What is outbound marketing: Complete Guide

There are different marketing styles that people concentrate on, and many of them are known by the public, but what is outbound marketing? Many guides on different marketing styles have been published in the past, but outbound marketing can be a little tricky. That is why it might need a brief explanation which you will find in this guide!

We are explaining outbound marketing definition, its examples, on the other hand, we bring you a comparison with inbound marketing, tell you if Google Adwords, SEO or e-mail marketing are examples of outbound marketing and talk about the tools a little bit. Hope you will enjoy our guide…

Outbound marketing is the exact opposite of inbound marketing, which you might be familiar with. Even though outbound marketing is much less profitable, companies still spend much more money on it. The difference between the two is the technique of getting more customers to the firm. In one, you make the customer find you, but outbound marketing lets you find them. Let’s cut to the chase and answer the “what is outbound marketing” question.

What is outbound marketing?

What is outbound marketing? Outbound marketing refers to a company’s proactive outreach to prospective clients in an effort to catch their interest in a good or service. Instead of waiting for its customers to approach them, a company using outbound marketing starts the interaction and sends a message to them.

Outbound marketing can be conducted using different methods. Emails and traditional marketing assets such as billboards could be examples of this type of outreach. Firms concentrating on outbound marketing usually get less return on their investment than other marketing types.

This method has been actively used by many companies all around the world. It is basically sending a message to the customer to catch their attention to a service or a product. This is the briefest answer to your “what is outbound marketing” question.

A comparison: Outbound vs inbound marketing

We explained outbound marketing in the previous question. As mentioned, it is reaching people through emails, phone calls, or traditional marketing ways. However, inbound marketing is much more modern and effective. It uses technology’s giving to humanity.

Inbound marketing, which uses marketing techniques to entice customers in, is the antithesis of outbound marketing. In this technique, you create unique content that will catch potential customers’ attention. The inbound marketing technique always includes informative digital content.

The main difference between the two techniques is inbound marketing comes in social media posts, blogs, reports, webinars, and such, while outbound marketing campaigns are displayed in emails, magazine ads, billboards, TV, etc.

Outbound marketing examples

Even though outbound digital marketing examples might be a little old, there are still different types of campaigns that could be run using them. We gave some examples of outbound marketing under the “what is outbound marketing” question but let’s dive deeper and look at a couple more examples. Looking at the classic marketing strategies broadly, you will understand outbound marketing better.

Have you ever noticed that you have lots of emails from different companies, usually in your junk box? If your answer is yes, and it is probably yes, you were a target of some companies’ outbound marketing campaigns. Direct mails are one of the most used methods that companies use to reach out to new customers or clients.

Another way is billboards and TV commercials. Especially in city centers, you will notice that there are many billboards around the roads. Some companies run their ads and make them seen by thousands of people, depending on the billboard’s location. TV commercials are also very famous. Whenever your series or film goes into a commercial break, you will see many different ads for different products and services. That also answers the “what is outbound marketing” question.

What is outbound strategy?

There is more than one outbound strategy, as mentioned above. If you understand the answer to the “what is outbound marketing” question, you will have the basic structure in your mind. The outbound marketing definition refers to more classic and traditional marketing methods. Big companies still use these methods to get their firm name famous and keep it there for as long as possible. Even though there is more than just one strategy, the main goal of it is to reach out to as many clients or customers as possible.

Outbound marketing can raise brand awareness depending on how familiar it is among consumers. In outbound marketing, businesses cast a wide net in the hopes of attracting clients by continuously pushing their messages on them without knowing if the clients desire to do so. Keeping these in mind will help the company to run the best campaign possible.

Advantages and disadvantages of outbound marketing

Outbound marketing has advantages and disadvantages. It is an old method that has been used for a while, and people are aware of and sometimes against it because of unwanted interactions. However, it still reaches a huge audience and creates a great space for companies.

In omnichannel marketing, outbound marketing is a crucial component that opens up offline channels and draws customers’ attention when they are not glued to their screens. For luxury or big-box firms, outbound marketing is still an effective tactic. With their comfort and familiarity with radio ads, billboards, TV commercials, and outbound marketing, older client segments that are not digital natives like Millenials and Gen Z can undoubtedly get into their comfort zone in these ways.

One disadvantage of outbound marketing is the high cost of developing, delivering, and broadcasting messages to a large audience, many of whom will not be interested in its content. Prospects who are uninterested in your message are likely to ignore it, which reduces the effectiveness of outbound marketing. Because outbound marketing is one-way, it is difficult for businesses to gauge whether their tactics are successful because leads can’t provide rapid feedback.

