How to Connect with Inbound Leads" loading="lazy">
When you are running a business or when you are promoting your company’s product or services, it is your job to reach out to prospects, to get in touch with possible buyers/clients and figure out how you can turn them from mere prospects to one of your best clients. Suffice to say, the ball is always in your court.
Of course if we really think about it, for quite some time now, the Inbound Methodology has allowed marketers and salespeople everywhere in the world to bypass certain sales processes and have provided them with less obnoxious and less intrusive means to generate leads and land sales. Nevertheless, the bulk of the effort in ensuring that a sale would take place within sparse interactions between your prospects and your sales team still falls on the latter.
Connecting with inbound leads requires a ton of work, but with the inbound methodology as your driving force in this process, you have an efficient and reliable guide to help you understand how to truly connect with inbound leads in a way that is still helpful, informative, and empathetic– characteristics that the inbound approach is known for.
Noteworthy it is to say that Inbound is essentially a philosophy. It is a way of doing things that puts you, being the one who implements it in your business, in the position to help or offer to prospects your assistance and guidance in the most human and holistic way possible.
Let’s delve deeper into that!
Connecting with Inbound Leads
Say you have already identified your leads. You have carefully sifted the active buyers from the passive ones. As you probably know by now, it is important that you prioritize active buyers as they are the ones who have the higher tendency to make a purchase anytime soon. Once you get past the identify phase, you will proceed to the second phase of your entire inbound sales strategy, which is the connect phase.
As the term suggests, this is where you connect with and earn the attention of your most promising leads. You do so by performing outreach marketing. But before we get into that, let us first discuss how to truly connect with inbound leads.
Inbound leads are people who visited your website and have exhibited an interest in your products by downloading your offering, subscribing to your newsletter, or by filling out an information sheet you’ve strategically placed on your landing page to avail of a product coupon.
Earlier, we’ve mentioned that connecting with inbound leads means employing tactics supported by the inbound methodology. It means that your approach must be human, helpful, and holistic. When connecting with inbound leads, you must make it a point to take an empathetic and personable approach, for that is what it means to be “human”; to provide guidance and assistance in every stage of a lead’s buyer’s journey, for that is what it means to be “helpful”.
In clear easy steps, connecting with inbound leads should start with good research about your leads. This includes finding out if anyone else in your company has gotten in touch with the said lead, if the positions and office designations they have written in information sheets are exactly in accordance with the ones they hold in their respective companies, as well as the particular pain-points or challenges they are looking to resolve at present.
Once you have all the necessary information you may need, it’s time you determine if the inbound lead is in fact a “good fit” for your company. Is your product something they truly need? Can they afford your products or services, can you give them their desired return of investment should they decide to use your product or avail of your services?
It is also important that you determine the value of your lead. This will tell you the number of times you must attempt to reach out, basically, you must ensure that the cost of reaching out to them does not outweigh the reward of finally getting them onboard.
Once these are all sorted out, you can start the conversation and make the actual connection.
That being established, there are more specific ways for you to understand how to truly connect with inbound leads.
Ways to Connect with Inbound Leads
Inbound being the dynamic approach that it is, offers you a lot of ways to connect with inbound leads. Among those that are most effective are the following:
- Blogs
- Emails
- Social Media
- Networking events
- Calling
Blogs
Connecting with inbound leads using blogs as a platform can be done through sharing of the actual content, or exchanging of comments in the comment section. Either way, this is an effective avenue for striking up a conversation with an inbound lead.
Emails
Emails are a great way to exchange thoughts with your inbound leads. This is a perfect way to gauge if they are a good fit for your company. Send out an initial email, personalize your message using the information you know about your leads, and then forge a deeper connection.
Social Media
Social Media channels let leads make first contact. When they find your company’s social channels and make an inquiry about your products, you can chat them up immediately. Studies show that you have higher chances of turning leads into a customer if you make a connection just minutes after receiving the lead. A lot of conversions really do take place a few minutes after making a connection with a lead.
Networking Events
Networking events, meeting people in person, is a fantastic way to make a connection. Not only can you exhibit the “helpful, human, holistic” approach that the inbound methods teach us, you can also ascertain your lead’s interest as you see them in person.
Calling
While calling is considered least effective because of the bad reputation cold calling has earned over time. Calling can still be a great way to make a connection. Here’s a tip: call at the time of day when your inbound leads are most likely to be receptive of what you may have to say. Make your calls warm, not cold.
Final Take: Why Connect with Inbound Leads
So, why connect with inbound leads?
From what we have discussed so far, you probably now understand the importance of connecting with inbound leads. “Why connect with inbound leads” is a question with an obvious answer.
Generating leads is one process that goes on for as long as your business exists to operate. Generating leads is part of your sales process. And an inbound sales process goes through four phases, this includes the connect phase. We endeavor to connect with inbound leads simply because it is dictated by your inbound sales strategy. And a sales strategy guided by the inbound methods is one that is proven to work and derive great results.
