Insightly_Ep06_edit
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Jordan: [00:00:00] Hello, Alyssa!

Alyssa: Hello!

Jordan: Last episode we talked about profitability data and how you can use profitability data to really drive innovation throughout your entire company but today I want to put a little bit more focus on the sales and marketing side of a company and I want to do that because I think it's really cool that in our individual careers here, you're business development and sales, and I'm marketing, so we can come at it from both sides [00:01:00] of the brain here. With data innovation in sales and marketing, I don't want to just talk about the tactics of sales and marketing.

We'll talk about that a little bit and how that really helps drive efficiency in a company and things like that but I want to start off by talking about how data has really innovated the roles of sales and marketing because I don't know about you, but if I reflect on my career journey, there has been a lot that has shifted in my world and it's because of data or the access to analytics.

Alyssa: Yeah. I think there's probably even more transformation that's happened in marketing, but as I reflect my first job out of college, we were cold calling businesses in America to see if they wanted to source products from the eastern part of the world and I remember there was no or very limited access to like sales enablement tools [00:02:00] or even like list pulling or any sort of like third party data so we were like buying lists and downloading them and just like printing them off and going through them and calling on them and making notes and when I transitioned to InfoFluency and the idea of a sales enablement tool and just even like a CRM, like we were using spreadsheets. I know CRMs have been around, but I feel like the technology has advanced so much even be able to see, even comparisons, like this prospect versus that prospect, and just the access to notes and to patterns and to trends.

So I think that's one is just even from the very top of the funnel, like prospecting and I will say too, when, I guess this was probably a couple years ago now, we~ looked, ~did a deep dive into our current customer base to make a lookalike list to prospect off of.

Jordan: I love a lookalike list.

Alyssa: Gotta love it and, [00:03:00] well one, I was just like really surprised at what it showed us

and two, just how easily we could do that.

Jordan: Like, I mean, that evolution alone, you're also talking about the difference in, like, cost accessibility.

So, even though, CRM systems have been around, for a while they were not affordable, or you could not find an affordable option on the market. You know, I mean, there's CRM systems now that really are, like, a large expense because you get a lot of different integrations and whatnot but, yeah, like, similarly.

I had to stop myself when I was thinking about this episode because that's when I realized like how long I've been in my professional career.

Alyssa: Yeah.

Jordan: When I think about like the last 15 years that I've spent in marketing and like thinking, okay, right after I got out of college, social media was just becoming a thing and search engine optimization and pay per click advertising was like all the rage at that [00:04:00] point and if you weren't understanding it, then you weren't an early adopter, kind of. a thing, and like really understanding how engagement metrics on these platforms could help influence an algorithm to gain more eyeballs.

Like that was like the hot topic, and then now like fast forward in to like 15 years later and I'm looking at a lot of those things still exist, of course, but the differences that I've seen in data is 15 years ago when I was like first starting into these platforms, you just had like really high level targets.

You really didn't have you know, I started to get into, website analytics and some, user experience metrics to really see, okay, once the traffic arrives on our platform, how are they engaging with it? What are we getting? What kind of experience are we delivering to them? That sort of thing.

You didn't have things like pixels that could help you capture people to retarget at that point in time. You did not have [00:05:00] the capability of, like, outside of trying to get them to fill out a form or buy a product. You didn't have other tactics that you can engage to, at least trigger an engagement to then find them again later.

The biggest evolution though, that's really happened over the last five years is to the exact same point that you just made of the sales enablement tools and I feel like the more companies have started to use CRM systems and tools that help them activate more sales processes, that has actually started to kind of bridge the gap a little bit between sales and marketing teams because a lot of those tactics now require marketing thinking to deliver a good customer experience.

