Inbound vs Outbound: Holy War Mode On?
When sales & marketing executives start discussing these approaches, you can easily track the tendency of inbound methodology being well-liked by marketing officers, while outbound is something sales managers vote for, though sounding a little bit uncertain at the same time.
The thing is, each party has its grain of truth. Depending on which product or service is to be sold, both outbound and inbound methods could lead to quite unexpected results — both positive and negative.
There are of course pros and cons of each method to be taken into consideration — I guess we all of us are pretty much familiar with those, like outbound has a lower conversion rate but can bring results sooner rather than later, whilst inbound has a bigger conversion rate, but has to be developed thoroughly in the course of weeks or months.
Instead of arguing about which one is better, I suggest focusing on areas of implementation. To sustain theory with examples, I’ll throw in some KeepSolid products as case studies.
- Inbound
Inbound works good when selling:
- B2C products
(E.g. here at KeepSolid, VPN Unlimited app could serve as an example, as most of our traffic comes from inbound).
- low to middle priced B2B SaaS products
(E.g. this could relate to Business VPN by KeepSolid and KeepSolid Sign, where most traffic comes from inbound as well).
Indeed, you won’t bother to cold email people when your product value is 10 bucks — even if some 5% out of those (let’s assume, 100 people) respond and eventually buy whatever you’re selling (an incredible result for cold outreaches), you’ll end up holding $50 in your hand. And then the tax agent will come and take some, so the rest won’t even cover your monthly plan for an email marketing tool.
“How do you know your content is relevant? Increased social traffic, social engagement, and higher quality leads.” ― Jason Miller, Sr. Manager Content & Social, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
So in case of B2C products or low to middle priced B2B SaaS products you’d really want to have inbound sales in place. Attract traffic to your website or landing pages, convert visitors into customers, partner with affiliates & advertisers, add up some PR & media resources, and enjoy the results.
Is outbound sales something we should totally forget then? As a sales executive whose primary focus has always been on direct sales, I refuse to accept this :)
2. Outbound
Outbound sales methodology is good when you act as a sniper rather than a machine-gunner. You choose you lead thoroughly, you patiently await until he or she makes some action, you target, you pull a trigger. That’s a smart way of doing it.
Another way would be to do mass cold emailing — unpersonalized, untimely, unwanted. It may still bring some results, but only if you have time & budget to wait for those.
“Outbound prospecting is all about quality, not quantity.” — Aaron Ross, author of Predictable Revenue
Outbound is good for:
- Direct sales
It relates to products or services that are worth direct selling efforts. Like, when value of the product/service warrant the cost and time spent for followups, calls, personal emails, etc, etc.
- high priced B2B SaaS products
It mostly includes customized high-tech platforms, but it also relates to other products with lower price. In one of the above KeepSolid products, Business VPN could serve as an example where outbound sales could be quite a relevant option.
Depending on what type of product or service you are selling, both outbound and inbound could be an option — though in some cases one would work better than the other.
p.s. No holy wars required :) Choose your method and watch your revenue grow!
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