10 Key Ways to Optimise your Outbound Sales Engine

Outbound sales remain a vital component of a company’s sales strategy. Or at least it should be. Research conducted in 2019 highlighted that 41.2% of respondents found the humble telephone to be the most effective sales tool at their disposal. Outbound sales drove 55% of leads compared with 27% generated by inbound. That’s a pretty compelling statistic!

But can you supercharge your results further by changing some aspects of your approach, to close any gaps in your outbound sales strategy and delivery plan. With all elements working harmoniously you will see a surge in the quality and quantity of leads in your pipeline.

We’re experienced in helping our clients maximise their outbound sales strategy. In our experience, it takes an initial time-investment, expertise and consistent approach to get your outbound sales engine firing on all cylinders.

Here’s our rundown of the 10 key ways you can optimise outbound and how to bridge the gaps:

  1. Get your CRM working – Tough questions require honest answers: Is your CRM fit for purpose when it comes to being an outbound sales engine? Can your sales team work quickly but effectively with it? Does it lack the capability to deliver the data insights you need? This is a vital component in your outbound sales process, if your team find your CRM clunky and the UX poor they simply won’t use it. Without proper database management, it’s difficult to optimise campaigns and impossible to build a validated pipeline of valuable leads. This is why you need to get your CRM working for you, it’s the foundation of your campaign’s success.

    Many of our clients utilise our custom built CRM which has been specifically developed to optimise our outbound sales engine. We do also work within our clients CRMs when relevant, providing we can see that the platform will give clients a clear view of their data, their prospects and the entire journey throughout the life of a campaign.

  2. Reporting – Do you have access to the reports and insights you need to optimise outbound sales? Reporting should give you as close to a real-time view of a campaign as possible. It should help you quickly pinpoint what’s working and what needs to change. If you’re not in a position to do that, how do you know if your campaign is going well? When using our bespoke CRM, we provide detailed reporting to our clients through our client portal so they can get a speedy pulse-check and a transparent view of progress. Our ongoing reporting uses those insights to adapt and evolve our approach to achieve success.

  3. Call recordings – These provide a vital insight into how customer conversations are progressing, whether messaging is working or needs review. Do you have access to recordings? If you have, do you have the time to listen to them and do you know what to listen for? Listening back to calls is vital in any campaign, it helps you get a sense of a typical conversations, how prospects are engaging with your messaging and whether or not you need to change your script or approach. We have a thorough review and feedback process to ensure consistent improvement. You’ll never get a lead that the call hasn’t been listened to by one of our team first.

  4. Call backs – Having an agreed process for how calls are handled and logged ensures that you are efficient with opportunities and your prospect is getting a smooth experience. You need complete visibility of the most recent point of contact to create a seamless journey to sale. It’s worth the time investment of mapping this process out thoroughly and sharing with your team. This comes back to your CRM, does this have the functionality to seamlessly manage this?

  5. Data tells a story – We use it to find patterns that we can leverage for success, the best of time of day to call, the most successful approach to take with gatekeepers to reach the decision maker expediently plus many more trends can be found from the data. We work with our clients to build that picture and use it to best effect. Again, this is a worthy time investment that will really pay off in the long-term. Ideally, you will have an individual within your team who is able to analyse, process and make recommendations based on the data presented. We know that not every in-house team can have an individual focused on data but making it a priority for your campaign means somebody needs to understand and own this. We have a Data Analyst within our team who is solely focused on optimising client campaigns by utilising data.

  6. Learning and Development – Continual training and support helps sales teams realise their potential and is proven to enhance performance. Do you have a training plan for your sales team? Do you have the tools or partners who will really add value to this training? Research shows that learning and development can really boost sales team performance, with sales training improving win-rate by 15.4%. This is a huge focus for our team, we invest in our sales teams, championing their professional development and supporting them to learn and grow and deliver stellar work across all client accounts.

  7. QA (Quality Assurance) matters – A quality prospect experience, smooths the path to conversions. By optimising your QA processes you’re ensuring a better experience for every future prospect, protecting your brand and building insights to optimise future conversations and future campaigns. We work closely with clients to assure quality of all sales conversation and follow-up process. We ensure their brand is represented in line with their tone and values and their outbound campaigns actively build brand and reputation in new markets.

  8. Scripts that help conversation flow – In our experience, scripts need to rigid enough to effectively communicate the brand and pitch but not so rigid that they stem the flow conversation. Try to be professional but conversational in tone, if you wouldn’t naturally talk a certain way, don’t put it in your script. Prospects are people and will respond far better to a thought-provoking and engaging chat than a list of quick-fire discovery questions. We create scripts for our clients that communicate their brand and service and build the relationships that lead to future opportunities.

  9. Objection handling – How you handle objections is a valuable brand building activity. Doing it well takes training and experience. If you’ve never tackled it before, try to map out some common challenges and listen to calls to find specific ones; then work on your responses and agree your approach so everyone in your sales team is on the same page. For us, it’s woven into our FAQs and provides another opportunity to progress a conversation towards a sale.

  10. Competitor analysis – We’re keen advocates of competitor analysis because by looking at what your competitors do well, helps you contextualize your own value proposition, strengths and weaknesses. When refining and honing your messages to the market, this information is absolute gold. Getting started doesn’t have to be onerous, take a couple of hours to start putting together your insights, even something high-level can prove a useful document, but make sure you use it to inform your campaign strategy. If you’re not sure where to take it next, we can help. We use our clients’ insights from competitor analysis to develop a strategy that accelerates their success and helps them differentiate themselves in a crowded market.

