Backlinks boost our site’s reputation, authority, and Google ranking. But we don’t want every backlink. Not every backlink has the same value. Some can even harm our site.
These are called “toxic links.” We must disassociate our domain from toxic sites linking to us through “disavowing.” So, how do we find these toxic links and disavow them?
We’re here to guide you through it. By the end of this article, you’ll understand the following:
What is a toxic link?
What is disavowing?
How to identify toxic links
How to disavow harmful links
Is there a need to disavow toxic links?
What are Toxic Links and Where to Find Them
Backlinks from relevant and reputable sites signal search engines like Google that your domain is authoritative and trustworthy.
The opposite happens with links from spammy sites. Your site can get associated with toxic links through black hat SEO practices and channels such as:
Link Farms: Toxic links are backlinks that come from spammy, untrustworthy sites. Buying backlinks from link farms is a surefire way of getting toxic backlinks.
These sites are created to sell backlinks. Link farms can have tons of spam content across multiple topics irrelevant to each other. Most of which are likely automated.
Spammy Listing Sites: Listing or resource sites are great for building backlinks—if they’re not spammy and irrelevant. But sometimes, webmasters can create link top lists with excessive outbound links.
Pages overloaded with outbound links signal to Google that it might be for link manipulation. This can lead to SEO penalties, potentially harming the sites they link to.
Hidden Toxic Backlinks: In an attempt to trick Google, black hat SEOs try to hide toxic backlinks. Some common methods include text manipulation or hiding links behind background colors.
Webmasters can also hide toxic backlinks within CSS elements on their sites. Humans might not see it, but Google’s web crawlers can still see these links.
Forums or Comment Links: Some black hat SEOs automate link building with the help of bots. These bots can link to your site through spammy comments on forums or blogs.
Links like these can come in the hundreds or thousands. Link farms can even use foreign forums. Sites associated with these comments can potentially get penalized.
Negative SEO Attacks: Everybody knows that buying spammy, irrelevant links can lead to penalties. In rare cases, competitors can buy those links for your site, flooding you with toxic backlinks. Luckily the solution here is simple—disavowing.
What is Link Disavowing?
If spammy sites link to yours, disqualify their backlinks with a disavow. It’s like saying “no thank you” to those toxic links and signaling Google that you have nothing to do with the link.
We disavow to maintain a healthy backlink profile. But before disavowing, we need to identify where the bad backlinks are coming from.
How to Identify Toxic Links
Tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush can help you find toxic links through backlink audits. Here’s a quick look at how to identify these toxic links using Ahrefs.
Enter your domain into Ahref’s site explorer tool and click on the Referring domains report. You’ll get an in-depth view of all sites that link to your domain.
A tell-tell sign of toxic links usually comes in the form of low DR (domain rating). However, a low-DR site doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a toxic link.
You should review these sites. There’s a high chance that they’re just new sites. Look at the anchor text, domain name, or top-level domain (sites with .ru or .cn, for example).
Once you have a list of unwanted referring domains, export it and submit it to Google’s Disavow Tool.
How to Disavow Toxic Links
Disavowing toxic links is as simple as uploading a text file on Google’s Disavow Tool. You can find it within Google Search Console.
Formatting for Disavow File
The file format for the file should be encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII. You can upload a maximum text file size of 2MB or 100,000 lines.
The link format is as follows: domain:toxicwebsite.com. If you want to add comments, start a line with “#”. Google will ignore these lines.
You can specify if you want to disavow a single page or an entire domain. With your list properly formatted, all that’s left is to upload your text file.
Uploading the File to the Disavow Tool
Go to Google’s Disavow Tool. Select your property (a disavow list only applies to one property). Then, click the upload button and choose the text file created.
If the file has errors in formatting, Google will show a warning. When successful, Google will incorporate your disavow list as it recrawls the web.
Do We Need to Disavow Toxic Backlinks?
There’s been a debate about whether or not disavowing bad backlinks is necessary. Some SEOs say that we need to maintain a healthy backlink profile.
Others say disavowing is only necessary when links cause manual action. And that you should focus on building relevant and high-quality backlinks instead.
Disavowing won’t remove bad backlinks. They’ll still be in your backlink profile. But they won’t be associated with your domain from Google’s perspective.
