Inbound marketing software powerhouse HubSpot just released it's 2016 State of Inbound report and the findings offer valuable guidance for B2B sellers. HubSpot surveyed over 4,500 respondents from all over the world to paint a picture of how modern buyers and sellers are interacting. I highly recommend downloading the full report, but this blog post will detail 4 powerful statistics that will help you improve your inbound marketing and sales strategy and sell more.
HubSpot asked C-Suite executives how they preferred to communicate for business purposes. Here are the top 3 responses from the C-Suite:
HubSpot then asked sellers "What has been the most successful channel for your sales representatives to connect with a prospect?" The responses were different than how the C-Suite preferred to communicate.
There are a few possible interpretations of this data, but what's not up for interpretation is that sellers aren't communicating effectively with buyers. While old-fashioned dialing for dollars may occasionally produce an effective sales conversation, you're most likely either annoying potential buyers or being ignored. In the modern sales paradigm, telephone communications (or increasingly videoconferencing meetings like Skype) are more appropriate once a purpose for the conversation has been established.
In an inbound sales methodology, a phone call is appropriate to follow up with a prospect after they've indicated an interest in your solution by downloading content, registering for a webinar or accessing appropriate pages on your website. A phone outreach should be something soft like, "I'm calling to see if there was something specific you wanted to learn about subject x or if you just wanted to get some background information." If the prospect wants more information, they will let you know by telling you in the call or responding to your voicemail. What they don't like are manipulative tactics that aren't designed to further their interests.
Another observation about this statistic is that the C-Suite overwhelmingly prefers email communications. As with phone conversations, email outreach should be designed to help and educate, not sell. A helpful approach to your email prospecting will lead to more face-to-face or phone/Skype conversations with your C-Suite buyers.
Your C-Suite buyers get tons of email outreaches. Try these tactics to get better responses to your email prospecting.
One of the interesting findings of the report for me was the increasing tendency for organizations to use internal staff to create content like blog posts and eBooks. In the 2016 State of Inbound Report. When asked, "Who produces your content?", 71% responded that their staff did, up from 41% in 2015.
This conforms with what I see with my customers - content creation is increasingly becoming a job responsibility for consultants and operational people in selling organizations. On one hand, this approach has an advantage - no one knows more about the subject matter or the common questions that customers have than the people on the front line. On the other hand, not all operational people are great writers or understand how to create content that will be read on the web.
The role that our inbound marketing firm is increasingly playing with our customers is that of an editor, taking the raw content operational people produce and editing and formatting it to optimize content marketing results. Whether it's an outsourced function or performed internally, it's very important to assign editorial responsibility to an individual who assumes overall responsibility for content marketing. Here are some tips for content marketing editors.
There's a disconnect between sales and marketing on where the good leads are coming from. When marketers were asked which sources produced the best leads for the sales team, here's what they had to say.
Not surprisingly, sales professionals saw things a little bit differently. When asked which were the top sources of leads for their organizations, sales people responded thusly.
This discrepancy is one of perception, not one based on objective information. With that said, here's my take on things.
First of all, referrals are almost invariably the best leads. They originate from a trusted friend or colleague of the potential buyers - quite often one of your customers. That's a huge jumpstart on developing a relationship based on trust. For my money, I will take a referral lead over any other source any day of the week. The best thing you can do to encourage referrals is to give an exceptional experience to your customers. Going the extra mile will pay off in the long run.
But we know that today's B2B buyers are doing their buying research with search engine queries and visits to seller's websites. These are by definition inbound leads. Inbound leads require a different sales approach than sales generated leads.
If you're practicing inbound marketing, you must adopt an inbound sales process. I highly recommend this free course on inbound selling from HubSpot. If sales professionals start using these inbound sales tactics, they just might change their view on which are the best sales leads.
This fact is truly mind-boggling to me. When asked, "What tool or system does your organization use to store its lead and customer data?", 45% of respondents said they used a CRM. Fully 40% answered, "Informal means such as Microsoft Excel or Outlook."
With free CRM software like the HubSpot CRM available, there is just no reason not to be taking advantage of sales technology to drive a modern sales process. The HubSpot CRM combined with free LeadIn marketing software offers a free sales and marketing technology solution that will definitely improve your sales results.
Rapidan Inbound is offering affordable outsourced sales and marketing packages using the HubSpot's CRM and LeadIn tools. Schedule a consultation with us if you'd like to see how you can implement modern sales technology at your company.
I highly recommend you download the full 2016 State of Inbound Report for a full picture of the modern sales and marketing process. We've concentrated on a small portion of the findings to illustrate how you can quickly improve your inbound sales and marketing strategy. If you want to learn how to improve your inbound marketing strategy, schedule a free consultation with us.