Inbound sales have become the go-to instruments for today, but is there still merit in the outbound sales of old? Is it possible to strike a balance between the two toolsets and use them both to fill your pipeline with customers? In a word, yes. Here’s how inbound and outbound sales can go hand in hand:
Outbound gets a bad rap. Since inbound took off in the 21st century, advocates of older sales techniques like cold calls and direct mail have been the butt of their fair share of “dinosaur” jokes.
But if you look a little closer, you’ll see that even inbound giants like HubSpot — remember, CEO Brian Halligan coined the term “inbound marketing” — are using a combined inbound and outbound sales approach. Each method has its advantages, but the truth is that together they’re usually more than the sum of their parts.
Inbound Sales vs. Outbound Sales: What’s the Difference?
The dividing line between inbound and outbound sales is the first touchpoint between the prospect and sales. Who started the conversation?
- Inbound Sales: A prospect reaches out to you. Typically, this is after the prospect has searched (online) for a solution to their problem, become aware of your company, and decided it was worth their time to speak to a salesperson for further information. They’re already warm. There’s got to be some avenue available for strangers to find the information they want about your company for this to be possible, which is why inbound sales tend to focus on internet-based channels like websites, blogs, social media, and search engines.
- Outbound Sales: You reach out to potential prospects. An advertisement (TV commercials, billboards, radio spots) might ask for a moment of your audience’s time and attention. Or, your company may have paid for a list of contact information for people with relevant demographics or interests that you can call directly. It’s also possible you’ve done the research yourself — based on job titles, industries, or professional connections — to find people who might be interested. This is a “cold” outreach that companies use while prospecting to find and qualify warmer, more engaged leads.
It’s not uncommon for a company to find prospects in both ways. People are always looking for ways to solve their problems, which could lead them to call you up (maybe after finding your website or being referred by a friend). Others may have been exposed to your advertisements or received a cold call while they were doing something else, had their interest piqued, and continued the conversation with a sales rep.
Both can lead to a sale. And when you include both in your sales strategy, you’re pulling in as many leads from as many sources as possible — win/win. But which inbound and outbound sales techniques work?
If you’re weighing inbound sales vs. outbound sales tools for your own mixed sales strategy, here’s a quick rundown of your options:
7 Tools of an Inbound Sales Strategy
Inbound relies upon channels where your target audience is actively searching for information, solutions, and interaction with your content or people related to your product/service. Marketing plays a more significant role in an inbound strategy than it used to in the days before the internet, back when consumers had to primarily rely upon salespeople for detailed information on the products or services they were interested in purchasing.
Inbound sales use tools to position salespeople for success in the modern, customer-centric purchasing environment:
- Smarketing: This is a jargon term for the integration and alignment of your sales and marketing teams. So much of their work overlaps in the digital environment that both teams must be on the same page and have access to the same resources and information.
- Sales Enablement Content: You empower inbound sales reps when you arm them with sales decks, case studies, eBooks, testimonials, playbooks, tutorial videos, and more. Have marketing collaborate with sales to plan, develop, and maintain a powerful sales content library that will help them consult and assist prospects at each stage of the deal pipeline.
- Customer Journey Alignment: This is the idea that your company should provide specific sales language and content that best serves each stage of the sales funnel. Sales can become involved up and down the funnel in the inbound world, but a prospect has different needs and objections at each stage, so you must speak to them where they’re at in their journey.
- Lead Nurturing (With Email Sequences): Your lead nurturing strategy is a critical component of inbound marketing and sales. Sales email sequences sometimes target customers who abandon digital carts or go radio dark during the sales process. Other times, the sequence is to nurture an SQL towards conversion. You might ramp up from a welcome email, to social proof, to a product demo, to a webinar, a time-bound purchase incentive, to a last chance reminder.
- Social Media Monitoring: Inbound sales reps can use platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter to monitor social mentions or conversations relative to your brand — then join in at the perfect time with the perfect solution. This is part sales and part customer service. Visitors may show up on your social page to interact with your brand (with non-sales questions or comments), then convert into leads after a rewarding experience.
- Live Chats: With so many customers kicking off their buyer’s journey through digital research, a live chat box is a lot like positioning a sales rep on the digital sales floor. You can set custom triggers to automatically prompt website visitors with live chat opportunities, and have reps always ready to engage.