No matter your opinion on disavowing the matter, protecting your site from potentially harmful links is always a positive. Plus, it’s not that time-consuming to do.
Just be careful not to disavow sites that actually benefit your backlink profile.
Key Takeaways
Building a robust and healthy backlink profile is critical to the success of any SEO campaign. However, blackhat SEO practices, link farms, and bots can lead to our site getting toxic links.
It’s best practice to disavow these links to prevent potential harm or penalties. Here’s a quick rundown on how we can do this:
Find toxic links through backlink audits using tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.
Export the list of domains with potentially toxic links to your site in a text file.
Format the text file as “domain:examplesite.com.” You get one disavow per line.
Do you already have volumes of high-quality content but still struggle to rank higher on search engines? Sometimes, all it takes is relevant backlinks to see significant results!
Unfortunately, backlinks are now a commodity. Natural backlinks are scarce. What you need is a proactive strategy to help you build relevant backlinks. We’re here to help.
By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to learn the following:
Are backlinks necessary?
Realistic backlink-building strategies
Backlink building best practices
Are Backlinks Worth It?
Short answer?—Yes! They signal search engines like Google that your content is valuable, authoritative, and worth sharing.
The issue is not all backlinks have the same value. Some may even harm your site. That’s why routine backlink audits are essential in every SEO strategy.
You want backlinks relevant to you, your audience, and your content. Imagine being a SaaS company with dozens of backlinks from lifestyle websites. It’s not a good look.
But with relevant backlinks boosting your domain’s prominence, you’re on your way to significantly improved rankings. You just have to know the right strategies to get them.
Relevant Backlink-Building Strategies
The strategies we’re about to show are a mix of content-driven approaches, outreach, and prospecting. It is tedious work, but the payoff will be worth it.
So, find a strategy that resonates with you, test it out, and adjust as necessary. Here are 12 strategies that can help you build relevant backlinks no matter the industry:
Link Prospecting
Link prospecting is a proactive approach to backlinking. It follows the same principles as any sales prospecting strategy. But instead of customers, we’re looking for potential link partners.
With backlink-building tools such as Ahrefs, prospecting is as easy as three steps:
Find relevant websites open for link-building
Finding the web admin’s contact information
Contacting web admin’s and sending your link-building pitch
We’ve made an in-depth link prospecting guide using Ahrefs. If you want to prospect manually, avoid link farms at all costs. They typically appear when you search “keyword + guest blog.”
These sites often cover multiple niches and exist solely to sell backlinks. You’d be better off spending that money on backlink building services.
Creating Linkable Content Through Topical Authority
Backlink building is easier when you can publish quality content in high volumes. Establishing topical authority helps with just that.
Topical authority means covering every angle on a topic. For example, if you’re in SaaS selling an email marketing tool, you could write topics on:
Email marketing tools
Cold email best practices
Metrics to track in email marketing
Use keyword themes to find supplementary content from those initial topics. Cold email best practices could have a subtopic about email warmup and so on…
Exhaust every topic as much as possible without cannibalizing keywords. With a robust content library, your audience benefits, and you get more chances of getting backlinks naturally.
However, there will be times when your site or content is cited without a proper backlink. When this happens, there’s no harm in asking for credit where credit is due.
Asking Credit From Unlinked Mentions
Sometimes sites will cite information from your research or give credit, but don’t link back to the source. It happens a lot. A quick reminder can quickly remedy this issue.
We can find these brand/business mentions through tools like Google Alerts, Screaming Frog, or Ahrefs. Don’t hesitate to reach out once notified of an unlinked brand mention.
They’ve already cited you as a source. Chances are, they’d be happy to link back to the original material.
But whether or not they respond is out of our control. What we can control is the type of content we publish. Make sure that it includes original research, case studies, and insights.
Publishing Original Research/Case Studies
Relevant data is one of the most valuable things you can offer in exchange for a backlink. Think case studies, infographics, or unique strategies.
When publishing these types of content, think about context. Do your unique insights benefit your audience? If so, in what way?
Answering these questions helps you package dense data into contextually understandable pieces of content. It’s great for building backlinks and supporting “ultimate guides.”
