Why you Should Blend Outbound & Inbound Marketing NOW

For sure you’re familiar with the term “Inbound Marketing” or you are probably confusing it with the concept of “Outbound Marketing” (if not, make sure you read this post if you want to know more about it)…

Busted! But don’t worry about it because today I’m going to clear up the differences between these two concepts so often used today in the marketing world 🙄

But not only that, I’m also going to help you increase your sales through Inbound Marketing campaigns, ready? 😎

What is Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a strategy based on attracting your target customers by accompanying them throughout the sales process: from the moment they first come into contact with your brand until they become loyal customers.

That way, the inbound marketing methodology is based on a series of non-intrusive techniques that help brands to:

• Attract visitors to their websites.
• Encourage them to become customers by generating leads that are potentially interested and with whom it’s possible to develop a long term relationship.
• Automate the marketing process so that conversions take less time.
  

  ⭐Tip: bear in mind that inbound marketing isn’t an invasive technique at all. Think about it as an invitation to the customer to come to you rather than you intruding into their daily lives with aggressive advertising.

So, the key question here is: how would you define inbound marketing?

Exactly, it’s nothing more than creating content (or even experiences) specifically suited to your audience or the one you’d like to attract. Trust me, this will help you connect with them in a more natural way.

What you should know about the Sales Funnel

As I previously noted, Inbound Marketing is based on accompanying users throughout the process since they first get to know you until they become loyal customers.

Therefore, it’s important to know in detail how this process works and which strategies are the most appropriate for each stage.

The Sales Funnel is an essential tool to understand this process! It’s a graphical representation of the different stages of the consumer journey. Let’s explain the three main stages 😉:

TOFU (Top Of the FUnnel or first contact)

In this phase, users have just realized they have a particular necessity that they are trying to satisfy. Therefore, in this step we must have relevant content that meets the different needs of the users, such as ebooks, infographics or tutorials.

⭐Tip: it would also be a good idea to use display advertising, video campaigns on social networks and native advertising.

MOFU (middle of the funnel: the user is considering different options)

After the initial research, the customer considers different options that could satisfy their need. Here is where offer content with a higher degree of specialization, such as expert interviews, detailed guides, testimonials or videos that feature your product becomes necessary.

⭐Tip: Among the most appropriate advertising strategies are email marketing, social ads and retargeting.

BOFU (bottom of the funnel or ready to purchase)

Here, the user is open and ready to talk to you! To encourage them, it definitely would be a good idea to offer them free trials, launch offers and specialized services.

⭐Tip: SEM and social ads can be useful here 😉.

Why you should use an Inbound Strategy

In case it’s not clear, I’m going to tell you again why it’s important to use Inbound Marketing strategies. And don’t worry, I’ll show you the best Inbound Marketing strategies later on!😎

There are three important reasons why inbound marketing works better than other methods. Here are some of the different advantages and strategies to help you get started. Ready?

1. Let’s be honest, on average, Inbound Marketing is a cheaper strategy

Did you know that you only need a website and content to get started with inbound marketing? Yes, as simple as that!🤯

For small businesses, the start-up costs required to build a following on their blogs and social media accounts can seem overwhelming. However, you can start slowly and scale as your business grows. Just remember Rome wasn’t build in a day.

⭐Tip: You can also modify your campaigns based on the results of previous campaigns to get the most out of your money.

On the contrary, traditional tactics, such as TV ads, print, billboards and posters, are much more expensive. While they may increase awareness, they are not as effective at attracting and retaining customers! A great example of a good strategy is sending cold emails to potential customers.

2. Tech-savvy customers prefer Inbound Marketing

Since the pandemic, inbound marketing tactics such as paid search and social media have increased by as much as 26%. In contrast, TV, print and direct mail have declined around a 46% – clearly inbound marketing is the future!

As a result of this situation we’re now more likely to use online information to discover brands and guide our purchasing decisions. This has resulted in a necessary increase in digital advertising and content creation of interest for brands.

3. Inbound Marketing has a long term value.

Inbound marketing content, such as tutorials, infographics, case studies or ebooks, has a longer shelf life than outbound content, which is MUCH faster and more direct content.

⭐Tip: You can increase your usefulness by updating and republishing your content to keep it relevant and on point.

4. Attraction marketing is about Authenticity

You will agree with me when I say customers always take trust into account when evaluating their purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, they are also used to ads with big promises but all talk.

That’s why inbound marketing strategies that involve publishing engaging, actionable content seems more trustworthy in the long run 😎.

Inbound vs Outbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing 2.0

Sorry for assuming you understood the concept of Outbound Marketing 🙄…. In order to make it up to yo how about I’ll explain you the main differences in this section 💙

Inbound and outbound marketing intention is the same since both want to reach consumers and encourage them to make a purchase.

