According to respondents to the lead generation company’s recent B2B Marketing Research Study, when it comes to utilization of their marketing automation platform, 28% of organizations use them only occasionally, 47% are realizing only some of its benefits, and 33% are experiencing marketing automation deployment and management challenges. In terms of respondents’ contact data strategies, 89% admit they have significant marketing data challenges, 62% said their biggest challenge is data that isn’t clean, updated, enriched or complete, and 44% ranked as “very high” the importance of data strategy improvements.

According to Televerde’s VP of Digital Strategies, Bryan Ehrenfreund, “We suspect that while most B2B marketers will take some solace in the fact that they’re clearly not alone with these challenges, this shouldn’t excuse them from taking action to resolve these issues that, without a doubt, are impacting opportunities to achieve a company’s full sales revenue performance goals. Our high-value diagnostics will help them take that action.”

That’s why for a limited time the lead generation and lead nurturing company is offering a comprehensive, complimentary audit of a company’s marketing automation utilization and the quality of their contact data. This powerful combined audit is designed to help companies optimize the return on both their marketing automation investment and their contact data investment.

The Marketing Automation & Lead Nurturing Audit Report includes a list of the features that are being utilized effectively, which are not, and proposed changes to optimize effective use of the system to track, nurture and accelerate leads. The audit will focus on lead tracking tactics, subscription management, email setup, CRM integration, lead routing, sales enablement tools, social media integration, platform-specific settings, and lead conversions.

The Contact Data Quality Diagnostics Audit Report features a comprehensive deep-dive analysis of the quality of a contact database plus actionable recommendations for data improvements. It will reveal data gaps, score the deliverability of email addresses, and advise companies where improvements are possible as well as how they can be achieved. The diagnostic addresses the completeness and accuracy of account and contact-level data – essential data strategy components that are pre-requisites for proper segmentation.

Televerde promises that these comprehensive analysis reports will be an eye-opening, truth-telling experience. According to Ehrenfreund, “Knowing the truth about the quality of your contact data and your utilization of marketing automation are the first steps toward improved performance of your demand creation and lead nurturing campaigns, higher conversion rates and more closed-won deals, and improved marketing campaign ROI.”

Normally a combined valued of $15,000, Televerde is offering these two audits on a complimentary basis for qualifying companies who respond by Feb. 29, 2012 . The offer is open to companies using either Marketo’s or Eloqua’s marketing automation platforms. To find out if you qualify, learn more about the offer, and see sample audit reports, contact your Televerde Sales Executive or Client Success Manager. If you’re not currently a Televerde client, call +1 888-787-2829.

As a testament to Televerde’s growing position as a B2B marketing leader, our Senior VP of Global Sales, Marketing & Services, Donna Kent, has been invited to serve as a judge for the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, one of the most prestigious business awards competitions in the world.

“The Stevie Awards are judged by many of the leading figures in business,” said Televerde President and CEO James H. Hooker. “Donna’s selection for this committee speaks volumes of her business acumen, her deep industry knowledge and her role in enhancing Televerde’s image as an innovative player in the marketing industry.”

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service honor and generate public recognition of the accomplishments of sales, customer service, and call/contact center professionals worldwide. Kent will serve on a final judging committee in the categories of Sales Individual and Service Provider. Since its inception in 2002, the Stevie Award has become one of the most coveted trophies, conferred for achievement in business to organizations, teams and individuals in more than 60 nations.

“As a lifelong learner, I appreciate the invaluable opportunity this provides me to gain insights from best-in-class enterprises throughout the world,” Kent said.

With 25 years of broad-based business performance experience, including significant expertise in finance, sales, marketing and operations on national and global platforms, Kent drives Televerde’s global approach for its customer base. She identifies the most effective ways to extend the organization’s unique business model to help clients achieve their customer acquisition and marketing objectives. Having accountability for many strategic and global clients, she appreciates the art and discipline of sales and marketing.

The Stevie Awards are derived from the Greek word for “crowned.” The crystal pyramid held aloft by Stevie represents the hierarchy of human needs, a system often represented as a pyramid that was developed in the 1960s by psychologist Abraham Maslow, who observed that after their basic needs are met, human beings seek the esteem of their peers.

The final results will be announced during a gala banquet in February at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Organizers of the Stevie Awards also produce the prestigious American Business Awards, International Business Awards and the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

Along with some of my colleagues, I attended the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals conference recently in Phoenix. Kudos to CEO Bob Perkins and COO Larry Reeves for a great networking and learning event. Televerde’s Donna Kent, our Senior VP of Global Sales, Marketing & Services delivered a presentation called “Inside Sales 2.0: New Skills, Technique & Opportunities” that was very well-received. The slide deck is on our website if you’d like to see it.

