Outbound marketing: traditional form of marketing in which the company/brand initiates contact with potential customers. Inbound marketing: attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences personalized for them. Both have a place in the marketing world but we do favor inbound over outbound in today’s world. Outbound marketing would be considered the traditional way of marketing, such as cold-calls, emails, tradeshow presentations, T.V., radio, print, and online ads as well as person-to-person contact IRL. Everyone knows all too well the annoying pop up online ads. It’s that kind of marketing. The uncomfortable, disruptive kind. This style of marketing is produced with a wide spread reach in hopes that it will gain new leads through putting their brand in front of lots of people repeatedly. “Spray and Pray,” as they call it. Inbound marketing strengthens the relationship you have with your customers and increases your brand’s reach through valuable content. It empowers your customers with information that helps solve problems and can be applied through attracting, engaging and gratifying.
1. Attracting: providing valuable content that establish trust and create conversations. This can be done through blogs, social media, etc. You can offer them how-to guides or testimonials.
2. Engaging: solving problems and key tips for your niche that align with their goals. Selling solutions rather than products is a good way to think about this. Deal with potential customers communications to entice them to want to build a relationship with your brand.
3. Gratifying: supporting and empowering your audience to find success with purchases of services or products. We all love to feel that dopamine kick in when we’re satisfied. This can be achieved through listening on social media through providing feedback, asking questions, or sharing customer experiences. Making sure your brand responds to each individual. Also, it’s important to assist customers through every part of the journey. Using surveys can help your brand get an idea of what your audience wants and needs from you.
Now that you understand the difference between the two, let’s look at the pros and cons of each type of marketing strategy.
Inbound Marketing
Pros:
Non-invasive
Educational/Valuable
Quantifiable
Organic reach
Cons:
Continuous maintenance
Much time and effort required
Holistic strategy
Outbound Marketing
Pros:
Promote brand awareness
Immediate results
Consumers are used to it
Cons:
More generalized
Consumer blindness
Less quantifiable
Costlier
Inbound marketing has long-term solutions while outbound is more short term. You can see that inbound benefits outweigh the cons and vice versa for outbound. It’s easy to see why inbound marketing is the way to go in today’s world. It produces longer lasting results in an organic way. Being a user generated content agency, we will always favor natural connections with audiences to create stronger bonds that will last a lifetime!
