How Can Aligning Sales and Marketing Help You Find High-Quality Leads in a Crowded Market?

Are You Struggling to Close Deals? What Are the Top Sales Automation Strategies for Global Leaders?

Review key insights from the 2023 Sales Trend Report by HubSpot and Aircall. Discover why top global leaders are prioritizing sales-marketing alignment, leveraging CRM automation, and focusing on face-to-face interactions to exceed quotas and outperform competitors in a tough economy.

Stop chasing dead-end leads—read the full summary below to discover the data-backed referral strategies that are actually converting in today’s market.

Recommendation

Looking back on 2023, sales leaders found themselves adapting to a younger customer base, leveraging new technologies, and trying to differentiate themselves from their competition. A global report issued by Hubspot and Aircall analyzes the results of a survey of more than 1,000 sales professionals. It examines the growing role automation, sales intelligence apps, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs are playing in sales. The report also digs into the ways sales departments’ culture and strategies are evolving to meet customers’ increasingly high expectations and ongoing economic concerns.

Take-Aways

• Sales professionals had six main goals for 2023: Exceeding quotas, increasing efficiency, up- and cross-selling, expanding markets, aligning sales and marketing, and using CRM effectively.
• The biggest sales challenges include differentiating themselves from their competitors, finding high-quality leads, and communicating with decision-makers.
• Salespeople can uncover high-quality leads by prioritizing referrals, using social media, and attending virtual events.

Summary

Sales professionals had six main goals for 2023: Exceeding quotas, increasing efficiency, up- and cross-selling, expanding markets, aligning sales and marketing, and using CRM effectively.

Sales generally went surprisingly well in 2021 and 2022. Despite an ever-evolving sales landscape, sales professionals set out to keep this trend going, and they met with some successes and some challenges in 2023.

“Prospects are less interested in ‘seeing how it works’ and more interested in making sure you understand their needs, have a comprehensive idea of their requirements, and that the product will work.” (Hubspot Sales Director, Dan Tyre)

Salesprofessionals are focusing on offering a better customer experience abetted by accurate data. They find that when customers come to trust you, they want to give you more business. Insiders offered the following strategies and insights for attaining pivotal sales goals:

1. Going above and beyond sales quotas – To convert more B2B prospects, focus on having face-to-face interactions, fixing customers’ problems, and differentiating your firm from your competitors. To reach B2C prospects, give discounts, offer reward programs, and polish your e-commerce website. Work to establish a strong rapport.
2. Increasing efficiency — Use tools like Troops, Zoho, LeadIQ, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, or the HubSpot CRM to speed up the sales process and boost the likelihood of making a deal. About 20% of salespeople find that a lengthy sales process is the main reason potential buyers abandon deals, so it’s worthwhile to do all you can to expedite deadlines and approvals.
3. Upselling and cross-selling – Three-quarters of sales professionals find that they earn more than 10% of their sales revenue from up-selling to existing customers. Some 68% of salespeople note that 10% more of their intake stems from cross-selling. The best opportunities to up-sell or cross-sell appear when you’ve met a customer’s objectives, found problems in a client’s strategic plan that your offering can help fix, or been included in a client’s goal-setting conversations.
4. Growing market presence – Making sales is easier when your prospects already know your brand. Organizations with “dedicated enablement teams” outperform those that lack this support.
5. Bringing sales and marketing into better alignment – Without alignment built on strong communication and clear goals, sales departments waste their budgets paying for marketing that generates the wrong kinds of leads and revenue suffers because customers don’t have a good experience.
6. Getting the most from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs – Effective salespeople work in positive corporate cultures, have effective leaders, and make good use of CRMs and analytics. Using a good CRM platform helps managers track their sales teams’ productivity. Link your CRM to your team’s other tools and data sources, so you can more easily follow profit margins, growth, and customer conversion numbers. Select tools that your salespeople like and that get results.

The biggest sales challenges include differentiating themselves from their competitors, finding high-quality leads, and communicating with decision-makers.

To demonstrate that your organization is superior to your rivals, make sure you have ample sales enablement materials – including case studies, analytics, and reports. Help prospects pitch your services to their executive decision-makers and use automation to help your sales team manage interactions with prospects.

While phone calls remain the most effective way to convert leads and nail down closings – whether you’re selling remotely or not – promotions like discounts and loyalty programs also help. Sellers report that their favorite promo is offering a product bundle followed by a free trial.

To research and contact prospects, use LinkedIn. Build an “ideal customer profile” and revise it regularly, based on which customers contribute the most to your bottom line. Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator and HubSpot Sales Hub to connect with those ideal customers.

“With the sheer number of competitors offering any specific SaaS solution, running a strong sales process is more important than ever. When sales reps push for a close without having executive buy-in and a clear ROI, more deals will be lost to ‘no decision’.” (Jayme Manos, Senior Manager, Enterprise Sales, Hubspot)

Get to know your prospects well – study their goals, industry challenges, and more. Automated tools and a CRM that helps gather lead-related information and track communications with prospects will help you stay organized during the sometimes lengthy sales process. When phoning or video conferencing with prospects, listen more than you talk, so you can determine when someone is ready to meet.

If prospects back out of a deal, analyze each step of the sales process to determine why and to find possible solutions for their misgivings. For example, if they just aren’t ready to buy, building up your knowledge of their organization’s decision-making process and budget cycle could help you understand how and when to follow up.

Salespeople can uncover high-quality leads by prioritizing referrals, using social media, and attending virtual events.

To ensure growth, salespeople need up to 40 high-quality leads each week. However, more than 40% of salespeople say they don’t receive good leads from their marketing departments. Still, nearly 80% of sales professionals report having as many as 40 prospects in their pipeline process “at any given time.”

“Believe it or not, there are warm leads everywhere. Whether it be on LinkedIn, review sites, etc., you just have to find them. Having that hunting mentality is critical because there is always a business out there that needs your product/service, but you’re going to have to put in that little extra work to find them [when you lack warm leads].” (Chris Butera, Business Development Representative, Aircall)

Most high-quality leads come from referrals. Social media – including user-made content – and virtual events are also helpful. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram are today’s main B2B lead-generating social media platforms, but YouTube and TikTok hold future promise for marketing and sales prospecting as short-form video becomes increasingly popular among professionals. One salient piece of advice: “If they’re not already, salespeople need to get comfortable with virtual networking and establishing their own presence on social media.”

About the Author

Hubspot is a CRM platform that provides software products for inbound marketing, sales and customer service. Aircall is a cloud-based call center and phone and communication platform designed for use by sales and support teams.