Inbound vs Outbound sales: Which strategy drives better results?

Inbound vs Outbound sales – a pivotal decision every SaaS business faces. Are you a founder deciding between investing in content that draws customers in or hiring reps to reach out to prospects directly?

Perhaps you’re a sales leader or marketing strategist wanting clarity on the difference between inbound and outbound methods.

In this article, I’ll break down what outbound sales is versus what inbound sales is, compare their core characteristics, and explore how leveraging both can turbocharge your SaaS growth.

What is inbound sales?

Inbound sales is a sales strategy where potential customers initiate contact with your business, often after being attracted by your marketing or content efforts.

In other words, inbound sales are customer-driven – the prospect comes to you, usually through channels like your website, online forms, content downloads, or referrals.

But, not to be confused with inbound marketing. 

For example, a buyer might discover your SaaS product by reading a blog post or watching a webinar you published, then submit a demo request. In this scenario, the buyer approached the seller first to start the conversation.

Inbound sales typically involve close alignment with marketing. Common inbound tactics include:

Benefits of inbound sales

The core idea is to attract and engage your ideal customers with helpful content or experiences, building trust until they’re ready to reach out and buy.

Because prospects self-educate and reach out on their terms, inbound leads often come in pre-qualified and better informed. Inbound leads tend to be higher quality – they’ve “raised their hand” and indicated interest, so they’re often further along in the buying journey.

Another benefit of inbound sales is cost efficiency. Over the long term, inbound-generated leads often cost significantly less.

Content and SEO continue to generate traffic and leads without proportional spending on each new lead, yielding a lower cost-per-lead after the initial investment.

Of course, inbound sales isn’t a free ride – it requires front-loaded effort. You must invest time in understanding your customers’ pains and creating content that addresses them.

SEO and content campaigns can take months to bear fruit. Inbound sales can feel slow if you need immediate leads or lack content resources.

However, it can scale impressively once established, with popular blog posts or videos drawing leads for years and building brand awareness and trust.

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is a proactive sales strategy where your team initiates contact with potential customers, rather than waiting for them to come to you.

In outbound sales, the outreach is seller-driven – your sales reps identify prospects (whether or not they’ve shown interest) and reach out via calls, emails, or other channels.

Classic outbound tactics include things like cold calling, cold emailing, direct LinkedIn messages, and networking at events. Essentially, your team is seeking out potential clients and starting conversations from scratch.

Even if those prospects haven’t heard of you yet, your outbound reps aim to create interest and introduce your product as a solution to their pain points.

Outbound sales sometimes gets a bad rap (cue the image of relentless “cold callers”). Outbound outreach can indeed be interruptive – you’re catching people who weren’t actively seeking your product.

But modern outbound is far from the old-school telemarketing script. Today, reps leverage data and tools to target and personalize their outreach, making it more relevant and less “sleazy” than the cold calls of the past.

And importantly, outbound works when done right.

Key characteristics of outbound sales

Unlike inbound, outbound sales doesn’t require waiting for the customer to find you – it’s about hustling to find them.

This means outbound can generate leads faster in many cases (you could start dialing today and have a demo scheduled by tomorrow if all goes well).

For a new SaaS startup needing customers ASAP or an established team trying to hit this quarter’s targets, that speed is a huge advantage.

Differences between inbound vs outbound sales

So, what is the difference between inbound vs outbound sales? In a nutshell, the fundamental difference lies in who initiates the sales process.

Inbound sales are initiated by the buyer (they come to you), while outbound sales are initiated by the seller (you go to them). This shift in “who starts first” affects nearly every aspect of the sales approach, from how leads are generated to how they are nurtured and converted.

Inbound vs outbound sales differ in pace, cost, and prospect engagement. In inbound marketing, initial efforts attract and educate prospects, so by the time a sales rep engages, the prospect is usually aware of their problem and possible solutions.

In outbound sales, reps begin by introducing the company, identifying prospect needs, and building trust.

Both outbound and inbound strategies have their pros and cons, and many successful SaaS companies effectively combine them, using inbound marketing for SMB leads and outbound selling for larger enterprise deals.

Close CRM – supporting both inbound & outbound sales

Whether you focus on inbound, outbound, or a blend of both, one thing is certain: you need the right tools to manage your leads and activities.

