Getting Leads is Great — But Are You Converting Them Into Paying Customers?
Lead conversion in manufacturing has shifted in recent years from a traditional relationship approach to being a more automated, structured, and repeatable process. While relationships and service are still critical to success, sales teams no longer have the time, capacity, and resources to operate similarly to pre-pandemic years.
As a leader for your organization, you’ve likely seen this shift take place in your team and processes — and its subsequent impact on revenue growth. But, if you’re like other manufacturers, implementing a solution has likely been a challenge for the same reasons that your team hasn’t been able to adapt to change: time, capacity, and resources.
- These aren’t the only challenges, though. Download our latest guide to overcoming common business development barriers here.
Today, it’s critical for executives and sales leaders to consider alternatives and solutions that offset these challenges — even if it means going outside the four walls of your organization. If you’ve worked with private equity firms or other outside investors, you’ve likely been asked to outsource certain tasks or functions in order to allow your company to focus on achieving other high-priority objectives. The same principle applies here.
In doing so, your organization benefits from all of the things that you’ve needed to address the shift mentioned above. Here, we’ll outline what these are and how working with an outsourced team can help you achieve your goals.
Benefits of Outsourcing Lead Conversion in Manufacturing
A Holistic Marketing Strategy is Implemented and Managed
Does your current marketing strategy leverage both outbound marketing and inbound marketing solutions to attract new prospects and turn them into leads? Both channels are essential to new business development, but it’s important that they are executed simultaneously. Outbound is an intentional approach that proactively puts your business in front of prospects to generate new business, while inbound is a more passive approach that leverages SEO, content marketing, and more to ensure prospects find you when they’re seeking solutions on their own.
A Front-End Sales Process is Parsed Out
Right now, your sales team is likely handling all aspects of every new deal from start to finish and beyond. This means prospecting, nurturing leads, preparing quotes, ensuring orders go out on time, and even handling account service and production issues. This has to change. In order for your company to achieve its revenue growth goals, your sales team needs to be focused on doing what it does best. When it comes to lead conversion in manufacturing, reallocating many of these functions to a front and sales team will allow your existing sales team to focus solely on revenue generation.
A Proper CRM System is Built and Integrated
How are you managing active deals with prospects? Surprisingly, many small business leaders still aren’t using a CRM or their chosen platform isn’t being used properly or meeting their needs. Using a properly set up CRM system for lead conversion in manufacturing is essential for winning new business. It segments deals/prospects into categories based on the actions or follow-up needed, allowing your team to prioritize their time accordingly. But that’s just scratching the surface. Of course, setting up a CRM system (or fixing one) requires specific skills and time. This is where leaning on a partner can help.
A Cadence for Sales Management and Improvement is Set
All of the above will not be as helpful or fruitful if a repeatable process isn’t established to coordinate sales activity, ensure deals are moving forward in the pipeline, and reviewing progress to identify opportunities for improvement. Even if you decide to outsource business development and lead conversion for your manufacturing business, it’s critical to periodically review how things are going. By leaning on an outsourced partner, your team will be able to focus on its priorities while your partner sets a cadence for analysis and assessment — both for sales activity as well as marketing efforts.
Stronger Lead Conversion in Manufacturing Starts Here
From packaging and corrugated manufacturers to injection molders, label manufacturers, custom tooling producers, and more, Athena partners with leaders and sales teams across a variety of industries to implement a structured front-end solution backed by a holistic marketing strategy to produce consistent revenue growth. We’ve worked with dozens of manufacturers in these sectors and more across the country — and with great results that you can explore here.
If you’ve been looking to strengthen your sales processes and achieve stronger revenue goals, we’re the partner you need to make it happen. Learn how our process works in a private overview — schedule yours today.