- Advisor Mindset: Rarely is inbound sales about a “hard sell.” Instead, inbound sales reps take on an “advisor” role for well-informed inbound customers who come to the table with research, clear goals, and predetermined objections. Success comes from exploring the prospect’s challenges, trying to understand their goals, and offering them as much guidance as possible in finding the best solution for their problem (whether it’s a purchase or something they can do on their own). These salespeople establish trust and build valuable relationships for future interaction with your business.
All of these tools are tuned to the inbound, digital-driven marketplace we live in today, where customers tend to make the first touch in their purchasing decision.
7 Tools of an Outbound Sales Strategy
In outbound, it’s the sales reps who take on the active role. They’ll amass research on potential targets, then reach out to passive prospects to gauge interest and position your company as a solution for their problems.
Outbound sales will use a mixture of traditional tools and modern technology to accomplish these goals most efficiently, such as:
- Direct Contact: Make a cold (or sometimes warm) phone call, email, or another form of direct message to assess customer fit and interest in your product or service. If it sounds like a good fit, the conversation moves into the sales pipeline. It takes excellent technique to create cold conversions. The big advantage? You can reach out to people who may have never come into contact with your company otherwise.
- Trade Shows: In-person sales still have an important place in your sales toolbox. There’s a lot more potential for a personal rapport in a live, face-to-face conversation where you can also exchange business cards (and product literature). Maximize your opportunity with tech tools like in-booth tablets for showing off videos, accessing an all-purpose sales content library, or capturing contact information. A trade show marketing company can help integrate these tools to enhance your booth's effectiveness.
- Commercials and Advertisements: TV, radio, magazines, and the rest still do work for outbound sales. But now we’ve also got tools like online banner ads, streaming service commercials (Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Pandora, etc.), and sponsored ads in email newsletters — with which you can actually track hard performance metrics.
- Customer Profiles: Outbound sales are driven by detailed profiles of your ideal customers that are based on actual users or advocates of your product or service. This should include job titles, company size, industry, the path to purchase, preferred channels, common objections, goals and desires, and other demographic or professional trends/qualifications that make for a good fit. Strong profiles help you focus prospecting efforts on only the most likely candidates.
- Account-Based Sales and Marketing: Leads are good. Accounts are better. This is an outbound approach that takes extensive research and collaboration between sales and marketing. The goal is to create a list of target account companies that resemble your customer profiles. Then, leverage marketing and sales tactics that will resonate with their group of decision-makers (not just a single lead). Get in front of the right people, and they may share your material with higher-ups and help you close.
- Lists of Opt-In Leads: Third-party providers can save you prospecting time by gathering and selling lists of verified contact information on prospects who have opted into sales messages relevant to your vertical. Purchased lead data is an essential complement to internal research and prospecting.
- Social Selling: Tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator are fantastic for information-gathering on the professional profiles of decision-makers in your industry. Send connection requests to relevant people, perhaps packaged with free content or positive commentary on their recent activity, then nurture those who connect with you towards a sale. It’s essential to base the relationship on shared interests and genuine conversation — don’t kick off with a hard sell.
As you can see, these inbound and outbound tools often support and complement one another. But they aren’t always complimentary, and inbound sales vs. outbound sales techniques don’t work equally well in every circumstance.
When To Use Inbound vs. Outbound Sales Techniques
Not every business model is truly ideal for both sales methodologies. The particulars of your product or service could sway you more towards one or the other. However, most businesses can benefit from some mixture of the two techniques. Weigh each offering, campaign, or sales persona for its fit with an inbound sales vs. outbound sales approach, and go from there.
There are always exceptions, but here are some broad patterns that grease the wheels for inbound and outbound sales:
Why Inbound Sales?
- Budget for the sales team is really tight
- You’re offering high-demand, quick, easy purchase decisions
- Lots of people are looking for this solution online
- Interest in educational/informational content around your topic
- You’ve got content creators
Inbound is incredibly scalable because every piece of content you create is evergreen. It exists forever (or as long as you host it, anyhow), is infinitely reproducible, and can impact new prospects again and again without reproducing the same initial effort. This makes it cost-effective for small sales teams that don’t have the resources (yet) to reach out to thousands of people one-on-one.
In a market with high demand and quick purchases, it’s also much easier to construct your business to let people sell to themselves. You’ve just got to help them find you (in an online search), and they’ll take care of the rest. Legal cannabis dispensaries are a perfect example of a market with great search volume for local businesses coupled with high purchase intent. Advertising the existence of the dispensary is expensive, but hosting a search-optimized website is cost-effective with a similar result.