Alyssa: I just thought of something else. Whatever the tools are, or the analytics behind, someone's looking at an email, like say you're doing like a sales, like a cold campaign, and or even marketing emails, like triggering, like, okay, someone looked at this for a long time, someone clicked and then the buildup of [00:06:00] that, we've seen some tools and cool resources where you can see, like, there's a certain threshold with like, once they've, looked at multiple emails. Once they've clicked, they're hot and so now, even that bridges the gap between sales and marketing because it's like, maybe those aren't sales emails, maybe they're marketing emails.

It's like, oh, they're really engaging with these trigger sales, like, reach out, call them and the other thing I thought of too is, extensions into your email. So like, there's a tool called Lavender, and they help you craft, based on data, help you craft, like, super good emails that are easy to respond to.

So they'll say like, shorten this sentence based on our

Jordan: Oh, so kind of give you tips on how you can like change your message better relate to personalize it more for that person.

Alyssa: Right?

Jordan: based on their experience.

Alyssa: And best practices for like their, it's backed by data, like the most responded to cold emails. So they have like thousands and thousands of emails that have, I guess, been responded to that are in a [00:07:00] database and that turns out best practices. So say less than 50 words, your first sentence is, you know, just some kind of best practices around that and you can just put that into your Outlook as a little extension.

You could not have done that five or ten years ago.

Jordan: No, and that's where I, like what you just said, I really think it's cool that you, that we now have this opportunity, not only to marry like external data based off of other user data points with what you're experiencing in your own company.

So it's like, you know, we always had like industry related, like data that we could refer to, but by the time you get access to it, it's like, a year old, but now being able to use some of these tools that are constantly analyzing these user behaviors and then tailoring it for your sales and marketing experiences has really like revolutionized our way to optimize campaigns a lot more quickly, whereas again, like 15 years ago in my career, we were surveying and focus grouping to see if something [00:08:00] worked now like we can run a quick A B test on nearly every marketing channel

to see what generates. The other thing that you just mentioned that I think has really evolved, and helped innovate sales and marketing over the last five years is that we're not, you mentioned the engagements that we receive so like if marketing is sending out an automated journey, let's say, and we have identified in our customer's journey that if they have these three touch points with us, they are more likely to convert with a sales team member.

Like let's say that's a scenario. We're now marrying profitability and revenue type metrics with engagement metrics and that has been something that like, you know, for the longest time, and I still think there's a lot of work to educate in this space and continue to bridge this gap, but I'm very encouraged that, for the longest time it's been like, okay, [00:09:00] marketing reports engagement, big whoopity doo.

And I get it. Right? Like, it is difficult to say this engagement could equal these dollars if you don't have those things connected. But through, like, the integrations with those sales enablement tools, like, if you have the full suite of HubSpot, or if you've got, you know, the full suite of Salesforce that has that marketing integration into it, the biggest and best innovation over the last five years, in my opinion, is that ability for us to truly visualize our customer's journey when you bring all of that together because that's not only bridging sales tactics with marketing tactics, but it's also layering your financials and your profitability with all of these touch points, and that means that you have to have those engagement metrics included as well.

Alyssa: And that brings me to think that with all of the advancement and even AI now, all of the, everything that we have that we just talked [00:10:00] about, none of that replaces the data culture that is needed to bring that to the forefront or the work that it takes to go in and look at your data through the lens of your business model, pull all of that out and then visualize it.

I think there is so much advancement, but, and there's tools to do that, but there's still a lot of work to get to that point and I will say, too, that another really cool advancement is the integration between tools to be able to embed those visualizations into the platforms that sales and marketing teams are using so that at their fingertips all the time.

Jordan: Yeah, and that's actually a perfect segue to, okay, we have this ability now to bring all of this data together. We have this data accessibility where we can capture a lot more data about our customers. We can, analyze things in a lot more real time, especially if you're utilizing some [00:11:00] of these tools that exist already but that then leans into some of the challenges that exist, and especially in the marketing realm, what you just hit on, the power of being able to bring these data visualizations into a platform that everybody has access to, that is still a big barrier that I know a lot of, my colleagues in the marketing space still face, where we still see this big data silo between divisions within a company and so sales is still looking at its own set of data and you maybe have to book a meeting to go through the data together rather than marketing being able to be a lot more proactive but the other element that you just mentioned, looking at it through the lens of the business model itself, Sometimes a marketing leader is not involved in those, you know, executive level conversations.

