Small-Company-Growth

In an earlier post I had mentioned the difference between inbound and outbound marketing. Basically, inbound is the concept of pulling people into your company with great content, whereas outbound is pushing your advertising onto people with the hope that a few will want your product or service. If you think about it, inbound is much more efficient. Instead of throwing a blanket out over the world and appealing to .05% of them, you are using technology and community to target people that will most likely be interested in what you are selling.

Besides the fact that outbound advertising is a huge annoyance (think phone calls from strangers and junk email), why is everyone saying old marketing is dying? Well let’s think about how you get your media these days and then it will be pretty obvious.

1. T.V. ads are still here, but are they still as effective?

Advertisers love to slaughter you with commercials. For the longest time you had no choice but to sit through these worthless time killers and be pounded with endless slogans and pitches. With DVR we skip commercials, making T.V. ads much less effective.

2. Radio ads are not what they used to be

Same goes for terrible radio commercials. With the dramatic increase of services like XM Satellite, fewer and fewer people are tortured by the B.S.

3. Newspapers and magazines are dying

People are getting smarter about where they get their daily news. Why read a newspaper that covers mostly things you don’t care about when you can have incredibly targeted news sent to your email or RSS reader from blogs and niche publications? People don’t want to pay for newspaper and magazine subscriptions when they can get better content online for free. As a result, print advertisements are on the way out.

4. Spam email just doesn’t make sense anymore

A classic outbound marketing technique is to buy lists of emails and send out mass advertisements. Whoever invented the spam filter should be given a gold star. People no longer have to put up with this form of advertising thanks to new technology.

5. Telemarketing: there’s got to be a better way…

Caller I.D. inventor? Two gold stars. Thank the gods for this beautiful piece of technology and for putting an end to me blindly picking up to another awkward, untargeted pitch. Just like spam email, spam calling is finally leaving my life.

Do you see a trend here? New technology is allowing everyone to be smarter about how they get their information and avoid annoying marketers. In this new personalized world, consumers do not want to be dictated to, but rather would like to become part of the conversation.  This is great news for everyone! Great news for you because you are less interrupted with garbage. Great news for me and other marketers because we are no longer hated! The only people that aren’t winning here are the ones that don’t recognize this revolution.  Fortunately most marketers realize the change (it’s hard to miss) and are adapting.  Perhaps the next time you are looking to get more exposure for your small company you should think pull, not push.  Instead of paying ads, use that money to hire a writer and start creating valuable content for your customers.  

If you want to learn more about Inbound Marketing and the future of business, I recommend you pick up the book Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. These guys coined the term and are great teachers on the subject.

Filed under: Promotions by Sean McVey | Social tagging: inbound marketing > outbound marketing