Outbound Lead Generation

Inbound and outbound marketing are two sides of the same coin; they are two different ways for your team to reach your target audience and generate leads for your business. So what’s the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?

Inbound lead generation typically entails less intrusive tactics. Inbound marketing focuses on delivering valuable content to potential inbound leads that are already interested in the product or service you’re offering. Inbound lead generation tactics include blogging, SEO, social media marketing, permission-based email marketing, and similar inbound strategies.

The typical outbound lead generation process, on the other hand, has a more in-your-face approach. Outbound lead generation techniques include direct mail, cold calling, paid advertising, events, and other active outbound campaigns.

Today, with more inbound and outbound methods to attract leads cropping up, the line between outbound and inbound marketing is becoming blurred. Some lead generation efforts, such as Google Ads, generate divided opinions, with some experts considering it an inbound sales strategy while others count it as an outbound sales campaign.

Although it’s okay to compare inbound vs. outbound lead generation strategies on paper, a lead generation expert knows they can’t exist without the other. A solid lead generation strategy incorporates both inbound marketing and outbound marketing tactics for getting customers.

An outbound lead generation virtual assistant is an integral part of your marketing team. They are responsible for providing high-quality leads to the sales team throughout the outbound lead gen process, including data research and list-building campaigns to generate highly qualified leads.

So, where does a lead generation virtual assistant fit into your already existing marketing strategy?

Lead generation virtual assistants work closely with your marketing team to ensure that outbound campaigns are focused on the right people and for the right reasons. Outbound lead generation virtual assistants make sure every campaign reaches your target market through various channels, from cold calling to webinars, from targeted pop-ups to direct email marketing.

In the initial stages of your outbound lead generation efforts, your virtual assistant can help determine which marketing campaigns and strategies work best for your company. This includes finding the right keywords to target on a Google Ad and testing different content across social media platforms.

After analyzing these experiments, they can create a list of contact details that match your ideal customer profile, compile reports, and provide insights into optimal marketing strategies for your company.

An outbound lead generation virtual assistant is super helpful for enhancing your outbound lead gen efforts. Here are some of the responsibilities they can take off your shoulders:

Create Targeted Lead Lists

Your VA can help you reach your target audience by building targeted lists of potential customers. These lists can be compiled from various sources, including matching your target customers with their ideal interests through Facebook ads, finding prospect lists on LinkedIn, and sourcing business email lists through websites like Salesgenie and ZoomInfo. Your virtual assistant can also edit the list by crossing out incorrect contact information, checking for availability, and saving emails to a file.

Make Cold Calls

If you have a new product or service, it can be hard to reach out to prospects without knowing anything about your target customer. Your virtual assistant can start a cold call outbound campaign on your behalf by calling up contacts from your targeted list. They’ll ask questions about whether or not this person would be interested in your company’s offering and record answers for further analysis.

Send Personalized Emails to Cold Leads

When your outbound lead generation virtual assistant is done compiling data for your email list, they’ll send personalized emails to prospects on your behalf. They can also update you with reports on open rates and response rates so you can further improve your email campaigns.
Run Paid Outbound Marketing Campaigns

Traditional advertising such as TV, radio, print, and outdoor ads are some of the most common outbound strategies that can funnel plenty of leads to your sales funnel for your sales reps to work on. Your VA can help create content for these campaigns or research online about what primary channel you can use for your paid outbound sales strategies.

Do Content Syndication

Content syndication is a great way to establish your brand as a leader in your industry and attract new leads. As part of your content syndication strategy to generate potential leads, your VA can help create, edit, and publish content across several sites like LinkedIn and Medium to attract more leads and build relationships with people who share similar interests. This way, you have more control over your audience. Content syndication also helps build company awareness.

Run Direct Mail Outbound Marketing Campaigns

Your outbound marketing virtual assistant can help you run direct mail campaigns by researching targeted mailing lists, creating personalized postcards with your logo and contact details, and running the campaign to send these postcards.

Do Admin Work

Outbound marketing and sales efforts involve a lot of data entry and other admin work. Your VA can help ease the workload by recording the data gathered during cold calls, doing lead generation research, transcribing calls, and managing your contact database.

To work on outbound lead generation campaigns that are effective at generating leads, your virtual assistant needs to have certain skills. Here are some of the most important outbound marketing and outbound sales skills your VA needs to have.

Strong Written and Oral Communication Skills

Your virtual assistant needs to be able to communicate well with both clients and prospects because their work directly impacts the success of your company’s marketing campaigns. Being able to answer queries in a timely manner, return calls when promised, politely address concerns that prospects have about your product or service, and promote your brand without being aggressive are some of the best ways to build a good rapport with your VA’s prospects.

Patience, Persistence, and Charisma

Because cold calling is one of the top outbound tactics in a typical outbound sales process, your VA must be persistent and patient when making all those cold calls, especially when dealing with difficult leads. Of course, to increase the chances of converting each cold call into a warm lead for a sales rep to continue nurturing, your VA should also have plenty of charisma.

Strong Lead Generation Skills

To produce leads for your sales team, your virtual assistant needs to know which strategies work well for this stage of the purchasing process. They should be able to hone in on prospects’ pain points, look for decision-makers within companies, and communicate the value of your product or service effectively.

Social Selling

If you want to run outbound marketing campaigns that are highly effective, effectively generateyou need to let your VA know how they can use social media marketing platforms like Twitter and Facebook to perform better at reaching more prospects. Your VAs should be able to establish authority in their industry by leveraging these social media sites to build relationships with other professionals from the same field.

Analytical Skills

For outbound sales and lead generation campaigns to be effective, you need your virtual assistants to have strong analytical skills so they can draw insights from the data they collect. For example, a data analyst VA should know how to use data visualization tools to create beautiful presentations that will help your sales team better understand who lead prospects are and which campaigns have the most reach among them.

There are many different ways to find a VA to work on your outbound and even inbound strategy. You can post on freelancer platforms, join freelancer Facebook groups or forums, or post on job boards. You can also try working with outbound lead generation companies, but these usually cost more since they offer a specialized service.

Still, one of the easiest ways to hire a virtual assistant is to partner with an expert virtual staffing agency. At 20four7VA.com, it’s easy to hire a virtual assistant to work on your outbound marketing and outbound lead generation campaigns. We match pre-screened VAs to our clients for free, and we also provide HR, payroll, training, and IT support as long as you keep your VA with us. These are all included in our VA packages for no additional cost.

Ready to generate leads fast? Book a free Business Growth Call with us and get a free quote on professional outbound lead gen virtual assistants today.