Learn to Master Lead Nurturing in Marketo and Beyond

Several years ago, I encountered a situation I continue to reflect on. I was asked to create demand for a fintech firm that had built an interesting product on top of existing technology. As I learned more about the business they were in, I saw tremendous opportunity to make this area scalable for financial firms, and thus make us money.

Or so I thought.

The CEO eventually explained to me that he believed his market was “50 companies and 500 people.”

I thought we needed a scalable SaaS play that went beyond 50 firms. There were hundreds of possible customers who wanted to reduce costs in this area, and do it at scale. And if it were my business, I would have built the product for that scale. A company that serves 50 other large firms? Seemed limiting to me for the solution and sector we were going after.

Now there are some solutions that do only have 50 organizations to sell to. I knew a salesperson who went to such a firm where their sales cycle paid out on each stage of the sale they advanced, even if they didn’t close. That’s how valuable these projects were.

As I’ve thought more and more about ABM, my sense is that while I might have been right from a product perspective, the CEO was also right. What he wanted was Account Based Marketing. He wanted me to get those 500 people for the sales team and have those 500 people excited to consider us. His company provided customized solutions for this space, not large scale SaaS. Doing so required a completely different mindset than typical demand/lead generation I was building out.

When we think about ABM, we need to consider the firm’s strategy, the product, and the TAM.

• Size of TAM
• Product Scale
• Marketing Scale

While the Product-Market Fit stage may be an ideal place to focus on that “50 Company” group, are you planning to go beyond that? If so, your decisions about the product and how to deliver it will be very different than if you decide your firm services 50 companies vs. 5000.

There are many companies that do well with highly custom solutions for 50 companies. Those service providers, however, are not very large.

I suspect many of you reading this work for companies that are building scale, or at scale, providers of a product. If so, your approach to building ABM operations will be very different than going after 50 companies.

The 50 Company Approach

The summary of the 50 Company Approach is that the small number of marketers required are going to be embedded with Sales, almost as solution consultants. The marketer will be a visionary or a consultant, and a part of the sales and customer process. Some firms will have the CEO do this instead. In this world, you do not need marketing automation or large scale MOPS. You will need personalized service.

The 50,000 Company Approach

In this large scale world, your product and marketing operations work at scale. Most marketers, sadly, will be at a distance from Sales and Customers because they are attempting to tell the company’s story at scale, automatically. This type of work provides Sales “cover” and a library of stories for the buyer personas, verticals, etc. The product itself will have a level of customization that can be done at scale with settings. Large customers will always want personalized service through professional services.

Ultimately, the difference is in the company’s strategy and the implications of that choice on operations. As long as that choice is deliberate, there isn’t a wrong answer.

Operational Implications of Strategy

Since most of us are in Marketing Operations, we are faced with the implications of the company’s strategic direction. If the Company made a clear choice and communicated that well, the business operations (MOPS, SOPS, Finance, etc) can make the implied choices well. If the Company doesn’t make a clear set of strategic choices, you’ll see that in muddled operations.

Other examples include the operations required to service 50,000 small companies vs. 5,000 larger size companies. Each side of the business will require almost an entirely separate set of operational paths and people to deliver the service well.

• Servicing Companies under 100 people implies
  • limited or no professional services
  • take it or leave it product
  • customizations in the product
  • some APIs or out of the box connectors with limited support
  • lead generation approach would be effective
  • Email and web based support, self service.
  • Inside sales only.
  • MOPS works more like e-commerce funnel to, high scale personalization, larger batches.
  • Martech choices will look toward scale, integrations, product connection, and data quality rather than ABM.
• Servicing Companies Over 100 People implies
  • ABM setup
  • SDR and Field Sales
  • Live support or paid support options
  • Ecosystem of VARs or Consultants
  • Limited in house consultants for largest clients
  • Heavily supported API or connectors
  • MOPS develops personalization based on Accounts, flow is more traditional SiriusDecisions model.
  • Martech choices will look at ABM more and focus more on Sales enablement.

Of course, there are plenty of options here for a company to select from.

As you progress in your MOPS role, it’s important to work closely with executives and product teams to design the most effective setup for your strategy.

The day is fast approaching: May 25, 2018, the first day of GDPR enforcement.

The day of reckoning for marketers who didn’t build a subscription center.

The day of reckoning for marketers who haven’t opted in people from the start.

The day your hard work needs to be done.

The good news is that this is the right time to make the pitch for Permission Marketing where everyone is opted in and expecting your message, rather than foisting it upon them. It’s the best time to allocate resources to making marketing treat your audience the way you want to be treated. It’s the right time to Operationalize what you know is the right thing to do.

This is an Opportunity to go from something you know your Marketing team should do, to one that you must do.

I want to share a few of the resources I’ve come across for Operationalizing many of the GDPR rules. Please keep in mind this is not legal advice. Please review the resources and work with your Legal Counsel to properly setup your system for Consent Management.

