Why You Should Have Multiple Sales Channels

To have a competitive edge in the outbound sales environment, it is crucial to adopt a multi-channel approach. Performers in this sector understand the numerous advantages of leveraging multiple sales outreach channels.

By employing a diverse range of channels, your company can expand its reach in the market and capitalize on the potential for increased revenue when implemented effectively.

On the other hand, relying solely on a single-channel approach carries inherent risks. The sales environment is dynamic, and the relevance of specific channels can wane over time. By diversifying your sales channels, you mitigate these risks and ensure continued success in a rapidly changing landscape.

In this article, we will explore why adopting multiple channels is paramount and how you can strategically incorporate outsourcing to achieve exceptional results.

Sales channels refer to the various methods and platforms through which a company or startup sells its products or services to customers.

These channels can be traditional and digital, offering different ways for customers to purchase.

Channels can be platforms (online or offline), people, or partners.

Often people confuse sales channels with distribution channels. Let's clear up any doubts:

• A sales channel is involved in helping to increase and close sales.

• A distribution channel has more to do with physically getting products across to consumers.

Commonly used sales channels to increase and close sales are:

• Cold Emailing - BDRs use cold emailing to reach out to potential customers and introduce them to the company's products or services. They send a message that is relevant to the customer and provides value so that they are more likely to respond.

• Cold Calling - Cold calling involves contacting potential customers who may not be familiar with the company or its products. BDRs need to be prepared for objections and have effective rebuttals ready.

• Social Selling - Social selling is the process of using social media platforms to identify potential leads and connect with them. This method allows BDRs to build relationships with potential clients before reaching out to them directly. LinkedIn is the platform that offers the most value for the business, especially for salespeople to network.

What are these channels used for?

The reasons why a company is using a certain sales channel can vary depending on what they want to achieve through the channel. But the main focus should always be outbound prospecting. Because it is through cold outreach that you are able to reach out to those who are unaware of your product or service.

Businesses can significantly enhance their brand awareness by employing a combination of cold emailing, cold calling, social selling, and other omnichannel methods.

Cold emailing allows for targeted outreach and personalized communication, enabling businesses to introduce their brand to specific audiences thoughtfully and relevantly. Through well-crafted email sequences, companies can showcase their value proposition and unique selling points, making a lasting impression on recipients and increasing brand recall.

Similarly, cold calling provides a direct and immediate connection with prospects. Engaging in conversations with potential customers over the phone allows businesses to convey their brand message in real-time, addressing questions and concerns and leaving a personal touch that helps create a lasting brand image.

Social selling offers an excellent opportunity to interact with a vast audience and increase brand visibility. Companies can position themselves as industry thought leaders and influencers by consistently engaging followers, sharing valuable content, and participating in conversations, ultimately strengthening their brand authority and recognition.

Employing an omnichannel approach ensures that the brand's message is present across various platforms and touchpoints, reinforcing the brand's identity consistently. This repetition plays a crucial role in building familiarity and trust among potential customers.

With multiple sales channels at their disposal, startups can expand their reach and tap into previously untapped markets. Each channel caters to different segments of the ideal customer profile, allowing for a wider net to be cast and increased exposure to potential leads.

Moreover, companies can maintain a consistent brand message while tailoring it to fit the context of each platform. This consistency reinforces brand identity and builds trust, making leads more likely to engage and convert.

The integrated nature of an omnichannel strategy also enables businesses to collect valuable data on potential leads. By tracking customer interactions across different channels, they can gain insights into their preferences and behavior, allowing for more targeted and personalized lead nurturing.

Sales channels create a comprehensive and customer-centric approach to lead generation. Businesses can engage potential leads at various stages of the sales process, offering relevant content and personalized interactions, nurturing them from initial interest to eventual lead-to-customer conversion.

Personalized email campaigns provide valuable content and solutions to leads directly in their inboxes, addressing their specific needs and interests. Simultaneously, cold calling enables real-time conversations, allowing businesses to address concerns, provide additional information, and establish rapport.

Social selling adds a human touch to the nurturing process, as businesses can engage leads through social media platforms. By sharing relevant content and participating in discussions, companies can position themselves as trusted resources, fostering connections with potential customers.

The seamless integration of these channels creates a cohesive and consistent customer experience. As leads encounter the brand across different touchpoints, they receive the same targeted messaging and personalized attention, reinforcing their trust and interest in the business.

Multiple channels also enable businesses to gather valuable data on leads' preferences and behaviors.

When a company launches a new product or service, cold outreach is a powerful and effective method to deliver rapid and valuable insights into how the market reacts to your innovative offer.

You can gain invaluable information and deep insights into their preferences, needs, and reactions by directly reaching out to potential customers or target groups.

What's more, even when you're not currently launching a new product, taking a proactive approach by reaching out to a new target group in a specific sector or industry can provide valuable feedback and help you tailor your offerings to serve their unique needs better. You can make well-informed business decisions that drive success by staying ahead of the curve and leveraging real-time market feedback and engagement.

Cold outreach is a way to gain market insights and feedback for new product launches and a proactive strategy that enables you to improve and deliver exceptional value to your target audience continuously.

Deciding on a multi-channel approach is usually the better option instead of using just a single channel. A single channel means contact with prospects less often than your competitors, making it easier for you to be forgotten.

A multi-channel approach builds relationships.

