5 Tips to Make Your B2B Sales Team Successful

Whether you’re new or an experienced sales manager, I think we can all agree that managing a team of sales reps isn’t easy. We aren’t all created equal and each one of us brings a different personality and skill-set to the table. It’s your job to make sure you’re getting the most out of your team. Here are a few tips that can help make your B2B sales team successful.

 1. Create a Strong Training/On-boarding Process

This is where it all begins. How well you’re able to prepare your sales reps for what’s to come will determine how successful they are, which will result in a decrease in turnover. Give your team the tools that will help them do their jobs to the best of their ability, such as B2B sales techniques that have proven to work. Allow them to shadow your best performers so they have an idea of what an effective routine looks like.

2. One on One Coaching

If a teammate is struggling or having a hard time picking up on something, take the time to understand where the disconnect is. Listen to their recordings, ask what’s wrong or if there are any additional sales materials they need that would help.

Take time out of your day to give your team one on one support to help them with B2B sales strategies and tactics. This will not only be an opportunity for sales team building to establish a bond but will get any issues out in the open, so they can be addressed moving forward.

3. Establish Sales Goals

There is nothing worse than not knowing what is expected of you. Clearly establish specific, measurable, achievable, and time-based goals for your team to benchmark themselves against.  You can use data from past performance to help put together different plans that make sense for everyone, both old and new.

4. Communication

Hold regular meetings to update your team on progress to goal, provide feedback on current campaigns, and communicate any changes that could impact their sales process. Email is a nice tool to use but shouldn’t be a crutch as information can easily be misinterpreted through text.

5. Celebrate the Good

78% of employees said being recognized motivates them in their job. A lot of work and preparation goes into hitting goals, so let your team know they’re appreciated! This is one of the simplest things to do, yet often neglected.

Sales will always present unique challenges that you’ll have to overcome but understanding what you CAN control will really go a long way when it comes to keeping your team on track for success.

Download our guide to improve your lead generation and appointment setting strategy!

Creating a pipeline of leads can be challenging and time consuming especially when you’re selling a product or service that requires an appointment for a one on one conversation or meeting.

While there’s no secret formula for generating leads that works across every business and industry, there are several tools that we have found make the odds of success higher and faster and we’d like to share them with you!

How Digital Marketing Can Help Your Lead Generation Strategy

Digital marketing is such a broad term nowadays. There are countless avenues to go down, and at times, it can be a bit overwhelming. Every business is looking to gain new leads and ultimately grow their customer base, right?

Right.

However, you’re going to have to have a lead generation strategy in place in order to not only acquire new leads but convert them as well.

Download our guide now to see how digital marketing can help your lead generation strategy:

Digital Campaigning

What is it?

The use of business cards and newspaper ads are a thing of the past. It’s clear that every lead generation strategy must be present on the internet. As a digital marketer, there are a variety of avenues that you can go down with a digital campaign.

Facebook has amazing opportunities to put your brand’s message out there and acquire new customers and leads. With over 2.38 billion monthly users, taking advantage of paid Facebook campaigns are a definite road to go down.

While you’ll need to choose where your ads will be seen, you’ll also need to develop content that your leads are going to respond well to. Check out our blog post to see which graphics you can incorporate into both your paid and organic lead generation efforts.

Why use it?

With 95% of Americans owning cellphones, and 77% of those people owning a smartphone, it’s a no-brainer that digital marketers need to be just that – digital. Setting up a campaign through Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other platform is a must.

How do you implement it?

Take a couple courses on the platforms that you want to display your ads. There are countless YouTube videos out there to give you direction and inspiration.

Just make sure you’re designing your digital campaign around your audience. Generating leads revolves around being present in the right place, at the right time.

Implementing a digital campaign is the easy part – strategizing and creating relevant content is where most marketers get stuck.

58% of internet users say they don’t click on ads because they aren’t relevant. So, to convert a lead, you’ll have to show them content that not only catches their eye but captures their attention as well.

Landing Pages

What is it?

A landing page is where interested prospects are going to be led to – it’s the most important piece in your lead generation strategy.

Maybe a website visitor clicks on a call to action for more info on your service, or a Facebook user clicks one of your ads – regardless – these potential leads need to be taken somewhere filled with valuable information that is specific to their needs.

