Share this
How Outbound and Inbound Marketing Complement Each Other
by Allison Thompson on Thu, Oct 03, 2019 @ 10:44
You may have heard marketers talk about the terms “inbound marketing” and “outbound marketing.” But what do they really mean?
Outbound Marketing Explained
Often referred to as interruption-based marketing, outbound marketing that's initiated by a business and broadcast to a wide audience. The goal of this type of marketing is to capture the attention of anyone and everyone to generate interest in your product or service.
Outbound marketing can take many forms. In years past, the most common forms were TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and direct mail. More recent forms of outbound marketing include webinars, emails, sponsorships/events and online ads of all types.
Today, outbound marketing has become increasingly disruptive. For example, maybe you get a cold call on your personal phone or at work, see a commercial during your favorite television show or an ad pops up as you're conducting online research. For many, outbound marketing is frustrating.
And as a result of this frustration, caller IDs, online ad blockers and (most) email accounts, including Gmail, are automatically filtering out emails that are promotional, so you can easily choose to ignore them. Case in point:
Enter inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing Explained
Inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. Instead of attempting to find customers, inbound marketing focuses on attracting, educating and empowering prospects using relevant content that guides them through a logical buyer's journey until they're ready to purchase your product or service.
Often referred to as permission-based marketing, inbound marketing can be powerful because it gives prospects the answers they're looking for when they need them. As a result, it empowers your prospects to consume information when and how it makes sense for them, which creates a system where prospects reach out to marketers, rather than the other way around.
Whether we're aware of it or not, most of us have moved through an inbound marketing buyer's journey.
For example, let’s say that your lawn is in poor condition, so you Google “Lawn Care Tips." One of the top search engine results is an article titled “Top 10 Tips for a Healthy Lawn” by ABC Lawncare. Since it seems to address your pain point, you click through to the blog and read it. This is the beginning of an inbound marketing buyer's journey. ABC Lawncare is addressing your pain point by providing helpful educational content right when you need it. To push you through the buyer's journey, this blog may contain a call-to-action that leads to a "Request a Free Lawncare Consultation" landing page by filling out a simple form.
Even aside from blog posts, calls-to-action and landing pages with forms, inbound marketing tactics are diverse. Some other common tactics include guides, whitepapers, landing pages, social media posts and videos.
It's Not a Case of Inbound Vs. Outbound Marketing – It's Inbound Marketing Plus Outbound Marketing
There's certainly not a lack of articles online comparing outbound and inbound marketing. As our collective buying behavior has evolved over the years, it's no secret that outbound marketing methods have become less and less effective. However, when they're coupled with an inbound marketing campaign, they should become that much more effective.
Here are some of the ways inbound marketing can complement and improve your outbound marketing tactics:
Inbound Marketing Can Bolster Your Event Presence
Marketing events have been a very common outbound marketing tactic for years, but they may be losing their effectiveness. This is because just showing up to the event and setting up a table isn't enough anymore. Your marketing events, whether they be trade shows, seminars, lunch 'n' learns, etc., won't be nearly as successful without incorporating inbound marketing. Here are just a few ways you can incorporate inbound marketing into your event strategy to bolster your presence:
- Use social media to promote your presence before, during and after an event. If you have a booth, share information about the giveaways or raffles happening at your table. You can also let people know where to find you and what they can learn from stopping by. Be sure to take a lot of great photos and use an event hashtag in your posts. If a hashtag doesn't already exist, create your own.
- At your booth, encourage people to sign up to receive more information from you. This will enable you to connect with individuals after events and direct them back to your website.
- Send a follow-up email to every new event contact. These follow-up emails should also include links to pieces of content that are relevant and valuable to them.
Inbound Marketing Can Inform Outbound Messaging
Another great way that inbound and outbound can work together is by using inbound to inform follow-up communications. For example, let’s say someone fills out a form on a landing page and downloads a piece of content. Your sales team gains immediate insight into what type of information this prospect is interested in, so they can now reach out with more targeted messaging.
As the conversation with sales continues, the prospect may communicate several additional pain points—but not yet be ready to make a purchase. To help address these pain points, the salesperson can offer additional content pieces that are relevant to their needs and continue to push them through the buyer's journey. Keep in mind, the more marketing and sales are aligned, the more effective this can be.
Inbound Marketing Can Be More Powerful When Used With Paid Media
Simply put, paid media is any type of marketing that is paid for. This includes radio placements, TV commercials, print ads and, more recently, social media ads, and pay-per-click (PPC). Using both paid media and inbound marketing allows you to boost your content.
For example, let’s say your PPC campaign leads a prospect to a landing page where they can download one of your offers. Or, maybe your company has a special offer and you run an ad in a print magazine and provide a URL to your website, which contains more information about the offer. These are a couple of ways paid media can be used to lead prospects back to your website so you can engage with them through inbound marketing.
