A common-sense approach to designing an effective sales strategy involves meeting two time-tested variables: relevancy and timeliness. Merriam-Webster defines relevant as “having a significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand”, and timely as “coming early or at the right time”. For those selling through sales channel partners, there is complexity in making this happen. Inbound marketing techniques are a terrific way to naturally determine relevance. We go from being insignificant to relevant when someone searching the internet for a solution to a problem finds something of value from our company. The result – our company is viewed as a thought-leader and we make it to a short list of companies they may buy from.
What’s left? Timeliness. These buyers may be conducting online research out of curiosity or they may need an immediate solution. In today’s B2B buying environment, manufacturers or sales channel partners who are discovered in the buying process early get the best sales leads. In fact, research from Forrester has shown that 74% of the time buying teams buy from companies that are the earliest if not first to help create a solution with a researching buyer.