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Your Outbound Marketing is Less Effective without Inbound Efforts

If you’re a longtime reader of Martech Zone, you know that the word versus often sends me into a blind rage. The folks at SoftwareAdvice sent a detailed article, Inbound vs Outbound Marketing: A Primer for Newbies or Switchers.

The guide does an excellent job of walking through the strategies, differences, and even the tools of inbound strategies and outbound strategies. It’s seriously worth the read, so go check it out. Here’s one of the graphics:

marketing-tactics

Outbound is less effective without Inbound

We work with organizations that are small startups to enterprise corporations. There’s no exception to this rule that I’m sharing:

Outbound marketing is less effective without inbound marketing strategies

Can you do a cold call and personally nurture a relationship (outbound) and get sales? Of course! I didn’t say outbound is ineffective without inbound strategies; I stated that it’s less effective.

What do you think is the first thing a consumer or business prospect does after learning about your business through direct mail, a cold call, or a visit? In fact, what do you think they’re doing while learning about your business through direct mail, a cold call, or a visit?

Your Outbound Leads are researching you online!

A simple Google search to find your site and peruse your content will often follow a cold call. Then, they head over to LinkedIn and review your credentials and whether or not you look legit. And then, they reach out via social media to their trusted network and ask, Has anyone ever worked with these people?

And that’s the critical moment of whether your outbound team needs to spend multiple visits to nurture the lead, apply ridiculous pressure to close the sale or lose you to a competitor doing a much better job with their inbound marketing.

We recently shared what CMOs were looking for from their agencies, and two aspects were knowledge and assistance. If your company, product, or service isn’t well represented in search, social media, and through a robust

content library, your chances of closing a sale are diminished.

Worse, if your competitors are well-represented, now you’ve got a hot prospect that’s going to begin shopping. And as they review your competitor’s extraordinary positioning and leadership in the space, they will have doubts about whether or not they can use your service.

And Outbound Enhances Inbound Efforts

I will add another gem here… inbound is much more efficient with outbound marketing, too! Have you ever called on a prospect who’s downloaded a few items, is actively opening and clicking your email newsletters, and is visiting your site periodically?

It’s not versus, folks! Your outbound marketing efforts will dramatically increase with an outstanding inbound marketing strategy. And your inbound marketing strategy will improve when you use that data to fuel your outbound marketing strategy.

Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is CMO of OpenINSIGHTS and the founder of the Martech Zone. Douglas has helped dozens of successful MarTech startups, has assisted in the due diligence of over $5 bil in Martech acquisitions and investments, and continues to assist companies in implementing and automating their sales and marketing strategies. Douglas is an internationally recognized digital transformation and MarTech expert and speaker. Douglas is also a published author of a Dummie's guide and a business leadership book.

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