Inbound Marketing Age

Throughout my career in marketing, one common obstacle has always remained. Getting Sales to buy-in to and use the company CRM (customer relationship management) system of choice.

In the early days of the internet (yes, I remember them), CRM systems were cumbersome, time-consuming and unintuitive to use. Salespeople were field-based, and spent their days clocking up mileage visiting potential customers. Admin was seen as a frustrating waste of time that they could be spending on generating commission.

Times have thankfully changed, and CRM systems are no longer (or shouldn't be) a big messy anxiety-inducing database. A good CRM system should help you manage relationships and sell more efficiently.

It should be your sales people's secret weapon.

An effective lead generation strategy is a culmination of approaches that when combined, enhance your reputation, increase website traffic, and as a result, attract a steady stream of qualified leads. There are individual strategies that will enhance your overall approach, but what it really requires is a holistic effort.

Changes in customer behaviour are widening the gap between buyers’ expectations and sellers’ tactics. it is well versed that today's buyers would rather conduct their own research online than pick up the phone to Sales.

In response to this savvy marketers are driving traffic to their websites through inbound marketing methods; generating organic traffic and using topics and keywords to boost search engine rankings.

But marketers are also spending budget on advertising.

The Advertising Association is projecting that total UK advertising spend in 2018 will grow 2.8% to £22.7bn. The report also revealed that almost one in four pounds spent on advertising in the third quarter of 2017 went to mobile, which recorded year-on-year growth of 30.7%.

A sales funnel is a visualisation of how many leads you need to convert into business. It helps you to look for areas of improvement in your sales process, forecast future production / resource requirements and ensure Sales are focusing their efforts on the right type of leads.

The first step in creating a sales funnel is to set a quantifiable goal, this will be based on the number of sales you need to achieve in a given period. Then work backwards through each step of your sales process and work out your conversion rate at each stage.

Working backwards from your sales goal, and factoring in your conversion rates enables you to estimate how many leads are required to generate the sales you need.

It is well documented that B2B Sales is changing. Buyers are more educated, not only about your products but also your competitors. They no longer need a salesperson to help them make informed decisions.

If you follow an inbound marketing approach, your sales team have access to information such as: which web pages prospects have viewed and what content they downloaded. This can tell you their life cycle stage and which of your buyer personas they identify with. The lead may have also been nurtured through workflows, at each step attracting negative or positive scoring which helps generate marketing qualified leads (MQL) that are ready for Sales qualification.

The role of Sales now is more advisory, and salespeople need to be cognisant of all the information the buyer has accessed, and adapt their approach accordingly.

Everyone loves to hate Salespeople. Recent research showed that Salespeople rank lower on the scale of trustworthiness than politicians - yes, less than Donald Trump.

Ask anyone what they think about Salespeople, and they will probably think used car salespeople ala Mr Wormwood. But as the power has shifted to the buyer the criteria for being a sales person has also changed.

Regardless of what business or industry you are in, the last thing your customers want is to be sold to. Instead, they want to be advised, counselled and coached through their buyer journey. It is salespeople that have the ability to establish rapport with their customers and create an atmosphere of trust that will succeed. Sales have changed, and you need to adapt.

Many manufacturing businesses have traditionally relied on a direct or distributor sales force to generate growth. The founders, especially 50+ years ago, were essentially inventors – solving customers' pain through developing innovative solutions to problems in a way the competition couldn't. They did not need a marketing department to succeed, just pure guts and determination.

This traditional approach has continued through the decades with the role of marketing failing to evolve much beyond product brochures, maintaining the company website and tradeshows. It is not surprising, therefore, that many CEOs do not understand what marketing can do to help grow the business.

Historically, there has been little alignment between sales and marketing, resulting in a disgruntled marketing team wondering why sales aren't closing the leads they provide, and a sales team moaning that the leads are low quality.

Inbound marketing came about in response to changes in buyer behaviour - but sales have been slow to adapt. When buyers have a particular issue or point of pain to respond to they would rather conduct their own research online than speak to a salesperson (62 per cent of buyers use search engines and 48 per cent visit a company's website).

Inbound sales is emerging to address this. Unsurprisingly, the model is similar to inbound marketing - transitioning prospects through the stages of awareness, consideration, and decision, all the while working to support the buyer rather than the seller (Cox Business).

An alignment between marketing and sales is key throughout. Marketing need to be creating relevant content for sales at every stage, to drive prospects through the sales funnel and close them as customers.

It is well-versed that buyer behaviour has changed significantly in recent years. Inbound marketing redresses the balance by adapting to customers’ needs, but is Sales in danger of being left behind?

Changes in customer behaviour are widening the gap between buyers’ expectations and sellers’ tactics. HubSpot research shows there is a disconnect between customers’ expectations and traditional sales tactics. Buyers are not going to change, so the onus is on Sales to adapt.