You know that effective marketing strategies can bring in new business. Creating and sharing content, sending emails to your newsletter list, posting on social media – these are just a few actions that can showcase your expertise and draw in new leads.

However, it's equally important to have a sales strategy that aligns with and complements your marketing efforts. Specifically, it's important to build up and sustain outbound sales activity. This includes compiling a list of right-fit prospects and reaching out directly on a consistent basis.

Top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) activity is essential for fueling your overall sales and marketing strategy.

Here are some ways that TOFU sales activity strengthens and improves your results in sales and marketing:

Generate More Touchpoints

Some research suggests, on average, it takes eight touchpoints between a lead and your company before they become a client. A touchpoint is a point of contact between your company and your lead, which could be an email, social media post, blog post, video, advertisement, personalized message, or even a phone call.

This is really important to remember when you’re putting together a strategy. Many MSPs make the mistake of thinking that an occasional email or other outreach is enough for people to know who they are, but in reality, it takes much more than that to build a relationship with your prospects or leads.

That, or they have bandwidth issues in business development and simply aren't able to complete the manual tasks necessary to stay on top of their targets.

You also have to consider algorithms and inbox congestion. Even if you send a great email or put out an amazing post, only a fraction of your audience might actually see it. So it can take even more points of contact to hit that eight touchpoint goal.

Build Personal Relationships

Great inbound marketing might bring in a few leads, but your sales team can provide a personal connection with your business. A phone call, email, or LinkedIn message can start the conversation with your prospect or lead, allowing your sales team to find out what they really need, and if your business would be a good fit for them.

Consider reaching out personally to right-fit prospects after they've expressed interest in what you can provide (watching a video, clicking through to a specific website page, signing up to receive content).

Follow Up More Consistently

According to Backlink, only 8.5 percent of outreach emails receive a response. But when that same contact was emailed more than once, it resulted in 2X more responses. Additionally, 80 percent of sales require 5 follow-up calls – but 48 percent of salespeople never follow up.

The numbers show that in many cases, following up works – as long as you’re willing to send the extra email or make another call.

You can leverage automation to do this, but putting more focus on TOFU sales activity can help align your sales organization around the importance of "getting the reps in" and staying in front of potential clients until they're ready to buy.

The Bottom Line

Marketing is an important piece of bringing in new business, but it can only go so far. Your sales team plays an important role in identifying and finding right-fit prospects, reaching out to build relationships, and using what marketing creates (content assets, messaging, etc.) to help nurture towards a close.

If you can combine the sales and marketing successfully, you have a better chance of bringing in qualified leads who are excited to work with you.

See how we use HubSpot to build automated prospecting campaigns that drive more first-time-appointments: