MarketStar Blog

Key Takeaways

• AdTech allows advertisers to plan, manage, and optimize their campaigns strategically. 

• AdTech includes various tools like DSPs, SSPs, ATD, ad servers, and ad networks to help advertisers serve relevant ads to relevant audiences.

• AdTech streamlines and enhances digital advertising efforts, and the technology is only growing more sophisticated.

• AdTech enables businesses to reach audiences quickly, increase measurability, and run effective ad campaigns.

The AdTech market is full of opportunities for generating leads.

But with so many options and so much noise in the market, it can be challenging to know where to start. This guide will help you find the best leads for your business by considering your specific needs and budget.

When it comes to finding leads, AdTech can be a great option. Using data and technology, you can identify potential customers and target them with personalized messages.

In this guide, we’ll cover the following: 

• What is AdTech?

• The AdTech ecosystem

• Benefits of AdTech 

• Implementing AdTech into your lead generation strategy

• Get started with AdTech

By the end of this guide, you’ll know everything you need to get started with AdTech and find better leads.

What is AdTech?

Advertising Technology, a.k.a. AdTech, refers to the software and tools used to buy, sell, and deliver digital advertising. AdTech includes everything from ad servers and networks to demand-side and data management platforms.

AdTech is rapidly evolving and has revolutionized the advertising industry. It has made it easier to buy and sell ads and track and measure advertising campaigns’ performance.  

AdTech has also made it possible to target ads to specific audiences and deliver them in real-time.

If you’re involved in digital advertising, you need to understand AdTech – it is the backbone of advertising.

AdTech is an exciting and dynamic industry, wherein new AdTech companies are constantly emerging every day, and existing companies are continually innovating and improving their products.

The AdTech Ecosystem

 The AdTech ecosystem is an ever-changing landscape. 

With so many players and technologies, it can take time to keep up with the latest trends. However, understanding the AdTech ecosystem is essential for anyone who wants to stay ahead of the curve in digital advertising.

Here are some major players and the technologies used to power the AdTech ecosystem. 

• Ad Server: An ad server is a program that stores and serves website advertisements.

  Advertising networks use ad servers to track statistics, deliver ads, and act as a middleman between advertisers and website publishers. Ad servers can serve websites, emails, and mobile devices.

• Ad Exchange: Ad exchange is a marketplace where advertisers can buy and sell advertising space.

  Ad exchanges are used to buy and sell ads on websites, apps, and other platforms. They usually work on real-time bidding (RTB), meaning you can bid on ad space in real time. This allows you to target specific audiences, create personalized customer experiences, and optimize your campaigns for maximum impact.

• Agency Trading Desk (ATD): ATDs allow you to trade digital advertising space in real-time.  ATDs use programmatic technology to automate the ad-buying process, making it more efficient and effective.
  
  Using an ATD includes improved campaign performance, transparency, and control. They also provide you with access to valuable data and insights that can be used to inform future campaigns.

• Demand Side Platforms (DSP): DSPs are used by ad agencies and marketers to purchase ad space on digital platforms, including websites, apps, and social media platforms.
  
  DSPs allow advertisers to bid on ad space in real time, which gives them a significant advantage over traditional ad-buying methods. With DSPs, advertisers can adjust their bids according to market changes, allowing them to get the best ROI.

• Supply Side Platforms (SSP): An SSP is a type of software that helps websites and other digital publishers improve the efficiency of their ad operations. By automating many of the manual tasks associated with ad management, SSP can help publishers increase their revenues and improve the overall quality of their ad Inventory.

• Data Management Platform (DMP): A DMP is a software platform that helps organizations collect, process, and manage data.
  
  DMPs can track customer behavior, understand customer journeys, measure campaign performance, and more. They are an essential tool for any business that wants to make data-driven decisions.

The 3 Important Benefits of AdTech

AdTech can be used in a variety of ways to benefit your business.

It helps you to reach a wider audience, target your ads more effectively, track the results of your ad campaigns, and optimize them for better results. 

AdTech can also help you save money on your advertising budget, as you can more accurately target your ads to those most likely interested in your product or service.

Overall, AdTech can be a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. If you are thinking of using AdTech to boost your business, consider the benefits carefully and speak to an expert to ensure that you use it in the most effective way possible.

There are many benefits to using AdTech; some of the most notable ones include:

• Targeted Advertising: AdTech can help businesses reach a larger audience with their ads by targeting specific demographics, interests, and even locations. The ad placement can have perfect timing and context, helping marketers save time and resources. 

