Outbound sales strategies have existed since the dawn of marketing. Businesses let customers know about their exciting new products and how this merchandise could help them. However, as shoppers become more independent and take greater ownership over the buyer’s journey, traditional outbound sales strategies have started to struggle.
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Today, successful businesses must understand how to balance conventional outbound techniques with inbound strategies that accommodate modern eCommerce buying patterns. We will explore what you need to know about these shifts in marketing and inbound sales vs. outbound sales so that you can put the best strategies to work for you and your brand.
The Evolution of Sales Strategies: Inbound Sales vs. Outbound Sales
It’s time to start thinking differently about sales and marketing. Customer preferences constantly change, but many companies’ strategies do not.
To be blunt, many traditional sales and marketing techniques no longer work. Cold calls only result in a conversion rate of about 2 percent, while inbound website conversion rates typically range from 6 to 12 percent. Inbound tactics also produce around 54 percent more leads than outbound methods.
Making the switch to inbound marketing allows for qualified leads and customers to come directly to your store. In this blog, we're discussing inbound sales vs. outbound sales to help you grow your customer base through effective promotion.
Customer empowerment and the digital sales transformation have driven the shift toward inbound strategies. Shoppers now have a greater capacity to investigate solutions to their pain points, and they maintain control over the early phases of the buyer’s journey. They digest content and form opinions about what solution they want to employ.
Defining Inbound vs. Outbound eCommerce Sales
The buyer-seller relationship has changed during the past decade. Many individuals now associate traditional sales with various elements of deception that result in a general lack of trust.
eCommerce is becoming faster and more easily accessible from various devices. As a result of the abundance of information available online, today's consumers are more informed than ever. This has caused customers to change how they respond to inbound vs. outbound eCommerce.
You can see how inbound marketing works by examining HubSpot’s workflows. Inbound marketers emphasize producing content that moves people from the initial research phase to the decision and purchasing stages. For example, Groove Commerce helped Hello Divorce use HubSpot to create effective nurturing channels that enabled them to contact leads at the right time in the buyer’s journey.
The above-mentioned case study also captures how inbound marketing can be paired with outbound outreach in effective ways. Businesses may also use strategies like retargeting ads to re-engage people who have previously shown an interest in their brands.
Keep reading for a comparison of inbound sales vs. outbound sales and find the right balance for your business.
The Inbound Sales Methodology and Digital Sales Transformation
Inbound sales methods are helpful, human, and holistic. Inbound marketing tactics allow you to connect with your customers and earn the attention of the empowered buyer. When used correctly, these techniques bring qualified buyers directly to your company while saving time and money.
The basic inbound sales strategy focuses on improving the overall customer experience that your business provides—both for potential and existing customers.
To help you gain a better understanding, we're breaking down the inbound sales methodology into four phases:
- The Identify Phase
- The Connect Phase
- The Explore Phase
- The Advise Phase
1. The Identify Phase
The first phase involves separating active buyers from passive buyers.
Active buyers are shoppers who have already begun their buyer's journey. They're looking for a solution to a specific problem and may immediately benefit from the product or service that you offer. Many prospective customers come from organic search results on Google or eCommerce PPC. From there, you can prioritize them as qualified leads and meet them wherever they are on the buyer's journey.
Passive buyers aren’t ready to buy but may be interested in the future. Although marketers typically prioritize active over passive customers, it is possible to get passive buyers to convert—even though it may take a bit more effort.
Social media is a great tool to use during this phase because it enables you to gather information about a potential customer that you could not previously access.
2. The Connect Phase
After identifying the right type of buyer, you're in the connect phase. This stage is a crucial part of inbound sales strategies because it's about building relationships with potential clients.
We recommend starting this process with a personalized message that shows you understand the buyer's context. By highlighting your ability to listen and understand a customer's problem, you’ll help the person begin to trust your brand.
You can also employ user-generated content in this phase. Urge satisfied customers to leave reviews or post images that show them using your products. This encourages people to learn more about what you have to offer.
3. The Explore Phase
Once you make a connection between your company and the buyer, you can transition to the exploratory phase. The objective of this stage is to gain a more complete understanding of the customer’s needs through an in-depth and attentive conversation with an expert.
By directly communicating with the buyer and listening to them, you’ll gain a better understanding of their overall goals while enhancing the trust you developed in the previous phase.
4. The Advise Phase
After you identify your buyer and build a relationship with them based on understanding their needs, you can enter into the fourth and final stage. During this phase, you have the opportunity to deliver a presentation that highlights the best elements of your company.
