If you’ve stayed up-to-date in the marketing world, you should already be familiar with Inbound. This is the new way of marketing, in which companies get potential customers to come to them. It focuses not on interrupting consumers, but on presenting them with valuable information in order to gain their trust. With inbound, you nurture a relationship with consumers before they make the decision to buy. When consumers trust you and your brand, they will be more likely to buy from you when the time comes to make a decision.
Engaging in inbound marketing is great, but it shouldn’t stop there. Think about it: what’s the point in drawing specific types of people to your business if they’re all going to receive the same cold call from your sales team? As your marketing efforts change, your sales process must change too.
What Exactly is Sales Enablement?
Simply put, this is the process of supporting client-facing employees and helping them to help clients. It helps these teams and individuals to have a valuable conversation with the right set of prospects at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Traditionally, salespeople had to have all of the knowledge. Consumers had to rely on a salesperson in order to learn about the product or service being offered. This is no longer the case; consumers have much more freedom now. With the internet, they can research and learn all about your company without ever speaking to a salesperson. The buyer has all of the power in the buyer-seller relationship– they gain nothing if a salesperson can’t give them new information. As a result, sales and marketing have had to learn to work together.
How Can Sales and Marketing Work Together?
When marketing and sales both adopt an inbound approach, they can generate more leads and customers together. Sales will spend more time speaking to more qualified leads. Marketing will support those leads with stronger resources to build credibility. And prospects that are not ready to move along in a sales process will be enrolled in a nurturing campaign so that they aren’t lost in the mix. While this may sound simple enough, it can be tricky to kick start a sales enablement strategy. Here are some tips to help you get started:
- Group Leads by Buyer Persona – If you know nothing about your leads, you cannot know the best way to sell to them. You can’t even be sure if they will be valuable clients. If you are already utilizing inbound marketing, then chances are you already have a set of personas anyways. Personas shouldn’t just be used in creating content. Sorting each lead that you get into a persona type will help your sales team to understand who they should be reaching out to and what they should be offering.
- Leverage Lead Scoring – Lead scoring is a way of determining how interested a lead is in your services based on their behavior. They gain “points” by engaging in activities such as downloading content or opening your emails. They lose “points” through inactivity. A high score means that the lead is very interested in your services, and they may enjoy contact from a salesperson.
- Use Your Sales Tools – it is important to identify active buyers as soon as possible. The use of tools like real time CRM notifications will allow your sales team to immediately reach out to those consumers who are ready to buy and support them through the process.
Is your website driving leads to your sales team? If you’re not sure, then you might want to consider a website audit. Get a leg up on your competition and enable your sales team by requesting a free marketing health check.
