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Sell with LinkedIn / Resources / Sales terms / Inbound sales

The Executive Guide To Inbound Sales

This guide to inbound sales is designed to help business executives, startup founders, sales managers, and sales representatives develop a comprehensive overview of inbound sales and learn how this channel fits within the broader pursuit of customer acquisition.

 

The guide covers determining when to prioritize inbound sales, developing an inbound sales channel, identifying the essential competencies for inbound sales representatives, and measuring inbound results.

What Is Inbound Sales (vs Outbound Sales)?

Inbound sales is a sales approach that uses useful or interesting content to attract potential customers into the sales pipeline, where they are then paired with a sales rep through the rest of the sales process.

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The easiest way to explain the significance of inbound sales is by contrasting it with outbound sales.

Outbound Sales

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An outbound sales process is typically designed to interrupt the customer through cold calls, emails, or private messages to present them with a pitch.

 

For example, an outbound sales rep might interrupt a potential customer with a phone call in the middle of their personal life or work day. Or they might send an unsolicited email intended to interrupt the potential customer while they go through their email inbox. 

 

The goal is for the outbound sales rep to create the initial sales conversation and then follow up until the sale is closed.

- vs -

Inbound Sales

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By contrast, an inbound sales process is designed to organically attract the customer by sending them specific types of content at times when they are already looking for similar content.

 

For example, an inbound sales system might involve publishing a blog post guide to setting up a home office so that potential customers will find the guide when searching for “how to improve my home office” and be attracted to the brand as an option for purchasing their next desk. They may also take a customer’s LinkedIn post about how great their desk is and run it as a LinkedIn ad, so that other prospects see the post while scrolling through their feed reading similar content.

 

The goal is for content to attract the customer initially and prompt some form of customer buy-in (usually in the form of an email signup or lead generation form), after which an inbound sales rep will attempt to follow up until the sale is closed.

 

Inbound sales systems are especially well suited to online environments, and so increasing internet usage over the last two decades has resulted in this sales channel rapidly rising in popularity. That said, it’s not a universal choice for every business as it comes with its own disadvantages as well as advantages.

The Three Main Advantages Of Inbound Sales

Inbound sales can be a very effective approach for the right business model and customer base. It has three distinct advantages.

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1. Inbound sales tend to attract higher quality leads.

For an inbound lead to enter the sales pipeline, they have to voluntarily take an action in response to content or an ad that attracts their attention. When the content strategy is done correctly, this results in good leads self-sorting themselves into the pipeline, and it means that inbound pipelines tend to be filled with leads who are substantially more interested and more likely to convert into paying customers than cold leads organized for an outbound sales campaign.

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2. Inbound sales systems allow brands to build trust prior to closing the sale.

Inbound sales systems often include a customer providing their email in exchange for a piece of valuable content and then receiving a follow up email sequence from the brand. These email sequences allow the customer to receive a wide array of trust-building content — including case studies, testimonials, how-to resources, 3rd party features, mission and values spotlights, etc. — before they ever get on a call with a sales rep. This is especially useful in situations where potential customers tend to be initially skeptical or need a longer amount of time to consider the purchase.

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3. Inbound sales systems are more cost-effective to scale.

With outbound sales, individual sales reps or prospecting specialists are responsible for manually filling the top of the pipeline with leads. Significant manpower is expended to sort through low quality leads, find and nurture mediocre leads, and ultimately close a very small percentage of outbound leads into customers. Inbound sales systems use content and automated systems to source and pre-quality leads, allowing sales reps to spend the vast majority of their time selling to warm leads. Scaling the pipeline through content is more cost-effective on the frontend and allows for a smaller sales team on the backend.

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The Three Disadvantages Of Inbound Sales

While inbound sales has some distinct advantages when compared to outbound sales, it also comes with notable disadvantages.

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1. Inbound sales depends on successful demand generation.

