Sales Development Vs. Business Development

What Are the Differences Between Sales Development and Business Development?

Modern business terminology changes constantly, and some of it can get confusing. Part of the problem is that no matter how hard we try as a society, language sometimes makes it hard to convey a complex idea in a single word. It’s important to know what your colleagues and competitors are talking about, though. At first glance, one might think that business and sales development are basically the same thing. Looking closer, though, it becomes clear that there’s more to both concepts.

Business Development

This term encompasses a wide range of business processes. On a Venn diagram of all business activities, this one would be a very large circle that surrounds almost everything else. If a particular activity is not helping your business grow in some way at all, only then would it fall outside this category. The biggest subcategories that fall into the larger grouping of business development are sales, marketing, partnership formation, and anything else that expands your company’s influence and market.

Sales Development

Within all of these larger categories, there are specializations. The point of specialization is to take advantage of the efficiency that it brings. The more you can focus on one specific task or process, the better you can get at doing it. Traditionally, what we now call sales development was part of the ordinary activities that every salesperson could expect to do. Every salesperson was responsible for meeting their quota of closed deals. They also did all of the cold calling and other forms of outreach that would be necessary beforehand. A few years ago, though, sales teams started learning that they could split the sales process in half. One part of the team could now specialize in the labor-intensive top half of the sales funnel. By focusing only on outreach, they could qualify as many leads as possible, as fast as possible. These Sales Development Representatives, as they are now known, could then pass these qualified warm prospects along to Account Executives. The AEs, in turn, could focus all their time and energy on building established relationships and closing deals. The efficiency advantages were immediately apparent. A number of tech companies that started using this tactic began to experience phenomenal growth. Among them are organizations that are now household names, such as Oracle and Salesforce.

How Boom Demand SDRs Can Help Your Business Grow

Many companies simply split their in-house sales teams to establish the sales development positions they need. There is a more cost-effective way to boost sales, though, and that’s by outsourcing sales development. Boom Demand’s SDR team is made of trained professionals who integrate with our clients’ own in-house sales teams. They work for you, funneling warm prospects right to your account executives. They also do it at a fraction of the cost of doing it yourself. Boom Demand also provides a variety of other related services that help you scale up fast, so contact us today to get started!

Email Marketing Strategies and Tools for Success

Top Emailing Tools For Reaching Your Audience

One of the essential truths about online business of any kind is that you need an effective way to communicate with your customers. Among millions of other web pages, including thousands of competitors, it’s not as easy for them to come to you naturally. Since the invention of the internet, numerous strategies have been developed and tried. New technologies and platforms have risen and fallen. One of them has been constant, though, almost since the dawn of the Information Age itself: email. You could even go so far as to call email marketing the backbone of the internet economy.

Email Marketing is Essential

It could be easy to ignore email. Nobody likes all the spam in their inboxes, and social media is so much sexier. There’s a reason email has such staying power, though. Everything else online has ended up requiring an email account in order to function. There are a few exceptions, like WhatsApp, based on an even older technology: the phone number. The fact is that email is simple, and already universal. If you want a guaranteed way of getting your message in front of someone, sending them an email is the closest thing that exists. Other platforms come and go, so any efforts spent building up your presence there are riskier. Remember MySpace? Building an email marketing list, though, is not only simple, but greatly rewarding. The hard part is generating the content that goes into them, but that’s nothing a marketing and sales team can’t handle. There are a number of powerful software tools out there that make it easy to manage your email campaigns. Here’s a look at three of the best:

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a basic product, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. On the contrary, it’s a powerful system that integrates with a variety of publishing and selling platforms. It’s also free to use for your first 12,000 emails sent to under 2,000 subscribers. When you’re just starting out, it’s a no-brainer.

Salesloft

Salesloft features a bit more automation. One of its most powerful features is that it seamlessly integrates with SalesForce CRM, and also with Gmail and Outlook. With that integration, it helps you design smart templates that still allow for incredibly personal touches.

Outreach.io

Outreach is itself part of a wider suite of sales engagement software that gives your sales reps access to top-of-the-line automation and integration. It’s like the rolls Royce of emailing platforms, among its other features. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more effective way to streamline your sales process.

Power Your Email Marketing With Boom Demand SDRs

Whichever platform works best for your business, you’ll still need to write and manage your emails. You’ll need to jump on the ones that get positive replies. Follow up with prospects who download your free reports and ebooks, or who watch your Consensus demo. That can be overwhelming if you’re just starting out or find you need to scale up fast. Boom Demand simplifies things, though, with our own teams of trained Sales Development Representatives. Our SDRs are highly experienced in managing email marketing tools like the ones listed above. Contact us today to implement an effective email strategy and start closing deals left and right!