Call to actions should always lead to a landing page – never your website. Your website should be designed more generally, showcasing your overall brand and corporate values.

These individuals need to be directed to a page that answers exactly what they were looking for, and not to mention, a place where they can give you their information.

Why use it?

Essentially, your landing page will offer a valuable content offer (or offers!), while also offering a form to fill out with contact information. Acquiring emails not only allows you, a digital marketer, to continue to nurture individuals as a lead, but it also allows the opt-ins to regularly hear from you!

In short, landing pages are a digital marketing tactic that helps increase your conversion rates and lower your cost of acquiring a lead or sale.

How do you implement it?

Getting a landing page built and tested is one of the top five challenges faced by B2B marketers. Don’t let the confusion and intimidation stray you away from implementing landing pages into your lead generation strategy!

The process can be simple when you have marketing software such as Hubspot, Instapage or unbounce.

These easy to use sites allow you to use quick drag and drop options to create clean designs with easy navigation for the landing page visitor. Not to mention, you can use templates for an even easier route.

So, what are you waiting for? Stand out from the competition and lead your visitors to a relevant page. Adding landing pages into your digital marketing mix will make your lead generation strategy foolproof.

Email Marketing

What is it?

In today’s digital world, receiving an email every hour is expected. In fact, it’s projected that 306.4 billion emails will be sent and received every day in 2020.

So, what makes the cute animal email thread different from email marketing?

While the marketing emails are designed to promote products or services, it’s also made to develop relationships with potential customers/clients. Basically, digital marketers will send out emails to a targeted group of people. That list is made up from leads who opt-in with their email address, typically from landing pages.

Why use it?

Let start with a mind-blowing statistic. According to Hubspot, 99% of consumers check their email every day, and 59% of people say that marketing emails influence their purchase decision. This is HUGE news for lead generation strategies.

However, your brand needs to stick out in the cluttered inboxes and tailor email messaging to specific segments of your customer database. Show that your brand is personal, and that you value communication with customers! Always send them content that will hit their pain points and answer their questions.

This type of messaging helps a business develop and maintain a relationship with a customer over time. According to Forrester Research, companies that nurture their leads see 50 percent more sales-ready leads than their non-nurturing counterparts at a 33 percent lower cost. 

It’s obvious - email marketing is a powerful tool when trying to convert leads or upsell existing customers.

How do you implement it?

With lists building quickly, marketing automation is an easy method to help digital marketers automatically send highly targeted emails to leads.

For starters, your leads will need to be synced with your CRM, who can then be placed into a workflow. After filling out a form on a landing page, leads can then be nurtured with content that matches their specific interests or placements within the marketing funnel.

Again, using a marketing software, such as Hubspot, to help nurture your leads in an email workflow is beyond useful and easy to implement.

Yes, digital marketing can be overwhelming, but the opportunities are endless! Take advantage of the digital campaigning methods to grab your audiences’ attention. Then, send them to a page that makes sense and allows them to give you their contact information. After you have their email, nurture them as a lead and start a conversation with them.

Make sure that every stage of your lead generation strategy is well thought out. Your leads care about quality content and conversation, and you should too!

Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy

Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.

Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.

• 4 essential elements to add in every content piece.

• Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement

• Key strategies for lead generation

11 B2B Lead Generation Tools To Help You Set Appointments Fast

Creating a pipeline of leads can be challenging and time consuming especially when you’re selling a product or service that requires an appointment for a one on one conversation or meeting. While there’s no secret formula for generating leads that works across every business and industry, there are several tools that we how found make the odds of success higher and faster and we’d like to share them with you!

Keep reading for our 12 favorite tools for creating a pipeline of B2B leads that will fill your calendar with appointments fast.

CRM

Using a CRM is essential to your B2B lead generation campaign’s success. It takes 6-8 touches to generate a viable lead so it’s important to use a CRM to keep your many points of contact organized. If you’re working with several sales and marketing colleagues, a CRM will help align your team without the need for extra meetings that take time away from your campaigns.

We’re big fans of Hubspot here at Incept. If you’re on a smaller budget, Hubspot even offers a free version of their lead generation software. It’s easy to setup, simple to use, and will make you feel like a lead generating super hero from day one.

