In today’s B2B business world, companies of all sizes put lots of time, money, and effort into lead generation. Without leads, you can’t make sales.
Without sales, your company won’t be around very long. It’s great when an inbound lead comes to you but oftentimes you have to take action and generate your own leads. This is known as outbound lead generation. Outbound lead generation is the process of initiating contact with prospects to communicate your sales message with the intention of offering your product or service.
Each of the most prominent methods of outbound lead generation have pros and cons to them. These methods must be properly executed with a CRM for sales, and are best used under specific circumstances.
Using proper metrics and analyzing key data on a regular basis is going to help you to cultivate the most effective campaign, regardless of which tool you use.
So, what are the most prominent forms of lead generation and which ones are best?
1. Word of Mouth
Word of Mouth marketing is a way to disseminate your message through customer interactions. Most of this communication is going to take place informally between friends and family who simply share their experiences with your company through everyday conversation.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
If your company is able to find satisfied customers and offer them promotional referral opportunities, it can be much easier to implement this form marketing. Of course there is no way to guarantee that giving users promotional opportunities will make them take action.
Real World Examples
Booking.com is a travel site used to book hotels or rental cars and other travel plans. It is also a website that gives people a potential referral opportunity whereby for every friend they encourage to sign up, they receive 25% off their next booking.
This helps encourage people to spread information about the company through word of mouth. The people who tell their friends to sign up only get that discount once their friend has not only signed up but has used the website to make a booking.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- There is more credibility. When people hear a message from someone they trust they are more likely to believe the message than if they got the same information from a paid marketing campaign.
- There is little to no upfront cost but you will have to give up some of your profit margin to pay referral fees.
Cons:
- You have very limited control over what message is being sent. If a customer had a bad experience they are more likely to share that through their chosen platform. With social media, your users have a much larger audience for venting their frustrations.
- It is difficult to measure the results of word-of-mouth tactics compared to other marketing tactics like paid advertising that show a direct correlation between cost and result.
Mistakes to Avoid
Just because it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of a word of mouth campaign doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try.
While word of mouth typically takes place during informal conversation and your company will not be directly involved, you can still use something like a point of sales inquiry (e.g. asking how they found your company after they purchase a product) to find out how new customers heard about your company. This will help you to determine which methods are best for your business.
Keys to Execution
Properly executing a word-of-mouth campaign requires you to make direct contact with your customers. You can use things like focus groups or consumer advisory boards to build positive relationships with very vocal customers, and then exchange rewards with those customers when they share information about your company.
When You Should Use It
Word of mouth campaigns are best used when your company simply wants to raise awareness about good customer service, spotlight satisfied customers, and introduce new products. Each time a customer makes a happy purchase you can encourage word-of-mouth sales in order to increase your lead generation in a steady fashion over the long-term.
2. Cold Email
Cold email is one of the most cost-effective and high ROI outbound marketing channels for almost every B2B company. Just about every online business uses email so prospects are already familiar with the medium.
Also, unlike cold calling, you can send an email at any time of the day. Using cold email as a marketing channel allows you to build prospect lists and market to hundreds or even thousands of people. In addition, using automation tools can help you scale your efforts even if you are solo or have a small team.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Although starting a cold email campaign is fairly simple, running a successful campaign is far from easy. With B2B email communication reaching record numbers, it can be tough to rise above the noise in your prospect’s inbox to get opens and replies. If executed incorrectly, you could get reply rates of less than 1%.
Real World Examples
Ambition, a sales performance management software company, was able to get 73 new leads out of 572 total prospects from a cold email campaign.
Justin McGill was able to grow his business to $30k MRR/mo. Using cold email.
Crazy Eye marketing got open rates of 50% and reply rates of 10% with their mobile app cold email campaign.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- You can reach lots of prospects at a fairly low cost.
- Automation tools can be used to scale your efforts.
- Depending on the price point of your product/service, cold email can net a huge ROI
Cons:
- Cold email campaigns can take lots of time to manage and execute properly.
- Improper setup of your campaign can disrupt your email deliverability which will send more of your messages to Spam and destroy your results.
- Not adhering to CAN-SPAM (United States) and GDPR (Europe) laws can land your company in legal trouble.
