Gen AI will force GTM away from spray and pray outbound, and towards thoughtful and targeted outreach. Here’s why: On Wednesday I shared the 3 major inflection points in outbound over the last 2 decades: 1) Readily available contact data to find prospects (e.g. LinkedIn, Zoominfo, Apollo) 2) Sales engagement tools that enable SDRs to 10x their volume (e.g. Outreach, Salesloft) 3) Gen AI automating writing and sending sequences (e.g. AI SDR type tools) With each inflection point, outbound became cheaper, more companies started to do it, and conversion rates dropped because there’s a limited amount of buyer attention. We’re in the first inning of Gen AI, which will almost certainly drive the cost to outbound to be free. If history taught us anything, we should except conversion rates will be decimated, and outbound will die, right? Not quite. There’s a new constraint on outbound emerging. It’s shifting from capital and labor (the last 20 years) to reputation (the next 20 years). Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have every incentive to protect the attention of their users, who are your buyers and decision makers. Here’s what this means: A) The playing field will not be equal, and reputation will be king. Reputation includes email deliverability and broad moats like brand awareness. Enterprises with stronger reputation will get larger allowances to contact more of their TAM, and conversion rates will be higher because of brand awareness. Outbound will continue to thrive here. On the other hand, startups without established reputation won’t be able to achieve the same economics. I expect outbound will only work for startups with 10/10 GTM execution, or those in markets with little competition (lucky them). B) Targeting will become 10x more important. For both Enterprises and startups, it’ll become even more important to make the most of whatever reputation they have. Reps need to outbound to the accounts and people most likely to convert (e.g. signals / warm outbound), and ignore the rest. C) Investment in channels that increase reputation long-term. I expect to see more investment in reputation accretive activities like founders posting on LinkedIn (hello 👋), hosting local dinners with a tailored guest list, dedicated content teams (Hubspot buying The Hustle), etc. If you pay close attention, you’ll see the best companies in competitive markets are already doing this. That’s the prediction. A bit ironic that Gen AI will end spray and pray. It might take some time, but there’s already evidence of this playing out. Which side do you want to be on?
Max Clang
1mo
another day, another banger of a take
Nate Gemberling
1mo
Great post - spot on
Social Selling for B2B GTM Teams | Marketing @ Teamfluence™
1mo"Targeting will become 10x more important." - 100% One key factor for 'bulletproofing' outreach is how SDRs/BDRs are building their audiences. We B2B people are always obsessed with laser-focused targeting, ICP, and buyer personas... until we come to LinkedIn and just add random people to our networks to increase our "followers" count. LinkedIn isn't Instagram. Lots of random followers won't get you new leads, business meetings, or closed deals.