Many believe outbound marketing is fading — and has been for years. Others still recognize its value, especially when used as part of a broader marketing strategy. Industry leaders agree an outbound marketing strategy has its place, but only with thoughtful execution.
Read on to learn about established outbound marketing tactics. We’ll also explore how to effectively apply them in today’s sales landscape.
What Is Outbound Marketing?
Outbound marketing occurs when businesses directly reach out to customers, using strategies like cold calling, paid ads, and email outreach. It follows the same principle and meaning of outbound sales, which refers to businesses that actively initiate contact with prospects to lead them down the sales funnel.
Few organizations rely solely on outbound marketing. Most use it as part of a strategy that includes inbound channels.
Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing
Inbound marketing refers to marketing outputs that encourage potential leads to engage with a business. While outbound marketing pushes messages out (business-led), inbound marketing is invitational (end user-led). Examples of outbound and inbound marketing include:
Outbound marketing: Direct mail, cold calling, and paid advertising
Inbound marketing: Search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing (such as creating and distributing whitepapers), and organic social media
Outbound Marketing Strategies To Try
From traditional tactics like cold emailing to newer ones like social selling, let’s explore outbound marketing channels that still deliver results.
Cold Emailing
Does cold emailing still work? It does, if approached correctly. A single email won’t get the job done. To effectively conduct cold emailing campaigns, it’s important to follow a two- to five-step process. To generate the best results, follow this sequence:
Initial outreach (email one): Here, outbound marketers introduce themselves and their company’s solution. They aim to establish personalized relevance to the individual, highlight their pain point, and request a low-friction call to action (CTA).
First follow-up (email two): Most customers don’t respond to the first email. Marketers use follow-ups to gently remind prospects of the relevance of their company and ability to solve specific problems. It may entail a form of social proof or a cost-free insight.
Second follow-up (email three): Most replies come after the third or fourth email. Here, outbound marketers try a different approach — such as an alternative offer or new testimonial.
Third follow-up (email four): Here, the outbound marketer may strategically escalate the email thread. This can entail asking directly, “Is there someone else I can reach out to in your organization?” Or, noting that they will soon close the loop.
Closing the loop: (email five): This final email signals the end of your outreach sequence. The goal is to preserve goodwill and leave the door open for future engagement. An effective message might say something like, “If now isn’t the right time, I’ll step back; but please reach out if priorities change.”
Sales teams can adjust this sequence based on a few best practices to keep in mind: Leave five to seven days between each email, ensure a high degree of personalization (generic cold emails are almost always ignored), and minimize the friction of all CTAs.
Cold Calling
Cold calling is largely a numbers game: About 1% of calls lead to appointments, and sales teams reach 93% of converted leads by the sixth call attempt. Successful teams use structured frameworks like SPIN selling to improve results.
SPIN stands for situation, problem, implication, and need-payoff. Reps use these four types of questions to uncover customer challenges and guide the conversation. Instead of pitching features, reps ask targeted questions to reveal pain points and link solutions to business impact.
SPIN selling works well for complex B2B environments. It helps build trust and tailor messages to real needs. For simple sales motions, teams may use frameworks like Straight Line Selling.
Social Selling
Social selling is a newer outbound tactic that uses professional networks like LinkedIn to identify and connect with prospects.
Traditionally, LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index (SSI) score served as the primary benchmark for measuring a salesperson’s social selling activity. The SSI is a score between 0 and 100 — the closer to 100 a salesperson is, the more effective they are at building a brand, engaging prospects, and fostering professional relationships.
In practice, a strong SSI score does not necessarily correlate directly with measurable sales results. Understanding this, LinkedIn advises users to adopt a “more human-centered approach”, rather than one fixated on an SSI score. To help users focus more on high-value outputs, LinkedIn has begun rolling out AI-driven social selling capabilities, including:
Lead IQ: This offers lead-level insights and engagement recommendations to help reps identify and focus on high-priority leads.
Message Assist: LinkedIn can draft personalized outbound outreach communications, based on AI-driven business and market intelligence.
Sales Assistant: This functions as an AI agent, suggesting high-value opportunities daily, continuously gathering intelligence, and aiding in meeting bookings.
While still evolving, 87% of outbound marketers see social selling as effective—particularly in B2B contexts.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising refers to purchasing ad placements across digital and traditional channels, from Meta and LinkedIn to radio and billboards. Today, digital paid advertising is more common — and more effective — than traditional paid advertising.
Digital advertising campaigns generally have one of three objectives: awareness, consideration, or conversion. Outbound marketers can optimize for specific goals like gaining followers or driving clicks.
Digital paid advertising channels come with unique tools such as advanced analytics, cross-site tracking (ownership-based), and advanced target audience segmentation. Across campaigns, the following best practices typically lead to improved outcomes:
Utilize lookalike audiences: Marketers can develop “lookalike audiences,” composed of individuals that exhibit statistically similar traits to qualified audiences. This lets algorithms position advertisements in front of users who are likely to engage.
Conduct re-targeting campaigns: Marketers position ads in front of users who previously completed a specific action (like after watching more than 30 seconds of a prior advertisement). Re-targeting often increases conversion rates by 150%.
Establish platform-specific campaigns: Conduct campaigns on platforms where your end users reside. If you’re conducting a B2B campaign, use LinkedIn Ads. Similarly, if you’re conducting a direct-to-consumer campaign targeting 18 to 30 year olds, use TikTok Ads.
Events
Events like trade shows and seminars connect businesses with prospects in person or virtually. Companies may host their own events or sponsor existing ones.
Sponsoring and advertising at existing events is more common. Think of this as a three-stage workflow:
Pre-event: Here, outbound marketers identify events that align with broader organizational objectives. They define their value proposition and tailor it to the event’s target audience.
During the event: Marketers have two primary objectives — optimal positioning and data capture. Positioning may entail floor positioning or sponsoring key sessions. Data capture refers to systems that seamlessly enable post-event follow-ups.
Post-event: Actions here center on follow-up marketing campaigns and performance measurement. Outbound marketers engage with event attendees through multi-sequence outreach. They also measure performance (like lead volume and cost per lead), informing future event campaigns.
How To Measure Outbound Marketing Success
For all outbound campaigns, marketers must define success before launching a campaign. The metrics that marketers measure depend on the campaign type. Below are three common outbound metrics and how marketers apply them.
Response Rate
Response rate tracks the percentage of outreach attempts that get replies. It applies to emails, calls, and social messages. A high response rate signals strong targeting and messaging.
To calculate response rate:
Response rate (%) = (number of responses / number of outreach attempts) × 100
Cost per Lead
Cost per lead (CPL) measures how much you spend to acquire one new lead through an outbound campaign. It’s a key metric for evaluating campaign efficiency. Marketers use CPL to compare performance across channels like paid ads, events, and email outreach.
To measure CPL:
CPL = total campaign spend / number of leads acquired
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate tracks how many outreach attempts lead to a desired outcome — such as scheduling a demo, registering for a webinar, or downloading a whitepaper. It helps marketers understand how well their messaging drives engagement.
There isn’t one universal equation for measuring conversion rate. The numerator is always conversions. But the denominator depends on the campaign stage — such as delivered emails or event attendees.
To calculate conversion rate:
Conversion rate (%) = (number of conversions / number of qualified opportunities) × 100
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