Not to worry! Plug a prompt into the AI chatbot of your choice and badabing badaboom, you’ve got content. But after you trim the fat, the forced synonyms for ‘engaging’, and everything extrapolated beyond your prompt, you have… something that sounds pretty generic. Wasn’t AI supposed to make this effortless and innovative? 

The AI disconnect

When it comes to content creation and copy writing, it’s hard not to depend on the seemingly productive use of Generative AI. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to use it myself for this very blog. But instead, I pried into whether the benefits of using Gen AI as a tech marketer do outweigh the often-overlooked negatives.  

According to ��dzܲԻ����’s latest AI Priorities Study, content generation is the second most popular use case for Gen AI and yet nearly 1/4 of IT decision-makers are concerned that their organization is moving too fast to adopt this new tech, creating a glaring disconnect between the 54% of ITDMs using AI to boost productivity, and the looming concern about its implications.  

I fear that our growing dependency on Gen AI is leading to a decline in originality, linguistic style and humour in marketing efforts. Yes, you can input tonal suggestions into prompts (my go-to is Spartan), but its amalgamating algorithm strips copy of authentic personality. It could be argued that this is for the best – that B2B techmarketing should steer away from the individualism of ‘human’ linguistic style to focus on communicating success and trust with clarity. We expect B2B tech content to provide facts and insight, not puns on intent data creating a surge of interest. I’ve experienced firsthand when A/B testing that more risky/cheeky/original subject lines don’t necessarily get higher open rates than straightforward subject lines, usually including a fact or stat. Is this indicative of our expectations or stringent guidelines for tech marketing copy? Does B2B tech marketing have to be devoid of personality for the sake of trustworthiness and communicating credibility?  

Finding a balance: B2C copy vs. B2B  

B2C copy seems to always be having more fun than B2B, striving to sound as human as possible. Ads on the London Underground are essentially an extended joke reel, written by marketers trying to convince commuters that their brands are relatable and not profit-driven. I find that most of these campaigns are trying too hard to evoke an emotional response, to the point they turn into Uncanny Valley caricatures of their target audience.  

What’s interesting is the growing presence of B2B brands following suit, for multiple reasons. Some may be trying to stand out from their corporate competitors and position themselves as young, hip, innovative organizations that are in on the trends. Or, it may be to intentionally target younger people, now that Gen Z and Millennial IT decision-makers are important gatekeepers in the buying team. B2B campaigns could also be trying to humanize their voice in the social media space, to contribute their own dose of dopamine to feeds intended for entertainment and individual consumption. It may be a combination of these factors, but if this trend persists, B2B copy could take a turn (for better or for worse) very quickly.  

All organizations have values that inform their corporate tone, from language choices to design elements and beyond. But when their marketers are trying to take up space across channels, especially on social which is inherently individualistic, it’s important to show your audience that the organization is not an individual but made up of individuals. Well-executed leadership blogs, podcasts, interviews, and expert takeaways from research hit the right balance of personable and credible. These content types show how your organization is made up of experts who want to share their insights with peers and prospects to better the field. Recently we launched our first ‘Stories Inspire. Data Connects.’ campaign to champion the expertise within our organization to educate and inspire tech marketers. The content is created by humans in their own authentic voice, rather than editing away the personality that we, and our audience love about them. At the end of the day, how can a brand convey who they are without the people they’re made up of? Or build trust and familiarity by trying to ‘sound human’ while simultaneously stripping away the quirks, emotions, that help audiences really connect and resonate with them.  

So, how should we be using Gen AI in content creation? 

Firstly, content should prioritize giving your prospects what they want, and not just what you want prospects to know about you. Substance over style, in other words. What I find most useful about Gen AI is not the ease of content creation, but how it can make content more clear and concise. By using chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard to cut down copy to a certain word count and summarise key points, you can check if its takeaways align with your intentions. Using Gen AI to optimize rather than create will ultimately preserve creative autonomy as marketers. There’s no need to be afraid that ChatGPT will be replacing marketers when we are best informed to tailor our content to tech buyers and what they’d find most useful in their buyer’s journey.    

This blog was 100% written by a human, for better or for worse. I urge you to reconsider your use of Gen AI in the name of productivity. This doesn’t mean throwing this super powerful tool to the wayside, but question if it’s really more efficient to use it for content, or if it might be more helpful for idea generation or editing, for example. After all, isn’t it an oxymoron to use a robot to make you (a person) sound more human?   

I also urge you to use ‘Spartan tone’ in your next prompt.  

If you work in the field of B2B marketing or ABM, you’ve most likely heard the term “orchestration” before – and if you have, you likely know that ABM Orchestration is no easy feat. 

As marketers ourselves, we get it. With all the moving pieces that make up ABM orchestration, starting out can seem daunting at first. Oftentimes marketers are hamstrung by tools, platforms, and workflows that prevent them from orchestrating campaigns easily and at scale.

However, orchestration when done correctly, is the powerhouse behind some of the most successful ABM programs we’ve seen. So we’re here to break down the anatomy of a successful ABM orchestration, and tell you how you can get started executing impactful campaigns yourself.

What is orchestration and when to use it?

ABM orchestration is defined as the unified execution of multichannel, multistage campaigns that deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right buyers. Orchestration gives revenue teams the ability to take a data-driven approach to their TAM by utilizing predictive AI to uncover high-fit, high-intent accounts and target them in real-time with multichannel campaigns at scale.

Throughout the Foundry customer base, we found that ABM orchestration created a noticeable lift across channels: 

• 2X higher email response rate
• 3X increase in web traffic from high-intent accounts
• 20% higher rate of form fills

How to orchestrate the perfect ABM campaign:

Over the years, we’ve orchestrated many ABM campaigns with our customers. In that time, we’ve identified campaign essentials that will help you orchestrate the perfect ABM campaign. 

1. Account targeting 

Every orchestration starts with one thing, an audience. Audiences are groups of visitors who meet criteria that you’ve defined. When setting up an audience, you’ll want to use your  to figure out who to target, and what the right segment to go after is. There are a few ways to select audiences for account-based campaigns:

• Pull directly from your CRM or marketing automation platform
• Upload static list
• Create dynamic segments

However, to see the best results and for the perfect orchestration, we recommend using or supplementing with these types of account targeting:

Intent-based criteria

Using intent-based criteria when building your audience will allow you to better identify and nurture buyers as they show propensity to buy. In fact, according to Foundry research, .

Intent-based criteria can come from various sources showing . Let’s break down what each of those might look like, and their benefits:‍

• First-party intent signals

First-party intent signals come from your own sources. These could be website visits, page views, webinar attendance, or form fills. First-party intent is a great way to know what accounts are researching on your site and products or offerings they might be interested in.

• Second-party intent signals

Second-party intent signals come from software review sites like  or TrustRadius. These insights are a great way to target individuals who have been researching your page or even your competitors’ pages, allowing you to serve content specific to their needs.

• Third-party intent signals

Third-party intent data consists of research and buying activity occurring on channels and properties owned by others, allowing for a broader view of your market. Third-party intent generally comes from intent data providers (many of which ). By pairing multiple types of intent data with ABM orchestration, you can achieve fuller coverage of your total addressable market in real time. 

For example, Foundry Intent is a powerful combination of intent data collected from your website, social media interactions, engagements across the public web, research signals on global content, ��dzܲԻ����’s proprietary audiences from their publishing network, and events data. Foundry ABM allows you to build lists using Foundry Intent so you can target important decision-makers within your orchestrations. Want to experience the power of Foundry Intent firsthand? Try out our free tool, IntentBot.

Dynamic criteria

Dynamic criteria is another great way to build out audiences for your orchestrations.

Dynamic criteria will automatically update the audience for you as time goes on or as new data is synced into your ABM platform. For example, you can create dynamic criteria, such as ‘has shown G2 intent signal in the last 4 weeks’ which will then update the audience automatically for you. This saves you the valuable time of having to tediously create a list, upload it, then do it all again when the list is too old.

Another way to use dynamic criteria when building out audiences is referencing lists located in other places, such as your CRM or your MAP. By referencing a segment in your CRM or MAP, the criteria taken from there will automatically refresh, keeping your audience fresh and updated for improved engagement and results.

TIP: It’s important to keep in mind that each campaign can have multiple audiences, and each audience can have multiple criteria, so you can combine dynamic segments with intent for the best results. 

2. Naming systems

Attention to detail is key when running an ABM program. Keeping your orchestrations organized with a naming system will help set you up for success in the future. We recommend that you prefix your campaign names consistently for ease of management. 

A few common prefix styles that we’ve seen are:

• Lifecycle (e.g. “Unknowns – Finance industry”)
• Event-based (e.g. “2022 Q1 – Customer conference”)
• Account groups (e.g. “Tier 1 Target Accounts – mailer follow-up offers”)
• Time-based (e.g. “22q4 – Pipeline”)
• Location-based (e.g. “EMEA – 2021 Pipeline”)

These are just a few suggestions based on what we’ve seen our customers do – feel free to work with a naming convention that is in line with one you already use or that better fits your company.

