Implementing a combined strategy that utilizes both inbound sales and outbound sales has a number of benefits. Namely, it is a very efficient way of identifying marketing qualified leads and widens the horizon of your pipeline generation possibilities. With the ability to have more prospects coming in, and higher quality leads at that, you’re going to see an increase in your sales qualified leads and hopefully create a higher conversion rate from leads to sales.
These benefits could be a game-changer for your business, and it does not need to be that difficult to get started with your existing team members, even if their roles do get shuffled up a bit (more on that later). Here are eight steps to successfully implanting an inbound/outbound combined sales strategy:
- Develop a Clear Sales Process
To make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page and all are working toward the same goal, you want to make it very clear what the sales process is. It should be developed by the people who will be carrying it out and clearly define who will be doing what as well as when to ensure that the pipeline is moving and leads are being promoted toward a final sale.
- Create Your Ideal Customer Profile and Target Personas
Now you need to know who you want to try and sell to. Hopefully, this is something you did when you were planning for your business. But this can be an opportunity to reevaluate your existing ICPs and target personas, because with this new inbound/outbound combined strategy, you will be tweaking the way you approach lead generation, so you need to know exactly who those target leads should be.
- Compile Potential Questions and Buyer Concerns
One of the great strengths of a combined inbound/outbound strategy is that you are constantly facilitating a conversation with potential customers as well as hearing questions and concerns from different points in the pipeline from people with varied needs and interests. Take the knowledge you have gained already to try and preempt some of these questions and concerns, and always be willing to alter this document as you learn more and more.
- Boost Inbound Sales by Identifying ICP Triggers
Inbound sales will be generated by your outward-facing content, so tailoring that content to best spark curiosity in your potential leads is an important step. Identifying the triggers or the problems that our targets might have that would make them interested in your product. These triggers are what will make them click on your content and get moved into your pipeline as a Qualified Lead.
If you can accurately identify these triggers, and tailor them to the appropriate audiences, then you will drastically increase the passive power of your content and create more inbound sales. You can also play around with these triggers and see what works best or use different ones on different content platforms where certain targets are more likely to see them.
- Write a Sales Playbook and Create Content Recommendations for Different Steps in Your Pipeline
This is going to be the bread and butter of your sales effort. When we mentioned above that your team would be shuffled around a bit, that really means removing the barrier between your marketing team and your sales team. Your marketing team will be leading the inbound sales initiatives, and because those will be built on information gained, there really needs to be as little space between sales and marketing teams as possible to make that connection as seamless as possible.
Working with these two teams (who are really now more or less one team), you should develop your sales playbook. This is your plan for when and how to move leads through the pipeline towards becoming sales. It should include at what level of interest leads will be promoted to a higher level, and it should also lay out what kind of content will be targeted at leads through each stage of the pipeline. This will be your complete strategy and incorporate both the inbound and outbound sales channels into it, so make sure you have buy-in from your team and that they are happy with the toolkit they have created.
- Practice, Practice, Practice
One of the best ways to make sure this whole process goes smoothly is to practice. Once you have laid all of the groundwork, try a little role-playing to get your team used to this new strategy you’re undertaking. As silly as it can feel to do some play-acting about sales calls, it could be really beneficial just to walk through the whole sales process as a group and see where everyone steps in and what role they play in making it all come together.
- Streamline Your Pipeline Promotion Plan
With the influx of leads, this new plan will hopefully bring, you need to be prepared to deal with a higher volume for your team. And with the new approach to selling, they need to be clear about where different leads are in your pipeline. So, develop clear guidelines. Maybe even a points system where you score leads based on their interactions with you and the interest they demonstrate in your product, and the interactions they have with your sales team.
Coming up with an easy way to track that data, and putting it in a place where all of your team members have access to it, will make sure leads never got lost on their way through the pipeline and ensure that they are all receiving the level of attention most appropriate for them.
- Follow Up with Leads Who Didn’t Convert
Not every lead will be converted into a sale every time. That can be for a whole host of reasons, but it also doesn’t mean they won’t be in a position to buy in the future. Store that data, and develop a timeline for when it might be appropriate to follow up with these leads. Target them somehow with an email blast or a phone campaign directed at these failed conversions just to check in and see where they are at.
With the knowledge of why they might not have bought before, and with your ever-growing portfolio of triggers, questions, and content pieces, you should be able to tailor content specifically for them and hopefully get them back in your pipeline.
