Why We Still Need Outbound Marketing
While we have mentioned how inbound marketing is certainly effective, and will need no further proof for its effectiveness, it has one major flaw. The core of inbound marketing is to publish valuable, relevant content pieces regularly, and promoting them through various marketing channels, mainly through SEO (link). The thing is, you will need to publish a significant amount of content pieces regularly before both the human audience and search engines recognize your credibility. Also, SEO by itself is a long-term game, and you generally need to invest 6 to 12 months of resources and time before you can see any significant results. In short, with inbound marketing, you don’t have the luxury of time. Imagine, then, if you are a startup company with limited capital, where you need to generate revenue just to stay afloat. Can you rely on inbound marketing in this case? In fact, we can argue that ALL businesses would want a quick revenue gain. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, virtually guarantee short-term results, as long as you have the budget to do it. So, the comparison between inbound and outbound marketing is actually the case of time VS cost: inbound marketing is more affordable, but will require more time. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, needs less time but will require more money. So, the key for a performing marketing strategy is to find that delicate balance between the two, generating both short-term and long-term revenue sources in the process.The New Outbound Marketing
However, we should also keep in mind that outbound marketing has also evolved from its ‘traditional’ form. Let us now discuss the key changes you should consider:- Email marketing has greatly evolved from its original form: it used to be a simple email blasts targeting mass audiences. Nowadays, personalization is key to effective email marketing, and we should also consider how GDRP affects email marketing. Nowadays, automated email marketing campaign, or drip campaign (link) is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
- Online advertising has also evolved dramatically, mainly due to the increase of resistance from customers. Nowadays, online advertising is only effective when you consider newer methods like remarketing (link) and programmatic advertising. Again, heavy targeting and personalization is the key to success here.
- Telemarketing has been one of the most important marketing methods for decades if not centuries. Yet, it has also changed significantly with the emphasis to digital marketing. Telemarketing is also affected by GDPR, and so we can expect more changes in the years to come.
- Direct Mailing, contrary to popular beliefs, is still a very effective email method with 4.4% response rate. Yet, we will need to combine to various digital marketing methods to increase its effectiveness. Personalization can also improve success in direct mail, although it can be very expensive.