The Need for In and Out

This weeks Blog discussion is based on the recent board discussions on the marketing model called in-bound which is now a viable part of every company. The In-Bound Marketing strategy is based on the idea of leveraging specific tactics in order to be identified by potential customers. Such In-Bound Marking looks to attract it's leads by bringing awareness through content to become identified. Comparing it to the traditional outbound approach, the customer is looking for you versus you looking for the customer. The Inbound Marketing techniques are executed various tools such as blogging, interacting on social media, search engine optimization, webinars, and videos to promote awareness.

But the big question is, can a company survive on just In-Bound Marketing? My opinion on the matter is that a company can survive on just leveraging In-Bound market strategies, but will be unable to grow/mature and nurture into something larger through increased sales through Out-Bound Strategies. The signification advantage between In-Bound versus Out-Bound is based on the cost parity and waste. With little capital, a start-up company can identify marketing success leveraging an in-bound approach versus out-bound. Out bound has vast inefficiencies which poses cost impacts for strapped companies. Below are some statistics on some of the Out-Bound Marketing tools used:

• 44% of direct mail is never opened. That’s a waste of time, postage and paper.
• 86% of people skip through television commercials.
• 84% of 25 to 34 year olds have clicked out of a website because of an “irrelevant or intrusive ad.”
• The cost per lead in outbound marketing is more than for inbound marketing.

For this reason, In-Bound marketing can allow a company to survive during cash strapped time of a strat-up company.

In order to grow it's customer base, brand, and market share, I feel there is a need to balance the two marketing strategies in order to identify all possible opportunities the may exist. For companies to grow their customer base, a successful Out-Bound approach is leveraging inside existing customers to identify new leads. Trying to identify accounts which may have new selling opportunities can be executed efficiently through targeted out-bound marketing tools to open new sales opportunites with such potencial customers that have a relative to an existant client.

I feel a big advantage to Out-Bound marketing (though costly) is building brand awareness and creating a buzz. I feel this is more challenging to execute in a short amount of time leveraging in-bound techniques.I feel Out-bound marketing technique such as commercial ads can present immediate results to build brand awareness quickly. An example is the ever popular Super Bowl ads that run an average of 30 seconds and cost upwards of $3.5m. Though the cost is high, it brings immediate brand awareness to the necessary audience. A great example is the Apple commercial that aired during the Superbowl in 1984 for the Macintosh. It created such buzz and awareness that led a computer revolution. This commercial only aired just once, but left a buzz that captured consumers and made a connection to the Apple Macintosh. The video can be seen below: