How to Use Inbound Prospecting to Get More Sales
Ways to fatten the sales funnel.
When it comes to sales and outsourcing, there's often a debate about outsourcing inbound prospecting and letting a professional partner do the job or working with an in-house sales team.
Inbound prospecting is a complex step in the sales funnel to generate more buyers. It requires expertise and skilled SDRs in order to not lose leads to the competition.
How inbound prospecting works, and why it is better for you to partner with an external expert firm, will be explained in this article.
Inbound prospecting is a complex step in the sales funnel to generate more buyers. It requires expertise and skilled SDRs in order to not lose leads to the competition.
How inbound prospecting works, and why it is better for you to partner with an external expert firm, will be explained in this article.
Reminder: What Is Inbound Prospecting?
Prospecting is the practice of finding possible consumers, clients, or buyers for your products or services in order to start and grow a new business.
Inbound prospecting is about content creation for web pages, social media, or email and content marketing. Often content is provided in blogs, articles, videos, social media posts, or similar. Tied with a good SEO strategy, this will help increase the visibility of your organization online.
As its name suggests, you want the prospect to come to you. Inbound.
They know their pain points and are looking for solutions. As such, to attract potential customers and keep them engaged, your content should show them what you offer.
Inbound allows buyers to choose whether or not to engage and exchange information at a specific location and time. Value is devised in the form of content to establish a relationship, get attention, and build trust.
One way to do so is to ask the visitor to submit their email address to get free information, tools, or infographics. This email then arrives in the inbound sales teams list as an inbound lead that needs to be qualified.
The objective is to build a database of possible customers and then communicate with them in order to convert them from potential to buying customers. This may be done via a monthly newsletter as we do here at SalesPipe, or some other form of follow-up communication.
Outbound prospecting, on the other hand, is the sales team going out there and finding the prospects. Your sales development representatives will research prospects based on your ideal customer profile. They will learn their pain points and develop a sales cadence with cold outreach to reach out to prospects that have not expressed any interest in your product or service yet.
Unlike inbound, where the research happens once you receive the lead, outbound requires research to be done up front so that you know you are adding the right prospects to your sales funnel.
For both methods, inbound and outbound, the intention is to get someone's interest and to convert them into a buying customer.
Inbound prospecting is about content creation for web pages, social media, or email and content marketing. Often content is provided in blogs, articles, videos, social media posts, or similar. Tied with a good SEO strategy, this will help increase the visibility of your organization online.
As its name suggests, you want the prospect to come to you. Inbound.
They know their pain points and are looking for solutions. As such, to attract potential customers and keep them engaged, your content should show them what you offer.
Inbound allows buyers to choose whether or not to engage and exchange information at a specific location and time. Value is devised in the form of content to establish a relationship, get attention, and build trust.
One way to do so is to ask the visitor to submit their email address to get free information, tools, or infographics. This email then arrives in the inbound sales teams list as an inbound lead that needs to be qualified.
The objective is to build a database of possible customers and then communicate with them in order to convert them from potential to buying customers. This may be done via a monthly newsletter as we do here at SalesPipe, or some other form of follow-up communication.
Outbound prospecting, on the other hand, is the sales team going out there and finding the prospects. Your sales development representatives will research prospects based on your ideal customer profile. They will learn their pain points and develop a sales cadence with cold outreach to reach out to prospects that have not expressed any interest in your product or service yet.
Unlike inbound, where the research happens once you receive the lead, outbound requires research to be done up front so that you know you are adding the right prospects to your sales funnel.
For both methods, inbound and outbound, the intention is to get someone's interest and to convert them into a buying customer.
Inbound Prospecting Is Challenging
Now that we've recalled what inbound is, let's take a look at the problems and challenges that companies face when they're doing inbound prospecting.
Quantity above quality in your pipeline
This happens when salespeople prioritize quantity above quality, or when they lack criteria for qualifying new leads and prospects.
Salespeople are frequently left to their own devices when it comes to determining who is likely to convert and when and how to approach them, which isn't enough in today's market. Worse yet, if they don't know how to prioritize, promising opportunities may fall through the cracks.
About 61% of marketers report generating high-quality leads to be one of the most difficult aspects of running a business.
The challenge is to recognize whether a lead can be turned into a prospect or not. It is a waste of everyone's time when you focus on someone and later it turns out that the prospect is not a good fit.
Less traffic on your website
SEO is essential to increase traffic to your website.
If your organization is not focusing on SEO in order to be highly ranked in the search results, prospects won't find you. After all, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
The consequences are fewer people coming to your website and fewer people turning into paying customers.
Your content doesn't engage your visitors
Your organization may offer the right solution to solve the problems of your target group, but if your content can't create a high engagement rate, the likelihood that people will submit their email addresses is low.
Make sure to test your content with A/B testing to see how it performs.
Ineffective tools
It's practically impossible to conduct an effective inbound prospecting without the right tools. You will lose time, money, and potential clients if you use the wrong software or try to keep up with all of the essential work without specialized equipment. And if you have to be willing to spend on it too.
