You may have heard about how B2B marketers are very excited over the recent leaps and bounds made in inbound marketing. This is not without reason, the statistics behind inbound are a phenomenon:
- 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day (AOL & Nielsen)
- Companies that blog 15+ times per month get 5x more traffic than companies that don’t blog (Hubspot)
- Blogs give sites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links (Content+)
- Companies with an active blog report 97% more leads (Content+)
- Interesting content is a top 3 reason that people follow brands on social media (Content+)
- 90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them (Custom Content Council)
- People want to be in control of the content they receive: 86% of people skip TV commercials; 44% of direct mail is never opened; 91% of email users have unsubscribed from a company email they previously opted out of (Content Marketing Institute)
However this is by no means an end to outbound marketing, such as outbound telemarketing and email marketing too, if you’re still emailing from purchased lists (as opposed to opt in lists, generated by your inbound marketing campaigns); particularly if you are selling large and complex B2B products/services. While inbound is incredibly effective there are a few major short comings which can be covered by telemarketing. Intelligent sales and marketing is all about bringing the past, the present and the future together to deliver great sales results.
Lead Generation
Sales ready?
A prospect may get fantastic content and information from inbound, but how will you know when they are sales ready without lead scoring? Visitor tracking is handy but outbound telemarketing undertaken correctly will give you immediate answers with no guesses.
This is very important as you want your sales team to be able to work on the prime prospects rather than wasting their efforts on people who don’t have the budget, authority, needs or time (BANT).
Outbound Telemarketing.
Outbound links Inbound to Sales
Without having an outbound system integrated with your campaign you won’t be able to see if a prospect is sales ready or if you need to do lead nurturing. If you put all of these elements together and you are able to make the content flow then you are well on your way to generating consistent quality leads for your sales team.
By integrating your expertise of both inbound and outbound you will increase the effectiveness of your sales team considerably. Not only will you be minimising your sales team’s wasted efforts but also your prospects.
Good relations with your prospects is the key for consistently high conversion rates and outbound telemarketing plays a key role in this aspect. Telemarketing and email marketing are among the most effective ways to get immediate data on whether there is anything more you could do for your prospects. In this way outbound can attain a much more personal approach to feedback, appropriate for B2B.
Inbound Marketing
How do I link my outbound and inbound?
Create calls to action in your outbound campaigns to lead to your website and/or inbound efforts, this raises awareness fast. Continue your offline campaigns online. Use social media to share extra content relevant to what you have promoted. Blog about a mix of offline events, a new exciting product just hit the shelves, planned attendance at a trade show, or expanding your business (either location or services).
Hopefully this article has helped to inform why outbound is still a fundamental component of marketing even if you should focus strongly on inbound.
Sales Accelerant – The Sales Lead Generation Company.
As a lead generation company Sales Accelerant delivers high quality, effective B2B inbound and outbound sales lead generation services.
Call the Sales Accelerant team TODAY on 0845 3058145 and experience the sales approach difference that makes the difference.
