It’s not an easy time to make sales when 86 per cent people are skipping your TV ads and 200 million people in America have registered their numbers on the ‘Do Not Call’ list. People like to spend time and money on things they are interested in, and that’s where inbound marketing can help.
In order to attract relevant people, sales teams can get tips from the inbound marketing process. Inbound marketing is one of the most effective ways of marketing a business online. Small businesses can reap greater benefits of this type of marketing by creating quality content which resonates with their target audience.
Your sales team will gain better insights into the market if they learn more about the inbound marketing process. Considering the treasure of online courses posted by top universities of the world, distance learning provides a perfect way of learning a new skill. Small business owners don’t have to worry too much about costs, since these courses are free;
On one hand, training saves money by protecting your business; on the other hand, it saves money and results in happier customers by creating employees who not only complete their jobs but excel at them. Read more about how employee training improves productivity and retention.
Websites like Coursera and Udemy have proved to us that we can learn Harvard and MIT-level education via online courses taken from anywhere in the world.
Here are some reasons why your sales team should learn more about inbound marketing:
Having follow ups on leads
Sales teams are often guilty of not keeping follow ups. They are also very inconsistent with tracking their follow ups. Inbound marketing, however, can improve this situation to a great extent by providing help in two ways: automation and CRM software.
Automation helps quite a lot during the lead nurturing process. It gives you the control to automate your marketing process whenever you like. Great inbound marketers from successful companies like Hubspot, Marketo and Eloqua leverage marketing automation all the time.
Another way inbound marketing facilities a lot is by integrating the sales team CRM with the automation software, so that both marketing and sales departments are in sync with each other. When these departments work hand-in-hand, they can improve lead’s process through an organized cycle of events. Automation also makes it easy to track your progress by every hour, day, week, month and year. The metrics received from the automation process can then help in building better sales strategies for the company.
Gaining social proof
It’s a fact that people buy more from companies that are famous. Brands can get great help from social proof. Luckily, sales departments can also cash in on this factor with the help of inbound marketing knowledge.
One of the most important forms of social proof is referrals. If your sister or friend recommends you a product, you are surely going to act upon their advice. This is especially true if you were initially confused about the product and its effectiveness. When we lack the insight to make decisions about things we need to buy, referrals from people make it easy for us.
Depending on this age-old concept, sales teams can get strong leads through social media. The world is more connected now than it was a hundred years ago. Now we have a social medium for video, text, audio and so much more. Information is readily available if we want to Google something. In this case, if a brand or product is famous on social media, people will flock in to buy it. Sales representatives can use this buzz to seal the deals. Additionally, using case studies to fuel social media strategies can also be very beneficial for a company.
Creating targeted content
Buyers spend more time researching about the products they want to buy. They can also perform competitor research to see which seller is presenting a better deal.
The customers in present time are more informed because of the internet. In this case, you have to be the one who provides accurate information to the potential buyer. This way, people won’t have to call or email a company because the website will explain it all. They will be able to do all the research before getting in contact with your sales team.
Hence, as a marketer, you want the potential customers to contact your sales team, but not for basic questions. If a competitor is providing more information about a certain product than you are, including text, videos and pictures, buyers will naturally be more interested in buying from the rival company.
Generating qualified leads
When your targeted content brings people to your website, the sales department doesn’t have to do the extra work.
Generating lists, making cold calls, and searching for contacts can be dealt by the inbound marketing process, while sales team can work on convincing the contacts at the very last step.
The productivity of your sales team will also be increased by this procedure. It will be the other way round when interested prospects will be brought to your sales team to be converted into customers.
Creating authority
If you want to have an authority in the industry, you must show thought leadership. Internet is a great place to exhibit your skills and educate people about your business. Your sales team will learn that by using inbound marketing, they too can establish authority.
When users will find informative and highly relevant content on your website, they will know that you won’t disappoint them. Sales department can use remarkable content to perform this task. This way, people will already have a good impression about your company before they even come in contact with a sales representative!
The end result – a higher conversion rate will be achieved because by the time a prospect gets in touch with sales, he or she is already informed about the company and its products.
The companies that try to win prospects using this strategy are more successful because they establish an authority over the subject in their niche. A good reputation follows.
Last word
It is your sales representative who directly speaks to a client and deals with their issue. When you teach these representatives about inbound marketing, they can perform their job even more efficiently.
For your company to thrive in the highly competitive market of today, you must educate your employees about the current trends. Just imagine how productive your sales team will be when an interested prospect will be introducing themselves to the representative. It is time to put an end to cold calling and start investing in inbound marketing strategies which will bring relevant people to your company.