How to Improve Your Inbound Marketing ROI by Educating Your Salespeople (and Our Course to Help!)

The most important role I have as a Consultant at LeadG2 is helping ensure my clients see ROI from their inbound marketing investments. However, as with all marketing investments, there are many variables that can get in the way of this. It’s our job, as leaders in this industry, to figure out how to work around those obstacles and still ensure success. 

What I’ve learned in my nearly four years of working in the inbound marketing world is that hands-down, the #1 cause of subpar results is lack of sales and marketing alignment. Sure, “sales and marketing alignment” is a buzzword we’re hearing all the time—but it’s a real issue here. You see, what happens is that marketers and organizational leaders put a lot of time and money into building strategic content, attracting new leads, nurturing them, and getting them to a point where they can be handed off to the sales team. 

Show Sales What to Do with Inbound Leads

This is where things get a little hairy. Many sales departments aren’t even really sure what inbound marketing is or why they even need a company blog. They don’t have trust in the leads they are being given because they expect them to be hot leads, similar to a call-in, and when they don’t react immediately to a follow-up they are deemed unqualified. They tend to not even follow up with many of the leads they are given (crazy, I know, right?) Salespeople also—at no fault to them—are oftentimes practicing an old sales methodology that focuses on traditional tactics and doesn’t really match up with today’s buyer. 

While this can’t all be solved by simply educating salespeople about inbound marketing and how it actually works, we do believe this is the first and very important step in the right direction. 

This is why we’ve created and launched (THIS week) our Lead Gen What & Why: Inbound online course. What’s even better, we’re offering it for FREE if you register before the end of the year (that’s a $175 value per registrant!)

As my colleague and co-course creator, Tina Rice, so eloquently explains in her article here, “in presenting the 20 terms related to inbound marketing and lead generation, a real structure, based on strategy, started to come into focus.”

Get Everyone Involved in Inbound Marketing

That’s the goal with this course. To get everyone involved, especially sales managers and salespeople, on the same page. Using the same terms, understanding the same strategy, and ultimately working toward the same goals. 

In a nutshell: Our newest course, Lead Gen What & Why: Inbound, delves into the 20 most integral terms and processes of inbound marketing. It takes only two to three hours to complete. The course comes with some fantastic printed materials for individual use, and a few sales meeting kits to use with your team. 

Get to it and let us know what you think! We’re here to help.