Ever since the establishment of the term “Inbound Marketing,” the marketing discussion has been divided into two schools of thought - inbound and outbound.
Many inbound advocates view outbound marketing as an “old school,” outdated, and more traditional form of marketing.
But in this blog post, we’re going to state the case for outbound marketing, sharing how it’s still a valuable tool for your business today and why.
Both inbound and outbound marketing are necessary tools for success. When utilized properly, they both are effective forms of marketing that can work hand in hand to your advantage.
The inbound marketing methodology is an excellent guide for creating content that attracts and delights your customers.
When HubSpot defined inbound marketing, the principle was simple. It was about getting the right information, or content, in front of the right people at the right time. The key was, and always has been: the right people, at the right time.
Therefore a “buyer’s journey” was segmented into three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. This segmentation was established back when content was easily discoverable on Google, thanks to the scarcity of it.
Marketers back then didn’t have to worry too much about being found. The goal of marketers was simply moving prospects through the buyer’s journey.
Top of the funnel content was created to generate interest.
Middle of the funnel content was created to help prospects compare and contrast different solutions to a problem, without advocating too much about the promoted product or company.
Bottom of the funnel content was then created to prepare the buyer to make a decision.
The process was so candid and simple. Because it was based solely on buyer psychology, it worked. It transformed the content marketing world to have more of a focus on telling a story that resonated with buyers.
Over the years, the inbound methodology has been adopted by the vast majority of digital marketing agencies. Due to its ever-increasing popularity, the challenge has now become getting your content noticed and seen.
Simply creating good content doesn’t guarantee that your target audience will ever see it. This roadblock is especially common among small businesses and start-ups.
How can you possibly get your unique material seen in the sea of content on Google? This is where outbound marketing comes into play.
SEE ALSO- The State of Marketing in 2017: Inbound, Outbound, & Everything in Between
Outbound marketing, unlike inbound, is about getting your product or service in front of people by leveraging different types of media. Some examples of outbound marketing techniques are email blasts, telemarketing, and advertising - including PPC (Pay Per Click) and social media ads.
In outbound marketing, your business starts the conversation, rather than waiting for a customer to find you. It’s an excellent way to get your content seen.
But simply forcing your content on anyone and everyone, regardless of their interest in your product or service, isn’t the most effective way to do outbound. Buyers on the receiving end of outbound marketing may or may not care about what you have to offer, so outbound marketing is much more effective when it’s appropriately targeted.
Mailchimp defines outbound marketing as "the practice of reaching directly out to customers."
For example, PPC has recently become one of the most widely used outbound marketing methods, potentially because of their interest/search-based logic.
Similarly, social media ads keep the buyers’ interests in mind. Ads featuring relevant content will pop up when similar interests are shown based on a browser’s search history.
Most outbound marketing methods such as these leverage already established platforms, and their accumulated audiences, to create attention for the company and brand being advertised. This solves the problem of smaller companies and start-ups that don’t have a large following or a substantial presence on search engines.
In this way, outbound marketing complements inbound marketing. But remember, your outbound marketing efforts have to be targeted in order to be successful.
Make sure that content being delivered through outbound channels is well crafted, valuable, and interesting to your prospects. Then, target people who are interested in what you have to offer and thus, more open to receiving your message.
A good starting point would be to define the following characteristics for your target audience:
Next you should find out your prospects’ interests, most visited websites, products they’ve previously purchased, social media pages they follow, etc. Having this information will be a gold mine for your strategy.
Gathering this information can be a very time consuming task, but this is where marketing automation tools come in handy.
Marketing automation tools allow marketers to create lookalike audiences and automated workflows, so they can easily get the right content to the right people at the right time. Tools like these also free marketers to focus less on implementation and more on optimizing strategies to improve ROI.
With marketing automation, it’s much easier to strategically target your outbound marketing efforts, whether you’re creating ads on Google to showcase your latest eBook, or an ad on Facebook to direct people to your blog.
Now you can see how there shouldn’t be a division between inbound and outbound marketing. Singling out either one of them will prevent you from reaching a greater level of marketing success.
It is only when inbound and outbound marketing work hand in hand that you’ll see the best results possible.
Not sure how to balance inbound and outbound efforts in your marketing strategy? Need help figuring out how to compete against bigger companies with your small business’s budget?
Contact EYEMAGINE for a consultation, and let our team of marketing professionals provide you with expert tips on marketing strategy today.