If your solution relates to a topic with an extensive knowledge-base or demand for information, inbound is perfect. “Marketing” falls into this category — many businesses want to learn more about marketing, and marketers can provide inbound content to satisfy this demand while nurturing prospects.
Any sort of consulting service likewise involves people hunting for answers — and you’ve got them.
Pros & Cons of Inbound Sales
Below is a breakdown of the key pros and cons to help you evaluate whether inbound sales is the right fit for your business strategy.
Pros of Inbound Sales
Higher Lead Quality
Inbound leads are typically more qualified and interested because they've actively sought out your product or service, and they often have a clearer understanding of their needs and how your offering fits them.
Lower Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
Since inbound sales relies on attracting prospects through content and organic channels, it can be more cost-effective than outbound methods because it reduces reliance on expensive paid advertising or cold outreach.
Builds Trust and Brand Authority
Inbound sales often stems from educational or helpful content, which builds trust and positions your brand as an authority in your industry, leading to stronger customer relationships and higher lifetime value.
Cons of Inbound Sales
Slower Lead Generation
It can take time to build up enough traffic and content to generate a consistent flow of quality inbound leads, so businesses may experience a lag before seeing meaningful results.
Dependence on Content and SEO
Inbound strategies heavily rely on the effectiveness of your content marketing and SEO, which require ongoing effort and can be affected by changes in search engine algorithms.
Less Control Over Timing
Since the buyer initiates contact, your sales team has less control over when leads enter the funnel, making forecasting and scaling more difficult due to this unpredictability.
What Does the Inbound Sales Process Look Like?
The inbound sales process is all about aligning your sales strategy with how modern buyers research and make decisions. Instead of selling to people, you’re helping them buy—at the right time, with the right message.
1. Identify
The sales team identifies potential leads who have shown interest, such as downloading a whitepaper, visiting key website pages, or engaging with content. These leads are often generated by marketing efforts and tracked using CRM or analytics tools.
2. Connect
Sales reps reach out to leads with personalized messages based on their behavior, interests, or stage in the buyer journey. Instead of a generic pitch, the focus is on starting a conversation that’s relevant and helpful.
3. Explore
Through discovery calls or meetings, the rep dives deeper into the lead’s challenges, goals, and decision-making process. This stage is all about understanding whether the product or service is a true fit and building trust.
4. Advise
Once the rep fully understands the prospect’s needs, they offer a tailored solution that aligns with the buyer’s goals. This includes a customized demo, proposal, or recommendation, positioning your product as the best solution.
Signs Inbound Sales is the Right Approach For Your Team
Your buyers are doing online research before reaching out
If your target audience is actively educating themselves—reading blogs, watching videos, or comparing options—they’ll respond better to inbound strategies that meet them where they are.
You have or can create valuable content
Inbound sales thrives on useful, relevant content. If your team can produce thought leadership, case studies, or educational materials, you’re well-positioned to attract and nurture leads organically.
Your sales cycle is consultative, not transactional
When your sales process involves understanding customer needs, offering tailored solutions, and building trust, inbound sales supports that by focusing on value and long-term relationships.
Your team uses CRM and marketing automation tools
Inbound success depends on tracking behavior, personalizing outreach, and nurturing leads—tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, or similar platforms enable a seamless and data-driven sales process.
You want to lower customer acquisition costs over time
If you're aiming to scale efficiently and reduce reliance on cold outreach or paid ads, inbound sales can help by generating consistent, qualified leads through organic channels like SEO and content.
Key Strategies for Effective Inbound Marketing
Develop Buyer Personas
Understanding your ideal customer is the foundation of inbound marketing. Create detailed personas based on demographics, goals, pain points, and behavior to guide your content and messaging strategy.
Create High-Quality, Targeted Content
Produce valuable content—like blog posts, ebooks, videos, and webinars—that addresses your audience’s needs and positions your brand as a helpful resource throughout the buyer’s journey.
Optimize for SEO
Ensure your website and content are optimized for relevant search terms so potential customers can find you when they’re actively searching for solutions. This includes on-page SEO, keyword research, and technical performance.
Leverage Lead Magnets and Landing Pages
Use downloadable assets (e.g., guides, templates) paired with well-designed landing pages to capture visitor information and generate qualified leads.
