April 2019 - Air Marketing

Outsourced Sales vs Hiring In-House – The Debate Continues…

Posted on 30 April 201929 June 2023 by Doug Roots

As a business owner, you want to grow your company, you want to increase your sales and marketing function and you want to build your sales pipeline. However, should you outsource this to the experts or try and do it yourself, in-house? As a topic that is discussed by businesses on a daily basis, the debate between outsourced vs in-house sales is rife. It’s important to note that outsourcing your sales and marketing is, on paper, no different to outsourcing your recruitment, accountancy, HR, IT and so on. We know that all of the above, as well as sales and marketing are specialist areas which are needed within a business to ensure a smooth operation. We also know that all of the above require time, expertise, resources and dedication and that is exactly why you should outsource, to take the pressure away and allow you to focus on what you do best. If you’re thinking about outsourcing your sales and marketing or hiring an internal team, there are quite a few elements to consider, before making that final decision:

Do you have the office space/capacity/management structure to manage new team members internally?
Are you fully up to date with GDPR compliancy? Are your systems and processes GDPR compliant?
Do you have a call recording function? Can you record calls for training purposes?
Do you have a system for recording transactions?
Do you have in house data analytics? Do you know what you’re looking for when it comes to reporting and data analysis?
Have you thought about recruitment costs? What happens if the first few aren’t performing for you? If you let them go, have you thought about the cost of re-hiring?
What about sickness / holiday impacting productivity and dialling?
Do you have a quality assurance team?
Do you have in-house expertise when it comes to creating and managing an outbound calling campaign?

With the costs, time and resource strain associated with hiring internally, most companies eventually decide to leave it to the experts. Of course, this comes at a price, but the value and return are usually far greater than trying to do it in house. Not only that, but the flexibility of outsourced providers can be far more attractive than the rigidity of an in-house team. Let’s look at the benefits of outsourcing to us and why companies decide to use Air:

We are GDPR compliant, offering expert advice, systems and processes.
We have access to UK based data providers at reduced rates.
We manage the agents, we manage the entire recruitment process and we take the pain away when it comes to finding the right talent for your campaign.
We have the resources to cater for sickness and holiday time to prevent it impacting productivity.
We have purpose-built systems and processes which feed directly into a live time portal, where you can see exactly what we are doing on a daily basis.
We have a team of in-house data analysts who can spot trends and provide feedback.
We are experts within our field and have a proven, open questioned and permission-based scripting structure – designed to engage in high level conversations with key decision makers.
We have a GDPR compliant call recording functionality, all calls are recorded and can be accessed by the client.
We have an in-house Quality Assurance team who provide valuable feedback to the diallers/campaigns and improve quality and productivity.
We have an in-house learning and development team to ensure the quality of work we produce is as high as it can be.

Certainly, there are a few things to consider before making your final decision but most of the clients that decide to work with us have either tried it internally and it hasn’t worked or, they want to benchmark their internal performance alongside the experts. If outsourcing is your preferred solution, then we can help. We position ourselves as an extension to your sales team and everything we do is totally transparent. In short, we position ourselves as part of your team, we aim to replicate your corporate identity and we see ourselves as a true partner, being honest and proactive with everything we do whilst taking the pain and hassle away from managing this internally and allowing you to focus on the bigger picture. If outsourcing your B2B sales is something that you’re interested in discovering more about, why not get in touch? Call: 0345 241 3038, or email contact@air-marketing.co.uk Opinion Piece by Marco Alfano-Rodgers, Client Services Director, Air Marketing Group

Why is it important to invest in marketing?

Posted on 25 April 20197 July 2023 by dukadmin

To put it bluntly, if you don’t invest in marketing, you won’t make progress. You may have the next big product, but without any marketing activity you will reach a standstill. From small start-ups to big corporations, every type of business in every industry can benefit from the increased brand awareness and heightened sales that marketing activity can bring. You only have to look to major companies, such as Apple, to see big business returns that come from one simple tactic – make a great product and market it well.

We know that sales are important to business success and that marketing is often an afterthought, or an add on when times are good, however with at Roots to Market, we combine sales and marketing. We call it marketing with a sales attitude and we provide sustainable brand awareness and delivery of marketing qualified leads.

