Nothing is dead. You just need to get better.

Whenever you open LinkedIn, there’s someone in a corner yelling something is dead.

Outbound is dead, email marketing is dead, lead gen is dead, X is dead, and soon, demand gen will be dead as well. (Mainly of course, because it's good ol' brand & awareness marketing repackaged.)

The truth is – nothing is dead.

You just need to get way better at it.

And yes, the resource arbitrage of the tactic might have disappeared, which has left the king naked.

But it still works.

Back in the 2015 FB era, Facebook had more attention shelves than they had advertisers, which led to low advertising prices.

This meant you could ship crap, make it up with volume and better than before targeting, and still make a bank.

Today, Facebook still works.

Yes, it isn’t just as ludicrous as it used to be. And you need way better execution. And a different strategy. But it still works.

The same goes for outbound.

Just the other day, I saw Chris Walker’.s post about what he is seeing across his clients.

Outbound isn’t dead. It still works well.

(Yes, Mr. Demand Gen said it himself)

But today, you just can’t throw more bodies at it and pray that it will grow the sales.

Like it was the defacto move 5 years ago.

The channel has matured and is saturated. Everyone did that. It’s an easy move.

Now you need to get smarter and more effective about using this channel.

Instead of SDR spam cannons, outbound could be a strategic business development channel.

And, of course, the world around us has changed.

There are too many vendors in every category.

Everybody gets the same ads and messages from companies selling the same products.

This means that brand is becoming more and more important.

Brand == trust.
Brand == relationship.
Brand == conversation starter.

Brand makes everything easier, whether it’s email marketing, lead gen or outbound.

For unknown companies with 10 employees who have been in the business for 9 months, outbound could still be an inefficient channel.

But for companies who have spent a couple of years building a brand and selling the same product, it could be an efficient channel.

Because they are more known.

This is exactly what Chili Piper is seeing and why they are investing in brand.

Brand helps their outbound channel work.

As Rory Sutherland puts it, it’s better to be famous than not to be famous.

So, nothing is dead.

Become famous. Get creative about strategies.

Try out all the new and old tactics.

Perhaps even fax – if your target customers use it.