Creating and implementing a solid marketing strategy can be daunting, time consuming, and full of opinions from different departments and leadership positions. Most marketers are looking for efficient ways to fill their sales funnel and generate lead. Typically, they are using an outbound marketing method. However, with the rise of technology and the internet, inbound marketing is the forward thinking way to go. But, what is the difference between outbound marketing and inbound marketing?
Outbound Marketing
This is considered to be the traditional method of marketing by reaching directly to potential customers. Outbound marketing includes trade shows, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising. The idea behind outbound marketing is to get your message out to a wide audience and hope that it resonates with some of them. Overall, it is becoming less effective.
The average person is flooded with over 2,000 outbound marketing interruptions per day. They also have the ability to block phone numbers with Caller ID, block email addresses with spam, and are subscribing to ad-free services like Netflix, Spotify, and Sirius XM. Not only that, more people are doing research online for products and services instead of flying out to a trade show or seminar.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing does the opposite. It is a technique that allows you to “be found” by potential customers. Inbound marketing campaigns have three key components:
• Content – Content creation is the core of Inbound marketing. Creating useful content can help generate higher quality leads and can help retain current customers. For example, you can have a blog with content that talks about the solutions your product/service has to offer that people can subscribe too.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – By optimizing your website pages and blog posts with keywords that resonate with search engines like Google & Bing, it will be easier for potential customers to find your website. The idea is to maximize your search presence.
• Social Media – Utilizing social media helps spread your content to audiences you may not have captured via a direct search. This also helps spread your content to a wider audience as people share content that can be helpful to others. And it allows you to show your personality and give your company a voice.
As technology advances, Inbound is the most efficient and cost-effective way of allocating your resources. Inbound marketing helps in reducing overall costs and gaining more focused prospect targeting. Inbound marketing is definitely an investment, but worth the cost that will give you better, more cost efficient results, compared to outbound marketing.
Incitrio’s B2B marketing agency can help you with your inbound and outbound marketing. Contact Incitrio today for a free consultation.