• Better Performance Tracking: You need the correct information to make informed decisions about campaigns. AdTech helps report and analyze data like impressions, conversions, click-through rates, and more in real time. This information can then be used to improve future ad campaigns.

• Increased ROI: An ad campaign that isn’t monitored may cut into your campaign’s returns – using advertising technology can help automate this process. You can leverage AdTech to improve your bids, eliminate time-consuming work, increase the return on investment (ROI), and generate more revenue.

Implementing AdTech into Your Lead Generation Strategy

AdTech is a powerful tool for boosting your lead-generation efforts. It enables your business to target potential customers with ads relevant to their interests.

By harnessing the power of data and technology, you can create targeted ads that reach the right people at the right time.

AdTech enables you to understand your target audience better, what they’re interested in, and when they’re most likely to convert. By using this information, you can create ads that are more likely to reach leads who are ready to buy.

By targeting ads to specific groups of people, you can increase the chances that your potential customers will click on them and convert them into leads.

AdTech can be a great way to boost your business, but it’s important to use it wisely. When using AdTech to generate leads, there are a few things to remember:

• Make sure your ads are targeted to the right audience. 

• Provide a clear and easy “call to action” for potential customers to get in touch with you. 

• Follow up with leads promptly to convert them into customers.

Get Started with AdTech

This article covered what AdTech is and the essentials of AdTech.

There are a few basics that you should know before getting started with AdTech. Our experts can help you learn them, from choosing the right platform to understanding the jargon like ad buying, ad targeting, ad fraud, and more. 

Get in touch with us today to make the most of your ad spend, and you’ll be on your way to generating more leads and closing more sales.

Key Takeaways:

• To gain loyal and long-term customers, you need to design a journey map that provides a superb experience

• Providing an incredible journey can turn someone who was casually browsing your website into an advocate who offers valuable referrals

• Journey mapping via pipeline management enables your customers to experience what it’s like to interact with your company

• Pipeline velocity refers to the speed with which leads move through the sales pipeline

Knowing what’s on your customer’s mind can be tricky and challenging. When you think you’ve accounted for their needs, their requirements change, and new buying trends emerge.

Ever wondered why a customer spends hours on your website researching your product/service to close the tab? Why does it take so many steps to get from point A to point B when it should ideally take just one?

Well, the problem could be in your customer journey mapping – you probably don’t have a clear understanding of your prospect’s journey to purchasing your product/service.

What is Prospect Journey Mapping?

Customer journey mapping or prospect journey mapping is a visual representation of how potential customers perceive your brand and how they interact with your product/service. It helps them gain insight into the challenges they’re facing.

The journey mapping aims to understand the needs and resolve pain points at all touchpoints (an instance where your prospect can form an opinion of your company) across the customer lifecycle.

How Prospect Journey Mapping Helps Drive Pipeline Velocity?

Prospect journey mapping enables you to get in your customers’ shoes and experience what it feels like to engage with your brand.

It helps you understand the good and the bad your brand offers, while the insights you gain help personalize the customer experience.

Before we explore the benefits of customer journey mapping and how it helps drive pipeline velocity, let’s find out what pipeline velocity is. 

What is Pipeline Velocity?

Pipeline velocity is the speed at which qualified leads move through a sales pipeline and eventually become customers.

The Benefits:

• Journey mapping helps you understand the role of different touchpoints and see how all customer interactions influence each other.

• By mapping out the prospect journey, you can understand what is interesting to your customers about your brand and what is turning them away. 

• It helps identify roadblocks to reduce customer pain points and improve user experience.

• Mapping out the customer’s journey helps you understand the channels they visit and what they’re trying to do at each touchpoint.

• Journey mapping helps you improve your customer retention rate. According to American Express, 33% of customers switch brands after just one poor experience.

Components in a Prospect Journey Map

A prospect journey map compiles your customer’s experience with your brand and combines the information into a map.

By understanding this relationship between your customers and your brand, you can build your touchpoints for the most effective journey mapping process.

The Purchase Process: This element defines the path/stages you intend for your customers to take to reach a specific goal. Using this path, you can start listing your stages in the right order.

Customer Actions: This component details what your potential customers do at each stage of the purchase process and explores the different ways they might reach their goals.