3. Multichannel ads

Advertisements served across various channels are a large part of . When selecting channels to use for your specific orchestration, it’s important to keep in mind your goals, and the audience that is being served. In Foundry ABM, you can automate the creation and deployment of your ads based on intent and the criteria you’ve set.

Selecting your channels

• Display ads

Display ads appear across third-party sites (i.e. wsj.com or weather.com). Display ads are a great way to provide air-cover marketing and raise brand awareness within target accounts and key stakeholders! Using display ads allow you to reach a high intent audience with messaging that correlates to their intent, across the web.

• Paid social

Occasionally we all spend too much time browsing social media (guilty). So why not serve your audience ads on the places they spend their time such Facebook, or LinkedIn! Paid social ads allow you to pass dynamic segments into LinkedIn Matched Audiences and see LinkedIn engagement in Foundry reports.

4. Personalizations

Personalizations are distinct content experiences you want a given audience to have. Based on what audience is in your orchestration, you will want to personalize the content being served to them in order to resonate with what topics they are interested in. There are a few ways to personalize the buyer’s journey for your audiences:

• Smart Pages

 are unique 1:1 web pages customized to the needs, interests, and buying profile of a specific account. Using Smart Pages, sales reps can reach out to target accounts with 1:1 content. For example, say an account in your audience has shown enough intent or engagement to move on in an orchestration. In the next stage, you can trigger a Smart Page personalization for that account to be served specific content on the topic they are interested in.

• Website personalization

In addition to Smart Pages, another way to use personalization in your orchestrations is through . Website personalization allows you dynamically edit any text, images, content, links etc. to better fit your audience’s needs. Visitors who have a personalized web experience are 20% more likely to convert and 50% more likely to visit the site again. And, personalized web experiences boost engagement on average 150% or more.

• Overlay CTAs

Overlay CTAs can be customized pop-ups, slide-ins, footers, or headers that appear across your site. These are particularly effective at generating conversions because they can have very specific tailored offers for site visitors. For example, if you want a specific audience to see a CTA to book a demo, you can show a “Chat with an expert” CTA over the product page they are interested in. You can customize any overlay CTAs to create an action that further aligns with the website and display advertising personalizations.

TIP: Personalization is also a great way to A/B test your orchestrations. Test what messaging or CTA resonates best with your orchestration audience!

5. Sales activations

When does your sales team come into the picture?  is a crucial part of running a successful ABM orchestration, requiring cohesive strategy between your marketing and sales teams. Sales activation lets your sales team know when accounts are primed and engaged, so they can reach out at the right time with content that resonates.

ABM orchestration allows you to automate the sales activation process, saving both marketing and sales precious time. Select accounts for each sales rep in their territory and automatically acquire contacts that fit within your ICP. Automatically add leads to prospect cadences and when engagement begins, trigger the next best step for your sales rep to follow up.

6. Stage progression

Orchestration allows us to build a timeline view of how we want to use different channels to reach, engage, and hopefully convert the target accounts in our program. A mature orchestration program is full-funnel and cross-channel, following buyers through their journey across platforms and stages with consistent messaging. Your stage design is where you actually set your stages and build out your orchestration timeline. 

Orchestration allows you to automatically move accounts to new stages once they meet certain criteria. For an account to move on to a new stage in the orchestration, this depends on the criteria you’ve set. Most of the time these criteria are certain engagements that would signify if an account is ready to move on to the next stage. For example, some engagement criteria you could set for stage progression might look like: 

• Did the account click on an Ad?
• Did the account visit my website x amount of times?
• Did the account view my pricing page?

When it’s time for your account to move on in the orchestration, a few things could happen. Your account can move into a positive or lower funnel stage, or into a knockout stage.

• Positive or lower funnel stages

Congrats, your account moved on in the orchestration! This means you can continue to nurture this account based on additional criteria as your accounts progress into other positive or lower funnel stages. Examples of additional stages could be for demo conversion ads or nurture actions like nurture emails in HubSpot.

Here you can see we used 2 triggers, 1 to send accounts with engagement in the previous stage to sales, and one to nurture less engaged accounts with case study ads on LinkedIn.

• Knockout stage

If your account does not meet certain criteria set in your first stage, your account will move on to what we call a negative stage. Although the word knockout doesn’t have the best connotation, a knockout stage isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When an account moves into a negative stage, this means it will sit there stagnant and won’t be served any more content on any more channels in this particular orchestration. This is a good thing though because it allows you to narrow your ad spend on accounts actually showing engagement. Accounts that aren’t interested or qualified will be knocked out, so you won’t waste any time or money on further nurturing them.

Every orchestration will look different for every marketer. The beauty of orchestration is being able to customize the campaign to fit your exact audiences and goals! However, to help you get started we’ve pulled together 4 actionable ABM plays that have been tried and tested with our own customers!  to get started.

Orchestration success

, is no stranger to ABM orchestration success. By leveraging intent data with ABM orchestration, SugarCRM hoped to lift account engagement in their target accounts and build out additional high-fit, high-intent audiences within their ideal customer profile (ICP). 

ABM solution:

• By utilizing  intent data to identify surging accounts within Foundry, SugarCRM could target unknown prospects or accounts showing confirmed interest. 
• SugarCRM also utilizes 1:1 landing pages (Smart Pages) to connect with prospects. 
• Sugar’s marketing team views surging account intent topics and data to understand an account’s buying experience up to the point of contact with sales. The sales team uses our ABM Analytics Module embedded directly into Sugar as well as Orchestration alerts and personalized Sugar dashboards to inform their sales plays and outreach strategies.

Since implementing an ABM strategy, , with an estimated $2.8M in one quarter alone.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to orchestrate the perfect ABM orchestration, it’s important to remember that once you launch your campaign, you should check back in to see how accounts are progressing through the orchestration. After significant results have been gathered, you can optimize the campaign for improved performance! 

Not only are marketers saving time by focusing on accounts with a high propensity to buy, but marketing teams are achieving better results with orchestration. Although orchestration is no walk in the park, using these campaign essentials will help you orchestrate the perfect ABM campaign. 

Want a demo of the Foundry Orchestration platform? . Or want some Orchestration inspiration? Download now, .

For some time now, B2B gifting has been closely associated with account-based marketing. 

It makes sense when you think about it. Gifting is a great tactic for personalizing your buyers’ and customers’ experience, which is a crucial element of successful account-based marketing. 

I’ve spent the last year or so further incorporating gifting tactics into our demand generation and customer marketing strategies, and I’m ready to share some insights on how you can use gifting as a powerful weapon in your account-based marketing tool belt. 

Why account-based gifting

Gifting can grab prospects’ and customers’ attention across channels. Here are a few ways we use gifting at Foundry:

• Customer Lifecycle Touchpoint
• Sales Cycle Touchpoint
• Marketing Touchpoint
• Advocate Appreciation
• Surprise + Delight

Gifting helps us to delight prospects and customers, as well as to drive actions such as demo requests, enrollments in customer education courses, and software reviews. 

Gifting for demand generation

Demo Incentives – worth it?

One of the most popular gifting tactics in B2B is the demo incentive. “Take a demo, get a $X gift card!” – communicated over paid social ads and email. But some are wary of the effectiveness of demo incentives. Skeptics say, ‘How is that large an incentive for prospects to take a meeting profitable?’ or ‘Aren’t they just taking the meeting for the gift?’. These are valid concerns, and I suggest to anyone unsure if demo incentives are worth it to their business to track their customer acquisition cost, the close win rate of incentivized vs. non-incentivized opportunities, and the conversion rate for different gifts. For example, Tim from Directive tested out different gift amounts to see which had the best CVR & CPL. What he found was a lift in conversions from the ‘charm pricing’ effect- odd gift card amounts like $105 had better conversion rates, likely due to how they stick out against more typical numbers.

So that’s one way to test out gifting, but what about beyond the demo… are opportunities from demo incentives as valuable and winnable as non-incentivized? To test this, you have to spend a bit more time in the long run, looking back at demo incentives after at least a few months (take into account the length of your sales cycle). That way you can do an analysis of closed opportunities which came from demo incentives vs. non-incentivized opportunities. You might find that your win rate is a bit lower for incentivized vs. non incentivized opportunities. The question is, is it a win rate you’re comfortable with? Make sure your sales team’s time isn’t being altogether wasted, and there’s a positive return on your investment. One way that I ensure a positive return on my investment is by using demo incentives to capture pre-warmed audiences. I take accounts that have been engaging with SDR outreach or have surging intent, and strategically target them with paid social demo incentive advertising and marketing email demo incentives. 

The marketing emails have a fantastic ROI and help to drive immediate action, while the paid social ads help to capture those who missed the emails and buyers who aren’t yet in our CRM.

By using these 2 channels for demo incentives, we were able to yield a 10:1 return on investment-  including the cost of a gifting platform. 

Here’s some advice I’d give to anyone starting out with demo incentives. 

