Flying blind
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Can you imagine if a chef didn’t taste their food?
Or if a photographer didn’t look at their pictures?
How about a marketer who doesn’t listen to sales calls?
Unfortunately that one is all too common. In marketing your success is almost always directly tied to the sales team you are supporting. But so few marketers actually take the time to do the work to see what is working or not working on that side of the fence.
Here are 7 items listening to sales calls will help you answer:
Customer Needs & Pain Points:
What are the common problems or needs mentioned by prospects?
How does our product/service alleviate these pain points?
Product Knowledge & Understanding:
Do prospects have misunderstandings or misconceptions about our product/service?
What features or benefits do prospects inquire about most?
Objections & Hesitations:
What are the common objections raised by prospects?
What hesitations or concerns do they voice before converting?
Competitor Mentions & Comparisons:
Are prospects considering competitors’ products/services?
How do they compare our product/service to those of competitors?
Pricing & Value:
How do prospects react to the pricing model?
Are they perceiving enough value to justify the cost?
Closing Techniques & Reactions:
Which closing techniques are most effective?
How do prospects react to different closing strategies?
Feedback & Suggestions:
Do prospects offer any feedback or suggestions regarding the product/service?
How can we integrate this feedback to optimize our offerings?
Wouldn’t that be valuable information to know for your next ad campaign, content piece, website CTA, email nurture stream, brand strategy, etc?
Ultimately the end goal of marketing is to help drive sales - whether it is Brand, PR, Demand Gen, Events - it doesn’t matter. How can you do that effectively without knowing what is happening on the sales side?
Thanks for reading - Adam.
Free online workshop on primary market research:
What the business leaders actually care about is tying market research to business strategy. You'll learn:
How you can use research to help executives change the way they think about their category, product, customers and marketing.
How to use research to help the company position itself against competitors, gain market share and hit it's goals.
How to use market research to help executives make better real-time decisions.