When a business is started, one of the most critical needs is to let people know about the products and services so that more customers can get attracted. Of course, marketing is the method that is used to promote the brand among the audience and get recognized. Initially, there was only one single type of marketing method, and that was of outbound marketing.
Though today there are various options too available such as the most famous one is inbound marketing, the outbound option is still something that can bring in great results. It comprises different traditional form of marketing such as TV Commercials, Print Media Ads, Radio Ads, cold calls, tradeshows, and so on.
To know why Outbound Marketing is still so pertinent, it is important to understand what is outbound marketing and other details about it. So, let us start with understanding the definition of Outbound Marketing-
What Is Outbound Marketing?
As per the concept of outbound marketing, it is the method where the customers are reached out with the help of general media advertisement options such as television ads or push methods like sales calls. It is more of a Push Strategy instead of Pull Strategy. Now, depending upon a number of factors, the outbound marketing can have a number of categories, and these are broad media such as the television, personal selling such as face-to-face meetings, and impersonal such as blanket emails.
These outbound methods are helpful in generating leads. Further, these leads are used by the representatives of the internal sales to increase the conversion rate and get potential customers for the company.
With the increase of the web-based marketing options, today outbound marketing methods seem to have shrunk down. But it is still said that some of the companies believe in the outbound strategy and hence invest as much as 90% of the resources in such type of outbound marketing methods. Let us have a look on different types of Outbound Marketing here and now-
Different types of Outbound Marketing
- TV/radio advertisements
- Telemarketing/cold-calling
- Email marketing
- Trade shows
- Newspaper advertising
- Press releases
- Direct mail (brochures, postcards, catalogues)
- Branded marketing (newsletters, pens, key chains, even flash drives)
There was a time when outbound marketing strategies were the most efficient ways to reach out to a wide number of audiences with limited time. Today, with the rise of other marketing options, the demand for outbound marketing is reducing down. For this reason, outbound marketing options can be achieved at a much lower price now. Still, outbound ways of promotion is very popular and businesses are predominantly opting for them to promote and advertise their products and services.
The first question is answered about what is outbound marketing.
Difference between Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing
There is a simple difference between Outbound Marketing and Inbound marketing. In Inbound marketing, the customer already has a requirement of the product and the company attracts the customer to touch base with the company through various tools like retail.
Example – If you were selling television units, for inbound marketing, you might start a retail showroom. When the customer needs a product, he will visit your showroom. But otherwise he may not. In this scenario, the company is not trying to reach the customer. The customer reaches the company when he has a need.
In Outbound marketing, the company tries to reach the customer instead of waiting for the customer to visit. Continuing the same example as above, you had a retail television showroom but walkins are slow right now. So you started visiting nearby Hotels which require a television in all their guest rooms.
You also started visiting Builders who gift television along with the house to customers. So now you are pushing the product to the buyer and that is outbound marketing. You have stepped out of your area of operation to cater to the customer which is outbound marketing.
Example of Outbound Marketing
But any concept is not fully clear unless it is not explained with a proper example. When you talk about outbound marketing, there are some of the finest examples that can be described to explain the method.
One of the typical examples has been already talked about above, and that is the television ads.
Apart from the television, there are also many other examples of outbound marketing, and these are radio ads, trade fairs, print ads such as magazines, brochures, flyers, newspapers ads, and so on.
Currently, email marketing and sales calls are also some of the modern examples of outbound marketing.
Businesses use different mediums to promote their products and services. In this process, they choose different methods that can help them target more and more number of people. With the help of Outbound techniques, they do this quite efficiently.
Let us now have a look on different advantages of Outbound Marketing.
Advantages Of Outbound Marketing
Often today many of the companies do not prefer to include the concept of outbound marketing in their portfolio and focus more on the new age marketing strategies. This has led to speculation that the outbound marketing ideas are about to die soon.
But again in a number of ways this particular speculation has been considered quite overrated as because as per a research conducted, it was found that many of the IT companies still think the outbound marketing options to be one of the significant ways to attract customers.
Well, though there have been a lot of things to talk about what is outbound marketing looking ahead in future, here are some of the benefits of outbound marketing that one should surely have a look at.
1) It Challenged The Test Of Time and Sustained
The most important point that the people today forget is that internet was not there years ago, but still, brands were there, and they were being promoted. The time when the internet was not there, even products used to reach out to customers like jungle fire in many of the cases.
This was only possible with the help of outbound marketing. You cannot ignore the fact that when the internet was not there and the social media platforms were not there to spread up news so fast, the outbound marketing methods were there and they actually did a great job in advertising about the brands and products in the best way.
It is because of such advertisements only that some of the brands have not lost their recognition in public even today.