I came away from the event with a number of great ideas – including some fresh new ideas and in some cases just great validations and reminders of old ideas which tend to get taken for granted. Here’s a top 10 list – the ideas that caught my attention right out of the gate.

1.     Inside sales skills sets are becoming granularly specialized, including requirements for specialization in prospecting/hunting, telequalifying, voicemail messaging, email messaging, campaign management, presentations, handling objection, closing, account management, and LinkedIn expertise. So more training and development is needed in each of these areas.

2.     As the reliance on Inside Sales increasing, the function is getting a lot more visibility – and credibility — with executive management. Inside Sales professionals need to be able to validate their value to sustain the credibility and continue earning the right to a seat at the revenue table.

3.     As evolved as the Inside Sales function is becoming, there’s still room for skill set improvement, so investment is needed to enhance communication, presentation, email writing and vertical/segment knowledge skills.

4.     Inside Sales professionals need to improve on their ability to listen for “tone” during the course of a conversation with a client or prospect in order to have more context on the substance of the dialogue and where it’s heading.

5.     “Interest is the counterfeit of need!”  Don’t mistake what a buyer appears to be interested in or says they’re interested in for a genuine need. Interest can be a sales time-waster and need can be a deal-maker.

6.     During conversations with customers, use plain English – keep your messages simple, clear and concise. No need for vagueness and fifty cent words. We’re all humans and we all generally like to communicate and hear stories, so let’s have natural conversations with each other that are understandable, make points and contain calls to actions, next steps, etc. A logical application of this in a buyer-seller conversation is to use actual real-world examples of the experiences of another company. These examples can be referenced during the opening seconds of a conversation and in voicemail messages.

7.     Always relate your messages to what your buyers are interested in (i.e., their unique situation or set of challenges) – seek alignment and relevance. Your communication is always better when you reference metrics, use high-impact examples, appeal to recipients on a persona-based level, are specific, and paint a clear picture (i.e., convey a visual).

8.     Three key actionable take-aways for how to get your points across with prospects — tell a compelling story, tell it in a human-to-human way, and make your conversation relevant to the prospect.

9.     Great inside sales professionals know their buyers’ business and allow that knowledge to reveal itself in their conversations. Arm your inside sales professionals with the knowledge they need. Account profiles are excellent business intelligence tools.

10.  70% of buyers have already done more of their buying process research before even engaging in a conversation with a sales rep – inside sales or otherwise – so be prepared to have a conversation with a knowledgeable buyer. Don’t lose the sale by not knowing as much as they do.

I’ll recommend some of my other key takeaways from the event in a future blog post. In the meantime, start focusing more attention on the development of your inside sales team. Or, better yet (shameless self-promotion alert…), consider outsourcing all or parts of your inside sales function to a firm that already have a specialized set of skills, market knowledge, and best practices. Our clients have been using our services for 16+ years and during that time we’ve generated more than $3 billion in net new sales revenue for them.

DemandCon is dedicated to presenting actionable insight to its attendees on managing the complete sales funnel. Events feature thought leaders, academics, consultants and leading practitioners from around the world. DemandCon participants are part of an interactive and ongoing community of knowledgeable marketing and sales professionals and practitioners who want to advance their understanding of demand generation, lead management and sales and marketing alignment.

Televerde will present with its client SAP about how it brought new life to its recycled and rejected sales leads with an integrated digital and dialogue-based outreach program featuring a set of well-timed, relevant touch points. SAP gave Televerde, a leading Phoenix B2B marketing agency and provider of sales pipeline development solutions, a significant volume of recycled sales opportunities and an objective: Deploy an integrated touch program to get SAP front of mind again, then validate, qualify, prioritize and carefully hand-off the leads to SAP’s sales reps for conversion. The program, which is still in progress, continues to yield strong results with many new rejuvenated sales opportunities now back in SAP’s pipeline and primed for conversion. SAP and Televerde will share some of the secrets to the program’s success, including how to preserve and capitalize on the investment in dormant leads.

Presenting for SAP is Robert Krekstein, Global Inside Sales Demand Generation Senior Director, and presenting for Televerde is Bryan Ehrenfreund, Vice President of Digital Strategies.

