Inbound or outbound marketing: A headache for startups!
When you are a young innovative company, it is not easy to choose the techniques to be used in marketing. Among the latest trends in inbound and outbound marketing, there are two complementary strategies that are equally divergent to design, promote and sell the product, but can become a real headache for startups.
Outbound marketing can be summarized as the art to chase the customer. This is a mass marketing strategy based on a system known as “push”. In other words, the company is trying to “push” their product to customers. The means used are the traditional mass media like television commercials, radio spots or print ads in newspapers, email, phone calls, magazines or brochures among others.
By targeting a lot of people, outbound marketing reaches a large potential clientele. This is rather a one-sided strategy, where the consumer finds himself, despite himself, to a multitude of promotional messages or advertisements that he has not really asked. To be successful, this type of marketing is imperative and even necessarily be repetitive, that is to say, the same message has to be launched repeatedly for the impact on the targeted consumers.
This strategy clearly requires a fairly expensive investment, which can be problematic for startups that are just beginning to make their breakthrough. Therefore, young companies with limited resources would prefer to avoid outbound marketing strategies. Well-established companies can fully use it.
Inbound Marketing is less costly
Inbound marketing, in turn, can be translated as a marketing strategy adapted by attracting more customers to its product. It is based on a “one-to-one” formula, targeting consumers directly.
The strategist will present the consumer with a solution to a real problem. The content used is relevant and personalized. Examples of this type of marketing are blogs, social networks, infographics, or webinars. Even the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very effective tool. Games, whether on radio, television or Internet, are also effective methods for relaying a positive image of the company while engaging the community.
The major advantage of inbound marketing is relatively low cost. According to studies, this type of marketing generates three times more leads than traditional messages, thereby prompting the majority of startups to adopt it. Given that consumers have easy access to information, it is important that companies are distinguished by the quality and creativity of the content offered.
The question is then to see, depending on the startup’s structure, if this work is done internally, or with an external agency partner.