Adding Emotions: Your customers are looking for solutions to solve a problem. Adding a range of emotions to the journey map can help improve their opinion about your brand and turn them into brand advocates.

Pain Points: Adding pain points to the journey map helps identify the exact stage where your customers are facing issues and work out solutions.

How to Create a Prospect Journey Map

Before you start creating the journey map, you need to ask a few questions yourself – Why are you creating a map in the first place? What experience will it offer? Who is it about?

Based on these questions, you may want to create a buyer persona.

The next step is to interview prospects for direct feedback. A few good questions are:

• How did you hear about us?

• What attracted you to our website?

• On a scale of 1 to 5, how easy was it for you to navigate our website?

Based on the feedback and research, find out where your customers can interact with you on your website; list all the touchpoints your prospects are and should be using.

Determine all the elements your journey map needs to include and identify your resources and the ones you need.

Once you have designed your map, take the customer journey yourself first – this ensures that you are providing a valuable experience.

Finally, you can make the appropriate changes to your map to achieve goals.

5 Best Practices for Customer Journey Mapping

• Set a clear goal for the journey map to improve the customer buying experience.

• Turn customer pain points into business terms that your customer success team can understand and act upon.

• Create customer journey maps for different buyer personas based on demographics and psychographic.

• Update the journey map every time your product/service offers changes. Even a small tweak, like removing an additional field in the form, can significantly impact your customer journey.

• Make the prospect journey map accessible to cross-functional teams, as they are not effective in a silo.

Delight your Customers at Every Stage

Building an effective prospect journey map can help your brand create strong relationships with them. Once you understand their experience with your business, you can provide great delight at every stage of their journey.

Whether you’re optimizing your existing customer journey or exploring a new business opportunity to serve their unrecognized needs, start mapping the future of customer success in your business with the help of experts.

Bonus Takeaway:

Mapping customer journeys can be difficult for the marketing team, especially if they don’t know how and where to start.

So, here’s a handy worksheet designed to help savvy marketers chart their customers’ buying journeys to enhance their overall buying experience.

Print it out, pin it on your desk, and share it with other departments to ensure that everyone is consistently working towards attaining your customer experience vision.

Key Takeaways

• Brands must implement a seamless buying experience to make their customers come back, even during an economic crisis

• Repeat purchases are the ideal way to keep your business healthy and running during an economic downturn 

• Customers who are happy with your product/services tend to refer their friends to your brand

• Retaining your existing customers will help you grow your business amidst the challenges other companies are experiencing

Economic downturns or recessions can significantly impact customer behavior and your organization's approach to retaining customers.

As a CS leader, you must keep your team productive, motivated, and efficient during challenging economic times to retain your customers.

Customer success has never been more vital than it is right now, but instead of concentrating on KPIs and analytics, it’s crucial to pay attention to the customer.

By focusing on customer outcomes, an organization's current goal should be to make their customers’ lives easier while they use the product or service. Hopefully, the customer will benefit from this and continue doing business with you through challenging times.

This article will discuss why customer retention should become your number one focus and how to retain customers in an economic downturn.

The 5 Effective Strategies for Fostering a Loyal Customer Base

Even when things are going well with the global economy, retaining customers is difficult and building a loyal customer base is an ongoing effort. Making client retention marketing a priority requires hard work, even in the best times. 

However, when a recession occurs, things become even more difficult. 

People make fewer purchases, spend less, and forget some of their preferred brands to conserve money. You might think, “How can I hope to retain my customers in the current climate?” 

Fortunately, many strategies are still available to help create a solid consumer base, even during a downturn. A few of them are presented below. 

1. Put Customer Experience First

According to PWC, only 49% of consumers believe that businesses offer good customer service options, while 73% think customer service experience pre-purchase is a crucial determinant of their purchase decision. 

This indicates that you can quickly establish a loyal customer base if you can set yourself apart from your rivals in terms of customer service. 

Providing a positive and personalized customer experience, especially during a recession, is everything when it comes to running a successful business. 

You must ensure that you provide quality products and services, deliver them on time, and respond quickly to customer inquiries and complaints. By doing so, you will be able to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.  

To ensure that you are providing the best possible customer experience, it is essential to strive for improvement constantly. This means continually evaluating your procedures and removing inefficiencies where necessary. And removing inefficiencies that are affecting the CSAT score, NPS, or LTV.  

It is also important to listen to your customers and consider their feedback. By doing all of this, you can be sure that you are providing the best possible customer experience and running a successful business.

