In today's B2B Sales landscape, the effectiveness of cold outbound is a hot topic of debate. Some have written it off as outdated and redundant. While others stand by it as they believe that it has stood the test of time by being relevant. The two contradicting standpoints are bound to confound you. Therefore, we decided to dig deeper on this topic in our latest podcast.
In the last three episodes, we discussed sales champions, beating the competition, and shortening sales cycles.
In this episode, we explore whether cold outbound strategies for B2B sales still work.
Watch our experts answer the question: "Is cold outbound still effective for B2B sales?"
Read on to know the tips given by our experts:
Bethany Ibarra, Chief Revenue Officer
Bethany spent the first half of her career working across the business cycle at Motorola. She uncovered an opportunity that led her to build her first P&L and launch her first product. Since then, she has worked in commercial leadership in companies such as Lenovo, Google, and Motorola. Recently, she was the Chief Revenue Officer at an engineering firm that designed and developed machine learning systems.
“In the context of complex enterprise high touch selling, cold outbound has never been an over-index strategy in generating leads. It's more about key accounts, navigating events, and curating user groups. There are different approaches to demand generation and opportunity seeking. So, I don't think that's new in that context.
Certainly, brand awareness is always important. Companies should understand that you exist and the value you provide. But cold outbound has never been a core focus of complex B2B direct high-touch selling.
I have tried it. I think it works when I've had product lines that are more Saas-oriented in my portfolio, and it was effective. The tools are getting better. There are all sorts of AI overlays for automating emails and freeing up those people to spend time on quality human engagements. That's what it's about. It's not about pushing out a million emails and LinkedIn outreach messages.
It's about personalization. It’s about getting on a call or a Zoom call or meeting in person to have that human connection. That's always the goal."
Joe McNeill, Chief Revenue Officer, Influ2
Joe McNeill is the CRO at Influ2. They do contact focused advertising to help sales and marketing teams align and improve prospecting conversion rates. He’s a B2B Technology Sales Leader who combines an enthusiasm for client service delivery, employee empowerment, and robust revenue operations to position organizations to scale & grow.
“Outbound still works. However, I don’t think it works as an individual channel. Just like inbound doesn’t work as an individual channel. A lot of organizations that are saying outbound is dead are not having success with outbound hire SDRs, put them in their own office, and isolate them – this will not work.
Outbound works as a motion that's aligned with marketing and your commercial process. You can't use single source attribution because every time you increase your outbound volume, you'll see inbound leads go up, and that's a direct reflection of the outbound working.
Every time marketing launches a big successful campaign, you'll see outbound conversions go up. So, the reality is the marketing and outbound team should be very connected in an all-bound motion. You shouldn't look at what the winning moment in isolation.
You should look at your entire top of funnel function as the sum of all its parts, right? Not that last cold call or that last email because it should all be one cohesive motion.”
Ayush Sharma, Director of Sales, Rippling
Ayush currently leads the sales team at Rippling, Bangalore. His teams serve the US, EMEA, and Indian markets. He has seven years of experience in the B2B Saas space. He worked for companies like Whatfix for four years and worked at another Silicon Valley company called Carta.
“I think no business, especially in B2B SaaS can survive without outbound. There would be always some companies who have a great product-market fit, and they have a clear definition of their ICP, their marketing is solid, and they drive inbound for a good, first $30m, $40m, $50m, $100m dollars of their revenue. But they will plateau and that’s when you need cold outbound.
So, outbound is a must-have. I would be surprised if a sales leader is not using cold outbound. I want to say it out loud that it is a mental game more than it is a strategy or a tactic.
I think setting that expectation right with your leadership, if you are a VP of sales or any sales leader is very important so that outbound will not happen at the click of a button. It involves a lot of patience and perseverance. Then, the second important part of your outbound is your sales rep who is doing it, whether that's an SDR or whether that's an AE. You must motivate them the right way. It is difficult.
It is the dirtiest job a sales guy will ever do, but it is also the most critical job. So, make sure to have the right incentives for the reps to motivate and set them up with the right processes.
I have seen that when outbound doesn't work, it is because of lack of personalization and understanding of the ICP. If you zero it down on the ICP, there are two or three products clearly driving for that ICP. Have the process in place, have patience, and let the team execute. It's not going to work wonders, but it is certainly going to be effective.
The last thing I will add here is that gone are the days of vanilla outbound where you give a book of business to a rep and say, ‘Hey, there are 200 accounts - personalize, reach out, and all that stuff.’
Outbound must be done closely with marketing too. In our company, we do a lot of outbound with the sales rep, but the marketing team drives many campaigns as well. When marketing does campaigns, we garner some interest, and then our sales team doubles down on the dialups by calling the prospects and getting them interested in the product.
Prakhar Jain, VP of Sales, Whatfix
Prakhar was employee #1 at Whatfix and has been working with them for the last 10 years. Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that works with companies to simplify their end user experience. It strives to make technology user savvy. His role is to take care of new business for North America and EMEA.
“The challenge is that people have forgotten the fundamentals. They only focus on trying new things. I see so many people who give suggestions like, ‘oh, you should try this. You should try that. ChatGpt can do this for you.’
But there is a reason why outbound used to work. Gone are the days when just email would work. If you email people and you are waiting for a response. It'll never happen.
But the whole air cover that we were planning, which was the move towards a 360° kind of a setup, where now you are sending emails and calling as well. At the same time, there is also a LinkedIn outreach going on as well. Then, you do ABM campaigns and LinkedIn ads too.
Things were improving with full-blown ABM marketing. Now I think the challenge in the market is that there is so much gain around AI that everybody has forgotten the fundamentals, and everybody wants to try AI.
We must understand nothing is proven right now. There are a lot of hypotheses about what you can do with AI. But what's working? I don't think there's a cookie-cutter approach.
Things are changing every week. So, I suggest people meet their numbers, and you still must do your core job to get there. So, what works for us is to stick to the fundamentals.
I still respond to good cold emails. Sometimes, it is the first or second email that gets my attention because it is so well crafted that in 3 lines. It doesn't matter if it's AI written or handwritten.
I think reps need to be smarter in today's world on how to divide their time -how do I stick to fundamentals in this time frame? 70% of my time will be on this, 20% of my time on something new, 10% on learning, and that's how you must do it.
If you do the other way around, then you are not going to meet your numbers. Your job might be at risk by the time you learn something new with AI.
So, we must be realistic about it. Sometimes, people are quick in making decisions on, ‘hey outbound doesn't work for us anymore, etcetera. They always say the around outbound globally is the same.’
It is about execution. So, if it is not working for you, sometimes it is probably just not executed properly. It cannot be that it's working for 100 other people and it’s not working for a select few. It’s all about the execution. We must drill down there to understand.”
Conclusion
Cold outbound can still be effective in B2B sales. However, it requires a thoughtful, and personalized approach that is part of an integrated strategy. It’s about more than just sending emails or making calls. It’s about creating meaningful connections, aligning with marketing efforts, and executing with precision. The key is to adapt and optimize your approach to ensure outbound strategies complement the overall revenue goals.