Televerde is the leading B2B provider of sales pipeline development solutions that drive increased revenue for our clients by integrating contact data, marketing automation and world-class tele services. We have several videos featuring our views on effective lead nurturing as well as a white paper on “The Elegance and Value of Integrated Nurture.” For more information, visit contact us or call +1 888-787-2829.

For a limited time, Televerde is offering a complimentary, comprehensive Contact Data Quality & Marketing Automation Diagnostic Assessment to qualifying companies. Here’s why…

According to respondents to our recent B2B Marketing Research Study, when it comes to utilization of their marketing automation tool:

• 28% of organizations with marketing automation tools use them only occasionally
• 47% are realizing only some of its benefits
• 33% are experiencing marketing automation deployment and management challenges

In terms of respondents’ contact data strategies:

• 89% admit they have significant marketing data challenges
• 62% said their biggest challenge is data that isn’t clean, updated, enriched or complete
• 44% ranked as “very high” the importance of data strategy improvements

Chances are that these metrics reflect some element of your situation too. And while you can take some solace in the fact that you’re clearly not alone, it doesn’t excuse you from taking action to resolve these issues that, without a doubt, are impacting your company’s opportunity to achieve your full revenue performance goals.

That’s why for a limited time Televerde is offering a comprehensive, complimentary audit of both your marketing automation utilization and the quality of your contact data. This powerful combined audit is designed to help companies optimize the return on both their marketing automation investment and their contact data investment.

Marketing Automation & Lead Nurturing Audit
This audit report includes a list of the features that are being utilized effectively, which are not, and proposed changes to optimize effective use of the system to track, nurture and accelerate leads. The audit will focus on your lead tracking tactics, subscription management, email setup, CRM integration, lead routing, sales enablement tools, social media integration, platform-specific settings, and lead conversions.

Contact Data Quality Diagnostics Audit
This audit report features a comprehensive deep-dive analysis of the quality of your contact database plus actionable recommendations for data improvements. It will reveal your data gaps, score the deliverability of your email addresses, and advise you where improvements are possible as well as how they can be achieved. The diagnostic addresses the completeness and accuracy of both your account and contact-level data – essential data strategy components that are pre-requisites for proper segmentation.

We promise that these comprehensive analysis reports will be an eye-opening, truth-telling experience. And knowing the truth about the quality of your contact data and your utilization of marketing automation are the first steps toward:

• Improved performance of your demand creation and lead nurturing campaigns
• Higher conversion rates and more closed-won deals
• Improved marketing campaign ROI

Normally a combined valued of $15,000, Televerde is offering these two audits on a complimentary basis for qualifying companies who respond by Feb. 29, 2012. The offer is open to companies using either Marketo’s or Eloqua’s marketing automation platforms. To find out if you qualify, learn more about the offer, and see sample audit reports, contact your Televerde Sales Executive or Client Success Manager. If you’re not currently a Televerde client, call us at +1 888-787-2829.

In the meantime, read our “Elegance and Value of Integrated Nurture” white paper or the SiriusDecisions brief “The Impact of Bad Data on Demand Creation.” Or use our Contact Data Quality & Sales Pipeline Conversion Calculator.

Televerde is sponsoring and presenting a general session at the DemandCon event, to be held March 5-6 in San Francisco. Our session, co-presented with SAP, is called “No Leads Left Behind: Leveraging the Investment in Recycled Leads to Discover New Revenue Opportunities.”

DemandCon is dedicated to presenting actionable insight to its attendees on managing the complete sales funnel. Events feature thought leaders, academics, consultants and leading practitioners from around the world. DemandCon participants are part of an interactive and ongoing community of knowledgeable marketing and sales professionals and practitioners who want to advance their understanding of demand generation, lead management and sales and marketing alignment.

Televerde will co-present with SAP about how new life was brought to SAP’s recycled and rejected sales leads with an integrated digital and dialogue-based outreach program featuring a set of well-timed, relevant touch points. SAP gave us a significant volume of recycled sales opportunities and an objective: Deploy an integrated touch program to get SAP front of mind again, then validate, qualify, prioritize and carefully hand-off the leads to SAP’s sales reps for conversion. The program, which is still in progress, continues to yield strong results with many new rejuvenated sales opportunities now back in SAP’s pipeline and primed for conversion. We’ll share some of the secrets to the program’s success, including how to preserve and capitalize on the investment in dormant leads.

Presenting for SAP is Robert Krekstein, Global Inside Sales Demand Generation Senior Director, and presenting for Televerde is Bryan Ehrenfreund, our Vice President of Digital Strategies.

The conference agenda is strong and the networking opportunities will be great. You can register as Televerde’s guest for a 20% discount when you use promotion code TELDCSF1220. Register here.

