There are two schools of thought when it comes to marketing. There’s the conventional/ traditional school of marketing. And there’s the new school of marketing.
The conventional school of marketing would have you believe that the only real way to get your business in front of people is to place ads, buy email lists and make phone calls. The new (and cool) school of marketing would tell you that to get yourself in front of your target audience, you need to be in the business of producing content that solves your ideal buyers’ problems and answers their questions.
I’m not here to tell you what is right or what is wrong. Both have a place in marketing budgets in companies all over the world.
But what this post will do is give you a fair, honest comparison - I want this blog post to give you an idea of what each is so that you’ll be ready to assess what you ought to include in your own marketing budget.
What Is Outbound Marketing?
According to Larry Kim at Wordstream, outbound marketing is “the traditional form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience.”
Outbound Marketing is a one-way street - you connect with your audience by placing ads, sending direct mail and making cold calls. Don’t let the connotation of the first part of that sentence bring you down, if you indeed use outbound marketing. Outbound marketing has worked for companies in the past and is how many businesses continue to drive sales today.
Benefits Of Outbound Marketing
One of the biggest positives with Outbound marketing is the fact that people are already used to being exposed to ads on television, radio and in print. How engaged someone is depends on the person and the medium. But the bottom line is people have been accustomed to seeing these more ‘traditional’ ads.
Large Reach
Another big positive is the reach that Outbound marketing has. With television you can reach thousands and even millions with a 30 second spot. Magazines can reach different segments while newspapers offer the opportunity to reach a local audience.
Talk Directly To Decision-Makers
Cold calling does work. It’s that one interruptive phone call that you have to answer - otherwise your phone will just ring and ring. And if you don’t pick up this time, they’ll be sure to call again. That’s why companies love making sales calls. It’s an easy and effective way to get straight in front of your prospect (while over the phone).
Direct mail still works too. People always value tangible things, like greeting cards. They have a dose of personalization that people feel connected to. This explains why direct mail worked and still works well. It’s addressed to your prospect and written with basic personalization so that it’s at least perceived as personally written. Additionally, it’s your opportunity to talk directly to your audience with compelling copy.
Drawbacks Of Outbound Marketing
With all the positives of outbound marketing, there are bound to be caveats and drawbacks. In fact, there are quite a few.
People Don’t Like Being Interrupted
To summarize it all clearly, newspaper readership is falling and print magazine readership is barely holding steady. Moreover, while cold calling gets you in front of your prospect, the prospect may not like being interrupted. This could change the quality and depth of the answers you receive via cold call.
Time Is Precious, Commercials Are Not
In addition, the invention of Personal Video Recorders (PVR) have an effect of the true reach of television advertising. People are more ad-averse and are willing to change channels to get away from being exposed to corporate messaging. In fact, 86% of people skip commercials, according to Mashable. Streaming platforms like Netflix, that are largely commercial-free or limited, have experienced tremendous growth.
Basic Reporting Data Is Not Easily Accessible
When you place an ad or send mail-out, there’s no way of telling how someone reacted to it. They either a) buy or b) don’t buy. You don’t know if they changed channels, threw out the mail, or opted to go with a competitor. Without that information, it’s difficult to deduce the buying signals. Sure, you could run tests on different kinds of ads but such a blanket approach
Many in the marketing industry, particularly on the Inbound side of the spectrum, like to refer to outbound marketing as “interruption marketing”. The bottom line has been that people don’t like being interrupted.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is a method of getting visitors to find your business through search engines (paid and organic results), social networks and special content offers. The purpose is to attract them to your website, convert them into interested leads, and move them down your sales funnel so that they become not only paying customers, but evangelists for your brand.
Benefits Of Inbound Marketing
It Builds Trust
If someone trusts your business over a competitor, are they more or less likely to buy from you (over your competitor)? Trust is a defining value that customers like to have in who they do business with. They want to trust that they are getting a good product or service at a fair price. How do you build that trust? By producing content and positioning yourself as a thought leader - not only in what you offer but in your entire industry (and related industries).
People Like Content
Moreover, people like to search for their information, acquire it, and use it to make an informed decision. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get product information in a series of articles rather than an advertisement. People also like to do this on their own time - without pressure from a telemarketer, salesman or direct response ad.
The idea behind Inbound marketing is that you offer expert advice and information in the form of content. You then use this content to build trust and a relationship with your prospects so that not only will they do business with you, they’ll actively promote you to their peers.
Drawbacks Of Inbound Marketing
Not Everyone Is Looking For Your Offerings
The premise behind Inbound marketing is that you’re getting your ideal buyers to find you. Well, the question that should pop into your mind ought to be: “How do I sell to people that aren’t looking?”
The answer is that you can’t. BUT, there are literally billions of people on the Internet - all with unique queries that are hoping to be solved. The likelihood that people are looking for what you have to offer is pretty high, no matter what industry you are in.
Not Everyone Truly Understands Inbound Marketing’s Big Picture
This is something that I’ve seen personally. Not everyone is educated on Inbound Marketing. It’s just a fact. Not everyone knows how each Inbound channel works.
I’ve also seen this with fellow marketers out there, especially those on the offline side. A lot of traditional marketers like to compare Inbound marketing to Outbound marketing in terms of pure numbers and results. For example, traditional marketers are used to placing ads. Once the numbers pour in, (at an extremely basic level of analysis) they compare the number of leads (and perhaps sales if the sales process isn’t too long) to the amount spent on ads. From this, they can derive important statistics like how much revenue was generated from a given ad.
Problem: You can’t do this with most Inbound channels. It’s a completely different animal. You’re not placing an ad with Inbound marketing. The closest thing to that MIGHT be the Display network in Google AdWords. But even then, you’re bidding for keywords and therefore, there’s an Inbound aspect to it. Nevertheless, the big picture with Inbound marketing involves the idea that you can’t simply view Inbound marketing efforts as one giant ad spend - a challenge for Inbound marketers everywhere.
Lastly…
If you’re a company using outbound marketing, there’s no reason not to consider investing in inbound. For pure fairness’ sake, I could say the same thing about those purely using inbound. But because outbound marketing has been part of the conventional school of marketing that I talked about at the beginning, it’s been the part of Inbound marketers to convince business owners and Marketing Directors why Inbound is a conversion-producing, sales-proliferating methodology.
The goal of this post was to show you both sides of the debate and give you enough information to make a decision as to whether you should invest in either. Both have their advantages and shortcomings. As an Inbound marketer, I will always be biased towards Inbound marketing - because I know it works and am doing it everyday. If I haven’t given you enough information, ask me a question by commenting below. I’ll answer you directly!
About the Author:
Ramesh Ranjan is the Inbound Marketing Specialist at LocalTrifecta Internet Marketing, where he helps businesses across Metro Vancouver increase sales and revenue through Inbound Marketing. His marketing heroes are Marcus Sheridan, John Caples and John Carlton. In his off time, he can be found playing roller hockey in Richmond, blogging on his personal website, and at the top of the office hockey pool. You can follow and connect with Ramesh over Twitter and Google+
