The 2017 Inbound Sales Landscape: Self-Service & More
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As marketing agencies we often talk about how marketing is a rapidly changing landscape.
We make predictions, attend conferences, and keep up on the latest trends. Sometimes, though, it seems we overlook the change and progression of the sales landscape.
In this episode, Gray and I break down how we have seen sales change during 2016 and how we anticipate sales changing even more in 2017.
Trending Together
Last year the hot topic was sales and marketing alignment. Trying to get everyone on the same page and a fluid handoff from the marketing team to the sales team.
We are hearing more often the two teams refered to as one, often called something such as the “Growth” team. In a lot of ways you will see the two become closer and closer in ideology in 2017.
Inbound marketing has now been around for a few years and has always been about getting the customer good information as they are looking for a solution.
Sales however, has been a mixed bag. You have some inbound leads you nurture with content. And it’s typically done over email and the sharing of resources and articles with a prospect. Then you also have this outbound cold lead prospecting side to it. But even that is changing…
It used to be cold calls straight up pitching the product. Then caller ID was invented. And now we are seeing this movement of cold outreach that isn’t acutally trying to sell you anything, at first.
Sales people ave realized the importance of story telling and trying to get prospects, especially cold prospects to identify more with the pain that they are experiencing, than the product that they are selling.
Instant Gratification
With the development of technology society contiunes to move further and further down the path of instant gratification. As a consumer, you want and expect answers to your questions immediately.
You want me to wait until next week to see the episode of my favorite TV show? Netflix… You want me to go to the grocery store and spend time shopping? Blue Apron…
Get the picture? That is why we are anticipating a huge increase of live chat and self-service communication in 2017. Prospects want to communicate, when they want, on their own terms.
A phone call is officially becoming too big of a commitment. Why jump on a call when I can ask a question, get an immediate message back and then decide if a call is worth my time?
Direct person-to-person sales is beginning later and later in the sales process. If you don’t have enough information that answers questions that prospects are asking on your website, people will move on to the next agency that does. They want to do their own research, and hey, if I have a quick question, I want to shoot over a message that gets answered instantly, not tomorrow.
Converting live chat into quick calls is the best way to close deals.
Have awesome content that answers almost every question they can ask, have a team member with live chat open all day in the background and whenever a question is asked, create a piece of content for it and add it to the site.
That is the direction of sales in 2017.
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