Inbound vs Outbound Marketing
let’s face it, you have likely navigated to this article looking for the best marketing strategy to generate some serious Mulla. Maybe you are looking to improve your own company’s strategy or even your client’s strategy. Whatever it may be, rest assured we got you covered. Throughout this article we will be taking a deep dive into both inbound and outbound marketing, identifying strengths and weaknesses that you can use to identify the best marketing methods for you or your clients. We have also placed a table of contents below so feel free to skip ahead to any part you like.
- December 15, 2022
What Is Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing, or as we like to call it, magnetic marketing is the methodology of attracting your ideal customers through quality content. Inbound marketing tactics include the following:
- SEO
- Strategic Web Design
- SEM or Search Engine Marketing/Advertising
- Blogs
- Video Content
In short, anything that involves bringing your customers or clients to you rather than you to them is considered inbound marketing. However, digital inbound marketing tactics don’t stop there. After attraction is made, expert inbound marketers will embed a series of lucrative CTAs to convert users. This can be seen in the form of newsletter sign-ups, exclusive deals, or other incentivizing CTAs. inbound marketing provides relative and compelling content that strategically provokes users into instant or future conversions. Statistics indicate that every dollar spent on inbound marketing yields 3x as many leads as outbound marketing, see “11 inbound marketing statistics you need to know”, for more inbound marketing facts.
Pros Of Inbound Marketing
successful Inbound marketing is essentially the holy grail for any company. A bulletproof Inbound marketing strategy paired with expert implementation can not only boost brand awareness and develop trusting relationships, but it can also take less time to see results for a fraction of the cost of outbound. Take SEO for example, studies show that it generates up to a 14.6% close rate as opposed to 1.7% for outbound. The reason for this is that in sales, building trust is essential. In other words, showing up high in organic or paid search results immediately builds your company’s authority. Even better, if your business provides an exceptional user experience and offers original and dominant blog posts or videos that portray your company as a leader of thought, it will be much more likely that users convert as your company will be held in high regard.
Cons Of Inbound Marketing
There are numerous pros of inbound marketing, but don’t get it twisted: inbound is not perfect and not always needed. The fact of the matter is that if you think you will be getting results in less than 3 months of diligent work, you are truly mistaken. A solid and effective inbound marketing strategy involves consistent tweaks and refinements. On top of this, you must adapt to the ever-changing Google algorithm and meet your customers’ needs while still monitoring your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. Most importantly, you must acknowledge the fact that effective inbound marketing requires a deep level of critical thinking, creativity, and empathy across all channels of the sales funnel.
What Is Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing, otherwise known as traditional marketing includes any kind of marketing that involves actively sending a message out to an audience. For example, the following are some of the most well-known forms of outbound marketing:
- cold calls
- radio ads
- email spam
- Direct Mail
- Newspaper
- TV Advertisements
Traditional marketing tends to yield much fewer conversions and requires a lot more work, especially for B2B businesses. For instance, to see even the slightest bit of interaction your pitch needs to be absolutely perfect, not to mention the people you are pitching to actually need to be interested in whatever it is you are pitching to them, no wonder the ROI is so much less with outbound tactics.
Cons Of Outbound Marketing
The outbound way of marketing is generally very time-consuming and poses difficult when determining ROI. On top of this, it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually reach your prospects due to an increase in spam blockers. Generally speaking, outbound marketing is extremely unlucrative when looking to actually drive any form of instant conversion especially when it comes to B2B outbound marketing. To test this we had an outbound professional compose 2,000 fully personalized emails to prospects, the results were as follows: 1,726 emails were not opened, 100 emails were spam blocked, and only 9 replies were received, 8 of which were automatic replies that were received no further response, and the remaining 165 were all bounced from.
Pros Of Outbound Marketing
Despite the terrible results we received, outbound marketing still serves its purpose in the realm of conversions and is great for B2C companies looking to keep their company on their consumer’s minds. Take Nike as an example. They practice outbound marketing continuously, from commercials to emails to billboards, you can find their brand everywhere. But notice how the company plays to its strengths. Nike understands that not every single person driving past their billboard needs a pair of shoes right now, but what they do know is that eventually they will need a pair of shoes, and by keeping the company relevant in the buyer’s mind, it makes it very likely that when they do go buy a shoe, they will choose the company they are most familiar with.
Making a decision about the marketing strategy your company should focus on can be tough. So let us help you out. Bust out a pen and paper and write down the state of your current business along with what you hope to accomplish from your marketing efforts. If you are a small to medium-sized business looking to grow and increase your conversions, your best bet is to focus on inbound marketing. Sure it may take months to see results, but by directing your efforts to set up systems that attract and convert prequalified individuals you will save yourself a lot of stress, aggravation, and money in the long run.
Let’s put it like this. You can either direct your focus into creating a well-oiled inbound marketing machine that generates consistent results, or you can gamble with outbound marketing in hopes of landing a few customers. That being said, if you are a large B2C company with a huge customer base, outbound marketing can be a great tool for retargeting, and we highly suggest it.