However, in contrast to outbound marketing techniques, this should not be a generic sales pitch that could be given to any customer. Instead, this presentation is tailored to the client. Reveal the specific ways your product or service will help a buyer achieve the goals they discussed with you during the exploration phase.
You can also help customers get advice from others who have been in their position. Social proof enables leads to see that other customers are happy with your products and services, which can encourage them toward conversion.
Throughout these phases, you’ll want to track lead progress and see how they move through the buyer’s journey. A CRM tool, like HubSpot, can help you follow leads as they engage with your brand across different channels. This will help you identify the ideal times to reach out and engage. It also enables you to build customer trust through sales.
Outbound Sales Techniques and Limitations
Outbound marketing techniques, also known as traditional sales methods, revolve around companies finding leads and customers. Outbound techniques typically include:
- Cold calling
- Print advertising
- Email blasts
- Trade shows
- Television ads
Outbound sales can become very costly and ineffective for companies as a result of technologies designed to block spam email and phone calls. Rather than adapting to these changes, many businesses continue to use the same techniques despite losing both customers and money. Since outbound techniques have a low ROI compared to inbound methods, this quickly becomes a strategy of diminishing returns.
Instead of getting overwhelmed by ever-changing customer behavior, we recommend adapting and using these changes to your advantage by implementing inbound sales techniques.
Nevertheless, there are outbound strategies that can provide you with good results, particularly when paired with inbound methods. For example, we recommend incorporating techniques like:
- Direct mail campaigns, particularly when coupled with research and targeting
- Segmented email campaigns and triggered email messages
- PPC ads based on demographics and customer needs
- Trade shows that incorporate demonstrations and other displays
How to Balance Inbound and Outbound Sales
Although we're huge advocates of inbound sales and believe that they offer important benefits, we recognize that inbound and outbound can work together to create a holistic approach.
To develop a successful eCommerce marketing strategy, it’s critical to find the right balance between inbound sales vs. outbound sales and keep using the methods that are currently working in your company’s favor. An integrated strategy can produce a seamless experience for users throughout the buyer's journey.
If you have received great feedback and achieved a high ROI on a clever television ad, use that to your advantage by combining it with inbound marketing. Taking that step will help to improve engagement and increase sales.
One way to accomplish this is to add a hashtag to your advertisements and encourage viewers to connect with you on other platforms. As a result, you’ll be able to benefit from existing outbound campaigns while also learning to identify qualified inbound leads.
Finding a balance between your existing strategy and the inbound methodology will enable your business to seamlessly move toward this smarter way of selling.
To help you nurture this type of engagement, use data and KPIs to measure your success. When you look at metrics like lead conversion rates and customer acquisition costs for different methods, it can help you find the proper balance of inbound and outbound strategies to maximize your success.
Trends in Modern Sales Strategies
As customers become more sophisticated in their ability to seek information and engage with brands on their own terms, businesses have seen the emergence of modern sales strategies that can make them more effective and help them communicate with potential customers:
Predictive analytics and artificial intelligence: These technologies can help eCommerce companies identify the leads most likely to make purchases. They also make it easier to determine what types of content will appeal to these shoppers.
Sustainability messaging: People increasingly care about the values of the businesses that supply them with products and services. Sustainability has become a major priority for many people, so it’s an excellent idea to incorporate this concept into your inbound marketing efforts. Test its effectiveness to see how potential buyers respond to these ideas.
Omnichannel engagement: Regardless of whether they’re using inbound or outbound marketing, companies need to focus on adopting unified strategies across different platforms.
Conclusion
Inbound sales strategies have created a new kind of buyer-seller relationship that operates on building customer trust through sales and thrives on communication. By identifying and connecting with active buyers and your target audience, you'll save both time and money while simultaneously developing lasting relationships.
Take advantage of the way technology has changed by introducing a successful inbound marketing strategy. The key is to create and deliver value to the consumer throughout every single step of the buyer's journey. A balanced, cohesive strategy that uses inbound and outbound methods can enable brands to maximize their overall reach and return.
If you're evaluating tools to help empower your sales team, we recommend exploring our blog, which compares HubSpot and Salesforce CRM systems.
If you have any questions about inbound sales vs. outbound sales or would like to learn more about how Groove could improve your eCommerce marketing strategy, contact us today. We can help you get started with an audit and find potential opportunities to maximize your brand’s online presence.
We look forward to helping you find ways to implement optimal inbound and outbound strategies while building your company’s overall success.
