The Tomorrow People Are Inbound Marketers …Yesterday's Are Outbound

Written by: Alan Watson

What’s the difference between inbound and outbound marketing and why should it make a difference to your business?

You don’t have a month to read everything that’s ever been written about the difference and believe me, there have been virtual forests removed on this one. So I’ll be as brief as my understanding will let me.

Inbound vs Outbound Marketing : definitions

Outbound Marketing is the good old fashioned way where a company starts the conversation and sends out its message to its target audience.

Inbound Marketing is the new way that attracts the target audience to come to you. You earn the attention of your target audience, make yourself easy to find and bring prospects to your website with good content.

So knowing who your target audience is will often dictate which type of marketing is most appropriate. Outbound is favoured by many traditionalists and includes things like :

Press releases

Trade shows

Direct mail

TV & Radio ads

Newspaper ads

Cold calling

The prevalence of the online world has meant that Outbound has lost a lot of its popularity. Cold calling and display advertising are seen by many as now outdated. However, if your client is from an older generation, then they are more likely to respond better to Outbound marketing tactics.

Inbound is favoured by younger generations or the tomorrow people (but not exclusively), as they have been raised in the internet world. They have become used to un-intrusive advertisements and learned to fast forward TV commercials whenever the mood takes them. Inbound is the modern way to market online and includes things like :

SEO – maximising the chances of being seen by your target audience online

Ebooks – high value information being sought by your audience

Social Media – intelligent use of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter to distribute your blogs and engage.

Webinars – online presentations (Live or recorded) to help generate interest

Blogs – where you talk about you, your business, your industry and your opinions

Best Use Of Inbound Marketing

This is primarily an online marketing strategy and should be used if a business has an online presence. This strategy is also much more cost effective in lead generation. In many circumstances more than 50% less cost / lead is seen using Inbound vs Outbound marketing. The tomorrow people get this.

The Tomorrow People Action Plan

In summary, we have covered two approaches to marketing your business to generate new leads, but our recommendation to small businesses is to take up the Inbound approach from a cost point of view.

The new modern way is to get a well designed, mobile friendly website which you populate with great, relevant content for your target audience.

Ensure you make the site friendly for the Search Engines and your target audience will be able to find you.

Get active on distributing your content on Social Media.

Lastly, give away something of value in exchange for contact details and start building a relationship through email campaigns.

If you have a big budget and want some technology assistance to implement, then talk to us about this .

On the other hand, if you count every penny that walks out the door, then talk to us about a very cost effective and highly credible alternative. We’ll be only too happy to engage !