Hersh Marketing

Inbound or outbound marketing - what's the best marketing strategy?

I teach a marketing and advertising workshop for the City of St. Petersburg.  My "students" are local small business owners, many of whom have virtual businesses. One of the questions that comes up  frequently: 'Is inbound marketing the only kind of marketing you need?'

The answer, in my humble opinion, is "no".  Although you cannot rely solely on traditional means anymore - radio, print, tv - customers are still using local media to keep connected to their community.  They are also using social media and, of course, searching for local businesses online. 

Inbound marketing - where visitors find and come to you via social media, blogs, video, SEO, whitepapers, etc. - is a fantastic way to generate knowledge about your business, establish relationships with customers or other businesses, and produce "warm" leads that can be nurtured to result in sales.

Outbound marketing - press releases, email campaigns, radio/tv/print ads, etc. - work well when you use them in conjunction with your inbound marketing efforts to direct traffic to your website or reinforce what you are doing with inbound marketing.

The smart course of action is to integrate inbound and outbound marketing and advertising:

• build relationships with customers via social media
• generate leads via  free offers on your landing pages
• create email campaigns from the leads you've generated
• motivate the Future Buyer with electronic media
• capture the attention of the Now Buyer with print

Yes, newspapers, radio and tv have lost significant market share but on the local level, where you do business, your customers are still reading the local paper, listening to their radio stations (online and off), and watching cable shows. 

Understanding

1. Who your customer is
2. How advertising really works
3. The Consumer Mind
4. How to calculate your annual ad budget

is the trick to making it all work. Ultimately, it depends on what you are trying accomplish and what kind of business you have. Good marketing strategies are always unique to the needs and goals of the business they are created for. Smart business owners always work strategically.

What's The Consumer Mind?  More on that next blog!

So what do you think? Is there room for oubound marketing in today's business marketing model?

Best,

Audrey

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