You have to create a lot of content, and strategically share that content via every available and relevant platform, and you have to do it consistently, over a long time to truly see results. The average cost per lead when using outbound marketing is $346 (Impectplus.com), which is too expensive for many companies. This average cost is based on a cross of media and print. 

When we talk about outbound marketing, we’re talking about the ‘traditional’ ways to go about marketing efforts, meaning actively reaching out to our audience to remain “top of mind.”

By initiating conversation with your target audience, you are letting them know what exactly it is that you do and how you can provide value for them. This process is extremely important in your overall marketing strategy because it is easy to dictate the message you want to send out to a very broad audience.

Some examples of outbound marketing are advertisements you see in your everyday life that you may not even pay much attention to anymore. This includes things like TV commercials, banner advertisements on buildings across the street, ads on the radio, billboards, email spam, cold sales calls, et cetera. 

The main goal of these outbound marketing practices is to try and convince people to purchase whatever product or service that is being marketed by getting in front of their faces and showing them what you have whether they need it or not. 

This method worked wonders in the past as the number of advertisements you were exposed to was very minimal compared to the number of advertisements you see today. Unfortunately, people are starting to build resistance to these tactics.  What does this mean? When was the last time you even picked up a cold sales call or replied to email spam?  According to Forbes, most Americans are exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day, it certainly doesn’t feel like that many, right?

Many marketers tend to think that outbound marketing techniques are becoming less and less relevant because it is often considered an interruption and people don’t particularly enjoy being interrupted. An example: if you’re in the middle of watching a funny YouTube video, what is the one thing you would rather not see during this experience? That’s right, those video ads that you have to wait at least 5 seconds to skip. People DO NOT LIKE BEING INTERRUPTED when going about their business online and a lot of outbound marketing methods are considered interruptions.

The goal of outbound marketing, as I mentioned earlier, is to reach a broader audience and spread awareness, and you can only really quantify that by calculating the number of people your outbound marketing efforts may have reached, which oftentimes fails to reflect true numbers, especially with cases like TV commercials and print ads. 

However, despite the grim description, outbound marketing is not dead, and it could still be an extremely effective and efficient way to generate leads for your business when done correctly and when combined with Inbound marketing and superior CRM software.  We use and recommend HubSpot. You can start with the FREE version and work up to Professional.  They make it easy and coming from a marketing person, fun.

If you do outbound prospecting correctly and follow up with well-crafted messages by using HubSpot, and start meaningful conversations, you can turn conversations into a potential sale. 

Remember, successful outbound marketing comes down to execution. As you begin to build your marketing strategies, some of the most important factors to keep in mind are:

Timing of outreach messages

Sending the right message at the right time is extremely important. The right message at the wrong times leads to failed results. For example, many companies sent out tone-deaf messages during the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic, which reflects poorly on the brand. People remember these things. Your message needs to be relevant and at the appropriate time. 

Knowledge of your potential customer’s pain points

Who are your potential customers and what are their pain points? This should be an obvious one. HubSpot can help with this. Before reaching out to your target audience, you must do the homework and find out what your potential customers need, and then appeal to their needs.

Excellent copywriting

This is probably one of the most important and difficult aspects of everything you will do as you develop a marketing strategy. An enticing copy will always yield good results. Copy/content must communicate the needs of your potential customers and each customer is unique. Make the copy relevant to each unique industry or customer.

Power of visuals

Humans are visual creatures, more than 65% of people are visual learners. Marketing efforts need to be appealing enough to capture one’s attention in midst of all the distractions. It needs to entice good feelings and resonate with your target audience. Good design is a must.   

All of these factors contribute to outbound marketing success and by combining with Inbound marketing and doing both of these things well, the chances of being able to convert potential customers into actual customers will increase tenfold.