Ultimate Guides
Ultimate or definitive guides provide massive value to readers. These are long-form content that covers the A-Z of a topic. Of course, you want to prove that your “ultimate guide” works. This is where your original research, case studies, or infographics come in.
Backlinko and BuzzSumo did a study suggesting “why,” “what,” and “how to” posts, along with infographics, get the most backlinks. All are perfect for ultimate guides. When writing, go in-depth.
Cover everything you can about a topic. This is much easier with a robust library of linkable content and original data. With such a large volume of information, you must also create contextual internal linking structures in your guides.
Of course, your guide would take a while to rack up traffic and get backlinks naturally. So, why not share it with peers on social media?
Social Media Outreach and Engagement
A huge part of link-building is outreach and establishing relationships. One of the best ways to do both is by being active on social media and building an online presence.
Let’s say you’ve finished writing a high-value guide. The next thing you can do is promote it on social media platforms like X. But you don’t just want to share a link to your article.
Instead, package it in a way that makes sense for the platform. In X’s case, this comes in the form of threads. Bite-sized snippets of your ultimate guide.
You also want to engage with your community while posting your content. Comment on other people’s posts or Tweets. Provide value. Offer solutions to problems. Build relationships.
Doing so will make it easier for you to build relevant backlinks through guest posts or resource citations.
Creating Linkable Roundup Posts
Roundup posts are articles on the “best, top, and must-haves” in an industry or niche. First, find a topic that can be turned into a roundup post.
For example, “Best Lead Generation Tools to Look Into In 2023.” The concept is simple, you write about the best tools you could find and make sure it’s link-worthy.
Don’t just run through the features of each tool. Focus on how it benefits the users. Find unconsidered needs or unique strategies using the tools.
Then, reach out to the websites you’ve linked. They might share your article with their audience since it’s something valuable. Of course, for outreach, we recommended going with email.
Email Outreach for Guest Posts
Email outreach will be your go-to strategy for contacting web admins for a backlink or guest post. Most of these web admins probably don’t know you or your brand.
This means you must learn about cold email marketing strategies specifically for backlink-building. As a quick rundown, all you need is:
An email list of web admins to send a guest post pitch to
Solid email copy
Volumes worth of linkable content
Cold emails for backlinking are more effective with the help of email tools like Instantly.ai. If you want to do things manually, that’s fine as well. Just remember to hyper-personalize each email.
Your goal is to have web admins publish your article. So, look at your pitch from their perspective. What are the benefits your article gives? Is it relevant to their audience?
To answer these questions, research your link-building prospect’s website. Find the type of content they publish and find gaps you can fill with yours.
Be specific with how you found them and how you can benefit them. After that, it’s time to draft your pitch. Here’s an example template you can use:
Hey, {{first name}},
I recently saw your LinkedIn post on {{topic}}, and I loved your insights—so I had to check out more on your site! I noticed you regularly post about {{industry}} best practices.
I’ve been in {{industry}} for {{X years}} now and have a lot of insights I want to share, especially on {{niche topic}}. I think {{prospect’s website}} is the place to do so.
I believe your audience can get a lot of value because of:
{{value proposition 1}}
{{value proposition 2}}
{{value proposition 3}}
I’d love to send you some of my previous work if you’re interested.
Thank you for hearing me out. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
{{your name}}
Key Takeaways
Building relevant backlinks significantly improves your authority, signaling search engines that others are vouching for your content. This ultimately results in improved rankings.
But if you want to build relevant backlinks, you need to use strategies like the ones mentioned above. To make the most out of these strategies, follow these best practices:
Leverage backlink prospecting tools like Ahrefs to find opportunities faster
Build a robust library of linkable content, ideally with original data
Find unlinked mentions using tools like Screaming Frog
Build relationships with prospects through social media or email outreach
Most opinions on the subdomain vs. subdirectory for SEO debate take the “It depends” stand.
That’s not the most exciting answer, but it makes the most sense.
Every business is unique. How a website is structured, whether based on subdomains or subdirectories, depends on the business and its intended audience.
