Tradition Vs. Innovation
The 20th century demonstrated the fast development of different marketing concepts and strategies with advertising as a keystone. The 21st century, opening a digital era, fueled the marketing evolution by a persona-oriented approach. That is possible thanks to the introduction of machine learning approaches and the collection of data about the user’s wishes and behaviour.
Outbound marketing and inbound marketing
Outbound marketing uses traditional strategies and channels and mainly consists of advertising sending a message to an unspecified audience.
Inbound is a dynamic, buyer-focused, and data-driven innovative market approach where the ultimate key to success is personalisation. 80% of consumers would prefer to buy from a company offering personalised experiences. To get your marketing strategy personalised, you need to find, understand, analyse, and predict your consumer behaviour patterns. Machine learning presents a perfect tool for identifying, testing and predicting your target audience. It enables quick and efficient decision-making, based on big data.
Interruption vs. Permission
The two types of marketing under consideration have different approaches in attracting the audience.
The purpose of outbound marketing is to reach a wider audience. It pushes advertising on people irrespective of their interests and needs. We call it interruptive since it interferes with our daily life by cold calls, spam messages, annoying TV commercial breaks, pop-ups, etc. We get thousands of interruptions per day. People do not like being interrupted when busy with something and prefer choosing what and when they want to consume.
Inbound strategy is non-intrusive, and instead of pushing, you can carefully pull your potential customers toward providing them with valuable and engaging content. Your prospects meet you when and where they want to. Having found you online, getting informed about your business, they can permit you further communication by opt-in email, chatbot, web push notification. With inbound marketing, you let your visitors manage their opt-in and preferences.
Marketing Channels and Forms
Outbound Marketing
- Mass media and TV
- Cold emails and direct mails
- Cold calls
- Trade shows, fairs, and other relevant public events
- Printed commercials, flyers, and leaflets
- Banners and display ads, billboards
- Online advertisements and pop-ups
A lot of businesses keep on using these channels to hit bigger audiences. But to attract more people, you have to find the best time and place for your marketing. And remember, with outbound marketing, you do not own contribution. You are renting it. And it is expensive, especially when it comes to primetime advertising or participating in prominent exhibitions and trade fairs.
This marketing strategy uses the direct approach of choosing and using distribution channels and methods, sending a message to an unspecified audience, and waiting for the response. Outbound marketing does not build a sales and purchase funnel, while the inbound strategy does.
Inbound Marketing
- Social media and blogs
- Landing pages
- Podcast
- Press releases and reviews
- Website content
- SEO
- Opt-in emails
- PPC ads
- Webinars
Carrying out the inbound marketing, you do not need to rent any distribution, but use your online resources as a hub. It saves you money but demands better marketing experience and skills as well as technical expertise. Inbound marketing implies a holistic approach when all communication and marketing channels and methods make an interconnected system. It allows you to map and guide your customers’ journey and convert visitors into leads. The multichannel strategy gives 250% better purchase frequency.
Communication And Messages
Outbound Marketing is brand-focused. Its forced messages can instantly result in purchase but can hardly help you build customer loyalty. It is one-way communication, not allowing to collect insights and interact with clients.
Modern customers like to explore offers. They are in control over their shopping experience and are looking for a personalised offer. Over 70% of consumers are willing to pay more for a great experience.
Inbound Marketing meets these needs by being consumer-focused and allowing two-way communication, sending personalised messages to a specific target audience. Users become an active part of a marketing process, interacting and helping you create a tailor-fit customer experience. Inbound strategies give you a unique opportunity of creating leads by educating your potential customers, telling stories, and provoking and answering questions related to your business and user experience. To make the right choice, consumers require informative, nuanced, and sophisticated content. Personalisation can increase your revenues by 40%.
Analyse And Measure
To match customer personalised needs, you have to understand them. The comprehensive understanding involves measurement and analysis. The problem is that outbound marketing is highly immeasurable.
On the contrary, inbound marketing makes it possible to measure and analyse a wide variety of data, to learn more about your target audience and its segmentation, about customer behaviour, needs and interests. A marketing automation platform will equip you with the necessary tools to collect, measure, and analyse the data required.
- primary and secondary website goals
- visitor, landing page, and CTA conversion rates
- nurturing funnel completion rate
- leads by source
- close rate
- social media activity and share
- blog views and blog subscribers
- inbound links
- email open and click-through rates
- keyword rankings
- and much more
Conclusion
Over 60% of shopping journeys begin online, and over 40% of buyers research products via social networks. Most traditional marketing channels are rapidly losing their relevance. Commercial breaks, cold calls, and emails can hardly generate such involvement as personal offers, special ads, targeted to the potential buyers’ interest, and an interactive approach.
Inbound marketing provides consumers with a customised experience and applies innovative tools and communication patterns to attract, engage, and delight them.
Statistics of successfully implemented cases with ML technologies, growing day-by-day. And it’s the reason for more businesses to give priority to inbound marketing. Today about 74% of marketers choose it to be the key strategy.
Proper inbound marketing is ten times more effective than outbound one. It reduces lead costs by 61%, compared to outbound leads.
The sophisticated inbound marketing concept will make it possible to convert the traffic into customers and boost your sales as well as increase the loyalty of your regular buyers.