How to Successfully Blend Inbound and Outbound Marketing

Leveraging your marketing strategies can help you stand out in the current over-saturated marketing environment. It would help if you aimed at improving your conversion rates and subsequently impacting your results. Today we’re going to focus on combining inbound and outbound marketing for exceptional results.

Inbound marketing uses customer-centric channels. These can be seen as company websites, social media like LinkedIn and Facebook, content marketing, and so on to generate leads. On the other hand, outbound marketing uses channels that can reach a mass number of people. This can include print and online advertisements, trade shows/conferences, networking, cold calling, and so on.

These two marketing strategies have always generated arguments on which one brings out better results than the other. When you ask marketers which one is the best to use, you will get different answers as it all depends on the basis on which they’re laying their arguments. Be it on the costs, digitalism, ROI, or any other relevant factor.

5 ways to blend inbound and outbound marketing

Based on our experience, we highly recommend that you try to combine both of these strategies instead of eliminating one. Here are five simple ways that you can use to blend your inbound and outbound marketing efforts successfully:

#1: Account-based marketing (ABM) and content marketing

Ordinarily, inbound marketing will not be able to reach out to everyone in your target audience. Some of your prospects may not have heard of your company/website or haven’t come across your marketing campaigns, such as ads. Account-based marketing offers you the opportunity to reach out to your target audience with more personalized and intimate messages.

It is best to reach out to someone you have identified as a potential customer than waiting for them to contact you. Again, your prospective customers are usually bombarded with marketing messages from various brands, hence addressing them in person will make you stand out. With account-based marketing, you can personalize your ideas with content marketing to get direct and solution-oriented content that best suits your networks. Leverage your content with information that addresses your customers’ needs or solves their problems.

Building a rapport with prospects will make them trust your brand, and in turn, you’ll get higher conversion rates. And with higher conversion rates, you’ll receive more qualified leads, increased sales and revenue.

#2: Search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search

Search engine optimization (SEO)—using keywords to market your website/business, works perfectly with paid search—use of online advertisements like ad campaigns. SEO can prove to be an uphill task. Ranking up in the search engine is never a walk in the park due to its inconsistent nature. Paid search also requires your targeted online prospects to click on the displayed ads or watch those popping videos, let’s say in between Facebook videos, for advertisers to pay.

When effectively mixed, SEO and paid search can significantly skyrocket your marketing results. Aim at using the right keywords. This can result in your website rising in the search engine ranking. From there you can focus your paid search on the prospects you had interacted with before. Retargeted ads like in social media posts are the ideal solutions over the high-demand and expensive keywords.

#3: Marketing automation and outbound telemarketing

Using outbound calling or telemarketing to support automated marketing efforts might be a common thing, but it does wonders in essence. Consider organizing automated campaigns like text messaging, and reach out to your prospects with personalized and problem-solving messages. When they get back to you for additional information or to make a purchase, you can mold your business relationship with them using an outbound call.

Your primary goal here should be turning the leads generated by automated campaigns like email marketing into loyal, trusted, and regular customers through outbound calling.

#4: Emailing and in-person events

Attending or organizing in-person events can be a goldmine for your marketing needs. Here, you get to interact with your potential customers face to face, which is more appealing and impelling.

For instance, trade shows or conferences provide a good opportunity for; networking, creating brand awareness, and inducing prospects into buying your products. But on the flip side, in-person events can sometimes be expensive and time-consuming, making them unfavorable to your ROI. To avoid this, you should use email marketing to connect with those who are going to attend the event.

Make use of the attendee’s email list by getting to them before and after the event. Provide short yet comprehensive messages, explaining to them what you offer, where they can find you during and after the event, and how you can help them. You can get the most when you entice them with some incentives such as discounts and bonuses. Remember to send thank you notes to those who stopped by, and you can also offer valuable information to those who didn’t.

#5: Lead scoring and direct mailing

If you’re not using data analytics to leverage your business performance, then it’s high time you consider it. Lead scoring provides you with the necessary information about your prospects. You get to know their interests, behaviors, and actions, which plays a key role in creating a personalized email.

With relevant data/information about your prospects, you can then reach out to them using direct and personalized emails that focus entirely on their needs. Create a unique and curated mail list that targets a specific prospect based on the information you have at your disposal about them.

Direct mailing with a taste of lead scoring can provide you with the ultimate marketing blend — always tantalize your emails with some incentives like special offers to make your deals irresistible.

Key Takeaway

To get the most out of your marketing efforts, you should always lookout for an agile inbound marketing strategy and blend it with some touch of outbound marketing. When this is done correctly and effectively, you can be sure of an impeccable marketing result.

At BrandCraft, we take pride in helping organizations build and execute exceptional marketing strategies that are result-driven and tailored toward marketing goals. Contact us today and schedule a marketing strategy session with us.