Inbound Sales vs. Outbound Sales: What’s the Difference?
Inbound vs. Outbound Sales - Which is Best For Me?
As you begin to build your sales practices, you’ll eventually reach a fork in the road: move forward with an inbound sales strategy or take the outbound sales approach?
Though they appear similar, there is a subtle yet essential difference between inbound and outbound sales — and that is who initiates the sales process.
In an inbound sales process, the prospect makes first contact. Meanwhile, outreach in an outbound sales process is initiated by the salesperson.
How productive these first steps are will impact the flow of the sales relationship. Therefore, both methods have their benefits and drawbacks.
You can also interpret the difference between inbound and outbound sales as “pull” or “push” sales techniques:
Deciding which method is best for your sales team will depend on your business needs. If you’re struggling to decide, you need to know about inbound and outbound sales, their respective strategies, and marketing tips.
What Are Inbound Sales?
An inbound sales strategy focuses on “pulling in” potential prospects. Companies appeal to their ideal customers with personalized buying experiences and enticing content to generate interest.
After viewing this content, an interested prospect will reach out to learn more about the company’s solutions. After which, the salesperson adapts to the buyer’s journey, advising the prospect on their purchasing decision.
Many brands favor the inbound sales process because it’s cost-effective and scales well to a large audience.
Inbound Sales Strategy
If inbound sales rely on organic outreach, how do businesses get their prospects’ attention in the first place?
To start, you need to know what the buyer’s journey will look like for your business.
Every customer is different; some will need more information while others will need less before reaching a purchasing decision. Since all of this happens before contact is made, inbound sales prospecting must deliver a highly personalized experience to every potential customer. Content marketing is an essential tool in making this happen.
According to Demand Gen Report, more than half of buyers will first view 3 to 5 pieces of content before reaching out to a salesperson.
Inbound marketing teams capture leads by producing content that addresses pain points, answer questions, and entertains and/or educates customers throughout the buyer’s journey.
Inbound Sales Process
Since the inbound sales methodology targets warm leads (i.e., people who’ve already shown interest), it’s versatile and cost-effective. However, creating content and generating quality leads across a broad audience may be time-consuming.
The inbound sales process comprises four stages:
Identify: The first step is to identify who your ideal customers are, what their wants and needs are, and how you can market your product or services as a solution.
Connect: Once you’ve narrowed down your pool of potential customers, it’s time to build a relationship. To organically bring them into your ecosystem, create content, tools, and resources directed at their needs.
Explore: Once inbound leads have initiated contact, start the conversation off by exploring their challenges and needs. This will help you identify whether your business is a good fit for them or not.
Advise: If they’re a qualified lead, present your solution and advise them on their buying decision in your sales pitch. Direct them to the recommended products and sell or use call-to-actions to schedule an appointment.
Inbound Marketing Tips
Coined by Hubspot creators in the 2000s, inbound marketing is about delivering quality content and building marketing campaigns that engage potential customers.
To help you get started, here’s a couple of tips on how to market effectively with an inbound sales process:
Produce high-value content: Company blogs, webinars, and case studies are some types of content you can produce to educate and engage potential customers.
Build a robust website: Once you’ve captured their attention, build an attractive, navigable website to visually appeal to potential customers and encourage them to learn more about your brand’s solutions.
Make your content easy to find: Tutorials on YouTube, blogs and webinars on your website, and social media accounts dedicated to your brand are all accessible platforms your potential customers can use to find your content.
Leverage SEO: To further promote organic discovery, make your content SEO-friendly. Your content is more likely to rank higher on search engines, increasing your brand’s exposure.
What Are Outbound Sales?
Outbound sales “push” a message out and reach out to leads directly.
The outbound sales approach aims to build trust with customers and develop lists of strong leads that are likely to convert. Some companies favor this method because it offers more control over the sales process and the opportunity to land bigger and better deals.
Outbound Sales Strategy
Although outbound sales strategies have a reputation for being invasive and annoying, this doesn’t need to be the case.
When done effectively, outbound sales can establish a strong connection with a prospect for potentially greater, more immediate gains than an inbound sales process.
To foster a connection and get their foot through the door, sales and marketing teams must research their leads thoroughly. After which, various sales tactics may be used to capture their target’s attention and build trust.
This may mean email marketing, social selling, cold calling, and even TV commercials depending on your business.
Another misconception of outbound sales is that cold calling is outdated and useless. However, 41% of salespeople believe the phone is one of the most effective ways to connect with prospects!
Outbound Sales Process
Since outbound sales target potential customers who haven’t voiced their needs yet, the early stages of the sales process require due diligence and in-depth research for effective lead generation.
For this reason, the outbound sales process may be somewhat lengthier than some inbound sales processes. It’s also typically illustrated in five or six stages. Here, we summarize it in five:
Prospect: The goal of sales prospecting is to define who your target market is and build a list of potential customers.
Outreach: Once you’ve narrowed down who you want to sell to, you can start connecting, typically via a phone call or cold email. You may even have a salesperson arrange an in-person introduction for a more personable approach.
Qualify: After establishing contact, the next step is to qualify the lead. A qualified lead is more likely to benefit from your business and, thus, more likely to close. Dropping bad leads early will save you time and resources down the line.
Pitch: At this point, a salesperson is ready to deliver their sales pitch. The salesperson will arrange a meeting or demonstration and show off the benefits of your business, answer questions, and respond to objections.
Close: If successful, the salesperson will follow up and motivate the prospect to close. After the appropriate legal measures have been made, the prospect will sign a contract with your business.
Outbound Marketing Tips
How you market in outbound sales will depend on many factors, including whether you’re in the B2B or B2C space, the length of your sales cycle, the needs and preferences of your target market, and where and how they’re likely to engage with your brand.
Here are some tips to get you started:
Use marketing and sales automation tools: Research software and sales tools are part of the modern sales process. They will help streamline lead generation, automate routine tasks, and motivate salespeople to spend more time connecting with prospects.
Diversify your sales approach: It’s a common misconception that cold calling is the only way outbound salespeople reach out to clients. Outbound marketing can be just as flexible and cost-effective as inbound sales. For example, consider building a social media platform to reach a new audience.
Uncomplicate messages: Since outbound marketing has a reputation for being intrusive, friendly and straightforward messages are the best way to approach a potential client and get your foot through the door.
Always ask for the close: When a qualified lead is going well, don’t rely on them to make the last move and close the deal. Guide them through every goal point until the contract is signed.
Overhaul Your Sales Prospecting with Owler Max
Since every customer and business has different needs, neither inbound nor outbound is necessarily superior to the other.
Inbound and outbound sales are two separate approaches you can modify or combine to fit your sales and marketing strategies. An outbound sales process offers potentially significant gains but a limited pool of qualified leads. In contrast, an inbound sales plan speaks to a broader audience but provides limited control over how leads interact with your business.
Regardless of your choice, for either process to be effective, you need to know who your target audience is and how they can benefit from your business!
Sales teams on both sides can prospect on Owler Max to gain critical insights and build a winning sales strategy.
With Owler, you’ll gain access to accurate company data, real-time sales intelligence, actionable news, daily updates, and more with our exclusive Owler Max features. Sign up for free today to learn more about your target market.