There's quite a gap between planning the seemingly perfect marketing strategy and having it actually deliver the expected results — budgets can be off, clients might change their minds, your team may hit bottlenecks, or you've got so much content to post you can't...
Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing — A Brief Guide
Do you know what the main types of marketing are?
Drawing a line between offline and online business promotion is far from the main classification. To understand the principle, you need to know what inbound and outbound marketing are.
You may have already heard these definitions. With the advancement of the internet and online services, these two notions came to the foreground real quick.
The way we consume information has changed. Even schools and colleges are on social media. Anyone could go to EssayService and buy essays online from professional writers. So, there is no need to discreetly look for an expert who could help you with an assignment.
That being said, here’s a brief guide that will explain the gist of inbound and outbound marketing.
A couple of facts to check the reality
The modern approach to attracting customers requires some fresh ideas and every marketing professional should know that:
- Radio ads are dead. People listen to music downloaded to their devices or use cloud services.
- TV advertising is next to follow. Many shows are available online. There are no more commercial interruptions. Plus, modern TVs provide tons of ways to avoid annoying promo videos, from AdBlock functions to paid subscriptions.
- Advertising in print media works only for an audience after 50 who still read those. The Internet allows receiving the same content much faster. And it’s free. So, even elderly people digitize their reading habits.
- Advertising by mail should also remain in the previous century. Back in the early 2000s, people received letters from companies directly by mail. Today, it seems strange. Such messages usually get deflected by spam filters, and those that pass them are not likely to hit the aim. Today, such advertisements may evoke a feeling of nostalgia at best.
- Outdoor advertising surprises no one. Billboards and city lights only occasionally attract the attention of some people who take their eyes off their phone screens. What is the likelihood that the chosen target audience will be among them?
All this means that traditional marketing is no longer as efficient. And in most cases, it does not work at all.
Traditional marketing is dead. What’s next?
Inbound and outbound marketing are relatively new terms covering methods that use the old well-known promotion tools.
Outbound Marketing
This is good old-fashioned marketing, based on self-declaration.
It generates leads but is not so popular anymore as was said above. Today’s people have become selective in their choice of products and services. So, simply declaring the existence of a product is insufficient. The spread of online services and shops makes traditional promotion methods obsolete and even a bit irritating.
This type of promotion distracts and pushes the audience towards decisions whether they want to make them or not. Typical representatives of this type are:
- television interrupting movies and TV shows;
- advertisements and fake lotteries on the radio;
- telemarketing (remember those constantly smiling men and women praising “totally innovative new perfect for everyone vacuum”? this would be it);
- banner and display ads;
- billboards and city lights scattered over the city and blocking the view;
- newspaper and magazine pages with ads;
- cold calls;
- and even more recent pop-ups and contextual advertising.
Inbound Marketing
This is a relatively new concept in promotion and advertising. Inbound marketing takes its roots in the changes that occur in modern society. Here, the professionals attract potential customers using more engaging content.
Unlike the bold outbound promotion methods, the inbound ones (also called content marketing) includes:
- creating blog posts;
- engaging social media influencers;
- creating more infographics and white papers;
- sending personalized email newsletters;
- and other online content that people want to read.
So, let’s be honest, the inbound type is trickier and more discreet than its predecessor. It uses psychology to get closer to the target audience and penetrate its environment.
Search engine optimization helps people find content. Marketing writers win from this as well as their content gets straight to the target audience.
For example, someone needs to prepare an essay, presentation, or speech for history class. Finding information, rewriting authors’ words, and creating neat-looking text is dreadful. So, they can look for DoMyEssay in a search engine to do my assignments or to write essay for me, read articles, compare services, and order the paper online. Marketing texts have little to do with school essays. The latter has to be precise and detailed.
Inbound advertising should be easy on the eyes and pleasant to read. If the article is engaging enough, the future customers are more likely to interact with it, read, and share. This way, inbound advertising forms a positive brand experience that influences purchasing decisions.
So, what is the difference?
In traditional (outbound) promotion methods, companies focus on attracting more attention without precise targeting.
Inbound campaigns take the opposite approach.
Outbound – interrupts TV broadcasts with advertisements. Inbound – creates videos that potential customers want to watch.
Outbound buys display ads in print media. Inbound – starts a business blog, which many people subscribe to and enjoy reading.
Instead of hammering the masses with information, inbound marketing attracts qualified clients.
So, choose which side you are on and always check your target audience.