This is where Close CRM comes in. Close is an all-in-one customer relationship management platform built specifically for sales teams, and it’s designed to empower both inbound and outbound strategies.

Close serves as a single hub for attracting, engaging, and closing deals, streamlining your sales efforts from any source.

How can Close serve both inbound and outbound sales?

Here are some key features and strengths of Close:

Close CRM provides robust lead management to consolidate all your prospects in one place – whether they filled out your website form (inbound lead) or are on a cold call list (outbound lead).

Every contact is tracked with their details, interaction history, and status in the pipeline.

Close has integrated calling, email, and SMS capabilities. For an outbound rep, the Power Dialer and Predictive Dialer features allow rapid calling through a list of prospects with one-click dialing.

Reps can send and track emails directly from the CRM. Automated email sequences or SMS follow-ups can ensure inbound leads receive prompt, personalized responses.

All communications (calls, emails, texts) are automatically logged, ensuring you never lose track of a conversation.

With Close, you can create workflows to automate routine tasks and follow-ups. For example, when an inbound lead comes in via your website, Close can automatically assign it to a salesperson and trigger a follow-up task or email.

For outbound prospecting, reps can enroll contacts in a multi-touch cadence (call + email sequence) using the CRM. 

Outbound sales teams benefit from Close’s call coaching features, such as call recording and live listening, helping managers train reps and enhance their pitches. Inbound teams use collaborative notes and reminders to address each lead’s interests.

The CRM keeps the entire team aligned.

Close offers reporting dashboards to track key metrics for inbound and outbound efforts, including lead conversions and call outcomes for each rep.

For instance, you can compare the ROI of an inbound campaign versus an outbound campaign in one system. Close’s KPI tracking follows every touchpoint with leads and can even suggest timely follow-ups, helping your team stay data-driven.

Close seamlessly integrates with popular marketing tools, including HubSpot Marketing Hub, allowing you to generate leads through inbound marketing and efficiently manage the hand-off to sales.

Similarly, you can use Zapier or API integrations to push leads from landing pages, ads, or sign-up forms into Close in real time.

Close is well-loved by small businesses and startups for its ease of use. It doesn’t require a huge operations team to maintain.

Close is perfect for growing SaaS companies that need their outbound team dialing and inbound team following up quickly, without lengthy CRM setups.

It offers enterprise-grade calling and workflow features in a user-friendly package for high-growth teams.

Close AI

Close CRM makes things easier for sales teams by using top-notch AI tools to boost productivity and simplify workflows. 

Additionally, Close offers free AI-driven sales tools:

Practical use case for Close

Imagine you’re running a SaaS startup offering a productivity tool.

Your marketing drives inbound interest – say, 50 people sign up for a webinar or download an e-book each week. With Close, those inbound leads automatically populate the CRM.

Your sales rep, Jane, can view webinar leads and contact them directly through Close for personalized demos. Meanwhile, SDR John focuses on 100 target companies, using the Power Dialer to call 30 each morning and emailing the others, while logging notes on interest and follow-ups. All activities from Jane and John are tracked in one system.

Your dashboard shows that 10% of Jane’s inbound leads book meetings, while John secures meetings from 5% of his cold calls.

The beauty is that both strategies run side by side smoothly: inbound leads are nurtured promptly, and outbound prospects are pursued systematically, all within Close.

In short, Close CRM acts as a central command center for sales.

It effectively supports both the consultative, timing-focused nature of inbound sales and the proactive approach of outbound sales.

By consolidating communications and tracking, your team can seamlessly switch between inbound and outbound sales, leading to a more efficient process and higher conversion rates. Close provides these insights by keeping all your data in one place.

Conclusion: Integrating inbound and outbound for maximum growth

At the end of the day, the inbound vs outbound sales debate isn’t about picking one over the other as a universal winner.

By understanding the difference and leveraging the strengths of each, you can craft a sales strategy that both attracts eager buyers and reaches out to promising prospects.

Embrace the best of both worlds –  and to help your team execute on both fronts effectively, try Close with a free trial – and you’ll position your SaaS business to capture every revenue opportunity, no matter how it finds its way to you.