What is outbound marketing (Outbound Marketing)?

External marketing is about “reaching out” potential customers.

this is what people think when they hear the word “marketing”-phone calls, billboards, TV commercials, radio ads, flyers, etc. Sounds a little out of date, doesn’t it?

, but these are all ways to let potential customers know about your product. And they work!

, however, external marketing is falling out of favor, especially in the field of online marketing.

, but does this negative attitude towards it make sense?

1. inbound Marketing or outbound Marketing
2. outbound Marketing or inbound Marketing: which is more popular?
3. external Marketing: why is it so badly represented?
4. 5 ways to use external Marketing to develop your Business

inbound marketing and outbound marketing

until recently in human history, external marketing is almost the only way to promote your products.

, think about traditional markets. Merchants can’t sit there and wait for customers to come. They have to peddle their goods for sale. In addition, they need to be louder and more aggressive than their competitors to attract attention. The invention of mass media such as

newspapers, radio and television simply means that businesses do not compete for customers in the market, but let companies compete for customers in the media through advertising.

, but then the Internet changed everything. All of a sudden, consumers can easily understand any topic, compare offers and study their purchases. They no longer have to blindly rely on the information provided by the company.

, this is the way of inbound marketing. When all these prospects are already looking for any product you sell, it makes sense to position your business as a way for them to easily find your product. Now you can let your clients come to you instead of you going to them.

lets us take a closer look at the difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing:

inbound marketing

inbound marketing is to attract potential customers who know they have a problem and are actively looking for a solution.

includes search engine optimization, building blogs, creating email subscription lists, speaking at meetings, and building your own thought leader content in your field. The main advantage of

inbound marketing is its low cost. The average cost of inbound cues is 61% lower than that of outbound cues. That’s not surprising. It is easier to convince people who are already interested in your proposal.

however, it is important to understand that although inbound marketing is cheaper, it is not free. You have to make your own content, which takes time, or you have to hire someone to make it for you, which costs money.

inbound marketing requires a lot of upfront work and may take a while to start seeing significant results (if you start from scratch consider at least 1-2 years of continuous effort).

also, as marketing consultant Mark Schaefer suggested in an article a few years ago, due to the explosive growth of free content, content marketing may not be a sustainable strategy in the long run.

believes that because there is so much amazing content there, it is becoming more and more difficult to attract (and maintain) people’s attention, which means that producing content will have a negative return on investment.

, of course, we haven’t got there yet, but this is still something to consider.

external Marketing

external Marketing is about reaching out to potential customers who may be aware of their problems but are not actively looking for a solution.

‘s methods of handing out flyers, buying newspapers, magazines and television ads, and advertising on billboards are often criticized as expensive, casting too wide a net and lacking a way to determine the return on investment.

in addition, cold phone calls and cold emails have also received poor reviews because they are seen as “sales” and intrusive. Who wants to deal with this problem?

, however, despite all these shortcomings, external marketing can be very effective if done well, and it allows you to see the results of your efforts immediately without having to wait for weeks, months, or even years.

, where do you put your offer? People either buy or don’t buy.

one way or another, you can get an immediate response from the market, and then you can adjust accordingly (this is especially valuable if you have not yet verified the product).

however, outbound marketing is more expensive than inbound marketing, because you don’t get traffic organically, you buy it.

it is also more destructive. No one appreciates unsolicited sales. Cold phone calls, cold emails and advertisements are really annoying, especially when you are not interested in the product ​​.

this is why it is so important to make sure that your quote is relevant to the person you want to contact.

external marketing (glossary):

external marketing occurs when companies try to reach consumers through general media advertising (such as TV commercials, billboards, newspapers) or through direct and face-to-face contact (such as meetings, cold phone calls and cold e-mails).

‘s most effective external marketing strategy is:

1. cold email or cold phone
2. search advertising
3. trade exhibition

outbound marketing or inbound marketing: which is more popular?

according to the Hubspot 2018 external Marketing status report, companies around the world prefer inbound marketing.

It makes sense to adopt inbound marketing

around the world. If

does well, inbound marketing will be very strong. Companies like Buffer have achieved great success in this area. No wonder other people want their pie, too?

, I am a big fan of inbound marketing. However, conversations about inbound and outbound marketing often seem biased against the latter. It seems that many people in

regard inbound marketing as omnipotent and outbound marketing as a relic belonging to the dustbin of history. But why?

external Marketing: why is it so badly represented? The problem with

is that the discussion of inbound marketing and outbound marketing seems to have become a bit ideological.

chart almost summarizes the general attitude towards this issue:

outbound marketing and inbound marketing

inbound marketing is presented as a new fashion, emphasizing “winning people’s interest”.

