Inbound Marketing Blog

I mentioned in last weeks article, how top marketers are prioritising the customer experience – focusing on the Customer Journey Strategy. In that article you can learn how to map content to each stage of the customer’s journey to ensure it is relevant to your buyers.

Successful marketers know the key to getting results in the digital age is in connecting with their buyers at each stage of the customer journey. The State of Marketing 2016 study conducted by Salesforce revealed 88% of top marketers say a customer journey strategy is critical to the success of their overall marketing. The study also revealed that the top concern for high performing marketing teams this year is keeping pace with their customers. 

There’s no denying that technology plays an increasingly important role in our day-to-day lives. Already, it seems like the line between our online lives and our real lives are starting to blur. So what does this mean for you as a marketer or as a small business owner? It means you need to go ‘holistic’ – and by this we mean you need to adopt an omni-channel experience.

This is the second in a two-part series exploring the Inbound Sales Methodology, how it works and why it’s so important to the future of your business.

Last week we introduced the idea of the Inbound Sales Methodology, and how the changing marketing landscape has led to an inevitable transformation in modern sales.

This is the first in a two-part series exploring how the Inbound Sales Methodology will help you optimise your sales funnel.

In 2007 I was introduced to a new movement in marketing: Inbound Marketing. It turned the traditional marketing model on its head, using content to organically attract customers to businesses rather than forcing messages onto them.

Making sense of the torrent of social media commentary has been likened to ‘drinking from a waterfall’.

It’s a powerful mental image and a fairly apt description of the challenge facing marketers and small businesses that are trying to convert social media tracking and big data into real insights and solutions for their business.

Last week we discussed Social Selling, this week let’s talk about its cousin, Social Listening – a far more strategic and sustainable way to use social media to make your business more effective and responsive.

As we know, the sales game has changed. Today’s customers are now 70% of the way through the buying process before they’re willing to talk to a salesperson. This reality has banished old sales tactics to the dustbin of history, hopefully never to be seen again. 

According to HubSpot’s 2016 State of Inbound report, one of the key priorities for sales in 2017 is improving the efficiency of the sales funnel. Whether you’re reviewing an existing sales process or developing one for the first time, successful outcomes depend on having access to the right technology.

The disconnect between sales and marketing has been around since the advent of modern business. While some progress has been made, 20% of companies still report misalignment between the two departments, according to HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2016 report. While ‘misalignment’ doesn’t exactly mean ‘war’, it does mean that the two are not cooperating as they should, and this could affect your ability to win more customers.

Sales Enablement has emerged as one of the most pressing priorities for the modern marketer. According to HubSpot’s 2016 State of Inbound report, 32% of marketers rate it as a major focus for 2017. Overall it’s the fifth highest priority for the sector, the first time Sales Enablement has ever appeared in the survey results.

In the same report, only 2% of Inbound Marketers and 3% of Outbound Marketers said sales enablement was overrated.

From relative obscurity Sales Enablement now occupies a large space on the Inbound Marketing radar. 

What is Sales Enablement?