create an automated strategy that ensures the right content gets to the right leads, it can be a win-win for everyone involved. Add a well-designed lead-scoring system into the mix. It will make it that much easier to keep low-quality leads exposed to marketing materials while allowing your sales reps to focus more of their attention on high-quality leads —i.e., leads who are more likely to buy.

It's true this type of alignment doesn't happen overnight; but once your sales and marketing teams are on the same page and experience wins together, it will build momentum and act as a force multiplier for your company's success.

Shaping Automations is an Ongoing Process

It's no secret that customer behavior can change for all sorts of external reasons — the time of year, the state of the economy, etc. In addition, most businesses don't have completely static offerings. Products and services may evolve. For these and other reasons, it's vital that shaping automations through data analysis become (or remain) an ongoing process. 

Over time, your company will likely develop a variety of sales funnels and campaigns around several central themes. They may revolve around a certain season, event, product launch, or discount. Whatever the case may be, tracking engagement and conversion metrics via your CRM and other automation tools will give you a glimpse into the effectiveness of your content. Then you can decide whether to double down on your current approach or make adjustments for future campaigns.

Also, don't be afraid to test out new ideas! For example, one private jet chartering company wanted to get higher conversions on their marketing spend. By experimenting with highly specific Google search queries, the company was able to achieve up to a 10% conversion rate based on their targeted landing pages.

Develop Nurture Strategies

Every company wants to effectively nurture their leads until they are ready to make a purchase decision — and the type of content your leads interact with says a lot about the type of information they need to finally make that decision.

One powerful, data-based automation strategy you can lean into is sending email content to your leads based on the pages of the websites they visit. For example, one company leveraged its ambassador program to drive conversion rates. But more than that, they developed an automation around that program which was triggered when a lead clicked through a certain number of testimonials and case studies on their website. The data showed that the interest was there; the automated email sequence struck while the iron was hot.

Of course, it's also important to offer the right thing at the right time in the buyer's journey. Lead nurturing strategies can become counterproductive if they result in a lot of wasted time and effort on low-quality leads. For instance, be careful when and to whom you offer free consultations. If that offer is mainly focused on middle-of-funnel prospects, they may only want free information without any serious intent to purchase. The end result may be a lot of free consultations and zero purchases.

The point is, that it's important to adequately qualify leads before transitioning them to direct interactions with your sales team. Automation strategies that take this important factor into account will be most effective for your business.

At the end of the day, you need hard data to successfully automate your processes; but you also need to keep a finger on the pulse of your customer base. Conduct regular interviews with your salespeople. Experiment with different automations. Develop realistic nurture strategies. If you do all these things, you're that much closer to optimizing your sales performance and maximizing profitability.

Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.​

In years past, it was mostly up to salespeople to ask probing questions of their leads, uncover their true needs and wants, and then educate them on what the company offered. Of course, the advent of the Internet changed the status quo dramatically, especially when it comes to nurturing leads. Most of today's leads have already done their homework, and are coming to marketers and sales reps with highly educated and detailed questions. Many of them are ready to evaluate, compare, and buy.

What does it take to get prospects to that point? A well-designed, streamlined digital marketing strategy is the key. You want to create a series of touchpoints for your customers — that is, milestones that will guide them from one stage of the sales funnel to the next, and ultimately toward a purchase. The better your touchpoints reflect your ideal buyer's journey (as well as variable paths to arrive at the bottom of the funnel), the more likely you'll be to convert them into loyal customers.

To optimize your digital marketing strategy, there are at least four key steps you'll need to implement:

Step 1: Prioritize Digital Marketing Channels and Content

​Let's assume you already have a solid marketing strategy, excellent content, and professional branding elements in place. How can you utilize these assets for the best results? 

The first step is to clearly understand the content channel and content type preferences of your target audience. For instance: Where do your prospects go to get content? Which platforms do they frequently use? What type of content do they prefer? Are they more interested in long-form articles or short videos?

It's important to "step into your customer's shoes" by considering how they use the Internet to research your products and services. A lot of marketing departments fall into the trap of thinking: "This content channel is amazing! Surely everyone will love it as much as we do!" Remember, it's not your goal to deliver what you like to customers; you need to deliver what they like. Spend some time asking customers where they like to spend time online. You may be surprised by the answers you receive.