, on the other hand, external marketing is considered to be outdated, emphasizing “pushing products or services to customers”.

seems to imply that it is wrong to offer unsolicited quotations to potential customers. It’s not just about effectiveness, it’s about morality.

, so let’s get this straight. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using external marketing to promote the product, as long as the product can do what you promised.

in addition, let’s not forget the most important point here: marketing strategies should be judged by the results they produce, and external marketing methods can work well.

so don’t discount them just because they are unfashionable. You should do what best suits your business.

5 ways to develop your business using external marketing

OK, now that you know the advantages and disadvantages of external marketing, you may want to know how to use it to develop your business.

cold emails

cold emails are unsolicited emails sent to people with whom you have not interacted before.

in the early days of SaaS startups, contacting potential customers via email may be an effective customer acquisition strategy.

, for example, LeadFuze founder Justin McGill (Justin McGill) uses cold email to increase his MRR (monthly recurring income) to $30, 000 in 12 months.

here’s the process:

1. finds and contacts your target customer.
2. makes personalized outreach plans (not typical marketing messages).
3. follows

, who uses his own product to find the email addresses of potential customers, which makes things easier, but can be done without it, just research. How did

Justin make the original email? He applied the QVC formula: the

• problem. “try to ask a question related to their business.”

• value proposition. “instead of talking about how great your service is and everything you offer, try to convey the core message and emphasize what makes you different.”

• closing call language (CTA). “ask them directly if they can speak in the next few days, or give them some concluding questions and look for answers to elicit some kind of response.

the following is an example of an email that follows the QVC formula:

“QVC” email formula

he also provides the option to opt out of any follow-up action by adding the following behavior to the bottom:

“PS, if you are not the right person to talk about it, please let me know. And if you don’t want me to chase you, you can tell me! ”
It is important for

to keep emails short. “generally speaking, I recommend three to four sentences (up to five),” Justin said.

provided value after that initial email, and he followed up. He suggests sending a case study of one of your clients and the results they have obtained.

Justin says they see this email sequence as a great success:

1. QVC email
2. case study
3. value added (links to recent blog posts, related news articles, another case study, etc.)
4. breakup emails (let them know you won’t follow)

he points out that you can use tools such as Replyify, Outreach and Quickmail to automate most of them. Or, if you are a big fan of Gmail, you can try Streak, which can help you automate and track all conversations (by the way, this is my preferred outreach tool).

, what if you get a positive response? Continue McGill:

, however, the key here is not to rush into success and try to turn them into sales in your follow-up email. Ideally, once they express interest in increasing your chances of closing a deal, you want to talk to them on the phone. When they are interested in talking to you, strengthen the value proposition and explicitly ask them to take action to make an appointment. ” Justin explained. He suggests using Calendly for scheduling.

cold email is probably the most direct way to get initial customers because you directly contact people in your target audience and show them your product.

just don’t be discouraged by the lack of response. Only 1% to 10% of the people you come into contact with will be interested, Justin says. This is a numbers game, so you need to send a lot of cold emails to get the results.

cold 2 cold phone

unfamiliar phone is an unsolicited call to someone with whom you have not previously interacted.

people tend to avoid phone calls because they are afraid of being rejected. It hurts when you make an offer to someone and they say “no”. In addition, as any salesperson will tell you, a polite “no” is far from the worst answer you can get, and no one wants to be reprimanded by a stranger on the other end of the phone. Therefore, it is tempting not to call at all.

But this could be a mistake. If handled properly, unfamiliar phone calls can be an effective way to generate sales. But how on earth can you do it right?

Chris Orlob and Gong.io analyzed more than 90000 unfamiliar phone calls using artificial intelligence. What did they find?

• uses these five techniques to create an excellent opening line: name the potential customer (“Hi, John!” ), say your full name (“my name is Chris Orlob”) and your company name (“I work for Gong”). Io “), using” how are you these days? ” The mode interrupt method of the Question and explain why you called (“John, the reason I’m calling is.” ).

• minimizes the discovery of problems. Don’t try to gather information about prospects on sales calls. Remember, the purpose of this call is to arrange a meeting, that’s all.

• tries to keep your sales pitch at around 37 seconds. Obviously, in an ordinary cold phone, the length of the promotion is only 25 seconds, but in a successful phone call, it is 37 seconds.

Chris also provides some advice on how to ensure that prospects actually show up at the agreed time if you try to hold a meeting.

suggested that the meeting be scheduled for the afternoon and kept within an hour.

