These days sales and marketing departments must increasingly work together and interact more smartly to attract prospects and retain customers. Those days when each department believe they know whom ‘their’ customer is are numbered.
With the recession biting harder these two teams must use the knowledge and tools at their disposal to really understand who wants to buy, who does buy, and what old and new customers alike are interested in purchasing.
Here are three tips to identify customer ‘personas’ which will have the most chance of hearing about a brand’s services, and as a result become more ready to convert:
1. Define The Buying Stages In The Sales Funnel – A product will likely have a lifespan. For example, a product or service will usually have a launch, a middle, an upgrade, and an end so sales and marketing teams can plot communications accordingly. Within that lifespan it is possible to chart specific purchase stages and levels of interest from customers. It’s possible to build a model of a customer’s anticipated tendencies to research and interact with the product.
2. Focus On The Data – Sales and marketing campaigns will have generated highly valuable data. It’s worth using the data generated traditionally contained in a contacts database to mine for patterns and dig deep for customer profiles. These days a powerful CRM system will most likely be an essential as it will hold the results from prospecting and outbound activity run through multiple marketing channels including email, social media, and mobile. It will also highlight the results of marketing automation campaigns which makes it easy for trends and any new customer segments to be reviewed and refined.
3. Get Sales Team Insight – Members of the sales teams will have lots of direct contact with existing and warm leads. As a result they will know daily what these contacts like, what their sweet spot, hurdle, or pain point is. By using this extra level of knowledge it’s possible to shape the behaviours and characteristics of the’ ideal’ customer. A business can then create bespoke products and services which address their unique requirements.
The evolution of the ‘persona’ mean that ultimately marketing can be more precisely targeted. When these three techniques are put together sales and marketing teams will have a much better picture of who they are really talking to and what each of those target customers desires. The full range of marketing channels can be evoked to activate subsequent compelling communications.
