If your business has been around for more than a few years, you've likely seen a gradual decline in your traditional marketing efforts. The primary reason for this decline is consumer behavior. Advances in internet technology have opened new ways to reach consumers, but it also means that older outbound advertising methods are no longer as effective as they used to be. If your ad campaigns have been falling flat, it's time to switch from marketing at your consumers in hopes that they're interested in your product and services to attracting consumers that are already interested.
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is traditional marketing in which you spread your message to the masses. It includes television and radio commercials, direct mail, cold calling, and trade shows. The reason this type of marketing is becoming less effective is because people are tired of being blasted with ads for products or services they have little or no interest in. People skip or tune out broadcast commercials, delete emails, ignore unidentified phone callers, and attend webinars rather than in-person trade shows. No wonder your outbound marketing methods are not producing the desired results. This is why a shift to inbound marketing practices is essential to your company's continued success.
Where outbound marketing is disruptive and intrusive, inbound marketing is neither. It's all about attracting potential customers to you. This is accomplished via SEO practices, blogs, landing pages, video, whitepapers, newsletters, social media, and other types of content marketing. People come to you because they are actively searching for the solutions you provide and are therefore already partially down your marketing funnel. According to marketing research company Demand Metric, content marketing produces 3 times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing techniques, yet costs 62% less.
Getting Management On Board with Inbound Marketing
It's not always easy to convince management that it's time to overhaul the company's marketing strategy. It's made even more difficult because it's harder to show ROI for your inbound marketing efforts. For example, with traditional advertising, you spend a certain amount on an advertising buy or direct mail campaign and measure the results. With inbound marketing, you create blogs, videos, and social media presence to attract prospective customers over time. You're building an ongoing marketing strategy. Even though you will have high content creation costs, your return will be greater in the long term. Outbound marketing is an expense, whereas inbound marketing is an investment.
Doing It Right
The best way to convince management about the benefits of inbound marketing is to make sure you do it effectively. Here are a few tips to get you started.
You don't need to completely change from outbound to inbound marketing all at once. Some traditional marketing practices should still be included in your overall strategy. But the wave of the future is to produce great content that attracts interested customers. So polish your blog writing or video creation skills, or partner with an online marketing company that can provide these services for you, and let the leads roll in.
Share15 December 2016
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