In a previous post, we have discussed the importance of understanding, on both a personal and professional level, the decision-makers and influences of your target market. We also talked about the importance of identifying that aspect of your business’s offering that truly makes it uniquely remarkable and competitive. This intel is the core of your sales and marketing campaign’s plan.

Now that your plan is in place, you are at the part in your journey where your team must begin equipping themselves with the right tools and resources to get the job done. It’s time to gear up.

Why are there so many tools for sales and marketing people?

The resources, information and tools available to sales and marketing professionals, is somewhat endless. Once you begin to look (if you haven’t already) you will be inundated with a host of tools ranging in prices, sizes, styles, features and functions.

One of the many reasons why there are so many sales and marketing tools out there is simply because every business must sell and market their products/services. Thus, specific tools have been built to support the myriad of sales and marketing professionals out there. This is great because specialty tools exist; however, things can also get dicey because you may never know which tool(s) to invest in.

What are the different types of sales and marketing tools out there?

Listing and discussing the different types of sales and marketing tools available on the open market… well that would take years. The point we want to make here is that sales and marketing tools often exist to help sales and marketing professionals with three basic functions:

• Pulling prospective customers towards their company
• Pushing their company’s message onto prospective customers
• Easing an administrative burden in doing the pulling or pushing

Nowadays, pulling prospective customers in is called ‘inbound marketing’. Digital tools like social media sites, search engines, and blogs are great examples of basic inbound marketing tools. On the other hand, pushing your message onto a prospective customer is called ‘outbound marketing’. Tools such as email marketing, telemarketing, telesales, and direct mailing are great examples of basic outbound marketing tools.

1. Interpersonal Skills Develop Relationships

Businesses are organizations made up of people. A sales and marketing professional’s ability to build strong professional relationships with the people within a prospective customer’s organization is the bedrock of landing new deals. These relationships must be authentic in nature and aligned in purpose.

2. Communication Tools for Outbound Marketing

A sales and marketing professional must be able to reach out and touch prospective customers. In the old days, you may have simply walked up to a goat farmer’s farm to offer him some feed for his goats. With new communication technologies like the mail, telephones, e-mail, video, the internet, Bluetooth beacons, virtual reality and more, it is easier than ever to reach someone; however, it is also harder than ever to have your message heard. The right tools empower your message to make an impact.

3. Scripts and Templates Help You Scale

Once your sales and marketing team begin to gain confidence that they have found a message that is capturing the attention of prospective customers and motivating them to buy your products and services, you will want to scale your effort so that more prospective customers may be reached in an efficient, consistent and effective fashion. Email templates, calling scripts and the proper content on your website will prove to be advantageous.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Track Your Activities

As you scale your outreach, you will want to continue to track you and your team’s activities with some sort of customer relationship management tool. This can be as easy as a notebook or a digital spreadsheet. It can also be as robust as a cloud-based mobile application that tracks every email sent, every call made, and every conversation had. Tracking this data will allow you to understand what is and what is not working.

5. Lead Generation Tools for Inbound Marketing

Earlier we noted some basic inbound marketing tools. These tools, and others like them, generate sales leads by driving traffic to your website or social media page and capturing those leads by offering them with something of value. These inbound leads often have a need/want for a solution like yours and thus may convert into a customer more efficiently than outbound leads.      

Here at Fulcrum Sales & Marketing, we build sales and marketing campaigns with our clients and implement them on their behalf. Our professionally trained sales team identifies leads, qualifies leads and sets appointments with those leads and your team. Our first step in working together is gathering information. Next, we leverage that information gathered to put a plan in place and begin developing the right tools. Whether it be inbound marketing services (lead generation), outbound marketing services (appointment setting) or sales consulting/training – our second step is to gear-up.