Read anything about marketing and it won’t be long before you come across tales of the demise of outbound and more traditional marketing methods, as they give way to the rise of new, inbound marketing techniques. But is this the whole story?
We believe that there is the opportunity for both inbound and outbound marketing to drive effective lead generation; you just need to know when to use each.
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is when prospective clients take the initiative in connecting with your business. As they are taking the initiative, the quality of leads from inbound marketing is often high; they will have already done some initial research, understand what you do and have decided to contact you.
Good content is essential for driving inbound leads because it is through this that you disseminate information to your target audiences. You must share knowledge and educate people about your services through content marketing and SEO. And as different demographics engage in different ways, to incentivise potential leads to make connect you must also offer a range of methods, including social media, for them to engage with you.
The objective is to encourage people to investigate and enquire after your business, enabling you to then develop these leads into sales.
What are the advantages of inbound marketing?
The way in which the inbound marketing approach develops leads offers several advantages:
- A relatively low-cost way of generating leads
The lead has contacted you, so they are further along their sales journey and it should take less time to convert them into a customer
- There is often a better ROI from your marketing budget from inbound leads
- The content you share to drive inbound leads helps establish you as an expert in your area of business
What is outbound lead generation?
If inbound lead generation is initiated by prospective customer contacting your, outbound lead generation is when you contact a prospective client without prior contact from them.
Taking this approach means you decide who you contact, when and how you do it, for example via direct e-mail, mailshots, advertising or telemarketing.
Pros and cons of outbound marketing
As people receive more and more communications they haven’t asked for, more indiscriminate outbound marketing has led to people receiving messaging they feel id irrelevant to them, so outbound marketing hasn’t always had a good reputation. This approach also means you often approach people very early on in their journey to becoming a paying customer, so at this stage it takes more investment to convert a lead into a customer.
Despite these challenges, outbound marketing offers several advantages:
- You can contact people who may not be aware of your business
- You control who you contact, when you do it and how you want to approach them
- It can be a simple and quick way to start generating leads
- It’s easy to implement and can require fewer resources
The power of inbound and outbound marketing combined
Inbound and outbound marketing are both designed to generate leads, but each offers something different in approach; in timing; in the resources needed, and in the kinds of results achieved. Because of this, failing to use both marketing methods could mean businesses missing out on different opportunities.
If you feel confident that you know how to speak to your audience and you can create good content, then inbound marketing techniques offer great ways for people to interact with your business and enable you to reach out to a wider range of audiences to generate leads.
When you’ve identified potential leads to approach, you are ready to generate a large number of leads and have the budget and resources to filter and develop them, then outbound lead generation will work for you.
Taking an approach that enables you to generate both inbound and outbound leads enables you to integrate different marketing techniques that complement each other to maximise their individual potentials. For example, creating exciting content marketing that’s followed up by telemarketing to connect with those who have interacted with the content is very effective for converting interest into more tangible action.
Take a strategic approach to your marketing methods
Applying strategic thinking to your marketing will enable you to determine how best to use both inbound and outbound lead generation to maximise the effect of each approach.
Understanding your potential clients, the channel and means by which to engage them and how to utilise the data from your marketing efforts to further focus and enhance your efforts and improve conversion will deliver a much better return on your investment.