Use Email Marketing to Nurture Leads
Build automated email workflows that deliver timely, personalized content to guide prospects from awareness to decision, keeping them engaged throughout the sales funnel.
Analyze and Refine Using Data
Track key metrics like traffic sources, conversion rates, and lead quality to understand what’s working. Use insights to continuously improve content, campaigns, and your overall inbound strategy.
Why Outbound Sales?
- Extremely small target audience/limited pool of potential prospects
- Expensive product for a select, high-status crowd
- No one has ever heard of (or even thought of) your solution (or anything like it)
- Long sales cycles with lots of layers of decision-makers
- You want to laser focus on particular, known individuals
A small or narrow audience makes inbound sales techniques tough to leverage effectively. If you only want to talk to developers who work for streaming music services like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music, just reach out to them directly. An audience that tiny brings such low search volume that inbound content will largely go unseen.
Think about it: you could invest in all of the best practices to improve SEO for a vast inbound content library, but unless there’s a large enough relevant audience, few people will actually read it. It’s kind of like laying out a five-course banquet to attract that one field mouse. You could invest that time and energy more efficiently by only reaching out directly to relevant people (armed with tightly targeted material). In other words, just walk over and give the mouse the cheese.
Outbound is also useful for working your way through layers of decision-makers to try and make an enterprise sale. Inbound isn’t likely to simultaneously catch the attention of — and gradually nurture — every single person on the path to purchase (although it could have kicked off the process). So, reach out and pursue the next level of conversation at each step of the sales cycle yourself.
Finally, if you’ve got a totally original, unique solution to a problem, odds are folks won’t be looking for it online. They may not have even imagined the possibility that something like it could exist, which makes it hard to attract inbound leads; there’s no inherent demand to tap into. The issue is compounded if your solution involves some sort of new terminology that no one’s ever heard of — no one types unfamiliar jargon into their search bar, for example.
Instead, you can use outbound sales techniques and advertisements to raise awareness and inform the market about your product.
Pros & Cons of Outbound Sales
Understanding the pros and cons of outbound sales is essential for businesses looking to adopt this strategy effectively.
Pros of Outbound Sales
Direct Control Over Targeting
Outbound sales allow you to proactively reach out to a targeted list of prospects. You have control over who you approach, making it easier to focus on high-potential leads.
Immediate Feedback
Since outbound sales involve direct interaction (calls, emails, etc.), you receive immediate feedback on your approach, helping you refine your pitch or adjust your strategy quickly.
Higher Conversion Potential
By reaching out to potential customers directly, you can engage in more personalized conversations, leading to stronger relationships and a higher chance of converting leads into customers.
Cons of Outbound Sales
Time-Consuming
Outbound sales often involve a lot of time spent researching prospects, making calls, and following up. This can be particularly labor-intensive and may not always yield immediate results.
Lower Response Rates
Many cold calls and emails get ignored or rejected. The chances of success are lower compared to inbound sales, where leads come to you already interested.
High Rejection Rates
Since outbound sales often involve contacting individuals who haven’t expressed interest yet, you can face a lot of rejection, which can be demotivating for sales teams.
What Does the Outbound Sales Process Look Like?
The outbound sales process involves several key stages, from initial prospecting to closing the deal. Here's a general overview of what it looks like.
1. Research and Prospecting
The first step is identifying potential leads. This involves researching companies or individuals who may benefit from your product or service. Sales reps gather data through databases, social media, or existing networks to create a list of target prospects.
2. Outreach Preparation
Once prospects are identified, sales reps tailor their messaging to each lead. This could be through personalized emails, cold calls, or LinkedIn outreach. The goal is to craft a message that resonates with the prospect’s needs or pain points.
3. Initial Contact
This is where the actual outreach happens. Salespeople reach out to prospects via phone calls, emails, or social media. The aim is to grab attention, establish credibility, and set up a follow-up meeting or call.
4. Follow-Up
After the initial contact, follow-ups are crucial. Prospects might not respond to the first message, so consistent follow-ups help to keep the conversation going and build a relationship. This could involve sending more information, offering to answer questions, or offering a demo.
5. Qualifying Leads
At this stage, sales reps determine whether the lead is a good fit for their product or service. This is often done through a discovery call or questionnaire. If the lead shows interest and matches the ideal customer profile, they’re considered a qualified lead.