Sales automation

Using a sales automation tool will make you feel like you just got 5 more hours back in your work day. It will allow you to automate different sales processes like email sequencing, task assignments, and follow-up appointments.

We used to do things manually - call John Smith, email John Smith, mark not to follow-up with John Smith in a couple days, set reminder to send prospect to the marketing team if he doesn’t open your next email, etc. But with the addition of sales automation for leads, the world is a brighter place! Once you build out your optimized sales cadence, all you have to do it enroll your prospects and let the software doing the heavy lifting for you.

We love Hubspot for this feature, but Salesforce and Zoho are a couple other powerful tools depending on your budget.

Email tracking plugin

It’s my wish that you never send another sales email without a tracking plugin. This tool will help you get a better understanding of which email subject lines and content are working on a broad scale as well us give you incredible engagement insight on an individual level.

There will be some prospects that won’t reply to your email for weeks (maybe even months) that you otherwise would’ve classified as a dead lead. But with the insight of an email plugin you’ll be able to see that some of these prospects keep opening your email and clicking the link to your website, giving you the knowledge that they actually are engaged and may be ready for an additional piece of content to bring them further in the buyer’s journey.

Calendar linking

Giving your leads the option of self-scheduling an appointment with you to learn more about your company’s product or service is a game changer. No more need for 4 emails back and forth trading availability to setup one appointment. Just send a link to your calendar and let the lead pick the most convenient time for them.

Calendly and Hubspot Sales Pro offer great options for calendar linking.

Sales Navigator

LinkedIn allows you to find new prospects and engage with them in a meaningful way with a paid subscription called Sales Navigator. This tool is so effective at connecting sales people with potential leads that LinkedIn claims that sales representatives using Sales Navigator source 34% of opportunities through the tool. This is the kind of success that we’ve experienced while using the tool as well!

Related Post: 3 Ways to Create Hyper-Targeted Audiences for Your B2B Campaigns

Hiring websites

Another great place to find potential leads quickly is through hiring and Q&A websites. Many times B2B businesses can find prospects looking for their services on sites like Indeed.com or Quora.

Does your business provide marketing services? Look for organizations hiring marketers - with the right pitch, they may be interested in hiring your agency instead of a full-time employee.

Maybe your business offers a more specialized product or service? Search for people asking specific questions on Quora or LinkedIn Groups and share your knowledge.

Check out Indeed.com, LinkedIn, and Quora for warmer prospects for your next lead generation campaign.

Mapping tools

Use Google Maps to identify new prospects within certain territories or parameters. Whether it’s the initial prospecting effort or something along the lines of “hey we’re going to be in the area”, it comes in really handy. There are standalone options as well as integrated ones that can be used with certain CRMs.

Phone

When it comes to setting appointments, many times picking up the phone and reaching out to prospects is best way to start getting into conversations and generating leads. This tool can be the most intimidating for many sales people but it’s effectiveness is unmatched.

Value proposition

This isn’t necessarily a physical tool but it is the best way to set an appointment with qualified leads. Make sure you’re offering them something of value first before you expect them to give anything in return.

In your first touch point it might be helpful to offer a free industry guide or trial of your product or service. Offering knowledge and helpfulness is an impactful way to make a first impression with your prospects.

Remarketing

For any prospects that you were able to drive to your website to learn more but couldn’t quite close, you want to make sure your message is still being consistently delivered, upping the chance they’ll remember you when they need you. Make sure your marketing team is running a remarketing campaign that corresponds with your lead generation campaign.

Confidence

Probably the most important tool of all - confidence! Having confidence in your training, knowledge, the value you can provide your prospect, and in yourself may be the single most important factor in your success at generating leads and setting up appointments.

We like to pump ourselves up with some motivational quotes or watch a GaryVee video before jumping into prospecting for the day. Elevating confidence will make the biggest difference in your campaign.

What other tools do you use to generate leads and set appointments fast?

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Need help setting appointments for your business?

Fill out the form below and let’s talk about how InceptGrows can help you!

How to Follow Up with Trade Show and Conference Leads

We all know attending trade shows and conferences are an expensive, but necessary part of the current business climate. With so much time, travel, energy and money invested it’s imperative that you grow those relationships you’ve just cultivated and know how to follow up with trade show and conference leads.

If you are still in the planning stages of your conference visit, this post on preparing for a conference or trade show might help you more right now.

