• September 14, 2017
• EMEA, Intent Data, Sales and Marketing Alignment

4 Ways Data is Enhancing Marketing’s Relationship with Sales in EMEA

Insight from marketing leaders at TechTarget’s London ROI Summit

Data is an essential component to any MarTech infrastructure, and investment in good quality data is crucial to the pipeline value it can bring. TechTarget’s 2017 Media Consumption Research showed that 88% of users want sales reps to know more about their company and its unique requirements before calling.  In order to enable sales to have meaningful conversations with prospects, marketers need to arm them with more quality data on the accounts and prospects they are calling into.

During our recent EMEA ROI Summit in London, one of the three marketer-led panels shed some light on how data is changing marketing’s relationship with sales. The panel featured Alun Hunt, Global Marketing Director, Cintra Software and Services; Claire Marshall, EMEA Field Marketing Director, Dyn; and Rakhee Pandya, Marketing Manager – Northern Europe, Arcserve.

The entire panel session can be viewed here. Here are four distinct key takeaways:

1. An effective partnership with Sales requires full pipeline visibility

In many organizations, there exists a divide between Marketing and Sales. Classically, Marketing has owned the top of the funnel and Sales owned the bottom. When Sales has no insight into top of funnel opportunities, they are less likely to accept Marketing Qualified Leads that come through that need to be moved through the funnel.  And when Marketing has no visibility into leads that are leading to closed/won opportunities or conversely, where leads may be getting held up in the process, they do not get the insight to make any adjustments needed to tactics. New sources of data and insight which help uncover the purchase intent of buyers are helping Marketing identify potential opportunities for Sales faster and giving Sales the knowledge they need to have more productive conversations to move prospects through the pipeline. However, no data is good enough to fix broken processes alone. Marketing and Sales must commit to full transparency across the entire pipeline in order to forge the most effective partnership.

2. Intent data is driving more effective nurture flow and lead handover

Marketers are building smarter lead nurture flows through insights gained from studying purchase intent data, which is available through sources such as TechTarget’s Priority Engine. A data-optimized nurture flow means leads are educated via the most relevant content, targeting the right pain points. This approach yielded an impressive 25% Open Rate and 11% CTR for one of the panellists in our session. While data is crucial for helping Sales ensure that they have a strong understanding of a lead’s content engagement and activity history before making contact, it is also helping Marketing to pinpoint when the right time to pass leads through  in order to maximize opportunities.

3. True personalization requires deep insight and continuously updated data sources

In an age where emails and calls are copious, personalization through good quality data is crucial if an organization wants to stand out amongst competitors. Generic pitches just don’t get the job done. If Marketing can pass true purchase intent data with opportunities that showcase the specific interests of buyers, content they have downloaded and competitors they are engaged with, Sales is well-informed and can conduct outreach at the right time, with the right approach for each lead. And with sources of data that are updated weekly, they are truly enabled to read the intent signals of accounts and prospects in order to have topic-driven conversations based on the unique needs of buyers right now rather than traditional product-driven approaches.

4. Regular, clear communications is crucial to achieve Mutual buy-in between Sales and Marketing teams

In order to efficiently gain ROI with limited budget, it is in Marketing’s interest to have pre-campaign strategy conversations with Sales to prevent silo-ed decisions. Marketing should take a consultative approach, listen actively and work tightly with sales to understand the pain points Sales is experiencing at the front line. Data sharing as well as frequent and honest communication are crucial if both teams want to get the most out of this partnership.

Proven Partners: on working with TechTarget

Each of the panellist have worked with TechTarget throughout their quests to achieve the above four points. They see true, tangible results by investing in TechTarget’s Priority Engine and linking it to TechTarget Content Marketing campaigns to better track and pre-qualify leads. Furthermore, the real-time purchase intent data gained from Priority Engine helped them enable more intelligent Sales efforts, which in turn contributed to a stronger rapport with their Sales team.

b2b purchase intent insight, data-driven marketing, EMEA marketing strategies, marketing and sales alignment, nurturing