2. Be Flexible 

Be flexible with your customers.  

If they can’t pay their bill on time, offer them a payment plan. If they’re unhappy with a purchase, offer them a refund or exchange. 

Being flexible with your customers shows that you’re willing to work with them to ensure they’re satisfied. This can help build long-term loyalty, and trust and boost sales from existing customers. 

Customers feel appreciated when companies are ready to look out for them in times of need. Offer discounts and incentives when possible. When people spend less money on goods and services, they start looking for ways to save money elsewhere. 

Offering discounts or incentives may result in increased sales at times when your company cannot afford to lose money from sales volume alone. 

3. Have a Community-Oriented Perspective

During times of global disruption, people seek a community to belong to and connect with.  

Start developing meaningful connections with your existing customers to strengthen the relationship. Once you build a customer community, it will continue working for your business, even when you are not trying hard.  

Building trusting relationships with your customers will cost you nothing, and the payoff is immeasurable. Make direct contact with your clients and express gratitude, making them feel they are being seen and heard.   

Creating a community around your company, however, can be tricky.  

You can use community-building platforms and social media to build the community and offer loyalty programs or referral discounts to grow your business. 

4. Be Compassionate

In the same way that individuals seek out the community during a turbulent time, they also seek a little compassion and recognition. This can be accomplished through personalization – personalizing your approach for each customer can make them feel valued. 

When done well, personalized customer service may increase retention, foster customer loyalty and trust, reduce churn rates, and support the maintenance of a solid client base. 

According to HubSpot, personalized CTAs outperform non-personalized CTAs by more than 200%, and most customers are more likely to continue with a business that provides a personalized experience. 

Valuing your clients is a successful business strategy, especially when they are concerned about their expenses. You do not want your customers to stop doing business with you because they feel you don’t care about them. 

5. Add Value to Your Product/Service

The easiest way to retain customers is by bringing value to your customers. Be proactive with the value propositions the business has to offer. 

You can add value to your business with a single offer, but adding value as part of a series is much more effective. Here are some examples: 

1) Add a bonus product or service at the same price point and let customers know about it. This can be a free report, video or guide, or even an additional product at the same price.

It helps create loyalty by giving customers something extra for free, showing that you’re willing to go above and beyond for them. 

2) Improve customer service by walking them through processes that may not have been explained well before (or at all!) so that people know what’s expected of them when using your product or service.  

This can be done in person or via email – just ensure that customers know what’s happening behind the scenes! 

3) You should also improve the quality and performance of your products/services to help retain loyal customers who may not expect much from you but appreciate quality when delivered consistently. 

To Summarize

Driving customer loyalty in a challenging economic climate is key to increasing your business growth, and convenience is the key to gaining trust and loyalty from your customers in these times.

The above-mentioned strategies can help you achieve what you want and unlock huge benefits during a recession.

Outsourcing certain functions, such as sales pipeline management or customer support, can also help your organization take better care of your customers and become a boon for cost-conscious companies.

Using outsourcing as an intelligent business strategy can improve retention and position the organization to meet the challenges imposed by a recession favorably. 

Key Takeaways:

• The risk of recession is slowly but surely rising as global turbulence continues.

• B2B businesses are more likely to realize outsized gains before, during, and after a recession if they prepare to take advantage of opportunities, particularly in periods of more volatility.

• As terrifying as it may seem, some great sales strategies can be implemented to ensure your business is recession-proof and in a better position to move forward quickly when growth returns.

The next recession may be on the horizon.

By August 2023, it is projected that there is a 25.15% of probability that the United States will fall into another economic recession. 

That doesn’t mean your business must suffer. Following the right sales strategy can keep your business afloat – and even grow during a recession.

This blog post will explore how a recession can affect sales and provide some recession-proof strategies for B2B businesses.

By the end, you’ll have a game plan for tackling a recession – and coming out on top.

Is the Next Recession a Threat to B2B Businesses?

In the US, the last recession officially ended in June 2009. However, many businesses felt the effects long after that. Some companies are still struggling to recover.

So, is the next recession a threat to B2B businesses?

There are several factors to consider when evaluating this threat. First, let’s look at what causes recessions.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, recessions are caused by “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.” This can be caused by various factors, such as an increase in interest rates, a decrease in consumer confidence, or an increase in oil prices.

Any of these factors could have a significant impact on B2B businesses.