6. Sales Pitch/Meeting
For qualified leads, the next step is a deeper conversation or a formal sales pitch. This is where sales reps demonstrate the value of their offering, answer questions, and work to solve the prospect’s problems. This might include product demos or in-depth discussions of features and benefits.
7. Objection Handling
During the pitch, prospects may raise concerns or objections. Sales reps must address these objections effectively, clarifying any misunderstandings and reinforcing the value of their product or service.
8. Closing the Deal
If the prospect is convinced, the deal is closed. This can involve sending a contract, negotiating terms, and finalizing the purchase. Sales teams work with the prospect to ensure a smooth transition into becoming a customer.
9. Post-Sale Follow-Up
After closing the deal, it’s important to follow up to ensure customer satisfaction, onboard the client effectively, and explore potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities in the future.
The outbound sales process is a blend of persistence, strategy, and personalization, requiring a balance of outreach and relationship-building to successfully convert leads into long-term customers.
Signs Outbound Sales is the Right Approach For Your Team
If your team checks these boxes, outbound sales could be a great strategy to drive growth and fill your sales pipeline.
You Have a Clearly Defined Target Audience
If your business has a specific, well-defined target market with clear characteristics, outbound sales can be highly effective. Outbound allows you to directly reach prospects that fit your ideal customer profile (ICP), ensuring that your efforts are concentrated on high-potential leads.
Your Product/Service Solves a Unique or Niche Problem
Outbound sales work well for products or services that solve specific problems, especially in niche industries. If your offering addresses a pain point that isn’t widely known or if it requires explanation, reaching out to prospects directly can help you educate them about the value you provide.
You Need to Build Awareness in New Markets
If you're trying to expand into new geographical areas or verticals, outbound sales can help you generate awareness and quickly start conversations with prospects who may not yet know about your business. Outbound outreach can effectively introduce your brand and offerings to a fresh audience.
Your Team Is Comfortable with Cold Outreach
Outbound sales require a strong and persistent sales team that is comfortable with cold outreach, rejection, and follow-ups. If your team has the right mindset—resilient and adaptable—this proactive approach can yield great results. A high level of confidence in engaging with cold prospects is crucial for success.
You Have the Resources for Persistent Outreach
Outbound sales require consistent effort and resources to build and maintain a pipeline. If your team can handle the time investment needed for research, outreach, follow-up, and lead nurturing, outbound sales may be a great fit. This includes having access to the right tools (CRM, email automation, etc.) and data to streamline the process.
Key Strategies for Effective Outbound Sales
By integrating these strategies, your outbound sales efforts will be more organized, focused, and ultimately more successful.
Develop a Targeted Prospect List
The foundation of outbound sales is reaching out to the right people. Develop a highly targeted list of prospects that fit your ideal customer profile (ICP). Use data from CRM systems, social media platforms, and lead generation tools to identify decision-makers in relevant industries. The more specific your targeting, the higher the chances of success.
Personalize Your Outreach
Personalization is crucial in outbound sales. Tailor your messaging to each prospect’s specific needs, industry, or pain points. Avoid generic scripts and use insights from research to craft emails, calls, or LinkedIn messages that feel relevant and individualized. Prospects are more likely to engage when they feel the outreach is tailored to them.
Craft a Compelling Value Proposition
Clearly articulate the value your product or service brings to the prospect’s business. Your value proposition should highlight the specific problems you solve and how your offering stands out from competitors. Focus on benefits rather than features and explain how your solution can make their work or life easier, more efficient, or more profitable.
Use Multi-Channel Outreach
Don’t rely on just one communication channel. A successful outbound sales strategy uses a combination of emails, phone calls, social media, and even direct mail to reach prospects. Each prospect may prefer different modes of communication, so engaging them across multiple platforms increases your chances of getting a response.
Follow Up Relentlessly (But Respectfully)
Persistence is key in outbound sales. Many prospects won’t respond to your first or even second outreach, so don’t give up too quickly. Implement a structured follow-up strategy, but be respectful of their time. Use follow-up emails, calls, and social media messages with varied content to keep the conversation going and show the prospect you're serious about helping them.
Qualify Leads Early
Effective outbound sales involve qualifying leads early in the process. Use discovery calls or qualifying questions to determine whether the prospect is a good fit for your product or service. This helps you focus your efforts on the most promising leads and avoid wasting time on unqualified prospects. Implementing a clear lead qualification framework ensures that you're targeting the right people.
