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Although inbound marketing has become insanely popular over the years, many misconceptions exist regarding what it is and what it does. One prevalent misunderstanding is that inbound marketing can essentially replace your sales funnel, especially if you have the right software to automate it. The truth is, though, that inbound marketing is actually the perfect complement to your sales process.
SEE ALSO: How to Achieve Sales Growth with Inbound Marketing
Better Tracking
When you use CRM software, inbound marketing will immediately optimize your sales process in at least one very specific and very powerful way: tracking. A lot of your prospects will show up to your website and buy absolutely nothing. This doesn’t mean they won’t in the future; it just means, right now, they were essentially window shopping.
This also doesn’t mean that this visit wasn’t valuable.. With CRM software, your inbound marketing strategy entails tracking these customers so you can benefit from as much data regarding their shopping behavior as possible. This will make it much easier to sell customers in the future because you’ll have refined your sales funnel based on prior information.
Prospect Alerts
One problem a lot of sales teams have is that prospects are handed to them as if they’re all on the same page. Of course, anyone in sales can tell you this isn’t true and receiving prospects like this isn’t helpful.
Inbound marketing allows you to differentiate your leads, so you know where each one is in the sales funnel (in fact, you might actually have to rethink the visual of your sales funnel when you can see it through the lens of inbound marketing).
Again, with the right software, your sales team can get alerts when interested prospects return to your site. Wouldn’t it be helpful if your sales team knew who looks at pricing, or downloads an offer? You can even be made aware when they open a specific email.
All of these alerts help your sales team understand where a prospect is within the buyer's journey and how to approach them.
Connect Through Social Media
There’s no arguing that social media has changed practically every aspect of our lives in extraordinary ways. If you’re not using social media to help with your sales process, then you’re missing out.
Inbound marketing allows you to leverage social media for finding more leads and connecting with the ones you already have. Even if your company exists in the B2B world, don’t discount the power of social media. Combined with inbound marketing efforts, it could make a decided difference.
Your Guide to Starting a Successful Inbound Marketing Career [Free Kit] http://t.co/JkZBMBtNSm by @chrstnewhte pic.twitter.com/JedTJlrRYG
— Hüify (@TeamHuify) May 26, 2015
Make More Sales
It doesn’t matter how many sales your company closes every year; if you stop at just the one per customer, you’re leaving money on the table. It’s as simple as that. Thanks to the tracking potential we mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be satisfied with just that one sale.
Start introducing up-and-cross-selling methods into your sales process. Continue sending emails with inbound marketing aspects to them. That single customer may reward you with more purchases in the future if you simply refuse to be satisfied with just that one sale.
Educate Your People
One of the best parts about inbound marketing is how much material it can provide you with about your customers. This information can be extremely potent where educating your sales team is concerned. They’ll be outfitted with more data than ever before, making them better prepared to convert leads into customers.
No modern company should be operating without an inbound marketing approach. As you can see, when leveraged correctly (which means investing in software), inbound marketing can make all the difference for your sales team.