Don't sell to your leads right away
It shouldn't be about setting a meeting or demo or making a sale right away. Form a relationship and remind them of their interest. At this stage, it is too early to ask for concrete actions in order to close a deal.
The lead is still wanting to find out whether your company offers them enough value to it to buy or not.
Quantity above quality in your pipeline
This happens when salespeople prioritize quantity above quality, or when they lack criteria for qualifying new leads and prospects.
Salespeople are frequently left to their own devices when it comes to determining who is likely to convert and when and how to approach them, which isn't enough in today's market. Worse yet, if they don't know how to prioritize, promising opportunities may fall through the cracks.
About 61% of marketers report generating high-quality leads to be one of the most difficult aspects of running a business.
The challenge is to recognize whether a lead can be turned into a prospect or not. It is a waste of everyone's time when you focus on someone and later it turns out that the prospect is not a good fit.
Less traffic on your website
SEO is essential to increase traffic to your website.
If your organization is not focusing on SEO in order to be highly ranked in the search results, prospects won't find you. After all, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.
The consequences are fewer people coming to your website and fewer people turning into paying customers.
Your content doesn't engage your visitors
Your organization may offer the right solution to solve the problems of your target group, but if your content can't create a high engagement rate, the likelihood that people will submit their email addresses is low.
Make sure to test your content with A/B testing to see how it performs.
Ineffective tools
It's practically impossible to conduct an effective inbound prospecting without the right tools. You will lose time, money, and potential clients if you use the wrong software or try to keep up with all of the essential work without specialized equipment. And if you have to be willing to spend on it too.
Don't sell to your leads right away
It shouldn't be about setting a meeting or demo or making a sale right away. Form a relationship and remind them of their interest. At this stage, it is too early to ask for concrete actions in order to close a deal.
The lead is still wanting to find out whether your company offers them enough value to it to buy or not.
How Does Inbound Prospecting Generate Leads, Then?
So how do you overcome these challenges?
Once you have optimized your SEO to show up high on search engine results and your social media strategy has drawn interest, you have to hold on to that interest. Offer your visitors value and show them that you provide a product or service that can help them. Provide useful information on your web page and implement a call-to-action (CTA) to get more information from your prospects.
A typical approach is to exchange information. People sign up for your newsletter, for free information or tools, to download an eBook, or to request a demo after watching a webinar.
This information exchange can provide you with valuable information about your prospects if you ask for it in a form. You can gain information such as their name, email address, phone number, company, location, and title, among other things.
This makes the prospect a real lead.
Now that you have leads, you need to turn them into customers. But be careful.
Remember that selling or setting an appointment is not the right step at this stage. Your leads are not ready yet to make a decision. So nurture them.
All the information you get from your leads can be used to give them valuable resources to help them see how you can be the solution to their pain points.
Your aim has to be to gain trust and to start a conversation. Providing information with an email newsletter, warm calling, giving them offers, and researching them is essential to not lose their interest.
According to LinkedIn, 62% of B2B customers respond to salespeople who connect by sharing content and insights that are relevant to the buyer.
Without a strategy, you won't see success
Having a specific strategy to turn your leads into buying customers is extremely important to get the most out of your inbound prospecting. Set specific goals.
For example, "I want x% leads to turn into buying customers in x weeks". Be realistic about your goals.
It also helps you see what's working and what's not working.
Maintain precise data
Keep a list of leads so you can keep them up to date on new products, services, deals, and company developments.
Keep track of each lead status so you can customize the content you provide them.
This makes the approach personalized, and leads will be able to tell.
Research your leads
Use the information they give you to find out more about their personality and pain points. A quick check on Google and LinkedIn is a good start. Also, a CRM can deliver helpful information about the person and their company.
Deliver value
Offering your leads resources and solutions will bring them closer to seeing you as the answer to their problems.
For example, discount codes or free consultation meetings help win customers faster and sustainably.
Keep contacting your leads
Once a web visitor gives their information to your company, it's essential to have an ongoing conversation. With follow-up emails or warm calls, you can ask questions to get more information about them.
This helps you have conversations to move them to the next step in your sales funnel.
Once you have optimized your SEO to show up high on search engine results and your social media strategy has drawn interest, you have to hold on to that interest. Offer your visitors value and show them that you provide a product or service that can help them. Provide useful information on your web page and implement a call-to-action (CTA) to get more information from your prospects.
A typical approach is to exchange information. People sign up for your newsletter, for free information or tools, to download an eBook, or to request a demo after watching a webinar.
This information exchange can provide you with valuable information about your prospects if you ask for it in a form. You can gain information such as their name, email address, phone number, company, location, and title, among other things.
This makes the prospect a real lead.
Now that you have leads, you need to turn them into customers. But be careful.
Remember that selling or setting an appointment is not the right step at this stage. Your leads are not ready yet to make a decision. So nurture them.
All the information you get from your leads can be used to give them valuable resources to help them see how you can be the solution to their pain points.
Your aim has to be to gain trust and to start a conversation. Providing information with an email newsletter, warm calling, giving them offers, and researching them is essential to not lose their interest.
