Outbound Lead Generation For B2B Service-Based Businesses

What Does Outbound Look Like?

Outbound can take a number of different forms as it seeks to connect new customers with your service:

Email — Template emails can be personalized and sent to emails of potential customers. This is a way of reaching a central part of their workday, as many decision-makers check their email dozens of times a day.

LinkedIn — While this is a newer avenue of communication, it is very popular for B2B businesses and younger professionals.

Call Centers / VoIP — Having a long list of potential clients to phone is a great way of putting your SDRs in front of decision-makers with a personal twist.

Social Media Marketing — While not as effective for B2B (who typically rely on “more professional” communication channels), automated social media messages are one way of connecting with brands—though perhaps not directly with the decision-makers who work there.

Customer Information Acquisition Tools

So, with all of this in mind, how do you generate outbound leads? If you’ve built your email or phone campaign, it is important to figure out who you’re trying to message with it and why.

It is crucial to reach these relevant decision-making contacts of an organization directly. After all, pitching a service to the front-desk team probably won’t see you many results. Luckily, there are a number of tools that can help you turn

To do this, you need tools that can help you generate outbound leads.

Wingmate — The Outsourced Sales Team at Wingmate uses industry-leading tools to connect you quickly and efficiently with decision-makers who can help your business grow.

Hunter.io — Hunter.io lets you and your sales team locate professional email addresses in a matter of seconds to better connect with the people that matter for your business.

Snov.io — Fill your funnel without emptying your marketing budget with Snov.io—a powerful tool with navigating aggregated buyer information.

Lemlist — Lemlist offers a comprehensive solution for automated emails, engagement, and follow-up for your expanding sales in your industry.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator — This paid app allows SDRs and salespeople to better tap into LinkedIn’s expansive network of professionals for better deals, profit, and business growth.

Behind all of these strategies lies a robust CRM—a means of connecting your sales team with contact databases, progress trackers, metric reports, and goal setting. Luckily, most leading CRMs are compatible with modern software solutions and offer cost-effective synergies when compared to scaling an in-house team of professionals!

Cold calls, sadly, don’t scale—they require individuals on your team to be consistently dialing and connecting with clients. Human and technical restraints (call blocking, changed numbers, position turnover) make the second metric impossible to overcome through brute force, and the former invites bloated salary costs. Email is your best bet for cost-effective outbound lead generation.

Should you outsource lead generation? If you cannot hire in-house (or are lacking the resources to orient your team effectively), absolutely! Like outsourcing marketing or your technological efforts, it is a great way to ensure your budget is ending up where it needs to.

By aligning your tech with your intent and team, you can achieve a great deal of meetings and qualified leads for little work. But how can you get even better while avoiding the pitfalls that hold back many other outbound strategies? It comes down to planning and capitalizing on your ideal customer profile.

Success Factors for an Outbound Lead Generation Strategy

So you have an understanding of creating a basic outbound lead generation strategy and a means of contacting your desired individual at a target company. The next step is to fully understand who you are reaching based on an ideal customer profile. Building multiple profiles and creating messages that target each of them ensure you can deliver maximum value to the recipient and scale more effectively.

What is an ideal customer profile? An ideal customer profile (ICP), also known as an ideal buyer profile, describes the ideal client for the problem that your company addresses. This is a made-up firm with all of the characteristics that make it the perfect fit for the solutions you offer. If your company uses ABM, or account-based marketing, an ICP can help you focus on selling to specific accounts that match your needs.

When you consider elements such as the target organization’s size, the number of employees they have, their budget, and their industry, an ICP may help you clarify the challenges you’re solving. Through proper messaging, you can match your product/service capabilities with consumers’ wants, set out your future road map for product/service upgrades, and implement adjustments as the feedback comes in.

The person in the organization that you message should line up with one of your ICPs and automated messaging to go along with it. This is why you should not route all leads to sales—some leads may not be a suitable fit, therefore it’s critical to figure out who can and can’t buy from you. That way, your salespeople aren’t wasting time on prospects who aren’t likely to become customers.

You may use your ICP to determine what constitutes a good match and ensure that the messaging you use can more effectively leverage their needs. Research your buyers, create a comprehensive profile and ensure the words you say and the services you advertise can match.

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An outbound strategy should be an exciting part of your business and sales planning. Building one allows you to more effectively and succinctly understand and communicate your brand to yourself and others. A more cohesive brand is an easier one to market once the meeting has been made—something many salespeople forget as they trip over their words to share the value of their service

Simply put, if you are a B2B service professional, you need robust outbound strategy generation. If not for your own organization, then for the clients you hope to help through necessary services they may not yet even know they need.

With outbound being a delicate mix of speaking, listening, waiting, and engaging, it can be challenging to know where to start. Contact us today to learn more and to start taking advantage of outbound strategies that scale businesses and help share the value of what you do.