Outbound sales involves seeking out prospects or leads. It’s that cold call you make or cold email you send. It’s every time you go in cold to reach a prospect.
In today’s digital environment, it is seen as the more traditional route of sales. And for some, it’s outdated.
But is it?
The answer: it doesn’t have to be. A core principle of outbound sales is to target your exact market. You go where your market is and not just wait for them to discover your brand. A principle like that can’t possibly hurt a company, can it?
Outbound sales can still work if the strategies are fresh and strategic.
Here are six things you should be doing for your outbound sales strategy:
1. Build a list of ideal customers
Don’t just build a list of customers. Build a list of your ideal customers—those that will benefit the most from your product or service and, in return, generate more business for you. This will make for a stronger list.
An ICP should not be confused with buyer persona. These are two different things. (And we can delve deeper into buyer persona in another post.)
So the first thing you need to create is your ideal customer profile (ICP). Your ICP should cover the following:
- Industry/Vertical
- Company size
- Manpower/employee headcount
- Annual revenue
- Budget
- Location(s)
- Target department (who will use your product or service?)
- Employee size in target department
- Existing technology
- Customer base size
- Organizational maturity
- Technological maturity
- And other data relevant to your product/service
2. Qualify your prospects and segment your list
Learn as much as you can about your leads and score them based on your ICP criteria. After you’ve finalized a list of qualified leads, segment them based on demographics, location, and so on. Doing this can help you craft a personal approach for each lead.
3. Customize your messaging
You’re already coming in cold; you don’t want your messaging to be cold too. Make sure that your sales pitch targets the prospect’s questions and needs. Use the information you gathered while qualifying leads to tailor your message.
4. Create a workflow for your sales cadence.
A sales cadence is a scheduled lineup sales activities or touch points for engaging a prospect. These touch points include emails, phone calls, and social media (more on this below).
A sales cadence helps you stay organized and more efficient. There is no one-size-fits-all schedule for all prospects. It’s essentially a trial-end-error process and you can try out different strategies. The first 7-day sales cadence can look something like this:
In a perfect world, you will get hold of your prospects (or get any form of response from them) on Day 1 or Day 2. But that will rarely be the case. Unfortunately, you don’t really have a hold on your prospect’s schedule, and you will never know when they'll respond. Timing, in this case, is also a trial-and-error process. Try an initial schedule, like the one above, on the first week and then try another on the second.
To keep track of this schedule (your sales cadence) and make sure you're on top of it, you and your team can customize your workflows and automate emails and calls on a CRM.
5. Use social media for what it is: making a connection
Everyone’s on social media, and it’s one way you can quickly connect to a prospect. You can like a post, comment on it, connect with them on LinkedIn. The main thing to remember though is to make a connection first, establish a relationship second. Selling should come much later.
6. Use sales enablement for lead generation
Lead generation is the life force of outbound sales. We’ve already discussed how sales enablement can be very beneficial for any sales team. Sales enablement helps gather, organize, and activate data—including those for generating more leads—for the sales team to use. So why not tap into this so you can generate more leads for your outbound sales strategies?