Tips for demo incentives 

1. Start out narrow with your targeting. We started out with manually created lists from our SDRs, and have now expanded a bit, including companies / titles based on criteria. But you should watch your conversions carefully to make sure you’re reaching people you’re comfortable with paying to take a meeting. 
2. Don’t just wave money in people’s faces. Gifting is a popular enough tactic in B2B that I don’t think it’s enough to just offer money for a demo. I try to be creative about the way I present my demo incentives so that it surprises and delights recipients, as opposed to just feeling like a transaction. Here’s a couple examples of incentives I’ve used that were well received.
3. Create urgency + relevancy. Especially with email copy, I like to try to connect my offers to something that recipients can relate to, using observances (when relevant) and tying my offer to what matters most to them, business impact. 
4. Test different offers + tactics. Some demo incentive ideas I’ve had have been flops. There are so many factors at play with each campaign that you can’t draw too strong of a conclusion from each one. I test different offers to make incremental improvements each time, which has helped us to drive significantly higher results from our demo incentive campaigns over time. 

Now we’ve discussed the most popular gifting tactic – demo incentives. But what about all the other ways of gifting? This past year, Foundry has made a big push to be customer-centric. We hosted customer-exclusive TableTalks each quarter, launched an ABM Academy for customer education, and of course, sent out gifts. 

Gifting for customer marketing

I would classify our customer marketing gifting strategy as four-pronged – personal gifting, seasonal gifting, activity-based gifting, and thank-you gifting. 

Personal gifting

Personal gifting is the kind of immeasurable thing that can help to elevate vendors to true partners. Our thoughtful CS and sales teams often sent gifts to their contacts before we had a gifting platform, but now with one, it’s even easier to be thoughtful and kind on a personal level. Recently, personal gifting has been a way that our teams have been able to show their clients their appreciation whether it’s a ‘congrats on the new baby’ gift set, champagne for a promotion, or any other special day in the lives of our customers.

Seasonal gifting

Like many companies, we enjoy sending holiday gifts to our customers at the end of the year. However… it has proven to be quite the task for our marketing team in the past. In 2021, our team spent hours and hours individually packing about a hundred gifts. Though one could argue the personally packed gifts by Marketing Elves were more special since they were so personal, we’d prefer to have a little more free time to commit to our end-of-year marketing needs…

This year, we adopted a new strategy for holiday gifting using HubSpot and Sendoso, which to be honest I’m quite proud of. Clients were sent an email with a CTA to claim their gift. The form itself had progressive fields, so once they selected their country, a list of curated gift options for that area would then pop up. Once clients completed the form, a workflow in HubSpot would trigger the sending of their gift in Sendoso, as well as create a row in a Google Sheets file I used to track the gifts / troubleshoot any issues. 

This process allowed us to more easily send a higher volume of gifts to clients, even internationally, when in the past, we struggled to do either without manual work and headaches. 

Though the workflow I set up this year was a big improvement, I did run into a few issues I’d like to call out to anyone thinking of adopting something similar. 

1. Double check the required address fields for any gifts you choose. For example, some countries require a personal tax identification number (India), which you probably wouldn’t think to ask for. 
2. Monitor your email for any gift-related alerts. One gift option I selected was discontinued due to low stock after I launched our holiday gifting campaign. I had to go back in and remove the option from the original form so that no one else chose it, and replace it for the folks who had chosen it already.
3. Check your HubSpot workflows for any issues. I hadn’t included certain fields on the form that were required for the Sendoso integration-triggered sends. They were common fields like company, first, & last name, but in rare occasions, some CRM data hygiene issues on individual contacts kept the gifts from sending properly. The fix was easy, and also provided me a chance to flag and fix the data hygiene issues in HubSpot, but just something to look out for. 

Activity-based gifting

One of our initiatives for 2022 was the launch of an ABM Academy, a collection of video courses designed to teach our new and existing customers about the Foundry ABM platform and the basics of ABM. We used this as an opportunity to further leverage our Sendoso platform by automatically triggering the sending of Academy swag whenever a client completed the required coursework to ‘graduate’. 

With just a little elbow grease and code between SkillJar, HubSpot, and Sendoso, we were able to set up an automated workflow that tracked SkillJar course completion in HubSpot and then triggered the appropriate gift in Sendoso seamlessly. We look forward to doing more with activity-based gifting in the future with events, educational content, and more.

Thank-you gifting

It’s so important to say thank you! We use thank-you gifting in many ways at Foundry. We send gifts after customers provide references, share their customer story, come to events with us, or even just leave us a review. Similarly to how demo incentives can help demand gen teams hit their inbound goals, if you have a goal you’re really trying to hit for reviews, offering an incentive can help drive urgency and make it fun for your customers to share their experiences with you. You can do incentivized review campaigns with your CSM if you’re a client of TrustRadius or G2, or send out personal gifts as well. 

Final thoughts

You don’t have to have a gifting platform, but it helps. We had previously been using gifting for demo incentives manually, sending e-gift cards after 1st meetings were complete. This was of course very manual, but it’s a great option for teams that want to validate their strategy. When we felt we had proven out the ROI, we started using Sendoso to gift, which allowed us to ramp up our gifting strategy, do more with it for customers, do more internationally, and to get creative about the gifts we choose to use.  

There’s so much one can do with gifting across teams that I’ve really only scratched the surface of. I hope sharing my experience can be of help to at least one marketer out there, and if you’re interested in chatting more about gifting or demand gen, connect with me on .

This will leave a huge gap in your lead conversion capabilities.

Consider this: Marketing focuses on the top of the funnel, generating Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) through inbound and outbound marketing. Meanwhile, Sales focuses on the bottom of the funnel, tasked with converting high-quality Sales Accepted Leads (SALs) into buyers.

That is the top and bottom covered, so who focuses on the middle? More often than not, nobody.

The middle part of the funnel is where you nurture MQLs and turn them into SALs. This is an important step because MQLs are not ready to buy, and time, cost and resources need to be spent on nurturing, educating and fostering trust in them about your organization and its services. In fact, some studies show that 96% of MQLs are not ready to buy (Marketo).

This is a critical juncture where you hand over high quality leads to the sales team. Without it, you effectively defang your sales team by asking them to convert leads that are the wrong fit for your organization or are the right fit but need further lead nurturing.

Lead nurturing takes time. 48% of businesses require a “long cycle” in the middle of the funnel, nurturing leads in a variety of ways (). So, why do so many IT and tech companies ignore the middle part of the sales funnel? Because many decision makers believe that the same strategies used to sell to consumers will work on businesses.

B2B is more complicated, with potential buyers requiring considerable knowledge of your organization and its services before they dedicate large sums of money to buy from you.

������ý���߹ۿ� SDS, we understand that lead nurturing is a craft that requires dedication over a long period. The organizations we have helped have faced challenges in trying to convert MQLs into SALs too quickly, without a full qualification process in place.

So, in this article, we will explore top tips on how to nurture MQLs into SALs, ensuring that the sales team can focus on converting to leads that fit your organization and are ready to buy.

What is a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)?

A Marketing Qualified Lead is a lead that has shown any type of interest in your organization. These leads sit at the top of your funnel and typically arrive through methods such as:

• Webinar registrations
• Webpage visits
• Downloading gated content
• Social media interaction
• Clicked CTAs

While these leads have shown interest, this does not mean they are ready to buy your solutions. To get to that stage, they need further nurturing to turn them into an SAL.

How to identify a good MQL

MQLs are vetted by the marketing team according to specific criteria. If a lead becomes an MQL, they are deemed a good prospect for further nurturing, and ultimately a potential buyer.

To determine criteria, Marketing and Sales need to agree on an ideal buyer persona and the scoring system used in the lead qualification strategy.

• Ideal buyer persona
  This is the customer that you believe will be the most likely to convert into a buyer. You are likely to have multiple buyer personas depending on how many products and services you have.
  
  Criteria for an ideal buyer persona include: Job titles, demographics, challenges and pain points, financial information, and also attitudes and behavior.

You can learn more about ideal personas here.

Lead qualification is to determine the likelihood of them becoming a customer. This scoring system is set against your ideal buyer persona. Points are assigned for every action a lead takes, and some points are worth more than others. For example, a lead downloading an ebook might be worth 5 points in your lead qualification system, but registering for a webinar might be worth 10 points

It will take fine tuning to determine the threshold score in which a lead becomes an MQL. There are multiple frameworks for a lead qualification strategy.

Check out this link to find a framework that fits your business development goals.

Both an ideal buyer persona and a lead qualification system are vital for ensuring that you provide your sales team with high-quality leads that are more likely to convert.

Marketing tips to nurture MQLs further down the funnel

• IT decision-makers are spending more time engaging with online content: 49% are increasing the amount of time they read online and 48% are increasing the amount of time they watch online videos (Foundry)

To successfully nurture MQLs, marketing needs to engage leads with educational content that shows how your organization can solve their business challenges. You need to be able to speak to them on a personal level. The more you educate them, the greater trust there is between the lead and your organization.

Here are some of the best methods for nurturing MQLs that will fit most organization types.

Send the right content at the right time

Converting leads into customers isn’t as simple as sending one-off emails. It is a strategic process that requires sending the right information, to the right type of lead, at the right time. You can do this effectively by creating content for each of your buyer personas and sending it at each critical juncture in the customer journey.

