Blog

When you hear about the benefits of marketing automation, most discussion centres around benefits for the marketing team. Not surprising, given that we are talking about a solution designed to streamline marketing activity.

But there are significant benefits for sales teams, too, from automating some of your marketing processes. Sales are often an internal client of the marketing team – users of marketing content and partnering with marketing colleagues to develop business development materials.

What benefits can marketing automation deliver for your sales team?

What does ‘marketing automation’ mean for Sales teams?

Automation in this context can cover a range of solutions. It could mean CSM (customer/client service management) systems, that store and manage your contact data.

It could refer to automated workflow tools that help you to project manage your sales and marketing activity.

It could mean a system that makes it easier to produce sales materials – presentations, pitch documents and proposals – by using online slide libraries or pre-branded templates.

In a world where sales teams are increasingly joining their marketing colleagues in sharing content via social media, it could mean content automation solutions that help you to schedule and share posts across a number of platforms.

How can sales teams benefit from using automation?

Automation in any of its forms can deliver significant benefits for sales teams wanting to increase efficiency and effectiveness.

• Create presentations and pitch documents faster

Using template-based solutions to automate the production of your sales documents can save you significant time. Branded templates ensure branding is taken care of – meaning you can dedicate your time to the things that really matter; understanding your prospects’ challenges and tailoring your proposals to them.

Templates can be pre-populated with up-to-date corporate information and data – no more hunting around for correct AUM or employee numbers.

If you work for a regulated company, this not only speeds your own production process, but also fast-tracks compliance team approval – all of which helps when you’re up against an RFP deadline.

• Reduce the time you spend on administration

If you’re a business developer, admin is an unwanted distraction. You want to spend time on getting to know your clients and prospects – not on paperwork.

Automation can help you to create compliant audit trails, and slash the time you spend searching for pitch and proposal content. Minimise manual intervention and devote your time to creating proposals that showcase your business.

• Focus on what matters

It’s probably a safe bet that creating PowerPoint presentations and pitches isn’t really what excites you about sales. Most business developers want to focus on building solutions to their prospects’ challenges – not on finessing charts and graphs.

Automation enables you to create impactful presentations simply and quickly, using on-brand templates to ensure brand compliance – and giving you time to dedicate to your presentation’s content, rather than the visuals.

• Create, update and review sales documents on the move

A good sales person wants to be out of the office, visiting clients and prospects, as much as possible. A good sales automation tool enables this, allowing you to optimise your time by accessing sales documents wherever you are. Update presentations and proposals remotely, wherever you end up working.

• Work more closely with your marketing team

Automation can help to break down the walls between marketing and sales; both teams rely on the same systems to manage pipeline, capture interactions, nurture leads and access collateral.

As sales teams grow more involved in content marketing, sharing thought leadership to build relationships, they need always-on access to materials their clients and prospects might find useful. Automated platforms can provide sales teams with this material, while marketing teams are confident that any new collateral produced by sales is on point with regard to branding and version control.

The benefits of automation for sales teams

It’s clear, then, that there are numerous benefits for sales teams of exploring marketing automation platforms. Automation can help you to create more professional sales documents, faster and with quicker sign-off. Automated solutions enable you to channel your energies into bespoking your content for your prospects – rather than toiling over PowerPoint design.

If you’d like to find out more, you can download a copy of our white paper, A Practical Guide to On-Demand Marketing Automation. The white paper is free, and you can request a copy here.

Nothing in this document should be treated as an authoritative statement of the law. Action should not be taken as a result of this document alone. We make no warranty and accept no responsibility for consequences arising from relying on this document.