knowLedgeInbound Sales Tactics

Putting together an effective digital marketing strategy takes skill, precision, and a strong focus on how you want to position your brand. Using inbound sales as a part of your marketing mix attracts the invisible buyers and keeps you on the mind of your target market. With inbound sales, becoming the preferred choice is the key.

What is Inbound Sales?

As we discussed last week, inbound sales uses sales tools and a web presence to enhance customer interest and engagement. This can garner positive results in your inbound marketing lead strategy: inbound sales attracts customers, who are converted into leads. When utilized correctly, those leads turn into closed sales, creating happy customers.

Inbound sales recognizes a shift in how the habits of buyers have changed and capitalizes on their curiosity to inform, engage, and provide great experiences based on their wants and needs. It’s a transformative process in how you deal with today’s customers and how they view you as a seller. The elements used to enhance communication between buyers, sellers, and the teams responsible for the interaction include:

• Content
• Marketing
• Personalization
• Multichannel usage
• Integration

Companies that focus on inbound sales have essentially committed to an investment into developing lucrative leads.

Tactics that Drive Inbound Sales

A comprehensive inbound sales plan uses a number of tactics:

Engaging conversations
Customers find products through website materials either on certain pages or on the blog. This allows your representatives to be better positioned to receive these prospects based on their interest. Being able to tailor a conversation through specific indicators helps drive prospects through the sales funnel.

Connection through follow-up
After the initial conversation, building a rapport and a sense of trust is key. Educating your prospects with valuable content can help show why your product is the right choice for them. At this stage, the focus should be on providing viable solutions that will help make the sale. You need to demonstrate value at every opportunity.

Content has a major role
Inbound marketing relies on content that will help enhance the sales process. Informational pieces that will empower your prospects and help them make a decision are an integral part of the strategy. Any content that will showcase what you can do and leverage you as an expert will help enhance previous conversations. Case studies, blog postings, white papers, and other materials will help build customer trust.

Building trust
Why should potential customers trust you? Prospects should be able to read your content and understand why you are a trustworthy source. When you direct them to useful information, your image is enhanced and opportunities are created for customers to become more involved with what you have to offer.

Proof as potential
Getting to the final step may be easier than you imagined, but there is always the question of whether or not you can deliver. Using case studies on how you provided a positive return on investment will help position you as an expert while helping you make the sale.

Advantages of Inbound Sales

One of the advantages of an inbound marketing strategy is that once you have developed the content, it will continue to work even when you have moved on to different tactics. When consumers who focus on educating themselves seek out information on their own, you will benefit from the leads generated from these transactions by having the tools in place that can translate into sales. Some things to remember:

• Know your audience. Do the research before moving forward.
• Educate; don’t dictate.
• Gain trust to position yourself as an expert in your field. Customers return to what they know and trust.
• Always have some form of content ready and available to share.

Inbound sales can be very lucrative for your company if used correctly. Using the right tools like a customer relationship management system can also play a major part in ensuring success.

Follow these steps, and you will increase the potential of your digital marketing strategy to enhance your inbound marketing plan for effective inbound sales.