There are a lot of different marketing techniques and strategies that are prevalent now in the age of digital marketing, where some are more focused on finding the customers, and others on the customers finding you.

So, for one you create the product, and for the other, you create the demand.

Based on your approach towards converting the sales, your product, and the way you get your marketing game, we have inbound and outbound marketing.

In the following article, we will get to know more about outbound marketing, its strategies and how is it achieved.

1. What is Outbound Marketing?

Outbound marketing is the type of marketing in which the advertiser or the company who is getting their marketing done will focus on acquiring the customer by reaching out to them.

This is very close to traditional marketing approaches like using flyers, TV ads, radio ads, and print advertisements.

The target is usually large and less streamlined. So, the main idea is actually to create awareness and brand introduction, which precedes targeted marketing.

Due to the scope being so large, the tracking of the results is pretty difficult and also it is expensive as compared to inbound marketing.

2. Types of Outbound Marketing

Since we understand now what is outbound marketing and what is the goal of outbound marketing, we shall now see what are the different types of channels through which advertisers reach their customers or potential clients.

2.1. Online Advertising

Online advertising in today’s world is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to reach a large number of customers on various platforms like social media and search engines.

These are not very expensive compared to their effectiveness, and since it is designed and can be customized the target group can also be tapped in a better manner. And more than one target group can be aimed at by making very few changes.

With the help of advertisement analytics and other tools, you can actually track the progress and reach of your ad and tweak changes as and when required for better performance.

2.2. Cold Calls

Cold calls are another form of targeted marketing but here again, the target is not the real customers but what according to you is the plausible lot.

So, making calls to potential clients to inform them or introduce your product or service is the idea behind cold calling.

Workability is a little uncertain because a lot of people do not like to receive such calls, and some get irritated and can even bash out; nonetheless, companies still use this because they have a lot of lead generation via this method.

2.3. Printed Ads

It might seem like a rustic option in today’s digitalized world, but surprisingly that is not the case.

Even to date, you will see advertisements of all big and small brands in newspapers and magazines across the globe.

Here people can also use niche, for example, sports companies can advertise in sports magazines, local newspapers can be used for niche marketing and national issues can be issued to introduce your brand to a huge number of readers at once, in a very similar and simple manner.

2.4. TV and Radio Ads

This might seem like an obsolete idea but in a very honest sense, it is still not dying. The whole idea behind using TV and Radio ads is the use of emphasis.

We can use these ads to repeatedly talk about or show our ads to the target audience in this manner the message, the product and the brand reach out and kind of create an impact on the memory, creating a quick recall value of the same.

This is also because if we see or listen to something it has a higher recall value compared to when we read something.

3. Benefits of Outbound Marketing

Since the target audience is large, with outbound marketing you can reach them very quickly through ads on social media, TV, and other mediums.

You can make these campaigns as big or small as you like based on your allocated budget, without bringing any specific changes.

Your advertised media can be tracked and even targeted based on the potential customer’s demographics, location, and other interests.

Testing the ads can be good and very easy in this manner, due to the easy interface.

4. Problems with Outbound Marketing

Downsides of the outbound marketing strategies include the cost of advertising since TV ads and even print media are very expensive.

Since it is large scale and not targeted very much it can look like it is spammy and unnecessary to some.

The primary goal is awareness and not conversion so it might be an issue for people who know nothing about it.

Tracking through some channels is easy but tracking via billboards and other such media is difficult because it advertises in an indirect manner.

These are obviously in comparison to inbound marketing where the tracking is easier and much more accurate.

Also, some of the ways of marketing are way more effective as compared to the amount of money that needs to be invested to make them successful.

These methods become more prevalent in some cases because they have a more streamlined approach and the targeting is better. 

5. Final Thoughts – Outbound Marketing

There are a lot of ways to do outbound marketing like the ones we have discussed above and others including trade shows, guerilla marketing, and cold emails.

However, consumer creation through these is not as high as those achieved by using inbound marketing activities that are customer-driven and very customized to your product/service.

We have also seen advantages and disadvantages. So, keep those in mind and choose which type of marketing is needed to gain maximum benefit from the same.