There are a good number of high-end, no-nonsense sort of businessmen who believe business is all about innovation & marketing.If that’s true, both these factors are like the two wheels of a bicycle, you can’t ride it unless both are working well, and together.
But, marketing is no easy job. Even before chalking out a plan of how to do it right, you first need to decide which form of marketing should you choose. The two types are inbound & outbound marketing.
Outbound marketing is like shouting about your products in a marketplace, hoping that one or two customers get interested and buy from you. Also known as traditional marketing, it includes trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising.
Inbound marketing is one in which the customers find the company and gets informed about their products. In other words, marketers promote their products and services to a crowd that has already expressed their interest in similar products.
In this article, we aim to point out the differences between the two on similar marketing parameters-
- Engaging audience
The first difference between inbound and outbound marketing is how they try to engage with their customers. In outbound, it always classifies itself into a disturbing or interfering element in people’s life. When we watch television, we watch our favorite shows. But, every ten minutes or so, the show is momentarily paused in order to give way to advertisements, thanks to outbound marketing.
On the other hand, inbound marketing focuses on waiting for the customer to give his consent before giving out further information regarding your product. This is usually done through sharing in social media. A person shares, likes or reads a post because he wants to, not because it is forced upon him.
- Expense
TV commercials, newspaper Ads and radio commercials are pricey and only makes sense for advertisers with a large budget. The success formula in outbound marketing is repetition. Repeated commercials may influence your customers to buy your product, but repetition will make your expense sky-high.
- Focus
Inbound Marketing relies on your company providing relevant and valuable information to readers and online viewers. This highly valuable content should provide answers to specific questions relevant to your industry, as buyers will be asking these questions on search engines.
Whereas, in outbound marketing, the information being transmitted will be very generic and may appeal to a limited number of people. The wider ambit of outbound marketing makes it impossible to spark an interest amongst many individuals.
- Speed of result
Though an effective inbound strategy done correctly will bring results in the form of leads and sales but it takes time to develop valuable content, create a website that ranks well in the major search engines and then nurture generated leads into becoming customers. Inbound marketing also requires technical know-how along with expertise in SEO techniques.
Outbound marketing has an upper hand over inbound at this one, but to say that outbound marketing is the winner here is a fallacy. Yes, outbound marketing attracts customers quicker than inbound marketing, but an effective inbound marketing strategy will ensure that the customers keep on coming, once they start to.
- Presence
Inbound marketing has an unbelievable staying power. What is posted on Social media stays on Google forever. Genuine and effective content draws visitors to your site and with time, builds credibility. In simpler words, relevant content posted today will keep your business running for years.
In outbound marketing, this week’s promotional material might turn irrelevant next week. You need a new plan, start pitching all over again, measure results, etc.
Thus, in the end, you would almost be overwhelmed with the benefits an inbound marketing strategy can offer you. But, outbound marketing can be useful for more niche brands, like Rolls-Royce, who have an elite customer base where sales and services are rendered inter-personally with the customer. Another downside of inbound marketing can be its reach. Through outbound marketing, you could target the entire nation at once, whereas in inbound it is the customers who choose to avail your service.
Do you know: We specialize in inbound marketing, whether it’s developing valuable content, Pay-per-click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or your social media marketing.
