The biggest change the internet brought to the B2B world was replacing outbound with inbound marketing. Most businesses that didn’t adapt to that change either ceased to exist or faced serious growth problems.
Outbound marketing involves pushing your service or product to the face (or monitor) of your customer. It usually takes the form of cold calls, throwaway press releases, and above-the-line commercials that target everyone, therefore no one in particular.
On the other hand, inbound marketing’s first intention is to provide value to your potential customers and tailored-made experiences. Instead of sending out general messages to uninterested audiences, inbound marketing is about serving answers and solutions to specific questions to already interested prospects.
Times have changed, and with them, customers as users have changed, too.
When it comes to the customer’s journey, the number of total customer touchpoints before the final purchase has increased. Now, it takes 5 to 13 touches to generate a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). Can you imagine the cost of outbound marketing in order to make so many touches with your customers before a sale?
Compare that to what Inbound marketing can do for you: quality traffic and leads, building trust and credibility and creating a process to push users down the funnel.
Now, add the word “automation” to inbound marketing on top of that and you will get email marketing automation, chatbots for 24/7 customer support, and more, that will help your company scale.
So stop sales pitching with outbound marketing and start selling your services and products with inbound marketing!
