By LeRay Warrior, Principal at MEDiAHEAD.
Sales teams are critical to the success of any organization. But how a sales team is supported by their marketing department (particularly for those businesses with reps on the road) can make all the difference in securing leads and closing deals.
By centrally locating marketing materials in one portal, sales professionals can gain access to flyers, business cards, brochures, PowerPoint presentations, thank you notes and trade show materials with just a few clicks. While this all sounds great (which it most definitely is!), what does it mean in practice for sales professionals?
Let’s take a look at how our marketing portals transform the effectiveness of sales teams across the country.
Our Marketing Portals Give Sales Teams the Ability to Orchestrate Drip Campaigns
Companies who use our portals store all of their sales materials in one location, which is useful for a number of reasons. But an online portal can become transformative when a sales rep is trying to build familiarity with prospects.
Let’s say one of your sales people is in Indianapolis, trying to secure new opportunities. There’s nothing worse than trying to convince cold leads to meet with you. So they decide to send out a mailer to drum up interest and provide a talking point for when the sales rep shows up.
By utilizing one of our marketing portals, a sales lead can select the existing sales materials that he or she wants, update the contents to reflect his or her contact information (within the portal), attach a list of prospect addresses, and click send. Within seconds we receive the request. We will print the material and we mail it. We also send a copy of the material to the sales rep’s office or home address, so that they know that it’s gone out.
Sales Reps Use Our Portals to Add the Personal Touch
Sometimes it’s the small things that count the most. When leaving a sales meeting, many reps realize the value of sending a little something to tip a potential client over the edge.
We’ve found that sales professionals like to achieve this by using our portal to create personalized thank you notes. Reps can use the portal to recap what was discussed in the meeting: What the prospect stated were pain points, remind how we can remedy those pain points, illustrate next steps etc.
Once completed, that message can be sent immediately by downloading and emailing or downloading and printing at his other desk.
Our Marketing Portals Provide Sales Professionals with the Tools for The Job
If you’re a company that has franchises or sales professionals in locations spread out across the country, then the process of relaying information can be slow. Even a simple request to print more business cards for “Marie in Wisconsin” can go through several steps before being executed.
This couldn’t be further from the truth with our portals. All sales materials are located in one place 24/7, and can be printed on demand. “Marie” could have her business cards refilled within a few days by utilizing one of our portals. How often do you order business cards and wait weeks to get them in hand?
But the speed of transformation isn’t limited to sales cards. For example, how many times does corporate make a change and find that staff is still using the outdated material because they downloaded it to their desktops?
Rather than calling and emailing all of the reps to tell them to update their sales presentations, the changes can be made through the portal, and everything would reflect the most up to date changes. When the sales rep sits down with their laptop, their new, updated material is there ready to go in an easy to find place.
It also does away with the need for sales reps to continue carrying around boxes of outdated marketing materials with them. They have access to short print runs and only print what they need when they need them, reducing the amount spent on redundant marketing materials. Whether it’s business cards, pitch books, PowerPoint presentations, flyers, brochures, or posters, those sales materials are always online and ready to react to fast-moving situations thanks to our marketing and distribution portals.
Our Marketing and Distribution Take the Hassle Out of Trade Shows
Some companies rely on trade shows to secure new business, particularly within the business to business (B2B) realm. But organizing stands for shows on a regular basis can be tough. First of all, there’s the promo items, business cards, flyers, and banners. Then there are the logistical issues surrounding picking it all up and lugging it to each venue or shipping to each venue. With the help of one of our marketing portals, these issues can become a thing of the past.
Sales reps just need to log in, order what they need in terms of materials, cards, banners etc., and we will send it directly to the venue with a return shipping label. All they have to do is show up. Once the trade event has finished, they simply package up the materials and attach the return label. Once we receive it back into our warehouse, we update the inventory in real-time, so all sales reps know what’s available to them.
Streamline Your Sales with a Marketing and Distribution Portal
As demonstrated, our marketing and distribution portals make the lives of your sales professionals easier. They provide your company with a faster and more cost-effective solution to securing new business.
Whether that’s in the form of implementing real-time updates to sales materials nationwide or delegating decisions such as refreshing business cards. By having all materials in one convenient-to-access location 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you can eliminate waste, decrease turnaround times, and achieve a much higher return on investment.
If you feel that your sales professionals would benefit from access to a streamlined, centralized, and fully-functional online portal, then don’t hesitate to contact us today.
I have some thoughts about networking the right way. My goal has always been to focus on the relationship first and business second.
Perhaps one of the biggest savings afforded by an online marketing portal is time.
As mentioned, we have well over a decade of experience in delivering game-changing online marketing portals to our clients. We’ve used that expertise to help clients deliver marketing campaigns they could only dream of previously.
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The law firm was also able to reduce costs by eliminating pre-printed inventory and by substantially reducing the labor associated with managing the print.
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The reason why MEDiAHEAD’s portal is so amazing is because it’s not a canned solution.