How to Bridge Inbound and Outbound Sales
You may already be using a combination of the techniques above, due to the relative advantages of each. But how can you help them work together?
It’s not healthy or efficient for the sales department to subdivide itself into two teams: inbound sales vs. outbound sales (marketing and sales have a contentious enough relationship as it is!). Aligning the two techniques is actually more natural than you may think.
Align (and Cooperate) On a Shared Target
Working B2B? Get marketing and sales together to share shortlists of the companies or accounts you’re most interested in attracting. This will be based on verticals, job titles, company size, regions, and more. B2C? Collaborate on detailed, data-driven buyer personas to set demographic parameters.
Now marketing can get to work on inbound content and sales enablement resources for sales reps to wield as you attract inbound leads. At the same time, you can pay for lists of outbound leads that match the same criteria and also start prospecting for matches on social media.
You’ll have a little something for every possible entry point into your sales funnel, but all customized around the people you want.
Apply Data Insights In Both Directions
A data-driven approach is critical to inbound vs. outbound sales success. Anecdotal stories, gut instincts, and arbitrarily-chosen targets won’t define your true “ideal customer.” Inbound technology is superb at gathering highly actionable analytics that paint a picture of the people most interested in contacting you (or at least in consuming material related to your solutions).
You can learn from the data you receive and use it to tweak, refine, and perfect your inbound approach, of course. But you can also use these insights to create a better understanding of the outbound groups you should be targeting. The folks who convert on your inbound sales campaigns are likely the same kinds of people who could benefit from direct outreach in an outbound fashion.
By the same token, your outbound conversations with prospects can serve as a proving ground about whether your inbound techniques really are geared towards the right kind of people.
Learn which audiences respond more favorably to your outbound material, and adjust your inbound strategy to focus more closely on those sorts of customers.
Promote the Language You Want to Use
Without outbound sales efforts, the conversation has to be initiated by customers. It would be entirely up to prospects to decide how to phrase their search for solutions. They’d use terminology or language of their own design in online searches, and see what comes up.
Outbound material can actively establish a language around your product or service. Choose the language you want your customers to use when they describe your product, service, or solution, then put it into all of your paid promotions. The public will gradually pick up on your terminology and start using it to search for your inbound content.
Now you’re appearing higher in search engine results and defining the conversation before it begins.
Fill In Your Inbound Learning Gaps
Outbound sales reps are constantly in conversation with your target audience. Gather insights about the questions they receive most often, or the kinds of objections the frequently face. It's likely there isn’t enough information prominently available about these subjects to satisfy your potential customers.
With the feedback from outbound, you can create fresh inbound content that will fill in the gaps in your inbound customer’s journey for a smoother path towards a sale. Or arm sales reps with this content so that they’ve got something helpful to pass on to a prospect the next time they face obstacles in an outbound conversation.
Outbound Recognition = Inbound Interest
Especially when your business is young, outbound is a great way to make a splash and create awareness. Striking outbound campaigns can build recognition over time for your brand, your solution (especially if it’s a new one without established precedents), and the issues you want to talk about.
As folks get to know you, you create the trust and interest that will drive them towards your inbound channels.
Questions To Consider When Choosing Inbound Vs. Outbound Sales
These questions can help guide your decision by aligning your sales strategy with your business goals, resources, and the nature of your product or service.
What Is the Nature of Your Product or Service?
If your product is highly complex or requires significant explanation, outbound sales may be more effective, as you can proactively engage and educate prospects. In contrast, simpler or more self-explanatory products may benefit from an inbound strategy, where prospects find and research your product on their own.
What Is Your Target Audience’s Behavior?
Are your prospects actively searching for solutions like yours, or do they need to be informed about your offering? If your target audience is already seeking solutions, inbound marketing (through content, SEO, etc.) may work best. However, if they don’t realize they need your product yet, outbound sales can help you create that awareness.
Do You Have a Defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?
If you have a clearly defined ICP and know exactly who your best customers are, outbound sales can help you target these high-potential leads directly. If your ICP is less specific, inbound might attract a broader range of leads and provide a more passive lead generation approach.
What Is Your Budget and Resource Availability?
Outbound sales can require significant time and resources, especially when building a targeted list, crafting personalized outreach, and following up. If you have the capacity for these efforts, outbound may be effective. On the other hand, inbound marketing requires investment in content creation, SEO, and marketing automation, but it can be more scalable once the foundation is set.
