Successfully engage prospects and recruit new
customers
With consumer purchasing behaviour changing and
heigtened competition, how can Sales and Marketing
Directors attract and recruit new business?
Introduction
How CRM is essential to successful new
business recruitment
The fi rst principle of business is to sell a product or service. From the very beginning, this has been the case: from the farmer selling home-grown produce on a market stall, to the fi rst travelling salesman knocking door to door. With the introduction of the print press, sales turned to marketing to increase their potential audience, with newspaper advertising, leafl et drops and posters. With the introduction of radio and TV, marketing became mainstream and mass-market targeted. Gradually, with the growth of computer data management, we saw the introduction of direct mail and most recently, web and email. But all these marketing tactics revolved around one very simple principle: using a strong sales message to promote a product, which would result in a prospect talking to a salesperson for advice, knowledge and ultimately, to make a purchase.
However, consumer behaviour has shifted and with the increase in competitors, the fragmentation of marketing channels and the proliferation of the internet, consumers are researching products and benefi ts and looking online for the best deals
themselves – instead of talking to Sales!
Most sales professionals are now aware of this shift in behaviour and the resulting ‘inbound’ sales enquiries, rather than outbound sales promotions, and this ‘inbound shift’ has impacted the way in which they approach and engage with customers
❑ Introduction
❑ What exactly is Inbound Marketing? ❑ How to shift to Inbound
Identify your best customers and reach
more just like them
Where to start your content journey? Encourage Sales and Marketing to work
together
❑ How a shift to Inbound can drive Sales
Change sales engagement tactics
Become Solution Consultants - not Sales
Reps!
Use sales knowledge to power the
Inbound machine ❑ Conclusion.
and prospects.
For instance, in today’s digital world, consumers are used to 24/7 interaction with their favourite B2C brands, from anywhere through mobile devices and social media, demonstrating that the ‘phone-us-during-offi ce-hours’ approach simply doesn’t work with the vast majority of consumers anymore. B2C companies have been quick to react to these seismic shifts in consumer behaviour and have leveraged Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other social media to build bridges with their marketplaces – particularly with the younger demographics.
B2B companies have been slower to ride this wave and many remain stuck in the mindset that cold contact with barely warmed leads, by sales reps and during regular offi ce hours is the way forward. Some are engaging with consumers through LinkedIn and other business social networks, but still lag behind in utilising these. Most need genuinely useful content, about their industries, the trends, products and services, and how these impact businesses to really make social media work, because B2B prospects are not looking to be pitched to any longer.
Many salespeople can be misled into thinking this shift is just about changing marketing strategies, as the term ‘inbound marketing’ has been making recent headlines. But ‘inbound marketing’, as all marketing strategies, is simply about feeding sales by taking a new approach to generating leads for the sales team: employing data mining and analysing buyer behaviour to understand customers better, tracking their interactions and approaching them with the right marketing collateral, and recognising how marketing resources are digested, to better identify when a prospective customer is ready to talk
to Sales.
In this whitepaper, we look at how companies can adopt an inbound marketing strategy as a direct reaction to the shift in consumer behaviour and how sales professionals can make the transition to an inbound strategy to increase sales wins.
What exactly is Inbound
Marketing?
As discussed, the old marketing play book is
broken. Promoting products and their benefi ts with a direct sales message is not getting through to today’s consumers. Research recently completed by HubSpot All-In-One-Marketing Softwareishowed
that 86% of consumers skip TV adverts, 91% will unsubscribe from unsolicited emails, 44% will automatically bin direct mail and over 200 million people are on ‘do not cold call’ lists. These fi gures may vary from country to country, but the story they
are telling remains the same.
Here’s why: think of the last time you needed to purchase something other than the normal weekly
groceries, a TV for example. Did you respond to a TV or radio advert or walk directly into an electronics store? Doubtful! Like most of the population, you probably went online and either looked directly at a manufacturer’s site or typed keywords into Google to start a search – and it is this shift that is key: you are self-educating on what you want; after which, you will look for the best price or convenient delivery options, etc. Ultimately, it is this self-education factor in today’s marketplace that is driving inbound marketing methodologies.
Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that involves bringing people to you, through the promotion of education and helpful content that supports the consumers’ need to self-educate, as opposed to you going to them with a direct sales campaign. The term, fi rst coined by marketing guru Seth Godin, represents a more personal approach to generating interest in products and services, whereby marketers must earn or seek permission to engage consumers in a sales conversation.
