With so much focus on inbound marketing these days, you’d think that inbound is the “in” thing and outbound is… well… outdated.
I wouldn’t go that far, but I do believe that inbound marketing should be the first priority for any entrepreneur or small business, particularly for higher-priced products and services.
Let’s take a look at these two marketing strategies and then you can decide for yourself.
What Is Outbound Marketing?
Outbound marketing encompasses the more traditional (i.e. pre-internet) forms of marketing, such as TV commercials, radio, newspaper and magazine ads, billboards, direct mail, flyers and cold calls, as well as online advertising campaigns and email blasts focused on driving sales.
This type of marketing is called “outbound” because you are pushing your message “out” to the world at large, looking for people who might be interested in your product or service.
Some limited targeting is possible in that ads can be restricted to specific markets (i.e. local newspapers or mail delivery routes) or audiences (i.e. the target audience of a magazine). But in essence, it’s a “spray and pray” approach where marketers try to reach as many people as possible with the expectation that at least some of them can be converted to paying customers.
The advantage of outbound marketing is that it introduces your brand, product or service to people who otherwise might not be aware of your existence. Interested individuals usually make their purchase shortly after seeing your ad, delivering a relatively quick return on your marketing investment.
The major disadvantage of outbound marketing is that you’re speaking to a very general audience. When that’s the case it’s difficult to create a single persuasive message that will appeal to everyone. And when people are being bombarded by thousands of advertising messages on a daily basis, it becomes incredibly challenging to get any generic message to break through the noise.
In addition, the effectiveness of outbound advertising is notoriously hard to measure and evaluate. This can make it difficult for smaller businesses to justify its relatively high cost.
What is Inbound Marketing?
As opposed to pushing your message out to the world at large, “inbound” marketing draws potential customers “in” to investigate whether your product or service will meet their needs. It does so by providing educational content focused on helping people solve their problems.
Inbound marketing thus takes a longer-term, more “soft-sell” approach compared to outbound marketing, patiently nurturing prospects through their buying process by providing them with helpful information along the way. Depending on the product or service offered, this process could take days, weeks or months, and sometimes years.
Inbound marketing also takes a more targeted approach, with efforts focused solely on individuals who have the potential to become customers, either now or at a future date. The goal is to do so in a non-invasive manner, by making educational information freely available to those who actively seek it and making it easy for them to consume in their preferred format (blog, video, podcast, etc.) at their preferred time. It’s all about creating the best possible learning experience that guides prospects to the logical conclusion that your solution best addresses their problem or need.
The type of educational information provided corresponds with the three generally agreed-upon stages of the customer buying journey –awareness, consideration and decision.
- At the awareness stage, your prospect realizes they have a problem and is trying to figure out the root cause. They’ll be looking for blog posts, how-to guides and videos, infographics and other similar content to help them determine the root cause of their problem.
- During the consideration stage, your prospect has figured out the root cause of their problem and is now searching for alternate solutions. They’ll want to see comparison guides, live webinars and other similar content that helps them evaluate their various options.
- Then at the decision stage, they’ll seek free consultations, product demos and free trial offers to help them finalize their buying decision.
One key advantage of inbound marketing is its scalability – your content continues to grow over time and the self-serve nature enables you to deliver content to multiple prospects simultaneously, at their convenience and on a 24/7 basis. (Think of the number of salespeople you’d need to accomplish this same feat! Instead, your sales team can focus on closing warm leads instead of cold outreach.)
Another important advantage is the ability to personalize visitor experiences by proactively serving them the content they need based on their activity on your website.
In addition, because a prospect’s journey through your content is trackable, you’ll be able to measure which of your content pieces are performing well and continue to create more of what’s working for you.
However, a solid inbound marketing game plan requires careful research and planning so that it’s purposefully integrated across your website and social channels as one holistic, cross-channel messaging strategy. It will be important to intimately understand your prospects’ buyer persona(s) to develop a content strategy that fully addresses their motivations, problems and pain points.
You will need a system for the continuous review and updating of all content to ensure it remains current and relevant to your prospects’ needs. In addition, new content needs to be developed and tested on a regular basis. This can be challenging for any small business with limited resources, particularly when the owner is the SME (subject matter expert) and is intimately involved with the content creation process.
Why Is Inbound Marketing So Important in Today’s Marketplace?
In order to build meaningful relationships with prospects you can convert to happy customers, it stands to reason you need to meet your prospects where they’re at.
The buying habits of both consumers and business professionals have dramatically changed over the past decade. The vast majority now begin any purchasing experience with an online search. If you’re not there to be found, I’ve no doubt your competitors will be.
This means a basic online presence has become a prerequisite for you to get into the game, so to speak. But to become a player, you need to provide the educational content prospects are looking for. Rare these days is the person who will voluntarily pick up the phone to learn more. If your website doesn’t provide the information people are looking for, they’ll bounce over to one that does.
A solid content strategy will also build your credibility and authority. This is most critical for higher-value products and services, where out of necessity people need to evaluate their options more carefully.
Good content will draw people to your site like a sales rep on autopilot. You can use various tools to capture warm leads and nurture them throughout their decision-making process. For example, you could offer someone an educational eBook in exchange for their email address and then drop them into a drip-email campaign that keeps sending relevant information until they’re ready to purchase.
Bottom line:
For any business, large or small, inbound marketing should take priority over outbound marketing. Your content focus should be on solving problems that will eventually lead to selling solutions down the road. That will establish your credibility and authority in your field and make each sale an easier close.
However, once you have sufficient content to position yourself as a player (ideally the player) and are ready to scale your business, you might consider investing in outbound advertising to drive traffic to your website.
Your decision will depend on the nature of your business and where your potential customers hang out, as well as the financial resources you’re able to devote to advertising spend.
If you have any questions about how inbound vs outbound marketing strategies, feel free to DM me at @dyble.lisa.
P.S. If you’re a local brick-and-mortar business, be sure to set up Google Maps so that you’re favored in mobile search results. Click here to learn more.