Kevin Benedict and Gail Moody-Byrd |
Gail: It’s really an interesting new role. It was created to do a couple of things. SAP.com, the website, is going through a transformation and we are moving from a site that largely generated awareness and shared information, to a site that drives business value. The team that works for me does a couple of things. We manage the web pages for products and industries, and now we are responsible for the performance of the website. How are the pages performing? How are they connecting with our visitors? We are making sure that every interaction is a good one.
We are giving website visitors a lot of opportunities, through chat and other things, to engage with the site. We are also making sure that the hand-off from the website to the sales team is clean, clear and effective, and the leads they are getting are qualified and really interested. It’s an exciting time.
Kevin: Is the relationship between marketing and sales changing today?
Gail: Yes, today we are now part of the sales engine and technology. They (sales) are backward integrating into us (marketing) and we’re integrating forward into the sales. We are using all the technology that the SAP C/4Hana Suite has to make sure that we’re an integral part of the sales process.
In the past, sales didn’t think that the website was really that important [to making sales]. It was more of a showcase for customer references, but not really a place to do business. We are changing that.