Occasionally you’ll hear that sales people are “coin-operated,” implying that they are focused on closing sales and earning commissions.  While the phrase is usually used admiringly, it can also carry a somewhat negative impression, meaning sales people pay no attention whatsoever to matters not related to closing sales.  So if it is true that sales doesn’t care about anything other than making money, why do sales executives perk up when they hear about the virtues of marketing automation?

To be certain, marketing automation is a key B2B marketing activity.  By automating various online marketing functions it reduces marketing costs and increases ROI.  However, a major function of marketing automation has become of significant interest to sales executives.  This process is called lead management, which produces qualified leads for sales to follow-up.

By automatically generating and qualifying leads, a marketing automation system like Active Conversion achieves two things: First, it reduces the load on sales.  Sales reps dislike calling prospects before they are ready to buy.  It is a time-consuming process to qualify prospects only to discover that it is too early in the purchase cycle.  Sales reps consider this activity wasteful of their time (they are coin-operated after all).  On the other hand, some prospects don’t appreciate being continually contacted before they are ready to engage vendors.

Secondly, marketing automation increases the number of qualified leads.  By automatically and interactively engaging prospects with timely and useful information, the lead management system increases the total number of qualified prospects out of any given lead generation campaign.  What sales rep doesn’t appreciate more qualified prospects to close on?

When a B2B sales lead is sent to a sales representative from a marketing automation system, he or she can be assured that the prospect has visited the website multiple times, read a few blog posts, downloaded an important white paper or otherwise exhibited interest in their product or service.  The marketing automation system has qualified the prospect for the sales rep.

Closely related to qualifying is the issue of timing.  In a marketing automation system, notifications are sent to the appropriate sales rep at the precise moment that lead becomes qualified.  This way, no time is wasted beforehand and prospects are contacted at the instant they are ready to engage the vendor.

Marketing automation systems like Active Conversion help increase revenue by allowing sales reps to concentrate on what they really want: closing sales and making money.