Using tactics like using webinars, ebooks, whitepapers, and blogs all aim to educate the prospect before they contact the business. While these leads are typically more qualified, the quality of lead often depends on the quality of the content they’ve been exposed to earlier in the funnel. In large organizations, sales teams are often disconnected from marketing teams, making it difficult to pinpoint what the prospect has been exposed to.

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2. Inbound sales take longer to ramp up and have a much longer sales cycle.

Inbound sales embrace a much more indirect method of filing the top of the sales pipeline that can be wildly effective at scale but also takes a lot longer to get up and running and often results in a longer sales cycle even after things are working well. By contrast, an outbound sales pipeline can be filled much more quickly and will often involve a shorter sales cycle due to the direct involvement of the sales rep from start to finish.

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3. Many customer bases are not reachable through inbound content.

In order for inbound sales to succeed, the target customer base needs to be readily and consistently reachable through online content. While this may seem like a low bar in an increasingly online world, there are many customer segments that do not engage with online content or even use email consistently enough to be a good fit for inbound marketing. While virtually every audience segment is reachable via some form of outbound approach, inbound marketing is a bit more limited.

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The Inbound Sales Process

Now that we’ve covered the benefits and limitations of inbound sales, let’s break down the inbound sales process itself.

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The Inbound Sales Process

target customers > content strategy > qualified leads > opportunities > customers. Attract > Nurture > Close.

1. Identify the target customer.

The inbound sales begins with identifying a clear, definable group of target customers. While this can look like a traditional buyer persona, it usually doesn’t need to be quite that specific. 

 

The goal is to identify who to target and how they engage with content.

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We’ll use two examples to illustrate this.

Example 1 :

  • Brand: A software company with a platform for independent restaurants

     

  • Target market: independent restaurant owners doing $5,000+ per month in takeout and delivery business

     

  • Content habits: active on Instagram and Facebook, subscribe to trade magazines to monitor trends, and occasionally use Google search to find helpful content.

Example 2 :

  • Brand: A managed IT services company for SMBs

     

  • Target market: founders of SMBs with 10-50 employees and between $2-$8M in annual revenue

     

  • Content habits: active in Google search, LinkedIn and online communities; occasionally attend industry trade shows

Identification can go much deeper than this. Ideally, the company has an established customer roster that can be analyzed to identify the customer profile and find overlapping communities.

2. Create a lead generation strategy.

With customer targets in place, it’s time to create a great lead generation strategy built on the following pillars:

 

1.  Useful, interesting, relevant content
2.  Scalable distribution

 

Since the entire goal of inbound sales is to attract the right people into the pipeline, the content needs to be designed to appeal to the target customers and nobody else. If the appeal is too broad, it will overload the pipeline with weak leads, removing many of the upsides of an inbound sales system.

 

How content is distributed is equally important to building a true inbound pipeline.

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Let’s return to our two examples.

Example 1 :

  • Target market: independent restaurant owners doing $5,000+ per month in takeout and delivery business

     

  • Preferred content: video testimonials, restaurant podcasts, quick tips videos, occasionally blog posts

     

  • Distribution options: social ads, paid and organic podcast marketing, youtube channel, blog, notably do NOT use email much

Example 2 :

  • Target market: founders of SMBs with 10-50 employees and between $2-$8M in annual revenue

     

  • Preferred content: interviews, email, deep-dive blog posts, video

     

  • Distribution options: organic podcast marketing, blog post SEO into email marketing, youtube channel

If competitors have already built a successful inbound pipeline, then content strategy becomes infinitely easier. Usually, the best option is to follow the same strategy but prioritize making notably superior content than what those competitors are publishing.

3. Convert content consumers into qualified leads.

Content is only valuable if it drives leads. In most cases, the goal is for content consumers to provide their email address, but it could also mean getting them to call the business or even make a small initial purchase. 

 

The key here is to offer something immediately valuable. This is typically done through a lead generation material like an eBook, whitepaper, or guide that offers in-depth information on a specific, ideally urgent topic related to the product or service. 

