As the Marketing Trends have been changing you must have encountered Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing used by the marketers. But what are these heavy terms? And why are they being compared to each other? Today, we will get to know all about Inbound vs Outbound Marketing.
Inbound and Outbound Marketing are the two different types of marketing strategies. Marketers have been using these to attract customers to their brands. Digital Marketers claim that a single person is exposed to around 4,000-10,000 ads in a day. It includes all the ads from television, radio shows, banners, brand labels, digital ads, social media ads, google ads, and innumerable notification ads on your mobile phone. Nowadays, people are bombarded with an unlimited number of Ads just to attract and convert them into leads.
The marketing world has seen a drastic change in years that has led to the creation of these terms. Inbound and outbound marketing is not just any usual terms. The two are very different concepts of marketing and advertising. The creation of these concepts has brought all the strategists to debate on the topic ‘Inbound vs Outbound Marketing - Which is Better?’
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is also known as ‘Content Marketing’. It is a new marketing concept that works to attract potential customers with the help of interesting content. As an Inbound Marketer, you will be responsible for creating blog posts, social media, infographics, white papers, email newsletters. You will also have to create other interesting and informative content that the people are searching for.
With the help of Search Engine Optimization, the content can rank in the search engines. This generates traffic and brings the readers to the website. If the content is good and engaging the readers will interact and share it with their mates. This helps to promote a positive image of the brand. Inbound Marketing acts as an indirect sales pitch in the form of informative content. The main purpose of this kind of marketing is to mainly engage the customers with the brand.
What is Outbound Marketing?
Outbound Marketing is the term that generally means ‘Marketing’ or we can say ‘Traditional Marketing’. Outbound marketing is repetitive and in common cases, the audience has to forcibly participate in the marketing funnel. Some of the examples of Outbound Marketing are TV and radio ads, telemarketing, banner and display ads, billboards, newspaper and magazine ads, cold calling, pop-ups and pop-under, and contextual ads.
Outbound marketing has become an unpopular choice over the last 10 years, mainly due to the rise of the internet. As there have been so many ads on the internet people have started to ignore them. People nowadays are using AdBlockers that has made the situation worse. This has led marketers to consider Outbound marketing as an overrated marketing strategy in the current times.
Which is Better - Inbound Vs Outbound Marketing?
Seeing the current scenario Inbound marketing is in trend and has the favor of many marketers. According to HubSpot, 71% of companies focus mainly on Inbound Marketing as it provides a better Return on investment (ROI). Another good thing about Inbound marketing is that it is far cheaper than Outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is a long-term plan and its effectiveness is hard to monitor. Inbound Marketing works on raising brand awareness and provides useful information to the users. This makes it harder to make out whether the strategy is working or not. Outbound marketing faces various disadvantages because it is expensive, not responsive, and does not target audiences. Not every brand can spend lakhs of rupees on TV commercials and showcase their products to the whole world, expecting results. To be honest it doesn’t make any sense. Telemarketing is a thing of the past. This is because more upgraded audience targeted display ads are making their way to this new era of advertising.
Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on social media platforms and these platforms provide
Remarketing tools to display target ads according to viewer’s interests. This kind of Outbound Marketing has a lot of potentials, unlike traditional outbound marketing. It follows the concept of Inbound marketing that is based on showing the users only what they need to see. Retargeting outbound display ads work very well with Inbound marketing. These are the combinations marketers need to find out for the best marketing strategies.
Conclusion-
The best marketing strategy for you would depend on what works best for you. You should keep yourself updated with the latest trends while still working on the older methods. See what is working for you by analyzing your data. Keep a check on your audiences because they change frequently. You cannot keep working on the older data from last year. One year is a long time and you will see drastic changes in your results. The best thing you can do is keep experimenting with Inbound and Outbound marketing together. Try finding out what works best for your brand.
So, we at Puminati Digital think the concept of Inbound and Outbound Marketing must be clear to you. To read more about such interesting topics you can head on to our blog sections.
