Outbound Sales Strategy: How to Revive It in 2024

There’s more to outbound than generic cold calls and emails that end up in spam. My team and I knew we had to adapt.

Over the past year, we’ve tried every outbound tactic in the book to see what works. The result?  A revamped strategy that got us 35% more high-intent leads in Q1. Here’s what it looks like:  

The Best Outbound Sales Strategy for 2024

1. Refine Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

A clear ICP allows you to tailor your message to resonate with the specific needs and challenges of your ideal customer.

Here are a few strategies to refine your ICP. 

• Analyze existing customer data: Look for trends in demographics, firmographics, and buying behaviors.
• Conduct win/loss analysis: Understand why you win and lose deals to identify common traits among successful customers.
• Gather sales insights: Consult with your sales team to gain real-world perspectives on successful customer interactions.

Tools to explore:  CRM data analysis tools like Salesforce Insights or Zoho Analytics, win/loss analysis software like Gong or Churn.io, and customer survey platforms like SurveyMonkey or Typeform.

2. Target the Right Prospects

 Focus on high-intent signals to identify prospects most likely to convert. Here’s how you can do that: 

• Content consumption: Prioritize leads engaging with high-intent pages on your website (e.g., pricing, support docs, case studies).
• Interactive demos: Integrate interactive demos on these high-intent pages.  Our data shows 95% of leads who watch these demos, schedule calls.
  • Account Reveal Feature (for Storylane users): Capture firmographic data from anonymous demo viewers for targeted outreach. Try it out here for free. 

• Buyer intent platforms: Leverage tools like G2 to identify companies researching similar solutions and comparing them to yours.

• Past customers/prospects: Target past customers or prospects who recently changed jobs, as they might need your solution in their new role.
• Hiring activity:  Monitor accounts hiring for roles relevant to your tool and consider their existing tech stack to identify potential integration/workflow enhancement.
• Targeted search with sales navigator: Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator to pinpoint prospects engaging with competitors or complementary solutions. Reach out to them so you stay on top of their minds when they need a solution like yours. 

4. Identify Pain Points

Talking directly to your customers is the gold standard for uncovering their pain points. Here's how to maximize these conversations:

• The Sandler Pain Funnel: Ditch generic questions. Utilize the Sandler Pain Funnel to frame insightful questions, like:
  • "Can you elaborate on the specific challenges you're facing in [area your solution addresses]?"
  • "How would achieving these results benefit your business?"

• Active listening is key: Maintain a 70:30 listening-to-talking ratio. Talking too much leads to confirmation bias, where you project your assumptions instead of discovering their true needs.
• Pre-call preparation (bonus tip): Before the discovery call, send an interactive demo to your prospect. By understanding their initial product exploration, you can ask better questions and save valuable call time by focusing on their specific challenges, not basic product features.

Create personalized interactive demos in less than 10 minutes with Storylane. Start free!

5. Adopt a Multi-Channel Approach 

With Google’s new policy implemented in February 2024, bulk senders who send more than 5000 emails a day must authenticate their identity, provide an easy unsubscribe option, and send only relevant emails. Google and other email service providers are using such policies to crack down on spam emails, making it tricky for cold calls to warm any contacts.

You need to adopt a multi-channel strategy and be more focused on fewer but high-quality prospects.

Below are a few approaches you can try out. 

• Social selling. Develop relationships with prospects on social platforms like LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter). See the posts they engage with and how they interact with competitors. These are great signals of intent; use them continuously while reaching out. 
• Events. Virtual and hybrid events are a great way to connect with your target customers, especially when selling to other businesses. Hosting a webinar or guest speaking in podcasts are vital ways to engage the right people in your audience base. 

6. Personalize Your Outreach 

Personalization builds trust and increases response rates. Here's how to tailor your message for maximum impact:

• Leverage data: Use findings from the previous steps (ICP, pain points) to personalize your message. For example, if you identify a prospect struggling with lead generation (pain point), highlight how your solution streamlines that process.
• Go beyond names: Personalization goes deeper than just a name. Reference specific content they've engaged with (e.g., a blog post, case study) or a recent industry event they attended. This demonstrates you've done your research and understand their specific interests.
• Focus on value, not features: Don't just list features – explain how your solution directly addresses their pain points and delivers tangible benefits to their business. Quantify the impact whenever possible. Example Script: "A company in your industry facing similar challenges with [mention pain point] experienced a [quantify impact] increase in [mention relevant metric] after implementing our solution. Would this be a significant outcome for your team as well?"

Pro tip: Share personalized interactive demos with prospects highlighting specific workflows they care about. If you’re using Storylane, you can create one demo and personalize it at scale using text and image tokens.  Read more about our personalization capabilities here. 

Conclusion: Building Long-Term Value

By implementing these strategies, you can transform your outbound engine from a numbers game into a targeted approach focused on building valuable relationships. Remember, the ultimate goal is not just to close a single deal, but to cultivate long-term partnerships with customers who see your company as a trusted advisor and resource.

Frequently Asked Questions 

1. What is an outbound strategy?

An outbound strategy is a proactive approach to sales where you reach out to potential customers to generate interest in your product or service. This can involve tactics like cold calling, email marketing, social selling, or attending industry events.

2. What are outbound sales techniques?

Outbound sales techniques are specific methods used to implement an outbound strategy. Examples include crafting personalized cold emails, leaving voicemail messages, or running targeted social media ad campaigns.

3. What is the difference between outbound and inbound sales?

The key difference is who initiates the contact.

• Outbound sales: The sales team proactively reaches out to potential customers.
• Inbound sales: Potential customers reach out to the company first, often through marketing efforts like content marketing or website visits.