Mind the Sitecore Gap

Sitecore analytics is the ultimate source of sales intelligence. A lead's website behavior is exactly what a rep needs before making a sales call. But how do we bridge the gap and make this available so they can do their magic! This commentary speaks to teams that guide prospects through the sales process.

Sitecore captures web behavior for personalization purposes. By capturing an individual's navigational behavior Sitecore can tailor and present ever more engaging content. This makes Sitecore websites far more interesting. However, the behavior data, or analytics, is not shared with the sales team. Sitecore analytics is the most current, honest, and insightful look at a visitor's nuances, sales readiness, and state of mind. This "digital body language" is exactly what sales reps need to qualify new leads and prepare for important sales conversations. 

 Consider how Sitecore analytics is underutilized in the purchase step of the B2B sales funnel:

• Awareness: Prospects find your product via online searches, marketing campaigns, advertising, trade shows, direct mail, etc. Sitecore supports all these channels and includes great SEO tools to ensure your site is found
• Research: Prospects learn about you on your website, blogs, webinars, infographics, e-books, newsletters, etc. Sitecore personalization ensures visitors and readers are highly engaged
• Evaluation: Prospects learn about your product and compare it to others. This is where a lead form is submitted and the baton is passed to the persuasive skills of the sales team. Sitecore support is strong with web forms to process new leads
• Purchase: The prospect becomes a customer. Big-ticket items are typically handled by sales reps working in a CRM. Despite being the "personal" step, Sitecore is largely disconnected from the sales team
• Loyalty: Customers trust your brand and make additional purchases. The relationship becomes more than transactional. Sitecore personalization and targeted marketing promotes loyalty
• Advocacy: Customers promote your products to other potential buyers. Again, the Sitecore website engages with them using personalized content

The purchase step is often highly personal requiring many oral conversations. This step is the gap where the prospect's digital body language is unavailable. Further, sales reps have no control over Sitecore personalization or ways to use Sitecore to augment sales conversations.

The gap largely exists because the website and CRM are disconnected. This makes intelligence sharing more challenging. There is also the information itself! Sitecore is focussed on the big picture - identifying population trends and behaviors. Sitecore analytics is primarily collected so visitors can be grouped, then presented with personalized content. Sales reps need more granular information. Reps process named individuals, one at a time, and need detailed pre-sales intelligence and insights that improve the sales conversation.

So how can we expose Sitecore web behavior to the sales team? One way is to push a visitor's Sitecore analytics to the CRM when they submit a lead form. This is how our Sitecore to Salesforce integration (S4S) works. S4S also lets sales reps override Sitecore personalization, and show custom content during sales calls.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of sharing Sitecore analytics with the sales team please call us for more information.