As a marketer, you may have come across the terms inbound and outbound marketing. But what are they?
Inbound marketing aims to draw and attract customers to the brand, product or service using content that the customer wants to see and experience.
Outbound marketing places a message directly in front of a customer by actively making a customer aware of its products and service. There has been a growing preference for inbound methods in recent years. In fact, inbound methods produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound practices, doubling the average site conversion rate, from 6% to 12% total.
Defining Inbound and Outbound Marketing
Let’s explore inbound and outbound marketing in more detail by looking at their key characteristics.
As mentioned, inbound marketing is about drawing your customers in. This can be done by sharing content to entice customers to come to your website. It is often more subtle and requires you to convince an audience over time.
Inbound marketing key characteristics:
- Use informational digital content that is targeted and tailored. The content often addresses customer’s problems and seeks to resolve them
- Content can be interactive, using social media, blogs, paid ads, reports, and webinars so that customers can engage with your content and share ideas
- You will often use all of your channels to ensure you are reaching your audience across different platforms, using appropriate techniques and language relevant to those platforms
- You can measure insights and results using digital marketing software
Outbound marketing on the other hand tends to be more aggressive and aims to reach large audiences rather than specific groups. The idea of this is that some people from the large group will convert. It also means proactively contacting and reaching out to customers to interest them in a product or service.
Outbound marketing key characteristics:
- These tend to be non-digital forms of content, such as brochures and leaflets with the aim to sell a product or service. With this in mind, the content needs to stand out to capture the attention from customers
- You might also see the content in direct mail, magazines, billboards, on TV or radio
- It’s often difficult to measure due to the marketing being physical
Examples of inbound and outbound marketing tactics
To bring this to life, we’ve pulled together some examples of inbound and outbound marketing tactics.
Inbound marketing examples
To engage with your audience, you can create content such as blog articles for your website. on social media or email campaigns. The idea is for the content to offer value, that doesn’t necessarily push for sales. For example, the blog article could be a top tips guide on how to use one of your products, or one that shares case studies from a customer who has used your products.
The content can then include a call to action, to encourage the customer to attend a webinar or sign up for further top tips. This allows you to store their information which can help for future campaigns. The next step would then be to prompt them to receive additional information, e.g. with a demo. This then gives you an easier sell, as the customer is well informed on your product and knows what they want.
You can then optimise your content by ensuring you are using the best keywords to ensure that your content appears organically in search engines. The best way to remember how to craft your content is by ensuring you are selling a solution, rather than a product. It’s about helping your customers rather than pushing for sales.
Outbound marketing examples
As outbound marketing is about reaching a large audience, you might see adverts on billboards, tv adverts, radio’s, emails or in brochures in leaflets.
For example, a customer might be commuting home when they see an advert on a billboard on a new restaurant that has opened. A few weeks later, they might see the restaurant open on the local news. A few months after that, they might receive a leaflet through the door advertising the new menu of the restaurant. At each stage, they are reminded of the new restaurant and the food it offers before they decide to try it out.
For some products or services, you may even experience cold calling, where a sales representative calls you to gain your interest and to try and sell a product or a service to you.
Choosing the right approach
The right approach depends on your business goals and audience demographics. Marketers are increasingly using a blend of both to ensure they are reaching different audiences, wherever they are, whether it’s online, in-store and on mobile devices.
Older customers who are less inclined to use digital devices, may engage better with outbound marketing techniques. In addition, if you want to build brand awareness, outbound marketing is great for reaching a mass audience. It’s important to remember that outbound marketing can be costly and it’s difficult to track your ROI.
The younger consumers might be more familiar with inbound marketing tactics, such as using mobile phone devices, engaging with social media and website blogs. Unlike outbound marketing, one of the main benefits of inbound marketing is that it is low cost. Inbound leads typically cost around 60% less than outbound leads. Due to its targeted nature, it often leads to higher conversion rates if higher conversions is your business goal, and with it being online, it means you can track ROI.
A great example of a business using a mix of inbound and outbound marketing is from My Protein. They share regular blogs and tips on training with the aim to educate and inspire customers to train at their best.
As you read through the article, you are prompted with offers and discounts like below. When you do decide to purchase from My Protein, you will also receive leaflets through the post and emails, selling their other products. Although the audience is targeted to those who are interested in fitness, it’s a good example of how inbound and outbound tactics can be used together.
Conclusion
In order to increase the number of touchpoints a customer has with your brand, it’s important that your marketing strategy relies on both inbound and outbound tactics for a balanced approach. Aligning them to particular stages of the customer journey can ensure you are making the most of their effectiveness. For example, inbound marketing would work well during the brand awareness and consideration phase, whilst outbound marketing would be more impactful during the decision stage.