If you are in a company that doesn't necessarily have a chief marketing [00:12:00] officer type role, maybe your marketing director or executive, or communications director or somebody like that reports to the executive level, they may be missing a lot of of business model conversation. I do believe that a lot of marketers get enough awareness to understand how they play a part in the business growth but aren't always invited to the table or they don't always have, the context to know how are we supposed to, marry the business model to what we're actually trying to achieve.

Alyssa: Well, and there's been so much progress towards putting sales and marketing together but then if you want to add finance, that's a whole another hurdle that has to come from the top or the executive level, to include a layer of the financials into the sales and marketing data.

But it's so powerful for the sales and marketing people to be able to see what revenue or just numbers attributed to the customers that they're either trying to reach or [00:13:00] you know, are speaking to or already customers.

Jordan: A hurdle within that that I've, kind of gotten to see a little bit more firsthand over the last several months though, is that the models for tracking are different in, within each of those divisions, right? So, you know, finance is looking at things from the profitability standpoint, efficiency standpoint, and things of that nature. Sales is looking at things from the, you know, prospecting to qualifying leads to closed one, that kind of like funnel activity. Marketing is aware of what maybe revenue opportunities exist from the finance perspective and then maybe they're aware of where things are in the prospect or the lead funnel, but then they're tasked with monitoring customer experience.

And so you have these different levels of data review happening, and they're all right. All of them [00:14:00] are the right models for each of those divisions, but then when you're trying to bring everything together, when you were talking about the, business model, that's where I also think that we kind of have a gap in the thinking of reviewing our business model against customer data and understanding if our business model aligns with where our customers are wanting us to go.

Alyssa: Do you think that's something that needs to be remedied? Like, is it the problem that there's silos and they don't talk to each other? Yes. Is it a problem that they all view the data in a different lens? Because I would tend to say no, but then does that cause.

Jordan: I don't think it's a problem that they look at the data through a different lens. I think the challenges, is that if we want collaboration between, ~you know,~ finance, sales, and marketing to come up with what is the best sales and marketing strategy? Because, I mean, that's really what it boils down to. How are we going to grow or achieve our goals through sales and marketing tactics, right?[00:15:00]

If in order for these three groups to collaborate, they have to have the same base understanding of what their data points mean and so I think it's like really understanding what questions are we supposed to be asking so that finance knows what kind of data to pull or visualize consistently so that we can be more predictive in what we're doing.

How is sales process, mirroring that business model and then from a marketing perspective, how can you align engagement metrics to help report whether or not we're about to move the needle so then sales is more proactive and if sales is more proactive, then finance can be more proactive.

Alyssa: Yeah. 'cause I would hate for, and just made me think about like the silos and the non collaboration is an issue, but them viewing them from their different objectives isn't necessarily an issue and then the question becomes how do we combine the data and visualize it in a way to where, you know, they're all on the same page, but also so [00:16:00] the customer journey is from prospect to lifetime value. Mapped in one place, but can be viewed through different lenses. Does that make sense?

Jordan: Well, ~I,~ I think the customer journey is based on all of those things. Like, so the finance can tell us our segments or our cohorts of profitability and, ~you know, ~product mix, company mix, all of that kind of stuff, right? Then we, from like a sales and marketing perspective, where I would go is look at each of those segments then, and I want to know what is that customer experience?

What is their journey to us, with us, and ongoing with us? What touch points are we creating? What touch points are they looking for? And then, how do we align right message, right time, right service offering, right product to where they are in [00:17:00] the journey based on that profitability model? So that's like what I think is the biggest opportunity.

