Inbound vs Outbound Lead Generation and How They Can Increase Your Sales

93% of companies using inbound marketing increase their inbound lead generation.

Companies who invest in lead nurturing, close 20% more deals.

Two strategies that clearly offer tangible results, but the question remains:

Inbound vs outbound lead generation: Which one should you choose?

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the process in which a business gathers leads, or potential clients, so they can move them through the sales funnel.

The main goal of moving leads through the sales funnel is to eventually reach lead conversion.

Lead generation consists of 4 key elements:

Attract attention
Qualify leads
Capture information
Engage prospects

All of these elements can be taken care of with both inbound and outbound lead generation.

What is Inbound lead generation?

Inbound lead generation is a process in which you essentially let leads come to you.

With a content marketing strategy in place, you can establish your business as a thought leader and, therefore, establish trust before your leads decide to purchase your product or service.

Some examples of inbound lead generation strategies include:

The content you publish, no matter in what form it may be, should always be tailored to your ICP. Particularly to pain points you’re looking to solve, therefore you’ll be immediately placing yourself as a valuable resource.

Inbound leads

Inbound leads are those leads who have expressed interest in your product or service through engagement with your content.

Inbound leads are typically warmer leads, this means that you won’t have to create the need for your product or service because, chances are, they already know and need you. This fact makes inbound leads a more desirable option since they are typically more eager to move through the sales funnel.

What is outbound lead generation?

Outbound lead generation takes a much more proactive approach in collecting leads. This strategy consists of finding and reaching out to potential clients yourself.

Some examples of outbound lead generation strategies include:

Cold emailing
Cold calling
LinkedIn prospecting
Event networking
PPC advertising

The key to successful outbound lead generation lies in personalization.

Although personalization in your outreach may be more time-consuming, it is also guaranteed to get you better results, as you will address your target’s pain points head on.

With a good outreach strategy and outreach tools, you can reach your leads at the perfect time and with the perfect message to close your deals.

Outbound leads

Outbound leads are leads who you (or someone in your sales team) have reached out to personally.

These leads are typically guided carefully through the sales funnel with a carefully thought-out outreach strategy, including follow-ups and calls.

Although some leads may be warm, most outbound leads are cold leads who may not have heard of your business before. So it’s up to you to create value, urgency, and need.

The largest challenge facing outbound leads is the fact that they will often require more nurture, or you may face resistance from prospects.

However, it is important to do your research in order to reach them at the perfect time, and if they still ask to not hear from you anymore, you should not be pushy and accept their request or you could face legal consequences.

Main differences

Inbound and outbound lead generation have many similarities, including:

Gathering leads
Creating demand
Providing value
Making sales

However, there are some very obvious differences too.

The first and most salient difference is definitely the approach and strategies. Although inbound lead generation attracts leads toward the business, outbound lead generation goes out and find and contacts them.

Other differences include:

Inbound lead generation	Outbound lead generation
Focus in education	Focus on sales
Passive approach	Direct and proactive approach
Focuses on building trust	Focus on generating leads
Scaleable strategy	Pricing can scale quicker
Sales qualified leads	Marketing qualified leads
Slower process	Faster process
Warm and hot leads	Cold leads

Pros and cons

Each method has it’s good and bad aspects.

Although it is important to point out that one is not better than another, nor can one exist without the other.

Both strategies should work together in order to achieve the best results.

Inbound lead generation

✅ Pros	❌ Cons
Highly scaleable	Unpredictable
Build your brand	Needs dedicated teams and resources
Establish yourself as a thought leader	Slower lead generation process

Outbound lead generation

✅ Pros	❌ Cons
More personalized approach	Time-consuming
More control over lead-gen strategies	Higher cost per lead
Reach your ICP	Comes across as pushy

How to combine inbound and outbound lead generation

As we have mentioned a few times, the best strategy is to combine inbound and outbound lead generation.

Why should you combine them?

For example, say you notice a lead is constantly visiting your blogs, sharing them, and spending a considerable amount of time on your pricing page. You would think they’re close to making a decision.

However, they may also be comparing your expertise and pricing with a competitors.

Here is where outbound lead generation puts you ahead.

Once you’ve identified a warm/hot lead, you can target them with an outreach campaign, that is personalized, answers their questions, and shows genuine interest in having them.

This will help your lead come much close to a decision.

Another example of combining both strategies could be:

→ Step 1: Post valuable content about sales in SaaS

→ Step 2: Include a lead capture form offering an e-book that tackles the pain point your articles address

→ Step 3: Answer immediately with the promised resource

→ Step 4: After 2 days, send a follow-up to ensure your resource was valuable and add even more value, by offering a demo.

→ Step 5: Continue nurturing your lead until the deal is closed.