Is Outbound Dead?

According to the research conducted by Jake Dunlap at the beginning of the year, only 17% of outbound teams were able to meet their targets in 2023. Outbound is becoming increasingly difficult, and we all feel it in some way. Our email open rates are declining, more activities do not lead to more meetings, and account managers are complaining that they are not getting enough leads from inside sales or BDRs.

Why aren't outbound activities working? What should we fix?

First of all, your sales processes should be suitable for your company and product. You should consider whether what I'm going to say applies to your products as well. Maybe you have a very niche product and don't need outbound efforts at all; attending just one industry meeting might be enough. Or maybe your business is already going well with digital advertisements. If so, continue on your path!

Now, let's remember what outbound was for those remaining: Actively reaching out to customers. This can be done through email, phone, mail, and messaging on social channels. For more detailed information: Link

The elephant in the room: Email. 

Outbound team members complain about not getting responses via email. So, are we going to stop using email in outbound processes? According to Rain Group's research in 2024, 80% of buyers prefer to be contacted by sales teams via email. So, quitting would not be the right decision.

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The first thing we need to do is abandon the "bulk email" option. Unpersonalized, generic emails not only fail to work but also damage your reputation. Anyone working in this area will tell you how important personalization is. Yet, the number of those sending bulk emails is incredibly high. This was an issue in one of the teams I worked with; we were complained to the CEO for opposing mass emailing 😀 Moreover, the complainer had been a senior sales manager in these dynamics for years. Younger, less experienced teams are much more likely to do this, so clearly share that bulk emailing should not be done.

Personalizing is not just about using an automation tool to send personalized subject lines. It is very important to prepare content customized to the customer's needs. We are aware of the pressure from sales teams for the number of leads; let's think together about how we can optimize this.

ABM guru Declan Mulkeen was talking about the importance of personalization on Tom Hunt's "Confessions of a B2B Marketer" podcast. They first try to find similar customer groups, thereby shortening the costly process of preparing personalized content. Your customers may also have such groups. For example, imagine you have software that helps medical device companies follow ISO 13485 and FDA 510 certification processes. (This is a completely fictional example) You could sell this software to all medical device manufacturers. A general "Easily follow ISO 13485 processes" message might appeal to everyone. However, if the common problem for orthopedic medical companies is tracking sterilization processes, an email addressing how you solve this common problem could be more effective than a generic email.

"They don't respond"

When we forwarded customers who filled out a form to the BDR team, the classic response we got was "that customer didn't return, I wrote to them." Upon inspection, we found that they had only sent one email to the customers and never tried contacting them by phone or LinkedIn. Even a customer you met face-to-face and shook hands with at the last meeting about moving to the proposal stage might miss the email you sent. They might have opened the email but forgot to review the offer because of a phone call at that moment. The competitor might have seemed more eager, making the customer think you weren't very interested because you didn't call beyond the email. One point of contact is not enough; the general belief is that you should try to reach out at least 8 times. Moreover, on average, 57 contacts are made until a prospect becomes a customer. Don't take it personally, try reaching out again.

According to Rain Group's 2024 research, buyers find it normal to be called 5 times. Another piece of data from the same study says that contacting only once is not enough.

Long live Graham Bell!

Although it may not be the number one choice for buyers, when you ask sales teams, the most effective weapon is the phone; 77% say they have achieved success with phone calls. We've mentioned how important personalization is in emails. It's even more important on the phone. You should thoroughly research the person you're calling. Studies show that people do not accept meetings if they realize that the salesperson has no idea about them on the phone.

Prepare for your phone call by doing a LinkedIn research. Additionally, you can use artificial intelligence to prepare for the meeting with this person. You can find some tactics in this article: Link

B2B Salesperson's friend: LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn is a good platform both for conducting research and reaching out to potential customers. There are countless resources on how to use this space. LinkedIn continuously changes its advertising types and messaging capabilities, and variations exist between regions. For example, the inmail capability is different in European Union countries and Africa. Therefore, you should frequently check what's possible.

Just as LinkedIn is a good resource for salespeople, it is also for customers. Again, according to Rain group's research, 82% of customers looked up the profile on LinkedIn when reached out by outbound.

A good profile work by the entire outbound team is essential 😀

"Return of the Jedi" or "Return of the end-to-end sales representative"

Sales teams starting to work on an offer may neglect customer finding activities, leading to gaps in the pipeline. To prevent this and allow expensive sales resources to focus on more knowledge-intensive tasks, the concept of "inside sales," "business development teams," "outbound teams," or whatever you call them, might not have contributed to the operation as expected for every company.

By the end of 2023, many companies are considering abolishing these teams and recreating end-to-end sales teams that are familiar with the whole process. This strategy may be correct especially for organizations with a very niche customer base and few customers. Especially if your product is already well-known, this strategy should be tried.

For less known brands, changing the expectations from outbound teams should be the first task. Especially outbound teams supported by the marketing team with good content, digital-physical events, can play a significant role in increasing your company's visibility. Their expectation should not be to quickly generate many leads, get meetings, but rather to increase visibility.

Of course, the issues to be aware of are not limited to these and can vary for each company. When determining your outbound strategy, you should thoroughly evaluate yourself and your customer base's habits, make quick experiments, and organize your organization accordingly, knowing that these can change over time. Contact us for support on this matter.