Industrial manufacturers are understanding the importance of attracting, engaging, and winning customers based on context as much as need, and fueling relationships with relevant content and timely touchpoints.
It’s all part of inbound marketing and sales. Building a program around these proven methodologies and powerful sales enablement tools is garnering results.
Before the advent of the Internet, salespeople were essential to the buying/selling process because they were the only ones who could answer prospects’ questions. Today, the information buyers need to make a purchase decision is just a click away – representing a significant shift in power from seller to buyer.
The shift may partially explain why online engagement is the last point of influence for 57% of industrial manufacturers. Many sellers don’t take the following into consideration:
These statistics reflect a new reality: salespeople are increasingly cut out of the majority of a prospect’s buying process, making it very difficult to influence purchase decisions.
That’s why smart organizations are implementing an Inbound Sales approach to engage their best prospects. This methodology focuses on the buyer–not the seller–with a sales process that’s personalized to the buyer’s context.
Social selling, not to be confused with social media marketing, is the process of using social media to develop relationships as part of the sales process. With buyers spending more time online researching their purchases, they’re influenced by the content they see on social media and the people with whom they’re connected. For salespeople, this provides opportunities to keep buyers informed, address pain points, maintain contact throughout a long sales process, keep your company top-of-mind, and much more.
B2B sales is no longer a phone and email game. LinkedIn is an important soft-touch selling tool for industrial manufacturers that, when combined with the right LinkedIn social selling tactics, allow sales reps to better engage their prospects.
When it comes to how prospects are nurtured and when they’re contacted, if Sales is working on one set of assumptions and Marketing is using another, the plan is fundamentally broken. As a result, Sales and Marketing departments often find themselves working at cross-purposes instead of joining forces to succeed.
A set of “rules” is needed that clearly identifies what each part of the team is responsible for, what actions are taken (and when), and how a prospect is brought in, as explored in this video:
A Service Level Agreement (SLA) breaks down the complex B2B process of inbound lead generation and sales so that everyone involved in business development has a clear and deliberate plan. This can also help shorten your B2B sales cycle. No more unknown or assumed expectations between departments or team members, no more wasted effort in pursuing low-value leads, and no more process confusion.
Today, only 39% of companies strongly agree/agree that they have excellent alignment between Marketing and Sales, signaling definite room for improvement. It also underscores the importance of creating a successful service level agreement (SLA) between the teams to alleviate process confusion and assumed expectations.
There are 7 key components to creating a successful SLA:
Not every lead that is gathered is appropriate for immediate pursuit by the sales team. There are marketing qualified leads (MQLs) with the potential to become customers if led through the proper nurturing, and sales qualified leads (SQLs) that are vetted by Marketing and ready for engagement with Sales.
Once fit and readiness are determined, it’s time for the lead handoff from Marketing to Sales. Transitioning from MQL to SQL requires focused attention, as leads are vulnerable during this time. Your CRM and marketing platform should improve the lead handoff process from Sales to Marketing and vice versa. Transparency between Sales and Marketing with one shared platform arms each side with information to streamline efforts and increase productivity.
Track business performance throughout the Marketing and Sales funnel with integrated data tracking of each visitor and lead, from their first web visit to lead conversion and sales activity.
Using sales enablement technology and automation (see below) to gather data makes for timely reporting and decision making. Having relevant information readily available to Sales and Marketing also builds in internal department and collaborative accountability that fosters improved ROI.
Sales enablement software removes guesswork through automation. Having accurate data provides better control over lead nurturing, buyer’s journey paths, and ultimately customer procurement and retention.
Knowing how your customers interact with your company (via purchases, service interactions, or engagement with your online content) is vital to nurturing those relationships and increasing sales. Knowing as much as you can about a customer’s or prospect’s tendencies and history with your organization can help you determine what steps to take next to close a deal, improve user experience, or increase customer loyalty.
A CRM system provides a centralized place where all these interactions are recorded, enabling you to analyze and make sense of the data, recognize and react to sales and service opportunities, enhance customer relationships, and improve customer lifetime value (CLV).
CRM systems are often stand-alone software platforms, sometimes proprietary to an industry or even just one organization. But they can also be fully integrated with a marketing automation, sales enablement, and CMS platform, as is the case with HubSpot.
Finding a way to unify all CRM tools can be frustrating and time consuming — meaning they aren’t used to their best advantage by either Sales or Marketing. Tools that are ineffective are impediments to progress.
HubSpot Sales Hub integrates tools and data into one CRM platform that is easy to use and puts focus back on customers. Sales and Marketing are set up for success with one CRM to access and manage contacts, emails, calls, deals, and other key communications.
With HubSpot Sales Hub, time is spent understanding context about the people and companies being pursued in order to build valuable touchpoints that allow for:
The smart use of a CRM platform means that everybody involved has accurate and useful information, ensuring more productive initial contact and subsequent conversations than cold calls.
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