Overviews of GDPR

• Understanding GDPR [Marketo webinar]
• GDPR Summary for Marketo Customers
• Sirius Decisions Privacy Compliance Model
• Perkuto’s GDPR Resource Center

Operationalization of GDPR and Privacy

• Building a Full Subscription Center – one of the key parts is to be explicit about the kinds of communication the Lead can opt in to. It is no longer enough to have a generic “opt in”.
• GDPR and The Marketer: A Practical Guide [Marketo] – this is a pretty good guide that describes a number of key things to build inside Marketo to manage consent.

Basics of GDPR

Here’s the quick run down from what I’ve seen so far:

• Opt-in or Double Opt In systems will be mostly compliant if you built them already.
• Record Consent for Email, Phone, and Website communications.
• Encrypt all systems and all transfers between systems. [Update: transfers should be encrypted, however, disk level encryption may not be always required. Please review with your Legal and IT teams.]
• Stop sharing Spreadsheets (Use a secure file service).
• Work with Third Party Vendors to ensure proper opt in and transfer compliance.
• Setup rules to handle data from each Country. Make sure Marketers know this.
• Consider using Workspaces and Lead Partitions to reduce access to “need to know” staff.
• If you’re CASL Compliant already, much of the work may already done.
• Event Opt In Matters – record consent!
• Consider calling your work “Consent Management”.
• Securing your database – use Admin tools to lock down your system.

Again, please work with your Legal team to ensure your processes are fully GDPR compliant.

[Updated: Mar 17, 2018 with new content]

The purpose of the data provided to SDRs and AEs is to help them prepare for the first call with a person within a buying center. The secondary purpose is help SDRs further connect the dots of potential buying centers within an organization. Whether that’s one center or twenty, the SDR must assist in gathering this data, going beyond what Marketing can reasonably provide through tracking and enrichment.

Once Marketing determines a Person, Account, or Buying Team may be ready for an initial Sales outreach, we send the record over to an SDR. The usual process is an Email Alert or maybe a CRM Task. Then the SDR clicks into the Record (a “read” lead) to prepare for the call. 

Back in the day, just 10 years ago, I had very little information about most of my leads. LinkedIn had not yet reached a saturation point and cross-channel data was far more difficult to obtain for B2B. Thus, I would contact my leads to learn more about what their needs were and schedule a meeting if possible.

The information given, of course, varied. Inbound emails might just say “Contact me about X.” Sometimes they were more specific about “I need GDP forecast data on the 30 top countries.” Regardless, I viewed it as my job to learn more about why they needed the information so I could direct them to the right product. My process included:

• Is the email address corporate or personal? (Indicated commitment and possible priority)
• Look up company’s website.
• Open Hoover’s to learn about company hierarchy and setup if needed; verify key data to see if this was a real person or entity.
• Think a bit about the person’s role and why they might need my services.
• Do this as quickly as possible before my competitors call the person back.

I became a top salesperson for consulting because I asked about needs and knew what was off the shelf and what was not. I took the time to leverage tools like Hoover’s to connect dots and see which buying centers existed in a firm. Were the buyers in my territory, or another salesperson’s? Were there two or three potential groups or people who would be interested?

So if you’re an SDR who thinks your job is to ask only for a meeting with your AE, you are doing yourself, your firm, and the prospect a disservice.

Today, marketing operations and sales operations can deliver huge amounts of behavior and demographic information on a Person or Account. Lead to Account matching is increasingly automated. Theoretically, the SDR or AE should be freed from mundane data entry to focus on understanding the person and buying team. The SDR and AE should be able to prepare deeply for any call.

Yet, this isn’t what I see happening.

Today, if I were in sales, I might have all sorts of signals to sort through:

• MQL – someone said this lead met a minimum threshold indicating a call may be likely to have a meaningful discussion.
• Lead Score – way to sort today’s MQLs from high to low.
• Enriched demographics – titles, address, industry, likely correct address and direct dial. (no extra research!).
• Behaviors – might see recent website visits, clicked emails, sent emails, form fills, etc. With omni-channel tools I might see other sites they are using.
• Enriched Signals – I might also know more about their company’s funding situation, new leases, news, latest leadership changes, hierarchies, connected records we already know about.
• LinkedIn – direct URL or view into profile without leaving my browser tab. Who is this person? What’s their experience? Are they senior? Junior? Do they write/speak about these topics? Do they know people in common?
• Product Interest – either from Trial, direct request, pages viewed.

Despite all this data, I still get feedback from Sales that

• It’s not accurate
• They didn’t close
• They aren’t ready
• They didn’t want to talk
• Not enough detail to call
• Etc…

So is more information necessarily better? Are salespeople that overworked they can’t read the records in front of them?

• Read the information on the record.
• Look at the behavioral history, whether that’s campaign, etc…
• Think hard. What is the lead looking at? Is there a pattern? What line of questioning or conversation would make sense?
• Never call and say “So I saw you downloaded our whitepaper on…” It’s creepy, off-putting, and doesn’t get the conversation going in the right direction.

