Inbound Marketing is all the rage these days, and why shouldn't it be? It works, right? At least, that's what HubSpot clients are saying (and we're clients, so I can vouch for it). Inbound Marketing's goal is to pull potential customers in by all different methods, whether it's compelling content, savvy SEO execution or community interaction via social media.
While inbound strategies are effective, augmenting them with outbound marketing strategies can add to that success. Where do you turn? Be it appointment setting, lead qualification, or email marketing, where's all the goodness at? Here are some sites that share top-notch practices:
The Bridge Group's Inside Sales Experts Blog - Trish Bertuzzi and the team over at The Bridge Group are the gold standard when it comes to advice on making your inside sales team greater than it already is. Add to that their annual Inside Sales Metrics and Compensation reports and Bridge's Inside Sales Experts LinkedIn group, and you've got yourself some really fine resources to improve your team.
NetProspex's NetProspex Blog - The verified contact list-building behometh's blog is filled with far more than information on data. It advises on building pipeline, improving messaging and better ways to market to your prospects. There's a lot of information in this blog, so make sure you take the time to peruse the several years' worth of articles.
RainToday's RainMakerBlog - The folks from RainToday have been offering some great information and ways to improve sales reps, much of which can translate to your outbound marketing teams. In particular, they've been sharing some interesting thoughts on how to improve the actual art of the "sales conversation." Definitely worth checking out.
Craig Rosenberg's Funnelholic Blog - Craig is one of the demand gen gurus from Focus.com who consistently publishes great content that ranges from marketing to sales, inbound to outbound. Great stuff.
Vorsight's Inside Sales Tips Blog - This one is special because Vorsight and Green Leads are technically competitors, but we both have mutual respect for each other's work and would call it more "co-opetition". Solid tips.
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These last two are interesting additions because some people put email marketing in the category of "inbound" when in reality it is originally an "outbound" technique -- the action item is an inbound lead. That said, two great blogs:Marketo's Modern B2B Sales Blog - Marketo, the marketing automation company, has several blogs, but its Modern B2B Sales blog hits the mark.
Constant Contact's Constant Commentary Blog - Constant Contact's blog provides some great tips and tactics on how to better use email as an outbound marketing tool, but its also dabbles in social media and list-building advice as well.
There are a lot of other great blogs and resources out there, so this list is by no means complete, and of course, bookmark or subscribe to our blog as well. Where else do you go when you're looking for great advice on how to do inbound marketing and outbound marketing more effectively? Let us know!
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