The key here is personalization. Each piece of content, no matter the format, needs to address a specific challenge so that the recipient will feel that their needs can be addressed by your expertise. Learn more about content and lead nurturing here.

Create drip campaigns (automated email campaigns)

Drip email campaigns are automated emails that trigger according to set marketing criteria. These are great for ensuring consistent communications with leads, which will go a long way in building trust. You can create email drip campaigns for many scenarios.

For example: onboarding new users, listing product features, delivering a content series, showcasing upgrades and free trials, marketing upcoming events, upselling and cross selling, and even reengagement.

Again, personalization is the goal here. Nobody wants to feel like another number in the system. In fact, shows that relevant targeted emails can produce 18-times more revenue than globally broadcasted emails that lack personalization.

Utilize lead nurturing newsletters

Newsletters are a non-invasive, low-resource and high engagement tool for nurturing leads with content. They provide a consistent excuse for you to regularly deploy content, to showcase your organization’s expertise through timely updates.

As with all content, ensure that each newsletter has a clear purpose. Whether that is introducing a new product, showcasing flagship pieces of content such as an ebook, or driving leads to a webinar – each newsletter should drive specific action from the leads who open it.

Ensure sales enablement tackles your target audience pain points

80% of companies report seeing an uplift when implementing personalized content. – ().

Marketing and Sales need to be aligned on buyer personas and lead qualification criteria. Both teams should work together to clearly understand the challenges each lead segment faces.

Use this information to enhance everything about your lead qualification process, from content copy and messaging to content formats and the ways in which you send content. This will ensure that the content marketing created speaks to leads on a personal level.

Testimonials and case studies

Case studies allow you to present a compelling story of how you helped an organization achieve their business goals. Unlike content such as webinars, whitepapers and reports, case studies allow you to openly and honestly depict your commitment to resolving challenges, and the positive experiences that emerge from it. Case studies can go a long way in building your brand authority and reputation as a problem you can solve.

The B2B buyer’s journey and how it impacts lead nurturing

We’ve discussed how marketing can help generate quality MQLs. Now let’s talk about moving them from MQLs to Sales Accepted Leads (SALs). This is the stage where sales development takes over, and nurtures leads until they are ready to handover to sales. Unlike the previous stage, nurturing is predominantly actioned through digital means such as emails and social and more importantly, phone calls and marketing content.

To help facilitate this, the customer journey map is a must-have to enhance your lead nurturing capabilities and ensure that you are engaging leads on a personal level.

What is a customer journey map? A customer journey map is a visual representation of a leads journey and engagement with your organization. By being able to clearly see where your leads fit into the journey, you ensure that your engagement is a natural reflection of their likeliness to buy.

This will help you avoid the pitfall of passing leads to Sales that have no interest in buying.

How do sales development teams nurture leads?

1. They ensure the right leads go to Sales: As Sales Development sits in the middle of the sales funnel; they hold the unique ability to send leads back up to Marketing, or down to Sales. Think about them as lead gatekeepers. If a lead requires more content nurturing and education about your organization, they can send them back to marketing for another cycle of trust building content. When a lead is ready for the sales process and has been nurtured enough, they seamlessly organize phone calls and meetings between the lead and sales.

2. They clean up the sales funnel: Sales Development can help improve lead nurturing processes. For example, if you find MQLs are low-quality, such as students or those who engage with content for purely educational reasons, sales development will provide insight to reduce the chance of poor leads making their way through the funnel.
3. They nurture leads from MQL to SAL: MQLs need further nurturing before they are passed to sales. Sales development nurtures leads from lead generation efforts and marketing campaigns, then through personalized phone calls and emails, they determine which leads are valuable to sales people and match the ideal buyer persona.

������ý���߹ۿ� SDS, we’re experts in sales enablement and lead nurturing. We work with companies to improve the journey of their lead nurturing strategy, from the beginning, through to targeted and profitable sales. Look at our , a database management company.

Tips: how to nurture Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Accepted Leads

Sales development teams are crucial. They drive conversion by bridging the gap between a lead that is interested in your organization and one that is ready to buy.

This is how sales development teams nurture MQLs, so they are ready for a sales call.

• Multichannel approach to lead nurturing
  Sales development teams utilize multiple channels to nurture leads, and build personal connections, including phone calls, social media interactions, live chat, emails and drip emails. Highly attuned to each leads needs and challenges, sales development teams reinforce the relationship between leads and your organization and provide the human touch to lead nurturing.
• Building lead lists and setting up meetings
  Sales development teams will build lists of key leads they have nurtured and give them to sales. They will also maintain a seamless handover by organizing meetings and communications to ensure consistent engagement throughout the customer journey.

• Networking and social media outreach and selling
  Sales development teams live on social media and understand the importance of engaging with the social platforms where top leads congregate. They build trust with valuable leads through all key social media platforms, and present themselves as industry authorities.
• Upselling and cross selling
  The journey doesn’t end when a lead makes a purchase. Lead nurturing is a requirement of upselling and cross selling, and sales development teams can action this by following up with leads to ensure they have achieved the most out of their purchase, and hone in on indications that suggest the buyer is ready to make another purchase.

How to spot a Sales Accepted Lead?

SALs are leads that have been reviewed by Sales Development and passed to Sales to begin the sales process. These leads meet your organization’s firmographic, and demographic criteria, and are highly engaged with your organization – and show a high intent to purchase.

What does an intent to purchase look like?

There are a lot of buying signals which show a lead is close to making a purchasing decision. Here are some of the most important ones that Sales Development teams look out for.

Lead nurturing requires time, a team and resources. MQLs have very limited buying intent after the first interaction and require more convincing.

However, implementing all of this can be a huge amount of work if you don’t have an in-house sales development team.

Foundry SDS are lead nurturing experts, and can take these challenges out of your hands by creating effective and unique lead nurturing workflows according to your business needs.

Thinking about outsourcing lead nurturing? See what SDS can do for you with our in-house team of lead nurturing experts.

Having the right lead nurturing technology in place

Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects see a 451% increase in qualified leads, according to Fronetics.

Lead nurturing tools are a must for driving your lead nurturing capabilities at scale, so you can seize opportunities to move your leads down the sales funnel seamlessly. Lead nurturing tools integrate with other marketing tools, such as CRMs and marketing automation, which will go a long way in taking the pressure off of your marketing and sales teams.

Here are top lead nurturing tools you need for your sales development strategy

• Workflow management: A lead nurturing workflow software will allow you to automatically track and process leads through the customer journey. This will help you get the best from lead nurturing and help identify which leads need immediate nurturing, and which ones can be engaged later.
  
  A good lead nurturing software system will help you establish clear goals for your campaigns, identify target audiences and map content throughout the customer journey.
• Tracking real-time data: These tools enable you to measure and optimize your lead nurturing activity in real time. Driven by real time results, lead-based analytics will help you streamline processes and tweak your outreach efforts. This will provide a clear picture of who is investing in your technology and why.
• Data and analytics: Data and analytics tools will help you leverage lead data so you can build stronger and faster connections. Features typically include conversation analytics, real-time notifications, buyer intent data, industry benchmark data and visualization tools. Having the right metrics to understand what is working and what isn’t will supercharge your team’s ability to adapt quickly and improve processes.

When implemented correctly, lead nurturing tools can automate several parts of your funnel, ensuring that your sales team spends less time finding leads, and more time converting nurtured leads.

Using personalization to generate sales accepted leads

In B2B sales, studies show that 48% of businesses require a “long cycle” in the middle of the funnel, nurturing leads in a variety of ways ()

At the MQL to SAL juncture, personalization is king. Sales development teams are the ones who put all the lead data you have gathered to good use, by grabbing the attention of MQLs, through bespoke personalised phone calls, emails and social media outreach, as well as lead generation software and other CRM platforms.

This is a step above lead nurturing through content and marketing – which focuses on demographic data, potential buying interests and broad lead segments.

MQL to SAL personalization takes time, experience, confidence and understanding. Through lead nurturing and lead monitoring, Sales Development can:

• Identify high-value prospects and create outreach lists
• Review prospects to identify their specific challenges
• Ensure seamless handover from Sales Development to Sales
• Educate leads and show how your organization can resolve challenges
• Nurture leads through emails and phone calls
• Organize appointments for leads to talk with Sales

The right sales development team in the right place

The purpose of a sales development team is to research, validate and nurture SALs so that they are ready to pass onto the sales department. Why can’t Sales and Marketing do that? Because it is a vast amount of work, and a well organized team should focus on specialized roles.

Sales Development comprises a team who specifically works on converting these leads; who use the right technology and understand the business challenge each lead is facing.

Therefore a functioning lead nurturing system has a clear linear path:

If Marketing or Sales have ownership of step 2, you are splitting their time, work capacity and diluting their ability to succeed in their primary roles.

Step 2 requires a dedicated team that is available around the clock in order to reach the global market in various languages.

But, does your organization have the capacity to do all this in-house?

Outsourcing lead nurturing to the experts

We asked companies what their biggest reason for outsourcing sales development (single choice), and the results were:

• Gain access to better technology than we have in house (16%)
• For transparency into activity and results (14%)
• Scale the sales development team (13%)

Foundry SDS are lead nurturing experts. We will create a bespoke lead nurturing program to deliver high-quality leads that fit the buyer persona of your business development strategy.

