Inbound Marketing or Outbound Marketing: which is the best strategy for your business?
When the subject is marketing, you’ve probably heard these two expressions. In this article, we’ll dissect their definition. Show some practical examples of the methodologies behind Inbound and Outbound and what makes these two strategies so different. And how you can use them to optimize your sales.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is the set of marketing techniques and practices in which instead of companies going after a potential customer, they start executing marketing actions so that the customer comes to the brand and says: I want to know more about your brand, product, and business.
Inbound Marketing has Content Marketing as its pillar.
When you use a blog to inform and produce videos for Youtube that add value to people’s lives, you are building a close relationship between your audience and your brand. It arouses interest in your products or services, even before a commercial relationship.
In addition to visibility and credibility for your brand, you are generating qualified leads interested in what you have to say and to sell.
What is Outbound Marketing?
Outbound is considered traditional marketing, where your message interrupts a certain someone’s activity without any personalization or targeting.
We can consider radio advertising, TV, billboard, flyers, door-to-door salesperson, or telephone sales.
Well, this strategy is not just all that happens offline! We might consider prospecting via LinkedIn messages or Google Ads banner ads.
Differences between Outbound and Inbound Marketing
The difference is not only in the format or the dissemination means of the campaigns but also in the way marketing is thought of and the tools used.
An outbound campaign, inserted in the company’s branding, has a start and end date and the results are immediate.
An Inbound email or content strategy, on the other hand, once started, is continued and followed up for an indefinite period.
Inbound also establishes dialogue channels, unlike one-way outbound.
What is the best option for your business?
Both strategies can coexist in your company’s marketing plan.
Producing blog content to define keywords in Google’s search engine does not prevent the same company from doing radio or TV commercials.
As mentioned, Inbound has two main factors compared to Outbound when defining your strategy: cost and metrics analysis.
Advertising on TV or in the press is expensive, and measuring the return on these investments is challenging.
Take MD3 STUDIO – a design and communication agency – as an example: its goal is to sell services to companies.
An Inbound strategy can be the production of content about digital marketing for companies on the blog or posts on social networks that show our work and how we can add value to the business of our potential customers, directing them to a contact form.
The leads that fill out this form are qualified by marketing and contacted by our salesperson.
At the end of a certain period, it is possible to see how much was invested in the blog, how many leads were generated, and how many deals were closed from those leads.
Dividing what was spent by what was generated in Inbound Marketing sales, we have the blog’s return on investment.
Imagine we had invested in TV and radio. How could we measure the return on investment?
The conclusion is that active prospecting and attraction, that is, Outbound and Inbound Marketing can work together. However, it is already common practice among the largest companies in the world to focus on Inbound Marketing.
Meaning, long-term campaigns, reliable metrics, exact return on investment, and brand strengthening are some of the notable advantages of Inbound Marketing!
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