What can Marketing Learn from Sales Development Representatives?

While working towards a fresh campaign to introduce a new product, all the teams are required to work in sync be it marketing or sales in order to put the same communication across the market. Too often, the importance of working together is missed out when the teams are focused on setting the strategies and planning for the campaign within their own team. The beginning of any campaign is the perfect time to start building the bridge between both the teams. It is required to get the response back from the target market and there comes a Sales Development Representative, the point of contact with the customers.

Get Familiar with Sales Development Representative

You will have to get familiar with the roles of the Sales development representative to best incorporate them into the team. The role of a sales development representative (SDR) centers on the work of moving leads through the pipeline. They work with the marketing team in order to identify the right accounts and prospects to go after. They also look for opportunities and provide a definite voice to the sales process. Someone has to be there to make sure things are running in the right way, pick out the defects, and push the quality stuff to the next stage of the process. Digging deep into the role of the SDR gives a much clear picture of them being a part of the marketing team.

SDRs are provided with lead lists from the marketing and then email and dial prospects to qualify the leads. This enables the closers to save some extra time and spend selling to qualified leads. The sales process shortens with better conversion rates.
Additionally, it lightens the job of sales executives from having to engage in prospecting.

"If people like you, they will listen to you, but, if they trust you they will do business with you."
- Zig Ziglar

SDRs become the bridge between sales and marketing team by, making the very first move ineffective marketing. If your company is ready to tap the market with a fresh product, the first step in the marketing process is saying 'Hello' to the SDR in order to gain these learnings:

1. More of qualified leads:

Leads that are relevant provide time and energy efficiencies for sales development reps. One of the excitements for SDR could be going through a new lead list of prospects with titles that are worth spending the time with. It becomes highly frustrating and uninspiring to see a list of new leads who don't have the right job titles.

2. Gain insights about customer pain points:

Rather than, simply investing time in listening to sales development calls, marketers can get to the approaches that work in these conversations and the concepts that resonate with potential leads. From here, marketers can reuse the 'one-liner' in the content to persuade the audience into buying decisions. This eventually streamlines the marketing techniques with qualified leads.

3. The better understanding of the up-sell and cross-sell:

At times, marketers can feed leads to the reps when a prospect engages with the content that is not right for the products that reps are selling. This happens when the prospect downloads an eBook that is created by marketing and does not really intend to become an enterprise customer. It is important for the marketers to understand what the potential client's intentions are while engaging with the content in order to filter the leads and feed only the vetted ones to the reps.

4. A/B testing of content for SDR email efforts:

Sales development campaigns through emails can use the understanding of the marketers in terms of content. Through A/B testing and constant analysis of the content, marketers can help in providing an idea of the content that resonates with prospects. As sales development need new content for including in the emails to connect better with quality leads and don't always have the time to analyze what's working, they surely can use the marketing team. Marketing should place more emphasis on the lines of communication open with SDRs which will keep the reps posted on the content which is generating an impactful engagement. Also, while working together with SDRs, the marketing team can nicely utilize SDR email efforts for testing the value of specific parts of the content that are lower in the funnel.

5. Understand buyer's journey from SDR front-line experience:

Right from the top to the content team, all marketers can gain insights by listening to SDRs, who get associated during one of the most important parts of the buyer's journey. SDRs being the first interaction a prospect has with a company can provide direct feedback on the campaigns. The content team can work according to the feedback on their campaigns, which can an improve future content generation. SDR can also give upper management a holistic understanding of what the buyers are experiencing in this crucial phase of the buyer's journey. Everyone in line can gain some feedback to work towards the product and services depending on the feedback.

6. Increase revenue:

It is costing you much to keep a large team of account executives and them wasting time contacting leads who aren't qualified. Equipped with the right data and direction from marketing, a dedicated team of sales development representatives costs much less while they prevent leads from slipping through the cracks.

In order to maximize the team's success, the leaders of the business must ensure that sales development gets attentive oversight. By tapping into professional and behavioral information about your prospects, you're SDR and marketing teams can learn why a prospect might use your product and when is the best time for them to buy. So, if, your company already has an SDR team it is a must that they channelize their job structure around the marketing team from the very beginning. The more informed the SDRs are, the more personalize and impactful their pitch becomes.

These personalized connections result in more favorable outcomes. In the end, the goal is mutual i.e. improving engagement for improved revenues. So, companies that are in account-based marketing approaches feel the need of marketing, sales, and SDR to collaborate with their roles aligned to achieve to keep its goal-oriented.
Rahul Thakur
Rahul Thakur> all articles
Rahul Thakur is the Co-founder of MarketJoy, Inc. He is an experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. Skilled in Digital Strategy, Advertising, Entrepreneurship, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).