Shooting with focus; How inbound and outbound lead generation come together effectively

Traditional way of generating leads

"In the old days" lead generation consisted of cold calling as many records as possible in the hope that there was someone among them who was interested. Shooting with hail. Generally, a target group was still defined on the basis of a feeling and was then approached on a large scale with the same message and at the end of the campaign, the balance was drawn up and it was determined on the basis of conversion how successful a campaign was.

Meanwhile, business in the Netherlands has slowly become immune to telemarketing. That is, it generally does more harm than good in a traditional form. Do you still buy anything on the phone? Do you immediately make an appointment if the telemarketer indicates that the account manager happens to be in your area next week and would like to come and meet you?

Generating leads now requires more of a long-term, ongoing process where the goal is not selling or making an appointment, but building a relationship. A relationship that may eventually yield a transaction.

Traditional inbound marketing

Traditional inbound marketing is perhaps best compared to fishing. Something was thrown online or offline and then waited to see if anyone bit. If so, then bring it in as quickly as possible and wait for the next one to bite.

Inbound marketing has also changed. Modern techniques make more and more possible in it. Online, we have long since stopped looking only at visitor numbers. Inbound marketers monitor everything that happens on and around their online channel. Constant adjustments are made to entice visitors to make a purchase or to make the threshold to contact them as low as possible. There is increasing investment in inbound marketing. Inbound marketing now stands for a marketing strategy in which you want to be found by your target group on the basis of content and, once the target group has found you, your online channel is fully set up for conversion.

1+1=3

How can outbound lead generation inbound marketing reinforce each other? As outlined, outbound lead generation is much more focused on starting a relationship. But with whom? With what message? Inbound marketing has the same problem. You see that your website is viewed and which pages are visited a lot but by whom? The answer to both challenges comes in the form of big data and a new technology that recognises who has viewed your website. Today, we can see not only how often, but with state-of-the-art technology today we can see who which page was viewed. Indeed, these tools thereby provide the contact details and the main contact person on a silver platter.

And this is exactly where inbound and outbound lead generation come together: The moment it is clear which companies, sectors, audiences or customers have viewed which content on your online channel then you can start firing with focus. Based on this daily inpoint, you can:

• Follow-up leads who have viewed content on your online channel
• Further customise your online content based on the parties who viewed that content
• Matching your marketing efforts to the audiences or sectors that viewed your online content
• Launching targeted outbound campaigns

The latter in particular brings inbound and outbound lead generation into the next phase. Based on the leads your online channel realises, you can start rolling out very targeted outbound campaigns. After all, based on the input, you have answers to the question of who and what. You know who is coming to your content and you know what content is being viewed.

Targeted outbound based on inbound leads

Who and what is known. So it becomes increasingly clear who is looking at what content on your online channel and how they came to you. Over time, trends can be recognised in this. Patterns in which it becomes clearer which sectors or which types of companies are interested in which (sub)part of your product and/or service portfolio. This therefore forms an excellent basis for a highly targeted outbound campaign. An outbound campaign in which you can highlight exactly what that target group is doing.