Mistakes to Avoid
If you don’t execute cold email properly, your outreach can easily be labeled as spam. When you’re doing cold email outreach, make sure that you include some form of personalization.
Sending the same general message to everyone can cause your prospects (and mail servers) to label your message as spam. Adding personalization is critical to improving response rates.
Even it you write a perfect cold email, it’s useless if it’s sent to the wrong person. When you send cold email you want to make sure that you’re sending your message to an actual person (name@companyname.com) and not a shared mailbox (info@, sales@, contact@, etc.).
Addressing an actual person will drastically improve your response rates. Also, make sure you are targeting the right stakeholder in the company before you launch into your pitch.
You can do this by reviewing your list to make sure that you have the correct contacts included or by sending your message to the CEO or Founder and asking if they can point you in the right direction.
Before you starting sending email you need to make sure that the data you have has been cleansed. Sending messages to email addresses that no longer exist or are incorrect can hurt your deliverability and diminish the results of your campaign.
Also, sending messages that include contact and company names that are spelled wrong or otherwise incorrect (all caps, including suffixes like LLC or INC, etc.) can signal to prospects that you scraped their information and basted it out to a list of thousands.
Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find your prospects and use software like Hunter.io and FindThatLead to get email addresses. Once you’ve found a contact and their email address you can use tools like NeverBounce or KickBox to verify your data before adding the contact to your campaign.
Doing your due diligence before you starting sending email will lead to more positive results once you start running your campaign.
Keys to Execution
Follow up is mandatory in a cold email campaign. If you are only going to send out one email to a prospect, you may as well not send any at all. In the example above, Ambition gained an additional 67 leads because the followed up with prospects.
If they had only sent one email, they would have only, gotten 6 leads. You should follow up with prospects 2 – 7 times (send 3 – 8 emails total) to get positive results from a campaign.
Make sure that your emails grab attention from your prospects. Your emails should be fun, engaging, and make people want to open and reply to them. After you get past the hurdle of actually getting into the inbox, your next goal is to grab attention.
Using a lackluster subject line is a quick way to get your email sent to the trash can. Test out different subject lines and body copy to improve your open and reply rates.
No one likes getting a long email from someone that they don’t know. Your emails should pass “The Smartphone Test.” Make sure that your emails are direct, to the point, and are small enough to fit on a smartphone screen. Doing this will improve your response rates.
When You Should Use It
Cold email can be used at any point in the growth of your business but it is typically used when a business is looking to start an outbound sales and marketing program. Since cold email can be implemented at a fairly low cost, it’s a great candidate for kicking off your company’s outbound sales efforts. You can use a tool like Woodpecker to leverage your outbound email campaigns so you can spend less time on repetitive tasks, like sending emails manually, and more time on engaging with interested prospects and bringing them into your sales process.
3. Inside Sales
Inside sales reps use email, the telephone, and the internet to sell products and services to customers.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Hiring, training, and managing sales talent is no easy task. It can take several months to over a year to scale a successful inside sales team. However, a small group of experienced salespeople can get results rather quickly.
Real World Examples
With the help of sales development consulting firm The Bridge Group, marketing software automation company Eloqua was able to build an inside sales team and hit their quota within the first three months of operation.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Inside sales is growing at a rate that is 15 times faster than outside sales.
- This type of sales effort is more efficient because your sales reps get to work in the office (or remote) with everything they need and a team can be pulled together for a meeting very quickly
Cons:
- Inside sales teams don’t travel so closing larger deals can be a challenge.
- Sales reps don’t have any leeway for meeting their clients in person.
- There isn’t nearly as much prestige as outside sales roles.
Mistakes to Avoid
Running an inside sales team is a huge undertaking and if you don’t manage your sales pipeline correctly you can end up with a huge mess on your hands. The key to making sales is having a full pipeline of good opportunities.
To maintain an effective pipeline you have to record your sales activities and follow up with prospects to move them along your sales process until they become customers.
Keys to Execution
The key to proper execution is to effectively manage time and prospects with a CRM for sales. To keep a healthy pipeline you must keep proper track of your deals and work them accordingly. Inside sales representatives can only be effective if they have proper tools at their disposal.
