How to Tell If You Have a Sales Problem and Not a Marketing Problem
Inside many companies, people who are responsible for both marketing and sales may look at a symptom like stalled revenue and think they have a marketing problem, and jump to marketing automation to save the day. But what if it’s a sales problem? How do you tell the difference? In very broad strokes:
| Marketing Automation Problem | Sales Automation Problem |
| You need to contact batches of clients in bulk | You need sales reps to contact prospects efficiently |
| You need to track and attribute marketing effectiveness | You need sales reps to call lists of prospects |
| You need more inbound leads | You need more leads from targeted outbound prospecting |
| You use Ads, broad emails, and other marketing channels to get new leads | You use sales sequences and prospecting to get new leads |
Oh, I need Sales Automation!
If you need sales automation, we’ve got you covered. We created FunnelFLARE as a sales enablement and automation platform. It helps salespeople and Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) reach out to more prospects and spend more time on activities that drive revenue. It helps keep salespeople focused and working in a sales sequence, it makes it faster to follow up with recorded voicemails and follow up with email and text messages. It includes ActiveDEMAND’s fantastic automation workflow engine to help automate sales sequences and drip campaigns, our appointment scheduling automation, and our fantastic integration with many popular CRMs. In addition to those, it also has a well-developed task system, built-in call tracking and recording software that makes it easier to QC work and takes call notes for you, prospect insights, and is better built for salespeople to deal with prospects quickly.
I need to close the loop between Sales and Marketing
If you just have an issue with getting feedback to marketing on what channels are bringing home the bacon, you need to connect your CRM with your marketing automation platform. With deal won data automatically sent back to marketing, you get feedback on what campaigns and channels are contributing to revenue.
In addition to automation, it’s a good idea to set up meetings between your sales and marketing teams. Send your marketing people to sit with a salesperson for half a day once in a while, forward some really good sample recorded sales calls to illustrate pain points that prospects have, etc.