In addition, think about the purpose of each platform. Some platforms lend themselves to video content, while others are more suitable for the written word. Still others are best suited to still images and photographs. Here again, it's imperative that you understand the reason your prospects would use the platform in the first place. For instance, a manufacturing company may have consumers searching YouTube for product demonstrations and how-to videos, while prospects researching interior decorators may frequent Instagram and Pinterest.

The point is, you want to align your content channel with your audience. That's how you'll get higher-quality leads — leads that will move through your funnel more quickly and efficiently. Just as a fisherman has to first go to where the fish are and then attract them with the right bait, you must first place your content where your prospects congregate, and then attract them with your exceptional content. 

Common Content Channels and Types

What are some examples of content channels people use in their online research? While the following list is by no means exhaustive, it can give you a good idea of the many options out there:

• Market and industry-related websites
• Association and conference websites
• Social media websites (such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.)
• Video sites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc.)
• Published articles, e-books, and white papers
• Company websites
• E-newsletters
• Customer reviews from sites like Amazon, Trustpilot, Yelp, etc.

In terms of content types that your prospects may prefer, here are a few possibilities:

• Website content
• Blog posts
• Short and long-form videos
• Vlogs
• Webinars
• E-books
• Podcasts

Granted, it's highly unlikely you'll be able to cover every channel and content type in your marketing strategy. However, if you start with the top 3-5 channels and types your prospects use, you'll almost certainly get a jump start on building effective touchpoints within your overall sales funnel.

Step 2: Detail Your Digital Lead Nurturing Process

Once you've selected your channels and content types, the next step is to determine the paths prospects take within and through each of these areas. (Think of this as developing touchpoints within touchpoints.) The objective is to make prospect interactions with your brand as smooth and streamlined as possible — and as effective as possible in moving them to the next stage of the sales funnel.

You should start by listing the touchpoints of your process in order of importance. The following list is an example of what this may look like, with the most valuable bottom-of-funnel touchpoints occurring lower on the list:

1. Website visit: home page (general company info)
2. Website visit: services and products pages (offering details)
3. Referrals from the associated website
4. Social media visits
5. Following on social media
6. Website visit: thought-leadership resources/blogs
7. E-newsletter sign-up
8. Webinar attendance
9. E-book download
10. Conversation with a sales rep

Each of the touchpoints above should trigger specific next steps — which means you'll need to include clear CTAs that will encourage prospects to take those next steps in the process. Of course, it's important to be flexible as well, since prospects will sometimes not move through the sales funnel in a predictable, linear fashion. 

Step 3: Set Conversion Points and Funnel Touchpoints

Conversion points are when prospects go from being anonymous to actively connecting with your company (i.e., sharing their contact info with you). Some examples of conversion points include:

• Contact submission forms
• E-newsletter sign-ups
• Free consultations
• Live chat
• Blog subscriptions
• E-book download requests
• Webinar sign-ups
• Phone calls to your company
• Emails to your sales team

As you fine-tune your lead nurturing process, you want to make sure you provide plenty of CTAs around your conversion points. Simple phrases like "get a free trial" or "speak to an expert" typically work best. Remember, this is the main objective of your digital marketing efforts: to get prospects to directly reach out to and engage with your sales team.

Step 4: Establish Data and Analytics Tracking

Finally, you want to monitor key performance indicators like landing page visits, email sign-ups, and webinar attendance. These metrics will tell you how effective your strategy is at present; and they will help you make informed decisions about how to refine your conversion points, adjust your content channels, and enhance your content delivery.

At the end of the day, your digital marketing strategy should guide prospects through the sales funnel and to a purchase, or a conversation with one of your sales reps. If you optimize your digital marketing strategy using the 4 steps discussed above, you'll see improved sales performance from your team in no time.

Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

If you want your sales strategy to succeed, you have to put serious forethought into it. The haphazard approach — in which reps are told to sit down in front of the phone and start selling to someone — rarely works in the sales industry. Instead, integration between your sales and marketing teams is key to repeated (and repeatable) wins.

Everyone needs to know how different customers may enter their sales funnel, what they may be looking for at each stage, and how marketing and sales can work together to guide them through the funnel and toward an eventual purchase. This overall knowledge is the basis of intentional sales strategy; in turn, the specific actions and tools your salespeople use to guide leads on their journey are your sales tactics.

