10 Tips for Supporting the Sales Team in Today's Environment

The traditional role of marketing is to create awareness of the brand, company and products through various tactics such as advertising, trade shows, public relations, email and others. Marketing is also expected to generate inquiries and leads that sales can turn into prospects and, ultimately, clients.

But the way people buy has changed dramatically, as Todd Ebert details in this eBook, due to the prevalence of information and opinion online and in social media. Very often sales joins the conversation long after prospects have heard about an offering, researched it and solicited advice from others. With this in mind, how can SMB marketers support sales?

The good news is that, despite the changes, the core objectives for marketing remain the same: directing sales to the right opportunities, promoting the organization and offering, and providing tools and information to equip sales to close deals.

Affinity Express recently hired Rick Ashcroft and Brent Hoxsey, two retail industry veterans, to help grow our business in the segment. Working with them over the past couple of months has enabled me to develop the following checklist you can use to cover all the bases with your sales team.

1.       Build a target list

If you don't tell sales what and who to sell, you can bet they will sell whatever they want. Instead, your first step should be to decide on the segments and accounts you want sales to target. Describe your ideal customer(s) and list the reasons why. How large are these clients in terms of revenue, number of employees or other criteria? Does your company do well at displacing competitors or selling early adopters? What kind of unmet needs should sales look for? You might not be able to build a perfect database but you should take the time to compile as much information as you can. There is no need to buy a prospect list anymore, since you can find names of companies online from various industry sites and publications, as well as on LinkedIn.