Inbound Vs Outbound Lead Generation

The purpose of putting out my take on the “inbound vs. Outbound” question is to help you create a well-balanced campaign.

Sitting and making a couple hundred calls a day is not really what we consider sustainable for sales reps. Cold calling is also impossible for business owners to keep up with while running their business.

An effective outbound campaign is about leveraging technology to laser focus your target market and reach them in a personalized fashion with incredible messaging.

Doing this allows you to spend time on folks who actually show interest in what you offer.

We’ve seen it time and time again with LeadFuze clients.

It’s also about setting up and using inbound techniques to gather every targeted lead you possibly can. While we’re partial to outbound, we also heavily use inbound (which you’ll see later).

• The Sales Rep: You make the world go round. Products and services find their rightful home due to your diligence and skill. Prospecting is the gasoline to your engine and we intend to help you fill up your tanks (or pipeline) better than ever.
• The Sales Leader: Your job is to enable. To train, motivate and meet team goals. Often times, you want to find better training materials and process-based guides. We hear you and hope you enjoy the next 7 chapters and use it for your team.
• The Business Owner: Owners are the first sales rep for their businesses. But you’re also running the business itself. An automated outbound campaign can help grow revenue without waiting on inbound to kick in or spending money on ads (not to mention saving you time).

Why Most People Fail at Outbound

Before we dive into the guide itself, it’s worth noting that most don’t do it. Or, they try for a while and give up.

Here’s why.

It’s a Mind Game (for You)

Some of the things you may be thinking about outbound could be;

• Is it spam? One of our most popular pieces of content is “What is Cold Email (and is it SPAM)?”
• Who Do I Email? Finding your target market, decision makers and their contact data are vital to success for outbound.
• What Do I Say? If you manage to find great leads to email, what is it that you actually send them to get them to respond?
• Do I Have the Time? Email templates, inputting contacts, writing follow-ups. There’s a lot that goes into the setup.
• Is It Worthwhile? The work that it takes needs to have a long-lasting payoff. Does it?

Chances are, you have a couple of these things in your mind. And for most, it means…

…You Don’t Give Outbound a Shot

Unfortunately, there are consequences to this decision. Think about your quota or your business and see if any of these apply to you.

1. You Live on Referrals: More referrals mean more deals, but less mean big problems. Getting referrals is inconsistent and relying solely on these makes it impossible to forecast sales.
2. Sub-Par Clients: Without a focused outbound campaign full of your ideal clients, you’re forced to take what you can get. Often times that means working with people who aren’t the best fit and may even stir up trouble.
3. Stagnant or Lost Income: You can never have consistent growth without a consistent sales process. Can you, at least somewhat, accurately forecast what you’re going to bring in next month? Next quarter?

By now, it should be obvious whether or not we’re speaking to you. If so, please keep reading.

This epic guide was made for you and can massively help your business or your quota.

Here’s what inside for you.
Let’s get started.

We love inbound. Every week, we work with contributors and publish our own content that provides value and targets keywords.

And inbound has been amazing for us. Really.

In fact, we’d love to erase the “VS” and put in an “AND” to make it “Inbound and Outbound”.

Here’s why.

The data shows a conflicting story in the world of business.

According to HubSpot’s “State of Inbound 2018” report, most organizations are primarily using inbound marketing techniques.

From our experience, “primarily” means, it’s the only thing they’re doing. But look at what these same companies (who say they rely heavily on inbound) say about their struggles.

First, they want to close more deals and improve their sales funnels.

Secondly, they realize that prospecting is their weakness.

But what does the data mean?

You can look at stats, facts and figures all the day long. But without understanding how they affect you, or in this case, give you an opportunity — it’s pointless.

So, how are these stats pertinent to inbound/outbound? Glad you asked.

Everyone wants to pit the two marketing strategies together, like a boxing match. That’s just not fair to either.

Of course, inbound can bring you massive amounts of free traffic that you can use to find the right candidates.

And outbound can be used to;

• Quickly build revenue
• Establish an initial customer base for your startup
• Start acquiring your dream clients
• Aggressively acquire customers in a new market
• And more

It’s Not a Fight.

Stop trying to make them box. Instead, figure out how you can use them both to tag team growth like never before.

But We Do Love Outbound More

We’ve established that inbound is awesome. That said, we are a tool for automating outbound prospecting and outreach.

Here’s why we love outbound more.

You Can Target Who You Want

Think back to one of your favorite deals. If you’re a sales rep or manager, it could be the client who was curious, genuine and a solid deal to close.

For a business owner, it could mean those same things as well as that client being super easy to work with (not to mention never causing you headaches).

It could be the big brands that order dozens, or hundreds, of accounts.

Whatever that perfect buyer means to you, whoever it is — you can target brands/contacts that look EXACTLY like them.

Now, imagine replicating that customer 10 times. 50 times. 100 times.

Inbound says you create what they want to hear, wait until they’re looking for it and they’ll come to you. Outbound says that you create something they want to see, reach out to them and see if they’re looking.

If they are, you get the deal. And if they’re not, you wait with your ideal buyer in your CRM.

I don’t mean to make inbound seem like “if you build it they will come”, but in terms of clients that are perfect for your business — it’s much better to actively seek than to wait and see.

It’s Scalable Using the Right Tech

Finding the right leads (that fit your ideal customer profile), crafting an offer, emailing them a great email, and scheduling follow-ups are all a part of a proper email outreach process.
Finding the right leads, crafting an offer, emailing them, and scheduling follow-ups are all a part of a process of outreach through email. Click To Tweet Doing each of these things takes time. And even while doing it all manually takes less time than cold calling, it’s still hard to manage.

Automating this entire process is the reason LeadFuze (and our integration partners) exists.

Once your details are set (market, roles, company size, etc.), Fuzebot automatically finds leads that fit your firmographic profiles and sends your ideal leads to the tools you use most every day.

All you have to do is talk with prospects who wanted your offer and responded!

The Point is…

Once the setup is done and you’re satisfied with the open rates and responses your’e getting — you can ramp up your efforts and really see growth.

Have we convinced you that outbound is a viable option that can be used in conjunction with inbound and other marketing techniques?