The reason why so many businesses are continuing to turn to inbound marketing is that the inbound marketing method delivers qualified sales leads, leads that are “warmed up” and are ready to hear more about your business.

But, a successful inbound strategy relies on your marketing and sales teams equally. Read that again. If one team is not producing their best work, then the other too, will fall flat.

Unfortunately we see a lot companies, big and small, who are not capitalizing on their inbound leads, this is troublesome because in reality, your inbound leads are actually your top quality leads. Inbound leads have taken the time to get to know your brand and they know what they want from you and or at least what they’re looking for. The trust may have been built through marketing but, the lead will need to be closed with guidance your sales team.

Generating leads is important but, closing those leads is the most important, here are three suggestions that will help tie your inbound marketing and sales teams together while tightening up your sales process.

Arm your sales team with accessible tools

We’re talking specifically about Leadin, Sidekick and the Hubspot CRM. All three are free tools that can totally transform your sales process. LeadIn allows your sales team to to gain lead intelligence, Sidekick allows your sales team to “read the minds” of their prospects and clients and the HubSpot CRM allows your sales team to easily track prospects, deals and clients in a clean, organized and efficient platform.

Don’t skip the call, and opt for an email

When an inbound lead comes in, it’s easiest to send an email, but it’s not always the best strategy, especially if the lead has a history of visiting your site.  Statistically, your chance of connecting with an inbound lead increases by 100% if you call within the first 5 minutes of the leads conversion. So pick up that phone, as soon as possible. 

In other instances, it's not always appropriate to call immediately. If you are using an inbound strategy, your nurture process will afford you a strategy of when it is appropriate to pick up the phone. If you’re questioning when to call, our rule of thumb is to always pick up the phone.

The great thing about the sales enablement tools mentioned above, is that you can watch your inbound leads crawl your website, you can learn their interests and you can make your phone call with the back up of lead intelligence.

 Keep and track a record of your phone calls

We are talking about both outgoing and incoming calls. Keeping track of your phone calls allows your sales team to work collaboratively with your marketing team to improve your strategy. It also allows you to track how far along in the sales process your potential lead is.

Your marketers will produce their content based on lead intelligence and for the people who did not convert online, who are instead in calling directly, it’s important to know where or how they got their information about your business. Did they read about you in the newspaper? Did they see your billboard? Or did they read a blog and crawl your  website?

If a lead does not submit on your site, your marketers are unable to track their site behaviours. It’s important to have well rounded data so that your inbound marketing strategy can remain at it’s strongest.

At Hughes and Co. we specialize in making your sales process smarter and easier. We teach companies how to use the above sales enablement tools and we work with them to develop tailored sales strategies. Reach new levels with your business, book a meeting with a member of the Hughes and Co. team to learn how.