Choosing Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing - Finding the Perfect Match! When it comes to crafting a successful marketing strategy for your business, it's crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of both inbound and outbound marketing. Ultimately, it all comes down to what works best for your specific business needs.
Table of Contents
- What is Outbound Marketing
- What is Inbound Marketing
- Inbound vs Outbound Marketing
- Inbound Marketing Process
- Features of Inbound
- What's best for your business
- Leveraging Inbound Sales
- Inbound Sales Methodology
- Inbound Sales Process
- Action Plan
- Transforming Sales & Marketing
- Sales and Marketing Alignment For 2020 - Funnel to FlyWheel
- Going a Step Further With Your Inbound Strategy - MSPOTs
Inbound vs Outbound Marketing
We've all come across the terms "inbound" and "outbound" marketing, but do we truly understand the distinction between the two?
What is outbound marketing?
Outbound marketing is a marketing approach where the marketer engages in a one-sided conversation, hoping to reach a large audience, some of whom may be potential customers while others have no connection to the product. This method involves trade shows, seminars, email blasts, cold calling, telemarketing, and advertising. These techniques are referred to as "outbound marketing" because the marketers aim to spread their message far and wide, hoping to capture the attention of their target audience.
However, outbound marketing techniques are becoming less effective over time for two main reasons. Firstly, the average person today is bombarded with over 2000 outbound marketing interruptions per day and is finding innovative ways to block them out, such as using caller ID, spam filters, and streaming services. Secondly, the internet has significantly reduced the cost and effort required to learn about or shop for something new. With search engines, blogs, and social media, people can easily find information and make purchasing decisions without attending seminars or trade shows.
In contrast, inbound marketing is a new marketing opportunity that focuses on attracting potential customers who are actively seeking products or services. Examples of inbound marketing include blogging, social media promotions, and search engine optimization.
Inbound marketing offers several advantages over outbound marketing. It is cost-effective, as platforms like blogs and social media profiles are much cheaper to promote compared to traditional methods like TV commercials and print ads. Furthermore, inbound marketing allows businesses to efficiently target their desired audience, maximizing the impact of their marketing efforts.
In conclusion, outbound marketing is becoming less effective due to the increasing number of marketing interruptions and the convenience of online information. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, offers new possibilities for businesses to promote their products, communicate with customers, and build brand reputation. By embracing inbound marketing strategies, businesses can attract potential customers and create a personalized and helpful sales experience that aligns with the modern buyer's needs.
In general, outbound marketing tends to market to a larger volume of less-targeted people, using tactics like:
- Commercials
- Trade shows
- Print ads
- Billboards
- Cold-calling
- Direct mail
So Outbound marketing techniques are getting less and less effective over time because the cost of learning about something new or shopping for something new using the internet is now much lower than going to a seminar or tradeshow.
What is Inbound Marketing?
The modern buyer is no longer dependent on salespeople for necessary purchasing decision information. Inbound is designed to bring potential customers to your business who are actively in the market. It’s about getting found when they’re looking, rather than forcing your message on people who may or may not be interested.
Inbound marketing is a new marketing opportunity for businesses. Examples of inbound marketing are blogging, social media promotions, and search engines.
Inbound vs Outbound Marketing
Outbound Marketing
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Inbound Marketing
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Inbound Marketing Process
Attract
The lead attraction begins with online content publication – in the form of business blogging and advanced content like e-books, videos, tip sheets, etc. – and search engine optimization (making sure your company comes up on the first page of search results), social media engagement, and online PR/media distribution and promotion.
Convert
Inbound marketing converts website visitors into leads by giving them highly valuable content in exchange for their contact information. By enhancing your website with a well-planned user experience and populating it with relevant and valuable content, we help convert more of your traffic (and higher quality traffic) into sales-ready leads.
Qualify
Through the power of marketing automation, CRM tools, and 2.0 lead management strategies, lead qualification is now easier than ever. We use intelligent form strategies and personalized content to help clients get the best leads to “raise their hands” during the conversion process. Then, using marketing automation lead management tools, we identify which qualified leads are ready to turn over to Sales, and which prospects still need nurturing and support.
