Everybody likes to buy, but nobody enjoys sales pitches. So, how do you sell your products?
Do you still contact them through an outbound process and share your product’s USP?
Or start an inbound campaign and wait for them to call and inquire?
Isn’t it a real struggle? Deciding whether to go with an inbound or outbound sales campaign can be frustrating.
On one hand, your brand awareness is enough to attract customers in the inbound process, so it is a cost-effective method. However, a well-designed outbound process can help you reach a wider audience (who may not have heard of your business), increasing sales.
Confused, as both are helpful, right? So, why not opt for both?
Your business requirements decide whether an inbound, outbound, or hybrid sales model will be best for you. Let’s understand the processes and which one to use and when.
Inbound Sales Vs Outbound Sales: Key Differences
Inbound sales is a strategy where a potential lead contacts your sales representative. These leads can be existing customers or people who may have read or heard good things about your product.
Outbound sales are where your sales representative finds phone numbers and emails of potential leads and calls them to convert them into customers.
| Key Differences | Inbound Sales | Outbound Sales |
| Investment | Cost-effective | Expensive, especially for businesses with large potential lead base |
| Must devote more time and resources to an increased audience base. | Leads enter the funnel through content and move ahead with less engagement. | Initiated by a sales rep and requires engagement at each stage. |
| Scalability | Scales automatically without introducing new strategies | Must devote more time and resources with an increased audience base. |
| Business Type | B2C companies | B2B companies |
| Audience | Highly interested and engaged leads | Broader audience, including leads with no interest |
What To Know About Inbound Sales?
An inbound call does not mean a guaranteed sale. Your lead may call to inquire, compare prices, or negotiate a better deal. Your sales rep must follow a well-designed approach and use the right strategy to convert that lead into a customer.
Approach For Inbound Sales
Identifying & Capturing Ideal Leads
- Recognizing your ideal customer and their pain points is an essential step.
- Define your ideal buyer, outlining their characteristics, behavior, and needs.
- Use this information to create content that attracts them.
- Develop SEO strategies or targeted advertising to drive them to your landing pages or websites to capture their information.
Qualifying New Leads
Lead qualification is needed to ensure they match your ICP. You can use a lead scoring model, initiate a conversation, or do both.
Leads are scored based on how well they interact with your content, and the ones matching your ICP are passed to your sales rep.
Once the initial qualification is completed, the sales rep can initiate a conversation with your inbound lead. They can further ask questions to decide whether it is the right fit.
Using A Consultative Pitch
A report from Hubspot suggested sales reps who focus on providing value to their leads are 96% more successful. What does it mean?
Your people must actively listen to the leads, understand their pain areas, and offer solutions per their needs. Simply put, they must use a consultative rather than a sales pitch and encourage leads to try your products.
Negotiation & Deal Closing
Do you know buyers are almost 70% through their buying journey by the time they contact you? So, you need to identify which B2B sales funnel stage your lead is in and assist them accordingly.
Make them understand your product and how it can benefit them. Depending on the stage and the lead, this may take just one call or a few more follow-ups.
Ensure your team identifies and assists the lead at the right stage to close the deal.
Key Strategies For Inbound Sales
Helpful Content To Grab Customer Attention
According to a report, 80% of decision-makers want to read the company’s information through articles versus advertisements. Create content that addresses your potential lead’s problems to attract them.
Informative content, like a blog post, e-book, or video, indicating your knowledge can win customers’ trust, taking them one step closer to sales.
Including SEO Into Marketing Efforts
Search engine optimization is an excellent way to increase brand awareness and organic traffic to your website.
Adding keywords or phrases that your potential leads use to search products can increase the inbound call volumes. A Reddit user also posted how successful SEO implementation can be:
Paid Ads
Social media marketing can also be a game changer for attracting good-quality leads. You can create targeted advertisements based on your ICP’s interest.
These paid personalized ads can create curiosity about your product, increasing engagement and call volumes for inquiry.
Your people must build relationships with leads by responding to these queries and converting them into customers.
What To Know About Outbound Sales?
This method gets a bad rapport because of unsolicited sales calls and the thought that sales reps will push to purchase instead of listening to them.
However, it is one of the best lead-generation methods if done strategically. A Reddit user response to an inbound vs outbound sales query.
Approach For Outbound Sales
Prospecting
Like the inbound process, you start with preparing a list of potential leads but with a difference. In outbound sales, your team looks for people to contact, not vice versa.
There are two ways to build the list – manually (suitable for companies with a small target base) or B2B list providers for extensive and qualified prospect lists.
B2B lists can be created using tools, such as email finder or reverse lookup tools. Regardless of the way, remember to keep your ICP in mind while creating the list.
Outreach
Outreaching is proactively contacting your leads through emails, cold calls, advertisements, or text messages. The key is targeting the audience with relevant and personalized messages so that leads respond. Once they respond, you can start the actual sales process.
Qualifying
Not everyone on your prospecting list may benefit from your product or service, so lead qualification is necessary. You must honestly assess if your product suits them; if yes, move on to the next step.