For example, an increase in interest rates would make it more expensive for companies to borrow money for inventory or expansion. A decrease in consumer confidence could lead to a reduction in demand for products and services. And an increase in oil prices would likely lead to a rise in transportation costs.

Of course, not all recessions are alike. Some are more severe than others.

The last recession was particularly brutal, with many companies going out of business altogether. It’s important to remember that even during less severe recessions, some companies struggle while others thrive.

So, what can B2B businesses do to recession-proof their organizations?

Most organizations do not prepare for an upcoming recession. According to a Bain survey,

• Only 43% of sales organizations develop plans for a recession well in advance

• Some 86% of companies that create a plan well in advance focus on using the downturn to gain market share

• 50% of companies make their plan shortly after the recession hits

The fact that many businesses survived the last recession did not happen by chance; when necessary, the companies shifted course and their approaches to weather the downturn.

Businesses that are adaptable, future-ready, and willing to change will be able to survive any economic downturn. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are some strategies that can help.

First, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of your customer base and your place in the market.

During a recession, customers may be more price-sensitive and less likely to make large purchases. Knowing your most loyal customers and their needs during tough economic times is essential.

It’s also essential to have a flexible pricing strategy.

During a recession, you may need to offer discounts or promotions to compete on price. But be careful not to cut costs too deeply – you don’t want to erode your profits or damage your brand image in the long run.

Finally, despite the economic environment, focus on generating sales, even during recessionary times. The response from the consumers may be slow and delayed; however, the demand for the goods will always be there, so don’t cut back on your sales operations. 

These measures can help ensure that your business will weather any future economic storms.

How Does a Recession Affect Sales?

A recession can significantly impact sales, as businesses are typically more conservative with their spending during economic downturns. This can lead to reduced demand for goods and services, leading to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.

While a recession doesn’t necessarily mean people will stop spending money altogether, they may be more selective about where they spend their money. This is where having the right sales strategy for business growth can make all the difference.

If your business can offer products or services that are seen as essential or that offer good value for money, you may weather the storm of a recession better than those who don’t have such an offer.

Of course, it’s not always easy to change your sales strategy mid-recession. But if you’re able to adapt and adjust to the current climate, you may be able to come out of the recession stronger than ever before. 

7 Successful Recession-Proof Strategies for B2B Businesses

1. Diversify Your Products & Services

Investing in diverse products and services is crucial for any business.

By spreading your risk across different areas, you can protect yourself from potential downturns in any one particular area. Diversification can also help you to tap into new markets and reach new customers.

By offering various products and services, you can appeal to a wider range of people, increase your chances of success, and increase sales during recession.

It might also mean cutting down on some of your less profitable products and services to focus on the ones doing better.

Recessions can be challenging for businesses, but diversifying your offerings can increase your chances of weathering the storm.

2. Review Your Pricing Strategy

When reviewing your pricing strategy during a recession, you should keep a few things in mind.

First, you need to make sure your prices are still competitive. This means you may need to lower your expenses to stay competitive with other businesses in your industry.

Second, you must ensure your prices align with your costs. If your expenses have gone down, you may be able to lower your prices without sacrificing your profits.

Finally, you need to make sure your prices are still sustainable. This means you need to be sure you can still make a profit even after lowering your costs.

It’s also worth considering offering discounts or promotions to boost sales.

3. Gather Customer Reviews & Testimonials

As the world economy shows signs of a recession, it’s more important than ever to ensure your business is in good shape. One way to do this is to gather customer reviews and testimonials.

Customer reviews are a great way to show potential customers that your business is reputable and trustworthy.

They also help to boost your search engine rankings, which can help you attract even more customers. And during a recession, customers are more likely to research businesses before making a purchase, so having positive reviews can help you stand out from the competition.

If you don’t have customer reviews or testimonials, now is the time to start collecting them. You can post a call for reviews on your website and social media channels or reach out to customers directly and ask them to leave a review.

4. Invest in Data-Driven Insights

Now is the time to rethink your business strategy and make data-driven decisions to help you survive and thrive during the next recession.

Investing in solid insights will give you a competitive advantage when the recession hits. Keep your team focused on making data-driven decisions before, during, and after the recession. This can be accomplished by reinforcing a data-driven approach throughout business interactions.

Data-driven insights are an effective way of creating growth strategies by identifying trends and patterns among customers.

So what are you waiting for? Start investing in data-driven insights and position your business for success in the next recession.

