While outreach starts out as a numbers game, it's really about how smart those numbers are. Blindly going into a B2B outreach strategy without taking a step back to strategize a bit will frustrate many in sales with their output. Yet a lot of that comes from the fact that salespeople may not be as prepared as they should be and taking the time with this preparation, combined with the right tools and information, goes a long way over simply trying your best to try to reach those leads through cold outreach.
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1. Make your business recognizable
Part of how your sales team can work to get better lead conversions and, ultimately, more sales is to really work and focus on that brand awareness and get your business known out there. For example, if you're in the SaaS business, you want to have the ability to make your product available on software discovery platforms. These highly focused review sites work as comparisons with multiple types of SaaS out there.
Decision makers are looking at these sites consistently, so having your product and branding out there will go a long way regarding that cold outreach, whether through cold calling or emails. This also helps with developing warmer leads for your sales calls to work the easier victories because decision-makers will come to you with their problems your solution helps resolve. That also then means more practice for sales teams to close out deals, work on cross-selling and upselling, and compound into great reviews on these sites.
At Nymblr, we use Capterra where our customers can leave real reviews and help others who are looking for B2B contact data to make the right decision. You can check out our Capterra profile HERE.
2. Train up your sales team (or yourself)
This is critically important, and there are a few different areas to cover here. First, you want to ensure that you have a properly trained team for sales. They need to know how to negotiate, convince and work with decision-makers to be able to close the deal. They need to understand the process of your company and know how long a typical sales cycle is and what it looks like. Understanding how to reach out, track calls, see the difference between cold leads and warm leads, as well as how prospecting works is crucial.
Then you want to make sure that the sales teams are subject matter experts of the product themselves. This way, they are ready to answer any questions about the product, pricing, and implementation or delivery. Every prospective B2B outreach needs to develop a clear business case of how the product or service being sold is relevant to that key decision maker based on the salesperson's knowledge.
Any new updates or features to the product or services need to be immediately sent to the sales team so that they are able to push these features when prospecting and reach out to their existing list, to work on upselling them with these new products or updated services.
The final component when it comes to training your sales staff is that they need to understand who their target market is. That means understanding who the decision makers are on the other end of the communications and the biggest pain point. Again, remember that it's not a one size fits all mentality but about working with each lead to understand and record their needs. The more data gathered this way, the better each prospective B2B outreach will be.
3. Use the right channels
Don’t just stick with one channel, but take a multi-pronged approach. However, don't take a passive approach and leave out cold calling as part of the strategy. You want to cold call as much as you do any of the other channels, if not more so, as those are going to be able to hit a response much faster than the other channels.
So now we know how important cold calling is, let's explore other channels. Another to consider is the cold email which has also gotten more of a presence in the digital age. Yet just keep in mind that cold emails are not as effective as they were in the past. People are simply getting inundated with so many emails these days that it will come across as another uninformed sales pitch. So keep it in the pool of strategies.
If you are afraid of cold calling you should read our article below:
From there, you want to consider professional social media channels to reach out to the decision leaders. Still, here again, a lot of communication goes this route, and often the communication or message can be lost. That's why with either the cold email or the cold social media reach out; you want to also follow that up with the cold call.
There's also the possibility to push for a personal meeting in any of these communication channels, but that depends truly on the complexity of the product offering, and those tend to be best for larger deals with more complex sales cycles.
4. Have the right tools
Scaling your B2B outreach requires tools that will allow you to reach prospects efficiently. There are many options available and we’ve put together a quick shortlist for you to save you some time.
Outplay - Outplay is a user-friendly platform that allows you to import a list of prospects, create multi-step email campaigns, and track engagement and performance. Outplay is ideal for startups and small businesses and it has affordable pricing.
Reply.io - Reply.io is another great platform for outbound emails and sequences. We like that it allows you to do multi-channel outreach like LinkedIn and phone calls and it also offers email validation and calendar integrations for easy scheduling. Reply.io is a great platform for small businesses, startups, and agencies.
Salesloft - Salesloft is one of the most reputable and well-known outbound sales platforms for a reason. It offers powerful analytics and customization options allowing you to take your B2B outreach to the next level. Salesloft is not the cheapest option and we would recommend it for established businesses with solid rev ops knowledge and support.
Having the right tools for your B2B outreach is critical to your success and you should evaluate your options diligently.
5. Have the right data
The final key aspect is to know who the right decision-makers are. There's nothing worse than blindly reaching out to prospects only to realize the phone number or email you have no longer exists or that the person is no longer a relevant decision-maker. It's energy spent with zero chance of converting a cold lead into a prospect. It will be undertaken by the salesperson, who is focused on delivering value to potential customers and is instead investing that time into this blockage on the road.
The right data can be hard to come by, and while many companies have some type of pipeline, it’s best to work with those that manage these types of data sets for a living. That’s why Nymblr should be your dedicated data partner in ensuring that you always have the right information for your sales teams every single time.
Nymblr’s B2B contact data is updated regularly and validated in real-time so you can get access to leads and prospects who are more likely to convert. There's fixed pricing to not break any sales budgets, and best of all there are no user seat limits.
That means for one low price (starting at $100 per month); your whole sales team can get access to verified business contacts.
Try Nymblr for free today and stop overpaying for contact data and user seats.