How do we know when we have nurtured leads that are ready for your sales team to close?

• They are decision-makers with clearly defined needs
• Their needs align with the services your organization offers
• They engage in your content and express interest in your services
• They are ready to make a purchasing decision
• They match up with you ideal buyer personas

Our program nurtures leads for a minimum of 60 days, building their trust in your services and establishing your brand as an authority. We do this in 40+ languages and 24/7 in any time zone.

We save you time, energy, and ultimately your bottom line – as you will spend more resources converting high-quality leads and less time looking for new ones.

Working with Foundry SDS you will benefit from:

• Experience working with other companies in the tech market.
• Transparent services that offer you insight every step of the way
• Expertly trained team of experienced BDR’s that we will manage to meet your goals
• Inbound and outbound lead nurturing campaigns that are optimized in real time
• Execution of your workflows according to your business goals
• Deploying the right lead nurturing resources at the right time

Outsourcing lead nurturing and sales development will take care of all the lead nurturing challenges and costs with a single package. And you gain the expertise and speed of the company that specializes in sales development. Learn more about our services here.

The most experienced ABM marketers usually start out with one or two marketing technologies as they build their first ABM campaigns and prove the value of the account-based model to their organisation. Marketing automation platforms have long been a valuable component of these tech stacks, and without doubt, email is still a vital communication channel in ABM. Most of the big marketing automation platforms now also accommodate some aspects of account-based marketing functionality (including the use of  and ).

In general, though, marketing automation platforms retain the imprint of the use case scenario that has made them so useful: automated email-based campaigns that target relatively undifferentiated audiences of prospects drawn from in-house CRM systems and third-party list suppliers. They serve as a perfect platform experimentation when marketers first turn their attention to ABM. It’s certainly possible to run small-scale ABM programs from within most marketing automation platforms but they are not specifically designed for the complexity of advanced ABM programs which experienced marketers now need. Without ,  digital advertising and in-depth personalisation, marketing automation platforms can only satisfy one piece of the ABM puzzle. They aren’t built to surround accounts in the way that ABM platforms are designed to do so.

ABM platforms have evolved specifically to incorporate a variety of different marketing channels, and solve one of the biggest problems around ABM data. They can ingest intent data, and then make that data truly actionable in all respects. They go the extra step, bringing everything together, using predictive analytics to manage and filter behavioural signals and isolate those with an apparently higher propensity to purchase results in better conversion metrics, allow you to really unify messaging and offer real value to an account with the right content at the right time. ABM platforms have mechanisms for sales-marketing collaboration, and with their 360 account view, can easily demonstrate the impact of ABM on an account. ABM platforms allow you to truly perform account-based marketing.  

When should I add ABM platforms to my tech stack?

When you’ve built the case for ABM within your organisation and have a defined strategy in place, the attraction of ABM platforms starts to become very evident. 

For most, the tipping points for investment in an ABM platform are 1) a need for scale, and 2) a need to surround their accounts more intelligently through multiple channels. 

On that first tipping point, has a very clear argument: if marketers have piloted ABM programs, perhaps using their own 1st party data sources, and they now want to run programs targeting 100+ accounts, they should consider using an ABM platform. (In the technology industry, this is actually a modest hurdle: 96% of the marketers we surveyed in 2021 expected to be working with 500+ account ABM programs in 2021).

Our own research with tech marketers confirms Gartner’s argument that increasing sophistication leads to increasing adoption of dedicated ABM platforms. Among tech marketers with six months’ experience of ABM or less, 27% told us they perceived marketing automation as the most successful platform for ABM operations. (24% identified dedicated ABM platforms).

But as marketers grow in confidence and ambition, the balance is in favour of dedicated ABM platforms. At this point, the specialist tools offered by a platform come into their own. Once marketing organisations have 12 months of experience with ABM, 35% rate ABM platforms the most successful tool, while only 24% opt for marketing automation platforms.

Clearly, scale matters. But how and why? 

Why are ABM platforms useful when I want to add scale?

To do ABM well, you need to have all the necessary components working together. 

Specifically, there are at least five ways in which a dedicated platform makes a big difference when you are running ABM campaigns at scale:

• The ability to ingest and harmonise high volumes of variably formatted data from multiple sources (1st party and 3rd party)
• The ability to match up leads (for example, from a CRM system) with accounts (identified by an ABM platform working with intent data)
• AI-driven functionality that excels at scoring very large volumes of accounts identified by intent and first party data
• The ability to run and automate complex customer engagements across channels, with ability to dynamically adjust
• Personalisation at a manageable scale: instead of attempting to personalise appeals to a very large and undifferentiated lead generation audience, ABM platforms allow personalised and segmented appeals to an audience that has been filtered to include targets that display buying signals.
• Bringing all the information about an account into one ecosystem, and giving you a whole view of an account from a single platform.

If I add an ABM platform, what happens to my marketing automation tool?

The renowned mid-century American psychologist Abraham Maslow once famously said: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as a nail”.

Maslow’s saying is an argument for . This is our argument, too. We recommend using both technologies to succeed. Both tools can be deployed to do different jobs within different campaigns, or within a single campaign. For example, consider an organisation that wants to follow up a successful customer event by providing access to video highlights and encouraging sign-ups for next year.

With both marketing automation and an ABM platform available, there’s no need for this organisation to restrict itself to emailing existing attendees and vast, undifferentiated third-party prospect lists for next year. Using marketing automation, this organisation can target this year’s attendees. Using intent data and ABM, marketing can also reach in-market target accounts with a high propensity to purchase, offering them access to both this year’s thought leadership and an option to benefit from next year’s event.

Foundry ABM is integrated with all leading marketing automation tools.

Conclusion

If you are looking for the most comprehensive way to approach account-based marketing, to scale your ABM strategy and to uncover more opportunities, the move to an ABM platform is wise.

Interested in expanding your ABM efforts? 

The first time I heard the word “brand,” I was maybe 10 years old. My dad came home with a short iron rod as big around as a ballpoint pen. It had a triangular handle on one end and his initials – “RBT” – written in reverse on the other. We didn’t have any livestock or live on a farm. But my dad clearly viewed these as trivial details. We were in Texas, where a belt without a name is just a piece of leather, and he needed a brand. He used it sparingly. But, when he did, he would forever change an item. And not just physically. He would take a product with no affiliation, a commodity, and make it unique and associated with him.  

As any marketer can tell you, a brand is much more than initials. It’s more than a logo. It’s more than a sign. It’s the emotional connection people have with other things – companies, products, and even other people. Universally, the greater the brand, the greater the frequency of that emotional connection. Case in point, I still have a beat-up old Orvis bag with “RBT” on it. It’s 40 years old and in terrible shape. But, for me, the frequency of emotions tied to his brand are strong. And those letters flood my mind with nostalgic stories from my youth. Because stories are what drive our emotions.  

The building blocks of emotional connection 

We all know when we hear a great story. It’s a visceral experience. And those who tell stories for a living – the makers of novels, documentaries, films, and television have mastered the science of bringing our emotions to the forefront. As a result, people pay hard-earned money for their stories. This part is obvious. Over the past two decades, The Walt Disney Company has purchased Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilms, Maker Studios, and many others. Yes, to create amazing content. But also to commercialize the brands across theme parks, toys, video games, and soft goods. This collection of businesses drives close to 3X more revenue than that of Disney’s studio entertainment division.  

These companies are worth so much because storytelling is a universally sought-after experience. Stories allow audiences to connect, feel, aspire, learn, and relate. Of course, as a technology marketer, there is always a more specific goal in mind. If you answer to revenue goals, you’ll be the first to point out that tears aren’t leads, and the emotional cup of hyper-converged infrastructure isn’t necessarily running over. But establishing these connections is worth it. Connections establish a relationship with buyers, build trust, and inevitably help your sellers convert opportunities and retain customers. This year, when Salesforce brought the Foo Fighters to Dreamforce they were investing in emotional connection. People love the Foo Fighters. How do you compete with that? Or as Virgil wrote 2000 years ago – aka Omnia Vincit Amor (aka – love conquers all).

There is a middle ground between feeding your pipeline and building connections. And, as a marketer, you have no choice but to find it. Because if you don’t, a competitor will, and they’ll form a relationship with your customer while your product moves closer to commoditization.  

So, how do technology marketers find that middle ground and use storytelling techniques to forge an emotional connection? Here are 6 first steps, taken from how the entertainment business looks at storytelling, to craft your B2B brand story: 

1. Create your beginning, middle, and end 

In Aristotle’s “Poetics,” he suggests that all stories have a beginning, middle, and end. The same is true for your marketing strategy. In brand storytelling, the beginning is often the sexy stuff. The middle bridges the gap between thought leadership and consideration. And the end is ideally customer acquisition and customer success.  

