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A Case Study of Marketing and Sales Velocity

iu-email-tu-logoMarketing velocity is the speed or rateat which marketing efforts yield business results. Marketing velocity can be accelerated with the thoughtful implementation of enabling technologies such as marketing automation, CRM, social media platforms, and analytics solutions. However, companies often expect these technologies to be the solution rather than enable the solution. In fact, sales and marketing technology slows marketing velocity or speeds up bad outcomes more often than it serves as an accelerant.

This week, we’re diving into marketing velocity and how you can use sales and marketing technology to make the cash register ring.

A Case Study of Poor Marketing Velocity

Recently, The Starr Conspiracy worked with a large Human Capital Management (HCM) company that epitomizes poor sales and marketing velocity. This company serves as a valuable example of the majority of enterprise software companies today — dissatisfied with its conversion rates from initial inquiry to closed deal and couldn’t identify the process break. 

Of course, everyone had their theories — poor creative, ineffective sales training … however, our audit of their sales and marketing process identified several key points that were degrading velocity in the common marketing scenario: 

  • Email blast sent to rented media 
  • Prospects download white paper from landing page 
  • Prospects are “staged” in marketing automation system until qualified by marketing 
  • Qualified prospects are diverted to “lead-nurturing” program until “progressive profiling” yields high lead score
  • High-scoring leads are staged in CRM system until qualified by sales 
  • Inside sales reaches out to “sales-qualified leads” via email and phone 
  • Successful “connects” result in first meetings with sales rep 
  • Unsuccessful connects are dropped back into lead-nurturing program

As you can see, qualified prospects were not called for weeks after the initial download. And when contact was not made on the first or second call, the sales team gave up altogether. 

That’s where we came in. 

Our analysis streamlined the marketing process to focus on velocity — requiring a reconfiguration of the company’s marketing automation and CRM solutions to eliminate choke points and prioritize fast response over cumbersome manual qualification. 

Here’s how The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit rewrote the process: 

  • Email blast sent to rented media
  • Prospects download white paper from landing page 
  • Prospects contacted within 30 minutes of initial download 
  • Prospects contacted five times within 10 days to establish connection 
  • A successful connection results in a first meeting with a sales representative 

 

This simple reorientation around velocity increased the conversion rate from inquiry to first meeting from 2 percent to 15 percent in less than six weeks.

Learn more in the latest white paper from The Starr Conspiracy Tech Unit, “Marketing Velocity and the 5 Keys to Making the Cash Register Ring.”