The customer-centric mindset has given birth to all kinds of marketing and sales strategies that are, by nature, inbound. They serve to build customer trust in the brand’s authority, they educate the audience on the value of the business, and they provide value every step of the way, only to inspire sales in a natural, organic way. Outbound sales, on the other hand, can have equally successful results, but only when done correctly.
The modern-day customer is sick and tired of pushy and aggressive sales tactics. There’s no more room for calling too frequently, asking the wrong questions, or spamming your leads with unwanted emails. You need to strike the right balance depending on each potential customer you want to woo, and you need to listen to their responses every time in order to improve your approach. To help you harness the power of outbound sales, take a look at the following strategies to help you boost conversion rates, but also foster strong customer relationships over time.
Create your ideal customer profile
Every company has its ideal customer and its ideal customer groups that it can use to tailor its sales, marketing, and communication strategies. When it comes to sales, it is imperative that you know exactly whom you’re selling to in order to make your sales pitch and all materials as relevant to your customers as possible. That’s why you need to conduct thorough customer research and create detailed customer profiles that will allow you to personalize your sale strategy and address the specific pain points that your target demographic is experiencing.
Use your CRM to track and monitor progress
CRM is one of those essential tools every company needs to take marketing, sales, and customer support forward. This is your comprehensive tool for lead generation and management, and it provides meaningful insights pertaining to your customers, the market, and the trends that prevail so that you can craft data-driven sales strategies.
Most importantly, though, a good CRM tool will allow you to monitor every instance of your marketing and sales processes, so that you can compare and contrast with previous quarters to gauge your level of improvement. This will allow you to create better strategies over time.
Learn from past methods and refine
Cold calling might not be as appealing as it used to be, particularly because customers and clients don’t want to be bothered by countless bands, but that doesn’t mean that phone communication is not one of your most powerful sales tactics. In fact, it can be your biggest asset, but you need to do it right. Firstly, you need a cloud-based phone system like VoIP to minimize the cost of your phone infrastructure and get various digital tools so that you can communicate internally and externally via chat, video, mobile, and more.
Aside from upgrading your phone tech, you should use its built-in analytics tools to gather valuable information about your customers so that you can personalize all communication and approach them in a unique way. This will allow you to plan your calls using specific customer data and learn how to approach them without driving them away. Coupled with the data provided by your CRM tool, this will allow you to utilize your phone system to generate sales and guide quality leads to conversion.
Create a flexible sales strategy
Outreach plans are necessary for your teams to have a clear vision of how they should communicate your brand message consistently. Scripts are useful especially for novice sales reps, but they shouldn’t be rigid in any sense – leave room for improvisation and creativity, and encourage role play for your newcomers to practice before they start calling and emailing prospects.
Make time to review their outreach plans, scripts, and track record. You can help them by refining their tone of voice, the kind of information they share with customers, and the way they portray your brand in the process.
Set measurable, realistic sales goals
There’s absolutely no merit in pursuing endless lists of unqualified leads with your perfect sales pitch, be it via the phone, email, or social media. If any of your strategies should work, they require well-researched, data-backed goals for each of your sales reps. First of all, calculate your sales goals for the short, mid, and long-term sales outreach for your teams. Then, assign appropriate sales strategies based on their traits and access to qualified leads.
Finally, track their progress, incentivize your teams, and always revisit your goals on a regular basis to make sure they’re on the right track. Keep in mind that setting the bar too high might be overwhelming for your sales teams, so it’s best to keep your goals realistic.
The era of cold-calling with nothing but tenacity up your sleeve is long over, and it has been replaced by customer-centric outbound sales with a steep learning curve. None of what you collect and learn about your customers is set in stone. Your sales teams will always need to revisit these and all other best practices in order to adapt to every lead that comes their way. Use these guidelines as your foundation, and then build upon it with your own creativity, all the while keeping your customers’ needs in mind.