Here’s the caveat—If you want the most value from your SEO efforts, subdirectories are king. We’re here to expand on that idea and attempt to take a firm stand. But first, we need to learn:
Subdomain Vs. Subdirectory
How subdirectories and subdomains affect SEO
When to use subdomains and subdirectories
Why subdirectories are (for most scenarios ) better for SEO
Subdomain vs Subdirectory
Both subdomains and subdirectories have their pros and cons. At the end of the day, how one or the other is used becomes a business decision. To help you decide, here’s a look at both:
What is a Subdomain?
A subdomain acts as an extension of your main website. You can easily spot a subdomain as it is always in front of your main domain.
Subdomains act as different entities from your main domain. But Google Search Central says Google is smart enough to know that your subdomains and main domains are related.
The issue is several case studies prove otherwise. We’ll get into that later.
First, let’s look at an example of a subdomain from Semrush. “Semrush.com” is the main domain. Meanwhile, “careers.semrush.com” is a subdomain specifically for hiring new talent.
What is a Subdirectory?
A subdirectory lives within your main domain and comes after the main domain. You’re probably familiar with subdomains like domain/blog or domain/contact.
Think of a tree. That entire tree is your domain. All the branches it has can be subdomains. The only difference is that subdirectories can branch out infinitely. Trees can’t.
But just because you can have infinite subdirectories doesn’t mean you should. It has to be based on your business model, the type of content you need, and your audience.
Take Salesforce as an example. Unlike Semrush, it uses subdirectories for its careers page.
As mentioned earlier, using subdomains vs. subdirectories is a business decision. In this case, Salesforce decided a subdirectory for their careers page was better for their business.
That might not be the case for your specific business, especially if you want the best results from SEO efforts. So, how do both affect your SEO?
How Subdomains and Subdirectories Affect SEO
Before getting into the nitty gritty, let’s step back and look at things from a macro perspective. Businesses generally invest in SEO to attract customers by ranking higher on search results.
The best way to do this is through high-quality content published at scale.
Here’s where the debate starts. Where should you put your content? You have two options: First, use subdirectories. Most would use the subdirectory “blog.”
Option two is using a subdomain. Instead of “domain/blog,” you get “blog.domain.”
Which is better? Let’s dive in!
Subdirectory Pros
In most cases, subdirectories provide the most benefits for your SEO efforts. When using subdirectories, expect the following advantages:
Shared Link Equity
Let’s say you have a high-traffic article in the “blog” subdirectory. Since that subdirectory is under your main domain, the main domain also gets SEO benefits like link equity earned from backlinks to blog content.
Better Site Architecture
Using subdirectories also provides a better site architecture and content context, making it easier for Google’s web crawlers to index your site.
Site-Wide SEO Applications
Subdirectories make it easier for site owners to apply domain-wide SEO best practices. Subdomains are treated as entirely different sites.
You’d need to reapply those best practices (in most cases, a different SEO strategy) for a subdomain altogether.
Convenient Navigation and Better User Experience
Consider how many clicks users need before getting to the content they need. Users would be redirected to another site if that content is on a subdomain.
Think about the user experience and their convenience. Subdirectories provide better sitelinks from Google. If you look up Spacebar Collective, you’ll get this result.
These sitelinks help your audience get to what they need most from your business. Again, reducing the number of clicks it takes to go from point A to B.
Subdirectory Cons
Creating subdirectories can be tricky if you haven’t strategized on site architecture beforehand. This can lead to the disorganization of subdirectories and disadvantages such as:
Confusing Content Categorization
For example, users might struggle to find the blog they want to read if they have volumes of content about various topics.
But this can easily be solved by creating subdirectories within subdirectories. Let’s say you have a lifestyle-centered website. It can have subdirectories for food, mental health, or workouts.
Lack of Flexibility
Another con, and probably one of the main arguments for subdomain vs. subdirectory, is the latter’s lack of flexibility. Subdomains are treated as entirely different websites in the eyes of Google.
Site owners can customize a subdomain’s design, function, and overall content. Subcategories are typically limited to the main domain’s CSS, themes or templates.
Subdomain Pros
Using a subdomain is a sound idea if your business has an arm or segment that strays away from your main domain and targets specific audiences. Let’s use Semrush again as an example.
Its main audience is businesses that want to scale SEO campaigns with their tools. So, it makes perfect sense for them to separate “Careers” as a subdomain.
Subdomains are great for targeting audiences outside your main domain’s primary ones. And you can build upon keyword clusters tailored to a niche that might not apply to the main domain.
