The phone (remember that thing that used to be plugged into the wall, that we used to talk to other people?) was the first piece of technology that allowed companies to work with clients across the nation and around the globe. The Internet has completely flattened the marketing world by further simplifying the buying process through online purchasing. In some markets today, no human contact is necessary!
In most B2B transactions, however, human contact is still required. Thus, we still count on the phone to seal the deal or set the meeting to seal the deal.
The Internet allows sales teams to concentrate their phone efforts (which involve high-priced humans) on those whom they know are hot leads, which Inbound Sales expert Andrew Hunt reports is 3 percent.
How does the Internet help you focus on those 3 percent? Through demand generation programs, we can continue to electronically touch, educate and enlighten those who are not yet desperate enough to need our services or product. This does take a bit of human interaction (the logarithms of marketing automation program have to be designed and entered by a human), but you can touch 30,000 prospects with a little programming and the touch of a button, as opposed to 5-7 calls to each of those prospects just to get them on the phone. I’ll let you do the math on how many calls and man hours ($$) that would take.
Demand generation programs that utilize marketing automation software will accurately target your sales team’s efforts, making them more effective and, in the end, your company more profitable.
