Outbound Marketing Step By Step Video Guide

John O'Shea

Your Outbound Marketing strategy is only as strong as your weakest link. The outbound sales process traditionally involves making cold calls to prospects. However, this comes with its own set of disadvantages.

This article will take you through a series of step by step videos guides to help you to strengthen the links in your outbound strategy.

Play Video

Outbound Targeting

The first link in the outbound chain is targeting.

You need to start by identifying your target persona – the person, industry, or organisation who needs your product or service, and the reasons why they need it.

Drill down into the details of the company – the type of industry, the company’s geographical location, its size, departments and the job titles of people who work within those departments.

Play Video

Identify the Decision Maker

The main decision maker is the person within the company who will decide whether or not to buy from you.

Once you’ve identified this person, find out who their influencers are. They are usually the people who work above, below, and next to the main decision maker.

For an effective outbound strategy, try and identify each of these people. They will all affect the buying decision.

Look for Sales Triggers

A trigger event is any occurrence that creates a sales or marketing opportunity. They can sometimes be difficult to spot, but it’s worth the effort.

A trigger event could be company expansion or relocation, revenue growth, a new product or service or the introduction of a new department within the company.

Target via that trigger, then org-map your campaign according to the decision maker and their main influencers.

A Caveat for Start-Ups

If you’re a start-up, it may be too early to identify your ideal buyer persona.

If you’re in this situation, an effective outbound campaign is still possible. Start by interviewing your current clients to find out who has bought from you, and why they bought from you.

If you’re able to identify the decision maker, optimise your campaign around that person and their influencers. Test the campaign’s efficacy, tweak, and test again. Once you’ve built momentum, you can scale it up.

Quality Data

The second link in the outbound chain is quality data.

When collecting data, always remember who you are targeting. The data that is collected needs to produce a scalable outbound solution.

Play Video

Before you embark on data collection, don’t forget the first link in the chain. Think about who you should be targeting.

Where companies go wrong
When it comes to data collection, companies tend to focus on 3 methods:

– The sales team collect the information
– They buy lists
– They scrape websites using search criteria

These methods may work, but they’re costly – not only financially, but also in lost time. They won’t create an effective, scalable outbound solution.

CEO lists
As with targeting, understanding the organisational map is crucial for collecting high quality data.

You’re looking for the main decision maker plus their influencers – the people above, below and adjacent to the decision maker.

Buying CEO lists may give you the decision maker, but the strategy is limited. Those lists don’t include the crucial influencers who sit around them.

Data erosion
With CRMs or databases, the data erodes extremely quickly – on average, at a rate of 2% a month – and in the current environment, the percentage will be even higher.

There’s little point in putting the wrong data into your outbound campaign machine. For an effective strategy, you need a solid data source.

Deliverability

The third link in the outbound chain is delivery, or deliverability.

It’s one of the most overlooked parts of an outbound strategy.

Play Video

Authenticity

There is nothing more off-putting than an automated email. They’re easy enough to spot. The tell-tale signs of automation are painfully visible from a mile away.

Deliverability is about making your email look authentic. The reader should think you’ve typed out a personal message and pressed `send’. But here’s the problem:

These emails must be scalable.

You could, of course, use one of the bulk email platforms. There are plenty to choose from. Unfortunately, your recipient will notice. They won’t feel special, so the likelihood of a positive reply is virtually zero.

Follow-up emails

If you were to send a follow-up email naturally in real life, you’d probably go to your original sent item, write the follow-up, and then hit `reply all’.

Your bulk follow-up needs to look like real life. If the email chain looks unnatural, its recipients will see the automation. Again, zero replies.

Domain reputation

Forget subject lines, design guides and CTAs. Your domain reputation is more important than anything else.

That reputation will be severely damaged if you send mass emails on automation platforms. Your open rate will drop through the floor.

Think carefully about your choice of platform, and the scalability of that platform. Above all, make sure your emails look authentic.

Outbound Copy

The fourth and final link in the outbound chain is copy.

Remember, this is not a marketing copy. This is a sales email. A conversation starter to engage with a prospect.

Play Video

The most successful organisations spend thousands of pounds on copy, sometimes tens of thousands. There’s a good reason for this: It has to be right.

It’s not marketing copy

This is a sales email – a personal email sent to a prospect in order to engage with them. It’s a conversation starter.

Steer clear of links or photos and most importantly, don’t be at all `salesy’.

Tips on content

Set out the reason why you’re contacting this person.
Demonstrate an understanding of their pain points, and explain how you fix that pain.
Prove your credibility with, for example, the number of years you’ve worked in the industry or your client base.

Keep it short

Your prospect doesn’t have time to spare. Keep the email as short as possible.

Make it all about them

Rather than talking about yourself or your company, focus on how you can help your prospect.

The email needs to be all about them, not you.

Conclusion

Get in touch with us to help strengthen the links in Your outbound chain.

So, those are the 4 key links to getting an effective, scalable, outbound strategy.

Play Video

In order to allow your sales teams to effectively accelerate growth, achieve more and engage with more people, you need to concentrate on each element, or your chain will break allowing for less favourable results. As we highlighted, placing cold calls to potential buyers has too many disadvantages.

To counteract this you need to do the following:

1. Targeting: You need to identify your target persona. The person who will make the final decision.
2. Quality Data: When collecting data, remember who you are targeting. Your data needs to be effective and scalable.
3. Deliverability: Once you know who you are targeting, you need to send email outreach. These emails need to be scalable and authentic.
4. Copy: This is the final link in the outbound chain. And, although you are focusing on the deliverability of your emails, you must remember that it is a sales email. It has to be right.

Book a call with Growthonics to find out how we can support your lead generation efforts.