How Quickly Do You Need to Scale Sales?
If you're looking for rapid growth and need to fill your pipeline quickly, outbound sales can generate leads faster through direct outreach. Inbound, while effective long-term, often takes more time to build momentum as content and organic traffic accumulate.
Inbound Sales vs. Outbound Sales: They’re On the Same Team
Inbound and outbound sales are a lot like the offense and defense of an NFL team. Each side has unique responsibilities and skillsets, but all of the players are working together to help you win.
When the defense does well, the offense is in a better position to score points. When the offense does well, there’s less pressure on the defense to win the game. You need both to be a well-rounded contender.
Use your outbound sales strategy to establish the parameters of the conversation, raise awareness, and reach known, high-value pools of leads. Complement it with an inbound sales strategy that streamlines the buyer’s journey, builds lasting relationships, and maximizes the bang for your buck. Together, inbound and outbound sales techniques are greater than the sum of their parts.
What are Inbound Sales?
Inbound sales are those generated through the use of a marketing strategy known as inbound marketing. The biggest difference between inbound and outbound sales strategies lies in how they go about finding and nurturing fresh prospects.
Inbound sales focuses more on building trust and authority than directly promoting a product or service.
Rather than cutting straight to a sales pitch, inbound campaigns work by offering as much free value as possible. This value often comes in the form of helpful information or answers to industry-related questions.
A solid inbound marketing campaign is capable of nurturing future leads, whether they happen to be in the market to buy or not. The more free value your company can offer a prospect over time, the more likely they’ll be to turn to you when they are ready to make a purchase.
Examples of Inbound Sales
To better illustrate the difference between inbound vs outbound sales, let’s take a look at several common inbound sales strategies and how companies might use them.
Content marketing. A manufacturing marketing company creates a new streamlined data entry software program designed specifically for manufacturing companies. They create a series of free videos and webinars outlining solutions to common manufacturing efficiency challenges. While they may mention their own product when relevant, it’s not the sole focus of every piece of content.
SEO. A cryptocurrency compliance firm offers consulting services for businesses who are interested in offering Bitcoin ATMs in their stores. They create a series of blog posts packed with useful information about the crypto industry and compliance regulations and use SEO to draw in more readers.
Social media. A company develops a new software designed to protect small to medium-sized businesses against cybersecurity threats. They use social media platforms to share infographics and helpful tips, such as how to increase password security.
While none of these tactics are overly sales-y, they’re all designed to attract and engage the right target audience. They also generate the trust and brand awareness that can inspire leads to seek out a company’s paid solutions. Check out some brand repositioning examples for inspiration.
What are Outbound Sales?
Outbound sales are those generated through (you guessed it) outbound sales strategies. A key difference between outbound vs inbound sales is that outbound strategies involve initiating a conversation with leads instead of waiting for them to come to you.
Outbound sales strategies largely rely on starting conversations with the right leads in the hopes of building new relationships from the ground up.
From pinpointing the prospects most likely to be interested in what you have to offer to initiating contact and nurturing leads, outbound sales is an art in itself. But with the right tools and skills, outbound sales can be an effective strategy for generating more leads quickly.
It can be particularly effective for businesses that offer very specific, high-value, or complex products and services. Outbound sales can also be a solid choice for new companies or those hoping to branch out into new markets.
Examples of Outbound Sales
Let’s delve a little deeper into outbound sales strategies with examples of how companies might use them to generate and nurture new leads.
Lead prospecting. A sales rep works for a company that’s just developed a conversational AI chatbot that provides answers to common customer questions. They use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to identify and reach out to key decision makers at companies who have received poor reviews due to long customer call wait times.
Cold calls. A company that offers HIPAA-compliant medical software provides its sales teams with lists of decision makers at hospitals and clinics in their area. Sales reps then reach out to each decision maker and ask if they’d be interested in a free demo that demonstrates the software’s unique capabilities.
Email automation. A new company is preparing to launch a fleet of eco-friendly shipping vehicles. After engaging prospects at a series of industry conventions and trade fairs, they create a series of automated emails highlighting the emerging popularity of companies who support sustainable initiatives.
These are just a few examples of how outbound sales can connect companies with prospects who may or may not be aware of their solutions. Outbound sales offers a proactive approach to the most promising leads in a specific target market.
