Erica Neal’s Post

View profile for Erica Neal, graphic

B2B Growth Better Practice | Sales Engagement Strategy & GTM | Coach | Digital to Human Expert | On a mission to improve prospect experiences | Ambivert | Nature & animal lover

I’m seeing lots of posts from marketers, sellers and agency leaders on the topic of cold calling and outbound.   So here’s my, hopefully, helpful perspective for planning your 2025 Marketing and Sales Alignment: it’s about where you point your guns in order from worst to best!   Event/Webinar recruitment of prospects? Nope. Not a good use of anyone’s time, likely to fall into the ‘prospect bothering’ single channel trap that can also cause brand damage. Use digital channels here and have your BDs touch on it as part of a well-defined message to their TAL, but please, please don’t let the event be the only message.   Event/Webinar recruitment of clients? Yes. Positioned as a client services/check-in approach. Helps you (marketing) to get feedback on messaging and interest in the topic. But please let your BDs attend the session for their own learning and client exposure.   Event follow-up? Nope, leave that to the people who met with the person at the event or the speaker. If there isn’t anyone who engaged with them at the event, this justifies your BDs attendance at the next event!   MQL follow up? Nope. Too soon. But do share the trends and insights from the MQL engagement which will help your BDs i.e. this asset seems to go down well with this job title. Also, ask your BDs where they are getting success and target these folks.   MQA follow up? Maybe, but allow your BDs to work with sales and add new contacts to their approach, not just the ‘aware’ ones. And no “saw you downloaded the thing” big brotherisms. BDs let marketing know what got you the most success, types of organisations, roles, messages, objections, insights….   Cold calling back through data generated by marketing and sales YTD? Maybe, you need a very good message and stellar timing, or you’ll rely on volume (sorry, burnout!) to get anywhere – better to use a multichannel approach. BDs please let marketing know what worked and what didn’t if you have to work on these crumbs.   TAL defined by marketing and working with AEs? Yep. That’s the job, normally. Hit both marketing and sales KPIs! BDs, make sure to report back to marketing.   Cross/upsell for existing clients? Yep, but please ensure BDs are thoroughly briefed and integrated.   ABM? Now we’re talking! Pod teams with senior AEs, get them on outbound too to role model and keep their skill sets and empathy in check! Marketing will be your best friends by the end of it!   There is a trend on where it’s best to point the guns – if we can all try to do this then ‘cold calling’ won’t die because it will deliver value, we just have to give them a fighting chance:   BD working for marketing only: Nope. BD working to bridge the gap between marketing and sales: Yep. BD working closely with sales to improve skillsets: Yep.   And my last nugget of value; there are 8 ‘channels’ to outreach, so I recommend we plan to use them all in 2025. Comment in the thread if you don’t know what they are and I’ll DM you! Happy aligning! 😇 🥂

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore topics