We hope you’ll join us.

The one-day event included a variety of general sessions, break-out sessions and panel discussions featuring some of the nation’s leading inside sales experts. Topics focused on critical issues affecting today’s inside sales professionals, as well as offered tactics for improving sales performance. The conference also featured a Solution Provider Exhibit to allow attendees to meet with leading inside sales vendors.

As part of the conference program, Televerde’s Donna Kent, senior vice president of global sales, marketing and services, presented “Inside Sales 2.0: New Skills, Techniques and Opportunities.” This session addressed inside sales staffing issues and the skills necessary to optimize current marketing trends. Kent also discussed how to structure, organize and leverage new skills for account-based marketing, social media, late sales stage engagement, lead nurturing and more.

“Having AA-ISP bring such a focused and comprehensive event to Phoenix is a real bonus for inside sales reps, account managers, business development professionals and department managers,” says Televerde President and CEO James H. Hooker. “As a leading B2B marketing agency and provider of sales pipeline development solutions, we were thrilled to deliver an informative and thought-provoking presentation.”

Televerde had a strong presence this week at the American Association of Insides Sales Professionals 2012 Summit held in Scottsdale. Donna Kent, our Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing & Services participated in the “Secrets of Top Selling Organizations” panel and we presented our own session – “Inside Sales 2.0: New Skills, Techniques, Opportunities.” We engaged with many of the attendees (including some current clients) and developed relationships with some prospective customers. (Always a nice byproduct of participating at this events.) We learned a lot, networked a lot, and of course shared our knowledge and experience with everyone we met. Below are the Top 10 Inside Sales Best Practices we presented at our workshop.1.     Do your research to know your buyers

2.     Automate to generate, nurture and prioritize more better qualified leads

3.     Build Account-Based Marketing Programs:

a.     Profile top accounts

b.    Identify multiple contacts

c.     Map relationships

4.     Target by personas

5.     Work closer with sales and marketing to tighten alignment

6.     Establish crystal clear lead definitions and  hone the lead hand-off process

7.     Assign/align ISRs by sales rep and accounts

8.     Train and certify for competencies

9.     Then organize by competency:

a.     Type of campaign objective – leads, appointments, etc.

b.    Market type – verticals, rev ranges, public/private

c.     Complexity/simplicity of the sale

10.  Outsource for specialized competencies, scalability, sustainability

Our entire presentation deck is in the Resources section of our website and includes what we believe are the market imperatives that are causing what we refer to as the “Inside Sales Spring.” We developed the slides intentionally to be self-explanatory as a convenience to anyone who couldn’t attend our session. But if you’d like to learn more, don’t hesitate to call us at +1 480-736-8137 or send us an email at info@televerde.com.

We’d love to know more about your inside sales best practices so feel free to share here.

The nature of sales complicates pursuing common objectives.  With salespeople under constant pressure to meet quotas, they often forgo brand considerations for immediate revenue.  Compensation based on closed sales and not brand contribution means salespeople will tend to take the quickest route to closing a deal.

Further complicating lead generation and qualification are diverse definitions of the ideal customer.  When salespeople pursue unresponsive prospects generated by marketing, they may start changing the message, product and pricing.  They try to make the prospects fit in any way possible.  The result is two departments pursuing different target audiences.

Another area of misconception between sales and marketing is the volume of leads required to meet revenue quotas.  Marketers assume salespeople want more leads so their efforts are focused on lead qualification and putting more opportunities in their pipeline.  In actuality, salespeople want more time to effectively sell to sales-ready prospects.

Unique Backgrounds Create Gaps

Marketing and sales professionals come from distinct disciplines.  They have unique personalities, behaviors and backgrounds.  These differences often put the two departments at odds with one another.

For example, marketers tend to be creative and/or analytical, spend more time in the office reading, analyzing, writing, and creating lead generation strategies and programs. Salespeople typically don’t like to be in an office, writing, reading, analyzing.  Instead, they like to be negotiating with prospects to close deals.  Given these disparities, it’s not a surprise the two departments often knock heads when it comes to lead generation and qualification activities.

Marketing sometimes views sales as qualifying any lead with money regardless of brand alignment.  In the B2B world, however, the focus needs to be on developing long-term relationships with the right type of clients that can grow into strategic, high-value relationships with future opportunities for revenue growth.  This approach can be challenging for sales when they need to meet short-term sales forecasts.

To close the gap, sales and marketing must find common answers to two questions:  Who is the ideal target customer and what lead generation and qualification criteria should be used.  But how should these two groups find commonality?

The first step to achieving successful lead generation and qualification is for each department to engage the other as peers.  In other words, sales and marketing should work together to develop target buyer profiles.  With a jointly-constructed profile, both departments can determine appropriate lead qualification criteria.

Another ideal solution to address the sales and marketing divide is to consider outsourcing all, or part, of your lead management program.  An outsourcing provider injects an unbiased voice into the conversation.  In an outsourcing model, the focus shifts appropriately to results instead of winning political battles.

Outsourcing companies can also help meet the needs of both marketing and sales in an objective fashion.  Through better lead generation and qualification activities, outsourcers can generate opportunities that satisfy a salesperson’s short-term revenue focus, while at the same time aligning leads with long-term brand positioning.

For additional information on lead generation and qualification, continue to read the Televerde blog or contact us today.

I attended the SiriusDecisions “Maximizing the Impact of Marketing Automation Investments” Executive Advisory Forum at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood City, Calif., last week.  I typically wouldn’t mention the location but it coincided with the Marketo Rockstar Tour event Televerde was sponsoring which was held at the same hotel.  The logistics gods from SiriusDecisions and Marketo couldn’t have made it easier for me as each event was within a few steps from one another.   This was the second SiriusDecisions Executive Advisory Forum I’ve attended.   In September, Larry Fleischman, our Director of Marketing, and I attended the “2012 B-to-B Sales and Marketing Planning Assumptions,” Forum which I found very informative as we started to think about our 2012 planning process, so I expected the same and wasn’t disappointed.

Here are my top 10 observations:

1. If you invested in Marketing Automation and haven’t achieved the benefits you expected from your investment, you’re not alone.  SiriusDecisions recently surveyed their clients and found the majority believed they are not utilizing their marketing automation platform to its fullest potential.  Many B2B high-tech companies in attendance at the forum shared similar sentiments.

2. Marketing Automation is still an immature market with the majority of platform providers relatively small companies.

3. Only 18% of B2B organizations are using a Marketing Automation Platform today, but anticipate an increase to 40% in five years.

4. Do some of these challenges sound familiar?   If so, again you’re not alone.  Here are the challenges shared by many of the attendees:

• Data quality or the lack thereof
• Change management issues
• Sales and Marketing alignment challenges
• Lead quantity vs. quality
• Having the right or enough content to fuel campaigns
• Predictive analytics and insights (not just email metrics) is a growing challenge

5. Companies often lack the skills and processes to apply marketing automation technology in innovative ways.  All too often when speaking with prospects and clients the focus is on technology when it should be focused on the People and Process consideration first.

6. Marketing Automation is rarely leveraged effectively at each stage of the cold-to-close process.

7. True revenue performance management is more than a stand-alone marketing technology solution. To understand what marketing is doing and the true revenue impact, a collection of sales, marketing and channel technologies need to be integrated.  An integrated solution of people, process, marketing skills and technology are needed to enable more effective demand generation.  Buyers are more educated today and the one size fits all approach doesn’t fit nor work.  Segmentation and targeting has never been more important to delivering campaign ROI.

8. Marketing Automation by the Numbers:

• 18% – The percentage of B2B organizations using a marketing automation platform (MAP)
• 40% – The percentage of B2B organization SiriusDecisions expects to be using a marketing automation platform by the end of 2015.
• 85% – The percentage of organizations that has purchased marketing automation technology and believe they are not utilizing it to the fullest potential.
• 25% – The percentage of large enterprises using a marketing automation platform that are highly satisfied with their vendor.

9. A core set of technologies significantly enhances organizations’ ability to efficiently deliver and track leads.  Considerations should include website content management and analytics, marketing automation, marketing database, campaign management and CRM/SFA integration. Start with the People and Processes components first. Technology alone without proper skills, knowledge and processes will NOT show measureable returns.

10. Leveraging the full potential of a Marketing Automation Platform relies on the vendor‘s experience in driving organizational adoption.  The overwhelming majority of organizations relied on external agency and services companies to implement and support. Services become a key differentiator in a commoditized technology market.  An overflow of customer requirements force MAP vendors to turn to outside agencies and consultants for help.  Customers are looking for a greater emphasis on CRM integration, best practices and skills education to see the returns on their MAP investment.  Many organization are now realizing they don’t have the skills, knowledge and process to achieve the success they originally thought they would get.

Is your organization maximizing the impact of your marketing automation investment?   Let me know.  I would like to hear how your organization is doing and let’s discuss how Televerde can help you.