Why Should You Consider Fractional Inside Sales?

What kind of benefits come from partnering with an inside sales organization like InceptGrows? Caleb has the answer:

Ohio Inbound Marketing Day

Ohio Inbound Marketing Day is coming up in just a few weeks! On December 9th, we'll be travelling down to Columbus, Ohio to spend the day learning from industry experts about inbound sales and marketing. If last year's #OIMD is any indicator, it's sure to be another day filled with big learnings and fun people!

Topics We're Excited To Learn More About

Inbound Marketing

Fresh off a trip to Inbound, we're hungry for more!  Isaac Moche, Principal Inbound Professor with HubSpot Academy, will be sharing Hubspot best practices for marketing automation, email marketing, and lead nurturing.  These are all strategies that help to enable our fractional inside sales activity on behalf of our clients and things we are working towards becoming experts on ourselves. 

Social Media

One of Gary Vaynerchuck's most actionable pieces of advice during his keynote at Inbound was for companies, specifically B2B companies, to invest in Facebook sponsored posts. This is something we've tested and seen promising results from, especially when using video, so we can't wait to learn more from Stephanie Carls and her expertise in that area.

Content Marketing

If you've ever been to Content Marketing World or heard Joe Pulizzi speak, then you've definitely heard about this guy. Marcus Sheridan is the poster boy for content marketing.  He used it to keep River Pools and Spas afloat during the recession in 2008 and is the Founder of The Sales Lion, an inbound marketing agency. His advice on how to attract leads, no matter your budget, will be beneficial for all of us.

How To Register

#OIMD will take place at Quest Conference Center, located on the north end of Columbus, Ohio near the Polaris Shopping Center on December 9th. Whether you're a Hubspot customer or not, we invite you to join us if you have any interest in inbound marketing, sales enablement or growth-driven design.

Join Us At Flight!

Launch League is hosting their first conference dedicated to midwest startups called Flight. Entrepreneurs, investors, and supporting partners will all be convening in downtown Akron on December 1st and 2nd to learn from experts about startup marketing, fundraising, business operations, hardware development, design, and development.

We're excited to be sponsoring this year's event, sharing our story about InceptGrows and dedication to supporting the startup community. We'll be attending sessions, talking sales and marketing at our exhibitor table, and networking at the VIP cocktail hour and after party.  

Are you an entrepreneur? Working on a startup? Need help perfecting your sales and marketing? We invite you to join us at Flight on December 1st and 2nd. For more information and to register, please click here or on the 'Register To Attend' button below. For 50% off, use code: INCEPT50.

Integrating Email Into Your Inside Sales Strategy

Integrating email into your inside sales strategy is essential for sales success. Gone are the days where prospects pick up the phone and willingly chat about their business problems. While that can still a great place to start your strategy, most prospects need to be nurtured through other channels before they are ready to trust you and your solution. Email is one of the best channels to start with.

Below you'll find a few best practices for getting your inside sales emails opened, read, and compliant.

Subject Lines

Using the right subject line for your follow-up inside sales email is extremely important.  It is one of the only things that determines if the email will be opened or not, so you have to get it right. 

We always follow voicemails with an email to the prospect, so we make sure the subject line reflects that. We also want to humanize ourselves, so we typically add the sales person's name as well.  One of our favorite subject lines to use and the one with the highest average open rate is as follows:

Subject line: Voicemail from Sarah Nelson

There are so many variations that could and should be tested in terms of subject lines, but try to keep to these best practices - keep subject lines short, direct, and personalized if possible.  

Content of Email

Once the reader opens the email, you have to provide the right content to peak their interest and encourage a reply. We take the challenger approach to all of our sales interactions, including email.  The Challenger Sale Model let's you use your deep understanding of the prospect's business problems to push the customer’s thinking and teach them something new about their business and/or industry so they can compete more effectively.

By using this model, you position yourself as business advisors and thought leaders for the prospect. Even if they don't need your service today, the email will serve as a bookmark in their mind for when that prospect does run into the business problem you outlined.

Even if the content is right, you have to format the email in a way that allows the reader to skim and scan. Bullet points, bolding, and italics are your best friend - but please don't go overboard.  There is a very fine line between making an email easy to read and coming off as spammy. 

Sales Cadence

Did you know that 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up but 80% of sales require five follow-ups? Determining your sales cadence past this initial call and email is extremely important. 

Sales Hacker CEO, Max Altschuler, revealed to RingDNA that his ideal inside sales cadence is as follows:

• Day 1: Email/Inmail
• Day 3: Email in the morning, Call in the afternoon
• Day 5: Call in the morning, Call with a voicemail in the afternoon
• Day 7: Email in the morning, Call in the afternoon with a voicemail
• Day 10: Email and call in the morning

Notice that the integration of phone call and email is the cornerstone of this inside sales workflow. I suggest that you use this as a starting point, but test other variations for your sales cadence.

Email Compliance

Even though the name would lead you to believe it only applies to bulk and spam mail, the CAN-SPAM Act applies to sales emails too. There are seven very important requirements you must comply with in every sales email you send out:

1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. 

2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. 

3. Identify the message as an ad. 

4. Tell recipients where you’re located. 

5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you.

6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. 

7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. 

If you choose not to comply with each of these requirements, there are penalties.  Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000.  

If you have questions about your email compliance, please seek the assistance of a lawyer and review the CAN-SPAM laws here.

Conclusion

There is no magic bullet for inside sales and email marketing.  There are best practices we've learned while working with several industries on behalf of our clients, but it doesn't mean it's going to be right for you and your business.  

Always remember to test, measure the results of each test, make adjustments, and test again. As you get deeper into your inside sales strategy, you'll get closer and closer to finding the subject line, email content, and sales cadence that's best for you and your prospects.

Have you seen these tips for managing B2B sales reps?

I recently came across this post that outlines suggestions for managing and motivating a team of B2B sales reps.

I'd like to draw your attention to #6. Hire Appointment Setters. Your team works hard. They're skilled, successful sales people who have contributed to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue over the years. Is it any wonder that when you ask them to call through cold leads, or mine an outdated database for new customers, they're less-than-enthused?

Keep your top hitters at the plate. Set them up for sales success by optimizing productivity. One of the simplest ways to make this happen is to have someone else help out with the top-of-the-funnel activity. Don't waste your high-performers' time on a hangups, bad phone numbers, or unqualified buyers.

(see also Sales is about getting your hitters their at-bats)

I had a conversation yesterday with a gentleman who runs a funding company for consumers and business looking for lines of credit. It was awesome to see his eyes light up when it dawned on him that with the right lead generation partner, inbound lead triaging, and pre-transfer qualification, he could literally only handle calls from people ready to close. The rest of his time could be spent on higher-value tasks like nurturing relationships with current clients and developing strategy for future growth.

Optimize your sales team's time by bringing in the right person or partner to cleanse lists, qualify leads and set solid appointments with ready-to-buy prospects.