As a part of LinkedIn’s Big Ideas in 2014 series, Tim Williams wrote a stellar post calling for a transition to inbound marketing, rather than outbound selling, for professional services firms to create new business in 2014. Mr. Williams’ post is part of a larger trend in which business experts across industries are recognizing that “content is king” in driving web traffic, establishing respect as a “trusted advisor,” and ultimately generating new business.
As a result, marketers are increasingly expected to produce compelling content for dozens of digital channels (including social media, blogs, white papers, newsletters, etc), create a relevant and useful website, and provide value for potential customers at every step of the buying process. Much has been written on the importance of inbound marketing (check out Hubspot’s blog or Content Marketing Institute’s website for examples).
But once all of this inbound interest is coming your way, what do you do with it? How do you handle all of the potential customers clamoring at your door? The next step of the process is demand response, where inbound energy and intent is converted into a possible growth opportunity for the business. Having an effective demand response process is critical to transform inbound marketing into new revenue.
The 5 Must-Haves for Communicating With Inbound Leads
Obviously, each company has to have a process that makes sense for them and their business logic, but these five factors have proven invaluable for communicating with our inbound leads here at TrackMaven:
1. Speed
There is quite a bit of data out there about the importance of “speed to the lead,” most of it coming from the Lead Response Management Study from InsideSales.com and Professor Oldroyd at MIT. Leads are orders of magnitude more likely to convert if they are called within the first 5 minutes of their expression of interest, and Leads360’s research shows that leads are nearly 400% more likely to convert if they are reached within 1 minute. This makes sense- if a lead reaches out to your company by taking action (filling out a form on your website, downloading a report, engaging on social media, etc), your company is top of mind at that exact moment. They must have had a particular interest or reason for reaching out, and their focus is likely to shift away from that reason in a short amount of time. They are far more likely to be willing to take next steps with your company if you contact them quickly than if you wait until they are no longer thinking of your product or service. You want your leads saying “wow that was fast!” when you reach them on the phone within minutes of their contact with your company.
Image via quick meme
2. Relevance
The old adage is undoubtedly true: relevance = conversion. When you reach out to your lead, they are far more likely to have a positive and productive reaction if you show them that you know about their company, industry, and about them as an individual. If you don’t let your prospect know that you “know them” with a blurb from their LinkedIn page, information about their company, or best of all, the way your product/service relates specifically to their company, why should they keep listening to you? At that point you’re just another person peddling their goods and interrupting their day.
And no one has time for that.
Image via Smart Insights
3. Insight
I understand the temptation. You have a really cool product that you think about all day every day, and you’re convinced that EVERYONE MUST HAVE IT. So all you want to do is talk about your mind-blowing product and how many awesome features it has. But guess what? Your lead probably doesn’t care that much about how cool your product is. They are more concerned with the big report they have to finish for their boss, hitting their number for the quarter, or what they are going to eat for lunch. Even more than that, they hear it all the time. Everyone has a cool product that can do cool things. So why not separate yourself from the masses? Find a way, succinctly, to lead TO your product, not with it, especially in emails. Discuss larger trends in the industry that are likely to already be affecting your prospect. Teach them something! Provide value! For our team at TrackMaven, this means discussing major trends affecting digital marketers, including an increasing number of fragmented channels that marketers must produce content for, the massive volume of content that inundates potential customers/clients and necessitates engaging and compelling marketing campaigns, and the ever-changing taste of customers that demands real-time relevance to what they care about in that moment. Occasionally, we also provide relevant statistics of the value and importance of producing effective content for the spectrum of digital channels. Take 5 minutes- what kind of insight and value can you provide for your prospects that lead to your product, not with it?
4. Empathy
Closely related to providing insight to your leads demonstrates empathy and is critical to building trust. Without trust, the entire process breaks down. You have to show that you understand the day to day issues that your prospect is likely to experience. This empathy cannot be feigned because if you don’t genuinely care, you will not be able to understand the context and subtext surrounding why your lead initially reached out. You’ll have a hard time observing and understanding the things that are important to them. Which is something they will notice and ultimately the main issue that could prevent them from buying your product.
If you don’t care, they’ll know, which will only detract from your process and erode trust.
5. Confidence
I’m convinced that prospects really can sense uncertainty (kinda like dogs [read: Corgis- see below] really can smell fear).
Smells like fear? Image via that cute site
If your demand response team doesn’t have confidence in their knowledge about your product, your lead’s industry, and larger trends, your prospects will question everything your team says. This is another way to erode trust and unravel your process. Your demand response team must be deferential to your prospects, yet also firm and confident in what they say. In order teach, you have to know what you’re talking about.
Demand response is just one step in the process to generate new business. Without effective and engaging marketing content, demand responders would have nothing to do. Skillful account executives are critical to turning the leads into paying customers. And, of course, without a knowledgeable and attentive customer success team and an amazing product, these customers would quickly become ex-customers. But inbound marketing simply would not work without demand response.
With speed, relevance, insight, empathy, and confidence, demand response can dramatically improve revenue growth and help build a healthy business.