There's no doubt that inbound and outbound marketing work well together. Inbound brings prospects to you, while outbound brings you to prospects. There are benefits to both, and, when you use the two methodologies simultaneously you can take your marketing to the next level.
Share this
- Inbound Marketing (125)
- Manufacturing (82)
- Lead Generation (70)
- Website Design & Development (57)
- Social Media (46)
- Online Brand Strategy (38)
- eCommerce (33)
- B2B Marketing (26)
- Expert Knowledge (26)
- Digital Marketing (24)
- Company Culture (22)
- Content Marketing (16)
- Customer Experience (15)
- Metrics & ROI (15)
- Search Engine Optimization (15)
- Marketing and Sales Alignment (12)
- Transportation and Logistics (10)
- Content Marketing Strategy (9)
- SyncShow (9)
- Digital Sales (8)
- Email Marketing (8)
- Lead Nurturing (8)
- Digital Content Marketing (7)
- Mobile (7)
- Brand Awareness (6)
- Digital Marketing Data (4)
- Video Marketing (4)
- General (3)
- LinkedIn (3)
- Professional Services (3)
- Transportation Insights (3)
- News (2)
- PPC (2)
- SEO (2)
- SSI Delivers (2)
- Account-Based Marketing (1)
- Demand Generation (1)
- Facebook (1)
- High Performing Teams (1)
- Instagram (1)
- KPI (1)
- Marketing Automation (1)
- Networking (1)
- Paid Media (1)
- Retargeting (1)
- StoryBrand (1)
- Storytelling (1)
- Synchronized Inbound (1)
- September 2024 (2)
- August 2024 (4)
- July 2024 (1)
- June 2024 (1)
- May 2024 (4)
- April 2024 (1)
- March 2024 (3)
- January 2024 (2)
- December 2023 (4)
- November 2023 (3)
- October 2023 (1)
- September 2023 (4)
- August 2023 (3)
- July 2023 (2)
- June 2023 (2)
- August 2022 (2)
- July 2022 (2)
- June 2022 (1)
- March 2022 (2)
- February 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (2)
- October 2021 (1)
- June 2021 (1)
- May 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (1)
- December 2020 (1)
- October 2020 (2)
- September 2020 (1)
- August 2020 (3)
- July 2020 (3)
- June 2020 (4)
- May 2020 (2)
- April 2020 (3)
- March 2020 (9)
- February 2020 (5)
- January 2020 (6)
- December 2019 (5)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (6)
- September 2019 (8)
- August 2019 (5)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (3)
- May 2019 (2)
- April 2019 (1)
- March 2019 (2)
- February 2019 (1)
- January 2019 (2)
- November 2018 (1)
- October 2018 (1)
- September 2018 (1)
- August 2018 (1)
- May 2018 (2)
- March 2018 (1)
- November 2017 (1)
- October 2017 (1)
- September 2017 (1)
- August 2017 (2)
- July 2017 (2)
- May 2017 (1)
- April 2017 (1)
- February 2017 (1)
- January 2017 (1)
- December 2016 (1)
- November 2016 (8)
- October 2016 (7)
- September 2016 (2)
- August 2016 (2)
- July 2016 (6)
- June 2016 (3)
- May 2016 (4)
- April 2016 (6)
- March 2016 (6)
- February 2016 (7)
- January 2016 (7)
- December 2015 (6)
- November 2015 (2)
- October 2015 (3)
- September 2015 (2)
- August 2015 (4)
- July 2015 (9)
- June 2015 (9)
- May 2015 (8)
- April 2015 (8)
- March 2015 (9)
- February 2015 (7)
- January 2015 (8)
- December 2014 (7)
- November 2014 (7)
- October 2014 (5)
- September 2014 (4)
- August 2014 (4)
- July 2014 (5)
- June 2014 (4)
- May 2014 (5)
- April 2014 (4)
- March 2014 (7)
- February 2014 (9)
- January 2014 (7)
- August 2013 (2)
- July 2013 (4)
- June 2013 (6)
- May 2013 (7)
- April 2013 (7)
- March 2013 (8)
- February 2013 (5)
- January 2013 (7)
- December 2012 (4)
- November 2012 (4)
- October 2012 (2)
- September 2012 (1)
- July 2012 (1)
- April 2012 (4)
- March 2012 (5)
- February 2012 (2)
- January 2012 (3)
- November 2011 (1)
- May 2011 (3)
- April 2011 (1)
- March 2011 (1)
- February 2011 (1)
- December 2010 (2)
- November 2010 (3)
- August 2010 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- May 2010 (2)
- April 2010 (1)
- January 2010 (1)