When You Should Use It
Inside sales teams are usually less expensive than outside sales teams because they don’t have to travel. You should consider starting an inside sales program when you’re looking to start a sales development program and build a deal pipeline for your company.
4. Social Media
Using social media as a lead generation tool involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. to make contact with prospects and communicate your marketing message.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Social media can be a very powerful lead generation tool if used properly. Getting started on social media is fairly simple (creating an account and becoming active) and campaigns can be scaled to increase their effectiveness.
Real World Examples
Apiarity uses social media to target newer business owners in the local area who are just starting off with social media and need help crafting more targeted messages, or designing up to date marketing campaigns.
They’ve designed their website to draw in usership from those that are seeking a better social media presence. They offer their 5-Day Plan as a first taste of the results they can bring.
They also feature several blog posts ranging from setting up your social media account to actual content creation. Social media has helped the company to generate buzz and better brand the company, and that crossover between personal profiles linking two company profiles has helped create trust between friends and friends of friends and other community members.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Cheap, sometimes free way to market
- Can reach a target demographic fairly easily
- Give buyers information about your products and services
Cons:
- Can’t reach people face to face.
- Can get overwhelmed by the volume of social media options.
Mistakes to Avoid
Don’t try to use all social media platforms at once. Each platform has a different demographic of users. Your business needs to identify which users you want to target and then cultivate social media campaigns on those specific platforms.
Another key mistake you want to avoid is posting at inopportune times. Just the same as every social media platform has a specific demographic, they also have times of day when that demographic is using the site and those are the times that you want to post.
Keys to Execution
The key to properly executing social media campaign is to start with one platform and put all of your energy and focus into it. Don’t switch platforms until you see that your results have leveled off.
For B2B companies, LinkedIn is typically a great place to start. You can even pay for a Sales Navigator license to get even more flexibility and control over your prospecting on the platform.
When You Should Use It
Use it at all times to target customers online, raise awareness of events, or provide updates for your company. This is something every company should do on a regular basis.
You can also use your chosen platform’s direct messaging feature (if available) to start direct conversations with potential customers.
5. Direct Mail
Direct mail involves sending a piece of physical mail to a customer or prospect by using the U.S. Postal Service or another mail provider.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Direct mail is a hard medium to master because of the high cost of testing (when compared to other mediums) and the lack of analytics and data compared to online marketing marketing methods.
However, direct mail is very unique in that there is much less competition in the physical world. Your prospect’s inboxes and social media feeds are likely full of messages and notification but that level of competition doesn’t exist in their mailbox.
Also, physical mail has very high open rates (who wouldn’t open a letter with their name on it?). This is why a direct mail campaign can yield a very high ROI if executed the right way.
Real World Examples
Ulta Beauty found itself among the top beauty franchises in the United States, struggling to be among the top for sales. They created a design within their company that supported weekly sales and coupons to attract customer recognition. They launched a direct mail campaign which included competitive pricing and a new weekly coupon for prospects to bring in and redeem.
After creating an attractive direct mail letter, they began sending them to existing customers in their CRM and those they might not have reached yet by opting for a flyer in every Sunday newspaper.
It worked. Ulta found that by directly reaching out to the consumers in the area they were able to become the fan favorite in beauty stores. With nearly 82% of consumers of both Ulta Beauty and their top competitor stating that Ulta’s frequent discounts and points system kept them coming back.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- High open rates
- Less competition
- Physical mail has higher perceived value than an email or social media message
Cons:
- Can be expensive when compared to digital marketing methods
- It can be difficult to measure the ROI of campaigns
Mistakes to Avoid
Unlike email which is essentially free, direct mail has hard costs like printing and postage so you want to make sure that you know your numbers before executing a direct mail campaign.
Keys to Execution
Using a good list is paramount when executing a direct mail campaign because a large campaign can be fairly expensive. Your most receptive customers will be recent buyers of your product or service. Try sending direct mail to a customer who has bought from you in the past 30 – 60 days thanking them for their business and offering them a cross-sell or upsell.
When You Should Use It
Try using direct mail after you have a solid base of repeat buyers. It’s less risky to use direct mail as a way to extract more value out of your existing customer base rather than using it as a way to gain new customers.