Subdomain Cons
Businesses that achieve SEO success with subdomains do so despite it, not because of it. Creating subdomains isn’t practical for most businesses from an SEO standpoint. Here’s why:
Complex Tracking and Analytics Set-up
Subdomains require more complex cross-subdomain tracking. Plus, you’d need to link each subdomain to an analytics tool as it acts as its own website.
Setting up the necessary analytics alone is already time-consuming and can cost more in the long run. Hosting services can charge more if you want a plan that includes subdomains.
Subdomain Benefits Don’t Immediately Apply to Your Main Domain
Regarding SEO and ranking specifically, you’d be better off using subdirectories. Remember, Google treats subdomains as its own entity.
All the link equity from backlinks and topical authority won’t directly impact the ranking of your subdomains. It would be like starting SEO from scratch without strategic internal linking.
Content Curation
Finally—content. One glaring issue with subdomains is keyword cannibalization. If you have topics on your main domain similar to your subdomains, you’d be competing against yourself.
When To Use Subdomains Vs. Subdirectories
As a rule of thumb, we use subdirectories for content that fits within the context of our main domain. These include our blog content, services, and other verticals.
Using subdirectories to house relevant content creates better trust, consistency, and topical authority. All of these are essential for ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
But, if you need to target a specific audience that doesn’t fit contextually with your main domain, go for a subdomain.
The most common subdomains include support, careers, or specific landing pages. Here’s an example from Apple’s customer support arm.
Apple’s support subdomain has a specific target audience—users needing support with their products or services. Here, Apple tailors the entire subdomain for different support services.
However, using “blog” as a subdomain can work in specific scenarios—like in the case of Hubspot. They have an entire subdomain dedicated to their blog content.
The main reason this works is because Hubspot is a content machine. The amount of volume they can pump out in such a wide variety of topics demands its own subdomain.
But we recommend focusing on subdirectories for most businesses, especially those just starting with SEO. Here’s why.
Why Subdirectories are Arguably Better for SEO
The best SEO strategies for ranking higher on SERP are pretty basic and boring. You just need to create high-quality content for your audience and build relevant backlinks. Then repeat.
Doing this process repeatedly for your main domain builds authority over time. And you have the added benefit of concentrated cumulative growth from your keywords as they rank higher.
However, repeating this process for a subdomain means growth for that specific subdomain only. The benefits don’t immediately apply to your main domain.
There could be an argument that traffic from the subdomain could carry over to your main domain. But why go through all that effort when it could’ve been done on the main domain in the first place?
So, unless there’s a specific business need for a subdomain, your SEO efforts are better suited for subdirectories. As previously mentioned, dozens of case studies support this theory.
Here’s one from Alyeda Solis. Here data shows the massive difference when she migrated the site’s blog content from a subdomain to a subdirectory.
Before Migration:
After Migration:
Key Takeaways
While subdirectories are arguably better from an SEO standpoint, subdomains still have beneficial use cases. This all depends on your business model, content, and audience.
So, the final verdict?—Use subdomains when it makes sense for your business. But, if there’s no real need for a subdomain, subdirectories offer the most benefits regarding SEO, such as:
The ability to apply site-wide SEO best practices
Sharing SEO benefits between subdirectories and the main domain
Boosting link equity from backlinks to the overall domain
Better user experience and content consistency
Organized and easy-to-navigate site architecture for faster indexing
One of the best ways to succeed in sales is with a repeatable, measurable, and dynamic system. But, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all all strategy for every sales team.
What works for others might not be effective for you. You need to create your own. We’re here to help! In this article, we’ll be going over:
The importance of developing a dynamic sales strategy
Examples of proven sales strategies
Step-by-step guide on creating your unique sales strategy
Why is a Sales Strategy Important
Without a sales strategy, you’re going in blind. Intuition is necessary. But trusting your gut won’t work for every scenario. Instead, decisions need to be data-driven.
With data on your side, you can create the fundamentals for a solid sales strategy. Doing so provides your sales team with the following benefits:
Long-term Growth
In every sales playbook, the goal will always be achieving long-term growth. A clear and defined strategy helps you get there. That’s because sales don’t have a linear path—it’s dynamic.