Here’s my advice for reading the behavior and demographic information as a salesperson:

Goal of the SDR on a Phone Call

As Stephan Schiffman says, the only goal of a Cold Call is to Make an Appointment. Ideally, that Appointment includes a basic agenda and the people on the call have a clearer idea of the meeting’s purpose.

Preparing for the Call

This involved asking a series of questions, which ideally are on a sheet where you can write some notes. Other than the obvious ones above, it helps a lot to research the Organization itself. Do you understand the history of the firm? What is their business model? What might the person actually care about?

Pretty sure we’ve all read business books where someone takes credit for a brilliant deal that was helped by a simple insightful question.

Preparing Good Questions

• SPIN Selling and other questioning tools.
• Can only come from preparation and understanding the business, industry, and person.
• Active research helps you understand more than getting spoon fed. Use the basics as a jumping off point.
• Data is not the terrain – sales still has to find out the real skinny on what’s happening inside the Account.

When should an SDR Recycle a Lead or Account?

Recycled leads are never what a marketer wants to see, but it does happen. Does Sales enjoy it? Hard to say. Sometimes I wonder if Sales treats high volume leads like candidates for a job – any indication the candidate (or lead) isn’t right is an excuse to send them away. Salespeople often “just know” a Lead isn’t going to buy, or isn’t qualified. In MOPS, it’s important to listen to that data and intuition to operationalize it, not just debunk it. At the same time, sales should take seriously that any MQL has a reason for being that way and to make a real effort to contact the person in an appropriate way.

A person (lead) may not be ready for a real conversation, however, within an Account, there could be 30 people related to your solution area. Spend some time connecting the dots with relationship tools, questions, and behaviors. Several people sniffing around your website indicates something is happening at that Account. An SDR or BDR should pay attention to these signals across multiple people.

Recycling or Downgrading an Account generally shouldn’t happen until there’s a hard “no” from the Buying Team, whether they deferred action, stuck with the status quo, or purchased a competitor. And the “no” just means taking that Account off the focus list for 6 months.

Over the past ten years, marketing operations has taken on, as one of its missions, to deliver high quality information about every Lead and Account that is passed to Sales. The perennial complaint from salespeople, especially Sales Development Reps (SDRs) is “There isn’t enough information on the lead record to make the call,” or “This person isn’t qualified” and no call is attempted.

As a former inside rep (SDR), BDR, and field sales manager, I think that’s BS.

As a marketing ops leader, I look for ways to improve the MQL experience by positioning key information at the top of the screen. Training on process and where to find information in Salesforce is also helpful. Of course, continual re-training is necessary for the habits to stick.

Good Sales Habits Start Early with Good Sales Leadership

A good Sales leader will find SDRs hungry to grow into full Account Executive, BDR, or Sales Manager roles. The trainable type, of course, tend to be fresh to the workforce or in their early 20s. We could argue a lot about ageism in SDR hiring, but this is a reality.

Young SDRs need a leader who understands habit development as well as which habits to instill

Many companies skimp on sales and inside/SDR training. Young SDRs are thrown into the pit and expected to either dial for dollars or help make appointments for your AEs. The smart SDRs read up on their job and learn how to do more than just make appointments. Perhaps you’ve noticed the SDRs who get promoted 1) meet their quotas and 2) close small deals, proving they are valuable staff.

More experienced SDRs need clear training and leadership

Whenever I encounter “resistance” from SDRs on process or information, I look to the managers to see if they are training or enforcing the agreed rules. Sometimes it’s just that Sales decided to modify the rules or try new scripts without discussing it with Marketing. Just as often I see Managers giving SDRs permission to recycle leads that “aren’t good enough.” If Sales allows Marketing to do more of the “farming” part of the role, then Sales should have an easier time finding the crops as they ripen. Ultimately this comes down to a very clear set of processes that both Marketing and Sales follow to deliver MQLs for SDR follow up.

TOPOHQ emphasizes training for SDRs because the follow up matters as much as the goal. Sales think MQLs aren’t good if they don’t close immediately, but that’s because quota carrying reps are speaking to MQLs. SDRs are meant to prepare and qualify people and Accounts. And just as Stephan Schiffman says the purpose of a cold call is to obtain a Meeting, an SQL has to be willing meet with a rep, according to TOPO.

Resources for Aspiring SDRs

• TOPOHQ
• HubSpot Sales Blog
• SalesHacker on SDRs
• Definition of SDR and another one.
• Salesloft
• How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger
• Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work by Stephan Schiffman
• SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
• The Challenger Customer by Corporate Executive Board

These resources come down to two components of successful sales:

1. Keep someone interested long enough to set a substantive meeting.
2. Ask effective questions to learn about needs and match your solution to those needs.
3. Don’t fit square pegs into round holes. Be willing to walk away from solution-need mismatch.

Many of the more advanced sales workflow systems attached to SFDC attempt to help Salespeople follow a process, especially on questioning techniques. While I like putting inexperienced people on “rails” when there’s a tight process, that’s not a long term career path for most people.

Next, we’ll discuss how to use all of the information given to salespeople.