A successful inbound strategy is a lean, mean, efficient lead generation machine. If your inbound machine humming, you’ll need a little something to boost it’s performance. Something to get more meetings, and book more demos. Personal gifting through Alyce is that “little something.” Let’s dive into the basics of how to build an inbound business development program using Alyce.
Balancing Qualification and Intent During the Buyer’s Journey
Before you start gifting left and right, it’s important to understand the phase of decision-making your inbound lead is in. Buyers are more informed and more educated than ever. By the time they come to your website to request a demo or download a piece of content, they’ve done their due diligence to diagnose both their needs and your offerings.
A well defined Inbound Business Development strategy focuses on both the behavior-based signals of intent in your prospects and their level of qualification. For example: if you’re a MarTech software company it wouldn’t make sense to send a gift to a lead whose job title is “Student” after they submitted a demo a request. A Student clearly isn’t in a position to invest in a new piece of software so the return on the investment made by sending a gift will be highly unlikely to be returned.
On the other hand, if your MarTech software company receives a demo request from a VP of North American Demand Gen from a company based in a territory your company supports, using Alyce to compliment your inbound business development strategy is well work the investment.
If you haven’t mapped out your ICP, lead qualifications, an intent signals, you’re not quite ready to get the most out of Alyce. Assemble your team and use this article to document the ideal Contacts and Accounts for your business.
Adding Alyce to your Inbound Business Development Strategy
In order to build an inbound business development program using Alyce, it’s important to understand the hierarchy of lead sources to prioritize your outreach to those leads that meet your criteria for qualification and intent.
Demo Requests:
Due to the nature of their request, these visitors are considered at the highest level of intent for your solution. While lead qualification and behavioral intent are important, it’s also important to keep a keen eye out for the company names coming through demo requests. While the job title of these leads might not match your best-fit contacts, the company very well could fit your ICP.
To follow up with your inbound leads from Demo Requests, here is the ideal follow up cadence using Alyce:
Behavior-based Events:
Behavior-based events are the “tell” of finding the right time to connect with your inbound leads. With the introduction of intent-based data platforms into the inbound selling motion, it’s easier than ever to use this additional layer of intel to find the right time to connect with your inbound leads.
- Visiting Review Sites: Visiting a review site is a high intent signal from your Inbound Lead. Provided they are a warm lead, this event is a great time to reach out with an Alyce gift and a video positioning yourself as a subject-matter-expert on your company’s core value prop.
- Viewing competitive comparisons: Another high intent signal, a competitive comparison is a perfect time to reach out to your inbound lead to discuss any questions they might have about your offerings.
- Time Spent on Industry-related Sites: A more subtle intent signal, time on site could indicate a prospect being in the Awareness – or information gathering stage of their Buyer’s Journey. This is a great way to use an Alyce gift coupled with a post-gift CTA to serve additional content related to your prospect’s industry.
- Keyword Searches: Depending on the searches themselves, this could be either a lower intent or higher intent signal. If your inbound lead is searching for competitive comparisons, this high intent signal is a great time to reach out with a personal video and a personal gift.
Corporate or Personal Milestones:
Here are a few things to consider when using behavior-based events to connect with inbound leads:
- Company Announcements: Updates to your inbound lead’s company such as awards, recognition, new integrations, or product releases are the perfect time to use Alyce to send a congratulatory gift.
- A Promotion: Updates to your inbound lead’s role or title are a great way to reach out with authenticity and celebration. Use Alyce to send your lead a gift to brighten up their workspace or send a gift that compliments their #5to9 reminding them that hard work pays off.
- 3rd Party Recognition: As 3rd party publications publish features and/or pick up news about your inbound lead, use this event to spark conversation with your inbound lead and demonstrate that you’ve taken a vested interest in their success.
- A Recycled Lead Joins a New Company: Keep your eyes peeled for any updates on leads you have recycled back to Marketing. If a lead you worked a few months ago lands a role at a new company, use this moment to celebrate their joining a new team with an Alyce gift.
- Social Posts that Align with your Value Prop: If you’re keeping close tabs on your leads on social media, like, comment, and share posts that compliment the value prop or vision of your organization. Pro-Tip: get the rest of your team active on your prospect’s posts by asking them to like, comment, and share posts that deeply resonate with your brand.
Speaking of using social media …
Social Selling:
If you’re not using social selling to research, connect, and build relationships with folks in your ICP, this is the perfect time to start. For those of you who lean into LinkedIn to build rapport with your inbound prospects, consider pairing your social outreach with a gift using Alyce Activate. With a universal gift code, you can include a gift in your next LinkedIn message to your inbound lead.
Alyce: Setting you Apart from the Competition
In a selling environment where the competition has never been more fierce and the noise clouding the limited attention span of your louder than ever, your inbound selling strategy has to rise above the rest. Use personal gifting to as an accelerant to your current strategies to give your cadences the boost they need to get you more meetings.
For more suggestions and templates on how to drive more conversions from Alyce, check out our ebook:
The Ultimate Guide to Driving Conversions with your Gifting
