What is outbound marketing
Also known as: outbound sales, active prospecting, outbound prospecting
Outbound marketing is the strategy in which the company takes the initiative and pushes its message to people who have not yet shown interest, through calls, email, messages, direct mail or interruptive ads. In B2B, it usually appears as active prospecting: a team picks companies that match the ideal profile and reaches out to decision makers. It works best when the audience is small, well defined and high ticket.
A software company for trucking firms lists 300 carriers in its region with fleets of over 50 trucks. A team member researches each one, finds the operations manager and sends a short message citing a specific industry problem.
Over two months, with spaced out email, LinkedIn messages and calls, 45 reply, 18 agree to a meeting and 4 become customers. The cost per customer is high, but each contract is worth enough to pay for the operation several times over.
Forms of outbound
| How it works | Best for | |
|---|---|---|
| Cold calling | Direct phone contact with the decision maker | Consultative sales with a short list |
| Prospecting email | A personalized message to someone not yet a contact | B2B, first touch |
| Professional network messages | Reaching out through the decision maker's profile | B2B and professional services |
| Direct mail | Physical material sent to the address | A few high value accounts |
| Events and trade shows | Face to face conversations with the industry | Niche markets |
| Interruptive ads | TV, radio, display and video for people who did not search | Reach and brand recall |
Outbound and inbound
With inbound, people find the company because they searched; with outbound, the company chooses who to reach. Outbound brings control and speed: you can decide today who to talk to tomorrow. In exchange, cost per contact is higher and the message arrives uninvited, which calls for more care.
The two complement each other. Inbound content gives prospecting something useful to offer in the first contact, and prospecting takes that content to accounts that might never have found it.
How to do it without hurting the brand
- Start with a well defined ideal customer profile. A broad list produces rejections, not sales.
- Personalize for real: mention something about the person's company or industry, not just their name.
- Few touches, spaced out. Pushiness turns into blocks and spam reports.
- Make opting out easy in every message.
- Log every contact in the CRM, so nobody approaches the same person twice.
- Measure reply rate and meetings, not the number of messages sent.
Legal and technical limits
Data protection laws set when personal data may be processed. In Brazil, the LGPD only allows it under the hypotheses the law lists, and a professional's name, email and phone number are personal data too. Before setting up a prospecting operation, define with legal counsel the legal basis used and where contacts come from. A purchased list with no clear origin is a risk.
There is a technical side as well. Gmail requires every sender to use SPF or DKIM authentication and keep the spam rate in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. Senders of more than 5,000 messages a day face extra requirements, such as DMARC and one click unsubscribe.
How to measure it
- Delivery and reply rates.
- Meetings booked per list worked.
- Meeting to proposal and proposal to customer rates.
- Customer acquisition cost, including team, tools and data.
- Sales cycle length.
Frequently asked questions
What is outbound marketing?
The strategy in which the company takes the initiative to contact people who have not shown interest yet, through calls, email, messages, direct mail or ads.
What is the difference between outbound and inbound?
With outbound, the company chooses and seeks out the customer. With inbound, customers find the company through content they searched for.
Does outbound still work?
It works well in B2B, with a defined audience and a high ticket. In broad, low ticket markets, the cost per customer tends to be too high.
Is cold email legal?
It depends on the jurisdiction. Data protection laws such as Brazil's LGPD require a legal basis for processing personal data, including business contacts, so define the basis with legal counsel before starting.
How many times should I contact a prospect?
There is no magic number. A few spaced touches, each with something useful and an easy way out, work better than insistence, which ends in blocks.
Related terms
- Inbound marketingInbound marketing is the strategy of attracting customers with useful content and experiences, instead of...
- ICPAn ICP, short for ideal customer profile, is the kind of company, or customer, that gets the most out of what...
- CRMCRM, short for customer relationship management, is the process and, almost always, the system that records...
- LeadA lead, in marketing, is a person or company that showed interest in what you sell and left a way to be...
- MQL and SQLAn MQL (marketing qualified lead) is a lead that marketing considers ready for a sales approach, because it...
- CACCAC (customer acquisition cost) is how much a business spends, on average, to win each new customer. You add...
Rodrigo Fávaro
Founder of ROO3, a marketing and technology agency in São José do Rio Preto, Brazil. Builds AI products running in production (Tobia, gerar.app, Pense Mercado) and maintains the AI Benchmark, a public ranking of AI models.
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