Today’s B2B buyer is empowered by information that is just a click away. A typical B2B buyer’s journey involves many touch points and a longer sales cycle. To be able to reach the right decision maker at the right platform and at the right time, you need actionable inbound sales tactics. Here are a few tips to keep your sales funnel full and help you close more sales:
Identifying Your Target Market
The first step in an inbound sales process is identifying your target market. This will be the ideal market that would benefit the most from your product or service. A buyer persona will be your identified contact person or company role in that market segment who you will intend to contact. When identifying a target market, the demographics will have similarities and differences between a B2B and B2C market. For example, for B2B, you should consider what is the revenue of a company or industry you are looking to reach out to. You can read this article on B2B research. For B2C, you would consider what are the personal income levels of the buyers you intend to reach. As a reminder, some questions you should think about are the following: Are there geographic locations that are ideal or not ideal? Are there market segments that are ideal or not ideal to sell into (also known as verticals)? In some cases, you will need to consider if there are legal standards or other requirements that exclude someone from purchasing your product. For additional information on Inbound sales you can read this article.
Active Buyers vs. Information Seeking
The goal of the inbound sales process is to target prospects who may already be interested in looking for a solution to a problem that may exist for them. The prospect may also be in the awareness stage of the buying process. For informationon the structure of your inbound sales process, you can view this video. When a buyer or prospect makes direct contact with your company through social media or completing a form on your website, that lead should move to a new stage in priority scale. If for example, they are requesting direct sales assistance, the faster you contact them the better the chances that the lead will convert to an opportunity. It is important that before reaching out to any prospect that you take some time to research their company or organization. You need to check if the company is part of the ideal customer persona you established for your business. You will want to go into the initial engagement with that prospect with information about their company and how your product or service can potentially offer a solution to a potential problem. The goal of this process is to make sure you are spending your time speaking with people who are more likely to be interested in your product or service. One of the inbound sales tactics I would suggest you focus on is the content of your website, since this is the first step in generating interest in potential customers.
Keep Potential Buyers Engaged
Customers will be more likely to interact with your website if the content on the website is relevant to the solution they are seeking to learn about. For a checklist on the importance of inbound marketing and sales, view this article. Social media is becoming an important channel for any business to give more information to potential prospects about your business. While platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn have paid services that enhance your outreach, these platforms are all free to use. Make sure your website and social media platforms have call-to-action. These channels are important since they have the potential to turn a visitor into an inquiry. In most cases, the individual managing your inbound sales tactics will be the first point of contact between your prospects and your company. Most of the time a common channel (such as a website) will act as a way customers can contact your organization. Knowing the pages a prospect viewed and how often they viewed them before they submitted their request will give you important information about the prospect’s buyer path along with which sections of your website are driving interest. If possible, you should link your website with your CRM system. HubSpot, for example, can be linked directly with your website, so if a buyer submits a form on your website requesting to be contacted, an account for that prospect will automatically be created directly in the HubSpot CRM. You will also get an email notification of the prospects who have requested to be contacted.
Define Your Goal
Inbound sales will be the way you make initial contact with many different companies. First impressions can affect how the buyer perceives your company, and ultimately, if they feel they can trust the solution you are looking to offer them. The goal of any sales engagement is to build trust between the salesperson and the buyer. Once trust is established, you can focus more of your energy positioning your solution as the unique solution to the buyers problem.
If you need help with developing inbound sales tactics, you can always reach out to me for a conversation.