Evaluating inbound vs. outbound marketing for your business

Key quotes:

• "Yet, more than a handful articles have this to say: Inbound marketing is permission based, while outbound marketing is interruption based."
• "While both are true to a degree, I feel it’s inappropriate to label companies as “lacking in brains” for still making use and taking advantage of outbound marketing strategies."
• "Hubspot, credited for coining the term Inbound marketing defines it as something that “…focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product where they naturally want to be."
• "By aligning your content you publish with the customers’ interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.” On the other hand, outbound Marketing, according to Wordstream.com is the traditional form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience."
• "Disadvantages Outbound Marketing Advantages If you want a lot of leads quick, outbound is the way to go."
• "If you hate generating a lot of content for a long time and want results now, outbound is for you."

Key quotes:

• "Just the opposite, under the radar, Outbound has retained it’s position as a tried and true go-to-market and even evolved– adopting the best practices of the new era."
• "Furthermore, when it comes to B2B, outbound marketing strategy is a critical element of a successful business plan."
• "It means you can create a highly personalized message to attract the attention of quality leads by naming and providing a solution to problems they are likely to have."
• "Your ultimate goal will at all times be the money, which a lead can ultimately give to your company for a particular product or service."
• "Your general marketing strategy obviously outlines in great detail both your product and your customers."
• "You’ll need a message which presses the pain points of your customers and also explains the value of your product.b."

Key quotes:

• "Nearly 85% of surveyed B2B organizations agree that both inbound and outbound marketing tactics are responsible for driving business."
• "Since pulling leads down the marketing funnel takes time, inbound by itself can result in a sluggish sales pipeline."
• "Balancing your inbound and outbound marketing allows you to sustain a cost-effective and rewarding customer relationship that efficiently drives revenue."
• "Here are 4 tips for balancing your marketing budget between inbound and outbound: Let’s discuss how to optimize your marketing mix for greater results and ROI."
• "To balance your inbound and outbound marketing, you’ll need to determine the status of the prospects in your sales pipeline."
• "Making connections in person is a highly effective way to generate leads, so it’s no surprise that 77% of B2B marketers use events in their outbound marketing strategies."

Key quotes:

• "Inbound works when sales teams collaborate with marketing to generate leads through content (blog posts, whitepapers, etc.), social media and paid advertising."
• "Though every different lead generation channel offers ample opportunity to capture thousands of potential customers, inbound sales often runs into issues where lead quality and type vary greatly."
• "With outbound sales, you have the opportunity to capture bigger clients with larger budgets."
• "To justify the cost of an outbound sales team, their efforts must be focused on closing enterprise accounts."
• "Mark Cranney, a partner at Venture Capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in a blog post, “selling an enterprise-wide deal is a lot like getting a bill passed in Congress.” Cranney added, “Decision-making in large organizations is a long, tortuous process due to legacy technology deployments, internal politics, entrenched homegrown solutions, sunk cost of integrations, account control by incumbent vendors, and the sheer size and scale involved."
• "In many ways, the purpose of enterprise sales is about helping customers get through their own internal buying processes.” Overcoming buyer reservations and bureaucracy requires patience and time."

Key quotes:

• "Many companies wrongly think they have to either build an inbound prospecting strategy or an outbound one."
• "And yet, while many sales teams celebrate closing deals, very few spend time defining, experimenting, and executing on a quality prospecting strategy."
• "Inbound, sometimes referred to as high-velocity marketing, is a newer strategy that’s been popularized by companies like HubSpot."
• "It’s a tried-and-true strategy that targets a set of prospects by building outbound email and call campaigns."
• "Be sure to include: You’ll need at least three personas to develop multiple touches and messaging within a targeted company."
• "An outbound strategy may require hiring either a dedicated BDR team for demand generation or sales reps with specific prospecting skills and networks."