Nurture
Traditionally, lead nurturing has meant email marketing—newsletters, drip notifications, and subscription updates. With the combined power of marketing automation and content management tools, our approach to nurturing is increasingly more personalized and sophisticated. In our unified campaigns, we personalize messaging in a variety of situations: in the prospect’s inbox, as they visit website pages, when they engage on social media, and when reading published articles.
Analysis
From search engine optimization to how well a specific content piece generates leads, inbound marketers can assess marketing quality and sales-generation quantity at every stage. No more estimating the value of an ad: with inbound, you know the business impact of every single move you make.
Close
A strong closing strategy begins with the efficient transfer of leads from Marketing to Sales—we build service level agreements (SLAs) to facilitate this process—and sales teams are supported by perfectly tuned nurturing efforts throughout the sales process. Using analytics and qualification data, we build advanced lead scoring to help organize and set priorities for the Sales team, helping to create systems of continual improvement.
Unique Features of Inbound Marketing
- Inbound marketing opens new possibilities to promote your products, communicate with your customers, and build your brand reputation.
- Inbound Marketing is cost-effective – Compared to outbound marketing, inbound marketing is incredibly cheap. Platforms like blogs, social media profiles, and promotional videos are a lot cheaper to promote than TV commercials and print ads.
- Efficiency – Inbound marketing, if done properly, will hit your target audience with full strength.
If someone says that “inbound marketing can pull customers to you like a magnet pulling needles,” it’s not an exaggeration because this can be done with the right marketing strategies.
Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is when a marketer reaches out to people to see if they're interested in a product. For example, this could include door-to-door sales or cold calling where a sales rep or marketer approaches someone without knowing if he or she is even a qualified lead. Inbound marketing is a strategy where you create content or social media tactics that spread brand awareness so people learn about you, might go to your website for information, and then purchase or show interest in your product.
While some outbound strategies take lots of time and effort and may yield no leads, inbound strategies allow you to engage an audience of people that you can more easily qualify as a prospect of lead.
The best analogy I can come up with is that traditional marketers looking to garner interest from new potential customers are like lions hunting in the jungle for elephants. The elephants used to be in the jungle in the '80s and '90s when they learned their trade, but they don't seem to be there anymore. They have all migrated to the watering holes on the savannah (the internet). So, rather than continuing to hunt in the jungle, I recommend setting up shop at the watering hole or turning your website into its own watering hole.
Leveraging Inbound Sales
In today's connected world, the information that buyers need to make a purchase decision is just a click away. The power in the buying and selling process has shifted from the seller to the buyer. The buying process is transformed. Due to this proliferation, the modern buyer is no longer dependent on salespeople for necessary purchasing decision information.
Inbound Sales realize this need with today’s empowered buyers, they understand that the sales process and sales experience need to transform into the buyer’s context.
Whether your sales process relies on inbound leads or targeted outreach, whether you’re a big company or small, whether your sale is complex or simple; inbound sales are relevant. That’s because inbound sales transform selling to match today’s empowered buyer -- so sales reps can sell the way people buy. Inbound sales teams recognize they must transform their entire sales strategy so they're serving the buyer.
Inbound sales organizations develop a sales process that supports the prospect through their buyer's journey. The stages that buyers move through are - Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. The four actions (Identify, Connect, Explore, and Advise) inbound sales teams must implement to support qualified leads into becoming opportunities and eventually customers.
1) Identify
Identifying the right business opportunities from the start can be the difference between a thriving business and a failing one. Knowing what to look for also helps salespeople create a predictable, scalable sales funnel.
2) Connect
Inbound salespeople connect with leads to help them decide whether they should prioritize the goal or challenge they're facing. If the buyer decides to do so, these leads become qualified leads.
3) Explore
Inbound salespeople explore their qualified leads' goals or challenges to assess whether their offering is a good fit.
4) Advise
Inbound salespeople advise prospects on why their solution is uniquely positioned to address the buyer's needs.
What’s the best tactic for your business?
Even though there are far more reasons to practice inbound marketing, it may not be time to ditch outbound marketing completely. If your budget allows, you should consider mixing inbound and outbound marketing strategies, especially if you’re trying to expand into a new geographical region.
In this case, you could run television and direct mail advertisements in the new region before launch and then focus on inbound marketing strategies after the official launch date. You may also consider mixing billboard advertisements with social media deals.
