Create an Effective Outbound Lead Generation that will make your business flourish

March 1, 2021

In this blog, you will get a brief about Outbound Lead Generation:

Difference between Outbound and Inbound Lead Generation
B2B vs B2C Outbound Lead Generation Strategy
5 Benefits of Outbound Lead Generation
Most Common Challenges with Outbound Lead Generation
6 Most Common Types of Outbound Lead Generation
- Cold Emailing
- Social Media
- In-Person Strategies
- Cold Calling
- Direct Mail
- Events and Trade Shows
Conclusion

While many companies focus on inbound leads nowadays, outbound lead generation is still an integral part of any company’s success. It’s one of the best ways to increase your leads, which in turn should grow your sales and set you apart from your competition. However, it’s important to use the correct strategies and the best techniques to target potential customers effectively. Today we’re going to share everything you need to know about outbound lead generation and the most effective strategies for the current time.

What is the difference between Outbound and Inbound Lead Generation?

While we are solely focusing on outbound lead generation strategies today, it’s important to understand the difference between inbound and outbound lead generation. Inbound marketing is incredibly popular nowadays and focuses on organic and passive sales. In this method, customers will contact your company, as opposed to you approaching them first. This sales method focuses on organically closing sales instead of that being the primary focus of the activity.

Inbound sales work by understanding the needs of customers and working to fulfill these. Salespeople who work in this manner try to guide consumers without forcing or pushing them into a decision. On the other hand, outbound sales use sales reps or various marketing methods to target and engage a potential buyer. This is a way to target customers who weren’t necessarily looking to purchase your product or service but may be interested once approached by your business.

Difference between B2C and B2B Outbound Lead Generation Strategy

Business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses generally opt to use inbound marketing. They prefer an approach that isn’t so focused on sales and aims to help customers instead. B2C businesses also prefer to avoid any activity that looks like spam or that may damage their business’s reputation. They prefer to offer a personalized service, which is often impossible with outbound lead generation. Business-to-business (B2B) industries usually have much better luck with outbound lead generation. As the number of potential buyers is reduced and items are being sold at a higher price point, it’s generally a more successful marketing tactic. Of course, inbound lead generation is also very effective with this business type, and these leads are often more likely to result in sales. By using the two tactics together, you can maximize your business’s potential.

5 Benefits of Outbound Lead Generation

There are many great benefits of outbound lead generation, which make this an area that’s well worth researching further for most businesses. Some of the top advantages of outbound lead generation include:

Quick – If you are looking for quick results for your business, outbound lead generation will garner much faster results than inbound sales techniques. Inbound marketing techniques can take years to see results, and while they may pay off in the long run, they are not a good option if you need immediate results. By targeting your desired market, you’ll find sending emails to the right contacts can provide you with the quick results and sales you desire.
Control – With an outbound lead generation campaign, you have full control over your interactions with potential customers. While inbound marketing is great for creating good connections with customers, you are reliant on customers approaching you each day. With outbound marketing, you can target the number of clients you need without over or underdoing it each day and week. This makes it a great option for small companies, who can stop and start using these techniques as needed depending on how your business is doing at the time.
Personalized Messages – In order to have an effective outbound lead generation strategy, you’ll want to ensure your messages are personalized. This will give you the best chance of success, as a message that causes an individual to react is far more likely to result in a sale. Use your contact with potential customers to build a relationship and get them interested in what your company has to offer.
Automated Processes – Over time, you’ll learn how you can automate the outbound lead generation process, and with some of the software available today, you’ll find you can make this option as effective as inbound lead generation.
Control – You will have full control over your marketing campaigns and can choose exactly who you want to target and how you want to approach your customers. If you offer a product or service for businesses, you can choose to only target small or large companies in order to get the business you are looking for at the current time. This can help you avoid smaller companies or customers who may not be so worthwhile if you are looking for a quick improvement to your sales figures.

The Challenges You May Face with Outbound Lead Generation

While there are many benefits to outbound lead generation, it’s important to be aware of the challenges you may face. By avoiding these issues, you can help to set yourself up for the best chance of success.

