What the Exploding Sales Tech Stack Means for Modern SDRs

This post was written by our Principal, Deb Berman.

As our Partner Matt Lopez laid out in our blog post, The Explosion of Sales Tech: A Blessing and a Curse for Executives, experienced Sales Leaders who’ve been setting the pace for high-growth organizations will have noticed a surge in available Sales technology in recent years. This trend began with the explosion of Marketing technology, which aims to create the “ideal” path for leads transitioning into sales, while automating mundane and time-consuming manual tasks for the Marketing team.

As we’ve seen since 2015 in the first sales technology landscape developed by Nicolas de Kouchkovsky, the rapid development of sales technology hasn’t been a seamless process. Within core areas of the Sales pipelines and processes of organizations of all sizes, Sales technologies are often poorly integrated into the technology stack, creating messy communication and diminishing productivity overall.

However, modern Sales technologies have the power to level-up organizations to meet the expectations and needs of the modern buyer. In 2011, Gartner released a report stating that customers will be managing 85% of business transactions by 2020. This will have a huge impact on SDRs and how they interact with target prospects before a transaction.

We’ve covered how CEOs and other high-level Sales executives can integrate and implement technology successfully throughout their Sales organization, but what does the dependance on the technological Sales stack mean for the SDR team?

Exploding Tech Stacks + Customer Relations

The sheer number and availability of Sales technology is unprecedented, and is following the same overrun and over-automated path that Marketing technology has taken. By continuing to create sales processes that are run by disjointed technologies rather than people-based processes, SDRs begin to lose touch with our customers.

As SDRs, our job is to ensure that we provide customers with a tuned-in and solidified process that provides value-adding benefits into prospects’ everyday lives. Jill Rowley stated it best in her article, “Now Sales is Buying Bright Shiny Objects, Too”:

“We should be thinking in terms of RevTech: looking at your front office infrastructure as a single entity, unifying the whole customer experience from unaware to advocacy.”

RevTech is the combination of Marketing technology, sales technology, and customer success technology working together to understand your customers better to provide a top-notch, personalized buying experience.

In sales, as in life, we’re better together. A well-rounded Sales technology stack is crucial for SDRs to practice a Sales process that caters to the needs of customers who are moving towards a more independent buying process, enhancing the effectiveness of the Sales team itself.

SDRs: Prepare for Impact

SDRs manage outbound prospecting. But with a target audience that is shifting in traditional seller-to-customer buying methods to an increasingly self-managed buying processes, what tools can SDRs use to organically invite prospects to research – and eventually invest in – their product or service?

SDRs need to restructure existing outbound methods. The modern SDR team is the workhorse of a sales engine, especially in a time where customers are looking for organic and self-discovered solutions to their problems.

Minimize Damage + Maximize Engagement

To maximize the potential of technology and people-based process changes within the SDR team, SDRs must take advantage of technologies that provide insight into the buying habits and characteristics of their target audience:

Step One: Know Your Target Audience

The core of outbound prospecting is knowing your target audience. Instead of sending emails to your prospects, SDRs have to know their prospects and which value-adds are relevant to their needs. Using predictive marketing AI tools like Everstring, which allows SDRs to find new accounts based off of predictive analysis and automated prospecting, can help SDRs get a better understanding of how to reach out to a prospect.

Step Two: Run Targeted Advertisements

Forrester Research found that less than 1% of leads turn into revenue generating customers, meaning that SDRs must utilize tools that allow them to target specific, high-quality prospects by running ads geared towards their target audiences.

B2B account-based software like Terminus allows sales organizations to engage with the right people at target accounts by serving ads across multiple platforms such as web, mobile, video, and social channels in advance of kicking off cadences increasing conversion rates, often by over 100%.

Step Three: Start Traditional Outbounding With a Twist

Once ads have been run to familiarize a prospect with your organization, SDRs can begin traditional outbound efforts, (which should always be customized — particularly for top tier accounts).

We recommend customizing strategic cadences within SalesLoft including multiple touch points.

For an ultra-customizable outbound sales experience, Sendoso allows SDRs to engage with customers in a unique way with eGifts and direct mail. According to Sendoso, around 66% of all direct mail is opened or handled by the targeted receiver, which creates a genuine, tangible connection between your company and your prospect.  Think creatively about what you can send that can get your prospects’ attention and have some fun with direct mail!

Step Four: Utilize Data for the Greater Good

Before an initial meeting is set up with any target prospect, SDRs must be able to unlock the power of data analysis and statistics. Analytics within Sales organizations should be used to find out where the SDR team is excelling, and lacking, and where that sweet middle spot is between technology and people-based process that true engagement and pipeline development lies.

Meticulously compiling relevant data can help SDRs run effective meetings that quickly position your solution to get in front of more prospects.

When these steps are taken before an initial meeting, SDRs can successfully rise above the noise and get the attention of their prospects by differentiating themselves and your product/service.

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