On one side, we have got inbound only people. The inbound sale is famous for being able to attract customers in any business  because it is cost effective and scale very well. But on the other hand, outbound sales proves itself opponent of inbound sales. It often requires human touch and it focuses on pushing ideas onto unsuspecting prospects. Although it is one of the most powerful ways to build trust and maintain control.

What is Inbound Sales?

Inbound sales should be the goal of our inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing involves in pushing out the valuable content to the market to build trust and brand awareness. The more helpful the content is the more leads will come to us. Inbound sales generates higher quality leads so that repository can focus their attention on those which are the best fit for our product or service. This frees up their time and focus more closely on each leads’ needs, challenges etc. When they don’t have to weed through the hundreds of cold leads, they can deliver a  better and more personal experience to their receivable leads.

What is Outbound Sales?

Outbound sales refers more traditional forms of sales such as cold calling. Cold calling is still an important part of any sales strategy and the outbound sales is not limited to cold calling. It involves any tactic in which a repository reaches out to a cold lead to make the first contact.

outbound sales

Examples of Inbound Sales

1. Social Selling

Social selling consists of making connections via social media by sharing helpful content, relying to our customer’s posts, engaging the prospects in dialogue, following the prospects and social listening. Social listening involves by using the social CRM software it helps to receive alerts in anytime that someone mentions in the social media. The importance of social selling as inbound sales tactic has never been so great. While so many people using social media multiple times daily, it is an easy and nonintrusive way to reach our audience and show them that we truly take care about and inspire by our industry. A survey says that, 64% of the sales team incorporate social selling into their inbound sales strategy which hit their sales quotas while 49% of sales team don’t leverage social selling.

2. Lead Scoring

Lead scoring consists of creating a scoring model that awards lead points for behaviors and demographic data. We can set a lead scoring qualification threshold. Once a lead earns enough points to pass that threshold, they are considered to have displayed enough interest in our product for a sales repository to reach out. We can also award points for demographic or personal data leads providing through web forms. As an example, if someone completes a lead form and lists their job title as CEO, we may award them five points because it is an indication that they are decision maker. If someone enters their title as an assistant, we may award them one point for the decision making process to buy our product.

 

Examples of Outbound Sales

 

1. Cold Calling

If we use all-in-one CRM, we can integrate technology apps with our core system to streamline and automate the cold-calling process. We can use features like an auto-dialerto make ten times an many calls in the same amount of time. We can also use pre-recorded voicemail drops to leave a pre-recorded voice mail with a single click of mouse. When we sent a voicemail, we click the recoding we want to leave and it is automatically left in the individual’s inbox while the auto dialer moves us on to the next call.

2. Social Media

We may not have immediately thought of social media as an outbound sales tactic, but it can be highly effective. If a repository identifies someone as being good fit for their product, they can research their LinkedIn profile to learn more about their interests.

3. Email outreach

Sending emails to cold leads is not as tedious as it sounds. With the use of marketing automation solution, sales repository can automate the sending of hundreds of emails in one repository without having to send each one individually.

 

Conclusion

As mentioned, we can’t be dependent on just inbound sales strategies to meet and exceed the sales criteria. Similarly, we can’t be dependent on just outbound sales in these days as customers are getting savvier and less patient when it comes in receiving cold calls and cold emails.