O A company's success is directly related to the effectiveness of its sales methodology and marketing strategies. As technology continues to evolve and customer expectations change, it is essential for organizations to adapt to gain and maintain a solid customer base.
In this context, we have to talk about two approaches that can contribute to achieving better marketing performance, in this case, Inbound and CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
The combination of both can significantly enhance a company's results.
In today's post, we will explore the sales methodology, unveiling the particularities of Inbound and CRM, as well as understanding how the sum of their parts can lead a company to reach new levels of success.
What you will see in this post:
The principles of inbound sales
Alignment with the Sales Funnel
Good reading!
What is Inbound?
Inbound is a marketing strategy that focuses on attracting customers' attention and interest organically rather than interrupting them with intrusive ads.
This approach involves creating and sharing valuable and relevant content, with the aim of attracting, engaging and building trust with your target audience.
For example, an inbound marketing strategy is based on providing useful information and solutions to problems that potential customers face.
Instead of pushing products or services directly, the idea is to create a relationship with consumers, offering value before even asking for anything in return.
Within this concept, we also have the inbound sales, also known as inbound sales. A sales approach that aligns with the inbound marketing methodology.
This approach aims to approach leads in a more personalized, effective way that is aligned with their interests and needs.
Instead of adopting traditional sales tactics, which can be more aggressive, inbound sales focuses on meeting potential customer expectations by helping them along their purchasing journey.
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- Performance indicators in inbound sales: which ones to measure?
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The principles of inbound sales
Lead Understanding
Instead of starting the conversation with a direct sales approach, sales professionals begin to understand the lead's needs, challenges, and goals.
This is done through questions and active listening to identify how the solution offered can be beneficial to the lead.
Education and Guidance
Salespeople who follow the Inbound sales approach not only try to sell a product or service, but also educate the lead on how the solution can solve their problems.
They provide valuable information and relevant resources to help the lead make an informed decision.
Customization
Each lead is unique, and inbound sales professionals adjust their approach based on each lead's specific information and needs.
This helps create a more genuine and relevant connection.
Alignment with the Sales Funnel
The inbound sales approach takes into account which stage of the sales funnel the lead is at.
This allows sellers to offer information appropriate to the specific stage of the buyer's journey.
Focus on qualification
Inbound sales sellers focus on identifying qualified leads, that is, those who are most likely to benefit from the product or service offered. This optimizes the use of the sales team's time and resources.
Follow-up and ongoing relationship
Even after the sale, the inbound sales approach continues, with a focus on maintaining a positive relationship with the customer.
This includes post-sales follow-up, ongoing support and looking for upsell opportunities or cross-sell.
Understanding what a CRM is
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a set of tools, processes and technologies that help companies manage customer relationships.
CRM aims to centralize and organize information about customers, improve communication, optimize sales processes and provide a comprehensive view of customers' history and interactions with the company.
A well-structured platform, like Hubspot's CRM, allows companies to collect, store and manage data about customers, such as contact information, purchase history, preferences, marketing activities, support and previous interactions.
This information is consolidated in a single place, accessible to different teams, such as sales, marketing and customer service.
The main features of a CRM
Contact and Lead Management
CRM allows you to record and track customer, lead and prospect contact information, facilitating segmentation and personalization of interactions.
Interaction Tracking
All customer interactions such as calls, emails, meetings and sales activities are recorded and tracked in the CRM, providing a complete view of the customer relationship.
Sales Automation
A good CRM helps optimize sales processes by automating tasks such as creating proposals, tracking opportunities, and managing the sales pipeline.
Marketing Campaign Management
With CRM, it is possible to plan, execute and monitor marketing campaigns, segmenting the target audience, recording responses and measuring the effectiveness of actions.
Customer service
CRM helps manage support tickets, providing a complete view of customer requests, making service agile and efficient.
Analysis and Reports
A CRM system provides reporting and data analysis capabilities, allowing companies to evaluate sales performance, measuring key metrics and identifying opportunities for improvement.
By implementing an efficient CRM, companies can improve sales effectiveness, improve customer service, strengthen relationships with existing customers, and win new customers.
Through a comprehensive view of the customer, teams can make informed decisions, personalize interactions and provide exceptional service, resulting in greater customer satisfaction and business growth.
Uniting Inbound and CRM
Combining Inbound and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a very relevant strategy for boosting sales success and improving customer relationships.
These two approaches complement and strengthen each other, allowing companies to manage efficiently throughout the customer journey, from attraction to loyalty.
By integrating Inbound with a CRM system, it is possible to obtain a comprehensive view of the customer, centralizing valuable information about their interactions, preferences, purchase history and behaviors.
This data allows sales and marketing teams to customize their approaches, offer relevant solutions and create tailor-made experiences for each client.
Furthermore, the union of Inbound and CRM provides better target audience segmentation. Based on the information collected by CRM, marketing teams can create segmented and targeted campaigns, delivering highly relevant content to each customer.
Inbound Marketing, in turn, plays a fundamental role in attracting and nurturing leads.
By creating valuable content, optimized for SEO and shared across different channels, the company is able to attract potential customers and, through the intervention of a sales team well aligned with the inbound sales approach, direct them to the stages of the sales process and conversion.
With the help of CRM, you can track and manage the progress of these leads throughout the sales funnel, ensuring they receive the support and information they need to move forward in the purchasing process.
Furthermore, the integration between the Inbound approach and CRM allows for more efficient communication between sales and marketing teams, as information collected by CRM can be shared between teams, allowing for more aligned collaboration and an integrated approach. to meet customer needs.
This results in better coordination of efforts, avoiding gaps and ensuring the customer receives a consistent, personalized experience across all touchpoints.
Summary: Combining Inbound and CRM is a powerful strategy to boost sales success. This combination enables deeper customer understanding, more precise audience segmentation, more efficient communication between teams, and the ability to deliver personalized experiences throughout the entire customer journey. By implementing this approach, companies can maximize the potential of their sales strategies, effectively winning and retaining customers.
Another very important concept to have an objective view of your marketing strategies is the conversion rate. And so you know exactly how to calculate it, we have another post where you can learn everything about this essential metric for your business.
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