How many emails do you get a day of somebody trying to sell you something? It seems like the marketing automation/sales technology era has made it so easy to cold pitch somebody that pretty much prospects and everyday people are now trained to block out somebody trying to sell them something over email, phone, and on social.
INBOUND METHOD
Salespeople are now pitching and begging over and over to grab their prospects attention leading to a few “qualified” meetings here and there and little to no closed business. As targeted as it may be or as personalized as it is, the truth of the matter is that nobody wants to be sold to or pitched in 2017.
The old school methods of inbound marketing still work today and can be effective if a salesperson mixes the inbound methodology into their own sales system. That doesn’t mean just waiting around for inbound leads to come to you, but use a permission-based model into the outbound prospecting efforts.
Using an Allbound approach and opting people in will yield you the best results. Instead of begging for meetings and pitching off the bat, how about asking if they are a fit for you product and ask if you can add them to your content distribution list?
This way you can properly nurture them and lead score to which leads are more engaged and which ones lead to more hyper qualified meetings. By creating this type of opt-in lead program will lead to easier prospecting calls and emails and qualifies them to the middle of the funnel.
Some people may have issue with this as this is not a sell now or close now method. If you get 10 meetings by pitching and begging off the bat, how many will realistically close? Probably not a lot. How many will truly be qualified to buy in the future? Probably not a lot either. Which puts you in the same spot as you were in the beginning.
By having people opt-in to you using outbound can really create a solid list of truly qualified prospects, a bigger pipeline, and more closed new deals. The key is to take the mindset of helping them and asking nothing in return. By doing this you are creating value for them, helping them, creating a relationship, and branding yourself at the same time.
OPT-IN
To get them to opt-in using outbound will take using a multi-channel approach starting with the phone. Instead of thinking of it as a cold call, think of it as a research call. You are calling simply to see if they are a fit not to get a meeting or pitch your product but to see if they are a fit for your product. Use inbound methodologies to perform outbound.
Send them some key content which can help them, call them back and see if this is something that can make their jobs easier. If they are engaged, opt them in and add them to your distribution list or nurture list.
Educate Prospects
Send out weekly or monthly content emails to educate them and get them familiar with your company. Once you build a solid enough qualified list, people will start responding and engaging with your nurture emails and you will close more deals than you can imagine. It just takes a bit of time just like anything else in sales and marketing.
The key is find and talk to people that want to talk to you and are interested in your company’s offerings instead of calling off a list and getting meetings you think are qualified but are not. You can use the permission-based outbound method with social selling and email.
At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, who is more likely to buy? Somebody that fills out a form for a demo, downloads a whitepaper, or someone you cold called for a meeting?
Incorporate the simple classic inbound methods into your outbound phone prospecting efforts and you will see that the results are absolutely incredible. Nothing in sales is easy or fast, so the secret to making this work for you is simple……Have Patience!!!
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