��dzܲԻ����’s 2023 Role & Influence Study found that as many as 25 IT decision-makers are involved in enterprise technology decisions, downloading 6 assets on average to guide them on their journey. Yet, marketers rarely step back and try to pre-design an entire content journey. Most don’t craft stories. They craft assets. Meanwhile, awareness, demand generation, and product marketing functions often work in isolation. As a result, nurture is frequently part of the digital strategy versus the content strategy. So, do yourself a favor and outline the beats of a story before you start writing your script.  

2. Define your protagonist 

Great stories generally have a main character. Does yours? Is it your brand, your product, or your customer? It can go both ways, but things are almost universally more interesting if they aren’t about you. For example, Apple’s “Shot on an iPhone” campaign is buyer-centric. And fittingly aligned with their brand of empowering the creativity inside of us or, in other terms, helping us “Think Different.” You can apply a protagonist as you create single assets or across your entire strategy.  

If you get stuck wondering who your protagonist should be, consider a few things that define a protagonist in a film or television show. The story is always one of her emotional journeys. She has a problem to solve. Her goal is the motivating force in the movie. And she will be the one who is forever changed (and hopefully improved) when the final credits role. Can your product forever change your customer? 

3. Hook the audience right away 

Your reader is always one click away from 50 unread emails, an endless cycle of breaking news, and floods of pictures of people they haven’t seen since high school. So, how do you keep their attention? Filmmakers have used a story beat called the “Inciting Incident” (this is such a fundamental element of the Romantic Comedy genre that it has its own name, “The Meet Cute”). The Inciting Incident is the point in the first few moments of the movie when the protagonist’s ordinary world is changed forever. It’s the initial call to action.  

The bad news? While filmmakers have the luxury of a few minutes, you don’t. You have to hook them in the first two or three sentences. Can you do it?  

A great hook should be emotional, relevant, and memorable. With such little space, each word should serve a purpose and contribute to the overall impact. You should experiment with different combinations of elements to find the right balance that captivates your audience. The goal is to excite and entice readers to care about what comes next and want to know more. 

4. The “secret formula” for a plot 

Draw from your pain points. Do you need help getting anonymous visitors to convert on your site? Is lead nurturing more of an ideal state than a reality? Take a look at the formula for “plot,” that abstract force that pulls you from your seat into a story. Most would say creating a great plot is an art. But, I would argue that it is actually quite scientific. For you math heads, here’s a formula: Plot = Goal + Conflict. If you are ever looking at your watch and saying to yourself, “Wow, this is a long movie,” chances are there is a weak plot.  

If you’re challenged with finding the plot of your brand story, your audiences might not look at their watch, but they will fall out of your nurture stream. Looking for a remedy? Try playing producer and start asking questions:  

• Does the main character have a goal?  
• Is there enough conflict?  
• Are the obstacles heavy enough?  
• What is blocking success?  

In a story, all sorts of elements can increase the tension to speed things up. For example, this is a key role of the antagonist. 

5. Don’t put your story in a content dumping ground 

While a website isn’t the silver screen, it can be purpose-built to tell your brand story. If nurture and demand are your goals, don’t create an unfocused blog with unrelated assets piled on top of each other. Structure a digital experience that moves the user through a content journey seamlessly. The right experience should clearly showcase the beginning, middle, and end in the correct order and let prospects move up and down that story based on their specific interest level and buying stage. You can build content to make sure readers can always find the breadcrumbs and get back on the path. Then, use data to capture digital footprints for retargeting and nurturing. 

This is exactly why we created the brand hub platform.

6. Do a script reading 

The cast and crew get together for readings at multiple points before film production. The cast, the director, the cinematographer, the editor, the screenwriters, the production designers, and the producers all sit around a table and live out the film. While the film is the granddaddy of “waterfall projects,” this is as close as it gets to being agile. Little changes are made on the fly. And it works. In my experience, people usually swim in their lanes, and the roles are clear. But, everyone’s expert perspective contributes to the overall success of the project. This practice is perfectly transferable to brand storytelling. In fact, it should be a lot easier. The content team can present the beat outlines of the story. The planning/customer insights team can validate the approach. The awareness team can provide input on how to pull and engage with audiences. The demand generation teams can focus on lead capture and nurture. And, of course, the analytics team can make sure we are mapping the right KPIs to the content and the build from the start. The advantage of this approach is you can get buy-in or adjust on the fly, as needed.     

Excellent brand storytelling is an essential pillar of any thought-leadership program and should be connected all the way down to demand. While it isn’t an easy task, there are ways to make things feel effortless for the customer. And, for creating that experience, you will be rewarded with an audience experience almost as satisfying as a great film. 

It’s been more than a couple of years since the Sales Development Representative (SDR) role was based purely around the traditional sales floor method of cold calls and emails to prospective clients. In addition to outreach, the modern SDR function increasingly requires new skills, knowledge and teamwork – the latter in particular helping to bridge a gap between Sales and Marketing.

To put things into perspective, imagine it’s Monday morning. You’re having coffee, going over some emails before your Zoom meeting in half an hour and you glance over one from a stranger about booking a demo, maybe before you get a call from an unknown number and it turns out to be someone trying to get at you about .

It’s hardly uncommon to find prospects working from home in a more personal and private setting like this, digitally self-educating and consequently far less likely to be as receptive to cold contacting in general. From as early as 2017, found B2B buyers to already be spending 45% of the buying cycle conducting their own research, with only 17% of their time spent communicating with suppliers. To best adjust to these shifts, SDRs can work with marketing to nurture leads and have them reach the SQL stage.

In practice, Marketing begins the process by using multi-channels such as EDM campaigns and programmatic display to generate leads, the intent data from which is then conveyed to SDRs to make first contact with prospects and ultimately provide Sales with prospects that are engaged.

“Is the SDR role a sales function or a marketing function? And the simplest answer is both”

Nurturing from the top of the funnel, utilizing effectively curated to leverage data and analytics can facilitate the generation of quality leads and work perfectly in combination with the SDR function. Multi-asset engagement platforms further serve to accommodate this by allowing for both self-education and self-nurturing. From here, this digital engagement and intent data can be observed by marketers to capture what is resonating with prospects and convey this information to SDRs to provide context and talking points all before making first contact. 

Nobody likes to feel marketed to, and this is where SDR can function to be mindful of where leads are on the buyer’s journey to ensure they feel respected as individuals rather than just job titles and phone numbers, making the entire experience feel more natural and less invasive. 

When leads are both marketing-qualified and SDR approved, then they’re ready to move to Sales. It’s a simple concept, but the complexity and nuance often lie in a more difficult question: is the SDR role a sales function or a marketing function? And the simplest answer is both.   

SDRs answer to Marketing’s attribution. I personally value seeing SDRs as part of Sales, although when it comes to ROI/attribution, SDR and Marketing working together can greatly assist in allowing Sales to land a higher percentage of leads. As a result of marketing having become much more digital, analytical and attribution-focused, commitment to that attribution can be an asset to Sales – highlighting the need for a closer relationship between the two departments accomplished by the SDR function. Here in particular, we’ve been implementing this integration with steps like having regular catch-ups and keeping a consistent dialogue between all three departments – allowing for improvements like being able to provide SDRs with content and engagement data to assist with outreach, and having access to more first hand insights to inform marketing content and campaigns.

“I’d rather have six quality conversations over dialing for dollars.”

 And that’s exactly what SDRs do. By bridging the gap and repairing the disconnect between Sales and Marketing, SDRs can shorten the sales cycle, continuously integrating with marketing campaigns to remain visible to prospects and tailoring interactions to each individual. Paired with the right tools, marketers can guide and work closely with SDRs in identifying how most effectively to reach out and strategically take advantage of the digital space to nurture leads in a more holistic shift towards engagement and quality conversations, saving time and resources which may have otherwise been allocated to cold outreach. 

The bottom line? Sales don’t want the wrong leads, and want more than just contacts. Sales want leads that are promised by Marketing to be engaged. SDRs can facilitate the progression from top-funnel to bottom-funnel by working in the middle. By having all three departments; marketing, SDR and sales, coordinate to properly nurture and invest into quality leads, prospects can appreciate being treated as individuals, with these efforts being rewarded with a higher rate of conversion to help ensure leads become long term clients. 

While you may have an amazing Business Development Representative (BDR) team, it’s no secret the job can be rough. So make your BDRs’ lives a little easier with a few helpful sales tools? We asked BDRs from B2B companies what their favorite tools to use are, and why. 

Why use sales tools?

BDRs are crucial to B2B organizations because they help create new business opportunities. When equipped with sales enablement tools, BDRs can be more efficient and impactful in targeting and engaging the accounts that matter most. 

The hardest part of closing any deal is finding it

Lars Nilsson

Any tool you select will become a part of your larger MarTech stack. When choosing a sales enablement tool, consider what integrations it supports. Many BDR tools like Salesloft or Outreach, integrate into ABM platforms. This can help to create efficiencies across platforms and ensure your demand generation and sales teams are aligned around the same shared data.

The sales enablement tool you select should allow your BDR/SDR teams to:

• Build account lists
• Qualify high-fit accounts
• Engage leads
• Book demos
• Stay organized

When we asked BDRs from the B2B sales landscape what their favorite tools were, we noticed some trends and fan favorites. Here are a few tools you might want to consider for your own BDR team.

