Is Online Outreach Still Profitable in 2022?

Spend enough time in marketing, and you’ll start to notice some interesting patterns. Techniques seem to go from being obsolete and "dead" to suddenly being the best and most effective thing for your business.

Online outreach is one of those techniques that really divides opinion. There’s no shortage of articles claiming outreach is dead. There’s also no shortage of articles (and live experience) showing it’s not.

While it’s true that buyers are purchasing differently and becoming more used to various techniques and words, entire industries are still being disrupted, and start-ups are still skyrocketing their growth with online outreach.

So, what’s the truth?

The truth, as always, is complicated. If done ineffectively, online outreach is dead. That’s a fact. 

Online outreach done well, however, is a totally different matter.

The truth is, for an online outreach campaign to be successful, the approach needs to be very deliberate. This means clearly defining your ideal customer and creating several messages that resonate with their current challenges. The messaging then needs to be tested with very small batches of prospects so it can be continually improved. 

Not only does the messaging need to resonate with your target prospects, but there are also several technical steps that need to be taken. It’s not overstating to say that skipping these steps can make the difference between success and failure. The best messaging and the best prospects make little difference if the emails never reach the recipient due to technical errors.

So, the technical steps are in place, the messaging is perfect, and the campaign is done, right? Not quite. One of the most important factors that can lead to success is how quickly leads are responded to. 

Ideally, leads should be responded to as fast as possible; the faster, the better. This is a simple step, but it’s often missed. That’s why we manage the replies for all of our clients; the faster the response, the more likely the lead is to convert into a new customer.

Research from Chilipiper found that you’re 21 times more likely to qualify your lead with a fast response time than waiting 30+ minutes. While that research was regarding inbound leads, it’s not a leap to apply the same findings to outbound leads. Our anecdotal findings suggest the same.

To wrap up,

Online outreach is not dead; far from it, in fact. Like anything, the more popular something becomes, the more you’re going to need to set yourself apart from the competition. This means taking a very deliberate approach to online outreach.