When it comes to choosing the ideal lead generation strategy, you might feel a bit bogged down or even confused.
There’s so much information out there on the web, how do you know which strategies work and which don’t in outbound sales?
At Salesbread, we have battle-tested various outreach channels and game plans. This has helped us develop a recipe that brings in 1 lead (or booked meeting) per day.
Curious to find out what it is? Here are our top outbound lead generation strategies that you can try out in 2023, along with different outreach channels.
Build a list of prospects before you begin
Before you decide to reach out to a group of people, as a b2b marketer, you need to figure out your ideal customer profile. You can do this by seeing who has purchased your product or service within the last 6 months. What similarities do these buyers have?- Are they all from the same area?
- Do they use the same CRM tool?
- Do they have the same amount of employees?
- Are they all in the same industry?
Use a multi-channel approach
In order for your b2b lead generation strategies to work, you need to choose a multi-channel approach for outreach. But with that being said, it’s impossible to make use of all outbound channels at your disposal. So decide on 2 or 3 channels that you feel would work best for your company. For example at Salesbread we make use of:- Linkedin outreach
- SMS
- Cold email outreach
- Cold Calling
Side note: You might also want to make use of some inbound marketing tactics. For example, social media marketing and content marketing have proved very helpful in having leads reach out to you.
Inbound marketing is a less aggressive approach to lead generation compared to outbound marketing.
It’s a good idea to make use of both strategies in order to get the most amount of leads in your sales pipeline.
Whether you provide valuable content via webinars, blogs, or even videos, using both marketing tactics will generate more leads for your business.
Strategy 1: For Linkedin outreach.
You need to remember that not everyone who has a profile on Linkedin actually uses the platform. About 10% of users signed up to the platform but never used it.
So you might send out messages to prospects, and just not hear back from them.
But then, on the other hand, some users might have the Linkedin app on their cell phones, with notifications set up, and every time they receive a message they get pinged on their phones.
This group would be the ideal set of people to reach out to because they actively use the platform.
How do you know who the heavy users are though so that you don’t waste time sending messages out to them?
The answer that you probably don’t want to hear, is that you will never know 100% who is an active user on Linkedin, but there are some ways in which you can figure it out.
The following strategy will help you:
A.) Send messages to those who are already in your first or second-degree network
If you reach out to prospects who are already in your first or second-degree network, it means that they have already accepted messages from you and connection requests in the past. This means that they most probably are using the platform and accepting connection requests. If they are in your second-degree network, it means that they have said yes to enough invites to have a shared connection, which tells you that this person historically says yes to a lot of invites. So if you reach out to them, you could probably get them to say “yes” to your connection request. But don’t send out messages to everyone, rather connect with those in your first and second-degree network.B.) Another way to see who is active on Linkedin is: Check if they have posted anything on the platform in the last 30 days.
Another strategy you can use to see if a potential prospect is active on Linkedin is to check if they have posted anything on the social media platform within the last 30 days.
You can use this especially for prospects in your third-degree network.
Why?
Because this tells you that they are most probably active users, and if you reach out to them they will see your message.
C. Write personalized connection requests
Once you have figured out who is active and who isn’t, and you have filtered your list of prospects through your second-degree network, you will come up with an even more refined list.. This is when you can write personalized connection request messages specifically for the prospect. Here are some examples:
1. Hi (Name), I’m looking to expand my network with fellow business owners and professionals. I would love to learn about what you do and see if there’s any way we can support each other.
Cheers!
2. Hi (Name) I’m looking to connect with like-minded professionals specifically who are on the revenue-generating side of things.
Let’s connect!
3. Hey (Name) Came across your profile and saw you work in real estate. I’m reaching out to connect with other like-minded people. Would be happy to make your acquaintance.
Have a good day!
4. Hi (Name) LinkedIn showed me your profile multiple times now, so I checked what you do. I really like your work and as we are both in the creative industry – I thought I’ll reach out. It’s always great to be connected with like-minded individuals, isn’t it?
(Your Name)
5. Hey (Name) I hope your week is off to a great start, I noticed we both work in the HR/Employee Experience field together. I would love to connect with you.
6. Listening to you now & subscribed! Just stumbled upon your podcast and wanted to say thank you for sharing your insights using them to help land a lead gen job. Thank you!
7. Dear (Name) My name is (xyz) and I am a partner in the (name of company). My team and I have a great idea for a book that would greatly enhance your credibility and visibility. Do you have 15 minutes to talk this week?
8. Hi (Name)I hope you’re doing great! I’m on a personal mission to grow my connections on LinkedIn, especially in the field of B2B lead & demand gen. So even though we’re practically strangers, I’d love to connect with you.
Have a great day!
9. Great to meet a fellow podcast host. I am the host of (podcast name) and looking forward to having you as a guest on the show.
Blessings,
10. Hi (Name), I wanted to reach out, as it seems like you would be the right person to discuss travel management given your role — although you may not be currently traveling, would you be interested in exploring how (company name) can help you prepare for the future of business travel?
Best,
(Your name)
D.) Respond to their connection
Once the prospect has connected with you, you can then send a follow-up message and add even more personalization. At this stage, you want to talk about the prospect 90% of the time and only 10% about yourself for context. During this stage, it’s important not to sell your product or service, but rather ask for a meeting. During the meeting, you can discuss how your product can help the prospects’ pain points. Here are some replies that we have received from following the above strategy:| Hi. Nice to meet you. Let’s find a time to chat, I’m very interested to hear more about it. Below is my calendar. Pick a day/time that works for a 15-minute virtual coffee and we can chat. |
| Nice to meet you. Sure thing. Happy to chat next week. Please email me at #### |
| I’d be open to talking. You can book some time here: ### |
| Hi. We surely can have a chit chat. I can be reached via zoom at ###. We have a call either Thursday this week or Tuesday next week. |
| Hi ### Thank you for reaching out. I would love to hop on a call next week to discuss some ideas for creating some educational videos. I would love to hear more about your capabilities and pricing. I am available next Monday around 10am. Feel free to shoot me an email at #### I look forward to talking soon. Sincerely, #### |
| Hi ### Thanks for reaching out. How does the pricing work for your services? |
| Hi ###. Sounds great, give me a call at your convenience, #### |
| Hi ### Thanks for reaching out. Quick question: how much does it cost to make such a video? Thanks, |
The above Linkedin strategy that we use to get 1 lead a day.
