OUTBOUND MARKETING VS INBOUND MARKETING

When I first joined as Medical Representative I was amazed by the power of marketing and the data provided to marketers.

Starting a conversation with a new prospect was easy when I already knew what they were interested in it.

A few years into my MR (Medical Representative) role, with the marketing strategy running in the background, I began to understand what I was selling and changed my messaging to create value instead of only building upon what was already provided by Marketing Managers.

Thinking of it with “if/then” logic, I would draw lines between interests and needs, mapping Marketing services to customer pain points.

For example:

If a person is showing interest in creating content and they are a marketing manager, then they might be interested in aggregating data to determine what content is the most successful.

This changes the conversation from “I noticed you downloaded XYZ whitepaper” to “I noticed your interest in content creation", and so I am curious about your engagement strategy.

How are you leveraging data to help your team create marketing assets that will most greatly affect the bottom line?

See the difference.

With a marketing strategy platform working in the background, it’s easy for a salesperson to do a fantastic job.

During my tenure as Front line & second line Manager, I realise what happens when the input isn’t getting you to your quota? Or what if certain prospects haven’t converted into known leads?

You don’t want to miss out on such great opportunities—especially if there is a true business need or pain point your prospect is experiencing that your product could solve.

I also come to know the importance of feedback from the salespersons to planners, I remember one of our products was badly launched despite lots of efforts & investment by the Product Manager due to wrong & misleading information.

When I started my own business I have to perform both the activities of planning as well as implementing & learn about how to use all types of media to get leads.

Apart from the business, I started affiliate marketing for a few companies that understand the need of attracting people to yourself.

OUTBOUND V/S INBOUND MARKETING

From my experiences, it was clear that there is a difference between telling people about your products & letting people search for your product, searching for potential customers & customers searching for you, of course in both cases strategy & planning play an important role.

OUTBOUND MARKETING

It's the traditional way of promoting products and seeking potential customers utilizing advertising, webinars, seminars, trade shows, cold calling & so on, pushing the message out to the masses.

INBOUND MARKETING

It's a fairly new concept of helping interested customers to find a solution to their problem, for example, you are here to look for solutions for how to increase sales from your site or to gain knowledge about the difference.

OUTBOUND MARKETING VS INBOUND MARKETING DIFFERENCES

1 MASSES/TARGETED

In outbound marketing, you prepare content for everyone & advertise it & chase the customers but in inbound marketing, the content is to be carefully written with specific keywords that the person/target finds you through search engines.

2 MEDIA/CONTENT

Outbound is glamourous with media like Tv, shows, webinars, Seminars, Billboard, and Banners while inbound the hero is the content if your content is supporting to the need of the customers, you will gain again & again from the same customer.

3 PRODUCT/CUSTOMER

Product is important in outbound marketing & it's vigorously promoted to make it a brand.

In inbound marketing, customers are playing an important role to make you a brand.

4 TELL/HELP

In outbound marketing, you literally force the customers to make them buy certain products while in inbound marketing you just help them to make a decision.

I remember when my son passed high school he asked which subject he should choose, my wife told him to go for science and maths(outbound) but I guide him with what are the pros & cons & benefits choosing of any subject & make him take his own decision(inbound).

5 HIGH/LOW BUDGET

Promotion needs a high budget to advertise through all channels hence outbound marketing is expensive while inbound marketing can be done with a low budget by just developing a website & regular blogging is helpful for affiliate marketing.

6 ASSUMPTION/ KNOWN RESULTS

It's much more difficult to analyse from where you are getting sales, and who are your customers in outbound marketing but feel happy by gaining sales while by Google Analytics you can explore even the behaviour of your customers in inbound marketing.

Looking at the differences described above don't underestimate the power of outbound marketing

To meet this delta between what the inbound engine produces for your pipeline and blowing your numbers out of the water month over month, you, need to explore the world of outbound prospecting.

Let’s take a look at just what this entails:

The Outbound Prospecting Landscape Cold emailing/calling can be a daunting task;

However, outbound is extremely similar to inbound. The only difference is knowing where a prospect’s interest lies and inferring.

For outbound success, it is imperative that you:

Do your research:

It is necessary to understand who you are reaching out to and why that individual would care to engage in a conversation with you.

We’ve all heard of the Why You, Why You Now (WYWYN) email—now it’s time to put it to use.

Reach out to key decision-makers and stakeholders:

After you’ve done your research and crafted a thoughtful email, make sure it reaches decision-makers.

You don’t necessarily have to talk to those people, but if you catch their interest, it will trickle down.

Look for YOU & to begin pinging your site and let the inbound engine get to work.

Follow-up:-

This may sound pretty simple, but you’d be surprised how effective this can be in getting a conversation with either a decision-maker or an influencer.

For a well-crafted email, I send two follow-ups on the same thread to ensure they received my note.

Reuse the work you have already done (research and personalized emails) as talking points when you call to follow up.

Now, let’s expand on the primary area of successful outbound & inbound prospecting is research.

Research: —

The Key to Successful Outbound & Inbound is prospecting, to identify potential customers.

The concept of researching recalls back to the good old college and high school days of writing a well-thought-out essay.

Whether the essay was expository, persuasive, analytical, or argumentative, the most important aspect was to understand your topic.

And what’s the best way to truly grasp your topic?

Research it!

The same could be said today when you, as a working professional, try to connect with potential customers.

You need to come off as knowledgeable about them (as much as you are about your product or service).

So how can you increase your credibility in this respect?

Understand the space the company is in and any competitors that are already customers

Know the role of the person you’re reaching out to.

How your product affects them Leverage 3rd party data for validation—graphics, images, and stats go a long way

Remember to always ask yourself “why should they care?”

If you can’t answer this, then the answer is “they don’t.”

Here are my favourite “go-to” resources for research:

Company’s and individual’s LinkedIn page:

These are a quick, one-stop-shop to find who you should be reaching out to and what matters most to them (check the recent posts from the company and the individual prospect’s bio).

Twitter page:

This is the millennium’s version of “a little birdy told me.”

It’s great for connecting with a prospect on a personal level on a topic that’s relevant to them.

Company website:

One quick glance tells you what your prospect is proud of.

Be aware of what they are promoting!

Be aware of how they are being promoted!

Work Smart and Use Your Tools, as a fan of the “work smarter, not harder” mentality.

I recommend using the tools you have available to you to track, prove, and recreate your successes.

An Important note:-

Try:

Using your marketing automation tools to track the success of your outbound prospecting:

Are prospects opening your emails?

Which emails performed best?

Are individuals from your target company beginning to interact with your site?

Saving your favourite emails and using them as templates.

If your email to the CEO gets a response, use it again and personalize wherever you need to while keeping the value points from the original email.

Remember: any response is a good response.

An email that grabbed enough attention to elicit a reply is useful—even if it’s a “no.”

If you get a “no,” ask them what is keeping your product from being top of mind today and when would be a better time to connect.

You can use their response to help craft your next touch-point.

Personalize, Personalize, Personalize

Take the time to “be better” and go the extra mile in your outbound activities.

We’ve all seen or heard of prospects who buy the product from the salesperson they had the best relationship with.

Know who your customer is and listen to them (both in what information they make available about themselves and in what they say).

Make sure the person they want to buy from is you.

I hope that these tips have been helpful.

What advice can you share to make your outbound or inbound marketing and sales more effective?

Please share your ideas in the comments section below!