CRM for inbound sales vs CRM for outbound sales?

[giedreLego]

Hi, dear people!

I just got signed in.

I was figuring out, which crm to use now (previously I had experience with others).
I got confused when I sow, that hubSpot crm is for inbound sales, so it got me wondering, why(how?) the crms may differ,  depending on lead type?

In my case - I am going to use it for both (log and track all leads). I am curious, how it may reflect? What is the difference or impact for the outbound leads, that will be sotred and managed in inbound crm? 

Have an awesom day!

[MrJustinGivens · Accepted solution]

Hey @giedreLego HubSpot CRM can, and should, be used for both inbound and outbound sales.

Inbound sales would be contacts that have reached out to your company for more details (a lead). 

Outbound sales would be the contacts you are targeting. You would be manually adding these prospects into the CRM to keep everything tracked and organized.

The CRM would include all your contacts. Specifically in HubSpot, your inbound leads would be marked as "Marketing Contacts" and your Outbound leads until they submit or give consent would be "Non-marketing Contacts".

Check out this knowledge base article about marketing contact status.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Cheers,

Justin

[OliveBalina]

Welcome onboard and great question!

CRMs can handle both inbound and outbound sales, but the key difference is in how they’re built to support each.

Inbound CRMs (e.g., HubSpot)

Designed for leads who find you—via your website, chat, or social media.

They’re great at:

Auto-logging interactions

Nurturing leads with automation

Tracking engagement from first visit to close

Outbound CRMs

Built for cold outreach, where your team reaches out via calls or emails.

They focus on:

Logging outbound calls/emails

Managing follow-up sequences

Tracking lead status (e.g., “Contacted,” “Followed Up”)

Need Both?

Most growing teams do.

Some modern omnichannel CRMs blend both approaches. If you're handling inbound leads from WhatsApp, Instagram, or your website—and also doing outbound calls or emails—look for a CRM that:

Captures inbound leads automatically

Lets you log/manage outbound leads easily

Tracks everything in one shared pipeline

Supports follow-ups via WhatsApp, email, etc.

These tools are especially useful for chat-heavy sales teams and SMBs that need one place to manage it all. Some even offer deep WhatsApp integrations and multichannel support without the complexity of enterprise CRMs.

TL;DR:
CRMs don’t need to be inbound or outbound—go for one that fits your team’s workflow and channels. The best ones today let you do both, seamlessly.

Hope this helps—and best of luck with your search!

[Dan1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @giedreLego , 

I can see how that confusion has occured, as a lot of HubSpots messaging has been about driving Inbound leads. However @MrJustinGivens  is totally right the HubSpot CRM is used for both. 

We can back this up with a little bit of data as we work with 4,000 + HubSpot CRM customers who focus on BIG Strategic Target accounts, where they are using Inbound and Outbound lead generation. 

Often you can't win these sized deals with out enaging an account using both methods. Some of our very best customers use the power of HubSpots target accounts functionality, so that sales and marketing can work together in a focused way.

I hope this helped? 

Kind regards, 

Dan Currin 

Co-Founder 

OrgChartHub 

GeoMapper 

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps 

[MrJustinGivens · Accepted solution]

Hey @giedreLego HubSpot CRM can, and should, be used for both inbound and outbound sales.

Inbound sales would be contacts that have reached out to your company for more details (a lead). 

Outbound sales would be the contacts you are targeting. You would be manually adding these prospects into the CRM to keep everything tracked and organized.

The CRM would include all your contacts. Specifically in HubSpot, your inbound leads would be marked as "Marketing Contacts" and your Outbound leads until they submit or give consent would be "Non-marketing Contacts".

Check out this knowledge base article about marketing contact status.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Cheers,

Justin

[rubenlozanome]

Hey Justin!

Thanks for this information. And how do you organise those type of motions? Should we create a different property to be able to identify them?

What are the best practices for organising and managing inbound versus outbound sales in Hubspot? My first thought is to create a new property to track that and be able to track that.

Cheers,