Factors of Effective Sales Strategy Design

It's vital that you understand the key factors influencing whether your sales strategy is successful or not. Three of the biggest factors to keep in mind are:

1. Lead Sources

Where are your leads coming from, and what's the nature and extent of their interest? A lead that downloads an e-book from your website may have a different level of interest compared to one who attends an hour-long webinar. Or maybe not! Either way, your sales and marketing teams need to understand that the origin of each lead will help them understand how to nurture that lead effectively.

2. Lead Categorization

Leads can typically be separated into 3 common categories:

• Education. These leads want to learn more about your company and its offerings.
• Solutions. These leads are comparing solutions in the market, and want to know why yours is better or different from others.
• Purchase. These leads are actively considering a purchase, and want to learn more about the next steps.

Lead categorization provides sales and marketing with additional valuable insights into how to best guide leads into and through the sales funnel.

3. Lead History

Knowing how long most leads are generally in your sales funnel before they make a purchase, coupled with knowing each lead's history of interaction with your company, can help you develop highly impactful sales strategies and tactics. For instance, an automated email sequence with a CTA to book an appointment may work for one type of lead, whereas a personalized email from a sales rep may be more effective with another.

The important thing is that your sales and marketing teams are in complete alignment on these 3 factors, and understand how leads will be sorted, categorized, and nurtured throughout their time in your funnel.

Building a Sales and Marketing Toolbox, and Training Your Team

Just like you need different equipment to go snow skiing vs. water skiing, you need different strategies and tactics (or at least tweaks to your current strategies and tactics) for each campaign your company decides to tackle. For instance, you may need different talking points for a special campaign compared to your normal marketing message. Of course, you'll also need to ensure that sales and marketing are working together with operations and IT, as needed, to develop the resources your campaign needs.

You can think of all of these collected resources as your sales and marketing "toolbox" — an organizing principle that allows for easy maintenance, updating, and training for your team. Building this toolbox, and then training sales reps to use the tools within it effectively, will increase your team's confidence and improve ROI on lead capture efforts. 

Make sure as you build the toolbox that you document best practices. Keep monitoring your toolbox's effectiveness, and be willing to adapt as needed. And then... document those adaptations! As you grow in your understanding of every step of the campaign's sales process, you'll create a huge competitive advantage for your company. You'll also create shorter sales cycles, improved sales performance, and higher close rates.

Using and Sharing Data To Increase Close Rates

In general, sales and marketing teams have access to different types of data. However, both teams need quantitative and qualitative data to function effectively; and when they pool their knowledge, it can make everything that much better. Sharing and comparing data drives alignment and success.

When you think of quantitative data, you may think about metrics like lead populations, click-through rates, conversion rates, email open rates, average sales cycle timing, and so forth. All of these are valuable pieces of information that, when used properly, can help your sales and marketing teams pinpoint opportunities for improvement and growth. In addition, qualitative data like lead quality, interest levels, observed trends, or even "gut feelings" also play a key role in shaping your overall process.

When your teams review both types of data together on a regular basis, they are empowered to act in a collaborative, integrated way. Far from a siloed mentality, they are able to ideate and implement specific, tangible improvements to your company's current sales and marketing framework. This type of collaborative approach taps into what's really the most important part of sales: not a single strategy, tactic, or process, but the culture created among your sales and marketing teams. When your culture is focused, aligned, and dynamic, it can provide game-changing feedback to your organization.

Designing Purposeful Sales Strategies and Tactics

When you develop strategies and tactics that align with each type of lead, you can unlock tremendous untapped value. When your sales team shares its vision and insights with your marketing team, and vice versa, it creates the basis for a sustainable, ever-improving process of lead capture, nurture, and conversion. Integration of your sales and marketing teams is the heart and soul of a winning strategy.

Granted, developing a collaborative culture and then using it as the leading edge of a sharp, focused sales and marketing initiative is easier said than done. However, once you've laid the groundwork, the maintenance is much easier. And as you continue growing in knowledge of your target leads, and your sales and marketing teams become more comfortable with one another, you're putting yourself in a prime position to win the day, every day for the foreseeable future.

Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

The top of the sales funnel offers a clear objective for marketers: make prospects aware of the brand, and convince them they should learn more about it. The bottom of the funnel is equally clear-cut: close the deal with an interested lead.

But what about the middle of the funnel (MOFU)? For many sales and marketing teams, the middle-of-the-funnel stage is a nebulous "gray area" where the division of responsibilities between the two departments becomes murky. As a result, leads get stuck in no-man's-land. In fact, of all three of the core stages in the sales funnel, the middle may be the most challenging to navigate.

The good news is, with some careful planning and good communication, the middle of the funnel can be a powerful driver of sales, instead of a frustrating bottleneck. And at the end of the day, a lot of MOFU success comes down to effective collaboration.

Key Collaboration Items For Middle-of-Funnel Content

Let's talk about some key MOFU items your sales and marketing teams should collaborate on — items that can move the needle on your metrics in the bottom part of the funnel. These include:

• Focused website landing pages. These should express the benefits that your ideal customer prioritizes. They should also match up with the customer's mission that induced them to click on your ad or post in the first place. Your sales team can be a treasure trove of insights in this regard and can help your marketers develop landing pages that align with what bottom-of-the-funnel leads are telling your sales reps when closing a deal.
• Downloadable content. You want to develop and deliver high-quality content like e-books, webinars, product demos, online events, white papers, technical specs, infographics, slide decks, etc.. These should be specifically designed for your ideal customer personas and the unique journeys they will take. Sales and marketing can brainstorm which forms of downloadable content will be most effective for the company's core demographic.
• Email marketing content. Your email content should educate your customers and drive quality lead cultivation. It's important to educate leads so they can make informed decisions about whether to move closer to buying your solution. 
• Improved CTAs. You want your CTAs to inspire leads to engage with the content they get from you. This will further qualify them to move from being a marketing-qualified lead to a sales-qualified lead. Here again, your sales and marketing teams can work together to A/B test different CTAs and see which ones are most effective.

The bottom line is, marketers are responsible for creating great content and automation, and salespeople can provide insights as to how leads decide whether to buy. Sales and marketing should have a "symbiotic relationship" when it comes to the middle of the funnel stage. When marketers focus on their role of communicating benefits to leads — from the first moment they make contact via a social post, ad, or landing page — and sales reps focus on closing deals with messaging aligned to marketing materials, the overall result will be more leads in the pipeline and more sales being made.

All Leads Are Not Created Equal

It's also important to keep in mind that not all leads are created equal when it comes to the middle of the funnel. It's important for your sales and marketing teams to be in alignment about what constitutes a valuable lead, and how sales should approach different touch points with leads. What motivates one client to buy from your brand may be totally different from what motivates another. 

For example, one lead may be in the early stages of researching solutions to a problem. They may interact with your middle-of-funnel content, but not be anywhere close to actually purchasing from your brand. On the other hand, a second lead may have already researched solutions for some time and is re-engaging with your content with the intent of eventually making a purchase. Obviously, the second type of lead will be more immediately valuable to your company.

With that in mind, it's important that your sales and marketing teams work together to identify which leads are higher-value, and how to most effectively approach them after an interaction. At the same time, they should develop strategies to nurture marketing-qualified leads, and eventually nudge them into becoming sales-qualified.

Designing diverse MOFU content is often the best way to cover all your bases. You want content that will convince eager leads to take the next step (maybe data-driven content like white papers and e-books), as well as easily digestible content to keep your brand top of mind for leads who are still on the fence (infographics, blog posts, and so forth).

It's Not Just About Numbers, It's About Purpose

Having well-defined lead segments and value scores will help make the entire lead generation process more purposeful during the middle-of-funnel stage. Having a large volume of leads is great... unless most of those leads are unlikely to become paying customers. It's much better to have 50 leads in your pipeline that are likely to buy vs. having 500 leads who will almost certainly not do business with you.

The middle of the funnel is where you can start weeding out leads with low value and focus on the leads that are most likely to go somewhere. CTAs in your content can become great "lead filters." For instance, a financial services company may publish a blog post with a CTA to sign up for their free newsletter. When leads do so, they may be classified as sales-qualified leads, which will trigger outreach from one of your sales reps.

It's true that the middle of the sales funnel can pose some challenges in terms of which department should take action, and which actions they should take. But with a purposeful, deliberate approach, and a lot of good collaboration, you can create a framework for success in terms of your content and customer interactions. And when it's all said and done, you'll be in prime position to enjoy the benefits of improved sales performance.

Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

​

The sales and marketing world revolves around analyzing numbers and hitting targets. So it's no wonder that one of the most common complaints you'll hear is they need more leads to meet quota.

However, is it really that simple? The fact is, more leads may not always equal more conversions. It's vital that your sales and marketing teams work together to develop an intentional, comprehensive plan for developing quality content and delivering appropriate follow-up for leads.

