If your organization still largely uses outbound marketing and selling techniques, your sales team is probably struggling to bring in revenue and meet sales targets. Outbound just doesn’t work anymore. It’s outdated. And it doesn’t reflect the way people buy today.

The business world is going digital and your organization needs to adapt to the new way people buy in order to stay competitive and thrive in the market—and that means integrating inbound marketing.

Inbound is the number one way to improve the effectiveness of your sales team and help them succeed. Inbound allows for predictable and sustainable sales growth, and it’s more cost-effective and efficient than any other marketing technique. It’s a non-intrusive approach to attracting leads and reaching and nurturing prospects in order to convert them into paying customers. It entails the creation, sharing, and promotion of original, valuable, and informative content that will help your prospects make more informed decisions during the research phase of the buyer’s journey and help them to find and engage with your brand online.

Though you might be hesitant to completely transform the way your sales team sells, the drastic change will be worth the effort. It’s not just a leap of faith—it’s a proven methodology that results in a high return on investment. Here’s how it’ll help your sales team be more effective.

No More Chasing Down Leads

Your sales people probably hate disrupting and harassing leads that you’ve identified, especially when they’re just not interested. It’s a non-enjoyable task to say the least. It forces them to be pushy, and sometimes, annoying. Many sales reps simply do not want to interrupt potential customers by constantly emailing and calling them in the hopes that they’ll respond, and they understand that this isn’t the right way to begin relationships with them.

When you integrate inbound marketing, your sales team will never have to chase down leads again, because the leads will come to them. They’ll be attracted to your company’s website because of all of the informational content you’ve created and shared. They’ll come looking for your sales people—instead of the other way around.

More Qualified Leads for Better Sales

Selling to unqualified leads is a complete waste of your sales people’s valuable time. When a lead just isn’t ready to buy, there’s no point of spending time, energy, and resources on that person at that time. But, without qualifying them to begin with, you just don’t know whether or not they’re ready to buy until it’s too late and all that time has been wasted.

With inbound marketing, the leads are only handed off to your sales team once they’ve been qualified. They’ll only be passed on once they have checked out your pricing page, completed a form for a consultation, or taken some other action on your website that indicates that they are in fact ready to buy. This will give your sales people the best chance of closing deals.

If the leads aren’t ready to buy yet, your marketers will stay in contact with them and nurture them with personalized content until they’re ready.

More Data

Inbound marketing relies heavily on data. Every action your leads take is tracked and measured—from putting an item in their shopping cart to downloading an ebook. And this rich data will help your sales people have more relevant and meaningful conversations with your prospects, so they can increase their conversion rate and close rate. Data allows them to speak to prospects on their level, about the things that matter to them.

If you want to increase your sales team’s effectiveness, you have to adapt your methods to the way people buy, and this means integrating inbound marketing. Make the switch and you’ll see positive change.