Cold-calling and outbound marketing strategies have the been the pillars upon which the sales industry was built. And while Sales and Marketing has morphed and grown and evolved, lead generation will never not be an integral component of sales.
Still, we are in a new age of marketing and doing the same old thing doesn’t cut it anymore. Outbound marketing as the sole focus of your company’s sales strategy will leave you out in the cold - they aren’t called cold-calls for nothing!
I’ve experienced outbound marketing from both sides, as both marketer and consumer. As a consumer I actually did not buy something I wanted due to the invasive and overly-pushy tactics employed by the marketer. This is the worst case scenario and is specific to in-your-face sales strategies that border on being hostile. When I was on the other side of the sales fence I found that there were times when cold-calling definitely works, but a lot of energy is expended for a little success.
So is this to say that cold-calling is dead? Not at all! But it needs to adapt, and that means incorporating the tenets that make inbound marketing so successful - as well as complementing it with inbound marketing itself.
Inbound marketing succeeds because it allows the consumer to feel as though they are exercising agency in their purchases. The salesman of today isn’t immediately trusted the way he was in his heyday, so companies need to build trust with their consumers. Inbound marketing strategies do this by establishing a reliable brand through multiple outlets such as a company blog, social media presence on facebook and twitter, and educational resources and testimonials on the company website.
On top of bringing consumers to you, inbound marketing has a secret weapon: it has a significantly higher ROI than outbound marketing. In fact, inbound marketing costs a whopping 62% less per lead than traditional outbound marketing. That’s going to add up fast!
So if your company is only focusing its budget on outbound marketing, that needs to change. Get those inbound marketing strategies going so you can come in from the cold! Do you have a cold-call horror story? Or did you experience the difference in ROI with inbound marketing strategies? Let us know in the comments!