What can marketing do for you?

Increase sales – When you invest in marketing your business, you invest in your business success and future profitability. Customers like to absorb information about a product as they make their way through the buyer journey, so it is key that you advertise your products or services. Using these advertisements, you can test, measure and refine your offering very quickly. This allows you to tightening your marketing efforts and, ultimately, obtain better results.
Raise brand awareness – Raising awareness is vital, so don’t be dismayed if sales aren’t instant. Customers may see an advert many times before they make a purchase but without putting marketing materials out there, they won’t see you at all. The markets are crowded, so it’s vital to make yourself heard.
Understand your metrics – Even if a campaign doesn’t reap amazing returns instantly, it will have provided you with vital data which will, in time, put you in the position to grow your sales. From understanding how much to bid on an advert, to how long your average customer takes to buy, understanding your metrics is key.
Build trust – You wouldn’t trust a total stranger with your money, would you? No, so why would a customer trust someone who has no presence? Customers will want to get to know you as a brand before even engaging with you, let alone making a purchase. The earlier you market your business, the longer your audience will have to follow your story and buy into the brand.

At Roots we have the advantage of being closely aligned to our sister company, Air Marketing Group, who specialise in outsourced B2B sales. Born from a sales environment, we are a marketing agency with a sales attitude and our results speak for themselves. Unlike other marketing agencies, we don’t solely focus on the ‘fluffy’ aspects of marketing. Whilst we know that those elements are important to build you up as a business, we integrate proven marketing tactics into activity to achieve not only brand awareness but also marketing qualified leads, including targeted content creation, intelligent direct marketing and lead scoring, so that you know exactly where prospects are in your pipeline and how likely they are to convert.

So, how can our marketing services help you? Here are just a handful of examples:

Social Media – Having a social media presence is a sure-fire way to grow brand awareness. As consumers are turning to social media and the internet to conduct their own research before making a purchase, it is vital that you have an online profile of some kind, even if it is just a space to push company news and updates. In fact, 91% of marketeers say that they noticed an increased in their brand visibility by spending a few hours a week on social media. We know how to get you started and implement a social media plan that gets you to where you need to be, a recent client saw a growth of 3122% in their prospect reach on Facebook.
Email Marketing – Email is a faithful friend of ours. Whilst some people may see it as a dated means of communication, now that many companies are investing spend in social media marketing, 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come via email. Email marketing is an adaptable and engaging way of communicating with potential and current clients. Whether you are looking to introduce yourself or nurture warm leads, email marketing is a direct way of getting your product in front of those you want to see it. Our team will get you seen, in a recent email campaign, for a client looking to target the health sector, we beat the industry average open rate and secured them 50 opportunities to nurture.
Marketing strategy planning and implementation – In order to get your business to where you want it to be, it is vital that you have a plan in place. According to Professor Richard Rumelt, there are 3 key elements to reaching your goal; diagnosis (what is the challenge you are facing), guiding policy (how will you deal with the challenge) and coherent action (what will be done to achieve this). We can help you come up with a solid plan that will gain tangible results for your business, in fact we did just that for our sister company, Air. With a marketing strategy in place that was implement by us, they saw a growth of 245% in just their second year of trading.

If you’re looking to invest in intelligent marketing that drives tangible results, get in touch with Roots to Market today. Call 01392 796 702 or email contact@roots2market.co.uk

Sales and Marketing: The Magic Mix

Posted on 1 April 2019 by dukadmin

You have a great product or service and you’ve been making good inroads with your sales and marketing activities; however, you’re still experiencing a cycle of revenue highs and lows. If you’re looking to expand your client base and maintain a more consistent flow of quality prospects, to convert into paying customers and bring stability to your business then read on.

Having a strong relationship between your sales and marketing team is vital. Yet, some businesses still find it hard to align these two very important functions of the business, in some cases, they are run completely independent of each other.

Organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing functions enjoy 38% higher sales win rates. From the types of people that sit within the departments, to their approach to technology, the contrast between sales and marketing teams can sometimes cause friction and can put unnecessary strain on your business. With them not working together, you won’t be able to expand your client base and nurture quality leads, which may turn into high paying customers.

