5 B2B Cold Outreach Tips for Marketers

1. 1. Identify Your Targets and Make a List

Your B2B sales strategy should start with targeting the right audience. 

Not every school or university is going to be a great fit for you, even though it might be a great fit for someone else. The same holds true for B2B prospects. It’s important to identify the characteristics of these organizations that make them ideal clients for you. 

One great resource for identifying prospects is the Bill Moss Business Database. With over 220k contacts at over 110k organizations throughout Ireland, we have an array of business information you can use to identify and connect with B2B prospects.

Another great resource for companies with a little more time to spend on research is LinkedIn. If you know your prospective company already, you can search LinkedIn to try and find their decision makers and a little more free information about them.

Once you find data to understand your ideal clients another step you can take is to identify where they are online and offline.

If you want to catch trout, would you fish in the middle of the ocean? Of course not. Trout are freshwater fish. Instead, you’d go to a local reservoir where you know they stock trout.

You should do the same when marketing your business. Stop wasting time and money putting your marketing message everywhere. You want it to be as targeted as possible. You can’t hit a target you can’t see. So we must first identify who you are targeting (i.e. who you want to work with).

Create a list of traits your buyers typically have.

Where do my ideal clients hang out? Who already has a relationship with them? Consider these questions and create a list. Here are some common places to connect with your ideal clients.

✔️ Websites they frequent.

✔️ Forums & message boards they like.

✔️ Influencers they follow.

✔️ Social media groups.

✔️ Podcasts they listen to.

✔️ Email lists they subscribe to.

✔️ Blogs they read.

✔️ Youtube channels they follow.

✔️ Associations/Organizations they belong to.

✔️ Other businesses they work with already.

✔️ Manufacturers/Distributors/Suppliers they buy from.

✔️ Magazines they read.

✔️ Trade shows they attend.

 Now you have a targeted list of the places you can be, so you are “fishing where the fish are”, so to speak. 

2. Use lead scoring to prioritize your prospects

Now that you’ve made a list of prospects, it’s time to figure out which ones are most important to reach first. While handling a huge volume of prospects, incorporating lead scoring in your sales strategy is essential. It helps give your sales team ideas on whom you need to prioritize.  

Lead Scoring is a system to rank your prospect and eventually score him/her. As per the score, you can follow up and send reminders. 

For instance, you are connecting with a new prospect who is a decision-maker and you need to prioritize him to nurture. The score should be decided as per prospects’’ position, timeline (how soon s/he needs the product), type of solution, etc. 

3. Find the decision-makers

In the realm of B2B sales, reaching decision makers is the key to effective outreach. Therefore, finding a way to get in contact with prospective company decision-makers should be a part of your B2B sales strategy. If you are connecting with a manager who doesn’t have authority, it is kind of a waste of time for your sales team. 

 Target the decision-makers to throw your baits.

 Another point to be aware of specifically in B2B sales is the way you approach decision makers. The approach to a customer (B2C) is completely different from the approach method to a decision-maker (B2B). So, train your sales team with probable questions to be asked by the decision-makers with the tactful answer. Make a note of not limiting your sales strategy by connecting with a decision-maker and encountering his/her challenging questions. 

 Building a relationship by understanding his/her pesky problems and providing possible solutions beyond your products and nurture him in a regular interval.

4. Target your existing customers

Target customers we already have? Why would we do that? 

Yes, we know it sounds silly. But in order to hunt new prospects, most companies actually end up unintentionally ignoring their existing customers. This is the biggest mistake they make. Targeting to your existing customers is one of the best sales strategies. 

Connect to your existing customers and get feedback from them. If there is anything pesky they are facing, sort it out. Build the trust relationship by providing post service. 

This process, if you’re patient, will inevitably give you new prospects. Your customer may refer to his/her friends or relatives to your product. By nurturing your existing customers, you can help plant seeds in your overarching sales strategy.

5. Listen to your prospects

Effective communication happens when both parties listen to each other and respond accordingly. Listening to your prospect will help you understand prospects’ interests and expectations. 

• What benefits do they seek in your product?
• Why might they not buy from you?
• Who else takes part in their decision-making process?

Most of the sales reps stress on particular points such as price, benefits of the products or services, the example of existing customers, etc. instead of understanding customer’s problems and providing the solution. What’s going on in their business/industry? Is the industry growing, do they have many competitors, do you see any change in their industry, something negative or positive that can affect them? Any of these questions could be a good way to start.

This way of approaching the products/services throws the picture of compelling to the prospects for the products. Therefore, listening to your prospects is one of the most significant factors that should be included in the sales strategy.

Key Takeaways:

• Cold-calling is an effective sales tactic, but you cannot just pick up the phone and start dialing.
• Cold-calling, cold-emailing, and cold social messaging needs to have a clearly define framework and objective.
• One needs to know how to relay the purpose for one’s call/email skillfully at the beginning in order to get to discovery questions.
• We aren’t born knowing how to ask relevant questions. These are based on the company/account and prospect persona which we need to research in order to figure out the best approach.
• Speaking to the company’s needs is great, but speaking to the prospect’s needs is ideal. This requires knowledge of the solution, industry, and company to a lesser extent.

Like we said, there’s plenty of free ways you can optimize your B2B sales outreach. But for B2B contact data, resources on B2B lead generation, business analytics, and B2B database services, visit our home page at www.bill-moss.com