Outbound marketing tools

Apart from the “what is outbound marketing” question, we should mention different aspects of it. One of those is the outbound marketing tools. There are two different answers to this question. One consists of automation tools for outbound marketing, and the other is the different ways of completing your outreach campaign.

Snov.io is a  widely-used outbound marketing automation tool that will help you with the best strategy. “More leads. More sales, More revenue.” is their slogan, and you can signup for free. Another automation tool is leadzen.ai. Leadzen also works similarly to Snov, where you can get real-time and verified data. Moreover, it is an ai-generated tool. These kinds of services also offer chatbot marketing which is another popular tool.

Above are the tools that will help you automate your outbound marketing strategies, but another answer to this question was given above in the article. You will see the answers if you scroll over to the “What is outbound marketing?” and “What is an example for outbound marketing?” sections.

Why is outbound marketing effective?

The answer to this question is very simple. Reaching a large audience is one of the main benefits of outbound marketing. This comprises those who are already your customers, those who have heard of you but haven’t used your services, and those who aren’t familiar with your products. Having such a diverse readership encourages word-of-mouth or buzz marketing which has also been popular lately.

In other words, you will continue to grow your customer list and reach too many possible customers. Even though the majority won’t be interested, you will still see positive results. The ROI percentage might not be optimal, but you will still meet new people and keep your existing customer profile. You immediately receive feedback from the market either way, and you can then make adjustments as necessary.

It has advantages for both small businesses and large businesses. Billboards and TV ads are the areas that many large businesses concentrate on, but there are different methods of doing your campaign. As a small business owner, you could hand out letters in postboxes, run social media ads and run your campaign locally to attract more customers.

Is SEO inbound or outbound marketing?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making changes to your website to make it more visible when users search for goods or services associated with your company on Google, Bing, and other search engines. This means that SEO is a tool to get traffic to your website and let people find it without running any ads or campaigns, etc.

SEO is an example of an inbound marketing campaign. Looking at the definition, you will understand that it helps people find your website, and you don’t have to reach out to any. SEO is a very important tool to use for marketing purposes. With the development of search engines and technology in general, it has become very important and popular for marketing issues. There are SEO reporting software tools that are being used for marketing purposes.

Content marketing, blogging, SEO, and opt-in email marketing are a few examples of inbound marketing. Paid search advertising is also regarded as inbound marketing because your adverts only show up when customers look for the goods or services you provide.

Is Google Ads inbound or outbound?

This is a subject that is complicated for many marketers out there. Many of them think Google Ads are a way of executing outbound marketing campaigns. However, it is not. Google Ads are also a part of the SEO section linked to inbound marketing. This misconception bothers most marketers, and here is your brief answer to it.

Google Ads is intended to highlight your material when potential clients use Google to look up an answer, piece of information, solution, etc. It might be an advertising tool, but it is not the same as traditional outbound marketing ads. Advertising is an act of outbound marketing strategies but you don’t get it twisted; Google Ads is something different.

Are e-mails an example to outbound marketing?

Surprisingly, it depends. Direct mails are mostly outbound marketing materials, but some exceptions go under the inbound marketing category. Under the “What is outbound marketing?” question, we discussed that most emails refer to outbound marketing. Now, let’s explain why they can also go under the inbound marketing category in certain instances.

The primary distinction between inbound and outbound email marketing is how they communicate with and target their respective audiences. Outbound email marketing does not require receivers to opt-in to receive emails, unlike inbound email marketing, which only targets clients who have expressed interest in your good or service. Businesses will buy email lists and, in a sense, “cold call” their audience to provide information. This strategy aims to reach as many people as possible, regardless of their level of declared interest.

Your inbox is likely saturated with examples of inbound email marketing if you have made a purchase on a website or joined an email list. Once a relationship has been established, a business will send you emails to encourage you to buy and keep you engaged in what they have to offer. These include welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, curated emails, promotion emails, and back-in-stock emails. These categories can be examined as inbound marketing as they have already got attention from the customer.

While engaging with an engaged audience is a benefit of inbound email marketing, outbound email marketing also provides the advantages of speed and reach. The first objective of outbound emails is to bypass spam folders. The second objective is to encourage potential customers to read all the way to your CTA.

Long story short, email marketing is both inbound and outbound. However, the method and concept vary for each marketing strategy. You could either run an inbound marketing campaign with the emails that are mentioned above or send out direct emails to new customers and hope the emails don’t get filtered as spam or junk.

Hope you liked our guide where we explained what is outbound marketing, its tools and examples, comparison with inbound marketing and answer frequently asked questions about it.