In today's world, businesses and people are constantly fighting for users' attention, which seems like a never-ending cycle of consumption and creation. So, while many businesses switch their main marketing strategies to inbound to avoid the risk of annoying their customers, where does outbound marketing fit into this game of attrition?
Outbound marketing is the method of interacting with customers and potential prospects by actively sending them marketing messages. This method relies on direct communication methods including cold-calling, direct mail, email campaigns and traditional media advertisements. It's main aim is to capture the attention of a target audience and encourage them to take a desired action.
Outbound marketing is only half the marketing side but it is probably the oldest and is often called "traditional marketing", so in this section we'll breakdown the different strategies that are included in outbound marketing.
Cold-calling is one of the outbound marketing methods that many people even outside of the marketing industry are aware off. This marketing strategy aims to reach potential customers directly by phone to pitch their companies services or products, and while it used to work wonders, in today's world it's seen as annoying and is less likely to work.
Email marketing is seen every day in the modern era, with people receiving around 121 emails per day and getting them to click on your email can be hard. Email marketing aims to send promotional messages to potential or existing customers' email inboxes.
Direct Mail is the act of sending physical promotional mail directly to potential customers' mailboxes. This method can be seen as an invasion of privacy depending on how you got the data, however most of the time these just end up in the recycling bin.
These types of advertisements allow for you to reach the large and vast audience that tune into the TV channels and radios and involves broadcasting advertisements to a wide audience through television and radio channels.
Print advertisements normally involve another form of media and tends to be newspapers or magazines. This involves placing adverts or ads into an newspaper or magazine to "borrow" the audience of that media.
Billboards are most effective in places where traffic is high, think motorways, or the Shinkansen in Tokyo. This involves displaying large advertisements in high-traffic areas to capture the attention of passerby and includes static billboards, digital billboards, and transit advertising (trains and Buses.)
Going to events may seem overwhelming but it's a great outbound marketing strategy to get your products or services out there. This involves promoting products or services through events and exhibitions and includes trade shows, product launches, sponsorships, and live demos.
While some of those may sound bad or annoying or maybe even uneccecary outbound marketing has been around for a while and has a range of benefits that it brings to a company.
The most common theme between all the methods mentioned above is the volume of their reach, from billboards and events to print advertising and Tv ads. Each of these grant the business access to promote their company on a large and wide scale.
Unlike his sibling, outbound marketing can have immediate results especially when delivering messages to a vast audience unlike inbound marketing where you wait for your audience to find your content, Outbound marketing is actively showing the promotional content.
Many outbound marketing techniques provide measurable results that can be tracked and analysed. For example, companies can monitor the response rates from direct mail campaigns, track the number of leads generated from telemarketing efforts and measure the effectiveness of email marketing through open and click-through rates.
It's safe to say that outbound marketing isn't going anywhere, in the future as technology progresses it may get even more "outbound" but for now it's incredibly useful for gaining prospects and moving them along the buyer's journey until they become wonderful customers.
In conclusion outbound marketing still has a place in today's distracted and overcrowded world, however it may be time to change how we create or present our outbound content.
