What are Inbound Sales?
The term “inbound sales” refers to a sales strategy that focuses specifically on attracting sales prospects who are interested in purchasing your product and building positive working relationships with them.
The key to successful inbound sales is addressing the prospect’s specific needs, and highlighting exactly how you and your product can help them. By building trust and a positive relationship, you can close out a sale.
Inbound Sales vs. Outbound Sales
Inbound and outbound sales are both sales strategies, but they work opposite from one another. Some sales reps may prefer one method over the other, but both should be utilized in a regular sales cadence.
Inbound sales focus on getting potential customers who are already interested in your product to reach out to your sales team. Then, you can build relationships with them by focusing on their specific pain points and needs.
Outbound sales, on the other hand, focus on having your sales team reach out to sales prospects who may or may not be interested in your product; this is the more “traditional” way of conducting sales.
Why are Inbound Sales Important?
It’s important to have an inbound sales strategy to help generate more potential customers. Outbound sales are time consuming and lengthy, so a sales team can’t rely on them to produce 100% of their revenue goals. Many leads also don’t respond well to cold calls or emails, which makes outbound sales difficult.
Inbound sales, however, adapt to the buyer’s needs and put them front and center. Since potential customers are already aware of and interested in your product, it’s easier to close a sale. Instead, a sales rep needs to focus on how their product will address the needs of the buyer and highlight exactly why it’s the right choice over that of a competitor.
As a result, inbound sales help build meaningful relationships, which in turn helps bolster customer satisfaction. It places emphasis on problem solving and addressing pain points as a way to make sales, which also makes it more likely for a customer to keep working with you. You’ve gained their trust and proven your product is the right fit for them, so why would they go elsewhere?
Tips for Inbound Sales
Understand the Buyer’s Needs
Remember, inbound sales focus on attracting prospects who are already familiar with your product. The main goal is to understand what problem or pain points they’re trying to solve, and show them how your product will help them do so.
To close a sale, a sales rep needs to truly understand their prospect’s needs and provide them with a solution. Building a strong relationship showing that your product is trustworthy is key when working with inbound sales prospects.
Personalize the Process
To build a strong relationship a sales rep should focus on making meaningful connections. One of the best ways to do this is to utilize video assets and personalize all communication.
Send a video email introducing yourself to help build a relationship. This will ensure a memorable first impression, and set the tone for what they can expect while working together.
Align With the Marketing Team
When putting together an inbound sales strategy it’s important for the sales and marketing teams to be aligned in their messaging and end goals.
Inbound sales prospects have already done research on a product – typically through a company’s website or social media – so the information delivered to them via the marketing team needs to match what a sales rep would discuss with them.
Avoid any miscommunication by ensuring both teams are aligned.