Inbound and Outbound: The Marketing Power Couple

Obviously, lots of how we go-to-market is shifting. The last couple of years has been pretty much like a reinvention challenge for marketers. Every time you turn around, you're seeing new mandates about how to market, what to say, how to engage, what to measure...and the list goes on.

The biggest shift is in the availability of the technology to actually do some of this stuff without going insane. And, that's a good thing. But, it also necessitates that we stop doing what we've always done if we expect our results to change.

Then again, change is relative. If we go to extremes, we may lose some of our best processes and techniques. I'm going out on a limb here to say that "new" offers advantages. I'm also taking the side of "old"—with a refresh.

If we get really basic, we could say:

Inbound is all about getting prospects to pursue you.

Outbound is all about you pursuing prospects.

The problem for me with this delineation is that it's verbiage. I mean think about it.

• you send an email - your prospect clicks the link
• terrific - you've pulled them to your website
• if your content and offer are compelling, they'll opt in for more

This is a combination of outbound plus inbound - right?

• awareness must exist for inbound to work
• posting an article somewhere your target market will see it is an outbound effort
• when someone clicks on the link in your bio to visit your website they're inbound

Once again a combo.

If you pick up the phone and call a prospect with a valid business reason and they engage in discussion with you - that's outbound.

If, after the call, they choose to visit your website and download a white paper you mentioned during the call, that's an inbound response.

You see, quite frankly, I don't know how you separate one from the other.

The only distinction I see is the context and focus. If you're sharing compelling content and conversations your prospects find valuable, you're going to cultivate their interest.

If you're not, no matter how much effort you put behind either inbound or outbound, the results will be dismal. Marketing just doesn't work in a vacuum.

There's a lot of hype around relationship marketing, conversational marketing and customer engagement. By their very nature, each of them is indicative of two-way exchanges. Therefore, the combo pack of inbound and outbound.

Am I missing something?

Comments

[Chris Snell]

Ardath,

This is great! I think what the bottom line is that regardless of our effort, whatever we're doing, be it inbound or outbound, we'd better make it good. If it's content on our websites or a teleprospecting call, let's make it top notch. Well done.

Chris

[Michael Damphousse, Green Leads]

Ardath,

Well put. I've been using the term "unified demand gen" and believe it is what all good marketers do already, despite the inbound/outbound debate.

A great deal of inbound leads come in, and not all are there waving a purchase order. They still need to be worked. Lead nurturing. Outbound efforts. Eventually they can be brought to the table. If it was outbound appointment setting on an inbound lead that first gave their name from a landing page 3 months later, where is the credit? Inbound or Outbound?

That's unified demand gen.

[home business leads]

I believe most marketers today spend 90% of their efforts on outbound marketing and 10% on inbound marketing and I advocate that those ratios flip.

[Greg Donahue]

Ardath,

Great post. You made the blog entry I had in draft form redundant so I just linked to you!

http://wp.me/pwQCG-1K

[Ardath Albee]

Chris - you're spot on! Whatever we do, we should do it well. Great reminder.

Mike - I like the moniker "Unified Demand Gen" - nice umbrella.

Greg - thanks for linking back to me from your post!

Thanks to all three of you for Tweeting as well.

Ardath

[Melissa Paulik]

Ardath,

Great post. Inbound strengthens outbound and vice versa. I hate to see a marketer drop all traditional marketing because they are now "focusing on inbound marketing." On the other hand, there are those that get frustrated with the relatively slow build-up of success with inbound and they snap back to their old ways of doing things.

Neither singular focus makes much sense. I put it in the same category as the argument rearding the relative importance of SEO and content.

All the best!

Melissa