An interview with successful technology sales innovator, Monica Fairbanks, Sales Development Manager at Unitrends
Unitrends introduces backup appliances and cloud data protection that leverage cutting edge technology to automate manual tasks, eliminate management complexity and deliver tested hardware and software resilience. Monica is responsible for training and coaching the SDR team. Check her out on LinkedIn!
Tell us a little bit about what you and your team are responsible for at Unitrends?
As the team manager, I strive to develop, train and hire highly-driven and enthusiastic team members.
The Sales Development team is the first interaction with potential customers, and they hold the keys to success for the Demand Generation, Marketing and Sales teams. They drive closed-won business by identifying, contacting and qualifying prospects to build a strong pipeline of qualified opportunities. The SDRs are considered the direct connection between marketing and sales and have a great relationship with both sides of the house.
The Sales Development team’s primary focus is to follow up on leads, find the need, create value and qualify for our sales team. By deeply understanding the needs of each lead, the team can ask the right questions, leading to more meaningful conversations.
How was your team generating demand before implementing Priority Engine?
At Unitrends, we retrieve leads from many different avenues. Some of those include receiving leads directly from our website, from our contact us forms, scheduling meetings directly with the team, surveys, and downloading whitepapers, e-books and customer testimonials. Another source of our leads come from our Unitrends-focused webinars, third-party webinars and resources such as Priority Engine.
We also participate in a lot of different tradeshows across the US, showcasing Unitrends for attendees and businesses to engage and interact with us directly. In-person presentations and short question-based conversations at these events help engagement and drive demand for us.
How are you leveraging Priority Engine to see success at Unitrends?
There are three main opportunities we pursue with Priority Engine at Unitrends:
First, we seek to accelerate account-based marketing and drive demand. By being able to focus on the companies and industries that are actively researching and by knowing what solutions they are testing, we can better understand what the market is truly looking for. Unitrends can then present the most relevant information in our campaigns and on our website in a consultative way to better speak to the customer’s needs.
Second, we are focused on reaching active buyers. By being able to connect with the actual members of the buying team who are researching Unitrends, we can create stronger connections with our development team when they’re dialing, as well as indicate to our marketing team what titles find our solution and content most helpful. Also, by having these contacts within our database, we’re able to refer to them as a point of contact, really increasing credibility.
Finally, we want to generate better leads and land quality meetings. By targeting the correct people, we use vendor interest, topic interest and intent signals to create meaningful conversations, resulting in a consultative selling approach. Marketing will look at these leads as well for like-minded research. Competitive analysis is a great example that we use at Unitrends, and by understanding the market, we can better predict what a buyer is looking for by the type of vendors they are showing interest in.
What are one or two things that you like about using Priority Engine?
One thing that has set Priority Engine apart from other tools is the insights that come from the leads and Active Prospects. By using the vendor and topic interests in the SDRs talk tracks, it makes the outreach to prospects conversational and truly personalized.
We also take advantage of account highlight Email Alerts where we view the accounts that have had the most engagement with our website or have downloaded our content. We’re able to have much stronger conversations by being able to really drill down and speak to the specific piece of Unitrends content they showed interest in.
How has your experience been working with the team at TechTarget? How have they made it easy for you to see success?
Beyond Priority Engine, the best part about working with TechTarget is the fact that they treat us as partners. I talk to the Customer Success Managers at TechTarget frequently, and they genuinely care about Unitrends’ success. It’s a real relationship that’s more than transactional, and it makes all the difference.
A big thank you to Monica for sharing some feedback with us. We look forward to hearing about more of your success in the future!
If you’re interested in sharing your TechTarget story with us, feel free to reach out to Sarah Geissler.
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