Inbound marketing is, in essence, capturing the attention of consumers who really want your service or product and are researching online to fi nd out what best meets their requirements. As a result, the role of marketers has changed and you have to spend money more wisely on creative content, which addresses the specifi c needs of the researching prospects.
In addition to consumer behaviour changing, there is also increased pressure on marketers to deliver a greater marketing Return on Investment (ROI), which has seen marketers turn away from blind advertising, aggressive sales pitches and a world where blindly pushing a button and hoping for the
best sales leads is acceptable. Switching to inbound methodologies can drastically lower the cost of lead acquisition and, therefore, increase ROI. Using the traditional outbound approach, it costs an average of US$346 to generate a single lead, whereas
inbound only costs US$135: a cost reduction of more than 60%.
How to shift to Inbound
Step 1: Identify your best customers and
reach more just like them
How do you fi nd the best prospects? By looking at your existing customers and using the data available in your customer database to understand exactly who they are. Get on the Big Data bandwagon and use the information you have!
The growth of Big Data has in itself driven the inbound marketing shift, as businesses invest in CRM technology to support customer service communications and improve the company’s operations. However, from a sales and marketing perspective, Big Data provides real indicators to the construction of the modern sales funnel: from researching, pin-pointing needs to product features, to reviewing and test driving products, until they are
fi nally ready to talk to Sales. The advantage Big Data off ers is the insight and understanding of who your existing customers are, so you can target lookalikes, understanding the behaviour patterns that took them from prospect to customer – for example, what content they digested, when and via what channels. Plus, you will know at what point these leads are ‘sales-ready’.
In short, step 1 is about using your existing data to:
Create fi ctional pen portraits of typical customers
in key segments and using these persona to target new prospects
Create content maps that identify what content to
off er and via what marketing channels to initially attract the right prospect, and then nurture these prospects until they are sales ready.
An example of a B2B persona might be ‘Sarah: 30 to 40 years old, a procurement manager, involved in major purchasing decisions at her fi rm, lives outside London, works late most nights and likes doing her work reading on her tablet during the commute home...’ This approach helps marketing and sales teams focus on who they are targeting and how they can better do that.
Armed with the knowledge of what Sarah is likely to digest, you can further support Sarah’s need to research a wealth of information, especially when, according to HubSpot, consumers are 57% of the way towards a buying decision before they are even ready to talk to a salesperson. In short, it is the marketer’s challenge to help the consumers become smarter and more knowledgeable about what they want and use this desire to ensure they fi nd
your company in the fi rst place – by following your content maps.
Step 2: Where to start your content
journey?
A staggering 93% of business buyers use online search to begin the purchasing processii. To reach
consumers in the initial research stages of buying, a marketer needs to develop a powerful content-driven presence in the marketplace, using initial ‘research’ tactics and ensuring the consumer fi nds intelligent digital content such as blogs, whitepapers, articles and social media posts.
The download of a piece of content should start the content journey and using the content maps created in Step 1, it should now be possible to automate future communications to this consumer and off er further suitable content, following the content map identifi ed, until they become sales ready.
When buyers look for information on products or services in your sector, make sure they fi nd your company and appreciate its knowledge and expertise. It is also vital to take an omnichannel approach to this process, which means not just having multiple channels, but staying focused on the prospects and ensuring that interactions with them are consistent, connected and seamless – which requires tracking and coordination via CRM. As a result, the
new defi nition of qualifi ed lead implies creating content that adds value very early in the sales sequence.
ii. The b2b Marketer’s ‘New Normal’: How to Use Social Media to Generate Leads, iMediaConnection, October 2010
Step 3: Encourage Sales and Marketing
to work together
An increasingly signifi cant strategic risk to all companies has been the disconnect between Sales and Marketing and the age-old argument ‘What is a lead?’.
Historically, a response to a marketing campaign was considered a lead, which the sales team would be forced to follow-up, rejecting most of these leads before engaging in the ‘wants and needs’ conversation. However, the change in consumer behaviour and the more active role prospects take in discovering and understanding your product shift this pivotal conversation-point between buyer and seller. Therefore, instead of trawling through a bucket-full of leads to engage in only one or two worthwhile conversations, these interactions are being managed by Marketing and the lead nurture campaign created is based on the content maps developed for each initial research piece.
As a result, for sales teams, inbound marketing provides a shorter path to turning total strangers into faithful brand advocates and the process becomes a more pleasant experience for both
parties, from start to fi nish. The visual of a well-dressed gentleman caller, rose in hand, as an alternative to the Delboy barrowman with bulging eyes and an urgent message comes to mind. This softly softly approach, in which the brand builds trust through ongoing dialogue, is at the heart of inbound marketing.
