A first difference between: Outbound Lead Generation and Inbound Lead Generation.
What is the difference between Outbound Lead Generation and Inbound Lead Generation? In the marketing world these two terminologies are used and applied extensively, but let's get into the details and clarify.
Inbound Lead Generation was created with the goal of enabling leads to spontaneously inquire about the services the startup itself offers them. Information to leads comes through content generation in different social platforms (strategically chosen by the startup itself) including: website landing page, blog, Linkedin post or Instagram post, depending on the population segment we want to attract.
Inbound Lead Generation aims to generate awareness in those who come into contact with the brand, it is proposed as a solution, a targeted response to problems that people are trying to solve, for which an answer has not yet been found.
It answers the: why would you need our product? The reasons should be perfect to their need and guide them to the call to action.
The methodologies used in Inbound Lead Generation include: content marketing, blogging, lead nurturing, social media and SEO with the goal of providing content that enhances the brand, creating the perception of consistency between one piece of content and another and between the various services offered by the startup.
Outbound Lead Generation, on the other hand, operates with different goals and ways: contact is the first word of mouth, i.e., potential customers are sought through emails, phone calls or social channels (purely LinkedIn). At this stage it is important to generate interactions with our potential customers, making them aware of the services and products offered.
Outbound Lead Generation: the heart of the Sales team
Sales As A Service is one of Rocket Dreams' core services, in the Sales team, Outbound Lead Generation is the rule, why?
The Sales team being always on the lookout for potential customers to turn into qualified leads, takes full advantage of the potential that the Outbound Lead Generation process can offer them at the strategic level and in fact also assumes importance through the techniques mentioned in the previous paragraph among which the role of cold emails always stands out in the foreground. The process of accompanying the potential customer towards the purchase is the practice, follow-up emails/calls and negotiations with the customer also follow, to always have as a fixed end goal, the closing of the sale.
The elements that Outbound Lead Generation and Inbound Lead Generation have in common.
Although on the surface we seem to be talking about two diametrically opposed approaches, there are some commonalities between Outbound Lead Generation and Inbound Lead Generation:
- 79% of marketers worldwide have as their main goal generating quality leads, both Inbound and Outbound and increasing awareness towards the brand.
- The most successful strategies are based on a combination of Inbound and Outbound Lead Generation approaches.
- Segmentation of the target audience (industry, company size) must be carried out for both methods.
The 5 Benefits of Outbound Sales Strategies
1) The speed of getting results with outbound strategies.
The first advantage of using outbound strategies in sales is the speed with which results are achieved compared to applying inbound strategies, let's analyze the importance of Outbound Lead Generation in Sales:
Instead of using inbound techniques such as content marketing and SEO, which take time (even a year before the investment pays off, due to competition) and resources; outbound strategies take over. So instead of publishing a post in the blog section of the landing page website of interest, waiting for it to rank on Google, a cold email targeted to qualified leads is often the most effective solution.
2) Personalization
The second advantage to using outbound strategy in sales is personalization: when you want to contact a potential customer, it is of paramount importance to send a personalized message.
The customer must understand that we are the solution to his or her needs, and this personal awareness must arise in order to allow our message to be perceived as beneficial and thus to elicit a response. It is very important, in the early stages, to build a connection, a relationship with the customer (and then also to be able to hold them to the same standard).
3) The controllability of rhythm
The third advantage to using outbound strategy in sales is that this approach allows for an unlimited amount of leads each day. After the targeting, offer, and sales process is in place, the number of prospects in the pipeline can be adjusted.
4) The controllability of targeting
The fourth advantage of using outbound strategy in sales is controllability of targeting, that is, being able to control the type of potential customer you want to get and choose to have as many potential customers as you want.
For example, if you choose the companies to which to target an email campaign, you can easily eliminate leads that are too large or too small, an action that you cannot do with inbound strategy.
5) Automation in the sales process
The fifth advantage to using outbound strategy in sales is the ability to become partially automated, thanks to the right team and tools.
The importance of planning a strategy
The topic is lead generation, and one of the most common mistakes companies make in this regard is thinking they will get more leads without implementing a demand strategy.
A targeted choice is to combine an outbound lead strategy with an inbound lead strategy for demand generation to maximize the overall effectiveness of our actions. In fact, if we used only an outbound lead strategy, besides being costly over time, it has a weakness: when we stop doing outreach, we stop acquiring leads.
A good demand generation strategy focuses on educating our market; we must not lose focus on nurturing these potential customers so that they have a good understanding of what our product is.
The point is that if we only put in place the cold call action, we are not functionally using the time to educate our leads. Clearly, it would be much easier to approach leads by simply asking "if they are interested/ready to buy and if not, move on," but demand generation strategies generally take longer to yield optimal results.