If you’re in the business of selling to other businesses, then you know that inbound sales are essential. But what exactly are inbound sales? And how can you use this strategy to close more deals and increase your conversion rate? This blog post will tell you everything you need to know about B2B inbound sales and give some tips on how to increase your sales.
B2B Inbound Sales: The Key to Successful B2B Sales
Business-to-business inbound sales generally refers to the process of a company selling products or services to another company. This can be done through various means such as online platforms, phone calls, or in-person meetings.
The key to successful B2B inbound sales is to identify potential customers and then craft a sales pitch tailored to their specific needs. It is also important to build a rapport with the potential customer and establish trust.
Once a sale is made, it is important to follow up with the customer to ensure they are satisfied with the product or service.
Understanding Inbound Sales Strategy
Inbound selling is a method of marketing that focuses on attracting customers rather than chasing them down.
This approach puts the customer’s goals and needs first and takes them through the decision-making process slowly and carefully.
As an inbound salesperson, it’s important to create personalized messages for each prospect based on where they are in their buyer journey. You can better guide them through the decision-making process and help them find the best solution for their needs.
Inbound sales reps rely heavily on attracting leads through quality content and then qualifying those leads based on interest level. They can create a more customized approach for each prospect by delivering personalized messages.
Inbound marketing is a much more patient approach than Outbound Sales. It’s focused on providing value to your prospects rather than closing as many deals as possible.
When you use inbound sales methods, you are more likely to connect with leads interested in your offer. This can save you time, as you won’t need to pursue leads who are not interested in what you’re selling.
The technological advancements that have taken place since the beginning of the 21stcentury have changed the way many fields operate – from manufacturing to marketing and from inventory control to sales and marketing, none more than B2B marketing.
In B2B marketing, this has had a major impact on how marketers approach their campaigns. Consumers are now no longer naive people who accept whatever is thrown at them.
Thanks to the internet, today’s consumers are much better informed and able to compare products and prices.
The sales process has changed as more and more companies adopt an inbound marketing approach.
In inbound marketing, you attract customers to you through providing value, building trust, and exceeding expectations.
Inbound sales are becoming more and more popular, so let’s look into them and see why they’re so effective.
How are The Strategies of Selling to Businesses Different from Selling to consumers?
Inbound marketing is a completely different animal than outbound, and that’s especially true when it comes to lead generation.
Here are some significant differences between a business-to-business (B2B) and a business-to-consumer (B2C) approach to sales.
A business-to-consumer (B2C) strategy is vastly different from a business-to-business strategy (B2B). The most significant difference between the two is the size of their target audience. While a B2B marketing strategy for a consumer product might reach millions of people, a strategy for a product aimed at businesses will only have a small pool of potential clients.
In addition, a B2B salesperson must have more knowledge about their product than a retail employee. The purchasing process is much slower in b2b than in b2c. This is because a decision-maker within an organization needs to come to a consensus that the product will meet the company’s needs.
Lastly, business relationships in b2c are shorter and shallower than those in b2b. This is because a business relationship in bb2 is built on trust and mutual benefit.
So, to sum up, what we’ve learned: getting an inbound marketing lead in a business-to-business setting is harder than it is in a consumer-to-customer environment.
But, it can also lead to a long-term relationship with a client that increases your profit and brings you immense joy.
Let’s look at how you can generate those results with inbound marketing tactics.
1. Map Out Your Customer’s Journey
The first step to creating an inbound marketing strategy is to map out the buyer’s journey.
Here is how HubSpot, a leading company in the inbound marketing space, defines lead gen:
The buyer’s journey can be broken down into three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. At each of these stages of the sales funnel, it’s important to assess your prospects’ level of interest and engagement. Doing so will help you tailor your sales pitch and improve your odds of closing the deal.
Here is how the process works.
The customer journey is the buying process that potential customers follow when deciding whether to buy your product or service. It’s made up of three stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. In the Awareness Stage, users know a problem or challenge they have. They begin evaluating potential solutions.
In the Consideration Stage, users research various solutions to their problem or challenge. They compare your solution to other vendors’ offerings. In the Decision Phase, the user has decided on a solution. They now need to compare your offer to the competition.
2. Segment your audience
Now that you’ve figured out what journey you want your visitors to take, it’s time to think about who those visitors will be.
There are several ways to categorize your callers.
One popular way to segment your website visitors is by creating audience personas. These are fictional characters that you create to visualize your ideal customer types. This can be a helpful way to understand better who your target market is and what they are looking for.
