BenefitsPRO Expo preview: It takes prospecting and marketing to fill the pipeline
While many agencies have been built around rugged individualism, it's hard to be a lone wolf and find that same success today.
Filling a sales pipeline now is far different from the days when individuals were tasked with cold calling and door knocking. While many agencies have been built around that rugged individualism, it’s hard to be a lone wolf and find that same success today. Now it takes a team approach to get and keep the attention of buyers.
Related: Sales lies that are holding you back
In my breakout session and workshop at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo in May, we’ll be discussing this content in detail and you will leave with an analysis of your overall marketing effectiveness.
Be sure to check out Wendy Keneipp’s innovation session, “Filling the pipeline: How to combine marketing & prospecting for success” at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo on May 24 at 2:45 p.m.
Let’s start with a look at the roles that contribute to filling the pipeline.
Prospecting: Salespeople stir up interest with one-to-one prospecting activities, such as cold calls, networking, asking for introductions, connecting on social media, and reaching out via email.
Marketing: Those prospects will then look you up. They’ll search your name, go to the company website, and find you on LinkedIn. These are one-to-many marketing activities: One effort allows many people to experience it.
Sales: If your prospects like what they see and experience, they will consider following you or having a conversation with you.
Mind your reputation
The next principle to understand is brand. Your brand is like your reputation; we all have one. Are we intentional about our brand or allowing it to develop and show itself randomly?
How people perceive you will determine how they respond to you. If you or your company have a strong brand or reputation, prospective clients are more willing to engage. If they don’t know you or your reputation is somewhat questionable, they probably won’t engage.
Being unknown in the eyes of buyers is risky because the industry reputation is pretty poor by consumer standards. If all people know about you is “he’s the insurance guy,” you’re in a tough spot to get a relationship started.
Dedicating time and resources to developing a well-known personal and company brand is good for business.
Focus on the few
Get the attention of your prospects by creating a presence that draws people in, so they want to have a meeting with you or your sales team. People are looking for familiarity through education and social proof.
A strong marketing presence will help you achieve this familiarity. Keep your marketing focused on a handful of core activities with the messaging centered around your company purpose, your value proposition, and a firm understanding of your audience and their needs. Share this messaging on your website, LinkedIn, and through content, events, and consistent communications.
The interdependence of sales and marketing
Prospecting and marketing are interdependent in today’s sales process.
Marketing alone is not the easy button you may want it to be. In order for marketing to be an enticing sales tool that has prospects proactively reaching out, you must have an audience who regularly follows your marketing activity. You need to build an audience and provide them with information that keeps them coming back. And keep in mind it’s the prospecting efforts that bring people to you.
Prospecting by itself often meets a dead end because of the brand concept we talked about earlier. Buyers want to know you before they commit; they need the familiarity that comes from regular interactions with you and your company. Think LinkedIn, blogs, case studies, emails–all marketing activities. Buyers want all of this content, and they want a lot of it. The sales team likely isn’t going to create the content on their own. We need a team to make it happen.
Divvy up the responsibilities
The sales and marketing teams should mutually determine the content topics to create and share through prospecting and marketing activities. Your marketing team then creates the content, and both the salespeople and marketers use it in their separate responsibilities. Salespeople should be stirring up interest with one-to-one activities such as social outreach, phone calls, in-person or virtual events, asking for introductions, and sending emails.
Marketing should be supporting the interest with one-to-many activities such as the company website, company social posts, hosting events, sending marketing emails to nurture prospects, and creating content.
Shift to filling the pipeline
Make filling the pipeline a team effort instead of a siloed approach that only involves salespeople or marketers. Engaging with buyers becomes easier if the company and the individual salespeople work toward the same target of attracting prospects.
When everyone plays their role, you consistently pick up a little bit of mindshare with your prospects, creating the brand awareness and familiarity necessary for selling today. The more active you are across all of the one-to-one and one-to-many activities, the greater the likelihood of finding sales success.
Regularly sharing quality, engaging content helps you establish strong company and individual brands that earn you familiarity and trust with your audience. Prospecting and marketing need to be daily activities for salespeople and the company.
Wendy Keneipp is a business strategy and marketing/sales coach with Q4intelligence.
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