When both Sales and Marketing shift to an inbound system, the sales and marketing process becomes straightforward and eff ective: through inbound campaigns driven by automation, lead scoring and prospect intelligence, Marketing nurtures leads and only turns them over to Sales when they appear fully ready; Sales uses Marketing’s business intelligence to take an informed and welcomed approach to each lead and refers back those that are not fully primed to talk of a deal yet.
Both departments beat the traditional sales-versus-marketing blame game, by ensuring productivity and effi ciency – and research indicates they get results: nurtured leads, on average, produce 20% more sales opportunities than non-nurtured leadsiii, while
companies that excel at lead-nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower costs than those who do notiv. Consequently, better quality
leads mean higher conversion rates.
How a shift to Inbound can drive
Sales
Step 1: Change Sales engagement tactics
Despite its seeming reactive nature, inbound marketing does not mean Sales can now sit back and wait for ‘sales-ready’ leads to fi ll their pipeline,
iii. 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, MarketingSherpa, 2012
with little eff ort needed to ensure the conversion progresses. Salespeople must now bring their “A” game to engage consumers quickly and convert them to customers in an orderly fashion. They must continue to use inbound techniques to establish rapport, credibility, trust and quality customer service in equal measure, through meaningful interactions, to then reap the benefi ts of an increased sales conversion. Most importantly, a solid connection must be established between the salesperson and the consumer, that provides the buyer with a sense of value and satisfaction.
Step 2: Become Solution Consultants -
not Sales Reps!
First and foremost, salespeople have to accept the change in power. In sales transactions, the power has shifted from the salesperson to the buyer. With the consumer self-educating and choosing
when they wish to speak to Sales, Sales Reps can no longer hide a shabby product or undeveloped services with a fancy sales technique and ‘gift of the gab’ repertoire. A knowledgeable customer will see straight through the sales patter, and instantly the sales person will lose the consumer’s trust and respect.
To be truly successful, you have to adapt your approach, from pushing prospects through a scripted, one-size-fi ts-all sales process and instead, concentrate on using the available marketing
prospect intelligence to address the prospects’ needs. You are no longer a salesperson: you are a consultant, guiding the consumers through their knowledge and addressing their pain-points.
Discovering the prospects’ challenges, rather than trying to close the sale, is the fi rst action and requires active listening to
fi nd out what the prospects want and, most importantly, what they truly need. As a salesperson, you are the ultimate authority on your own products and services (as well as those of your competitors) and it is your responsibility to provide guidance and support to each prospect when they need it. Without this perspective, you will lose your ability to bridge the gap between an opening line and a closing argument.
for is someone to help them solve problems and address concerns in their daily lives. They are not looking to be sold to. When consumers are ready to talk to sales, they want a solution to a business issue or challenge. Therefore, gone are the days where you addressed each individual feature and corresponding benefi t of your product or service. Now, you must focus on elevating your salesmanship to address questions and concerns about support, implementation and usage. These are the areas that reap the greatest potential reward and consumer trust.
Sales teams need to adopt the fundamentals of solution selling, a process fi rst presented by Frank Watts to Xerox Corporation as early as 1982. The methodology of this business model stresses that salespeople guide prospects through diagnosing specifi c needs and then design solutions that solve the prospects’ unique problems, in a way that
benefi ts both parties. So, instead of concentrating on your knowledge and the end sale, think of yourself as a doctor. When you visit a doctor’s offi ce, do they spend hours demonstrating their knowledge of how the human body works? No, they listen to
your symptoms, answer questions and then make recommendations on how you can achieve a speedy recovery. In the same way, as a salesperson, you should be listening to your customers’ problems, answering any questions or concerns they may have and off ering recommendations on products and services that will improve their situation.
In summary, Sales Reps versus
Solutions Consultants breaks down as follows:
Sales Reps are only interested in an immediate
sale. Consultants become the trusted advisors who off er expertise that cannot be found anywhere else
Sales Reps talk about selling points. Consultants
ask discovery questions to lead prospects into the sales funnel
Sales Reps concentrate exclusively on generating
leads. Consultants generate leads organically, by asking relevant questions, sharing information, and engaging followers on social channels, as equals
Sales Reps emphasise product features.
Consultants emphasise how their products and services provide specifi c solutions to their clients’ unique problems.