Finding Leads – Finding the right leads will be your first task. While it’s okay sending emails to anyone you can, you ideally want to use this tactic to target your ideal customer. You should already know your ideal customer for your business, so by targeting these people and companies, you’ll have the best chance of success. You may have to use your detective skills online to find emails or phone numbers for potential clients, which may take a good amount of time and effort.
Choosing the Right Contact Method – In this day and age, it’s crucial to choose the right method for contacting potential customers. You’ll need to decide what form of communication is most likely to succeed, as oftentimes, a phone call or email may be completely ignored.
Catch their Attention – Once you’ve gathered contact information and are ready to reach out to potential clients, you’ll want to make sure you grab their attention. We all know how many emails are sent to us each day, so you’ll want to catch their attention with a unique subject line. The timing of your contact is also critical to your success, and you’ll want to test out different times of day to find the most effective time to target potential customers.
Converting Sales – After getting in contact with potential clients, the aim now is to convert this into a sale. If you’ve arranged a call or meeting with a client, you’ll want to do everything in your ability to get them to show up to your meeting. At this point, you’ll want to ensure your sales rep uses the right language and tactics to engage and empathize with the contact.

6 Most Common Types of Outbound Lead Generation

There are many different options when it comes to outbound lead generation. As every business varies so much, it’s important to select the option that will work best in your industry and with your business model. By selecting the outbound lead generation strategy that works best for you, you’ll have a greater chance at succeeding and closing sales in the future.

Cold Emailing

While many companies avoid this tactic nowadays, it’s actually one of the best outbound lead generation strategies. Many companies opt to use this as their primary form of contact with potential leads. When sending cold emails, you’ll want to ensure you choose the right time of day to contact your clients and catch their attention with your subject line and email content. This is one of the most straightforward outbound lead generation strategies to automate and can be used in many ways to target companies and customers effectively.

Social media sites, including business-related sites such as LinkedIn, are a fantastic way to make genuine connections. These sites allow you to target your ideal customer, so you can avoid wasting your time on companies or people who are not a good fit for your business. Other good social media sites to consider include Twitter and YouTube, with Facebook coming in at a much lower success rate. The main challenge with this outbound lead generation strategy is avoiding looking like a spam message. So many companies use social media to sell their products nowadays that messages are often ignored. However, by using personalization and making a good first impression with your potential customers, you can create a genuine connection and set yourself up for a better chance of success.

In-Person Strategies

As well as online strategies, another option is to attend networking events and use in-person strategies. While this will not be a good option for dramatically growing your business, it’s a good way to find high-quality leads. You’ll want to find very specific networking events that target the type of customer you are after. There’s no point in attending general networking events which may bring together businesses from a wide selection of industries. Especially for start-ups and small, new businesses, this strategy may be one of the best ways to transform your business and meet your sales targets.

Cold Calling

In a similar manner to cold emails, cold calling works to target customers and try to sell your services directly. This will not be a quick and easy task to undertake, especially if your business is on the larger end of the scale. Once you’ve employed a team of salespeople, you’ll need to spend time coaching them to gain the best results. After this, a skilled team of salespeople can be the key to your outbound lead generation success. However, as with cold emails, you need to be careful not to come across as spam each time you call a potential customer. Ensure you have a solid script for your team to use, which will generate genuine interest from the receiver of your marketing calls.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is still used in many industries as one of the top ways to target customers. This involves sending a piece of mail using a postal service to target a customer in their home directly. It can be an incredibly costly strategy, as you’ll pay for each item you send, as opposed to using an electronic strategy. It’s also very difficult to track this method’s results and know whether it was an effective campaign. The biggest advantage of this tactic is that you will have much less competition. The average person receives far more emails a day than physical mail. You have to collect your mail and physically put it in the trash, so it’s far more likely to get read, even if just very briefly. When used correctly, you can get a great return on investment from this outbound lead generation strategy.

Events and Trade Shows

Events and trade shows are a great way to meet new prospective clients and often result in genuine interactions with interested consumers. You’ll have a captive audience on the day of the event, who are usually interested in the industry you are working in. However, you’ll want to ensure you only attend events and trade shows that are related to your industry to get relevant leads. If you start attending general events and trade shows, you may find you are wasting your time, and your team will spend the majority of their day taking part in irrelevant conversations. For this strategy to be effective, you’ll need to employ a team of professional salespeople. A charismatic and approachable team will give you your best chance of succeeding when out in the field.

Final Thoughts

When you combine a few of these outbound lead generation strategies, you’ll find your chance of success is increased greatly. Ensure you take the time to think about the most effective way to implement these strategies to avoid looking spammy when approaching potential clients. By establishing a genuine connection and showing interest in the client, you’ll be more likely to catch their attention. Of course, once you’ve got the attention of a customer or business, you’ll need to work towards closing the sale. Ensure you employ the right tactics and strategies throughout the process, and you’ll find outbound lead generation can be a beneficial tactic to use to increase your business and sales.