Strategies need to be flexible. Assess issues from different angles. You might need a strategy that works across multiple platforms. Other times, a strategic relationship with other businesses.
Improved Buyer Personas
Buyer personas allow you to attract and retain the customers you want. It boosts engagement, streamlines the sales process, and lets you focus on your customers’ needs.
Remember, one of the most powerful tools in sales is personalization. A strategy with improved buyer personas allows you to segment customers better, making personalization streamlined.
Diving deeper into your buyer personas ensures your business decisions are driven by the voice of your buyers. This grants you the ability to understand buyer expectations and market for it.
Revenue Boost
You can boost revenue through a variety of methods. A sales strategy helps you find the most efficient and cost-effective one. With a system in place, you can make data-driven decisions on increasing revenue.
Can you increase prices? Should you focus more on cold email outreach? Or is it time to branch out and develop new products or services? A solid sales strategy answers all of this for you.
Reduced Acquisition Costs
Customers are the lifeblood of any business. They keep businesses running and help them scale. However, finding new customers can be costly.
With a sales strategy, your business can focus on how you can reduce acquisition costs whether that be lead nurturing, creating loyalty programs, or customer feedback loops.
Sales and Marketing Language Stay Consistent
Your brand image doesn’t start and stop with your ads on social media. It extends across the entire customer journey. From the get-go, you need to deliver consistent and clear messages.
This starts with identifying your target audience. Once that’s done, your sales team needs to strategize on how to bring them value as they go further down the sales funnel.
But, the language has to be consistent. Emphasize certain words, phrases, and themes. Done right, it helps keep your brand top-of-mind.
Sales Strategies You Should Steal
The High-Low Strategy
This strategy plays into our psychology. You don’t give a potential customer what they want immediately.
Instead, you show them something out of their price range and then show them the product they want. The stark contrast creates that illusion of choice.
Let’s take Apple as an example, they make it work on both ends. They show you something expensive then show you something more affordable.
So, are you going for the more affordable iPhone 14 for $799? The Plus variant is only $100 more! But you’d get more features with the iPhone Pro. And, for another $100, you can get the Pro Max. Now, the choice to go higher seems way more justifiable.
Freemium Pricing
The strategy is quite simple: offer free services and charge customers for advanced features. You offer free use of your core services—but if customers want to do more, they’d need to pay up.
Google and Apple are great examples. Google Drive and iCloud are free cloud storage services available to all Google and Apple users. However, customers need to pay a regular subscription plan monthly or yearly for bigger storage.
Nurturing Existing Customers
Most of the time, the best source of revenue is right under our noses. In this case, it’s our existing customers. They already trust our brand and are more likely to buy our products.
So, we should always nurture customers even after a sale is closed. Happy customers have higher average order values (AOV) and are easier to cross-sell or upsell.
With a CRM tool, you can easily personalize email nurture campaigns to keep them in the loop for product updates, promotions, and discounts.
Don’t forget to offer excellent customer support. Your customers will be more inclined to go to your business. They can even become advocates of your brand through word-of-mouth.
How to Create Your Own Sales Strategy
As mentioned earlier, strategies that work for others might not work for you. But, you can always create your strategy with these simple steps:
Set Goals
Goal setting is the most important step in any sales strategy. To streamline goal setting, use the SMART method. It outlines a strategy that’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
But, before setting your goal, you still need to assess your own business. What are the resources available to your department? Do you have the right email marketing tools to find leads? Aside from goal setting, make sure you’ve put your team in the perfect conditions to succeed.
Understand Your Unique Value Proposition
In most markets, pricing for similar products and services is competitive. You’d often find products A and B having almost identical pricing.
What makes you stand out is your unique value proposition. To identify what this is, you can start by answering the following questions:
Who are our ideal customers?
What specific issues can we solve for them?
What can our competitors give our target customers?
The last question can easily be answered by conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Talk with your team and strategize.
Build Buyer Personas
Understanding customer needs is only half the battle. Once you do, segment the customers who are most likely to buy. To do this, you need to gather information on your ideal customer.
Get demographic, behavioral, or psychographic information. This is best done through a mix of surveys, interviews, or gathering data from your CRM.