Let's talk about both sides of the "lead issues" coin — namely, too few leads and too many leads — and see how quality content can solve many of the problems your teams may be facing.

Too Few Leads = Lack of Relevant Content

It's easy to think of scenarios in which a lack of relevant content results in a need for more leads for the sales team. Take digital content as an example. Far too often, the marketing team creates websites and other digital content with zero input from the sales team. When you think about it, that's an incredible missed opportunity!

Sales reps often have valuable insights into how customers interact with marketing materials. They know their specific goals and interests. And they understand common objections that may arise from the outset of their time in the funnel. Why wouldn't marketing want to tap into that kind of resource?

When sales and marketing work together to create top-of-the-funnel content, it almost inevitably leads to more leads. Here are just a few of the ways sales and marketing teams can create synergy in terms of content creation:

• Marketing can compile and utilize a list of key phrases and topics the sales team sees and hears from leads they interact with.
• Both teams should understand (and communicate with each other) what TOFU content leads want.
• Sales can be an excellent asset in terms of developing blog topics for publication, especially when there's a consistent process in place for collaboration between sales and marketing.
• Marketing can ask sales if they would recommend specific influencers and referral sources to partner with (especially those who have a strong, active presence on social media).
• Marketing can tap into sales interactions for real-life stories that communicate the brand's mission statement and values to prospects.
• Marketing can also ask sales reps to take note of the most interesting sales conversions they have during the week and stay alert to trends and common threads of interest.

Bring Sales and Marketing Together

Granted, mileage may vary on these tactics, depending on the nature of your business and consumer base. But the point is, whatever content marketing strategies you implement will be improved (perhaps dramatically) by bringing your sales and marketing teams together. It's vital that there is a consistent process of collaboration in place. There must be a clear consensus about the nature of your buyers' journeys. And that content is intentionally mapped to meet the needs of your buyers each step of the way.

The result of all this planning and collaboration will be a solid content strategy that brings, not only more leads, but better-qualified leads into your sales funnel.

Too Many Leads = Lack of Targeted Content

At first glance, it may seem obvious that the more leads a sales team has in its pipeline, the greater its chances of converting those leads into paying customers. The problem is, it may not be that simple, especially if the company's lead generation strategy has replaced quality with quantity. Actually, investing in quantity over quality can result in a lot of wasted time and effort.

In many cases, brands face this issue because their content, though relevant to consumer needs and desires, is not targeted enough to weed out the non-qualified leads from the qualified ones. For example, imagine a company that offers chartered flights starting at $5,000. There is a market for this type of offering, whether in the corporate world, the sports world, or some other sector. But what if the price is never mentioned in TOFU or even MOFU content?

The company may generate a lot of interest from small business owners, for instance — but how many of them would be willing to pay a minimum of $5,000 per flight? It's easy to see how more leads in this case may not translate to a better lead generation strategy. In fact, the company could end up wasting thousands of dollars on ads that only bring non-qualified leads into the funnel.

Again, Bring Sales and Marketing Together

Here again, cooperation between your sales and marketing teams can help prevent (or at least mitigate) this problem. Your two departments can work together to make sure the right leads are targeted. For example:

• Sales can review marketing content and make suggestions on how to more effectively target the content based on key factors they've noticed in previous interactions with leads (such as pricing, service delivery time frame, support processes, and so on)
• Both teams can review customer journey mappings and analyze whether refinements need to be made to better align with real customer needs
• Marketing can communicate with sales regularly, and ask for feedback on how to adjust content to more effectively address common questions and objections that are raised

"Time is money" in the world of sales, and forcing your reps to contact the wrong leads wastes both of those precious resources. Establishing and maintaining open lines of communication between your two departments is the key to maximizing the impact of your content without making it too broad. It's true that some leads will end up "qualifying themselves" out of your funnel — which is a good thing! It will free up your sales team to focus on the leads that are most likely to buy from your brand.

At the end of the day, creating quality content through consistent collaboration will help you generate enough leads to keep your sales pipeline full, but not so many that you end up wasting time on non-qualified ones. Your teams will become more productive and efficient, and your sales performance as a whole will improve.

​Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

​

​

Moving customers through each stage of the sales funnel is an important function of your sales and marketing teams. Of course, they need to be in alignment with each other if this process is going to be as smooth and seamless as possible. They also need to deploy the right activities at the right time for best results.