It's not about ditch everything that you're doing but in a way, all of these groups do have to come together to align, okay, what are the key performance indicators that help us just see if somebody is moving through the journey where they're getting stuck in the journey? Because like we, don't look at the journey like a funnel. The funnel is that progression of where they're at in our sales process. The journey is where the customer is. We can influence that, but we have to learn from their behavior to know how we can improve. That's how you develop brand loyalty and how you create more of those like longterm relationships if you still have something to offer them over time.

Alyssa: And I can't help but think about it from the underlying data perspective of that and how cool it would be to build just a visual map and be click, drill down into that and have the marketing.

Jordan: We should build this. We can!

Alyssa: We [00:18:00] Can!

Did we just come up with a product offering?

Jordan: Maybe

Alyssa: But have, that thought. have sales data, revenue data, marketing data that, therein

lies a pretty big challenge, right? Is like you're put, to get those to speak the same language to agree upon the right touch points, to just put all of that together, I think it can be a hurdle for people because it's all great when you're sitting around a conference table talking about KPIs.

Then you start to get into the, oh, but our, our customers are labeled like this in the CRM. Oh, they're not labeled like this in our accounting system. So, I mean, I jump the gun because we're talking about innovating at a high level of sales marketing and I'm like, but what about how the data integrates together?

Jordan: But I think it's a fair point because so again, we're talking about how like data has helped innovate these roles and how it's innovating the strategies that we have, but it's not to say that it doesn't come with additional complexities.[00:19:00]

One of those complexities is shifting our mindset a little bit and what I try to do in client sessions is really kind of switching our mindset from an, at least in a sales and marketing perspective, we're not trying to initiate tactics that go and infiltrate our customers and like throw a net over them and bring them back to us.

Like that's icky. That's when you get trapped in that like constant sales and promotion type scenario. If you're looking for immediate gratification. What we're trying to do is understand our customer's journey so that we can align the right tactics and we're building more of a relationship with them.

So that we build trust and credibility and all of those things. So it's how do we walk alongside our customers, which within itself is a mindset shift, right? The other complexity as you said is like identifying the KPIs that kind of align across and that is a big hurdle to get over, but I think it is completely doable that if you're, you know, let finance lead a [00:20:00] little bit on identifying who are most profitable opportunities are, not just from a revenue perspective, but as best as we can to identify, maybe they do bring in good, consistent revenue, but they're also long term type clients that require, onboarding is always like the heftiest lift, so maybe that's what generates their profitability. Take a segment or a cohort within that and then you can create like a beta test of okay, based on this, what do we know, why do we need to grow this segment, or what would we get if we grow this segment, what would a successful relationship look like, what are those attributes or indicators that would show us that it's successful, and I think to start that conversation, just be a little bit like dream about it.

Don't worry about if you're using the right data point language, right? Like just dream. If I saw these things, this is what that would look like. Somebody in around that table is gonna say this is how we would measure that [00:21:00] or this is how I know that in this system. So dream first and then get into the particulars later.

Alyssa: Yeah. I think that's a really good point because I think so often you hear KPIs or metrics and it just, it takes you instantly to a place out dreaming and out of innovating, and just more into a place of, but that won't work. Exactly where I went with my brain of thinking like, that's not going to work

Jordan: Yeah, and you can limit yourself. I mean, we all get into that, mode of things, but that does suck the fun out of things a little bit, and the other important part of this is, ~you know,~ even though we've had a lot of these tools come into the market, even though we have a lot of data accessibility to be able to personalize and segment and automate and things of that nature. There is a point where you can take it too far to where you take out the relationship with the customer. You're just trying to make it so efficient to work the process that you've like removed brand personality and good customer service [00:22:00] from it and so for companies that are listening right now, if like you're even in that mode, cause there's a lot of us out there that are still in that mode of, well, I haven't really really taken a leap into marketing automation yet. I'm not fully maximizing our CRM system. That is okay and what I would say to that is you don't have to go all the way to the extreme with it.