6. Trade Shows
A trade show is an exhibition where businesses in the same industry congregate to learn, find products to buy, and promote their own products and services.
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Trade shows are going to have a higher level of effectiveness for very specific businesses. If you are selling farm equipment and you need to show off why your particular piece of equipment has a type of cutting-edge technology built into it, going to a world trade show or even a statewide trade show will put you front and center for other businesses and potential customers all in one place.
The ease of implementation is going to vary because in some situations you might have to worry about international travel and customs forms when you are trying to ship your products overseas to display at the trade show.
Even if you are doing a local trade show, you still might have to cross state lines and in certain businesses you might need to apply for permissions to bring your products with you.
Then you have to make sure that the booth is set up properly, that proper notice has been given to the trade show organizers, and the amount of administrative work can be a bit overwhelming your first time. The more often you get involved in trade shows, the easier that implementation is going to be.
Real World Examples
Aqua Paw attended the Global Pet Expo last year to increase knowledge of their new product and potentially make connections within the pet market. Here, they were able to network with people who could try the new products they had to offer for pet bathing, and then receive feedback on the spot.
This feedback and the monitoring of progress with the new product provided a great deal of data necessary to complete studies on what the market was looking for and how they could improve their products.
At this trade show Aqua Paw also won the New Product Showcase Winner’s Award, which again helped to increase knowledge about their brand and give them instant notoriety among the market. Networking in your market of expertise and receiving feedback on your products by experts of the trade are two massive benefits.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- A great way to get in front of new prospects
- They can open the doors large deals and partnerships.
- You can get a lot of great feedback from potential customers.
Cons:
- It can be expensive to prepare for and attend trade shows.
- You’ll need experienced team members to get value out of a trade show.
Mistakes to Avoid
Trade shows can be very expensive to attend and participate in so you want to make sure that you have a good grasp on your costs before deciding to attend a trade show.
Keys to Execution
Go into each trade show with a plan of action. You should have a goal to measure against so you can determine whether or not your effort was a success.
When You Should Use It
Consider attending trade shows when you’re looking to get into larger accounts or form strategic partnerships.
7. Events
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Events run the gambit from races to sponsoring community baseball leagues, to afternoon lectures or luncheons, to small family days, picnics, or even parades. A large part of your success depends on how well you can promote your event and get people to attend.
The more complex the event, the more difficult the implementation will be. You will have to consider pre event marketing campaigns, perhaps reminding local community members, setting up flyers at local business centers, or at the civic buildings in town.
Real World Examples
The United Way hosted a kids festival in San Antonio, Texas during their Fiesta Event celebration. 
During the 2018 event over 65 different organizations were in attendance. Each booth was hosted by school districts, non-profit organizations, and city services with the intention of sharing information with parents and children alike.
Each organization in attendance provides regular activities and services focusing on celebrating children’s development.
This event not only included local organizations acting as hosts, but nearby restaurants to cater the event, and a few other local businesses setting up booths at the event.
This not only helped to network with other businesses and allowed United Way the opportunity to set up business cards and pamphlets on display in these other locations, but it allowed the entire community to come together and better the lives of the children and families within the community.
Information was given that opened them up to learning a great deal about what the United Way’s mission is and how they can help the children within the community.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Add a personalized touch to your business in a face-to-face fashion. This could be much more effective for many new leads than something like an impersonal email or a social media platform.
- You can engage with other businesses in your local area.
- You can gather email or physical address information that you can later use for follow-up campaigns.
Cons:
- It can be very costly to put in the marketing efforts ahead of time and to host the event itself depending on what type of event you have.
- Things like inclement weather can quickly ruin even the most effective event if the event is outside.
Mistakes to Avoid
Don’t plan the event on a day when most of your target audience won’t be able to attend. Be cognizant of what other events are going on in the community around that same time so you don’t overlap.
If you are targeting families with children, but you plan the event for a Saturday morning when you know the local soccer league is having playoffs, most of those families won’t make it because they’re probably at games. If you plan it during the week and you are targeting the breadwinner in the family, that breadwinner is probably working.
Keys to Execution
The key to properly executing events is proper planning and marketing. You can’t just throw the event together and assume people will show. Make sure you increase awareness about the event using some of the other marketing tactics mentioned.
