In this case, the client was heavily reliant on a poorly-performing web-to-lead generation system that their salespeople were using to generate revenue. Even though there was sales team bandwidth to make outbound calls, the team had experienced very little success and discarded that strategy. The result was flat growth and market share loss to new market entrants.

We recognized that simply directing salespeople to make outbound calls was not going to work without an understanding that today’s customers rarely respond to low-value calls that failed to support a more ’self-directed’ buying process. Prospective customers reject repeated daily phone calls, and prefer different channels of connection such as email or social media. We needed a more sophisticated approach, and it also needed to scale for both ‘full-cycle’ sales teams and ‘lead generation’ teams as the customer intended to split roles later in the year.

The following screenshots describe a “Sales Cadence” automation project. A Cadence is a contact process designed to support Sales Team outbound calling efforts with a natural ‘rhythm’ that replaces low-value repetitive cold-calling with an automated content-rich multi-channel contact process. These Cadences increase prospect response and conversion rates and supports research- and decision-stage prospects.

Each Cadence utilizes integrated outbound calls, social media connections, and emails to a prospect. Email templates utilize custom merge fields from Salesforce records to tailor each email to each prospect and salesperson. Value-added content includes videos, white-papers, blog posts, articles, cases and references to capture prospect interest and encourage a response. Custom formula fields were used to generate unique calendaring URLs based on each salesperson ID, as well as tailor email template text based on the content within CRM records such as whether the salesperson commented on a social media post or reviewed a prospect’s social media profile or website.

In this case, we used Salesforce CRM’s excellent workflow automation tools Process Builder and Flows. We used Process Builder to monitor for changes to CRM records, and when a relevant change was identified using Process Builder, it was used to trigger complex automations developed in Flows.

In this case, the Cadence enrolment occurs when a salesperson changes one custom field in a Lead or Contact record, or automatically when a new Lead is received. The Cadence automatically issues tasks for outbound calls and social media connections to a salesperson, and automatically sends emails to support their outreach over a 17 day period until a prospect responds. Salespeople can end a Cadence early if they receive a response, or if no response, a prospect is automatically enrolled in a Marketing nurturing campaign.

For outbound calling campaigns, a salesperson will perform five tasks per prospect over 17 days, but the Cadence will automate eight other connection attempts with a prospect, spaced out with 0, 1, 2, or 3 day pauses to avoid the perception of “badgering” the prospect. For inbound lead response campaigns, a salesperson will perform five tasks over seven days with 0, 1 or 2 day pauses in between each outreach attempt.

In this respect, a customer receives a less repetitious, more valuable, content-focused outreach that is more likely to result in lead and opportunity conversion. It replaces cold-calling methodologies that have proven to be both resource-intensive and less effective with the way modern buying decisions are made. It also provides salespeople with support for their work and enables Sales and Marketing leadership to get more control over the quality of the sales and marketing support process.