5. Increase Your Marketing Spending

Some businesses immediately cut marketing spend when they see a recession on the horizon.

However, this can be a mistake. While it’s true that discretionary spending is usually the first to go during tough economic times, businesses that maintain or even increase their marketing spend during a recession can see significant growth.

During a recession, customers are more likely to be value-conscious and look for deals. Your marketing campaigns should reflect this by emphasizing your company’s value proposition.

You can also use targeted marketing to reach new audiences who may be looking for products or services like yours.

Lastly, don’t forget that your competition will likely cut back on their marketing spend. This presents an opportunity for you to gain market share and improve your position in the marketplace.

6. Focus on Customer Retention & Success

According to Business.com, returning customers spend 67% more than new customers.

As we enter a period of economic recession, businesses must focus on retaining and increasing sales from existing customers and ensuring their success.

Now more than ever, investing in your existing customer base is crucial and ensures they remain loyal to your brand.

So how can you keep your customers happy and engaged during a recession? Here are a few tips:

Keep communication lines open. Let your customers know what’s going on with your business and how you plan to weather the economic downturn.

Offer discounts and specials. When budgets are tight, customers are looking for deals. If you can offer incentives that help your customers save money, they’ll be more likely to stick with you during tough times.

Go above and beyond. Excellent customer service is even more critical during a recession. Go out of your way.

By focusing on your customers and their success, you can weather the storm of a recession and come out stronger on the other side.

7. Build Your Email List

Adding more quality leads to your email list should always be a priority, regardless of whether we’re in an economic recession.

However, it can be challenging to maintain a consistent flow of fresh leads during tough times.

You can use a few strategies to help keep your email list growing during a recession.

First, ensure you consistently create quality content that will attract new subscribers. You can also offer incentives for signing up, such as discounts or freebies.

Finally, stay active on social media and make it easy for people to find your sign-up forms.

Following these tips can help ensure that your email list continues to grow even during a recession.

Final Thoughts on Sales During a Recession

Without being original, competitive, and creative, it’s frequently impossible to expand and scale a firm during a recession.

As a B2B business owner, it’s critical to be ready for crises, economic downturns, and other dangers to your company. Recession-proofing your firm is always a good idea, regardless of whether a new downturn is imminent or you want to be ready “just in case.”

Key Insights

Customer support and expectations in 2022 will leave little room for error. 

Key Takeaways:

• Effective sales pipeline management can help you organize your sales process efficiently and make better business decisions

• A sales pipeline represents the complete journey of a buyer – from coming in as a lead to becoming a customer

• Sales pipeline software helps track each stage of your pipeline, monitor the process, and helps in understanding the next steps

• Sales pipeline CRMs offer customizable pipelines that help manage leads, opportunities, and customer relationships throughout the sales process

• A CRM tool helps you understand if a lead is responsive and if they’re interested in your product or service

In today’s competitive marketing world, businesses need innovative sales strategies to attract leads. And the sales process plays a vital role in attracting those leads and converting them into customers quickly. 

From generating leads and building a contact repo to following up and closing the deal, your sales process requires systematic planning to help the team close the deals faster. 

However, managing it manually can be time-consuming and tedious. To help manage things efficiently, you can empower your team with effective sales pipeline tools.

This blog will cover everything you need to know about sales pipelines and the top tools to manage them.

What is a Sales Pipeline?

A sales pipeline includes several stages, and the leads are moved from one stage to the next as they move through the process. The stages include lead generation, lead nurturing, marketing qualified leads, sales accepted leads, sales qualified leads, closed transactions, and after-sales.

Today, organizations employ technology to move, monitor, or evaluate prospects through the phases of a deal, and this technology is called sales pipeline software. It enables businesses to keep track of their prospects and clients and know where they are in the sales funnel.

With a sales pipeline enabled in your work process, you will know how many deals your salespeople need to close in a given time.

The importance of maintaining your sales pipeline is straightforward – to stay ahead of the game and manage your salespeople. It also helps to improve your sales operations process, get a picture of your targets, and better revenue forecasting. 

Are you looking to be more successful in your business? Identify the changes that can be made within your sales pipeline, so your prospects move from one stage to the next faster.

How to Build an Effective Sales Pipeline?

We’ve listed down the steps to help you build a successful sales pipeline:

• Understanding your target audience is the first step to building an effective sales pipeline.

• Next, set up your sales cadences for the best accounts by identifying and targeting them from your database.

