How to setup your inbound sales process

Fed up of reaching out to prospects with cold calls or messages that never get responded to? An inbound sales process could be your answer. 

The inbound sales process is a strategy that focuses on attracting potential customers who often find you through online searches, word of mouth and more. The key is capturing the right kind of traffic through SEO and content marketing.

In this blog post, we’ll give you everything you need to know about setting up your own inbound sales process. 

Understanding the Inbound Sales Process

Let’s take a closer look at what this looks like and the main difference between inbound and outbound sales.

What is an inbound sales process?

An inbound sales process is a strategy that is focused on attracting potential customers by creating valuable content and tailored experiences. 

The key components of inbound sales are made up of 4 stages including:

• Attracting the right audience: By using SEO and content marketing strategies as well as distribution methods to make your business found by the right people.
• Engaging: Through helpful content, and good website copy. 
• Converting: Involves turning interested prospects into leads through calls to action, landing pages and gated content. 
• Retaining: By making sure customers are supported post-purchase.

We’ve got more on what an inbound sales funnel looks like here.

How do inbound sales differ from traditional outbound sales?

Unlike traditional outbound sales that use direct outreach efforts such as cold calling, emailing and direct mail. An inbound sales process starts with the potential customer making the first move usually by reaching out or downloading content on your website.

Benefits of an inbound sales strategy

There are a few benefits you can reap from a strong inbound sales strategy including.

1. Higher quality leads: Inbound strategies focus on attracting prospects who are already interested in your product or service. This can lead to a higher conversion rate and a more efficient sales process.
2. Alignment with buyer behavior: Inbound content attracts customers through content aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP). 
3. Data-driven insight: You can use third-party applications and analytics to understand your buyer behavior such as what content they’re interested in, time spent on page and more.

Strategies for Success in Inbound Sales

There are a few popular strategies you should tailor to your business needs to build a successful inbound sales process.

1. Understand your ICP and buyer persona

If you really want to reach the right audience, it’s no secret that you have to have a good understanding of them. Usually, this starts by developing a detailed buyer persona. It helps you build an idea of who they are, why they buy your product or service, background and more. 

The main difference between an ICP and a buyer persona is:

• An ICP provides a comprehensive overview of the ideal customer for the entire business
• Buyer personas add depth and granularity by focusing on individual customers within that broader profile.

2. Create valuable and relevant content

Valuable content doesn’t mean that you should produce product or service-centric content only. 

To make your content truly valuable you need a mix of original content, SEO, and a deep understanding of the content pillars you should lean on to appeal to the right people. There should be a good mix of content for both demand generation and lead generation needs. Semrush have more on that here.

3. Optimize for SEO

Make sure your content is discoverable by the right audience by optimizing it for keywords. The key here is to not fall into the trap of keyword stuffing. Look into on-page SEO tactics such as:

• Appropriate headings (H1, H2, H3)
• Optimizing meta descriptions and alt tags
• Backlinks.

4. Leverage social media

Use social media platforms to share your content. But be deliberate about it. This isn’t about being on every single social media channel out there. Rather, you should determine where your ICP is likely to hang out and focus on that. Don’t forget to tailor your messaging and content to each platform. What can sound good in an email doesn’t necessarily work on LinkedIn.

Tools and Technologies to Enhance Inbound Sales

There’s a lot of work to be done if you want to setup your inbound sales process the right way. Below is a tech stack that can help you automate processes.

1. Customer relationship management (CRM) system

As you get leads coming through your website forms and distribution forms, you’re going to need a place to store that contact information. That’s where a CRM comes in handy. A CRM such as folk. An all-in-one CRM that can help you nurture business relationships across multiple functions from sales to marketing and fundraising. It can also support and help build a collaborative environment across your teams. All without a steep learning curve. 

That also has marketing automation 

folk can also help you automate your email marketing sequences and provide insight into how well they’re performing. It also has AI-support that can help you personalize messages to multiple recipients. So you can always add that personal touch.

And sales enablement

folk also has a pipeline management system that can be customized to reflect your internal sales cycle. Choose from a Kanban-board style view, or a listicle and share contact lists easily with your team. You’ll also be able to assign team members when it’s time to follow-up and build collaborative notes. 

3. Social media monitoring and analytics tools

If LinkedIn happens to be your main social media channel, we suggest making use of its free scheduling tool. Simply follow the steps below.

• To find it, all you have to do is write the post as usual. 
• Then click the time icon on the bottom right. 
• This will take you to a new window where you can choose the time and date. Hit next. 
• Then make sure to hit the schedule button that now appears on the bottom right.

Conclusion

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Setting up your inbound sales process the right way is essential for businesses looking to build a long-term strategy for success. Key strategies for success include developing a deep understanding of your buyer personas, creating valuable and relevant content, optimizing for search engines, leveraging social media. And, if you’re looking for a collaborative CRM system that can help you store all the contact information you get. Look no further than folk. A CRM that can help you nurture business relationships across multiple functions including sales, marketing, fundraising and more. Try folk today, free.