If your company is on a tight budget, you may want to focus strictly on inbound, since outbound marketing can be costlier. You should always consider your potential ROI. Measuring your return on investment for billboards, television, or newspaper advertisements is much more difficult than determining ROI for online efforts.
It’s time to change your marketing strategy
Rather than doing outbound marketing to the masses of people who are trying to block you out, do inbound marketing where you help yourself "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in your industry.
To do this, you need to set your website that attract visitors naturally through search engines, blogging, and social media. Inbound marketing is focused on providing value to your prospects. It’s educational and often non-promotional.
The major strength of Inbound Marketing is that it uses Buyer’s journey or we can say it is selling what the customer wants.
Transforming Your Marketing from Outbound to Inbound
Rather than doing outbound marketing to the masses of people who are trying to block you out, I advocate doing inbound marketing where you help yourself "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in your industry. To do this, you need to set your website up like a "hub" for your industry that attracts visitors naturally through search engines, blogging, and social media. I believe most marketers today spend 90% of their efforts on outbound marketing and 10% on inbound marketing, and I advocate that those ratios flip.
Transforming Sales
In today’s selling environment, salespeople have to realize that they serve a completely different function than their predecessors.
The Inbound Sales Methodology covers every step of the buyer’s journey traveled on the road from stranger to customer and each corresponding salesperson's action. The new methodology acknowledges that Inbound Sales don’t just happen -- you do it. And, you do it using tools that help you personalize the sales process to appeal to precisely the right leads, in the right places, at just the right time in their buying journey.
Sales & Marketing Alignment
A successful inbound strategy requires seamless handoff and alignment between marketing and sales.
When you help clients align their sales and marketing teams, you’re able to prove ROI for the services you offer, help clients grow their revenue faster, and enable future investment in marketing programs.
Inbound is a better way to market, a better way to sell, and a better way to serve your customers. Because when good for the customer means good for the business, your company can grow better over the long term.
Enter the modern world of sales, marketing, and delighted customers get started with inbound sales today.
Alignment for 2020 Funnel To FlyWheel
If you are in sales or marketing, chances are you know the funnel very well. However, over the last few years, the relevancy of the funnel seems to have slowly died out, leaving room for a new, strategy to take its place.
I wasn't very surprised when HubSpot announced they were retiring the funnel and adopting the flywheel as the new model.
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The funnel helps visualize the customer journey in specific steps.
However, in an era when trust in traditional sources has eroded — in government, media, and in companies and the marketing they employ — word-of-mouth from trusted peers wields greater clout than ever.
The funnel fails to capture momentum, it turns out Funnels lose the energy you put into them once you reach the bottom, but the flywheel is remarkable at storing and releasing energy.
What is Marketing Flywheel?
Much like an engine needs a flywheel to store energy, marketers need a marketing flywheel to garner the power of loyal customers. The flywheel is similar to the funnel in that it represents the customer journey in three main stages.
Going a Step Further With Your Inbound Strategy - MSPOTs
When you’re a scale-up, focus and alignment are everything. There are so many people working on so many projects, how do you keep everyone moving in the same direction?
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At every stage of growth, focus and alignment are everything. It’s the difference between moving fast or stumbling, taking on too much or not doing enough.
How MSPOTs work
- Mission: What is our big-picture vision?
- Strategy: How are we going to get there?
- Plays: What are the core plays of that strategy?
- Omissions: What will we not be doing as a result of our chosen strategy?
- Targets: How will we hold ourselves accountable to these goals?
Seems easy right? Just pop some ideas into a PowerPoint template and you’ve got yourself some MSPOTs!
MSPOTs are not an end in and of themselves. MSPOTs can help you get to focus and alignment, but they don’t create it. Alignment and focus come from doing the hard work of thinking, planning, and communicating. Using data to hold ourselves accountable to the strategy we've laid out in our MSPOTs. That’s the focus.
Focus doesn’t just happen. It’s a byproduct of shared vision. And vision comes from talking, sharing, looking at data, and updating assumptions.
Instructions for how to utilize the MSPOT can be found here.
Editor's note: This post was originally published as " Inbound vs Outbound Marketing" in May 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.