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Starting a small business can and most definitely will be overwhelming but it does not have to be daunting.
In the marketing industry, small businesses have the disadvantage of both low visibility and few resources. As a result, these businesses have to carefully use what resources they have in order to find affordable and effective marketing methods, raising their brand recognition.
When trying to expand an audience on any platform the most profitable route is to invest in a variety of marketing campaigns.
Outbound Marketing
The terms inbound and outbound marketing are used to categorize two broad types of outreach methods. Outbound is essentially a marketer’s version of an outside salesperson. Not necessarily looking for a product, a potential customer will still see a product or business advertisement that catches their eye and distracts them from their task at hand.
This strategy prefers to go out of its way to introduce others to products or brands. As a “traditional advertising method,” the usual ways of displaying these campaigns would be on billboards, television ads, direct mail, and door to door advertising.
Companies use this advertising model in hopes that enough of their target audience will see the ads and contact the company. While this would have been effective in the past, traditional marketing is considered to be an interruption and possibly irritating to potential customers.
The fact that companies cannot direct their ad to a specific audience using this method is another reason it is ineffective. Additionally, outside marketing campaigns are usually one-sided.
Current technology can easily allow individuals to choose to stop this type of advertising before it reaches its target audience.
Inbound Marketing
The goal of inbound marketing is to make sure a business will appear in the search results when someone uses terms relevant to that company. Instead of actively pushing ad-after-ad on the television, this model is the process of leading a visitor to the business’ site.
This way of drawing customers in has yielded more results than any outside marketing scheme. Since inbound-advertising grabs and retains the viewer’s attention with online assets such as:
- subscriber content,
- emails
- special events,
- and freedom for the viewer to discover what the business offers.
Direct communication with customers is typically what encourages them to refer a business to others. With a marketing campaign that allows customers to directly call or email at their convenience, the inbound model helps businesses to present an overall honest and engaged tone.
The Best Route for a Small Business
A company usually starts off small with no name brand value or massive amounts of cash. To overcome these issues, small businesses need a campaign strategy that can get people who are interested in their products without having to spend too much money in the process.
With these ideas in mind, it would be more rewarding for a business to invest in inbound marketing. Proven to generate more leads, this model is less expensive than its counterpart. With traditional outbound marketing, a business would have to purchase mass media resources and repeatedly put their message out to a widespread audience.
However, if a new business pushed its products to their identified audience who are already interested in the company the success ratio is greater. Although the number of people pulled in may be low, the chances of these numbers increasing over time are higher when taking into account customers referring the business to others on social media.
It has been proven that as the content is spread through social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, the amount of a business’ visibility can grow substantially.
Therefore, in order for a company to achieve growth, the strategy it uses has to realize its goals. Inbound and outbound models were designed to help a business generate a mass market income. By understanding how each strategy works, a company can generate a consistently increasing income.
Written by Brielle Buford
Edited by Cathy Milne
Sources:
SEO Pressor: Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing – Which Is More Effective?
WordStream: The 5 Elements of a Strong Inbound Marketing Strategy
Response Point: The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Enterprise 2.0 Conference’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License