How to Combine Inbound and Outbound Marketing to Create a Powerful Lead Funnel

I recently watched a talk by Mark Hunter of The Sales Hunter, which I loved because he suggested a novel approach to mixing inbound and outbound marketing to make your sales funnel flow faster. For many industries that have traditionally been reliant on a skilled sales team, mixing the two creates an ideal combination.

What’s interesting about inbound marketing is that it’s effective because it focuses on leads who already have a need and are looking for that need to be met. With inbound marketing you produce helpful content for those leads in many different channels and then introduce them to your solution for their need.

However, particularly if you’re selling expensive products or services, the need you’re trying to meet is far more customized than a simple consumer product. That’s where the telephone comes into play. Your inbound marketing is designed to qualify your leads and then, by getting the person on the phone, you can understand their needs and help them move towards a purchasing decision much faster. Here are some tips Mark gave for successfully employing this mixed-marketing strategy:

Continuity

Having a strong presence on the right social media channels for your industry is key. It’s all about creating brand awareness and familiarity with customers, so when they have a need, they recognize the name of your company and know you may be able to fill their needs.

Competence

Once you’ve gotten a new lead, either because they’re interacting with you on social media or they’ve filled out a contact form on your website, you want to jump on that lead right away and engage with them in person. Getting phone numbers here, in addition to email addresses, gives you the ability to open a discussion with the customer immediately. Start the conversation with a question that fits your services. If you can understand their need, then you are able to show them your company can meet their need.

Confidence

Once your customer is sure you understand their requirements, you’ve reached a point where they have confidence in your abilities. You’ve also instilled confidence that you’re attentive, available, and responsive to their concerns and needs. Reaching out over the phone to the leads social media has qualified for you, asking good questions, and listening is the way to create opportunities.

Opportunity

By reaching out to a qualified lead on the phone, asking questions, and showing them that you are interested in and understand their challenges, you’ve created an opportunity for business.

Process

As with everything you do in a well-run business, you’ve created a process for your sales team that goes from interested buyer to qualified lead to opportunity and request for quote. This takes advantage of the best in modern digital marketing and traditional cold calling.

Mixing inbound and outbound marketing is a great way to both bolster and streamline your sales funnel, especially as more companies are largely relying on social media and neglecting traditional forms of advertising. When you call a potential contact, your business immediately stands out. They get a feeling and comfort level for who they’ll be dealing with.

Even if you don’t get someone on the phone, leaving a brief voicemail creates a positive first impression. Be short, specific, and clear as many people now convert their voicemail to text. Make sure you follow up after your voicemail with a related email. Most people need to be touched by marketing messages several times in order to turn into customers. If one of those touches is a phone call, then you’re establishing the human connection behind the social content machine.

Looking for follow up email templates to help automate part of your sales funnel and free you up to devote more time to personal touches like phone conversations? Download our free guide, “Best Follow-up Email Templates” designed exclusively for B2B sales and marketing teams who want to make the most of their leads.

 

Best Follow-up Email Templates After a Trade Show

5 Secrets of the Best Sales Emails

Why should you spend time planning and writing a sales email? Because when done right, it absolutely works to drive traffic to your business. A recent talk by Heather Morgan from SalesFolk highlighted ways to create the best sales emails for your business.

Download our guide to email follow up after a trade show.

There are many reasons to consider reaching out to prospects via email. First, marketing has changed significantly in the last decade. There is more competition in all industries and it is no longer enough just to shout “I am here!” and wait for the work to appear. Telemarketing and cold calls are hard and not as effective. You need to adapt your approach to continue to gain new customers and projects.

Inbound marketing is the new way to attract and educate qualified leads, but building quality content takes time. You also have to spread this content over multiple channels such as email marketing, Facebook, and LinkedIn to attract leads to your website.

If done right, sales emails can be very an effective way to attract, educate, and retain clients. Here are five principles to follow to create an effective sales email:

Know Your Audience

Are you writing to the CEO? Then your email should address concerns most CEOs have such as cutting costs and boosting sales. Writing to the engineers? Then talk about tolerance, maintenance costs, or customization options. Spend some time looking at the web profiles of the company and individuals you’re targeting. You’ll be able to learn what they’re reading about and where their interests are. You can also see what thought leaders and industry influencers they follow. From this information, you can understand what their concerns are and how they’re making decisions. All this information can help you draft a better sales email.

Get a Reaction

People react to an email for three reasons:

  • Curiosity: Humans are, by nature, curious about things they aren’t familiar with. Use curiosity to get people to open your emails by employing leading questions as your subject line.
  • Desire: When you can paint a compelling picture of how you’re going to solve a problem and improve their situation, clients are quickly motivated to take action.
  • Fear: This is when you talk about situations people want to avoid. You can target their problems and pain points. Just be careful that your email is designed to motivate quick action and not make them give up.

Download our guide to email follow up after a trade show.

Create a Feeling of Trust

Call on existing customers to brag about your company. When it’s someone else exclaiming your virtues, prospects are more likely to take note. Ask your current clients to share a story about how you’ve helped them succeed. Get them to describe what it’s like working with you. Share a picture of your client or their name so that they are relatable.

Have a Clear Goal for Your Email

It is important to be specific about the goal of your email. Do you want the prospect to call you? Fill out a form? If you know what your goal is, you can craft your entire email towards the one simple action you want the prospect to take.

Collect Data

Be a data fanatic. Set goals for your sales campaigns and measure your results. Modern email marketing tools come equipped with email testing capabilities, advanced reporting, and lots of specific insight into what’s happening with each email.

Many people are afraid of cold emailing, but success really depends on your state of mind. If you have a great product or service that can truly help the people you’re contacting, then it is your obligation to sell it.

Now you know you need to send sales emails – but what to write? Check out our free guide of proven follow up sales email templates for ideas of emails to use throughout the sales process, and for every kind of lead. Templates can help you semi-automate your follow up process, save time, and reach more of the leads you want. When you use the right tools, the right leads will come your way.

 

Best Follow-up Email Templates After a Trade Show