A company needs to plan its sales channels accordingly and set up a strategy.

Working with an external partner should always be considered to help you save time and money before setting up and managing an in-house sales team.

Channels saturate or are abandoned as markets shift.

Consequently, having alternatives keeps any potential decline in your channel from lowering your outcomes. For instance, the congestion of prospects' inboxes wouldn't hurt you if you were employing both email and LinkedIn outreach.

Similarly, if one of your channels, like email, is no longer working due to email deliverability issues, for example, you still have other channels to focus on and use.

Several channels will make sure that you can always reach out to your prospects.

By exploring and experimenting with different communication channels, you open up the opportunity to discover one that not only yields a superior return on investment but also enhances your overall outcomes. For instance, consider transitioning from a purely cold calling approach to adopting a hybrid strategy that incorporates personalized email outreach.

This strategic shift has the potential to greatly improve your engagement with prospects and increase your success rates. Embracing such strategic adjustments and tailoring your communication approach to each prospect can lead to significant positive changes in your overall business performance, resulting in stronger relationships, higher conversion rates, and sustained growth.

By contacting a prospect through a variety of channels, you are more likely to discover the one that works best for them. A multichannel outreach strategy boosts a prospect's chances of seeing your message and replying.

Different sales channels can also target different audiences.

If you have different target groups, you can find out which channel is the best for each one to create contact. This is a result of each prospect's various preferred contact methods.

If you reach out to decision-makers in multiple channels, they are more likely to trust that you're reaching out to offer real value.

But be careful with sending multiple conflicting messages. This can destroy your first good impression.

At the end of a campaign, you want to see which channel works well and which one isn't performing as expected. But a channel giving low revenue may still benefit some customers, and profit may be high.

You have to consider if outreach on LinkedIn does not create high revenue for your company that. It's still an effective platform to nurture connections and raise brand awareness.

If you can make people aware of your brand or give them useful information about your company's product or service first, they are more likely to start a conversation after receiving an email from your company.

Social media, in general, can be used to make connections first and then follow up with emails or phone calls to convince your prospect of your proposal or vice versa.

You might think that managing multiple channels will take you a lot of time and money. There are many tools and platforms that you can use to manage your cold outreach via different channels: keeping an overview of all your channels is easier.

The only problem with using multiple channels is that when your company wants to run an in-house sales team, there will be corporate limitations to what they can do. And you really need to consider all the costs that will occur by using all the channels. Equipment, salary, training - they can all be expensive spending for a successful sales team.

This is why outsourcing one or more channels for cold outreach is always worth considering.

Generating, evaluating, and qualifying leads by an in-house team takes time depending on the channel and your employee's expertise. With it comes a bigger managing effort to get this job done.

Instead, outsource.

Once the external partner qualifies leads, they will be given to one of your in-house sales experts, who can focus on closing the deal.

Also, you can use sales outsourcing to connect with new clients interested in your service, make initial contact with prospects, and target other markets or various sales channels through other outsourced sales teams.

Instead of having your internal sales force concentrate on lead generation in unfamiliar markets, outsourcing enables you to obtain the most promising prospects from each market or sales channel. The outsourced sales teams know which channel works the best in certain markets and for the right target groups.

If the sales team has to generate leads across all channels, it may be that there is a lack of sufficiently qualified personnel to achieve good results.

For example, cold calling is often seen as a problem area. It makes sense to work with an external partner with cold calling experience.

You don't even have to outsource all of your channels right away, but if you feel one channel isn't performing well enough, an external partner can give you the desired results.

Outsourcing companies will deliver you the expertise you can get with an in-house sales team over months and years. The average ramp-up time for a sales rep is 3.2 months.

An external partner is able to deliver results after two to three weeks.

The management effort on these outsourced channels is very low because the external partner is in charge of this and helping their representatives themselves.

Limited experience in creating and expanding international sales and channel teams is a common problem for all teams when beginning to create sales and channel operations.

If the work is done internally, one of two things will happen: either the executive team will have to take on a duty they are unprepared for, or they will have to pay a costly additional management team member to oversee the operation in addition to hiring a channel company.

Getting to the point where a channel is performing well, can cost you several months and thousands of dollars. Instead, outsource part of your sales cycle and ensure that you get professionals managing the early stages of your sales funnel across multiple sales channels.

Managing your channels can become very easy if the outsourcing sales team simply delivers qualified leads down in the sales funnel. They will manage their channels, employing methods your reps might be unable to or unfamiliar with, and deliver leads to senior in-house sales team members to close after the initial contact.

Altogether, outsourcing sales results in reduced risks and practical, secure market expansion.

Without the added time and expense of expanding your internal staff, you will be able to scale up your sales team with experienced sales experts in new markets and channels to generate leads.

The multi-channel approach is a must for sales teams to stay ahead of the curve of their competitors.

Testing and evaluating which channels work the best or which combination of multiple channels is the most effective is one of the most important tasks of sales managers today.

The sales environment is constantly changing, and therefore your sales team's outreach strategy must be constantly reconsidered.

At a certain point, it also makes sense to have some channels taken over by an external partner. Outsourcing companies are experts in their field and have the required expertise and equipment to deliver great results for your company.

The management effort will be reduced when an external partner is on board because a huge amount of work can be given away.

Interested in outsourcing your sales process?

Get in touch with us to learn more.