Outbound Lead Generation - Everything You Need to Know

If you're becoming more and more skeptical about outbound lead generation, this guide is for you. Outbound lead generation is the more traditional approach to B2B lead generation; the process of actively reaching out to new prospects through targeted campaigns, with the aim of eventually selling to them. 

Some industry influencers claim that outbound lead generation is declining, as inbound marketing strategies grow in popularity, due to an industry shift towards prioritizing demand generation. However, when done well, outbound lead generation is still vitally important – and should play a part in all B2B marketing strategies.

The trick to doing outbound lead generation well, without annoying your potential customers (we've all been on the receiving end of nuisance cold calls and emails), is to leverage data to deliver what your customers already want. 

Read on for all things outbound lead generation, including:

• An outbound lead generation definition.  
• How outbound lead gen has changed.
• Key outbound lead generation strategies.
• Outbound lead generation best practices.
• The key differences between outbound vs inbound lead generation. 

How Has Outbound Lead Generation Changed?

Outbound lead generation isn’t the way it used to be. Thanks to intent data targeting and ABM tactics, B2B outbound lead gen, done well, is now much more precise and effective.

There is now a significant focus on quality over quantity: fewer leads, but better leads. That means marketing qualified leads (MQLs) who are already in your marketing funnel, and thus already aware of your brand and services, and showing strong intent signals.

At the same time, the industry is moving away from telemarketing lead generation and list buying, and growing its focus on compliance with data legislation. As a marketer, you want to know that the outbound leads you’re paying for are genuine decision-makers in your sector, that their details are accurate, and that they’ve consented to hear from you.

You also want to be able to follow each lead’s reader journey, so you know where they are in the marketing funnel, which of your pieces of gated and ungated content they’ve viewed to get there, and how you can nurture them going forwards.

The key is to work with a reputable supplier. There are many unscrupulous players in the lead generation industry, and with new lead generation suppliers popping up all the time, you need to be careful.

The difference when you use a good one is remarkable: external specialists who know your audience, and can provide personalized, strategic direction and advice, can have an amazing effect on your outbound lead generation strategy.

Even rarer in the outbound lead generation industry are agencies who own their own data. If they generate and validate their leads in-house, it means you can trust your supplier entirely, as they can show you a full digital trail of where your leads have come from.

Outbound Lead Generation Process 

Here's how the process for B2B outbound lead generation usually works. 

Step One: Finding Your Leads 

The major part of any outbound lead generation process is finding new leads in the first place. And there's only so much of that you can do on your own. 

For example, once you've grown your following on social media, attended relevant trade shows, and scoured industry journals for new businesses to reach out to, where can you look next? 

The answer is usually outbound lead generation companies, who can reach a much wider network of decision-makers to eventually convert into sales. 

The most effective methods of lead generation, we find, are content-based, and for a lead generation company that means content syndication. 

For example, the classic outbound lead generation service for B2B SaaS is content syndication.

Outbound lead generation companies will share your valuable content with their technology audiences via relevant content syndication platforms.

By hosting and distributing your content to new and relevant audiences, you'll find new leads who are aware of, and actively interested in, your business. But more on that later. 

Step Two: First Contact 

First contact is crucial with B2B outbound lead generation. That's really what it's all about; how you contact your prospects for the first time and pull them into your marketing funnel. 

Traditional outbound lead generation techniques rely on cold calling or cold emailing – contacting a lead out of the blue. And the B2B marketing industry is notorious for 'spamming' potential customers, thanks to often more relaxed data regulations than the B2C industry.

But with modern data now in abundance, you don't have to rely on cold outreach anymore as a marketer, or salesperson. You can use your content for generating outbound leads so that when you contact your new prospects, they're already aware of your business and they have a need for services like yours. 

Step Three: Lead Nurturing 

Follow-up is usually done via email. Over 70% of people now prefer businesses to contact them via email: it's a non-intrusive way to get their attention. 

There are other ways of nurturing your leads, though. For example, you might choose to run a longer content syndication campaign with your lead generation specialist. One way of generating more nurtured outbound leads is to run a Nurture Track campaign, which hosts more of your content and lets your lead generation supplier nurture your new leads for you; educating and warming them up so they're more aware of your products and services before they even reach your CRM.

Outbound Lead Generation Strategies 

So that's the basic low-down on how to generate outbound leads. Next, let's look at some of the most effective outbound lead generation strategies. 

Strategy One: Content Syndication 

As mentioned earlier, content syndication is a great B2B outbound lead generation service because it ensures you receive leads who are open to hearing from you. 

It actually counts as a method of inbound lead generation, too. It's the best of both worlds, ensuring you end up with a nice full list of leads to contact, but leads who have already engaged with your content on their own terms. 

Your lead generation supplier syndicates your content – your eBooks, case studies, reports, whitepapers, etc. to their own content library websites.

The content library your content is hosted on is used by decision-makers who are looking for valuable resources they can use within their job, usually to help solve a challenge they're experiencing.

To download your useful resource, readers have to give their business content details in return. By downloading your content, the reader will qualify as a lead, which your outbound lead generation company will validate before delivering the data back to you.

There's more about how the process works in our ultimate guide to content syndication. 

Strategy Three: Outbound Lead Generation with Intent Data 

Not only do you need to know who wants to hear from you, but it also helps to know when they want to hear from you. 

That's what intent data targeting gives you within B2B outbound lead generation: additional context, so you know what your leads are looking for and when they're ready to buy. 

At Headley Media, for example, we tag each of our readers across our content libraries so we know which pieces of content they've downloaded, building a bigger picture of what they're looking for. We also cross-reference our 1st party intent data with trusted 3^rd party sources for a 360-degree view of their behavior across the web. 

Inbound vs Outbound Lead Generation 

What’s the difference between inbound lead generation and outbound lead generation? 

Outbound sales lead generation focuses on marketing tactics that reach out to prospective new customers directly, generating campaign data, such as the number of new leads you've generated or the number of impressions and clicks your campaign received, depending on what marketing tactics you deploy.  

In comparison, inbound lead gen is an increasingly popular demand generation strategy, designed to bring in potential new customers organically overtime.

Outbound lead generation strategies include focusing on content marketing and SEO and a shift towards brand building and educating, rather than generating leads straight away.

At Headley Media, we're advocates of both outbound and inbound lead generation and believe each strategy should have its place within your B2B marketing plan.

In fact, inbound and outbound lead generation are most effective when they are aligned and work together, as we explore in this blog about demand generation vs. lead generation.