• Group those accounts based on product interest, location, and previous interaction with your brand.

• Finally, set up a successful sales pipeline with the right tools and software.

Read on to explore the best sales pipeline management tools that can help you set up an efficient sales pipeline.

Sales Pipeline Tools

Sales pipeline management tools help you organize your entire selling process.

It gives you a clear view of your pipeline by tracking every stage, streamlining the complete process, enabling your team to function better, and helping in understanding business growth.

These tools can also accurately evaluate your leads, predict sales, and track key metrics. Stay informed of your prospects, enable your sales team to follow up with them, and make better decisions with an effective sales pipeline.

How a Sales Pipeline Tool Can Help Your Business

By using a sales pipeline tool, you can organize all the processes in your pipeline efficiently.

You can understand where your leads are coming from and where they are in the pipeline and automate scheduling meetings, sending emails, and more.

Apart from minimizing human errors and saving time in repetitive tasks, it helps your business with the following:

• Understanding customer behavior: Sales pipeline tools can track conversations and metrics, which helps in understanding your customers and their pain points better.

• Making better decisions: The tool offers insights regarding leads, conversions, and processes, helping you make better decisions and understand where your business is headed.

• Generating more revenue: It helps you understand which leads are cold/potential, and how interested they are in your product/service while translating into more conversions and revenue generation.

The 4 Essential Tools to Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Let’s look at the top sales pipeline management tools, their features & benefits, and why customers prefer using them for managing their sales processes.

1. Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the top CRM software providers as it redefines the way businesses connect with their customers.

It is designed for marketing, sales, and customer service ops to create meaningful customer relationships by understanding their requirements.

This CRM helps in creating an effective sales funnel to nurture customers. It provides excellent automated features and customer service tools to help manage good relationships with your leads/customers.

According to Salesforce customer success, companies that switch over to Salesforce see an average of 25 percent increase in revenue.

Benefits:

• Salesforce helps communicate with customers/leads using automation tools

• Gives a 360-degree view of your customers and engages with them accordingly

• Removes the burden of using various applications by syncing data from them all

• Positively impacts online customer support by providing chat assistance

• It helps your brand have a unified approach with an omnichannel feature

• Collects insights to understand your customers and business better

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a fully functional, cloud-based CRM tool for managing sales effectively throughout the pipeline. It helps you stay focused on hot deals, track leads, and predict business revenue.

Pipedrive offers custom web forms and chatbots to automate repetitive tasks. It helps you get the most important deals fed into your pipeline and track calls/emails/contact history for each deal. Control your sales pipeline through a mobile device and boost your work by integrating Pipedrive with your business tools.

Benefits:

• Pipedrive is easy-to-use and customize

• Can track the number of active deals and give detailed information for each open deal

• Guides you with the deals that need prioritization

• Adaptable and cost-effective plans

• Offers machine learning-powered sales assistant for all plans

• Workflow automation for most plans

• Pipedrive doesn’t have all the features that Salesforce does, but it is perfect for small businesses with smaller budgets.

3. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a cloud-based tool that supports sales, marketing, customer service, and content management with better resources and strategies. You can avoid your sales falling through the cracks and easily manage your deals.

HubSpot CRM helps you to design attractive brand profiles and organize all the important communication details with your leads/customers. It allows you to add new deals directly from the CRM with up-to-date details.

Whether you already have an established sales process or are just starting, HubSpot CRM eases your work by creating an ideal process. With HubSpot, you don’t need the help of a technical team to edit, delete, and add deal properties and stages. 

Benefits:

• It allows you to create visual dashboards and design a sales funnel the way you want it.

• It can be connected to your social media handles.

• The website integration feature will notify you when a lead visits your website.

• The features of HubSpot CRM are not as complex as other CRMs’

• It also offers a clear view of all the tasks/activities of the team in a single dashboard

4. Lusha

Lusha is a data enrichment tool that enables you to retrieve phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information quickly and easily. It helps you to access your leads’ contact details and B2B company info within seconds.

Marketing and sales professionals can use Lusha to drive business growth, boost campaigns, and improve revenue.

Benefits:

• It helps gather accurate B2B contact information

• It allows data enrichment at scale

• One-click CRM integrations

Bottom Line

The goal of any company is to increase revenue and generate leads. However, most leads are lost in the pipeline due to irregular/negligent follow-ups. 

