How to: Sell Software to Marketers

By Michelle Etherton, The Partner Marketing Group

Have you been looking for help on how to sell software to marketers? Well, Hubspot recently released their annual marketing report, The State of Inbound 2016. It’s a fantastic report and this statistics nerd was super excited to dig in and see what’s up. My thoughts quickly shifted to our clients. This is good stuff. They should be using this to learn what sales and marketing teams are thinking about right now. Better yet, this could help them sell software to marketers as a solution for very specific challenges.

As I scoured through pages of findings (65 to be exact) from 4,500 survey respondents around the globe, there were some obvious things that got my attention. Since this report is sales and marketing focused, much of what I’m referencing will be most valuable for our clients offering CRM and marketing solutions, but there are great takeaways in the full report to use for other product and service lines.

Marketers need better technology, now.

It’s a fact. Marketers are often left out of technology conversations. They are still a bit of a wild card in the ERP and CRM space, but I’m here to tell you, they need better tools to help drive revenue just as much as the sales team. That said, it’s no surprise to see that 24% of respondents report “identifying the right technologies for our needs” is one of their biggest marketing challenges.

Did you hear that?

Out of 4,500 companies, 1,080 of them are struggling to find the right marketing technology.

This is where you come in to save the day.

Can your solution solve these marketing challenges?

Not having the technology in the first place is a biggie, yes. But, do you know what else you need to help them fix?

Start with these top marketing challenges to build a stronger case for your solution:

For respondents already using CRM, the top challenges they have with their system are manual data entry and lack of integration, tied at 17%.

There was quite a jump in CRM adoption in 2016 as compared to 2015, with 45% using CRM software now as compared to only 23% last year.

So, what’s preventing marketers from investing in a CRM solution?

54% say budget and costs are the roadblock. That’s nothing new, but here’s something far more concerning…

22% of respondents aren’t even sure what CRM is!

Let that sink in for a moment.

The top Marketing Challenges in 2017 will be…

And finally, here’s a snapshot of the top marketing priorities forecasted for 2017 that might cause you to refocus how you are selling your solutions. It’s interesting to see that the past couple of years marketers were more focused on volume of contacts/leads and now the focus is on how to convert them to customers. This definitely aligns with new pressures to improve the customer experience which many businesses are working through right now.

Thanks to Hubspot for another great piece. As always, let us know if we can assist with marketing strategies, campaigns and content pieces that illustrate how you solve problems and add value to your target audience. We are proud to be a longtime partner for the software and technology community and remain 100% dedicated to helping you grow and succeed.