Let’s say you’re selling a social media marketing tool used by digital agencies. You may want to have a persona for the decision-maker at a digital agency.
What type of person is visiting your site? What are their likes and interests? Are they introverted or extroverted? This information will help you create content that speaks to them and in a way that they will best understand.
Segmenting visitors using Analytics tools allows you to examine which demographics are visiting your site.
With heatmaps, you can see what visitors are interested in. Combine this with behavioral data, and you’ll get a clearer picture of who your website visitors are.
Once you know your audience and what they want to see, you can deliver content that appeals to them. This way, you can keep them engaged with your site and improve your chances of conversion.
3. Constantly create engaging, relevant, and valuable content
Content is one of the cornerstones of inbound marketing. To keep your users coming back to your site, you want to create consistent, relevant, and quality content that answers their questions.
It would be best if you thought about your long-term goals here. It’s not just about selling but positioning yourself as an authority on your topic. When users search for answers, they’ll come to you.
SEO is a complex topic that requires a dedicated approach to be successful. Here are some basic things to keep in mind before creating content:1. Make sure your website is optimized for search engines2. Research your keywords thoroughly3. Create high-quality, keyword-rich content.
As an SEO expert, you know the importance of creating keyword-rich content that solves your visitors’ problems. But did you know that you should write articles that provide useful information, not just stuff stuffed with your targeted search terms?
When you can successfully address all three of these areas of your strategy, you can consider yourself to have an effective content marketing plan. But, as with anything, there is a lot more to this topic than what we’ve covered here.
4. Customize your website
Another way you can increase your inbound sales and conversions is by customizing your site.
Which site do you think is more likely to convert a visitor into a paying client: the site that uses the same, bland content for all of its visitors or the one where each page is tailored to the visitor’s interests, has custom call-to-action buttons, and shows them an offer that’s relevant to them?
Personalization is proven to increase sales. 80% of companies who use personalized marketing experience better sales.
79% of consumers are willing to provide personal information to companies in exchange for more customized offers.
At Hyperize, we believe that personalization is the key to success. You can personalize your website, offers, and copy – even down to the individual level. This is what will truly wow your prospects and turn them into paying customers.
That’s one way to impress your prospects and turn them into paying customers.
Just take a look at how our home page would look if visited, say, by the CEO of Apple Inc., Mr. Tim cook.
We personalize our pages by including the client’s logo and naming them.
Want to do something similar? Sign up for a free 14-day trial of Hyperise!
Use multiple channels to connect with your prospects
For inbound marketing to work well, you need to show where your customers are looking for you.
Your B2B buyers should be able to contact you through various channels, including social media, emails, and websites.
If you want to make sure you are using the best business-to-business (B2B) selling strategies, you should focus your efforts on LinkedIn. Your potential clients will likely search your reps out on this platform and reach out with questions about your products or services.
If you’re not already using a chat feature on your webpage, you’re missing out on a great opportunity! It’s a fantastic way to be at your customer’s service at the very moment when they need you most.
6. Use Paid Search
While search engine optimization is a long-term strategy to get good positions in Google search results, search ads are a short-term tactic that can get you new sales immediately.
The premise behind Google’s AdWords program is very similar to search engine optimization: you identify the search terms that people use to find your product or service, and you attempt to rank highly in search engine results.
The only difference between organic and paid search is that you’re paying for ads with paid. With search engine optimization, you don’t pay for anything.
With Google AdWords, you pay a fee to Google every time someone clicks on your ad.
The problem with advertising on Google AdWords is that most great keyword searches are highly competitive.
More competitors = higher prices, so you’ll have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars per month to get more out of Google’s Search Ad platform.
However, this can still be an effective strategy to meet customers at the perfect time. At the very least, you should make sure you’re ranking in your brand’s first three search results. That way, you can ensure your customer base can easily find you and learn about your business.
Those people probably have heard about you, so you want to make it easy for them to find you.
Final Words
In today’s market, it’s important to be different. B2b inbound sales methodology allows you to stand out from your competitors and increase your revenue.
Using some of the tips we mentioned, you can increase your odds of successfully closing a business-to-business deal. Building trust through long-term relationships is essential to success in this type of sales.
One way to make things more efficient is by personalizing your website. This will allow you to speak to each lead on a more personal level, which will grab their attention instantly.
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Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spend money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
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- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year