Lead qualification and alignment between marketing and sales with Inbound Sales
Marketing and sales teams need to be fully aligned and have an understanding of what types of leads become opportunities for sales to pursue, when and how many should be delivered, and what sales is committed to.
It all starts with defining what a qualified opportunity/lead is, someone who has a total fit between:
ability to purchase, i.e., it fits the profile of the typical customer and influences or decides on the purchase (information collected in landing page forms germany business mailing list and in searches on Google and LinkedIn – for example, company segment and size, position, location, number of employees, turnover, etc.)
intention to purchase, that is, it is at an advanced stage of the purchasing journey (information collected in the interaction with the company, in the type of material consumed, in the history of the relationship…).
Both factors must be given a score and sales focus on those who have the minimum agreed score, i.e. have the ability to buy and the interest in buying. Basically, this is what Inbound Sales is all about.
Inbound Sales vs Outbound Sales
In the traditional model (push), it is the salesperson who initiates the conversation, discovers interests and pain points, and explains the products and services. Too often, they approach people who are not interested or ready to buy, and there is a great distance from marketing, which is seen more from the perspective of public relations and image.
In the Inbound Sales (pull) model, the salesperson continues a conversation started by the customer (they were the ones who came to the company, were attracted by some content, converted on landing pages and were nurtured with emails focused on topics of interest), approaches those who are most interested, already knows their interests and pain points, and demonstrates how these interests and pain points can be resolved with their products or services. There is total alignment with marketing, as that is where everything started.