The science of selling is rapidly evolving as organizations strive to make their sales people more effective and find ways to leverage new concepts and technologies. Many of these new ideas revolve around reducing the amount of time that sales people spend on inefficient, unqualified, or otherwise undesirable leads. Inbound marketing has been embraced at many organizations for its effectiveness in meeting these targets. So how exactly does inbound marketing make sales people more effective?

Inbound Marketing Typically Provides Lower Cost Per Lead

When sales people performing outbound marketing activities lose track of follow up scheduling or do not have a firm grasp on where in the sales pipeline each target is, the process becomes inefficient – leading to rapidly spiraling costs. With inbound marketing, your organization can formulate processes to determine the quality and readiness to buy of each individual lead. This allows your sales people to prioritize their sales activities and push sales by focusing on the highest value leads and prospects currently in or ready to enter the sales pipeline.

Inbound Marketing Allows Sales People to Implement Strategic Shifts Almost Immediately

An unsuccessful outbound marketing campaign can incur huge costs and leave sales people without direction while an alternative is found. By its nature, inbound marketing is more readily adaptable to strategic shifts when analysis shows that something in a marketing campaign is not performing. Additionally, inbound marketing feedback is nearly instantaneous, allowing your sales people to provide immediate views on how and where changes might be made.

Inbound Marketing Makes Lifecycle Marketing Attainable

Customers’ needs regularly change, and the messages that attract and engage one group of customers may not be well received by other groups. Inbound marketing can target multiple prospect groups with different marketing messages more cost effectively than ever before thanks to social media and other internet-based technologies.

Although it is possible for sales people to form a buyer profile before calling a lead, exact information on needs and budget is rarely available before the first contact with traditional outbound marketing. With inbound marketing, this is reversed: The lead is calling your sales people, interested in buying, and wanting to know more. If your inbound marketing involves a short, quality survey prior to connecting with a sales person, your sales people can be better prepared for converting their leads.

Inbound Marketing Results Are Readily Measurable

• Allows customer tracking through all stages of the pipeline, since leads begin by providing requested information.
• Provides access to tracking technologies such as traffic and source reports to measure the effectiveness of individual campaigns.
• Reduces the amount of time that your sales people spend on updating CRM and completing other paperwork, creating even greater time efficiency.

Inbound Marketing Creates Warm Leads Ready for Dialogue

You may have noticed that your sales people who are still performing outbound marketing have taken to emailing articles, marketing messages, and other collateral to leads before initiating the first call. This is not just because sales people prefer not to make cold calls; it is because warming up the lead results in a better dialogue with stronger sales opportunities.

Many inbound marketing campaigns begin with a similar concept, by having leads fill out a form to receive an article, white paper, or comparable information of value. Your sales people can call these inbound marketing leads knowing that the lead is already familiar and interested in your offerings. The added confidence to close a sale and the reduced time inefficiencies provided by this strategy are a large part of how inbound marketing can help your sales people be more effective.