Paid databases are an option, but you’d need to be extremely careful. Ensure the data is from a legitimate source. Use email validation tools to make sure you’re sending to the right people.
Here’s a quick checklist of what to look for:
How old is your persona?
What are the potential job titles they might have?
What are their career goals?
Where are they located?
What hobbies do they like outside work?
Create Action Plan
After figuring out what to go for, you need to ensure your sales team is on the right page. This is best done through an action plan. It outlines what your sales team should do based on the research you did in the previous steps. Here are some examples:
Conduct lead generation campaigns through Quora, LinkedIn, and Reddit social platforms.
Run through support tickets and determine the customers who could benefit most from your offer.
Upsell or cross-sell previous customers. Highlight the benefits; don’t focus too much on the features. Emphasize straight away how the upsell or cross-sell adds value.
Maintain Sales Pipeline
Your sales team should be prepared to handle each step of the sales pipeline. Each pipeline differs depending on the business, but as a rule of thumb, it should look something like this:
Prospecting: Lead generation through social media, email marketing, or website.
Qualifying Leads: Using buyer personas as a template to identify sales-ready leads.
Demos: Scheduling a demo with qualified leads
Proposals: Defining the price of products, services, or custom-made solutions.
Closing the sale: Explaining what’s next after the sale (onboarding, implementation, expectation setting).
Nurturing: Following up with customers to ensure satisfaction with products or services.
Measure and Analyze Performance
Set your key performance indicators (KPIs) based on your goals. Review sales performance quarterly or annually to identify what strategies work, what needs fine-tuning, and which strategies to let go of.
Best Practices in Building Your Own Sales Strategy
Now that we know the step-by-step outline, let’s make sure we make the most out of it. Here are five best practices to help you create your best sales strategy:
Add Context To Data
It’s easy to cite statistics and data online. But, without the proper context, even the most helpful cold sales statistics become boring old numbers.
To add context, try incorporating a story. Make it relatable. You can’t just ask people what they want and say you’ve got what they’re looking for.
They’ve probably heard that spiel a hundred times over. Instead, tell them what they need through context. Include case studies and real-life examples. Compare your customer’s data with yours and show them what’s missing.
Sales and Marketing Should be a Team
When creating your sales strategy, the marketing team should be a key player. You don’t want sales and marketing to be individual departments doing their own thing.
Businesses need marketing and lead-generation tools to help sales find the right sales-ready leads. If they’re not on the same page, it can create gaps in your strategy that lead to failure.
Sales should become the starting point for any marketing campaign. The brand message, tone, and overall image should be consistent.
Build a Strategy Around Customer Expansion
A lot of businesses spend a chunk of their resources on lead generation or customer acquisition. But, most revenue comes from existing customers.
Even after closing a sale, your existing customers have a lot of untapped revenue. The challenge is getting the right message across.
You need to reinforce your brand as the ultimate solution to their problems. Be proactive when it comes to delivering these messages. Stay consistent with the messages across all platforms.
Avoid Choice Overload
You need to be careful if your sales strategy involves additional or premium services. As a rule of thumb, you don’t want to complicate your buyers’ decision-making.
Adding more “value” through extra services might seem like the differentiator between you and a competitor. But, there will be a chance that customers will go into choice overload.
Don’t go overboard. Instead, try to look into your prospect’s unconsidered needs. For the same service or product, prospects get added value from these “unconsidered needs”.
Create Urgency Through Change
Committing to change is difficult. As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. That’s why emphasizing features and benefits isn’t as effective as it should be.
On paper, even if you’ve got better features than competitors, prospects would still be reluctant to change. That’s because change is often associated with risk.
We mentioned earlier that we should create context around our data. We’ll use that here to break through to our prospects. Make a compelling case for change.
Compell them to change first before trying to convince them to switch to you. Try offering alternative solutions. But, position yourself as the ultimate choice.
Key Takeaways
Sales strategies can easily define how successful a business can become. Without it, businesses remain stagnant. To ensure growth for the long term, follow these sales strategy best practices:
Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.
Lead generation should always be paired with lead qualifying to build buyer personas.
Always nurture existing customers to improve their AOV.
Measure and analyze performance to fine-tune and optimize your sales.
Utilize CRM and email marketing tools to support your sales endeavors.
