Align Marketing and Sales

While marketing and sales are distinctly different disciplines, they are highly interdependent, and companies suffer when the two functions are not properly aligned or don't work together effectively.

Generating sales leads is almost always a marketing team's top mandate. Sales teams rely on marketing to find their leads, and marketing depends on sales to follow up on those leads and effectively develop opportunities. Yet points of contention abound, most often concerning lead quantity, quality, distribution, and timely follow-up.

CDC MarketFirst makes marketing and sales alignment easy:

  • Increase lead volume: By enabling marketers to increase the number of leads they generate through better targeting and increased campaign volume capacity, CDC MarketFirst helps marketers meet and exceed their lead targets.
  • Improve lead qualification: Deliver only qualified leads to the sales force, reducing false leads or concerns regarding lead quality. Marketing and sales teams can agree on qualification criteria and use CDC MarketFirst to get prospects to self-qualify by answering brief, targeted questions.
  • Rank leads effectively: Ensure sales follows up with the hottest leads first. CDC MarketFirst lets you rank leads according to custom-defined criteria and deliver them to the sales force with priority clearly noted.
  • Route leads quickly and precisely: Don't let leads go cold while you figure out where to send them—distribute leads instantly to the right salesperson using custom routing rules. CDC MarketFirst lets you assign leads based on any combination of criteria, such as geography, product specialization, size, or industry.
  • Alert salesperson to leads instantly: Help salespeople strike while the iron is hot. CDC MarketFirst can instantly alert the right salesperson by SMS or e-mail when a prospect is on your website, enabling them to follow up while the prospect is most receptive, even if the salesperson is on the road.
  • Tie marketing activities into your CRM: Take advantage of our integration tools and approaches or pre-built integration to connect CDC MarketFirst with your customer relationship management (CRM) system, allowing leads to be passed directly into your sales portals and sales force automation processes. Contact records can be set up to show sales the marketing activity that led to the lead being generated and qualified.
  • Nurture colder leads cost-effectively: Not all leads are hot leads, but that doesn't mean you should let them fall through the cracks. Use CDC MarketFirst's automated marketing features to nurture colder leads with regular ongoing communications—without the need for salesperson intervention. Continue to re-qualify cold leads until they are ready for distribution to the salesperson.

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