When sales share their CRM data and list of prospects with marketing, marketing can reciprocally begin generating sales-ready leads. Contacting known prospects who have indicated interest in marketing content is significantly more effective than cold calling.

With the help of smart tools and up-to-date information, marketing and sales become more efficient. This is based on forming a deeper customer understanding and performing timely activities. A stimulating marketing message and an attractive sales pitch are always useful, but success no longer depends solely on those.

When operations are pre-planned and the interplay between marketing and sales works seamlessly, the customer can be reached when they are ready to buy. The hit rate improves for sales when they approach sales-ready prospects at the right moment.

For a long time, the main reasons for investing in marketing automation were to schedule activities, customise messages, and identify, classify, and manage sales leads. But there are other reasons, too.

In the best case, all marketing and sales activities, content, channels, data, and customer registers can be managed centrally, using just one platform. That is convenient and cost effective. And if you automate regularly repeated activities and time-intensive tasks, such as compiling data, your resource efficiency also increases.

These days, the most sophisticated automation systems also include functions that utilise artificial intelligence and machine learning. These can be used to assess the maturity of leads and to detect, or even forecast, changes in customer behaviour.