Let’s begin by defining the difference between inbound and outbound marketing. While outbound marketing pushes your message to a wide undefined audience, inbound marketing allows you to attract your best prospects who are actively searching online for the type of solutions your business offers.
Inbound marketing is a process that creates momentum and drives growth in a measurable and scalable way. Businesses that implement an inbound marketing strategy have been shown to be four times more effective at driving revenue and hitting their sales target.
Examples of Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing includes traditional forms of marketing, e.g., TV and radio commercials, print advertisements (newspaper, magazine, flyers, brochures, catalogs, etc.), tradeshows, outbound sales calls (cold calls), and email spam.
The Inbound Marketing Process
The process begins by defining your Ideal Customer Avatar or Customer Persona, i.e., the perfect customer who is the most likely to purchase your product or service. It’s a more targeted approach that allows you to focus your marketing dollars on attracting those people who are more likely to want to do business with you.
Next, you define each stage of the customer's journey to finding that perfect product or service. Once this is defined you can determine how best to attract the right visitors to your website, convert them into qualified leads, close more sales, delight those customers, and ultimately establish evangelists who will refer new customers to you.
There are many parts and pieces to setting up a successful inbound marketing strategy, but since the payoff is much higher than traditional outbound marketing it’s well worth the effort. For example, it can include formulating an initial strategy, research and analysis, creating and updating content, content promotion, reporting and optimization, email marketing, social media, ad campaigns, and more. This may sound like a lot of moving pieces, but an outside marketing partner can ensure the important parts are functioning properly.
The Advantages of a Marketing Partner
Aligning with a partner who has experience across diverse industries and who has tried different approaches to attracting traffic, converting leads, and nurturing new opportunities may be a smart play.
Sometimes being in the day-to-day of all the other things you must do can get overwhelming. This can make the planning and execution of an inbound marketing strategy fall to the bottom of an ever-growing to-do list and the best of intentions eventually end up resulting in poor performance.
If you’re interested in engaging in a quick conversation and discussing the unique needs of your business, just send an email to: john@applexmarketing.com
John founded Applex Marketing, LLC after a career spanning 30 years of brand building, strategic marketing, and sales management experience. He uses his highly refined organizational and communication skills to maintain a relentless focus on helping businesses compete.
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