10 Lessons Outbound and Inbound Marketers Can Learn From Each Other
This article is a guest post by Mike Damphousse, president of Green Leads, a firm specializing in demand generation services.
Over
the past month or so since deciding to implement Hubspot for our company, I’ve
been consuming Hubspot’s online educational materials that cover best practices
for inbound marketers. I read a blog article by Rick Burnes on the topic of Outbound Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing, and it got me thinking that there
may be more similarities than differences. We can all learn a bit by looking at inbound and outbound marketing.
What Inbound
Can Learn From Outbound
1.
Persist - Outbound marketers will dial the same person multiple times per day,
for days on end. Do the same with
inbound tactics. For instance, I know there are some long tail keywords that
get little to no impressions per day, but I keep those campaigns fully funded and
keep creating content around them. Prospects that search those phrases are the
best leads I’ll ever get.
2.
Target – Outbound sales reps are typically snipers. Don’t think of inbound
marketing in too broad a manner.
The best inbound marketers already do this – they hyper target. Write blog articles on narrow, relevant
topics. Bid on keywords that are
so specific they are sniper shots. Drive the most relevant visitors to your
site.
3.
Quality vs. Quantity – Inbound marketers can sometimes be overly focused on volumes
of leads. They should also be looking at the quality of those leads and the
ability for them to convert to pipeline activity. Outbound marketers doing appointment setting would rather
have 5 quality conversations a day than 50 wasted ones.
4.
Be Human – Sales calls are all about the human conversation. Don’t sit behind Google searches, landing
pages and emails forever. Engage
the prospects as early as they can be engaged. Create industry leaders and personalities for your company.
People want to buy from people.
5. Rapport – The best
outbound specialists I know can gain rapport with an individual or admin in
less than 3 minutes. Do the same
with inbound efforts. Present
quality content, don’t sell too hard, and treat the visitors with respect. Don’t force them to click
“unsubscribe.”
What Outbound Can Learn From Inbound
1.
Provide Content – Prospects don’t want to hear a “blah, blah, blah” sales
pitch. If they are going to spend time on the phone, they want value. Create
content that a prospect wants to hear. Say things that add value to the
conversation.
2.
Listen and Wait – Don’t sell so hard that the prospect can’t speak. Put the
value statements out there, ask questions, then wait for them to educate
themselves and raise their hands.
Yes, this can be done in a phone call.
3.
Convert – Treat every call the same way inbound marketers treat a landing
page. Make it informative,
uncluttered, and drive them to convert from a low value prospect to a higher
value prospect. Convert them to pipeline prospects.
4.
Relevant Keywords – Inbound marketers spend enormous amounts of time developing
relevant keywords to build value behind.
Do the same. Understand what your prospect wants to hear, and use those
keywords during the call. Listen
for the keywords to come from the prospect as indicators.
5.
Analyze – I’ve never met an inbound marketing program that didn’t have a geek
behind it. Track everything and measure
it: dials, connects, pitches, conversions, RFIs, etc. If you modify your style one week, or get a new lead source,
track the numbers. Know what works
and what doesn’t.
Bonus Tip: Master Both Inbound Marketing
and Outbound Marketing
I’ve
visited software and service companies that provide products and services that
support inbound marketing activities.
I know their senior marketing and sales leaders. The one thing the best of them have in
common is that they all have sizable outbound marketing programs. It’s the same with the outbound
marketers that are thriving right now. They are implementing solid inbound
programs and are seeing results. A
well balanced demand gen program maximizes inbound and outbound efforts.
What
other similarities do you see? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
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