1. Make Sure Your CRM is Efficient
Chances are you have invested in a customer relationship management (CRM) system, like Hubspot. Ideally, this system should have already streamlined your sales process by centralizing and organizing all your information. But you can further streamline by managing your contacts more efficiently.
Contact management within your CRM should include a complete customer profile, contact history, and purchasing history. The database should be regularly updated to remove ineligible leads, contacts who have opted out, duplicates, and invalid email addresses. Sort and group your contacts in order to send relevant targeted content to each customer grouping. You can categorize your contacts based on a variety of criteria, including company size, page views, location, demographics, or industry.
Within your CRM your team should be tracking all client interactions. Everyone should have access to all the information. If a salesperson can quickly review information from previous conversations with the client, they can make a personal connection every time, which is a key part of sales. Empower your sales staff to look for ways they can help the customer feel cared for and listened to. Being human and personable is what builds client trust.
2. You Should Embrace Predictive Lead Scoring
How do sales teams determine which leads to prioritize? Predictive lead scoring can be conducted by the CRM, as leads engage with your content online, fill out forms, sign up for emails, and then begin speaking with your sales team. You use data analysis and automation on the production line in the manufacturing industry, and the same can be applied in your customer management system.
By scoring leads and focusing on those past the 50% mark, your sales team has a better chance of hitting its targets. They’ll know which leads will be the most likely to close and can focus their energy there.
3. You Need to Develop a Content Strategy
One way to ensure your team is getting better leads is to develop an inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing can help deliver better qualified leads to your sales team.
Ask your sales team to track the questions they repeatedly get asked by customers. Then have the marketing team write content that answers those questions, explains a process, or helps them make a decision. For example, content could describe the best uses for your manufactured product, which products you make that work well together, and how-to content on the set-up or selection of your product. It takes a minimum of 6-8 touchpoints to make a sales lead viable. That’s 6-8 pieces of content that can be developed and delivered before your sales team even talks to the lead.
Build trust with your audience by being a reliable source of genuinely helpful information. Your content should nurture clients through the buyer's journey, so that by the time they contact your sales team, they’re ready to purchase.
Alternatively, you could outsource content creation to an inbound marketing agency. An agency will deliver consistent high quality content specifically designed to nurture your dream customers and build trust. With an inbound marketing agency you get 6 experts (including SEO, writing, editing, and marketing) for the price of one.
Consistent quality content will start delivering warm leads to your sales team. Establishing your business as a trusted source and experts in your industry will also drive more sales to your team. Develop content that is relevant to your groups of contacts in each stage of the buyer's journey.
Lead Nurturing for Better Sales Performance
Modernizing your lead nurturing process will help your sales team be more efficient. With inbound marketing content and your CRM qualifying leads, your sales staff will be able to focus on the deals that are mostly likely to close.
Learn More About Nurturing Your Leads for Sales Growth
References:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/executive-guide-effective-lead-nurturing
