10 Lessons Outbound and Inbound Marketers Can Learn From Each Other
Over the past month or so since deciding to implement Hubspot for our company, I’ve been consuming Hubspot’s online educational materials that cover best practices for inbound marketers. I read a blog article by Rick Burnes on the topic of Outbound Marketing vs. Inbound Marketing, and it got me thinking that there may be more similarities than differences. We can all learn a bit by looking at inbound and outbound marketing.
What Inbound Can Learn From Outbound
1. Persist - Outbound marketers will dial the same person multiple times per day, for days on end. Do the same with inbound tactics. For instance, I know there are some long tail keywords that get little to no impressions per day, but I keep those campaigns fully funded and keep creating content around them. Prospects that search those phrases are the best leads I’ll ever get.
2. Target – Outbound sales reps are typically snipers. Don’t think of inbound marketing in too broad a manner. The best inbound marketers already do this – they hyper target. Write blog articles on narrow, relevant topics. Bid on keywords that are so specific they are sniper shots. Drive the most relevant visitors to your site.
3. Quality vs. Quantity – Inbound marketers can sometimes be overly focused on volumes of leads. They should also be looking at the quality of those leads and the ability for them to convert to pipeline activity. Outbound marketers doing appointment setting would rather have 5 quality conversations a day than 50 wasted ones.
4. Be Human – Sales calls are all about the human conversation. Don’t sit behind Google searches, landing pages and emails forever. Engage the prospects as early as they can be engaged. Create industry leaders and personalities for your company. People want to buy from people.
5. Rapport – The best outbound specialists I know can gain rapport with an individual or admin in less than 3 minutes. Do the same with inbound efforts. Present quality content, don’t sell too hard, and treat the visitors with respect. Don’t force them to click “unsubscribe.”
What Outbound Can Learn From Inbound
1. Provide Content – Prospects don’t want to hear a “blah, blah, blah” sales pitch. If they are going to spend time on the phone, they want value. Create content that a prospect wants to hear. Say things that add value to the conversation.
2. Listen and Wait – Don’t sell so hard that the prospect can’t speak. Put the value statements out there, ask questions, then wait for them to educate themselves and raise their hands. Yes, this can be done in a phone call.
3. Convert – Treat every call the same way inbound marketers treat a landing page. Make it informative, uncluttered, and drive them to convert from a low value prospect to a higher value prospect. Convert them to pipeline prospects.
4. Relevant Keywords – Inbound marketers spend enormous amounts of time developing relevant keywords to build value behind. Do the same. Understand what your prospect wants to hear, and use those keywords during the call. Listen for the keywords to come from the prospect as indicators.
5. Analyze – I’ve never met an inbound marketing program that didn’t have a geek behind it. Track everything and measure it: dials, connects, pitches, conversions, RFIs, etc. If you modify your style one week, or get a new lead source, track the numbers. Know what works and what doesn’t.
Bonus Tip: Master Both Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing
I’ve visited software and service companies that provide products and services that support inbound marketing activities. I know their senior marketing and sales leaders. The one thing the best of them have in common is that they all have sizable outbound marketing programs. It’s the same with the outbound marketers that are thriving right now. They are implementing solid inbound programs and are seeing results. A well balanced demand gen program maximizes inbound and outbound efforts.
What other similarities do you see? Let’s discuss in the comments below.
This is a great post! Thank you. I think you bring up some good points. I also have been thinking a lot about the whole “inbound” vs. “outbound” thing lately, and based one these things these marketers can learn from each other, I really feel that it’s more a matter of both moving to the same goal, and that is to add value to their customers and prospects lives.
It seems “inbound” marketing has created a paradigm shift that is really merging the two. More and more outbound marketers are using inbound tactics, and as you mentioned a couple of times above, there are appropriate moments for inbound marketers to behave more like “outbound.”
Thanks again, great post.
Terrific discuss. Carry on the nice work.