Inside sales is a process of searching, analyzing, nurturing leads, and turning them into customers remotely. Inside sales have become the most favored business model in B2B industries. However, optimizing your inside sales campaign requires constant observation and management to assess people, systems, and technology. Inside sales campaigns form the foundation to generate sales qualified meetings. Sales qualified meeting refers to any prospective lead who after all the research and assessment by the sales team, agrees for a meeting and becomes a prospective client. So, the performance of inside sales campaigns is directly proportional to sales qualified meetings. In this article, we would be talking about this proportional relationship between the inside sales campaigns and sales qualified meetings. We will be sharing various strategies to optimize your inside sales campaign to generate sales qualified leads and how to implement them.

1. Increasing the leads or email database:

Generating sales qualified meetings through lead is like a funnel. So the more leads you will generate more Search qualified meetings you will get – the more you give the more you will get. To increase the number of sales qualified meetings one needs to increase the number of leads or email databases. 

• Optimize email copy

Optimizing email will improve the conversion rate. So without increasing the size of the database and increasing the number of emails sent, you can increase the number of SQMs. Let’s understand with an example. Suppose, with an averagely written email copy, you have 50 responses out of 250 emails you sent; with an optimized email copy, you might get 100 or even 150 responses out of the same 250 emails. Remember! Your emails need to be relevant otherwise receivers would mark them as spam. Begin with segmenting your email list. Following are the tips that will help you optimize your email copy:

• Optimizing the subject line: Always remember half of the people in your email list will click on emails based on the subject lines. So, try being clear, straightforward, and don’t forget to add a personalized touch. Use small subject lines with 6-8 words. It should not take more than 5 seconds to read a subject line. This is also an added advantage when reading the mails on mobiles or tablets. Be considerate about the timing of your subject line. For example “Learn something new this weekend” a mail that could be sent just before a long weekend.
• Optimize the body: Once lead opens your email, it’s only the body that will keep their interest alive. Planned body copy serves as your chance to convince and ultimately set up the conversation. Try sticking to the goal, keeping the interest intact by using visuals.
• Optimize for mobile use: Most of the emails are opened on mobile phones. Your emails should be flexible enough to be accessed on different devices. Use readable safe web fonts, make sure all your visuals look amazing on mobile and try using responsive layouts.
• The call to action: Make sure to have a visible call to action in every mail. CTA should be attractive and actionable. Omit using boring words like submit or Keep it short and try using the first person. Create a sense of extremity and necessity. Focus on building some urgency.

2. Get your target persona right the first time

Getting your target persona right helps you emphasize on the right type of prospect without wasting any time. You can start creating your target persona by focusing on past demographics, lead behavior, and emotional characteristics. The more accurate your target persona is, brighter are the chances of you following the right lead. 

3. Lead nurturing

Lead Nurturing is not about pitching your product directly, it’s about making the clients understand the value of your service, educating them, and giving knowledge about their decision making. Earlier marketers would send out common mail to all the potential buyers to stay connected. It was termed as drip marketing. But, it failed due to its non-adaptive nature. With time drip marketing has evolved into Lead nurturing. Lead nurturing is a more enlightening, personalised process customised individually keeping every lead’s behaviour and demand in mind. It is designed to build valuable relationships with prospective leads at every stage. You need to have an effective lead nurturing strategies to have an edge over the competition. The following are some of the strategies which may increase sales qualified meetings.

• Segmented Content
  Every lead has its demands. Strategically targeting the right content to nurture a specific lead can show improved results. 
• Offer value before pitching your product
  Russell Brunson, the author of “Dot Com Secrets” book, says to think about the buyer journey as a series of steps. B2B buyers take one step at a time. Don’t jump up and simply pitch your product. Once leads start seeking value and get comfortable they will trust you more. 
• Prepare a chart to organize the campaigns & implement goals: 
  This is one of the key aspects to nurture leads in the right way. If there is a lack of organization and management, you might slip leads. Prepare proper flow charts to manage the lead nurturing campaigns. Define everyone’s respective responsibilities and keep a tab. Generate a lead score based on engagement with your website, emails, and social media posts. You can also set up a follow-up frequency for a scalable approach. 
• Set up a timeline for the emails:
  To nurture the leads be serious about follow up emails. Many businesses either end up spamming the lead’s inbox to grab their attention or don’t know the right time to send these emails. This will help to strengthen the relations with the leads.

3. Campaign management

Just creating an inside sales campaign is not enough. You have to work towards constant management of the campaign as well. Management includes planning, analyzing, tracking, and optimizing the campaigns. Every inside sales campaign is focused on a specific objective. If the campaign is managed the right it can lead to an increase in sales qualified meetings. 

4. Data quality

Performance of your sales campaigns is directly proportional to your data quality. Inferior quality data can lead to loss of leads. You have to make sure to clean and validate your data regularly. Run your email lists through scrubbing programs to catch errors. Set data standards and review them internally. Enforce right spellings, check email addresses, and check for duplicate entries annually. Leads sometimes provide wrong email addresses due to typing errors. Inadequate data quality may also result in an increased rate of bounced emails. 

5. The measure of quality and quantity of SQMs

The success of the campaign may be judged by the number of sales qualified meetings. But the quality of the sales qualified meetings also needs to be taken into account. Don’t forget the purpose of the meetings. Your end objective is to generate qualitative customers. 

How FunnL framework helps to generate sales qualified meetings

As we have seen managing your inside sales campaign is not an easy task. It requires you to focus on multiple aspects that require a lot of time and effort. With an experience of generating 10,000+ sales qualified meetings, FunnL provides you with an ultimate all-in-one Inside Sales Platform that allows you to design, manage, measure, and optimize your inside sales campaign. By focusing on every tiny detail of the campaign, FunnL helps to generate a high number of qualitative sales qualified meetings. Allowing you to focus on your internal work and other aspects. 

This is 2020, the digital world has taken over. Just creating inside sales campaigns doesn’t work anymore. Regular optimization of these campaigns is a must to generate a high number of sales qualified meetings. The goal of optimizing inside campaigns should be to save time and increase efficiency. For your firm to be more productive try following the strategies mentioned above. In case you are looking for generating sales qualified meetings, drop us a message. We will schedule a call for you.