Sales Enablement Using Text Alerts:

Instant Knowledge for Sales

An often quoted marketing stat states that “50% of sales go to the first sales person to contact the prospect." This emphasizes the fact that in sales, if you are not first, you are last.

Though most of our marketing and sales processes are automated, we still need to be on our toes when dealing with leads and prospects.

Why you ask? Because 50% of sales go to the first sales person to contact the prospect (like I said earlier, it’s oft-quoted for a reason)

And what better way to keep your sales reps in the loop other than SMS alerts? Text alerts are timely, concise and direct. An automation system with a focus on Sales Enablement will allow you to reap the benefits of this simple, somewhat underestimated, yet powerful feature.

Let’s look at some important ways this feature can boost your sales.

Don’t miss out on important alerts

Since salespeople are constantly travelling, they may not have the luxury of time. Between their selling and follow up and other paperwork, they spend less time proactively looking out for ready leads than is ideal. Instead, if they choose to be notified about the progress of their campaigns, they will be automatically notified irrespective of where they are.

The best part is that you can choose whether you want text notifications or not. For maximum sales effectiveness, you can invest in a system that lets you opt for text alerts. If you are running an important drip, or are keen on tracking some link and see how it’s doing, you can choose to receive notifications via SMS.

Now, if they have a flexible sales automation tool that lets them follow up through their cell phones, your sales reps can’t miss a thing.

Timeliness is appreciated

Often, companies have lost out on prospects due to slow follow-up. Today’s digitally driven buyers are known to flit from one choice to the other in no time. With competition so fierce, your reps cannot be late responders. If you want to close more deals, you have to respond fast, analyze prospects’ needs faster and provide solutions the fastest. The first step to the process is notifying your sales reps about how the prospect responded to your deal.

Imagine Millie opened your email and found something interesting in it on Monday. But your concerned sales rep is on a business tour and will be back only by the end of the week. Do you think Millie is going to wait for you that long? She won’t. She probably won’t even wait until that afternoon.

In such a circumstance, enabling text alerts for your email campaigns does this: Millie opens your email, find something interesting and this is recorded and notified to your rep on his personal mobile number. Your rep either a) Using his mobile sends a follow up email to Millie; or b) passes along the notification to a fellow-sales person who can handle it promptly. In any case, you have responded immediately and your prospect won’t fail to appreciate this.

The sooner you are notified, the sooner you can respond. Prompt responses tend to elicit a positive response from prospects. Interesting stats that re-affirms this thought

Companies that try to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving queries are nearly 7 times as likely to have meaningful conversations with key decision makers as firms that try to contact prospects even an hour later

If you follow up with leads within 5 minutes, you’re 9 times more likely to convert them

For any organization, it is important that your sales reps don’t waste time doing time consuming things. Keeping them posted with prospect activity lets them focus on their task.

Does your automation software have this feature?