Every business has to process marketing in order to enhance sale and generate revenue. Marketing is defined as a protocol to reach to the customers in order to make them aware of different aspects of newly launched services and products so that the customers will come to the business and buy their products or avail services. In today’s competitive scenario, marketing is a difficult and challenging job. With bad marketing, even a great product loses its shine. Hence, it is imperative that business should follow a suitable marketing policy.
Nowadays, two types of marketing are famous and they are outbound (traditional) and inbound (new one). Both inbound or outbound marketings are far different in terms of process. It is not easy for businesses to decide, what type of marketing process fits their requirements. Therefore, this blog throws light on every aspect of both marketing processes, so that business professional can easily select the suitable one.
What Is Inbound OR Outbound Marketing Basically?
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is a traditional method of marketing that includes broadcasting through TV, Radio, News Paper Ads, Email blast, brochure, cold calls, PPC ads etc. This kind of marketing generally requires lots of investment, but minimum effort. There is no standard method to evaluate ROI. It is only meant for sending the message to the masses without any guarantee of conversion because:
- According to the study, it has been evaluated that around 45% of the commercial emails are never get read or opened.
- More than 150 millions mobile users are availing “Do Not Call Registry”
- Around 85% of mobile users do not explore the website that is showing lots of ads.
- The PPC can also improve the click rate but cannot ensure that the online users have made payment.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is gaining ground all around the world. In contrary to outbound marketing, Inbound marketing requires lots of efforts, but it is measurable and can generate superb ROI. It is completely digital. Here, blogging, content marketing, e-newsletter, SEO, Social media marketing, podcast, video and eBook are deployed to attract customers.
Inbound Marketing Is Measurable While Outbound Marketing Is Not
There is no standard way to measure the ROI generated through Outbound marketing. This means the marketers are not able to measure the success rate of marketing through outbound technique. However, there are some methods to evaluate the success rate, such as asking the customer “where did they hear about the company” and secondly the number of calls that are received at the call centre. But, they do not provide reliable result and lack reliability.
On the other hand, inbound marketing is measurable. Numerous application and tools are available to help the marketers not only measure ROI but also the effectiveness of the strategy, website design, content quality and customer’s behaviour. Through measurement, it is easy for professionals to optimize the quality of digital content.
Outbound Marketing Features Interruption Based Strategy
The outbound marketers first search the channel, where they can get millions of customers and then interrupt them with the disassociated advertisement. In this case, only a small unit of the audience takes interest and becomes a customer. There are minimal chances of conversion.
On the other hand, inbound marketing is permission-based. Here, the communication between audience and business is established through the audience preferred medium, i.e. where the marketers have the permission to talk to the audience. Secondly, various queries are answered by the marketers and those answers are distributed all around the digital world. Through the permission-based strategy, there are more than 70% chances that the audience will become customers.
Inbound Marketing Provides Simultaneous Control Over Different Media
In outbound marketing, the professional does not have complete control over the distribution channel. The marketers have to evaluate that which medium (Radio, TV, Newspaper and others) has a large number of audience, on the basis of evaluation, they choose the medium and prepare a message to be conveyed through the selected medium. After publishing the message, next time, when they require to convey a new message, they again have to examine the effectiveness of the medium and prepare the message.
The inbound marketing allows the marketers to simultaneously use different media, like email market, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, PPC Ads and different content strategies. In a nutshell, inbound marketer initiates the marketing holistically. There are various things taken for consideration, such as
- Properly developed website content
- Use of Proper keywords
- The website should be in good design and reflect everything about business clearly
Outbound Marketing Cannot Provide Clear Message
The message that comes out of outbound marketing can be confusing. Owing to this, the chances that the audience reaches the business become less. While inbound marketing is about creating quality content that educates the audience. The content is designed to answer the audience’s query and provide valuable information. They have the potential to entice the customers to connect to the business. Thus, the inbound approach has a better chance to bring more customers.
Besides all these differences, the inbound marketing features 2 ways of communication. It enables customers to interact with the business. In contrary to this, outbound marketing supports 1-way communication. This limits the lack of customer and business interaction.
Conclusion
Inbound marketing is a way to make the customer come to the business through referral or Search engine The outbound marketing is only associated with spreading the message. As the time changes, the gradual shifting from outbound to inbound marketing will be seen all around the world because the online marketplace is expanding and the inbound approach is not only effective in optimizing the business but also it is cost-effective.
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