Does outbound marketing work?Outbound marketing campaigns consist of efforts from businesses in which they seek out and make the first point of contact with potential leads. Tactics for outbound may include cold calls and emails, networking events, and media advertisements such as television and print.

Essentially, traditional advertising (outbound) involves a company making direct or indirect contact with consumers who haven’t expressed any interest, which means this strategy is only a shot in the dark at success.

Why Outbound is Overrated

Outbound is a numbers game, with salespeople and marketers pushing their message out to as many people as possible in hopes of catching a few bites. This traditional marketing approach makes each communication quite generalized to appeal to a wider net of people. However, marketing works best when it’s done with a personal touch, which outbound campaigns typically lack room for.

Another problem with outbound marketing is its ubiquity paired with growing blocking technologies. From pop-up ads to billboards, the world is overcrowded with businesses trying to get the word out about their products or services, making each new effort even easier for the public to tune out. A wealth of blocking capabilities like spam filters, commercial-free television, and ‘do not call’ lists make it even more challenging to reach your audience. If people aren’t looking for or expecting a sales pitch, they’re unlikely to stick around to see what it has to say.

Worse yet, many outbound strategies can feel intrusive and make your company appear pushy.

A Solution to Outdated Advertising

As the marketplace and consumer behavior has adjusted, new ways of advertising have emerged. Inbound marketing is an attraction-based lead generation tool that brings your target audience to you rather than the other way around. With a combination of helpful resources and SEO, inbound brings in new leads while boosting your brand authority. Inbound tactics focus on providing value rather than aggressive sales, with smart conversion strategies strewn throughout to bring leads further along the buyer’s journey.

Outbound techniques will likely always have a place in the marketing world, but they shouldn’t be your only source of lead generation. The more varied your advertising efforts are, the more venues there are for success. Utilizing a combination of multiple marketing campaigns, including inbound and outbound, will create a diverse range of sales opportunities to help you grow your pipeline.

Want to learn more about inbound and what it’s all about? Reach out to our Marietta marketing specialists today!