Does it work?
Yes, it does, last year alone we managed to get close to 5000 qualified leads for clients… Read this article: Why We Set Out to Build The Best Done-For-You Lead Generation Service to see how we do it in more detail and to see what clients have to say about Salesbread.
Strategy 2: For Cold Calling or SMS
Most people out there despise getting a cold call or SMS. In some countries cold calling is illegal, but other countries embrace it.
For example, we once had a client in Australia who was crushing cold calling in a certain vertical.
Prospects would list their cell phone numbers on a website and when you called the number, the person would answer and then the client would pitch their sale.
The script that they used was well thought out, and it wasn’t uncouth to receive a cold call in this certain part of the world.
So before you decide to come up with a strategy for cold calling or SMS, ask yourself these questions:
- Is it legal to cold call in the country I’m targeting?
- Do they advertise their mobile number on their website or social media pages?
Strategy 3: Email Campaigns
Why is email marketing still such a big deal in most countries? Well, almost everyone on this planet should have an email address. According to 99Firms, there are over 4 billion email users worldwide. This stat was generated in 2020, which means that now in 2022 there are most probably a lot more email users out there. So if you aren’t making use of cold email strategies for your lead gen strategies you could be missing out on a big pool of quality leads. BUT…. Yes, there’s always a but… You have to have the RIGHT strategy. If your cold email strategy is wrong, then either people aren’t going to read your mails, (leaving you with low open rates😉 or worse, they banish your mails to the spam folder.A NOTE ON DELIVERABILITY:
You need to make sure that you have a good sender reputation if you would like to run email lead generation campaigns. Why? Because if you have a bad sender reputation, this means that most of your are not going to be seen because they won’t end up in your reader’s inbox but rather in their spam folder. VERY few readers look at their spam folder or trust the emails in there. So even if you wrote the perfect high-quality cold email, it won’t matter, because your prospects are not going to see it. Have a look at these spam statistics below:
So your sender reputation depends on factors such as:
- The amount of mail that you are sending.
- How often do you send out your emails to your subscribers
- Whether you have a shared IP or dedicated IP address.
- How long has your domain been registered?
The more that someone engages with the message, opening, clicking, forwarding, saving your address, is building a reputation based on the domain, the IP address, and so on.”You have to build a reputation over time, to sustain a reputation, and in order to sustain your reputation, you need to maintain continuous deliverability.
Back to our email outreach strategy….
Firstly… How do you know if email outreach is a good channel for someone?
A prospect is a bad candidate for email outreach if their email cannot be verified. (This means that the email address is risky, you can’t search for it, the directory doesn’t have it. ) If this is the case, you should rather scrap that specific email address, because you don’t want it to bounce. It’s important to know your target audience. In many digital workplaces and spaces, people make use of email, but more example those who might be bartenders, might not use email for business. So if you are getting low open rates, it might mean that you need to go back and check that you have good data on your potential customers and that your deliverability is good.Below is the strategy we use for email outbound campaigns.
When it comes to email, you can follow a similar strategy to Linkedin outreach:
- Build a list of prospects
- Find their email addresses (It might be listed on Linkedin, or another data provider, such as Apollo.io)
- Write personalized messages that include the CCQ formula
- Keep the messages short, only using a few stances.
- If they reply great! Once again add in more personalization, and ask for a meeting.
- If the prospect doesn’t reply, wait 3 days before sending a follow-up email.
Strategy 4: For Twitter, Facebook & Instagram
If you are interested in finding leads in the cryptocurrency space, publishing, or even need influencer leads, then Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can be the best way forward.
There is no need to find their email addresses because these leads already live in this space.
These are the best platforms to reach out to them because they use these platforms more than email for example.
USE the channels that these prospects are already on. You could make use of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram ads to get these prospects to come to you. (This is a helpful read when it comes to social media marketing https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-advertising/ )
When it comes to using Twitter, for example, you can check if someone is active in the space and then reply to their Tweet. You can filter by topic, and this can help you find new leads.
Side note:
This isn’t exactly an outbound lead generation process, but at Salesbread we do believe in thinking outside the box. Look for prospects where they are. So if your target market is spending their days in the social media space, that’s where you should reach out to them. Most social media platforms also allow you to define your target list, so that the ad is shown to those in a specific demographic, location, or age group. But before reaching out to leads on these platforms, ask yourself:- Is the company I’m reaching out to, using these platforms for brand awareness?
- Are they managing their own accounts?
Below is an example of what a sponsored ad on Instagram would look like and the filters you can use:
Have a look at the Twitter Ad and filter example below:
Example of a Facebook Ad and filters:
Endnotes
We suggest plugging your prospect list into Linkedin Sales Navigator first. See who is in your second-degree network and follow the above steps from there. If you can’t find them on Linkedin, try other outbound tactics by using different channels in your marketing campaigns. Try them all, and see which was the best performing channel, and use that to generate more leads for your business.Interested in learning more? Book a free 15 min consultation in the form below, to see how we can help you with your outbound lead gen so that you can secure more b2b sales in 2023.