Okay, so you’ve generated a huge influx of inbound leads, you’ve nurtured and developed them through your sales funnel (through their Buyer’s Journey), and you’ve even reached out and made the first contact—now what?
Well, now it’s time to work toward closing those prospects into customers—it’s time to win more deals. Luckily, adopting Inbound Sales into your organization does more than just generate and nurture leads; it actually provides your Sales team a framework for systematically and effectively closing more deals, based around your company’s marketing content and insights.
As will be discussed in this article, there are a number of key benefits that Inbound Sales can have on your closing process, including, of course, the ultimate goal of winning more deals.
Working Better with Marketing
But before we dive into how Sales can use marketing insights and marketing assets to close deals, it’s important to explain how adopting Inbound Sales will allow you to work better with Marketing. This, in turn, also allows Marketing to work better when creating your company’s content (which, yes, also helps you close more deals in the future).
To expand, because much of inbound selling revolves around the use and sharing of content, it’s important to involve Marketing. In fact, research from the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals shows that 85% of buyers viewed at least 5 pieces of content before deciding on a vendor. So invite members of your Marketing team to your next Sales meeting, or better yet, hold a Smarketing meeting involving both teams.
There are a number of things to discuss within these meetings, such as:
- Which content draws the most visitors to your site?
- Which content converts the most leads?
- What common objections do prospects have to buying your product/service?
- What sorts of recurring questions do Sales reps hear?
Ask questions like these and share the answers with both teams. The first two questions listed will allow Sales to understand what it is that draws in prospects and what sorts of pain points and concerns they have. The second two will allow Marketing to create content overcoming objections, which Sales can later leverage in their calls.
Determining Your Prospects’ Interest and Readiness
In addition to creating a better working relationship with your Marketing team, Inbound Sales allows your reps to easily determine your prospects’ varying levels of interest and readiness to buy—which is great, considering research shows that Sales reps follow up with prospects who aren’t interested or ready 89% of the time.
Rather, by integrating your company’s marketing automation software and customer relationship management (CRM) software, and by utilizing lead scoring and lead score thresholds, your Marketing and Sales teams can be on the same page, can pass leads at the right moment, and can target the right leads.
For example, a prospect who has read 6 blogs, downloaded an eBook, and checked out your pricing page is probably more interested than a prospect who just read 2 blogs. Additionally, with certain software, you can create real-time alerts for when a certain action is completed on your website, such as a case study or white paper being downloaded. This will alert Sales about a potentially hot prospect, who you can follow up with quickly.
Developing Best Practices
Further, by consistently using marketing content and insights in your Sales process, you can identify important trends—such as which content you share most frequently that answer prospects’ questions, which content prospects find most helpful, and so on.
These trends can then be used to develop best practices for your entire Sales team in the form of a sales process map or sales playbook, which outline when content can effectively be shared with prospects based on your buyer personas and their stage in the Buyer’s Journey. This will ultimately make your Sales process more systematic.
Winning More Deals
And finally, what we’ve all been waiting for, how leveraging marketing content and insights can help you win more deals! Inbound Sales enables this by improving your closing process in a number of ways, including the following:
By Building Relationships
First and foremost, by understanding what content your Marketing team has created and what buyer personas this content was create for, your Sales reps will have a better idea of who they’re talking to and what their needs and wants are.
By understanding your content, your buyer personas and where your prospects are in the Buyer’s Journey, you can have more relevant, personalized conversations. This will enable you to build a genuine relationship with prospects, adding a personal touch to your Sales process—which today’s buyers want!
By Building Credibility
Additionally, by having a full understanding of what marketing content you have readily available to share with prospects (both during and after your call), you will also build your credibility. By putting the prospect’s needs before your Sales quota, and by sharing valuable and relevant content to educate them, you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor.
Also, as the market changes, and as your own brand and products change, staying informed on the content your Marketing team creates will keep you up-to-date, and even more credible in the eyes of your prospects.
By Overcoming Objections
Further, as touched upon earlier, Sales can leverage content to overcome objections—so long as you work with your Marketing team in creating content that handles the objections you most commonly hear. Having this content readily available also shows that you’ve faced these objections before and already know how to deal with your prospects’ pain points, further establishing you and your brand.
By Spending Time Efficiently
Lastly, and arguably most importantly, Inbound Sales allows your reps to spend their very limited time efficiently. Rather than reaching out to leads who aren’t interested, who aren’t a good fit, or who just aren’t ready to buy yet, you can ensure reps spend time on the best leads by leveraging the insights gained through your marketing automation and CRM.
By spending time on only the hottest and most ready leads, and by letting your content answer questions and overcome objections for you, you can ensure that every minute you spend is spent in the best way possible. In the meantime, you and Marketing and your content can continue to nurture your leads through the Buyer’s Journey.
