What are Inbound Sales? Strategies, Benefits, and More.

Have you ever been so annoyed by a YouTube ad that you lose interest in the video? Well, that’s an old-school marketing method. Forcing everyone to watch a commercial to attract very few people. That is not how businesses approach marketing these days. They rather focus only on the people who are legitimately interested in the product. And it is beneficial to us that we have fewer adverts.

In this blog, we will talk about Inbound sales and how they can help your organization do better in the market. We will also discuss the common strategies involved so that you can start working on them right away.

What is the Inbound Sales method?

Before ten years or so, businesses used outbound marketing to increase their sales. The outbound marketing method is like force-feeding the audience. The sales team sends out various forms of advertisements to a mass group of the audience even if the individual doesn’t like to see the ad.

But, inbound sales is all about guiding an already potential customer. You only advertise your product to those who truly like them. In other words, you only use your resources on those who are more likely to invest in your product. While the outbound sale is like pushing the person to decide, the inbound sale is like guiding them through the sales funnel. So, it is safe to say that inbound sales are cost-effective and fruitful ways of sales.

Interesting facts about Inbound Sales

Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of inbound sales, let us point out some interesting facts about them.

1. Inbound sales techniques have been shown to double the conversion rates.
2. Inbound sales methods are cheaper than outbound sales methods.
3. Blogging increases the number of leads you gain.
4. Email marketing works.
5. People prefer blogs to advertisements.

If these facts aren’t enough for you to consider inbound sales, you will be among the 35% of businesses that do not use inbound sales.

Developing Inbound Sales Strategy

Just like other processes in a business, inbound sales also have a variety of strategies. But there are some common steps in creating an inbound sales strategy. Keeping a strategy in place is very useful when you face a crisis. Why wait until you encounter a problem? Start working on the strategy today to get on the road to success.

The following are the four stages of creating a successful inbound sales strategy:

1. Draw in visitors
2. Gather leads
3. Nurture leads
4. Meet the customer expectations

We will look at each step in detail so that you can lay out a good inbound sales strategy.

1. Draw in visitors

If you have ever run a website or a blog, you would know the struggle of gaining an audience. This is the first phase of the inbound marketing strategy. To attract visitors, you must provide valuable content. You must also find the optimal way to reach each of your customers.

The following are some of the common ways in which businesses attract customers:

a) Content creation:

This method is one of the most common ways of starting an inbound sales journey. Content creation is not limited to website content and blogging. It also includes videos, e-books, case studies, and much more.

All these have one thing in common. They all provide useful insights about the product/service offered. Nowadays, most internet users do not have the patience to read an entire blog. That is why organizations nowadays are popularising infographics.

Infographics are pictures that convey information. They are gaining more traction because they are easy to share and simple to understand.

The following is an example of an infographic image on the benefits of marketing automation by PeppyBiz.

b) Social media:

We all know that we spend an ample amount of time on social media apps. First, you must include a step for social media advertising in your strategy. Try to find out the most used apps by your target audience. And then use the tools available in social media to attract potential customers.

You must have seen that Instagram brings you ads to products that you showed interest in them some way. That is why social media interaction is crucial to inbound sales. It is naturally targeted only at an audience that already has an interest in the product.

c) Search Engine Optimisation:

If your website/blog doesn’t show up on the first page of the search results, then it’s highly likely there will be no visitors. This is because most web users never check out the second page of the search results.

This is why you must optimize your content using keywords. These keywords increase the visibility of your webpage. There are several other factors at play in increasing visibility. One of the most important factors is providing good content. If the visitor finds the content boring, they simply leave the page.

2. Gather Leads

Not all your visitors will turn into customers. Inbound sales are all about slowly moving the person up the sales funnel. Not forcing them to make decisions. There are several methods you can use for converting your visitors into leads. They are:

a) Landing pages:

A landing page is a page that will greet your visitor when they click on the ad/link. So be sure that you make your landing page as alluring as possible. Based on the ad’s content, the landing page must also change. If your ad is about project mangement software, then your landing page must be about the same.

b) Opt-in-forms:

This is the form that pops up when you open a website, asking you to sign up for the newsletter or some other promotional content. But some businesses overdo it and add so many fields. This can ward away the lead for good. So try limiting the number of fields to a minimum. Just the name and the email address will suffice in most cases.

c) CTA:

This is one of the most important segments of your landing page. Your landing page must provide some way of contacting you. This Call-to-action is the section that encourages the visitor to do a specific action like signing up for regular updates and providing a free demo button to try out the product.

3. Nurture leads

This is one of the important stages in inbound sales strategy development. Your strategy must have the plans for developing the leads slowly into customers. This is also the stage where you make direct contact with the customer. The following are the methods generally used to tool this strategy:

a) Email marketing:

Most internet users have an email ID, and at least 60% of the users check their emails regularly. So this is a great opportunity for the sales team. Most people tend to buy stuff that they were personally recommended. And in this case, customizing your email for every single lead using an email marketing automation tool helps. But best sure to plan a strategy that doesn’t involve annoying the lead with tonnes of emails.

b) CRM and Marketing automation:

Customer satisfaction is of utmost importance to any business. So, find software that can help you do that effectively. The CRM effectively manages your customer data. At the same time, the marketing automation tool can use the data gathered to market the right products at the right time.

4. Meet the customer expectations

Your inbound sales strategy mustn’t stop with the selling of the product. But it must also have plans to support the customer in case of future queries. A good review from a customer can grow your business exponentially.

The following are the ways in which businesses retain customers:

• Hosting live events and webinars
  
• Providing excellent customer support
  
• Interacting with customers on social media and attending to their queries on time. Conducting surveys about the bought product to know customer’s opinion

Benefits of Inbound Sales

The benefits of using inbound sales methods are innumerable. But here are a few of the most commonly identified benefits of inbound sales:

1. The sales and marketing process becomes simple
2. Customer retainment rate increases due to personalized contents
3. Brand awareness improves as you use all platforms for advertising
4. You can cut costs required to advertise to a large group of people
5. Lead conversion rate rockets

Conclusion

Opting for inbound sales over outbound sales is one of the smartest decisions to make in this technological world. You never have to spend inbound sales on the audience who have no interest in your product. Instead, you can invest that money in finding the audience who are already ready to hear about your products. Opting for inbound sales is the best method if you want to increase your conversion rates within a short time.

We at PeppyBiz provide powerful business tools at an affordable price. We are home to one of the best CRM and marketing automation tools in the market. With the option to integrate our CRM software with marketing automation, you can streamline your marketing workflow. Schedule a free demo today to learn more about what we can offer.