If you're into digital marketing at all, you've probably heard that outbound marketing strategies are over. And in a lot of ways, they are. Today's consumers don't answer cold calls, they hate being sold to with scammy commercials, and they've set their email inboxes to automatically filter out promotional emails. Outbound marketing, in the old, Don Draper version of itself, no longer exists. And if it does exist, it very rarely works.
But that doesn't mean that all outbound marketing is done or totally ineffective. It just means that we marketers have to change the way we approach outbound marketing.
If you've read our blog before, you know we're inbound marketing junkies. It's a way of life, and we love it. Inbound marketing is absolutely the marketing tactic that speaks to today's consumers, and we often use outbound marketing tactics to bolster our inbound marketing strategy.
When used with tact and purpose, 21st-century outbound marketing tactics are an excellent way to draw more leads into your inbound marketing flywheel.
Not quite sure about that? Let's take a look at three specific outbound marketing strategies that will actually work to draw in new, qualified leads:
PPC and Paid Search
Pay-per-click and paid search advertising are amazing ways to draw in new traffic. We especially love them for our clients who are just setting up a new website. Since it takes time for Google to crawl and index new websites, paid search is a great workaround to draw in new, qualified leads immediately, until the organic rankings can catch up.
PPC is considered an outbound marketing tactic because you're paying for it. Instead of letting consumers come to you, you're pushing your message out to them.
However, unlike outbound marketing tactics of the past, paid search can be highly targeted to address only the consumers who are actually good fits for your product or service. We've written extensively about PPC, so I won't dive into it too far in this blog.
If you want to learn more about PPC specifically, check out this page, or this blog about optimizing your PPC budget for targeted results.
For the purposes of this blog, all you really need to know is that by bidding on quality, long-tail keywords that are relevant to your product or service, you can put your company front and center on the search engine results pages your target buyers are looking for.
Paid search is a great way to get in front of the audience you want, pulling more of those qualified buyers into your inbound marketing flywheel.
While it is an outbound marketing strategy, it's not abrasive or in the consumer's face. Instead, it offers a product or service that's relevant to their search, and then it will bring them to your website, where you can use other inbound marketing tactics to further nurture your lead. It's the perfect example of inbound and outbound marketing strategies working together to grow your company's revenue.
Social Media Advertising
Don't tell me you've never clicked on a Facebook or Instagram ad.
Girl, same.
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are so good at delivering tailored, personalized content to their users, and social media advertising is one way to take advantage of those platforms.
When you have a clear picture of who your audience is, you can develop social media ads that speak exactly to your target buyer. Social media platforms have robust demographic and targeting features that allow you to ensure your selected audience is very specific and highly likely to have an interest in your product or service.
Remarketing ads are a great example of social media advertising as an outbound marketing strategy that actually delivers. They follow someone who has actually been on your site and who has interacted with your content and maybe even thought about downloading a content offer or making a purchase.
When that prospect navigates away before making a purchase or download, they become a candidate for your remarketing ad. Now, when that prospect heads to their social media page, they'll see an ad for your product or your brand on their social media feed. This remarketing ad is the perfect way to keep your company top-of-mind and keep calling those prospects back to complete their action.
Remarketing and other forms of social media advertising are especially effective outbound marketing strategies because they're not delivering your message to just any consumer. They're directed at specific individuals who are likely to, or who already do have an interest in your product or service.
Targeted Email Workflows
Many people don't consider email to be "outbound marketing". But, if you've ever gotten an email from a bot or about 15 follow-up emails from an insurance company you didn't reach out to first, you know that's just not true.
There's a right way and a wrong way to do outbound email marketing. And the first rule is to only email people who want to be emailed.
(Check out the Golden Rule of Email Workflows here.)
Targeted email workflows work best if you have obtained contact's email addresses in a white-hat way. That means, they gave you their email address, whether through a subscribe button or by downloading a content offer.
Buying email address is not quality outbound marketing. It's obnoxious, and it's unlikely to deliver any kind of quality ROI.
From there, you can use targeted email workflows to nurture specific segments of your email list according to their pain points, challenges, and needs. You're reaching out to a client, so it is an outbound marketing strategy, but you're doing so with the prospect's best interest at heart, which is why it will be effective.
Again, we won't go too in-depth here, because we have a lot of other resources about email marketing. See: Amp up Your Email Marketing Strategy: Use Segmentation.
The key takeaway here is that when you use email workflows to genuinely nurture leads with content they care about, and that solves a problem of theirs, you're using outbound marketing to keep drawing new prospects back into your flywheel.
Bottom line? Outbound marketing, or the process of marketing by reaching out to consumers, leads, and prospects, is still a viable way to market. When you use outbound marketing strategies with 21st-century consumers in mind, you can actually produce some significant results.
Want to learn more about how outbound marketing can deliver you quality leads, right now? Let's chat.
Outbound marketing is tricky in a world of consumers who don't want to be sold to. We can help. Digital marketing, both inbound and outbound, is our bread and butter, and we'd love to see how our tactics can work to grow your company!
