Why Content Matters for Outbound Prospecting

Many senior management teams understand that outbound prospecting is key to success within the expansion stage.

After all, many companies cannot continue to maintain a steady rate of growth in the expansion stage by relying on inbound lead generation alone.

We often assist in developing solid outbound prospecting engines for our portfolio companies as a part of the operational support we provide. We have recruited, hired, and trained several individuals to work as employees within the Boston office of OpenView Venture Partners or within our portfolio companies offices across the country. To learn more about how we help, I encourage you to read my colleague Devon Warwick’s blog which focuses on business development. We’ve also released a case study describing the success one portfolio company has had after implementing an outbound lead generation model with our help. You can read all about Intronis’ success in our Lead Qualification Model Case Study. As we have worked with our companies on implementing different outbound prospecting models, we have learned about one of the most important components of success: CONTENT.

Why Content Matters
No matter how good your sales reps are, if they don’t have content to support their efforts, it will be very challenging to succeed in an outbound initiative. Just think about it.

• Can your reps clearly communicate your company’s value proposition?
• How will your reps explain your company’s advantage over your main competitors?
• Do you have any email templates or calling scripts?
• How can your reps share success stories from your customer base?
• What takeaways will your prospects receive during demos or webinars?
• Do you have product descriptions prepared?
• Can your reps deliver product reviews to your prospects?
• Do you offer any free downloads? (i.e. white papers, ebooks, etc.)
• How do your reps address your prospects’ top issues and pain points?
• How will your reps demonstrate useful how-to information to your prospects?

These 10 questions all point to one answer in one shape or another: CONTENT.