Like start small and identify ways that if you just tweaked the experience a little bit, what you offer in an automated format that still feels true to what the customer expects from you and that totally takes understanding who your customer is and if you don't have the data attributes to identify that, then the first step that you would need to take is understanding what data attributes do you need or what customer, data points would you want to know more about to be able to develop that strategy?

Alyssa: I have a really cool [00:23:00] story to end this example, and this is more about innovating in sales. So a customer or client of ours, they distribute steel and so they have a variety of different verticals that they work with, and they also have a variety of different types of steel. I didn't know there was multiple types, but, so there's all these different types of steel, and then all these different verticals. So what they did was they used the data to understand which verticals are buying which types of steel. So then they, they kind of, you know, they visualize this and they see these like different pockets where let's say oil and gas is buying X, Y, and Z, but these manufacturers construction is buying only A and B.

So then they took it a step further, which I think is a great milestone and of itself. Then they took it a step further to assign salespeople to specialize in those product mixes to, take those accounts and run with building out that vertical even [00:24:00] further. Knowing that most companies, because they have, you know, I think thousands of customers. So the sample size is pretty big. So to say, okay, this specific type of construction company is going to buy A, B, and C. We're going to take that. Take you, a specific salesperson, you're gonna sell these A, B, and C to this customer and, speaking of, innovating in tools and stuff, like, they use a specific, I'll call it data enrichment platform for their industry to augment all of that and to combine that with their own data on their customers and I was like, that's gonna tell, that just happened, like, last week, so.

Jordan: they didn't just use it to learn more about, okay, what product mixes work or are more likely to be purchased by what types of clients, but then they used it to make their sales team more efficient to like really allow them to focus on specific product mixes.

So now they get to be experts in those [00:25:00] product mixes and can like go out and prospect where then looking through, I would assume then they're looking through their like customer database to say, okay, well, other construction companies that look like this one that maybe only have product A, let's go and talk to them about product B as well.

Alyssa: And then you talk about marketing finance coming that, like marketing then can start you know, promoting their most profitable bundles to their most, to their response.

Jordan: You could run a whole campaign around that, you could even apply a dedicated budget to, okay, if we want to target by bringing maybe we have like 50 accounts that if we can get 10 percent of them to increase their product mix, then it will generate X revenue. Then you can kind of develop a marketing budget based on that understand, okay, well, based on the touch points of the successful customers that are in that product mix, what did we do win them initially and then you can kind of start there and build out.

Alyssa: [00:26:00] Yeah. And they haven't done any of that yet, but I think it's really exciting and they haven't started to even understand profitability. I don't think the product mixes, but I'm like, there's just so much when you start. Just from a basic question, like

Jordan: see, and that's what I think, like, is so cool about how data really has innovated the sales and marketing arena is that it's not just the tools that have come to the marketplace. It's not just the accessibility that we have, but it has opened up the opportunity to consistently learn and grow within your roles that I think, like, again, it goes back to that mindset shift.

If we have a little bit more of that mindset to ask open ended questions. I wonder what our product mix looks like against the types of customers that we serve and, cool, let's go find out. What does it look like? And you think that you know your customers so well because you're like in the job every single day.

You're like, yeah, I work here. Like I know [00:27:00] these people, you know, but like after a certain amount of time when you're so focused on task list and your day to day activities, like you can lose sight of opportunities pretty quickly just because you're in the weeds and that's the nature of working life.

So to conclude, today's discussion, I want to just point out that there is innovation that is happening in every ounce of a company and data is really what's driving it but more importantly, it's not just data points floating out there. It is that opportunity to get to know your customers so much better. Like y'all are already developing great relationships with these people. Log some of those relationship points so that you know how to be better for them in the future.

Alyssa: I couldn't have said it better myself.

Jordan: Oh, thanks. Alright, well, if you have any specific sales and marketing data questions, or if there is a use case [00:28:00] scenario that you would like to toss our way to talk about on the Insightly Podcast, then email us at hello@insightlypodcast.com. Bye!