Inbound vs Outbound Marketing: which digital strategy should you choose?

A good marketing strategy can transform your business. With an equivalent service or product, a company with a solid marketing strategy can quickly get ahead of its competition and position itself as a reference.

But when we talk about digital marketing or lead generation, anglicisms, abbreviations, and names of tropical birds appear all too quickly.

In the plethora of marketing terms that can be found, two terms that are as essential as they are vague stand out: The inbound and outbound marketing.

Surely you have already heard about it but at the end of this article, you can whisper everyone to the next team meeting. These two marketing approaches are often opposed but the objective remains the same: Attract leads and generate revenue for your business.

Let's start by defining the terms:

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing - translated inbound marketing, aims to make the customer “enter” by itself, to generate organic traffic to the company. Like a consumer walking past a store and deciding to enter the store by himself if the window seems attractive to him.

Inbound marketing will mainly rely on a content strategy. It is about making information available to a target audience of consumers who are discovering or looking for a service/product. The objective is to generate enough interest for the customer to come by themselves and to stimulate them through an informative and explanatory web content strategy. In other words, to make value available to the consumer, to guide him in his choices, and to position himself as an expert.

Inbound marketing can thus be compared to a strategy of Pull marketing, because the company will make sure to attract the customer to it through its communication or its quality content.

🧲 Inbound proposes, the consumer has.

Outbound marketing

Outbound marketing - translated outbound marketing, is a marketing strategy that involves leaving the store to pick up the customer. It is a question of going to meet your target customer where they are by implementing commercial actions, or even by “chasing” them in some cases of more aggressive outbound marketing. It is a strategy that can thus be compared to Push marketing, because the company will “push” its product or service to the target consumer or audience. The objective will be to generate qualified leads (or prospects) interested in what the company offers as a product or service.

📢 Where inbound offers, outbound marketing imposes.

Concretely, how do both translate?

To give a more precise idea of both, here are some traditional web levers Inbound marketing in B2B:

• natural referencing/SEO (Your position in Google search)
• presence on social networks
• write a blog (hello 👋)
• The newsletters
• organize workshops (or webinars)
• offer white papers (or e-books)
• Suggest case studies
• videos, masterclasses or podcasts

The “classic” levers ofOutbound marketing B2B are for their part:

• classical advertising: Media, TV, radio...
• digital advertising (Facebook Ads, Linkedin Ads, TikTok Ads,...)
• cold-emailing/messaging
• Cold-calling
• The press release

Wait vs Act

Where inbound marketing is more passive, Outbound marketing As for him more active.

The inbound approach is most definitely Softer, and “appreciated” by the customer, because in a world where people are constantly in demand, the approach of letting the customer come by themselves is very often preferred (at the same time who would need to be more solicited?).

Acquire customers through theInbound marketing Will generally be cheapest, and will have a better conversion rate than outbound marketing, because it is the customer who will have made the choice to come to you (Example: organic traffic generated to your website thanks to an article with a good SEO), and he will then advance by himself in the conversion funnel at his own pace.

The outbound approach is sometimes considered to be more intrusive, but it can be extremely effective when done properly. Outbound is based on “interruption” marketing, as opposed to “permission” marketing.. For example: when you scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed, you don't choose to see a lead generation ad slip into it, it interrupts you in your activity, to try to capture your attention. The objective of outbound marketing is therefore mainly to capture the attention, to arouse the interest of the targeted person and to launch the exchange (via registering for a form, making an appointment, etc.).

‍Cold emailing And cold-calling also fall into this outbound approach. The prospect did not ask to be contacted. However, if the targeting is well done, the approach is properly personalized, and if the customer is indeed interested in the product or service offered, they will be happy to get in touch with you. And this may lead to a sale with a customer who was initially not aware of your company, product or service.

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Inbound recap:

✅ Cheaper

✅ Better conversion

❌ Unpredictable

❌ Time-consuming

❌ Long to become effective

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Outbound recap:

✅ Can be set up quickly

✅ Predictable results

✅ Allows you to control your growth

❌ Maybe intrusive

The winning combination: Style and style 🕺

Marketing and sales are basically an approach that is very similar to flirting. It is an exchange where we try to convince except that here, the product is you.

Imagine sitting in a bar, alone waiting patiently for the waiter to serve you. At the other end of the room you can see a magnificent woman (or man).

A real love at first sight ⚡️.

Focus on a purely inbound strategy It would be like having dressed to your 31st and betting as much as possible on the aura that you exude. We are not going to lie to each other, being well prepared can greatly help, but it is far from being enough, because the strategy more or less stops there... hoping that he or she will notice you, and take the initiative to come and talk to you.

A strategy Purely outbound, for its part, would correspond to moving to the person to start a conversation, get to know each other, offer a drink...

Do you see the drift coming? Of course. The second example is reminiscent of big bucks in the evening. And this is true for outbound also in some cases (who has never received an ultra-heavy email from someone who is pitching their business without asking anything). Does that mean the technique is to be discarded? Not at all. In the same way that far too many guys are missing the point in their flirting technique, far too many companies are misguided in their commercial approach and giving up too quickly.

Marketing, like flirting, is a subtle art where the objective is to charm without rushing.

To come back to the choice of strategy, as you will have understood, a good flirting strategy would be neither to stay in your corner without talking to anyone, nor to go and talk to all the pretty girls (or boys) without being at least prepared. It's exactly the same with the marketing mix. Although the 2 strategies are so opposed, they are complementary, and will be useful to you at different times. They will be much more effective when combined and mixed subtly.

The relationship between flirting and marketing is a gift from home.

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It's all about balance

Okay, now that we know we need both, how do we find the ideal mix?

Concretely, an outbound marketing strategy can be implemented quickly, she will thus be able to bring result in the short and medium term because you're reaching out to prospects rather than waiting for them to come to you. An inbound marketing strategy will be slower to become effective (and therefore generate quality traffic), but more profitable in the long term, because quality content will bring you organic traffic. The more well your content is referenced, the more organic traffic you will have, and therefore the more prospects will discover your business. And in the long run, more leads equals more customers.

Because it would be a shame not to end up with a small diagram that intellectualizes the thing, here is the difference in terms of the impact of the two approaches:

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To conclude

A good B2B sales strategy will rarely be a choice between inbound or outbound. It is the combination of the two types of actions that will allow you to develop the growth of your business.

A good development of your content (inbound) will allow you to be more credible during your prospecting (outbound) And your referenced content (inbound) will allow you to be more easily retrievable Once a first contact established with a prospect (outbound).

On the other hand, complete inbound leads with an outbound approach will be able to ensure that you reach your sales goals and thus ensure sustainable and predictable growth.

So, the Best marketing cocktail Will be a elegant mix of the two technical approaches.

Cheers!

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