Outbound Marketing
Defined: Buy people’s interest. Going “outbound” into the invading someone’s space with ads.
Ethos: Shout louder than the competition.
What it Looks Like:
- Hard selling
- Cold calling
- Pushing your product
- Ads: billboards, TV, radio, newsprint, and pop-up ads
Problems with Outbound Marketing
- Expense: It is a “spending war” with your competitors.
- Return on Investment: It is hard to determine what marketing efforts are driving sales.
- Change in Buyer Patterns: Everyone does online research before they make purchases. Outbound marketing ignores this new reality.
Inbound Marketing.
Defined: Earn people’s interest. Offer remarkable content and resources to support the buyer’s journey.
Ethos: Be human. Be helpful.
What it Looks Like
- Drawing people to your the great content on your website through social media.
- Offer premium content (video, eBooks, white papers) delivered to their inbox.
- Follow-up with friendly emails to invite people to learn more about your company and how you can help them.
- Strangers become website visitors. Visitors become leads. Leads become customers. Customers become promoters.
Inbound Marketing Strengths
- Driving Traffic – Inbound marketing is the most effective strategy for driving new traffic.
- Focus – It’s common for companies to be on social media without seeing results. With inbound, your social media strategy has focus.
- Methodology – Inbound Marketing is based on buyer persona research, buyer journeys, and premium content offers.
- Tools – Today, we have powerful tools for automation, analytics, and capturing leads.