Inbound marketing is great and certainly has its place as a pillar of any effective overall marketing strategy, but plenty of companies agree that it’s not enough to rely on to fill your funnel. Outbound marketing can be a highly effective tool when done correctly to get your name in front of more brands and stay top of mind for VIP buyers. 

We chatted with Lauren Vaccarello, CMO of Salesloft and author of two beloved B2B marketing books, about what she keeps in mind when it comes to forming an outbound marketing strategy. 

Prioritize your outbound reps

Sales and marketing alignment is always tricky, but it’s a massive factor in your company's success. Marketers can sometimes be quick to jump into funnel optimization or throw a few outbound sequences to the sales team and call it good, but Lauren cautions against forgetting your outbound sales reps in the process. 

Focus on building a relationship with our outbound sales reps and really hear what they need to reach your most important buyers. They’re your secret weapon when it comes to understanding what your buyers actually need to know to make decisions. Work together to craft thoughtful, impactful content and stay aligned on performance to create a strong outbound program. 

Get your Intent Data in order

Successful outbounding depends entirely on having the right pieces of the puzzle from the jump–and Intent Data can give your sales and marketing teams a head start. Implementing the right tech will allow your team to identify which buyers are in the market, what stage of research they’re in, and who else they’re looking into. 

The right tools will also help you automate the content that gets served to your buyers to create custom buyer journeys, engaging your most important buyers with what they need to know exactly when they’re looking for it. 

Work with your sales team to make sure you’re all targeting the right accounts, and you’ll be able to supercharge your outbound motion. 

Focus on personalization

It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that outbound marketing is just a volume game–the more you send the better chance you hit your goals, right?

But quality matters in outbound marketing. If you’re spending all your time going after the wrong accounts, or creating content that doesn’t resonate with buyers, or relying on stale templates that no one reads, who cares how many emails your reps sent? 

Look at outbound marketing as a chance to really connect with buyers and create content that speaks to them exactly where they are. Instead of relying on outdated templates, focus on personalized connections and showing buyers you’re invested in who they are. 

How much personalization is right? Probably more than you think, if you ask Lauren. She recommends personalizing at least 20% of any cold comms you’re sending. 

Understand your value use cases

Again, sales and marketing alignment makes all the difference in every aspect of your pipeline generation strategy–your outbound marketing is no different. You have to spend the time to make sure your entire team is on the same page about your value proposition and use cases so that every piece of content, every email, and every meeting speaks to your product the same way. 

Align on everything from your brand awareness stage down to the bottom of your funnel. It matters that every touchpoint a buyer might come into contact with is consistent and accurate. 

Be willing to test as you go

Outbound marketing isn’t an exact science, you have to leave room to adjust as you start to understand your outbound channels better. This especially matters when you’re starting fresh like Lauren did joining Salesloft earlier in 2022. You have to be flexible and willing to experiment to gather more performance data. It’s important to get a deep understanding of how many touches it takes a buyer to make a decision, and use that information to define your own set of best practices. 

Make sure you have a plan in place to utilize the information you gain in real-time. Optimize as you go by watching what channels perform best and leaning into them to get the most out of your budget. Be okay with cutting channels that aren’t performing at the moment.

Apply some of these best practices

Lauren dropped some of her own best practices to apply to your outbound marketing tactics: 

Personalize everything

Don’t just drop 100% templatized email sequences–enable your sales team to personalize and add their own spin to make them unique and appeal to individuals. 

Do your research

You have to know your audience and what they do. Executives aren’t reading long, rambling emails. Get to how you solve their problem immediately and concisely.

Stay relevant

Everything you communicate to buyers needs to be relevant to what they do, what they need, and what that looks like in the current economic climate. Stay on top of your messaging and know when to pivot to stay current–no one wants to work with a brand that’s tone-deaf. 

Leverage your network

You’ve no doubt curated a wide network of peers on social media–use it. If you’re mutual connections with someone, drop those names. 

Take the path of least resistance

Going after high-level execs with huge LinkedIn followings? Their DMs are a bottomless pit. Find the channel where they have the least amount of followers and get your message seen. 

Leverage your website in your outbound strategy

Your website is your best marketing tool. Treat it like the digital storefront it is, and make sure it can hold up to the task. Leveraging the right tech and tools allows you to take your website from a brochure to a custom, interactive, and memorable content machine that engages buyers from the moment they land on your site. 

Connecting your site to the right tech helps you capture traffic the moment they’re interested, and makes all of that outbound effort worth it, all while maintaining a frictionless experience for the visitor. 

Want more expert advice from top CMOs and Demand Gen Leaders? Click here to check out more from Pipeline Summit.