Developing and honing your outbound sales approach is no easy feat and when you’re busy with the daily running of your business. It can be tough to find the time, headspace and the right group of people in-house to make sure your efforts are coordinated, consistent and optimised for results. This is where we can help you bridge the gap. We’re experts in outsourced sales, helping startups to household names to achieve their sales goals and reach new markets.

If you want to supercharge your outbound strategy and accelerate your sales success going into 2021, get in touch today and we’ll guide you through the process: call 0333 250 3217 or email contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

Unlocking the power of Account Based Marketing (ABM). Could it be right for your business?

Awareness around Account Based Marketing (ABM) has boomed in recent years, but it’s been around since the early 2000s. For resultsdriven marketers, ABM is a dream opportunity to drive enviable ROI, with research showing it easily outstrips other approaches: 97% of marketers surveyed agreed ABM had higher ROI than other marketing activities. 

That’s greatbut what is it? 

Account Based Marketing is a strategic marketing approach whersales and marketing work closely together to target potential high growth and key accounts, either customer or prospect, with tailored messaging focused on their specific challenges. ABM campaigns include targeting individual decision makers within the selected accounts with messaging relevant to their operational challenges. 

With demand generation, the focus is on creating awareness to a larger market and then moving those interested parties through a marketing funnel until they’re ready to make a decisionWhereas ABM efforts focus on a smaller number of key target accounts and operate on the basis of winning high value opportunities, making the initial intensive efforts and investment worthwhile.

There are many clear benefits to developing an ABM programme, including: 

Gives you more focus

Rather than a broad-brush approach, ABM encourages you to focus on those who really need and want your product or serviceBy tailoring the message directly to key decision makers, you’re effectively bypassing the usual awareness building approach and the reward is far greater. 

A higher hit-rate

This is a real opportunity to use highly personalised creative and messaging that cuts through the noise and directly responds to a specific company or department challenge, rather than a broader industry one. This direct response is engaging and rapidly builds trust and rapport, opening the door for a meaningful conversation, and as we’ve already mentioned yields far stronger ROI. 

True collaboration between sales and marketing

ABM requires sales and marketing to work together as a team, using all resources in a focused and efficient way. This means sales teams feel far more supported in their efforts and marketers feel much more engaged with the sales followup process. 

Getting started with ABM 

Now we’re not saying chuck out the marketing mix and put all your eggs in the ABM basket. For some business models, it’s not the right approach (we’ll touch on this later).  But if you’d like to give it a try there are some straightforward ways to get started. 

It’s vital that you set out what you hope to achieve from ABM at the outset of your campaign. Your goals may grow and change over time, but you do need to be clear on what would be a successful resultRemember to be realistic with your goals too, ABM is often a long-term strategy, so don’t expect to see results immediately. 

Do you have the team to execute in-house? It’s vital that you commit the time and the resources to an ABM campaign, if you can’t afford to do this in-house, would you consider outsourcing? 

Run a workshop between marketing and sales where you work out which clients or prospects would be prime for an ABM approach. Decide here if you wish to spread the risk and opt for a one-to-many approach, rather than a one-to-one. 

Now you need to choose your delivery model and start shaping your campaign. Measurement is vital so make sure you have the tools to track your efforts in place. If you’re using a marketing automation tool, ensure your contact data is up to snuff and you’ve mapped your accounts properly. Getting your house in order is crucial before embarking on a detailed and coordinated campaign. 

When ABM might not be right 

While ABM is a tried and tested marketing approach, there are circumstances when it might not be right for you: 

  • You don’t have a clearly defined audience and cannot easily isolate highvalue potential customers – without this knowledge, it’s difficult to get your ABM programme off the ground. 
  • You don’t have the insight to map accounts and create tailored messaging – which is essential for ABM success. 
  • Your sales are largely online rather than led by the sales team – so the sales enablement aspects of your campaign and tailored messaging wouldn’t add value. 
  • Your deal sizes are smaller, and you’d rather sell volume – ABM works on the idea of going deep with select accounts, if your business model is lower transactional value, high volume sales, there are better ways to market your offer (we can help you with those methods too). 

Using ABM to break into new markets 

We are currently working with a French technology company seeking to break into the UK, Nordic and Canadian markets. Our client can define their target market as large businesses processing big data, so it makes sense to target the C-Suite of large household brands. To capture the attention of their desired decision maker, they need to stand out, differentiate themselves effectively and offer maximum value. Their product and their buyer are perfect for an ABM campaign. 

We are validating our client’s target market data, undertaking additional research to build insights that will enhance their campaign and capture and nurture their target decisionmakers. 

Does Account Based Marketing sound like a strategy that could be relevant for your business? If you’d like to find out more about how ABM could work for you, we’d love to help you get started. Get in touch today on 01392 796 702.

Roundtable Series: Life As A Business Development Executive (BDE)

In our latest video series, we’re hosting roundtable discussions with our team around hot topics at Air Marketing and within the sales industry. In our first episode ‘Life As A Business Development Executive (BDE)’, we explore:

  • What it’s like to be a part of the sales team at Air
  • How much of a role culture plays in keeping motivation high
  • What has the biggest impact on motivation
  • As a Sales Team Leader, how much of an impact you can have on the culture within your team
  • What kind of person would thrive within Team Air’s sales environment
  • The most difficult part of working in sales
  • What it takes to make a top performer within sales
  • How we manage different characters/profiles within a sales team
  • The biggest changes in the way that people sell in 2020
  • Advice for someone wanting to get into sales
  • Advice for someone considering joining Team Air in a sales role
  • Advice for sales leaders managing inside salespeople

Featuring:

If you’re interested in joining Team Air as a BDE, please take a look at our Careers page.