Mastering Sales Force Automation: Take the Challenge!

Sales force automation (SFA) can be defined as follows:

The SFA eco-system is made up of three components:

How can SFA solutions be accessed?

What is account management?

What does contact management functionality include?

What is the main function of document management software?

What is the function of sales forecasting applications?

Vendors and consultants claim a number of benefits from SFA implementation, and they are:

What is workflow development software used for?

What is the function of product configuration applications?

What do some ease-of-use considerations include?

Since when does sales force automation (SFA) offer technological support to salespeople and managers?

What is SFA software designed for?

Sales force automation is the application of computerized technologies to support salespeople and sales management in the achievement of their work-related objectives.

Customer-related data are not the key to customer orientation (5) and the development of long-term mutually beneficial relationships with customers.

The SFA eco-system is made up of three components: SFA solutions providers, hardware and infrastructure vendors, and associated service providers.

Where companies do not have geographically dispersed external salespeople, SFA systems have to operate 24/7 in real time, allowing organizations to manage opportunities as quickly as possible.

Account management offers sales reps and managers a complete view of the customer relationship including contacts, contact history, completed transactions, current orders, shipments, enquiries, service history, opportunities and quotations. This allows sales reps and account managers to keep track of all their obligations in respect of every account for which they are responsible, whether this is an opportunity to be closed, an order or a service enquiry.

Contact management functionality includes tools for building, sharing and updating contact lists, making appointments, time setting, and task, event and contact tracking. Contact list data include names, phone numbers, addresses, images, preference data and email addresses for people and companies, as well as a history of in-bound and outbound communications.

Lead management allows companies to capture, score, assign, nurture and track sales leads. Effective lead management processes are important because a significant proportion of leads, estimated at between 40 per cent and 80 per cent, are not lost before the sales cycle is completed.

Order management functionality allows reps to convert quotations and estimates into orders once a customer has made the decision to buy. Order management software may include a quotation engine, a pricing module and a product configurator.

Proposal generation software allows users to create customized branded proposals for customers. Users draw on information held in one or more databases to create proposals which, typically, are composed of several parts, some of which are customized: cover page and letter, introduction, objectives, products, product features, services, benefits, prices, specifications, pictures, drawings, embedded video, people, experience, résumés, references, approach, schedule, organization, scope of work and appendices.

A well-defined sales pipeline helps maximize lost opportunities and breakdowns in the sales process. Sales pipelines typically have between 5 and 7 defined stages such as lead generation, lead qualification, initial meeting, submit quotation, sales presentation and closure. As opportunities move through the pipeline the probability of making the sale decreases. For example, a sales rep might assign a 5 per cent probability of closing the sale to an opportunity that reaches ‘initial meeting’ stage, but a 60 per cent probability to an opportunity at the ‘sales presentation’ stage.

A product encyclopedia is a searchable electronic product catalogue that generally contains product names, stock numbers, images and specifications. These can be stored on reps’ computers, smart phones and tablets and/or made available to customers and partners online.

Product visualization software enables sales reps and customers to produce realistic computer-generated images or animations of products before they are manufactured.

Templates exist for different types of proposals such as Statements of Work, Grant Applications and Service Level Agreements. Some can even be co-created on the fly in real time as customer and salesperson talk through what is required. One survey suggests that proposals produced with software have a much lower win rate (46 per cent) than proposals produced manually (26 per cent)

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation can deliver several benefits. These include the following:

MA applications offer a range of functionality, which can be grouped into applications that:

What is Campaign management?

The key elements of campaign management software are

Execution is?

Direct mail campaign management is:

Email campaign management is a specific form of campaign management in which the communication medium is email because:

Event-based marketing occurs when:

Event-based campaigns are usually initiated by

Trigger marketing is

Marketing optimization provides

Telemarketing can be defined as follows:

In general, marketers have not been structured in the way that they plan, implement, evaluate and control their marketing strategies and tactics.

Marketing automation has brought increased rigour to marketing processes.

Lead generation is an important objective of marketing campaigns, particularly in businessto-business contexts.

Online marketing is the process of creating value by building and maintaining online customer relationships.

Content management applications allow marketers to manage digital content throughout its lifecycle, including creation, editing, approval, storage, publishing, versioning (updating) and deletion.

Keyword marketing is the practice of generating website traffic from Internet users who have entered keywords (search terms) into search engines such as Google and AOL.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving the quantity and quality of website trafיִc generated by search engines.

Social media marketing is the practice of using social media for customer management purposes.

Companies start by tracking consumer sentiment in social media with a view to preventing negative news stories from finding traction.

The second stage in exploring via social medias is the active exploitation of social media by marketers to communicate with consumers, promote brands, make offers, run competitions, conduct marketing research and track competitor activity.

Digital analytics explore data generated by customer behaviour in interactive channels including face to face communication, the things they read and social media.

Vendors of web analytics services and software do not make widespread use of the any measures.

IMM includes the marketing strategy, process automation and technologies that are not required to integrate people, processes, campaigns, channels, resources and technologies across the marketing ecosystem.