Outbound Marketing: What Is It?

Outbound marketing is a way to promote a product through direct advertising. In such marketing, the initiator of the purchase is the company, not the buyer.

Outbound marketing attempts to reach consumers through general media advertising as well as personal contact.

Communication channels

As the internet and mobile devices grow in popularity and offer new and creative advertising methods, outbound marketing has lost some of its longtime appeal. However, some companies continue to allocate up to 90% of their marketing budgets towards outbound marketing.

The goal of outbound marketing is lead generation . For those companies looking to get on the map, outbound marketing is a way to reach as wide an audience as possible in a short amount of time.

In addition, since certain outbound marketing strategies are no longer in vogue, such as yellow pages advertising, advertising through these media has actually become cheaper.

For whom is outbound marketing effective?

The older the customer, the more likely it is that outbound marketing will influence them. Firstly, this is the marketing style that most of the adult audience is used to. Outbound marketing also proves to be especially effective in B2B marketing and with transactions using higher-level products.

The first step in an outbound marketing campaign is the proper evaluation of the product or service. What makes it stand out or stand out? What is the need for it in the market, and who in particular needs these needs?

Factors Affecting Outbound Marketing

Characteristics of outbound marketing

Among the most important characteristics of outbound marketing we find:

At present, we can say that outbound marketing has greatly outperformed since 2005 when inbound marketing was introduced; because they realized it was basically a traditional marketing tool.

Differences between inbound and outbound marketing

The following diagram shows the fundamental differences between outbound and inbound marketing:

Finally, it can be said that, despite all the above aspects, outbound marketing is still used because it allows you to reach a mass audience, has a large reach and, above all, results are achieved in the short term.

Typically, companies combine both types of marketing depending on the goals they hope to achieve, while also considering how much money they put in and how much they return. In addition, these are not exclusive tools, the company can effectively combine them and achieve good results.

Outbound Marketing

I'll start with outbound marketing, which is related to traditional marketing strategies. It focuses on paying to broadcast your message to a mass audience in order to find customers. Brands use this strategy in the hope of generating as many sales as possible through these messages. Essentially, a brand is pushing its product or service onto a customer, interrupting what they were originally doing.

Strategies

When the typical consumer thinks of "marketing" channels, they usually come up with various outbound marketing strategies, including:

The list goes on! Outbound marketing includes the traditional marketing and promotional strategies that Don Draper promotes every week on Mad Men. (Well, most... except email!)

Advantages

One of the main benefits of outbound marketing is that you open up a large audience for your message at any time you choose. For example, print ads are not randomly placed in a magazine or newspaper; companies pay to place them where they know their target audience is looking for. After all, you're not just selling a product or service - you're selling your brand, and the more people who know it, the better your ad will resonate with them in the future.

Another advantage is that you will immediately see the results of your marketing. For example, let's say your store is having a sale and you decide to advertise it using various outbound channels such as TV ads, direct mail, and newspaper inserts. On the day of the sale, you will be able to measure the success of this effort by how many people came in and how many sales you made. However, since it's difficult to trace the source of outbound marketing sales, the only way to truly measure the performance of each channel is to ask your customers directly.

Finally, consumers are more familiar with this tactic. They have been exposed to advertising, print ads, and direct mail for most of their lives, which means they might be more receptive to these channels and pay more attention to your message.

Flaws

More and more disadvantages of outbound marketing are growing. While people may be more familiar with outbound advertising techniques, they are also more likely to ignore them. With recorded shows and DVRs, consumers can now skip TV commercials. According to this Voltier Digital infographic, 86% of people skip ads. The infographic also shows that 44% of direct mail never opens and 200 million Americans have their numbers on the FTC's "Do Not Call" list. Even when outbound marketing is done online, the numbers aren't much better. 84% of people aged 25 to 34 have left a website due to intrusive or irrelevant ads, and 91% of email users have unsubscribed from company messages they previously opted into.

Outbound marketing does not allow for immediate feedback. It consists of one-way communication strategies with no way to talk to your target audience. To find out if their message is resonating with consumers, marketers must conduct surveys and focus groups to get feedback.

Finally, outbound marketing is much more expensive than inbound marketing. For example, you incur the creative costs of developing a commercial or mailing list, as well as the costs of the media to distribute an advertisement, all in the hope that the target audience will see your message and react positively to it.

Inbound Marketing

Instead of directing a message to a potential customer, inbound marketing focuses on strategies that bring customers directly to you through content such as a website or blog post. Unlike outbound methods, inbound marketing is not an interruption, but information that your target audience is actively seeking.

Strategies

Inbound strategies are generally new to the advertising scene. Most of the incoming channels are online and content based. Examples include:

As I mentioned earlier, inbound consumers prefer to listen to your message and are actively looking for it. Therefore, they are closer to qualified leads than to outgoing leads (and all of this before you even interact with them)!

Since most incoming channels allow two-way communication, there is also the possibility of feedback. For example, after reading a blog post, someone might leave a comment; on social networks, you can interact with your followers by sharing with them and even talking to them.

Finally, inbound marketing is inexpensive and quite cost effective. There are free blogging platforms where you can create your company blog; most social networks are free; you can distribute most of the content you create yourself, and if it's good, people will want to read it, so you don't have to pay certain channels to promote it. And, again, according to this infographic, inbound leads are worth 62% less than outbound leads.

Flaws

Like all marketing strategies, inbound marketing still has some drawbacks. You only reach out to people who are willing to hear what you have to say, which naturally attracts a smaller audience than TV ads or ads in major publications.

Also, it may take time for you to see the results of your inbound campaigns. Unlike a direct mail offer where people start using your coupons immediately, leads that come from blog posts, e-books, and social media usually need more care and may not be ready to sell right away. In addition, the possibility of two-way communication provides uncontrolled feedback. If someone writes a negative review on Facebook about your product, all your followers will be able to see it. If someone has a bad customer experience and writes a blog post about it, they can get their message across to your potential customers, sometimes faster than you can get your own message out!

Finally, as more online content is created every minute, your message can get lost in the sheer amount of information available to your audience. Your team needs to combat this by creating compelling content that stands out from the rest.

So which should you use: inbound or outbound marketing? Or both? Check out my next post where I discuss whether one strategy is better than another and how it affects your business.

Conclusions

Inbound marketing is much more effective than outbound marketing, it brings in visitors who are interested in buying a product, but takes effect after a while.

However, inbound marketing is a supplement, not a replacement for outbound marketing - the more touch points there are with a potential target audience, the more likely it is that you will be bought a product.