• Inbound Marketing opens up opportunities for consumers to connect with the brand, so that in this case the customer reaches out to the company 🧐.
• Traditional outbound marketing is what we all commonly know. It disrupts the consumer by placing the message in front. Traditional outbound marketing channels include cold calling, door-to-door sales, television, radio, print and billboards. 😮‍💨.
• And last but not least we have Outbound Marketing 2.0 🤩 based on the specialization of the sales team and separates this team into 3 distinct roles, each one responsible for a part of the same sales process
  • Hunters: They are in charge of customer prospecting, they are the ones who make the first direct contact with the leads and qualify them. Prospecting and lead qualification.
  • Closers: Their mission is to close qualified leads and convert them into a sale. Closing sales
  • Business Intelligence: a very technical profile in charge of providing the Hunter with the contact of the prospects.

The main change that Outbound Marketing 2.0 has been adopting to the detriment of traditional Outbound Marketing in recent years is that today, the main objective is to create a person-to-person relationship with the other side and from that point to get a successful partner, customer or business.

Now, you know the differences between inbound and outbound marketing.

An ideal strategy is a mixed one that uses Inbound techniques in conjunction with Outbound Marketing. If you’ve already read my other article about Outbound Marketing, you’ll know I loooove to say that they are both antagonistic and synergistic strategies.

There are three main areas in which they differ and complement each other inbound and outbound marketing

1. Sweepstakes and Search

Inbound marketing is about high-quality content that tackles questions or topics that consumers are already searching for, attracting them.

Outbound marketing develops direct content that will capture consumers’ attention so it’s like actively seeking out customers.

2. Long vs short term

With Outbound Marketing it’s possible to achieve much more short-term results than with Inbound Marketing strategies. But, a joint marketing strategy between Outbound and Inbound can make a difference in terms of the timing of results.

In the end, when you have the resources, it’s always a good idea to diversify.

3.Active vs. passive customer acquisition

With active Outbound Marketing efforts you can also actively and automatically acquire customers while nurturing your Inbound Marketing strategy to build a passive flow of customers with your content strategy.

You know what they say… Divide and rule!

4 ways to combine Inbound & Outbound Marketing

Now that you understand how inbound marketing works (at least, I hope so!), it’s time to get focused and put your ideas into action!

Read on, because I’m going to tell you about the different inbound marketing strategies and some of the best practices to boost engagement 😎.

1. Research and get to know your Buyer Persona

The very first crucial step to the success of any inbound marketing strategy is to create a buyer persona.

To get started, a buyer persona identifies customer behavior, needs, lifestyle and demographics. In the process, you’ll be able to create persuasive content that speaks to your audience.

⭐Tip: If you have relevant data about your current (or potential) customers, examine web metrics such as mobile traffic, bounce rates, page traffic and conversion rates.

After that, look beyond the numbers and analyze individual user profiles, call results, and overall revenue (you’ll thank me later 😉).

2. Customer Segmentation

Continue by segmenting customers based on trends, patterns or behavioral data.

⭐Tip: Divide customers based on their demographic information, such as age, gender and location.

3. Writing a Cold Email that actually works

Growing your email list is crucial to a successful inbound marketing campaign.

⭐Tip: Make sure they are relevant to subscribers first. When it comes to emails, quality trumps quantity!

A great tip is to use software to detect your leads easily so you have a quality list to start sending cold emails to.

But don’t worry, I got this: we make it easy with Scrab.in! 😉

Although you can use Scrab.in in many ways, for B2B prospecting you should follow these directions:

Sign up for scrab.in and sign in from the Google Chrome extension. You’ll get a configuration that is very easy to handle. Here are the steps 😉:

1. Login into your Linkedin.
2. Select the profile you’re interested in prospecting: For example: marketing director in Spain.You must fill in the field in the search box with the profile “marketing director”. Click on “people” and then in “locations” select Spain (or the place of interest you have).⭐Tip: Be as specific as possible, always thinking about your buyer persona.

Now just:

• Select the “second level contacts” option:
• Click on the extension and press the play button inside the “visit profile” tab.
• Let it run for a week or two (just be aware you should have your computer on and not close the Google Chrome window during your working day)
• Then, just relax and continue with your usual work. The bot is responsible for doing the job automatically.
  But best of all, in addition to visiting the profiles, the tool also collects data from them, such as name, surname, company, location, domain, email, etc. Enjoy! 🥳

Don’t forget the most important thing: Download the CSV file at the end of the tracking! Here you will have all your leads 😏.

Creating a cold email strategy provides you with a detailed map of customers’ behavior, which will help you with the lead nurturing process and save you valuable time.

Our Email Sender tool creates email marketing automations specific to your campaigns in minutes, and most importantly, improves your cold email conversion by 67% with our drip campaigns! 😏.

⭐ Tip:By segmenting your emails based on the target buyers, you can organize your email lists individually and send offers targeted to each group’s respective preferences in a personalized way. 

4. Create social media campaigns to engage with your audience

There are 3.5 billion social media users worldwide.

In the near future, more people will surely use social networks to discover brands and follow companies that align with their values and interests. These circumstances make it an ideal channel for attracting new customers and maintaining relevance among current ones 😉.

⭐ Tip:Create content that can attract your target audience and aim to be a reference brand for them.

Once you know about Inbound Marketing and how to develop an Inbound & Outbound strategy, you can learn here which are the most demand marketing skills in 2022.

And if you still haven’t read our article about Outbound Marketing, you are still in time!