[Outbound marketing] How can you boost your marketing strategy?

Outbound marketing or inbound marketing? In today's environment, saturated with advertising messages and promotional offers, consumers are in high demand and are becoming a difficult target to interest. So what strategy should you adopt to capture their attention and stand out from the competition?

Advertising on the banners of a third-party site, producing content on your own website, an email campaign, running a blog, a presence on social networks, working on search engine optimisation, and so on. How do you find your way through all the techniques available to promote your brand and generate qualified leads ?

Between taking the lead and presenting your products/services directly to prospective customers (outbound marketing) or developing more subtle communication to let them discover them for themselves (inbound marketing), which solution should you choose to meet your company 's growth ambitions? In this article, find out what outbound marketing is and our tips for optimising the performance of your marketing strategy.

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The difference between outbound marketing and inbound marketing

Outbound marketing: definition

Outbound marketing is a marketing strategy that involves getting your message across to the consumer. It encompasses communication actions designed to reach the future customer where they are, one of the principles of advertising.

Often associated with mass marketing, this strategy relies on various levers to enable your promotional messages to be disseminated on a large scale in order to appeal to consumers.

▶︎ In the physical world, this means, for example, displaying advertisements in places frequented by potential customers.

▶︎ In the digital world, which is what we're mainly interested in here, this form of communication might involve displaying advertising banners on sites frequented by the target audience.

The levers of outbound marketing

Outbound marketing is based on a set of marketing actions and levers that exploit different distribution channels:

Edkent Media

For example, advertising (media or non-media), press releases, the distribution of flyers, or emailing and SMS campaigns are all outbound marketing techniques, used in the physical world or on the web.

What about outbound digital marketing?

To support your web marketing strategy, you can implement various digital marketing actions to reach your target audience, such as

• displaying advertising banners on a third-party site visited by the users you are targeting. This lever should be used sparingly to avoid tiring your audience, and its return on investment should be evaluated;
  
• adwords campaigns (Google Ads): to place some of your ads at the top of search results, based on the keywords you choose. This technique is also known as paid search or SEA;
  
• email marketing: to automate the sending of targeted emails, this lever can prove effective as part of a content strategy;
  
• advertising on social networks: to target users according to different criteria (age, profession, geographical area, interests, consumer preferences, etc.).

Inbound marketing: definition

Conversely, the very principle of inbound marketing is to attract customers to your product or service offering. The aim of this strategy is to attract customers or prospects by offering them quality content with real added value, so as to encourage them to take an interest in your brand.

What inbound marketing offers :

• attractive, high-quality content
• a relevant, targeted and personalised message
• strong support for a brand's values,
• mostly web-based channels: social media, blogs, webinars, etc,
• a digital strategy based on SEO and user experience (UX).

Inbound marketing is seen as less intrusive than outbound marketing, and always aims to be as close as possible to user expectations.

Inbound marketing techniques

Here are a number of inbound marketing techniques used in a web environment:

• blogging and writing articles,
• natural referencing (or SEO),
• sending out newsletters
• white papers and case studies,
• podcasts and videos,
• webinars, etc.

The aim of these web marketing tools is to provide answers to your target audience's questions and show how your offer provides a solution to their needs.

Communication is established between your brand and its prospects, fostering a relationship of trust and supporting them throughout the purchasing process.

Outbound marketing vs. inbound marketing

We often tend to contrast outbound marketing with inbound marketing, as this diagram from Plezi illustrates:

Plezi

The main difference comes from the approach:

✔ Outbound is a door open to the outside, the company goes out to seek out consumers.

✔ Inbound is an open door to the inside: the consumer is subtly enticed to enter, and will willingly choose to take that step.

This infographic from Plezi highlights the main differences in lead engagement processes:

Plezi

How do you combine inbound and outbound in a complementary way?

Inbound marketing, increasingly in vogue with the digital boom, is becoming essential, while outbound marketing is still a must for many business sectors. Rather than pitting these two techniques against each other, the ideal solution would be to incorporate a "mix of the two" into your marketing strategy. Combining them intelligently will enable you to exploit their potential and maximise your performance.

Let's take a look at some of the ways in which inbound and outbound can be effectively combined in a marketing alignment strategy.

Sales prospecting, with an inbound approach

Instead of using traditional prospecting methods, decide which prospects you want to attract. A dedicated tool, such as Blacksales, allows you to automatically engage in conversations with qualified prospects and guide them through the buying journey that you have specially designed for them.

In particular, you can position yourself on a strategic channel, such as social networks, where Internet users share content, ideas and opinions. This is an ideal opportunity to interact with your prospects by bringing them value and ideas that resonate with their values and interests. A social network management solution like Agorapulse allows you to interact with your community and manage your comments and mentions centrally.

Paid but targeted ads

Sponsored ads are an outbound technique, but it all depends on how you set them up. Positioning, display, message: you need to make sure that they reach the right audience.

Google Ads, for example, allows you to choose precisely how your messages are displayed according to geographical, temporal or demographic criteria. A more advanced marketing automation tool, such as the Mapp Cloud integrated marketing suite, will help you acquire targeted audiences to better define your broadcasts and maximise your conversions.

Direct, relevant and personalised emailing

Direct mailing is an effective technique when you know who you are targeting in business (BtoB marketing). It allows you to send more personalised content to raise awareness among your target audience, at a time when content is so pervasive in our daily lives. If you stand out from the crowd with useful, relevant, high-quality content, you're also asserting your expertise in your field of activity.

An email campaign creation and management tool such as ExpertSender or Spot-hit allows you to automatically distribute personalised content and target qualified prospects.

Finally, it's all about using the right technique, at the right time, and adapting the messages and communication channels to your target.

Tips for optimising your marketing strategy

• Take stock and ask yourself what actions you want to take to promote your company's products and/or services.
• Make sure you adopt a customer-centric approach. You'll be able to boost your visibility, generate more qualified leads and attract them right through to conversion.
• Rely on refined segmentation and targeting, so that you can adapt to the needs of your audience and deliver relevant messages.
• Enhance your brand image through thoughtful communication.

See all software Sales Force Automation

Outbound and inbound: a winning mix

It's up to you to choose the right techniques for your offer and to define the right mix. Inbound marketing actions aim to attract your prospects in the early stages of the conversion tunnel, while outbound marketing tactics are used to close the sale.

In the final analysis, you are building a global strategy, based on the size and sector of activity of your company, but also on the profile of your target audience.

Don't hesitate to study which tools are available to you, and estimate which ones will enable you to carry out effective marketing actions.

Finally, don't forget to measure the impact of each one, so you can see which ones seem to be working best for you and adjust them to optimise them!

Updated article, originally published in March 2020.