 

In some cases, it’s worthwhile to offer a small, one-off service, particularly if it sets the sales representative to pitch primary services, like audits or reviews.

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Example 1 :

  • Brand: A software company with a platform for independent restaurants

     

  • Distribution options: social ads, paid and organic podcast marketing, youtube channel, blog, notably do NOT use email much

     

  • Lead magnet ideas: downloadable guide to restaurant SEO, in-depth case study on how a restaurant doubled their delivery business in 6 months

Example 2 :

  • Brand: A managed IT services company for SMBs

     

  • Distribution options: organic podcast marketing, blog post SEO into email marketing, youtube channel

     

  • Lead magnet ideas: checklist of critical IT concerns for SMBs and how to solve them, one-time systems security audit

It’s important that lead magnets align well within the customer journey from content to lead magnet to paid service. If the lead magnet doesn’t match the content, it won’t result in content consumers converting into leads. If the lead magnet doesn’t align with the paid service, then leads won’t be properly qualified.

4. Nurture leads into opportunities.

If the inbound marketing efforts are doing their job correctly, leads entering the inbound sales pipeline should be fairly qualified.

 

That said, if inbound marketing is producing more leads than the sales team can handle, lead scoring can be used to prioritize leads for followup.

 

At this point, individual sales reps will take over the leads and nurture them forward in the buying process. Once the specific offer and price point are set, the lead becomes an “opportunity”.

 

The exact methods the sales team will use depend on the audience, and there will be some trial and error in the initial stages as leads respond to different nurturing methods.

Illustration of people in conversations

Example 1 :

  • Brand: A software company with a platform for independent restaurants

     

  • Target market: independent restaurant owners doing $5,000+ per month in takeout and delivery business

     

  • Nurturing method: leads only respond to calls but 45% will book a live sales demo over the phone

Example 2 :

  • Brand: A managed IT services company for SMBs

     

  • Target market: founders of SMBs with 10-50 employees and between $2-$8M in annual revenue

     

  • Nurturing method: inbound reps proactively target the top 20% most qualified leads and follow up with another 10% who books a sales call directly via the welcome sequence

It’s important to note here that different audiences respond to different outreach channels. Some people respond well to email, some respond well to phone calls, and some respond well to social media outreach. 

 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s Inmail allows reps to directly message individuals who are difficult to reach via other mediums. Inmail has an 18-25% response rate for cold outreach and jumps to over 80% for warm outreach.

5. Close opportunities and create new customers

This final phase is the entire point of the inbound sales process. Inbound sales representatives need to consistently close opportunities.

 

There are a few different strategies and techniques that will help lead to a high close rate:

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  • Ask great questions: provide inbound sales reps with a strategic list of questions that will help them identify the core challenges, pain points, benefits, and solutions that matter the most to prospects.

     

  • Listen: hire reps with great interpersonal skills and train them to really listen to prospects and adjust their pitch to fit the stated need rather than simply making space for the client to talk and then diving back into a cookie-cutter pitch.

     

  • Social proof: document the company’s most successful client case studies and train sales reps to reference real examples when citing features and benefits of the offer.

     

  • Create urgency: train reps with talking points that emphasize the real, tangible costs of going an additional month without the company’s solution.

It’s important that sales representatives consistently follow up with opportunities. For some offers, the close tends to happen during a live call or demo, but for other offers, sales tend to happen during the follow-up.

Close More Inbound Deals With LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the first deep sales platform created to provide insights and recommendations at scale. 

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Sales Navigator provides reps with high quality, first-party data to help them:

 

  • Research leads prior to outreach to identify mutual connections and interests

     

  • Identify buyer intent signals such as when prospective buyers are engaging with their content, visiting company page, etc

     

  • Identify the full buying committee and key decision makers who can be turned into allies to get the deal across the finish line

See how LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps sales professionals excel

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