Companies find themselves struggling to figure out the best approach to sales: invest heavily in an outbound approach, trying to actively coax leads into learning more about their products and services? Or have users find the company through different inbound sales strategies and generate sales through customer-led inquiries?
Inbound call center providers as well as outbound service call centers can provide a company unsure of how to proceed with expertise to generate enough sales to meet business objectives.
In this post we’ll explain the difference between inbound and outbound services and how companies may benefit from each. We will walk you through how to best implement each type of strategy. The main differentiator between the two is the source of the lead: is an operator or salesperson generating it, or has the company created some marketing mechanism or enjoys sufficient organic reach to pull users in?
Outbound Sales Strategies
In an outbound lead generation campaign, prospects come through the direct contact of an operator or marketing campaign. This can be based on the customer’s interests, cold-calling or through other outreach efforts.
To generate steady outbound sales your company will need to deploy a professional outbound sales or business development team, a task oftentimes outsourced to a call center. This includes sales prospecting, building target lists of people to contact and generating leads and feeding them into a pipeline for efficient outreach.
Outbound marketing can be very tricky – customers who aren’t coming to your brand or website on their own might be reluctant to engage with operators or marketing material they didn’t solicit themselves. But utilizing data-driven marketing techniques and persistently reaching out to a contact list can indeed generate results and bring in new clients.
Inbound Sales Strategies
Inbound sales are every company’s dream: a customer is already interested in learning more about your products and services and reaches out to learn more. Inbound sales professionals thus have a greater chance of converting prospects into paying customers.
But it’s not as easy as responding to incoming leads. Sometimes prospects are merely looking for information, other times they are taking advantage of promotions and won’t be making a concrete purchase. Without a real intent to move forward in the purchase process, some buyers’ needs aren’t 100% aligned with the company’s.
Best Practices for Inbound & Outbound Strategies
Setting up the right mix of inbound and outbound marketing channels can seem daunting. But with the right set up and processes in place, your company can start generating a healthy mix of inbound and outbound leads and see sales increase. Here are some of Sara Call’s best practices for setting up and implementing inbound and outbound sales strategies.
Set Goals: Define the Customer Journey
No one wants to feel “marketed” to, and nobody will buy your firm’s message if it’s externally imposed. Every successful outbound sales strategy rests upon a solid understanding of the customer journey and a comprehensive analysis of what the consumer needs.
Instead of checking boxes, take the time to learn about your customer’s purchase journey:
- How does your customer learn about the product or service you’re offering?
- What are the channels they use to learn more about what they’re missing out on?
- How long does it take for the average consumer to reach out to a firm to learn more about its service offerings?
- Do they require consultations, face-to-face meetings or phone calls before making a purchase?
- What are the most important factors the consumer takes into account before making a purchase?
- How much post-purchase customer support is necessary to ensure customer satisfaction?
Map out the customer journey by asking these questions and then implement a solution that answers each question. This way, your sales team can add value to the consumer at every step of the journey.
Understanding the customer journey helps your inbound and outbound sales strategies by informing the best way to reach consumers and how to design your service or product offering.
Customize and Simplify Your Messaging
No one has time for complicated marketing slogans – the best way to reach clients is by using concise language that communicates the heart of your service offering directly. Make sure you are speaking to clients in clean, straightforward language that communicates the value proposition in the most seamless fashion possible.
Don’t use templates – customers can always tell when your messaging is cut and paste. Customize each message so it resonates with the client’s specific needs. This allows your outbound strategy to be more effective and gives customers the feeling that you have taken the time to get to know them and their needs, empowering them to purchase.
Gather and Act Upon Internal Data from Your Team
No one individual has the entire picture of the consumer journey and process. Make sure you are collaborating across sales, marketing, product development and other teams on a regular basis to get feedback on what is and isn’t working.
Salespeople should be open to suggestions and different approaches from colleagues and external sources. As you implement your inbound and outbound sales strategies you will start seeing results, for better or for worse. Make sure your team is documenting every process that is helpful and noting what is driving customers away and share on a weekly basis internally.
Once you have a full picture of the efficacy of your inbound and outbound marketing strategies and have solicited feedback from teammates, you will be able to adapt your product and service offerings to better fit customer needs.
Inbound and Outbound Sales: Better Together
Today’s marketplace is full of opportunity, but it’s also hyper-saturated and extremely competitive. Consumers’ attention is fragmented across multiple verticals, presenting limitless but fragile opportunities for finding and engaging with prospects.
To succeed in selling consumers on your service offering, you will need to learn about their customer journey, adapt messaging to fit their needs and act upon collected data to figure out the best methods for reaching out to leads and making your message resonate.
The sales pitch your team starts with in the beginning of your campaigns will not be the one that converts your prospects into customers at year’s end. After analyzing preliminary results, speaking with internal stakeholders, carrying out market research and changing your messaging, you will discover the right way to reach out to customers and sell them on your company’s services.
The readiness to learn about, adapt and change your sales strategies is what will convert your inbound and outbound sales strategies into successful marketing ventures. By defining your customers’ journeys, customizing messaging and consulting with stakeholders on best practices and approaches, your team’s inbound and outbound campaigns will bring in more meaningful leads and convert them at higher rates.
Benefit From Inbound & Outbound Call Center Services, Today!
Partnering with an experienced BPO vendor such as Sara Call Center can help your firm find new clients while enjoying savings of up to 70%.
With a decade of experience with cold-calling, telemarketing and other inbound and outbound call center services, you can rest assured that we will help your firm find new customers and increase sales. Get in touch today!