What are some of the activities your team should be doing at each stage of the sales funnel? Let's discuss five for each phase: top (awareness), middle (evaluation), and bottom (decision).

Top of Funnel Activities

1. Newsletters
These are a great way to provide information that leads need to know about their situation. Highlight the benefits that your product or service offers, and how you can make their lives better, or solve a particular problem.

2. Social media posts
Social media is an excellent channel for connecting with prospects and increasing brand awareness. Make sure your team is providing a steady stream of relevant content for users who may be unfamiliar with your company.

3. Marketing email sequences
Automated email sequencing is a great "set it and forget it" technique that can help move leads from the top of the funnel to the middle stage. Use those templates to provide educational content, and capture data points that measure each lead's level of interest.

4. Invitations
Invite top-of-funnel leads to events where they can learn more about your company and your offerings. These events could include on-demand videos, webinars, panel discussions, product demonstrations, and workshops, to name just a few.

5. Thought leadership
Building trust is crucial at each stage of the funnel, especially when interacting with leads who are unfamiliar with your brand. When your team develops high-quality educational content that delivers real value to prospects — and even creates an "a-ha moment" for them — then they'll be much more likely to progress to the middle stage of the funnel and evaluate your company further.

Middle of Funnel Activities

1. Presentations and webinars
Now that your leads are actively evaluating your solutions, it's important to provide them with meatier data to chew on. Presentations like panel discussions, webinars, and workshops are among the many educational opportunities that can help leads understand the value you provide more clearly. Your prospects will also be able to "mentally experience" what it would be like to partner with your brand. 

2. Appointments
After every presentation, don't forget to include a next step that invites leads to learn more. This often involves a one-on-one appointment with a member of your sales team.

3. Post-presentation outreach
Not every single person who attends a presentation will automatically want to schedule an appointment with your team. However, that doesn't necessarily mean they're not interested in learning more or making a purchase with your company. You may just need to follow up with them in the form of emails, texts, and/or phone calls. Sometimes, a gentle "nudge" from a sales professional is all a person needs to progress to the decision stage of the sales funnel.

4. Data-driven outreach
One of the most valuable things about digital marketing is the ability to dynamically track activities like email opens and clicks — both at a group and individual level. The resulting performance data can provide a list of middle-of-funnel leads who have, in one way or another, shown interest through their digital actions. With that data in hand, your sales team can reach out to them via email, phone call, or text to further gauge their interest (and hopefully motivate them to take further action).

5. Sales email sequences
Sales email sequences at this stage of the funnel should focus on your solutions, as well as case studies and client success stories. This segues nicely into our next funnel stage...

Bottom of Funnel Activities

1. Case studies or success stories
These are not just helpful for middle funnel leads, but can also help seal the deal for prospects in the decision-making phase of their journey. Use these resources to increase confidence by painting a picture of a common problem, and then describing how your solution created a satisfying outcome.

2. Ambassadors or reference accounts
Leads who are on the edge of buying often want one final confidence check before making a purchase. This is where pre-screened customer ambassadors or reference accounts can prove to be an invaluable asset. They can offer an objective take on your solution, and provide that extra assurance to your prospect about the benefits your company provides. (Just make sure your ambassadors are happy with your company and up-to-date on your offerings!) 

3. Guarantees
Having some form of guarantee built into your offer directly reduces a buyer's risk and increases their confidence. You can structure your guarantee in many different ways, but some of the most common forms include money-back guarantees (the prospect will get a refund if not satisfied with your offering) and outcome-specific guarantees (you promise a positive outcome for the prospect, no matter the cost to your company). Remember that the clearer and simpler your guarantee, the more effective it will be at moving sales forward. 

4. Samples, test drives, and trial periods
Offering trial runs for your leads is a great way to provide them with a no-risk experience of your product or service and allow them to explore your offering more fully. Of course, this type of strategy requires intentional design as to how it will work, how it will be managed, and how it will help your sales team close more deals. Collaboration among your sales, support, and delivery teams is vital to ensure that trial runs lead to a higher close rate.

5. Ride along
This strategy lets bottom-funnel leads experience your solution firsthand through a demo or the eyes of a current customer. This is another excellent way to help them more clearly understand the benefits that your solution can provide.

If your sales and marketing teams work together to implement the activities discussed above, at each appropriate stage of the sales funnel, then you'll be in a prime position to achieve increased revenue and a more robust customer pipeline.

​Learn More

A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

​