Step 3: Use sales knowledge to power
the inbound machine
As highlighted, one positive aspect of an inbound approach is the increase marketing lead quality and
reduced sales-cycle, which not only increase sales revenues, but also encourages cheaper operating costs. This is due to the setup of automated marketing processes on several virtual channels online, to ensure leads are nurtured. This all
requires content, which drives new prospects to your business in the fi rst place. And who knows better than Sales the most common problems customers are facing? It is therefore essential that Sales now play a vital role in the creative process as well. As noted earlier, the customer purchase decision timeline is already 57% completed by the time the customer fi rst speaks to Sales. Therefore, to support the sales conversion, it is important Sales have input on what the customer receives during this period. Please, don’t panic! We are not suggesting Sales start copywriting! Production of content is still the responsibility of Marketing, but Sales can play a pivotal role in directing the messaging of the content produced, to ensure it speaks about prospects’ common concerns and problems, in the same way as sales would during their initial conversations with prospects.
At the very least, salespeople should be
knowledgeable about the content of the marketing messages, digested by a prospect before they enter into the conversation. With input into the content message, Sales will have a springboard to the key selling points and be in a position to anticipate questions and concerns their customers and prospects might have – making for a much more productive initial sales call.
In fact, most often, Sales will receive pivotal prospect intelligence from marketing regarding what content has been digested and this will support sales in their
fi rst call preparation and confi rm whether both Sales and Marketing are promoting the same key messages and whether these need to be amended. Supporting content production cements this winning inbound sales and marketing presentation to attract and convert educated consumers.
When more people in your company become involved in generating content that satisfi es your inbound marketing goals, the organisation becomes a stronger, more powerful entity in the eyes of its fans. The competition among peers builds stronger relationships, internally at fi rst, and then with customers themselves. Plus, pooling resources between the two teams also contributes to cost savings for the company that utilises their human capital eff ectively. Think of both as gatekeepers for content creation in a new, more customer-centric business paradigm.
Four ways salespeople can provide content:
Host webinars and record product demo
videos - YouTube, Vimeo, Skype, gotowebinar and similar sites are making it easier than ever to create and share informational audio and video presentations with prospects. The sooner members of your sales force learn how to use these tools eff ectively, the better equipped your organisation will be to design content that leads to more profi table conversations
Create blog posts - Well-informed sales teams can
share step-by-step demonstrations, data sheets and testimonials with clients, or relay insightful product or service knowledge gained through customer contact “in the fi eld”
Write FAQs - FAQs are golden opportunities
to address the most pressing concerns your potential clients have about your business philosophy and your sales off erings
Develop case studies - Quality references, such
as customer stories from satisfi ed clients, off er a bit of marketing insurance if things get tough in the fi eld, when your off erings are competing against more established brands with well-known reputations. Case studies can also generate much needed enthusiasm for a sales team’s performance, especially when combined with incentives and performance data that rewards them for the extra eff ort.
Conclusion
Consumer behaviour has shifted and marketing has responded with a shift to Inbound Marketing - it is now time for sales professionals to make the INBOUND SHIFT.
First, with your marketing: generate interesting content, using the data available to build content maps that encourage prospects to fi nd you and engage in a sales conversation, rather than you chasing them down the street with a sales placard! Follow three guiding principles:
Crafting marketing messages that are tailor-made
for specifi c audiences
Marketing (less expensively) on specifi c channels,
where such customers can be found online
Consistently attracting only the most promising
leads from an ocean of willing listeners.
Second, drive a modern sales ethos, by encouraging the use of prospect intelligence to bridge the gap between prospects’ knowledge and what represents their best options. That allows sales to push a prospect to the bottom of the sales funnel and is the primary “raison d’être” for contemporary sales teams.
Third, ensure both Sales and Marketing are focused on direct and indirect communications with prospects, to make certain the message fl ows from marketing to sales and promotes a smooth transition between the two. This is where most fi rms still fall short in understanding and appreciating each other’s roles in attracting qualifi ed leads that stick around long enough to hear the co-ordinated and mirrored sales pitch.
Next steps
We hope this handy guide on how a shift to an Inbound Strategy has given you valuable insight in the need to adopt Inbound practices and how using Marketing Automation and CRM software can ensure you successfully increase the number of marketing leads your business generates, but also how your Sales Team can adapt to convert these leads into new customers, increasing your business revenues. If you would like to know more about how CRM and Marketing Automation can boost your business revenues, why not try Maximizer CRM for FREE.
Or if you’d like to discuss your requirements, call our friendly team of CRM experts on +44 (0)845 555 99 55 or email info@max.co.uk.
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