This step ensures your team will not waste time on people who are not interested and won’t convert. How do you qualify?
Ask them relevant questions and check their interest level, decision-making capabilities, and purchasing power.
Pitching
This is the stage when your people must present their sales pitch. Highlight your product’s USP or showcase how it can solve their problems. The pitch should be relatable, where your lead can imagine themselves benefiting from the product.
Handling Objections
“I see your product is valuable, but I am not sure of buying it because..” This is one of the many objections sales reps hear regularly.
Irrespective of how well you qualified and pitched, there can still be objections to address before reaching the last step.
How do you handle such objections? Actively listen, acknowledge, validate, and provide a reassuring solution.
Deal Closing
“I am ready to buy, what’s the payment option?” We bet every salesperson waits for these magical words on the call.
But wait, not every call leads to a closing. A typical closing takes an average of 5 follow-up calls.
Remember, you must try to close early on the call. You may even have to ask multiple times, listen to their no’s, and re-attempt until they agree.
Key Strategies For Outbound Sales
Mass Media Advertising
Mass media advertising through traditional methods like radio, television, print ads, and billboards reaches broader audiences without using multiple strategies. It also helps enhance brand image and awareness.
Cold Calling & Emailing
Cold calling and emailing are two separate techniques with pros and cons. Cold calling is more conversational and allows you to respond to inquiries immediately. However, cold emailing is much less disruptive and lets you communicate with several recipients simultaneously.
Social Media Ads
If you want a more personalized approach, opt for advertisements on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Such ads target specific interests and demographics, producing high-quality leads and conversions.
Five Questions To Ask When Choosing Inbound Vs Outbound Sales
Now, you know how to approach and implement different strategies in each method. So, which one to choose when?
Ask the questions below to determine when to use inbound or outbound.
- What is your budget?
How much money can you spend on sales strategies, and what is the timeframe for achieving results? Ask these questions to understand budget and business needs.
Outbound sales may be expensive but can produce quick results. Inbound, on the other hand, can be cost-effective but would require more time to show results.
- What does your product/service require?
Is your product complicated to understand? Does it offer the same benefit to every customer, or is it customizable to meet needs?
If your product is self-explanatory, an inbound sales process will be sufficient to handle leads and their objections and close the deals. However, if it is complex with customization, the outbound sales process will be best for effective convincing.
- What is your average revenue per sale?
Determine a sale’s average value. If the number is high, investing in high-touch, high-cost techniques like outbound sales makes more sense. The low average revenue per sale increases the likelihood that inbound techniques will be more cost-effective.
- What is the size of your target audience?
The size of your target audience plays a vital role. Outbound sales work best for smaller groups. However, with a large audience base, you can implement inbound strategies, either combined with outbound or alone.
- How quickly do your customers make a purchase?
If customers can quickly and easily decide on your product and use it frequently, then inbound sales will be successful. Engaging content may help you generate leads and turn them into customers.
However, if your potential customers’ work believes in extensive research and a longer sales cycle, outbound sales will be the best approach. You must personalize the approach and give follow-up calls at regular intervals for conversions.
Inbound vs Outbound Sales: Why You Need Both
It’s really important to weigh the pros and cons of inbound and outbound sales to make the right choice in different scenarios.
Let’s consider a large organization selling non-customizable solutions or products. In this case, creating engaging blogs or videos describing the product can attract potential leads who will approach the inbound team to be converted.
On the other hand, for a software business offering customized IT solutions, an outbound sales campaign using personalized information over calls or emails might be more effective in convincing leads.
However, why limit yourself to just one method?
A hybrid model, combining both inbound and outbound strategies, can be very effective. For example, you can use engaging content to collect leads online, and then have your outbound sales team follow up with cold emails or calls to convert them into customers.
Strategic execution of these methods can help refill your sales funnel in situations where one method alone may not be producing enough leads for conversion.
Moreover, if you execute these methods strategically, they can work to refill your sales funnel in situations where one method is not producing enough leads for conversion. Combining them can increase conversion and sales. Here is what a reddit user has to say:
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FAQs:-
- Is Inbound Sales Cold Calling?
No, the inbound sales method is not cold calling. Inbound attracts leads by posting engaging content, SEO optimization, and paid ads.
- Is Inbound Or Outbound Sales Easier?
Inbound sales are much easier as most leads know about the company and are interested in its products or services. On the other hand, outbound sales require extra efforts in contacting and convincing the leads.
- What Is More Important Inbound Or Outbound?
Both inbound and outbound processes are essential. Outbound provides prospects instantly and broadens reach, while inbound sales establish long-term trust and draw in interested leads. They combine to form a well-rounded sales plan.
- What Are The Advantages Of Inbound Sales?
Some advantages of inbound sales are:
- Cost-effective
- Highly scalable
- Better conversions
- Quality traffic
- High-quality leads
- Builds long-term relationships
- What Are The Advantages Of Outbound Sales?
Here are some advantages of outbound sales:
- Highly targeted
- Quick results
- Effective lead generation
- Measurable results
- Build brand awareness
- Control over sales message
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