If you have ever thought about pursuing a career in the field of marketing, an important question has probably crossed your mind: “What is outbound marketing?” By reading the information found below, you can obtain an answer to this question and several others that pertain to the field of marketing.
Outbound Marketing – The Basics
Although broadly defined, outbound marketing is basically a traditional type of marketing in which a business sends messages promoting its products and services to prospective clients through mediums such as direct paper mail, tradeshows, radio commercials, TV commercials, cold calls, e-mail blasts, and print advertisements in the form of newspaper ads, telemarketing, sales flyers, magazine ads, catalogs, and brochures. Outbound marketing stands in distinction from inbound marketing, which is the promotion of an organization’s goods and services through podcasts, blogs, eBooks, video, whitepapers, enewsletters, social media marketing, SEO and other types of content marketing.
Outbound Marketing – Benefits
One of the primary benefits of outbound marketing is that customers are familiar with the format. In short, this form of outbound marketing doesn’t impair the customer’s ability to receive and grasp the message, which remains a problem with inbound marketing given that it transpires through the use of technologies that many people are still struggling to trust and understand. On the other hand, customers are generally at least somewhat familiar with radio and television ads. Additionally, they may look forward to reading their Sunday newspapers as a result of the ads they are accustomed to seeing within its pages. According to the Houston Chronicle, even forms of outbound marketing that generate trash which consumers have to get rid of such as direct mail are familiar and therefore nonthreatening.
Outbound Marketing-Disadvantages
One of the biggest disadvantages of outbound marketing is that it is more costly and less efficient than inbound marketing. This is the case because the delivery methods for outbound marketing are more expensive and are broadcast to a large audience. Unfortunately, the majority of this audience will have little to no interest in the product or service being advertised. In many cases, this means that the high costs of outbound marketing yield few results. Moreover, most people who are interested in a product or service will need to see a message advertising it multiple times before they decide to make a purchase. This fact is why most ad cycles are redundant.
More Disadvantages of Outbound Marketing
Despite the fact that outbound marketing has many drawbacks, it still makes up the majority of advertising budgets for many organizations and businesses. Despite its popularity, the use of outbound marketing is problematic for several reasons, including the fact that it is difficult to track the return on investment (ROI). Additionally, consumers can make use of blocking techniques such as spam filters and do not call lists to prevent themselves from exposure to outbound marketing ads.
Related Resource: Master’s Degree in Marketing
Conclusion
If you are thinking about pursuing a career in marketing, you should know that outbound marketing remains an integral component of it. Now that you have an answer to the question “What is outbound marketing?,” you can make an informed decision regarding how this type of marketing should be integrated into your advertising ideology and praxis.
