The Dark Side of Ignoring Inbound Marketing

If there's one thing that I know for sure, it's that outbound marketing will never be what it once was. 

The techniques employed by outbound marketers have earned themselves a spot right up there next to phone books, lava lamps, and anything acid wash. 

Simply put, they're outdated. 

However, there are still marketers out there who are clinging onto their traditional efforts with the hope that they will one day regain their effectiveness. 

Truth be told, it's time to let go of this mindset. 

Rather than lean on what has worked in the past, it's important for businesses to focus on practicing better business judgment in the now. 

If your business hasn't had a talk about transitioning to inbound, we fear that you'll be plagued by the following outbound obstacles until you do. 

Your current efforts are interruptive

86% of people skip television ads, 44% of direct mail is never opened, and 200 million Americans have registered their phone number on the FTC's "Do Not Call" list. (Source: Voltier Digital)

If this is where your efforts are placed, you're essentially wasting money, killing trees, and feeling nothing but frustration. 

While outbound marketing focuses on pitching to anyone who won't hang up, inbound marketing is strategically designed to bring customers to you. Consider the possibilities of conversing with people you actually want to hear from you? 

In other words, outbound marketers attempt to push their way in, while inbound marketers earn their place and time. Which side do you want to play for?

Your content isn't tailored to the right audience

If your marketing efforts are rooted in outbound, it's likely that you're not producing any worth-while content, let alone content that's mapped to your ideal customers.

Outbound marketing efforts are ambiguous, as they're created to appeal to the masses.

However, inbound marketing initiatives are rather choosy. They're tailored to a targeted group of recipients who are actually interested. As a result, they resonate.

This is where buyer personas come into play.

Careful buyer persona research helps business' locate the places in which their ideal customers are spending their time so that they can appear there too. 

While an outbound marketer's understanding of their customer's goals and pain points is limited, inbound marketers understand the importance of nailing down these details before carrying out anything else. 

You're not ranking as high as you could be

The first page of Google search results is prime real estate to say the least. However, in order for your business to land a slot, you've got to earn it. 

If you're relying on an outbound bag of tricks to get you there, I'd advise you to get used to the view from page 5. 

In order to improve your website's performance in search engines, you have to adopt an inbound marketing strategy that is designed to get you there. 

The sites that rank high are focused on generating inbound links by consistently producing great content that worth sharing and referencing. 

They've identified a list of keywords that they want to rank for, and they create their content in accordance. Their title tags, alt tags, headers, meta descriptions, and URLs are optimized to help them achieve their goals. 

Mastering the production of quality content is the most effective way to improve your search ranking, so check your cold calls at the door. 

You're falling behind your competitors

Holding on to your outbound strategy is putting money in your competitor's pockets. 

According to HubSpot's 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report, 58% of marketers practice inbound marketing.

Additionally, these savvy marketers are reporting a 54% increase in the number of leads generated by inbound as opposed to outbound.

If you're part of the 42% of marketers hanging on to outbound, you're already behind.

Not to mention, inbound marketing takes a bit of time to build. The longer you wait, the further behind you're going to fall, which is why now is a better time than ever to ditch your old habits. 

Your engagement levels are depleted 

The conversation about your brand doesn't cease to exist just because you're not participating on social media. If you're not there, you're just missing out on it. 

I'm talking about leaving questions unanswered, complaints unresolved, relationships weak, and compliments unwelcome. 

So while your outbound methodology has you thinking that social media is just a trend, a ton of other businesses are reaping the benefits. 

Businesses who are actively participating on social media have the opportunity to join conversations surrounding their product or service, provide tips, and respond to inquiries (both good and bad) in real-time. 

They're able to extract value from the feedback and engagements that they can apply to an improved strategy moving forward.

Simply put, they're constantly improving based off of real-time insights, and well, you're not. 

You don't know what's working

The best way to ensure that you're generating the greatest number of customers possible from your campaigns is to set goals and monitor them closely.

While your outbound efforts will take you here, there, and everywhere, inbound tactics are designed to be easily measurable.

So when it comes time to do an audit of the content that's working, your efforts are tied to measurable indicators that have the ability to highlight where exactly your successes and failures are. 

This allows a business to narrow their focus by shining a light on the platforms that are delivering the greatest return.

Let's see your outbound marketing do that.