Still TV and Print Media Commercials are one of the prime channels of marketing and advertising for the businesses despite the booming prevalence of Digital Channels. So, Outbound Marketing is letting everyone feel its presence in the constantly changing world in the most effective and sustainable manner possible.
2) It is meant for The Non-Tech Savvy People
Though the smartphones and digital systems have become one of the essential elements in life, still there are a number of people in the world who are not very much tech-savvy. Promoting a brand on social media sites is a great thing today as the exposure is huge.
But there can be a number of people who can be potential customers, but unfortunately, they are not there on such social media platforms.
Reaching such people can get difficult in such a case. But outbound marketing is something that is for everyone. When hoarding is put up on the main street, every type of person passing by the road notices the hoarding.
All kinds of people listen Radios and TV is still the most important channels of entertainment for the major population across the world. That is why, Outbound Marketing is still very effective in penetrating the audience base that is not on digital world.
3) It is An Extra Option
It may happen that digital marketing is doing great, but having an extra option is something that nobody actually will deny. What is outbound marketing today and what was it years back has a significant difference now in some way or the other.
Many of the companies do not consider the concept of outbound marketing because they think people are more into Smartphones and the internet and hence it is much easier to reach them with the help of digital marketing. But if you actually wish to reach out to people with a short period of time, there is no harm in making use of various alternative methods.
The competition is quite tough today, and everyone wishes to come first. This is the reason different strategies are made, and tricky ideas are thought of so that more traffic can be generated and more conversions can occur. In such a scenario not a single option should be left out.
Outbound marketing is still capable of grabbing attention, provided, you need to make them quite attractive and appealing in a creative way.
In addition to all the aforestated advantages of Outbound Marketing, there are some disadvantages as well and you need to have a close look on that as well. So, let us understand what the disadvantages of Outbound Marketing- are
Disadvantages Of Outbound Marketing
Along with the benefits that free marketing has to offer, there are also a number of disadvantages that one should know about it.
1) A Costly Thing
One of the major reasons why a number of people are diverting towards digital marketing is the cost. The cost of outbound marketing is huge, and hence startups or small business owners think it to be quite profitable to divert to the digital marketing option in place of the outbound marketing.
When you ask a question, what is outbound marketing; some of the major examples that come up are TV ads and big hoardings? Of course, these things need a lot of money to be invested in.
As per research by the DemandMetric, it has been found that content marketing needs an investment that is about 62% lesser than the TV ads. Hence, this becomes one of the major reasons why current people prefer digital marketing.
2) ROI Tracking Is Difficult
The best thing about options such as Facebook marketing is that it is quite difficult to track the return. If a television ad is run along with the distribution of pamphlets, and after a month or so the return of the brand is great, it is difficult to track that through which means sales have come up and how much.
Of course, from time to time, polls are conducted to know such things, but this does not have a concrete result, and hence the confusion still remains. This is not the case with other options such as Facebook marketing. It offers you the option to track the ROI and also the different number of customers who are actually responding to your ad on Facebook.
3) Targeting Customers Is Difficult
One of the finest examples is that of a condom advertisement on TV.
The advertisement is exposed to all types of people and also people of all age. The product is mainly for the adults, and hence it has nothing to do with the kids.
But still, the advertisement runs on the TV and the kids, old people, adults, everyone sees the advertisement together. Hence, it is quite difficult with outbound marketing to target the right type of customers.
You can for sure target a huge audience base via outbound marketing but you can not target a particular audience base via outbound channels and hence lead generations and conversions are not that result-driven as they are in inbound marketing.
4) Personalizing Is Not Possible
When an ad on TV or on hoarding is provided, it is a common thing for everyone.
The common message is seen by everyone. It does not have a personal touch for the customers. But on the other hand, there are options in the modern advertisement methods when personalized ads can be displayed in front of the targeted customers so that they can respond to the brand or the product in a much better way.
You cannot personalize your outbound ads just for a specific audience base. You have to pay attention to the perceptions of audiences who are not on outbound mediums for your kinds of products and services. While, inbound lets you run fully personalized campaigns that can also be tracked efficiently.
In Conclusion…
After knowing what is outbound marketing and what are its various advantages and disadvantages, it will become quite clear what importance it holds in the marketing campaigns. The conventional method of outbound marketing is still adopted by a number of companies while ignored by some others.
It has to be known that different strategies and options have their own needs and importance. Hence, it is important to identify the importance and also the need for such a strategy in the marketing campaign.
Market variation, novelty, market accessibility, competition, budget are some of the factors that decide the future of outbound marketing campaigns. Once, you pay attention to all these details, you can easily boost the presence of your products and services via outbound channels.
So, did we miss anything about outbound marketing that you were looking for?
How are you going to integrate outbound marketing with your inbound marketing strategies?
Share your views with us in the comments. Feel free to discuss your doubts with us in the comments as well.
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