Here are 4 proven ways to ensure you make the most of out of your trade show and conference visit!

Swift follow up

You want to reach out to your trade show and conference leads while your initial conversation is still relevant. New research from Cvent on 2,000 business executives found that “nearly half (47%) wanted to be contacted within a few days” while nearly a fifth said “they like to connect with a contact…within 24 hours after the event has ended”. This tight window needs to be adhered to in order to remain relevant!

Related Post: How Quickly Should You Follow-Up with Inbound Leads?

Use an email touch point

With such a quick turnaround needed for following up with conference leads, the fastest and most effective way to reach back out is via email.  Prepare ahead of time with your email messaging sequence and value propositions so these can be quickly sent out post-trade show/conference.

Personalize

With a tight timeline on the turnaround for reaching back out personalization will be key to making sure your message stands out from the rest.  Adding that personal touch to your email communication communicates to your prospect that you listened to them during your conversation.

Whether business or personal related, the attention to detail shows your prospect what kind of relationship they can expect from you in the future.

Nurture through the funnel

So, you’ve followed up quickly with a personalized email, now what? All too often, trade show and conference leads are thrown to the wayside as we want to purse hotter leads. What is missing from this equation is a marketing plan to nurture these leads through the funnel.

Be prepared by having an action plan ready with phone and social media messaging done before the event. Schedule these out ahead of time so you can nurture them all the way through your funnel.

Need help following up with trade show or conference leads? Fill out this form and let us know how we can help!

Download Our Step-By-Step Guide for Ideal Inbound Lead Follow-Up Strategy Now

Using our expertise in lead generation and sales, we’ve tested several strategies in our own business and on behalf of our clients. Across the board, we found that the ideal inbound lead follow-up strategy requires 2 things:

1. Urgency in response

2. Commitment to sales cadence if the prospect does not immediately answer

In this download, you’ll receive:

• A successful sample sales cadence to get in touch with your leads

• Details on WHY this works and how it helps your company drive more business.

3 Ways to Prepare for a Trade Show or Conference

That big trade show or conference is right around the corner, so how do you make sure you’re ready to meet all those prospects? If you don’t go in with an organized plan or train of thought, it’s easy to get caught up in the festivities & leave empty handed. This checklist will make sure you’re ready to knock it out of the park.

When planning for a conference, you can use these three ways to prepare for a trade show or conference to help you! 

1. Establish Measurable Objectives Beforehand

Depending on your reason for attending a conference, this can go several different ways. Ask yourself, what’s the minimum that would have to happen for the event to be considered a success?

Perhaps some of your trade show goals include:

• Collecting 100 email addresses from a sign-up sheet

• Scheduling “X” number of demos for your product or service

• Collecting a specific number of business cards to follow up or connect with after the trade show

Establishing these expectations prior will give you the opportunity to benchmark whether being in attendance provided any value to you and your organization.

2. Create a Wish List

In other words, which companies are you most looking forward to connecting with? Ask the organizers if a list of attendees can be provided. If not, take matters into your own hands. Some of our clients will have us reach out directly to specific companies & ask if they will be in attendance so we can introduce ourselves or organize meetings at the show.

3. Make a Cheat Sheet

One of our clients attends trade shows on a regular basis & one of the things I do to help prepare them is create a ‘cheat sheet’. Our campaign takes more of an Account Based Marketing approach, so we can establish where they’re at in the sales process and reach out to the prospect when it makes the most sense.

I’ll make a list of all companies in the geographical region of the trade show that we’ve previously contacted and provide as many details as possible. This way if they happen to cross paths, the client knows various points of conversation to make sure they hit on. If this isn’t an option, you can also visit the website for the companies on your wish list to determine what vendors they’re currently using & educate yourself on their business practices.

These three things will help make sure you’re confident & organized at your next conference or trade show.

Let us know if you need help preparing for a trade show or conference! We’re here to help your business.

Download our guide to improve your lead generation and appointment setting strategy!

Creating a pipeline of leads can be challenging and time consuming especially when you’re selling a product or service that requires an appointment for a one on one conversation or meeting.

While there’s no secret formula for generating leads that works across every business and industry, there are several tools that we have found make the odds of success higher and faster and we’d like to share them with you!