Why a hybrid inbound-outbound sales strategy could increase win rates

While cold calling might not be dead, it’s fair to say inbound marketing (brand-related content that helps reel in “warm” prospects for hungry salespeople) has transformed sales for organizations the world over, and become an integral part of the go-to-market process.

For a GTM org, both outbound and inbound strategies have their benefits. Outbound sales (usually through cold calls, emails, and other forms of deliberate customer targeting) has long been seen as the path to securing certain lucrative high-value clients; inbound motions, on the other hand, can build authority in the market place over a longer period of time and can offer up low-hanging fruit for sales teams. So, is there a happy middle ground emerging between the two for your GTM team?

Meeting the customer

Inbound leads are typically buyers coming to the vendor themselves, whether that’s through submitting an inquiry form, signing up for an event, or downloading materials from the vendor’s website. That contact could be in response to a blog posting, a social media campaign, or an SEO strategy that has driven a client to your door. However they arrive, sales teams need to be ready to close the deal fast.

“Inbound is really great because it’s oftentimes the warmest leads you’re going to get,” said Angela Garinger Bennett, vice president of AI GTM transformation at Outreach. “People are actually saying, ‘I’m in the market. I’ve been evaluating this particular type of purchase,’ so being able to get to the discovery phase, the demo phase, getting to close won revenue happens much more quickly because they’re in the market to buy.”

In the AI era, buyers are more informed than ever before, and the sales process is evolving. According to data from revenue intelligence platform 6sense, B2B buyers spend 70% of the buying journey doing their own research before speaking with vendors. This presents a lucrative opportunity for sales teams to jump on leads who are already interested in their product.

For reps looking to get ahead of the game, utilizing AI tools for high-intent signals is one way to do this. For Garinger Bennett, this means getting “really precise about who we should be going after” and the signals that dictate what kind of lead they are, and at what rate they might close.

“Then you can start to fold [these patterns] into your larger inbound strategy, or your larger sales strategy, because that layer of precision just has never existed for any of us before,” Garinger Bennett said. “[It’s] a merging of inbound and outbound, but it also feels like a merging of sales and marketing, which have always kind of been two sides of the same coin.”

Tiffany Sieve, CMO at Xactly, sees inbound motions as valuable for bringing in higher-quality leads that translate to better deals.

“You’re going to have higher conversions and higher quality leads coming through, so higher win rates,” she said. “You’re going to get better engagement because they’re more like hand-raisers of people that are engaging on their own, doing their own research versus cold-calling out.” Sieve said she’s also seeing the benefits from a hybrid of outbound and inbound motions from reps. “It’s allowing for flexibility…They’re able to follow up with the inbound leads that are coming from marketing at higher quality, but also do outbounding when they don’t have as many leads coming in,” said Sieve.

Sieve said there is a better “bang for your buck” with inbound, as you’re able to “utilize dollars through SEO areas or other marketing tactics that essentially are free.” Sieve compares this to the cost of “reps themselves having to make those phone calls out.”

A natural evolution

Garinger Bennett believes sales is shifting from an “activity-based” to a “signal-based” motion. She said part of that is “us getting precise about who we’re going outbound to, so that they’re much warmer,” and when that happens, these leads become “almost like an inbound.”

Sieve said that while inbound delivers higher-quality leads, sales teams still need to be on their A game to win over customers.

“When an inbound lead comes in, a lot of times they’re coming into all competitors at the same time,” she said. “The sales rep or AI agents really need to be able to contact that prospect within less than two minutes. Typically, research shows that the first company to contact a prospect is more likely to actually close the deal.”

As inbound leads provide lucrative opportunities for sales teams, evolving to a hybrid inbound-outbound strategy could be the best way to increase win rates.

“Now that we can start to heavily rely on [inbound] based on knowing who might be in the market and getting them to us as quickly as possible with those inbounds, it absolutely is going to be part of the strategy,” said Garinger Bennett.