How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy With Inbound & Outbound Solutions

In the old days, before having a digital marketing strategy became a necessity, outbound marketing was king. Businesses were constantly vying for consumers’ attention, with everything from radio or TV advertisements, billboards, newspaper classifieds – even bus bench ads!

Then the internet rose to power. Now, the consumers hunt down the businesses, typing in the services or products relevant to your company and industry and clicking their way through search results until they finally find what they’re looking for. This consumer process dawned the era of inbound marketing, which essentially is the practice of doing everything in your power to increase and enhance your online presence to capture your target audience’s attention through various digital marketing tactics.

As inbound marketing continues to be utilized by businesses of all industries, with just under 75% of organizations worldwide using inbound marketing practices, there’s still some merit to balancing digital marketing practices with effective outbound marketing tactics. But how should inbound and outbound marketing solutions coexist in your digital marketing strategy?

Let’s look at how inbound and outbound marketing plans work together to create more effective digital marketing campaigns.

How Inbound & Outbound Marketing Work Together

It’s important to think of inbound marketing as establishing and maintaining your online presence, while outbound marketing tends to do the same for your “physical” presence. The biggest difference between the two? With inbound marketing, you can monitor the success of your marketing efforts and adjust accordingly. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, can be a complete roll of the dice in gauging its effectiveness.

Let’s say you’re simultaneously investing in paid advertising and a billboard that overlooks a busy intersection. With paid ad management, you can see in real-time every single click that your paid ads generate and whether that click was ultimately converted into a sale.

Your billboard, on the other hand, provides no opportunity for performance metrics or analytics, but probably costs you thousands of dollars more than your paid ad campaign investment. That’s not to say that outbound marketing is an obsolete practice. There’s an art to balancing inbound and outbound marketing tactics: Investing the majority of your marketing budget inbound to generate more leads while utilizing outbound to reinforce your brand in public.

Let’s say you’re a roofing contractor company. Your inbound marketing efforts helped you book a roof replacement project when the client came across your paid ad on a relevant Google search. During the roof replacement project, your outbound marketing efforts might include having your van wrapped in your logo, or sticking branded lawn signs in the clients’ yard once your project is complete so all those who pass by can know who their neighbor trusted to replace their roof.

Finding that balance of inbound and outbound marketing is what contributes to a robust digital marketing campaign – one that will draw in prospective clients while physically reinforcing your brand within your community.

Follow the Model of Inbound Marketing

There are three primary steps that contribute to any solid inbound marketing plan. Follow the steps in this order:

• Attract: Implement digital marketing strategies to attract more leads and generate more traffic to your website, such as SEO, digital advertising campaigns, or social media marketing.
  
• Engage: Optimize your web design and content to engage and connect with your target audience through email marketing, social media management, blogging, etc.
  
• Enrich: Maintain and increase lead generation and conversion rates by tracking progress and adjusting accordingly with custom reporting, performance analytics, and other data.

Optimize Content for Generating & Converting Leads

Here’s one of the golden rules of inbound marketing: You need to base your content management strategies on your consumers’ needs. Producing relevant content intrigues your target audience and ultimately drives more traffic to your small business website.

Having trouble creating content that addresses your customers’ needs and solves their problems? Start with defining what aspects of your industry are imperative to your consumers’ needs. You should always approach content management from a resourceful perspective by stepping into the customer’s shoes. Insightful, creative content not only appeals directly to your target audience but establishes your small business as a trustworthy source in your industry.

Blog articles, social media posts, email newsletters; These are the channels that will help you reach new customers while resonating with your existing clientele. The more you can cater your content to the topics your preferred customers are actively searching about online, the more eyes and attention you’ll be able to draw.

Reinforce Your Brand With Outbound Marketing

Once you’ve put all your inbound marketing tactics into motion, it’s easy to think of outbound marketing as the cherry on top of your digital marketing sundae. Traditional outbound marketing tactics, such as radio or TV ads, billboards, and print ads, are still worth investing in. Just make sure the primary focus of your outbound marketing efforts is to reinforce your brand.

Car logo wraps, yard signs, business pamphlets, and cold mailing are all forms of outbound marketing that can spread brand awareness within your community, while your inbound marketing strategy works to enrich your online presence. Another great form of outbound marketing is attending trade shows or events relevant to your industry and customers, giving your company an in-person presence with your target audience.

Custom Digital Marketing Strategies From Triton Commerce

Assessing which components of inbound and outbound marketing strategies will work best for your business can require an objective perspective. At Triton Commerce, we work with businesses of all industries to provide custom digital marketing strategies that align with your budgetary and branding needs.

Ready to revamp your inbound and outbound marketing strategies? Contact Triton Commerce today to schedule a consultation with our team of digital marketing experts!