An effective sales pipeline management system can help convert your leads into customers. If you haven’t implemented sales pipeline management for your business, it is high time you do it immediately with expert help. 

That’s where You need MarketStar as your sales and revenue accelerator. MarketStar is a pioneer in the sales outsourcing industry. With over 50+ world-class clients served, we create growth and drive results for companies of all stages and sizes using tailored solutions to help you hit your specific business goals. 

Key Insights

Like all areas of business, telemarketing has undergone rapid changes in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Call volumes have increased, contact center managers are looking for better tools, and there is a renewed focus on increasing process efficiency. 

A study by the Harvard Business Review highlights how difficult calls saw a 50% uptick during the pandemic.

Key Insights

It is tempting to do everything in-house. The more you can do in-house, the less you pay the third parties. But at a granular level, this approach can prove to be challenging.

Key Insights

• Your customer onboarding strategy is probably the most important stage of the customer lifecycle 

• While it comes right at the start of their journey, with your offering, it sets the tone for their whole relationship with your product and company 

• The ultimate goal of any customer onboarding program is to get your customers to come back to your product

A 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profit by 25%, according to a report by Bain & Company.

Why? Because loyal customers are more likely to repeat their purchases. 

Effective customer onboarding is one way to ensure this. 

User onboarding is so critically important because it sets the tone for the ongoing relationship your customer has with your product. A good customer onboarding process will: 

• Keep Your Customer Engaged: They will clearly understand and experience the value they’ll get from your product. More importantly, it will give them a reason to log back in and use your product again and again.

• Improve Trial Conversions: If you offer a free or discounted product trial, user onboarding is where your trial users get to experience the value of your product. A good user onboarding process— right at the start of their trial — will help them to convert into paid customers.

But how do we create the perfect customer onboarding experience? 

The article shares the top actionable practices and trends of customer onboarding for 2022. 

1. Simplify the Sign-up Process

The average landing page conversion rate stands at 2.35%. The top 10% of sites are looking at 11.45% and above.

The above onboarding statistics brings us to a common misconception– that customer onboarding doesn’t start until a customer has signed up for your product. 

While every company operates differently, if you see a higher-than-average drop-off rate, it suggests you’re asking for too much information too soon. 

Such an approach gives a negative brand review or recommendation. 

Ask yourself the following questions while working on your company’s sign-up page: 

• Does your page make it easier for customers to sign up?

• Are you collecting only the essential information to personalize users’ experiences?

• If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, you’re on the right track! 

Don’t forget that you can always collect more information about the customers in the later stage

2. Send a Welcome Email

A welcome email expresses gratitude. It speaks volumes about how much you value your users.

It also sets expectations for the customer onboarding process.

A few tips that can help you craft a stellar welcome email are: 

• Ensure that your content is crisp, actionable, and easy to understand. 

• Consider including a call to action (CTA) along with the welcome email. 

• Share the email IDs of your support team so that your customers know who to reach out to in case of queries. 

• You can also make way for AI-powered writing tools and automate the entire process of sending welcome emails. 

3. Integration and Data Imports

If you are a B2B business, then your customer onboarding strategy is more than just helping your customers learn how to use your product.

Your product is now part of your customer’s technology stack. This means that they may need to set up integrations with other tools they use or even invite their team to get the most value from your product.

Automate as much as you can.

Set up an integration between your customer’s marketing automation platform and your product. This will help you remove sticking points that might stop the customer from getting value from your product. But ensure that such a practice is optional and not mandatory.

4. Product Walk-through

A well-thought customer onboarding plan consists of product walkthroughs for your customers. This helps them get set up and complete key tasks within your product. 

However, product walkthroughs can be done away with if your new customer is already familiar with your product. An unskippable walkthrough can be just as much a barrier for your clients. 

Remember that not everyone will want to go through a product walkthrough the first time they log in. Make it easy for your new customers to return to your product walkthrough later. 

For some users, such walkthroughs might not be enough to get them started. Make it easier for your customers to find extra support.

Building Better Rapport

It is easy to think that the main goal of your customer onboarding process is to help your customers start using your product. It is so much more than that. 

Your ultimate objective is to set your customers up for long-term success, where they become not just your repeat customers but also loyal brand advocates. 

Your metric for a successful customer onboarding program is whether your customers log back into your product in the days, weeks, and months after first use.

Key Takeaways

In the dynamic marketplace that we are in today, building long-lasting relationships with customers is the only way for organizations to ensure the success of their business goals