Sales engagement tools

 – Senior Sales Development Representative, 

Favorite tool: Outreach‍

“I like this tool because it’s pretty versatile. I can organize my day in the way I choose. It’s essential to have all my data in an organized manner. Also, this tool is great for email campaigns, adding tasks, recording calls, and adding snippets.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“It’s a tool to use to help write emails, calls, and build sequences to help drive responses and book meetings. Being able to create tasks. For example, writing notes after a cold call so I don’t have to listen to the call. Or adding a website link. Adding snippets is huge to make it easier to send cold emails efficiently. It also includes a LI tab you can click on quickly to do research on a prospect.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“Stay organized and consistent. Have an idea of how many calls, emails, and sequences you need to achieve your goals. Atrium is another tool to determine that. There will be highs and lows but consistency will prevail.”
‍

 – Senior Business Development Representative, Foundry

Favorite tool: Salesloft

“I take advantage of being able to see engagement for each contact that has received prior outreach (whether it’s from me, another BDR, or even an AE). Between the opens, clicks, and replies… it’s a great way to gauge a prospect’s interest. If a contact has a previous reply, I like to track it and piggyback off the previous conversation. A lot of times it will be with an AE and they’ll say something along the lines of “let’s reconnect next year” and by the time I’m reaching out to them, sometimes the timing lines up. Also, when sending daily emails it’s great to track prospects that have opened your email multiple times, or clicked a link more than once. It usually means that person has an interest or they forwarded the email to the rest of their team.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“It’s easier to engage in conversation and avoid “cold” outreach when you reference previous conversations they had with our team or previous engagement in general. It allows me to develop a smoother connection with the prospect. A level of trust is established, and it’s a quick way to show the person you did your research around what they’re looking for.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“Be authentic and find your voice. It’s easy for prospects to tell if you’re faking it (whether it’s over the phone or email), so be yourself and I think most people are willing to hear you out.”

Business intelligence tools

 – Account Development Representative, 

Favorite tool: Tableau

“Provides analytics insights that give reps information critical to both managing existing customer success and identifying new areas of business to prospect into. The alerts on product usage, new backend users to reach out to, purchasing patterns, and price scaling are extremely helpful. I evaluate the activity by account and then sync w/ my account manager(s) to strategize from there.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“It’s helped me find a lot of low-hanging fruit and also develop existing partnerships that MongoDB has in the public sector. Helps to supplement one of the most time-consuming aspects of prospecting – which is finding ideal customer profiles.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“Focus on the quality of your activity. Sales managers often evaluate BDR/SDRs by the number of calls made or emails sent. This creates an environment where quantity is made the incentive and this can cause the quality of your outreach to be watered down in the process. The right message to the right person will always deliver more long-term success than throwing whatever you can at the wall and hoping something sticks.”

Email tools

 – Sales Development Representative, 

Favorite tool: Lavender

“I tend to overcomplicate emails. This helps me write great emails in real-time.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“This tool helps me get a higher response rate, as well as keep track of writing time and improves my response rate.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“JUST HIT SEND”

‍

 – Business Development Representative, Foundry

Favorite tool: Vidyard

“Brings the life back into prospecting! I use this tool to add a personable touch to my outreach. When I want to communicate a lot to my reader, I find video is better at getting my point across than a long email.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“I’ve found that a well-personalized Vidyard helps with engagement and increases response rates vs a traditional email. Since so many BDRs are always sending emails, this tool and ease of use allows me to quickly create a  for my reader. In return, I’ve found that people are quite surprised and impressed by this approach to prospecting.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“Don’t stop being creative!”

Social selling tools

 – Account Executive, 

Favorite tool: LinkedIn 

“LinkedIn allows you to find ideal contacts and create tailored pitches. You can pick up things that might be outside of their business to bring up during a cold call/email. “Hey, by the way, I saw you’re a Purdue grad, class of 86′. I grew up watching the boilermakers play hoops. Have you been back lately to visit?” 

How does this make your job easier?

“LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to see what the prospect has done in the past/outside of work success that you can compliment them on/relate to. LinkedIn helped me schedule numerous meetings.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“It’s all about the next play, collaborate with your colleagues, and have fun with it.”

‍

 – Business Development Team Lead, Foundry

Favorite tool: LinkedIn SalesNavigator

“I like that it’s directly off LinkedIn so it mirrors a prospect’s profile. Almost all of the marketers we want to speak to are active on LinkedIn and keep their profiles up to date which helps us know about promotions, job changes, etc. That allows us to personalize our outreach at the right time! I can do a search at scale based on specific criteria matching a prospect – geography, seniority, industry, etc. SalesNavigator makes it easy to find the right companies and contacts to prospect to that meet our ICP. The accuracy is better than other platforms I’ve used.”

Productivity tools

 – Business Development Representative, Foundry

Favorite tool: CopyLess

“It’s my favorite tool because it saves me time doing many of the tasks in my day-to-day job. 

​​I use this tool to:

• copy a series of information and paste it into different cells in spreadsheets 
• copy the body and subject line of drafted emails, and paste them within the correct fields 
• paste text with the formatting of my choosing or without formatting, etc.”

How does this tool make your job easier?

“Having a tool that improves the copy & paste function helps me be a more successful BDR by allowing me to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on my other tasks throughout the day. Constantly switching between web pages and tabs isn’t just a waste of time; it’s also mind-numbing. Although this tool doesn’t eliminate every reason for switching back and forth between pages, not having to do it as much anymore makes my life easier.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“I’m new to the BDR world, but I think prioritization and time management are the keys to success in almost every career you can have. So, looking for the tools that will help you become more efficient in your job seems like a great place to start.”

CRM tools

 – Business Development Representative, Foundry

Favorite tool: Salesforce

“This is my favorite tool since you are able to see the intent data of the specific company you are researching. I use this tool to help with personalizing emails to target the lead with what they had been researching and create opportunities.” 

How does this tool make your job easier?

“Salesforce improves my targeting in emails, and truly makes researching for me easier.”

Any advice to other BDRs on how to crush it in the sales game?

“Always stay on top of your main people who seem to be engaging with your emails.”

Conclusion

There are many tools out there that can help BDRs in their role: whether it’s productivity tools that help you complete tasks more efficiently,  that can help identify the best hot accounts to reach out to, or prospecting tools that help you reach your target at scale. 

Want to equip your business development team to succeed? First, equip your team with the tools necessary to be successful. Audit what your team has, what they might need (maybe a few of the tools above will prove to be a winner among your BDR/SDRs!), and how each tool integrates with your sales and marketing tech stack as a whole.

Looking for new solutions or building out your tech stack? , making for a cohesive martech stack. 

‍Chat with an ABM expert to see if ABM can help complete your sales and marketing tech stack.

With a little more detail you can turn standard (potentially slightly boring) content into eye-catching visuals for your prospective customers. Personalization isn’t new, but its value for sales and marketing strategies remains significant. Personalizing content in your ABM strategy adds a flair that’s catered to your audience’s interest and will drive more engagement. Let’s take a look at three pro tips to optimize your personalization efforts. 

1. Know your buyer personas 

You may already have an idea of what an ideal customer profile (ICP) looks like, but planning out buyer personas grants an even deeper understanding of prospective customers. Personalization is most effective when you have a clear understanding of your organization’s current and prospective customers’ behaviors and interests. 

Building off that foundation allows marketers to create content that alleviates the pain points prospects are facing. For example, Foundry customer Redpoint Global used 1st and 3rd party  to create two major buyer personas based on audience interactions. From the initial point of interest up to the point of purchase, each prospective buyer receives unified, targeted messaging that addresses their specific use case.  

ABM can be a great fit for businesses in a variety of industries, but is best suited for B2B or B2G facing companies. The SaaS industry has thrived on ABM strategies, but ABM can be useful in other industries such as manufacturing, construction, professional services, IT, HR, finance, and more. ABM programs thrive for companies with niche ideal customer profiles. 

2. Diversify your content 

According to a 2020 , B2B buyers consume on average 13 pieces of content during the purchase journey. Since buyers can make the initial hand-raise at any point during their journey, it’s best to have a variety of content planned out across every channel. With buyer personas planned out, marketers can organize and adjust content to the likings of prospective customers. Below is a list of common customizable channels that will help you optimize your personalized content objectives.  

3. Repurpose old content 

Repurposing old content is a great way to refine previously successful content towards the interest of another account. Not only does this strategy save marketers time from developing brand new content from the ground up, but customers are also seeing content with a proven track record that is relevant to them. 

Similar to how intent data helps establish a buyer’s persona, it also supports content repurposing efforts.  Intent data allows you to segment current and prospective customers into groupings based on what their interests are.  For example, packaging old content to create  with a minimal amount of adjustments. 

Buyers want content that speaks to them, and getting personalized content in front of them early in the buyer’s journey will pay dividends in your ABM programs. With a variety of content and intent data to know your audience better, you’ll be able to reach buyers with the right content at the right time.

What exactly do BDRs do on a day-to-day basis? The methods and processes will differ from company to company, but most BDRs share a common thread of identifying, creating and cultivating new business opportunities. This role focuses on long-term methods and increasing the value of business relationships. And similar to sales, BDRs will be expected to hit targets and KPIs, and work in fast-paced settings.

