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Close the loop Connect marketing to sales

Posted by tom klein June 26, 2007 at 2:30 am

Sales discipline may be simple. It’s just not easy. Are you using digital tools to create and manage your sales pipeline effectively?

Google Adwords and Salesforce.com have just announced a partnership to connect text ads to lead generation and sales pipeline management. The joint offering can help you understand which Google keywords get clicked on (as ads) and convert into sales leads. From there, you can then access Salesforce.com’s CRM suite. A $600 commitment will buy 5 people access to the base level of SalesForce.com service for a year.

If you need the entrepreneur’s solution, consider using a shared Google Apps online spreadsheet. It can always be up to date and accessible to anyone with a Google email (Gmail) account. Customize your spreadsheet with the details of your sales pipeline, e.g. client name, opportunity, rating, opportunity size, likelihood of close, contact information. Presto! You have a free CRM system.

For less than an hour of your time, you can keep your sales force on the same page (literally and figuratively) and apply sales process discipline to grow your company.

Given that it can be managed on a spreadsheet, CRM doesn't require fancy technology as much as it requires discipline. You have to make the effort to conduct your sales calls, record your opportunities, and think about how you're allocating your time across your customers.

Remember that your marketing must connect to sales if you want to have any idea what works and what doesn't. Even a shared spreadsheet can help you recognize which marketing investments translated into results, as Dave Sutton and I showed in this marketing investment analysis from Enterprise Marketing Management.

Google + Salesforce.com Sample sales pipeline CRM Unplugged About CRM

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