Direct Mail is a wonderful way to get local businesses involved. The more businesses you can get involved, the more reciprocity you will receive in your community.
When You Should Use It
Utilization of events should occur in a timely fashion, not too often, specifically around a time that people are going to start thinking about your company. Using a seasonal theme around a holiday or a specific time of year (back to school, spring cleaning, etc.) can be an effective way to gain more attention for your event and boost attendance.
8. PR Stunts
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
PR stunts can be very effective but they do have the possibility of backlash. That said, the ease of implementation is much higher compared to hosting an event or going to a trade show, depending on the stunt that you perform.
In some cases all it takes is publishing a few newsletters, press releases, and making some social media updates online.
Real World Examples
IHOP used a large PR stunt recently where they posted publicly that they were going to change the name of the company and the primary food offering.
Within a few weeks they had generated a great deal of social buzz all over the internet against this change.
In the end it there was no legitimate change made, no money had gone into changing the printed menus across the nation or changing all of the signs, the company did just enough to get people’s attention and generate a lot of awareness about the company without having to spend a lot of money. In the end they went back to their traditional name and their traditional pancakes much to customer satisfaction.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Can garner lots of PR for your company
Cons:
- Can be difficult to replicate
- Can be expensive
- There’s a lot of luck involved
Mistakes to Avoid
Much like the examples listed above you have to be careful that you don’t abuse PR stunts. If people uncover that you are using them or using a stunt without planning any follow through, there will be backlash and your company name may lose credibility.
Keys to Execution
A lot of your success will be based on creativity and a little bit of luck. Increase your chances of executing a successful stunt by modeling your stunt after another that has already proven to be successful.
When You Should Use It
Use a PR stunt to kickstart a new product/service/company or to bring up dragging sales.
9. Paid Advertising
Ease of Implementation vs. Level of Effectiveness
Paid advertising is easy to implement but can be tough to optimize properly. Starting a campaign is as easy setting up a campaign on your chosen ad network and paying for traffic. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Outbrain, and Taboola are some of the largest ad platforms that you can use to send tons of traffic to your website.
But, the tricky party comes in when you have to actually try to make your campaign profitable. Depending on your chosen platform, you’ll have to figure out bidding, targeting, and/or keywords to make your campaign a success.
Real World Examples
Uber pays for advertisements all over social media platforms and across many different web pages.
You can visit a website that relates to travel, even a travel blog, and you might find paid advertisements from Uber.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- You can get more effective campaigns depending on where you are advertising.
- You get actionable insights and analytics that you can track.
Cons:
- Users might have ad blockers that block advertisements you have paid for.
- Some users might not trust paid advertisements.
Mistakes to Avoid
When selecting where to spend your ad dollars have some discretion and choose the sites that you have already determined are typically visited by warm leads. It’s better to fish in a pond where your customers hang out.
When you do serve ads make sure that they are relevant to your target audience. Relevant advertising always performs better.
Keys to Execution
Find an experienced paid advertising expert to set up and run your campaigns. You want to be careful with your ad dollars to make sure you’re getting the best return possible.
Remember that many users today rely upon an ad blocker when they search the internet so you will need to pay for advertising that shows up in places these ad blockers won’t block.
When You Should Use It
Use paid advertising to scale your marketing efforts when you know your numbers (like how much it costs to acquire a customer and what a customer’s lifetime value is). Failing to correctly quantify your marketing costs and ROI can lead to a campaign with very little (if any) return.
Conclusion
Overall, there are a handful of very effective outbound lead generation tactics you can use in your marketing efforts. In all of these situations you have to weigh the ease of implementation against the level of effectiveness and decide what’s best for you at a particular time.
Depending on your company goals some marketing channels might be better suited than others to reach your target market.
Once you have leads coming in you’ll want to make sure that they don’t slip through the cracks. Misplacing a lead can ruin all of your time, energy, and hard work.
Use the proper outbound lead generation channels that make sense for your business and execute them so you can fill your pipeline with qualified opportunities.
Image Credit: https://oursocialtimes.com/7-ways-to-use-social-media-for-b2b-lead-generation/
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