According to LinkedIn, 62% of B2B customers respond to salespeople who connect by sharing content and insights that are relevant to the buyer.
Without a strategy, you won't see success
Having a specific strategy to turn your leads into buying customers is extremely important to get the most out of your inbound prospecting. Set specific goals.
For example, "I want x% leads to turn into buying customers in x weeks". Be realistic about your goals.
It also helps you see what's working and what's not working.
Maintain precise data
Keep a list of leads so you can keep them up to date on new products, services, deals, and company developments.
Keep track of each lead status so you can customize the content you provide them.
This makes the approach personalized, and leads will be able to tell.
Research your leads
Use the information they give you to find out more about their personality and pain points. A quick check on Google and LinkedIn is a good start. Also, a CRM can deliver helpful information about the person and their company.
Deliver value
Offering your leads resources and solutions will bring them closer to seeing you as the answer to their problems.
For example, discount codes or free consultation meetings help win customers faster and sustainably.
Keep contacting your leads
Once a web visitor gives their information to your company, it's essential to have an ongoing conversation. With follow-up emails or warm calls, you can ask questions to get more information about them.
This helps you have conversations to move them to the next step in your sales funnel.
Use External Sales Teams to Manage Your Inbound Prospecting
As we've seen, to overcome the challenges of inbound prospecting you need a dedicated team of professionals. One way to make sure you have this is by outsourcing this part of your sales process to an SDR as a service firm.
More cost-effective than a full-time, in-house team
Full-time in-house teams that take care of inbound prospecting and all the associated tasks are expensive to run. By outsourcing externally, you'll save on hiring and training costs.
Depending on the size of your company and your marketing growth objectives, a decent outsourced sales firm would be significantly less costly than an in-house team because you won't have to run with extra costs.
Extra costs for hiring internally don't only include the basics such as a high salary and healthcare, but it also costs time.
After all, the SDR or BDR you're hiring internally will need time to be trained on how to do the job.
Whereas SDRs and BDRs at SalesPipe already have the knowledge they need to start inbound prospecting right away.
Time
Outsourcing allows you time to focus on your strengths.
While the outsourced team handles the massive workload of putting your ideas into action, you can focus on product or service development.
Inbound prospecting takes a lot of time and effort. Researching and communicating with a long list of leads takes up to several hours. This saved time can be used to focus on other strategic decisions.
Access to more talent
Hiring an external partner who takes care of your inbound prospecting will bring expertise to the game. Professional outsourced SDRs like our team here at SalesPipe are experts in doing research on their customers and in communicating with them.
They identify their pain points and deliver helpful information and resources as part of their daily tasks. Plus, they will have the support of their firm which specializes in lead generation.
New input
Professionals may provide an independent view of your company and give new, innovative ideas and tactics to get more sales. They will also receive the feedback of customers and keep track of it so that you can work on bettering your product or service.
More cost-effective than a full-time, in-house team
Full-time in-house teams that take care of inbound prospecting and all the associated tasks are expensive to run. By outsourcing externally, you'll save on hiring and training costs.
Depending on the size of your company and your marketing growth objectives, a decent outsourced sales firm would be significantly less costly than an in-house team because you won't have to run with extra costs.
Extra costs for hiring internally don't only include the basics such as a high salary and healthcare, but it also costs time.
After all, the SDR or BDR you're hiring internally will need time to be trained on how to do the job.
Whereas SDRs and BDRs at SalesPipe already have the knowledge they need to start inbound prospecting right away.
Time
Outsourcing allows you time to focus on your strengths.
While the outsourced team handles the massive workload of putting your ideas into action, you can focus on product or service development.
Inbound prospecting takes a lot of time and effort. Researching and communicating with a long list of leads takes up to several hours. This saved time can be used to focus on other strategic decisions.
Access to more talent
Hiring an external partner who takes care of your inbound prospecting will bring expertise to the game. Professional outsourced SDRs like our team here at SalesPipe are experts in doing research on their customers and in communicating with them.
They identify their pain points and deliver helpful information and resources as part of their daily tasks. Plus, they will have the support of their firm which specializes in lead generation.
New input
Professionals may provide an independent view of your company and give new, innovative ideas and tactics to get more sales. They will also receive the feedback of customers and keep track of it so that you can work on bettering your product or service.
Conclusion
Inbound prospecting is essential to convert leads into buying customers.
The process needs to be done by people who have the expertise to do proper research and have professional strategies and time they can dedicate to communicate with leads.
Because of the high requirements and the time-consuming aspect, it's worth considering working with an external partner. Losing valuable leads because the expertise is missing to turn them into buying customers is not what you want.
To learn more about how SalesPipe can help your inbound prospecting efforts, get in touch with us.
The process needs to be done by people who have the expertise to do proper research and have professional strategies and time they can dedicate to communicate with leads.
Because of the high requirements and the time-consuming aspect, it's worth considering working with an external partner. Losing valuable leads because the expertise is missing to turn them into buying customers is not what you want.
To learn more about how SalesPipe can help your inbound prospecting efforts, get in touch with us.
Post by Mattes Wöstemeier.
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