When we studied the lead response times of 114 B2B companies, we found that it took companies, on average, nearly 12 hours to respond by email and more than 14 hours by phone.
Clearly, significant improvements need to happen, especially since your team’s chances of converting a lead diminish 10 fold after waiting just 5 minutes (according to the Harvard Business Review).
One way to help sales respond to leads quickly is by connecting the platform your marketing team relies on for generating and nurturing leads, Marketo, with the apps your sales teams use.
To that end, here are 3 Marketo application integrations we recommend building first.
Related: 3 steps for implementing any sales automation
1. Connect Marketo with Salesforce to Let Reps Work on the Platform They’re Comfortable with
By syncing the two platforms, you can automatically display new leads from Marketo in Salesforce. Also, any time you update a lead in Marketo, those changes are instantly reflected in their corresponding Salesforce account.
As a result, your sales reps are more likely to uncover information around leads quickly, and move fast in sending each a personalized message.
In addition, if, for whatever reason, a lead isn’t “sales-ready,” the sales rep can mark it in Salesforce. Marketing can then see this in Marketo and quickly put the lead in the appropriate nurture campaign.
Related: How automation can transform your lead lifecycle
2. Sync Marketo with Gmail to Help Sales Stay Up-to-Date on Lead Activity
You can hook Marketo up with Gmail to alert specific reps and/or the broader team when a new lead is created or updated.
You can also customize several aspects of the email, from its recipients to its subject line to its message—including the fields you need to carry over from Marketo. This all but ensures that the email aligns with the needs of your team.
3. Pair Marketo with Slack to Enable Collaboration Across Your Sales Team
Using the integration, you can instantly message the appropriate Slack channel whenever a new or updated lead comes in. From there, your sales leaders can decide who takes on each lead, as well as provide guidance to those following up.
Empower Your Sales Team to Respond Faster and More Intelligently by Using Bots
To truly respond to leads fast, you’ll need to look beyond Marketo integrations and think about incorporating bots into your workflows.
For example, you can use Lead Bot to research leads, prioritize them based on their background and activity, and then share them with the appropriate reps within seconds via a platform like Slack. Here’s more on how it works:
You can also streamline your team’s time-to-response using G2’s Intent Bot. It uses activity in the software review site, along with your own criteria, to determine which leads are “hot”. Once it finds a lead that’s worth pursuing, it gathers other relevant info about them and, like Lead Bot, it messages the relevant rep directly with all of the necessary information.
Related: A closer look at how you can use intent data effectively
Once you implement these Marketo integrations and begin to incorporate bots, you’ll likely see your sales team’s response time drastically improve—along with your sales.
