Inbound vs Outbound Marketing: Pros & Cons

Editor’s Note: Here at Dispatches, we are always looking for ways to help our readers do things. For some of our readers, that means helping navigate the working world, for others, it means assisting in the ever challenging question, “what’s for dinner?” For still others, it means figuring out how to balance family life with everything else. In an effort to aid in all of these endeavors, we have collaborated on this article written specifically for our readers.

As any entrepreneur knows, when it comes to business success, marketing plays a vital role. The fact is that you could have the most innovative product or service on offer, but if no one knows about it, your chances of success are low. That’s why for businesses in all industries marketing is an important element.

Until a decade or so ago, outbound marketing was the in thing in marketing. Outbound marketing was the most common form of marketing companies used because it was seen as the most effective marketing method. However, today that is no longer the case. Over the past few years, when it comes to the most effective form of marketing, outbound marketing is on the decline.

Today, inbound marketing is quickly becoming the most effective marketing method. Inbound marketing is not only more cost effective and interactive, but it is also a fantastic way to generate leads for customers and increase sales, which is why it’s so popular with businesses of all shapes and sizes.

What’s the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a type of marketing that relies on earning a person’s interest, rather than buying it. Whereas, outbound marketing tends to push products and services at customers.

Inbound marketing is a more interactive form of marketing because it allows two-way communication, it’s a form of marketing where customers come to you – they find your brand, products and services. This kind of marketing seeks to entertain and educate. While outbound marketing focuses on one-way communication – the brand communicating with the consumer. With outbound marketing methods, customers are sought out with print, TV, radio adverts, and brochures, banners and business cards. With outbound marketing, there’s no focus on educating consumers or offering them value; it’s simply a case of advertising a product or service.

In recent years, there has been a shift in terms of how the majority of companies choose to market their products or services. The reason for this shift is because of the changes in consumer behavior, with more and more consumers preferring to be in control of the information that they receive. With outbound marketing, the company is completely in control, whereas with inbound marketing consumers have more control over the information that they receive. This shift in consumer habits can be seen in the change in the way that the majority of people view marketing. Studies have found that 85 percent of people now skip TV adverts, while 91 percent of email users have unsubscribed from a company’s email subscription service.

What are the pros and cons of inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing focuses on businesses websites and social media channels being found by customers. Inbound marketing allows businesses to earn their way into consumer habits, instead of pressuring their way in with constant adverts and pop-ups. The most effective inbound marketing techniques include content marketing, which many businesses collaborate with an SEO company for and social media marketing. Content marketing is effective because content provides consumers with value as it educates and entertains them, which is what makes content marketing such a useful marketing method.

Pros:

• Inbound marketing is cost effective and has a high ROI, which makes it a suitable marketing method for businesses of all shapes and sizes, from startups to large corporations.
• The reach of inbound marketing tends to be high and requires limited effort to achieve fantastic results, making it ideal for anyone with limited time to commit to their marketing methods.
• Inbound marketing is content rich, which means that it helps to increase brand awareness. By filling your website with niche articles about the area of business that you are in, you are able to position yourself as an expert in your niche. This helps to build brand awareness.
• Then there’s the fact that inbound marketing allows you to develop a relationship with your customers by interacting with them. The benefit of developing a relationship with your customers is the fact that it will help to make your brand more trustworthy and will increase your reliability.

Cons:

• One of the cons to utilizing inbound marketing is that to do so effectively; you will require a well-built website. To be able to effectively utilize inbound marketing, you require a website that has a blog section and offers email marketing; it also needs to be SEO optimized.
• Then there’s the fact that it will take time for your inbound marketing methods to work. For example, to have a website that is an effective marketing tool, it needs to be allowed to grow and develop so that it’s SEO is on point, and its search engine rank is as high as possible.
• For content to be shared widely, there’s also the issue of growing a large following on social media. For companies with large social media followings, viral marketing is one benefit that can make marketing products or services easier.

What are the pros and cons of outbound marketing?
Outbound marketing has been around for a long time – it’s the oldest form of marketing there is. Outbound marketing sends out blasts of information about a product or service via TV, radio adverts, brochures, flyers, or billboards, with the hope of getting something back from consumers. The results of outbound marketing are harder to track than the results of inbound marketing, yet most companies allocate around 90 percent of their marketing budgets to this form of marketing.

Pros:

• One of the most common types of outbound marketing is cold calling, and although it’s not always popular with consumers, studies show that it can work well in some instances. This depends, of course, on what it is that is being sold. However, in some instances, cold calling can work well.
• Another pro of outbound marketing is that it allows you to advertise your product or service to a wider group of people instead of just one small demographic. This is a pro as sometimes you may not realize that a certain demographic would be a good fit for your products or services, but it turns out that it is.

Cons:

• One con of outbound marketing is the fact that it can be difficult to track your ROI. This can make it difficult to determine the effectiveness of your marketing methods.
• Another con of outbound marketing is the use of face blocking techniques by consumers. Wondering what this is? Face blocking techniques are ways that consumers ensure they are not exposed to outbound marketing, such as by having their phone numbers put on ‘do not call’ lists and by blocking online adverts and pop-ups.

The issue with outbound marketing is that a lot of outbound marketing campaigns can be high cost and have low results, which means that they aren’t exactly cost effective.