Most “Inbound” Leads Aren’t Actually Inbound

Most “inbound” leads are not actually inbound.

They just get tagged that way because they come from Marketing.

It’s actually just because you have some data and have been able to architect that data to triggers Sales to reach out to someone that didn’t ask to talk to you.

An MQL score is not an “inbound” lead.

Neither is an e-book download.

Neither is a webinar attendee.

Neither is a PQL.

And these types of “leads” make up 90% or more of the total “inbound” volume.

___

This distinction of “Inbound” and “Outbound” leads is super outdated for this exact reason.

Instead, segment how Sales/SDRs follow up by:

(1) Declared Intent - A qualified buyer declares intent to buy by asking to speak with your Sales team about buying (Demo Request, Contact Form, Talk to Sales, Get Pricing, etc.).

This segment of buyers should entirely bypass the SDR role and go directly to an experienced rep that can truly help the customer and close the deal.

Figure out what you need to do operationally to create an efficient buying experience for your customer and make it happen for your customer.

Plus, stop sending your best prospects (declared intent) to your least experienced people (SDRs).

(2) Not Declared Intent - A qualified buyer doesn’t specifically ask to talk to your Sales team about buying, but we have *signals* that drives Sales to reach out to try to get a meeting.

This is a massive segment of buyers who have shown some *signals* of intent that should be queued and prioritized for outreach.

Look at ALL the available signals across the entire GTM and optimize the timing, targeting, channel, message, and offers to this large pool of potentially in-market buyers.

Build a Pipeline Architecture to track every single signal that drives Sales/SDRs to outreach and the disposition of that outreach all the way through the Sales process to Closed Won/Lost.

___

Most “inbound” leads are not actually inbound. They just get tagged that way because they come from Marketing.

It’s time to break down the outdated department-level silo’s that prevent us from seeing the bigger picture and optimizing a holistic GTM strategy.

The future is an ALLBOUND, INTEGRATED GTM Team. And that requires an entirely different set of KPIs, terminology, and analytics to plan, report, analyze, diagnose, and optimize the investments and strategy across all the GTM departments.