Common BDR tasks include:

• Developing strategies and business plans to generate growth
• Cold calling leads
• Prospecting leads in target markets
• Nurturing cold leads and moving them through the sales funnel
• Conducting marketing research
• Implementing initiatives to target new markets
• Researching prospective leads and markets Evaluating current performance and implement strategies to improve

As you might expect, BDRs have a lot on their plate and it’s difficult to understand exactly what makes a successful BDR, as they need a variety of different hard and soft skills, knowledge, and hands-on experience to excel in the role. And more often than not, BDRs are masters of non-traditional skills which can be harder to spot, such as creativity and rapport-building.

Learn more about hiring talent

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In this article, we dive into key skills, characteristics and traits that you should look for when trying to build a team of motivated, enthusiastic and skilled BDRs that can step up to the plate for your organization.

Market researcher, lead prospector and data-scraper

Research shows that generating high-quality leads is a priority goal for worldwide. For companies growing at scale, the capability to expand beyond the horizons and discover new business opportunities is vital. This is an area that BDRs should excel in. Whether that entails developing sales and marketing strategies to leverage untapped markets, using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find high-quality leads, or ensuring that your lead database is up to date with actionable data, a good BDR should always strive to put new opportunities in your lap.

This requires a keen understanding of the market you operate in, what makes a strong lead, and what makes those leads tick. This knowledge will keep you ahead of the competition and can form the basis of marketing, sales and business strategies.

How? Simply put, if BDRs have their finger on the pulse of leads, the better you can create personalized and consistent sales journeys at every touchpoint and on every channel. A lead that feels like their business pain points are understood, and is offered appropriate solutions to those pain points will be more receptive to outreach strategies.

A BDR with great research skills and a drive to find leads that match your buyer persona, will be invaluable to your sales team. BDRs should go above and beyond, and not just rely on leads generated from marketing efforts. Whether that is through LinkedIn Sales Navigator, social media or ZoomInfo, it’s vital that BDRs know how to find leads that are more likely to make a sale.

Learn more: Overcoming challenges to hiring strong sales development representatives

Communication, active-listening and relationship building

BDRs spend a lot of time engaging with leads, customers, and prospects. They are often the face of your company, and need to represent your organization’s values, unique selling points and more. In fact, studies show that seeing an uplift after implementing a personalized buyer experience..

An ability to connect with leads is vital. This extends to skills that often fly under the radar for BDRs such as copywriting. BDRs spend a lot of time engaging leads through email and LinkedIn, and the great BDRs will adapt the tone of their messaging to what the lead will connect with. This is a skill that can help in countless ways, from email outreach to LinkedIn personal messages, and landing page copy.

It’s vital that BDRs can adapt the content of their communications to the lead, based on their position of the lead in the sales funnel, industry, upcoming events, time of year, lead persona and more. It is difficult to coach BDRs to develop an eye for personalisation and understanding how each individual leads ticks, so this skill is one to look out for.

Communication skills go hand in hand with actively listening and relationship building. Active listening is important for BDRs as they spend a lot of their day-to-day cold calling, having to make an impression in a brief span of time, while ensuring the lead is doing most of the talking. This is easier said than done.

When this happens, a good BDR will be able to actively listen and take stock of fine details that indicate if the lead will make a purchase or not. This also requires empathy, and emotional intelligence, and the ability to understand, on a personal level, what business challenges prospects are facing, and how they might respond to nurturing techniques.

BDRs must be attuned to subtle clues that leads might drop, such as business challenges, technology issues, funding, company decision makers and important calendar dates. When BDRs get this right, and prospects feel like their pain points are understood, a stronger relation is the outcome.

Learn more: Sales development and tech-assisted selling

Creativeness, curiosity and motivation

regard content as a trustworthy marker when evaluating a business.

BDRs need to have a creative edge to implement unique strategies that help put your organization in the spotlight for leads that are making a purchasing decision. Every single day, prospects receive many LinkedIn messages, emails, cold calls, webinar invitations, event invitations, blogs and a lot more. A BDR that can help you stand out from the crowd is worth their weight in gold.

Creativity often goes beyond personalization, which is what leads expect. BDRs should use all the resources they have to create more interesting methods of gaining a lead’s attention. For example, virtual summits, online courses, social media listening, and speaking at industry events, there are a lot of creative methods out there that will help generate and nurture leads, and your BDRs should be eager to jump on them.

When leads see engagement attempts that differ from the norm, they take notice. For example, video prospecting gained in popularity because it takes the fundamentals of email and phone call prospecting, but transforms it into a more engaging and personalized video format. A BDR who can confidently speak to the camera, introduce the organization and products, and also drop a line specifically aimed at the lead, will go a long way toward gaining a follow up call.

Overall, great BDRs have their ear to the ground with creative methods of engaging leads. They should be innately curious about what the next trend is, new markets and buyer personas, and have an eagerness to attend trade shows and industry events. Every opportunity is a learning opportunity.

Drive, coachability and organization

BDRs often have a difficult and exhausting job compared to their peers, especially from an objectives standpoint. If we consider that marketing is focused on generating leads, and sales on closing leads, BDRs don’t quite have the same tangible end goal. And because of this, they rarely get the glory despite the role being pivotal to the success of an organization.

As a result, it pays in spades to have a BDR who is driven, coachable and organized. While these skills are soft skills rather than hard skills, they are just as important.

When we consider that up to , and up to four times before they say “yes”, you can imagine why this role requires a high drive and positivity. A BDR who can pick themselves up after a discouraging week and maintain high energy and enthusiasm will increase their chances of a bounce back. Likewise, a BDR who doesn’t allow the frustration of one bad call or email to affect their next engagement opportunity is vital for an aspiring BDR. To take this one step further, a BDR who seeks to improve upon each mistake, rather than pretend it never happened, will reduce the likelihood of mistakes happening.

While BDRs should have confidence, they should never shy away from coaching. There is always more to learn, no matter how many years someone has been in the job, regardless of experience, industry or job type. Whether through listening to their own calls with line managers, or asking their peers for feedback, it’s a must to ensure your BDR candidates are always seeking self-improvement. This takes organization, an awareness of strengths and weakness, and a drive to learn more about lead engagement skills. Not only will these soft skills help BDRs take on feedback, but these skills often paint the portrait of a BDR that will improve year on year, which can be invaluable.

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Business intelligence, tech savviness and team player

In a 2020 study, agreed that business intelligence platforms were vital to their current and future projects.

Every day, BDRs will face new scenarios, prospects, market conditions, industries, and business challenges. Because of this, business intelligence, tech savviness and desire to seek help from the team are vital for success. Understanding the business, products, your organization’s place in the market, your competitors and more will provide leverage to improve and stay ahead of the game.

BDRs need to utilize sales data, lead data and market data to find new business opportunities. This requires a high level of commercial and business sense to understand what opportunities and projects will be most valuable to the organization. Whether that is targeting a new market, developing a new buyer persona, or deploying a new lead nurturing program.

It is also important that BDRs know that business development is not a solo act. New ideas will often have to be pitched to senior stakeholders, as well as team members. Suffice it to say, for BDRs to make an impression on the strategic level, they need to obtain support from a variety of departments to implement money making projects.

From marketing, to sales, and sales development, BDRs have a lot of faces to convince. Because of this, it is vital to have good team building skills and an ability to gain stakeholder buy in. BDRs should be able to identify all stakeholders, engage with their needs and requirements, and measure and track progress of the project so all stakeholders feel validated.

To round this set of skills off, BDRs need to be skilled with the tools of the trade. Customer relationship management, B2B prospecting, lead generation, lead scoring and qualification, lead tracking, communication and many more, are all conducted through technology solutions. BDRs need to strive for perfection when using these tools and need to know what hidden features and capabilities are available. A BDR that regularly attends vendor training sessions, or even conducts their own research via online guides on YouTube tutorials will ensure their technology skills are up to scratch.

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Working with Foundry Sales Development Services

BDRs need a diverse set of hard and soft skills to make a strong impression in your organization. But, it’s challenging to find, hire and retain skillful BDRs. Talented BDRs with years of experience will be on the search for their next role, typically in sales, and won’t consider a lateral move. Meanwhile, BDRs new to the role will often be fresh out of university, with limited experience. This often means that hiring managers will hire BDRs based on personality, rather than experience.

This is especially frustrating for growing organizations that need to scale at a pace that cannot hire and keep a consistent business development team to improve the health and value of sales pipelines.

Outsourcing is a great utility for organizations that don’t have the resources, management experience, time or expertise, to staff, and retain and train an in-house business development team. Outsourcing can be the answer, as it provides access to skills, people, technology and expertise in a comparatively small cost package when compared to an in-house team.

Foundry SDS are lead nurturing experts. We will create a bespoke lead nurturing program to deliver high-quality leads that fit the buyer persona of your business development strategy.

Outsourcing lead nurturing and business development will take care of all the lead nurturing challenges and costs with a single package. And you gain the expertise and speed of the company that specializes in business development.

Learn more about our services here.

What’s next?