Outbound Marketing: A Simple, Effective Strategy for Success

Some people often associated outbound marketing with traditional forms of marketing, such as radio, cold calls, and tv commercials. However, that’s not really accurate nowadays.

The digital channel is easily the most popular and favorite option for any “outbounder”. And the reason for that is simple: it performs really well and is cheaper than traditional marketing.

You might have heard that outbound marketing is old-fashioned, or it doesn’t work as well anymore. The reality, however, is that outbound marketing – the kind of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience, different from inbound marketing where the customers find you when they need you – works like a charm.

But you have to know how to do it well. 

How to Do Inbound Marketing: 5 Steps for Success

Here’re five time-tested steps to create a successful outbound marketing campaign.

Let’s dive in!

1. Define your target—the Who

The first step, and probably the most important one, is defining your target.

To do that, you have to first think about what you want to achieve and then, think about who the perfect customer for your purpose is.

Choose specific demographics such as age, location, gender, income level and occupation. It is also important that you consider their hobbies, behavior, values, and lifestyle.

If this is the first time that you define your target, my advice is simple: copy.

Spy your competition, understand why they target that segment of people, and then use that information to define and refine your own your target.

Once you have defined your audience for the outbound campaign, check and confirm it is really the right one. I recommend you answer the following questions before going to the next step:

• Is the audience big enough?
• Will that target really benefit from my product/service?
• Could I easily reach them? How?

2. Create your strategy—the How

Once you know who your target audience is, it’s time to create an accurate action plan to reach them and achieve your goal.

There are a lot of good outbound strategies out there, but among the best and simplest strategy is this:

1. Search your audience on Facebook Groups and Google
2. Create an excel with their names and URLs domains
3. Transform that excel to CSV file
4. Upload that CSV file to a lead generation tool like Findthatlead and get their emails
5. Send them an email with your message and proposition.

3. Write amazing copy—the What

Okay, now you have a well-defined target audience and a clear strategy to reach them, but… what are you going to send them?

The first thing you have to do here is think about the primary goal(s) of your outbound campaign. I recommend you create a clear and measurable objective. For example, you can set a measurable goal and say, “I want 5% of the target try my new chrome extension.”

Once you have goals and objectives clearly laid out, write a clear and targeted copy that’ll attract your audience’s attention and make them do what you want them to do.

To write powerful copy, follow the AIDA Copywriting model, which is easy to apply in any email and works really well. AIDA is an abbreviation for – attention, interest, desire, and action. It is a copywriting model that has stood the test of time.

Hold the reader’s attention long enough for them to develop an interest in your product or service and guide them take the desired action (purchase or consumption).

4. Test everything

At this stage, you have almost everything in place. But, before launching your campaign, there is one more step to do: test everything and assess your results.

To test everything, do the following:

• Send one email to a small target group of people from, say, two different sets of audiences and measure the results
• Send two emails to a small group of the same audience and measure the results
• Change the channel and connect with a group of people by LinkedIn or Twitter and measure the results

After doing that, you will have some valuable information and insights that will help you to refine your message and calls to action. Choose the best combinations of target, channel, and message for best results.

Now you are ready to launch your outbound marketing campaign to achieve your goals.

5. Send it out and start generating leads

After all this process, there’s only one more step (and also my favorite one) let: send your outbound campaign to your target and wait for the outcomes.

With this simple but effective outbound marketing strategy, you are sure to get successful results. Repeat the strategy as necessary to keep growing your business.