Chris points out that the best salespeople are more like chess masters than impromptu comedians. They think about things in advance in order to be ready for each phone call. They follow specific structures that they know are useful to them. They are hard to surprise because they foresee the problems that may arise.

if you want to learn more about their findings, watch Chris’s talk on telemarketing:

hand3 flyers

everyone who unfortunately distributes some kind of flyer on the street knows that, in general, people are not interested in them.

, we are all on the other side of this interaction. You were busy minding your own business when suddenly a stranger thrust a piece of paper into your hand.

now, you are a polite person and don’t want to offend them, so wait until you get to the corner and throw the flyer into the dustbin.

, this may make you suspicious of flyers. Indeed, distributing them to random people on the street is not the best use of resources.

, however, they may work in places frequented by your target audience, for example, if you are a technology start-up, you can try to hand out flyers at technology conferences.

Please remember that flyers must provide value. For example, you can offer access to exclusive content, a free month, a 25% discount, and so on. Give them a reason not to throw it in the trash.

print Advertising

you may have heard that print media is slowly but certainly dying out. It’s true. People simply don’t buy as many newspapers and magazines as they used to.

in fact, according to the Guardian, sales of the top 100 magazines have fallen by more than half since 2000.

newspapers in the UK and Ireland sell

however, according to the same article, “niche publications maintain a readership because general headlines succumb to the impact of digital media”. What does this mean to you?

this means that if you buy space in a niche publication that your target audience likes, print advertising is still an effective way to attract potential customers.

so, for example, if you sell fishing equipment, please do not advertise in general magazines. Even men’s magazines can be too general. Find publications aimed specifically at fishing enthusiasts. In this way, you will get the maximum benefit.

, of course, you can’t just put a boring ad together and expect good results. If you want to catch the reader’s attention, you need to be creative.

you can even take your print ads to a new level by making them interactive.

for example, we see countless car ads in magazines, but now most of us simply look through them, and don’t even register the brand of the car, let alone other details.

but look at this Peugeot ad:

Yes, they put an airbag in the print ad, really. Now that’s the ad you’ll remember, right?

now, you don’t have to be as crazy as Peugeot, but you need to make sure that your ads stand out from the countless ads that readers have seen before. Do you need inspiration?

takes a look at Hubspot’s “15 clever examples of interactive print ads that can complement a digital ad series.” It’s also a good idea that

has a way to track the return on investment in advertising. You see, when someone clicks on a Facebook ad, the analysis will tell you where they come from. But you can’t get this through print ads, which makes it hard to know how effective they are. So, what can you do?

is simple. A special offer is offered so that you can track the sales of the ad. For example, you can have physical coupons that readers need to cut out, or coupon codes that they need to enter at checkout, or even offer discounts to those who display photos of the ad at the counter. See what works best for your target audience. Don’t fly blindly! Advertisements on

billboards the advertisements on

billboards seem to be out of date. Who else did that? A lot of companies, actually.

, however, it takes more creativity to do this effectively than print advertising, because people are either walking, daydreaming or speeding in the car, which means you need to grab their attention and stay long enough to convey your message.

Canva published a great article entitled “50 wonderful billboard ads that will stop you (and what you can learn from them),” in which they show some wonderful billboard ads.

, for example, has to admit that the “Bite” ad produced by Ogilvy & Mather Jakarta for Formula Toothcare is hard to miss. It’s cool to advertise such an ordinary product, isn’t it?

Ogilvy Jakarta’s “Bite”

or see how Fame Adlabs promotes the disaster movie “the Day after tomorrow” on underwater billboards. It has that apocalyptic atmosphere, doesn’t it?

Fame Adlabs’s “Day After Tomorrow” campaign

this is a billboard made by Ubi Bene for Ikea. You look at it… And then you go, “wait, what?” What does Ubi Bene

of

Ikea have in common with all these ads?

they act as mode interrupts and get your attention immediately. You have to be absent-minded to walk or drive around these billboards without noticing them. Once you see these ads, you won’t forget them immediately. Maybe you’ll even tell your friends that they.

, this is the goal of billboard advertising. Let people notice, let people remember, let people talk.

Summary

do not be fooled by the whole thing that “external marketing is out of date”. That’s just bullshit. Marketing should be measured by the results it gets, not by your bias. There is no doubt that if done well and aimed at the right type of customers, external marketing methods can be very effective and bring great results.

, of course, all strategies that belong to external marketing methods do not apply to all types of business. Most importantly, to be fair, not all companies want to spend a lot of money on external or any marketing activities.

inbound marketing has proved to be a more cost-effective way to market and develop the business, but it takes time to see tangible results. On the other hand, external marketing requires a larger budget, but it allows you to start getting feedback almost immediately and attract customers’ attention in a shorter time.

, this may be enough to close the deal.