Here are 5 things you can implement to align your sales and marketing teams for greater business success and a more enjoyable working environment:

Communication

It is important that sales and marketing have a great relationship, how do you encourage this? By ensuring the lines of communication are kept open.

Make sure the two have ample opportunity to talk to each other. Sales should be aware of what marketing activities are taking place and marketing should be aware of how sales are going to activate the marketing. B2B companies’ inability to align sales and marketing teams around the right processes and technologies costs 10% or more of revenue per year. Any conscientious marketing team will be asking “what can we do to make the job of the sales team easier?” Sales on the other hand should be thinking about how and what to report back to marketing; which assets are working and is there any valuable customer feedback? 60-70% of B2B content created is never used. In many cases, this is because the topic is irrelevant to the buyer audience

Technology

Has your business evaluated the tools it’s using to ensure they are helping everyone, and more importantly, is everyone using them? Today’s sophisticated technology offers real time data and functionality to support multiple ways of working, from the way you access it, to the way you use it. From this data, your business can gather really intelligent insights to prospects and customer interactions. Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or more bump in revenue in 6-9 months’ time.

As long as your teams are trained to use these tools and understand their capabilities there is no excuse for your sales and marketing teams not to be aligned in using the same technology. Ensuring both teams are making the best use and are working within the preferred platform will offer a deeper, richer level of reporting, improve the lead-management process, customer experience and the day to day running of your business.

Strategy

Is there a clearly defined strategy? Are both sales and marketing aware of this strategy? The business and its teams have got to know what you’re selling, how you’re selling it and to whom.

Understanding your ideal customer is the first fundamental step in a successful strategy. Developing buyer personas and getting them right will enrich the work that follows. Until you can nail down your ideal customer profile and what you can offer them, there is little point moving forward, as this forms the platform for all of the work that follows. 71%of companies who exceed revenue and lead goals have documented personas. Once you have this in place you can target the perfect customer, get prospects to engage with you online, build brand awareness, direct traffic to your website and build an online community around your business.

Goal Alignment

At the very least sales and marketing should be working towards the same goals. Both should have visibility of the strategy and targets, with plenty of opportunity to communicate between the two on activity, successes, the ideal customer journey and campaign dates and timelines. Companies with “dynamic, adaptable sales and marketing processes” report an average of 10% more sales people on-quota compared to other companies.

In essence marketing should be setting up sales with leads who have had some touch points with your product or service. Aligning any messages and content to enable sales success. If sales do not know how and when to activate the marketing work, then everyone’s efforts are in vain and the opportunity may be missed. Aligning your teams and their efforts like this will ensure any activity will be visible and dealt with efficiently, resulting in closure one way or another.

Quality over quantity

Are the leads being generated meaningful and of a high quality? In an ideal world marketing should only be passing over high quality leads that are sales ready and match your ideal customer profile. However, some leads, whilst they may look good on paper, through further investigation and an initial phone call may not be right or may need further nurturing. 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to sales, but only 27% of those leads will be qualified.

Relying on your technology to help pipeline these leads and ensure that you keep your business at the front of their mind until they are ready, becomes an important part of the process. Highlighting the importance of the technology you use and how thoroughly your teams are using it. 18% of salespeople don’t know what a CRM is.

Marketing qualified leads are only part of what will be going on behind the scenes. Marketing should also be proactively targeting the companies that you want to do business with, nurturing these prospects to generate leads and to create opportunities that help you to meet your commercial objectives. Sales should be ready to pick up on this and continue nurturing prospects.

To be truly successful, sales and marketing must align, working to support each other. Behind every great sales team there is a set of marketing processes and principles being implemented. For your marketing activity to be truly successful there must be a sales process ready to activate it. Alignment of your sales and marketing will in turn bring business success and increase your revenue.

At Roots we are very lucky to have a great working relationship with Air Marketing Group, our sister company and award winning outsourced B2B sales and acquisition specialist. Meaning, that as well as having the skills and capabilities to merge with your own sales team, we can also integrate Air into your company if required.

If you want to align your sales and marketing teams, but don’t have the resource or expertise in-house, get in touch with us and we will help you to create an undivided sales and marketing function for your business. Give us a call today on: 01392 796 702 or email: contact@roots2market.co.uk

Month: April 2019