Level Up: Sales Development with Jessica Viviano

by Jan 17, 2018

What are your strategies for marketing and sales development? Are they effective and producing the desired results?

At the November 2017 Level Up, Jessica Viviano, Senior Sales Development Coordinator at Hanapin Marketing, talked about three approaches to consider:

  1. inbound marketing,
  2. outbound marketing, and
  3. account based marketing.

She explained the basics of each one and how you can use them to scale your lead generation. She shared tips for implementation and discussed how each approach has been a key factor in Hanapin’s success – like gaining clients such as The Weather Channel.
Below is a recap of her presentation. Check out her slides here.

INBOUND MARKETING

Inbound marketing strategies such as publishing content are focused on gaining leads.

  • PPC Hero and Hero Conf are largely responsible for this at Hanapin.
  • It is the perfect platform for outbound and account-based marketing.

OUTBOUND MARKETING

This helps promote content. Tracking and scoring are important and help to ensure that you don’t scare people away.

  • Figure out what companies you’d like to approach.
  • Ultimately, at Hanapin, lists of companies are emailed until they respond or opt out of our emails.
  • Outbound strategies can be layered and intricate.
  • A/B testing is critical (like testing subject lines and content).
  • Figure out timing and what works best.

ACCOUNT-BASED MARKETING (ABM)

Hanapin just started doing this within the last year. This approach concentrates sales and marketing resources to a clearly defined list of accounts.

  • ABM takes more time to implement and show positive results, but it’s about branding and letting people know you exist.
  • It’s a multimedia approach, which includes direct mail.
  • Hanapin has recently started engaging with companies on social media platforms.

How do you choose the right companies? Base your decisions on the following criteria:

  • Industry
  • Company size
  • Revenue
  • Location
  • Budgets
  • Existing in-house teams or agency agreements
  • Doers vs. decision-makers

Build personas for each of these types before reaching out. Next year, Hanapin is trying a “land and expand” method. Figure out how to speak to each of these people in a way they’re familiar with. Look at their competitors and what is important to them.

  • Work with current clients that have other departments that aren’t already using your services.
  • Both sales and marketing departments need to be on board for ABM. Consider having everyone involved in choosing the companies for this approach.
  • Work with your department heads.
  • Be sure to look at YoY success.

NOTES FROM Q&A SESSION

  • Use A/B testing to determine if your efforts are effective.
  • It’s important to provide value for others in your emails. Try sending content in your emails if you haven’t already.
  • Referral emails are great!
  • When you write emails, pay attention to timing, length, content, images, formatting, etc.
  • Test images in multiple formats prior to sending to make sure they’ll be the best quality for recipients.
  • Find resources you can use going forward to accelerate growth.

Level Up is a monthly event dedicated to training our technology and innovation community for operational excellence on various business operations.