The Power Of Outbound

I’ve been selling software services for over 20 years, I love talking software systems and software tools. What I’m really passionate about is helping my customers get more customers. That’s one of my guiding principles in the work I do today.

My current business started as a service for B2B companies helping them find new leads, lists, and contact details. From there we started building our own software tools to sell.

When it comes to cold email I have some strong beliefs about how outbound can be successful. Inbound marketing starts with content, whereas outbound starts with having a list. That’s what makes outbound so powerful in my view.

If you can define your ideal customer, why wait for them to find your content?  
Instead go out there and knock on their door. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how you reach out to them, email, direct mail, cold call, they all can work. The only piece that truly matters is “how powerful is your offer?”

I’ve seen a lot of people get caught up on minute details of their emails like specific words in the copy or how long the email is. None of that really matters at the end of the day if your offer isn’t compelling.

They’re just tools that are meant to get your prospect to your offer.

Once you know your list you have to ask yourself, what can you offer these people that will convince them to enter into a conversation with a stranger? You first have to cross that hurdle of skepticism before you can connect.

Many people confuse their offering with their offer. What you sell is your offering. The cold hard truth is that nobody actually cares what you sell. What they care about is if you can solve their problem.  
The best way you can convey this in your emails is to keep the conversation focused on them instead of you. The goal in your outbound emails is to get them to reply. To begin this conversation.

Not to sell them.

Putting a “buy now” link in your emails doesn’t work. Not now, not ever. So get that idea out of your head. However with the frame of wanting to get a conversation started the barrier to entry is a lot lower.

Now you can actually entice someone to take action on your email and you can do this with your offer.

Your offer could be some compelling content you’ve created, but it needs to be separate from what you sell. Offering a free consultation is just a roundabout way of trying to get someone onto a sales call with you.  
They’d have to be a pretty low-value prospect if they have an hour to give away to someone who randomly cold emailed asking them to hop on a call.
 

Offers Versus Call To Actions

The offer also isn’t the call to action. The call to action is literally what you want the prospect to do.

Right now in my business, we’re offering a webinar that actually teaches how to create compelling offers. That’s our offer.

But our call to action is to reply to the email in order to get registered. The offer is what you are providing to them, the call to action is the how they are going to get it. It’s a nuanced difference here, but it’s important.

It’s a good idea to make the call to action simple enough that there’s only one action they need to take in order to move to the next step.

 

Action Steps

  1. Keep the conversation focused on your prospect’s problem by asking about them instead of qualifying yourself.
  2. Create an offer that’s separate from what you sell, let it be a great value add for your prospect independent of whether they become a customer.
  3. Make your call to action simple enough that the prospect only has to complete one step of action.
  4. Keep your emails short and communicate directly with your prospects.

 

Result You Will Achieve

Compelling offers in your cold emails that entice your prospects to start conversations with you.

Mentor: Damian Thompson

Co-Founder of LeadFuze. Damian has been selling software services for over 20 years. He will go in depth on what he believes about how outbound can be successful, and then he will discuss the difference between a good offer and a bad offer.

 
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.