The purpose of Inbound Marketing is to acquire new leads, nurture those leads into customers and then turn those customers into promoters of your business. If you aren't quite ready to abandon those traditional efforts just yet, there are a few ways you can sprinkle in Inbound Marketing techniques and get more from those traditional tactics.
Check out these additional resources that'll teach you more about Inbound and it's benefits:
- Why Inbound Marketing Will Change The Way You Do Business
- Does This Really Work? Inbound Marketing Effectiveness
Although becoming increasingly outdated, to some, outbound marketing can still be effective for short term quick wins. But outbound marketing has often been focused on just one step: The final conversion. As anyone who has ever done an outbound campaign knows, it’s not unusual to have leads neither engaged nor qualified fill out that form for “Free Trial” or “Request a Consultation.” What’s even more common is hearing from sales that none of the leads are qualified. Here are a few tips to sprinkle in some Inbound flavor and get the most from usually bland traditional marketing tactics.
1. Measure Engagement
One of, if not the biggest, advantage of inbound marketing is the ability to measure the engagement level of leads. Because inbound channels are often digital, tracking a raw lead to a customer—and knowing the steps that it took to get them there—has made it possible to determine exactly how well efforts are performing.
2. Minimize Interruption
One of the biggest differences between inbound marketing and outbound marketing is interruption. In order to minimize unnecessary interruption, which can be a costly endeavor, it’s important to do two things:
- Make outbound channels opt-in channels whenever possible
- Focus on hyper-targeting via outbound channels
For example, don’t just send an unsolicited direct mailing to a list of contacts who haven’t heard from you before. You can spend your money more wisely by sending that piece to a smaller list of leads who have previously engaged with your brand, online or offline. You're more likely to get a response and strengthen a relationship with potential clients.
3. Integrate Experiences
Inbound and outbound, as with digital and traditional marketing, have often been siloed into their own little worlds. But the best use of marketing channels and tools today requires marketers to think about how each channel works with all the others.
So if you’re at a tradeshow, rather than capturing leads on a digital scanner or putting out a fish bowl for business cards, log hot leads into your marketing system immediately on a tablet or smartphone and start sending lead nurturing emails right away. If you’re running a print advertisement or sending direct mail, include a landing page URL for a piece of educational content rather than a just the bottom of the funnel offer.
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The further apart inbound and outbound are, the less likely it is either will have maximum impact. Once you have the two functioning as one, with emphasis on making outbound more inbound, you’ll have the ability to determine which channels really are the best channels for your marketing.
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