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Inbound vs Outbound – which is more effective at generating new B2B leads? (Part 3)

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”

Bill Watterson. 

In my last post I was talking about when and how best to use inbound and outbound, and the distinctions between the two types of marketing. In this third and final part I’d like to look at how we identify and assess the value of potential buyers.  Last time my focus was on ‘known’ and ‘unknown’ prospects. Today we’re looking at client spend.

Just to summarise from last time, if you’re working with a mailing list of known prospects, then outbound pipeline management is likely to be your primary approach: when you know who you’re looking for, your job is always going to be easier and less expensive.  But the more distanced you are from a known decision maker, the more difficult your task becomes, and this is when you need to focus on inbound strategies.

Another vital consideration in the inbound-outbound equation is client spend.

Whether or not you’re focusing on inbound or outbound marketing, your priority is to add targets to your list of qualified prospects.  How you go about this is determined by how much you are asking your prospects to spend with you.

I’m not talking about lifetime spend, but typical spend. How much does your typical client spend with you at any one time?  Because it makes a big difference in the way a prospect arrives at a buying decision.

If your product requires a significant investment from a decision maker, then you can bet your life they’ll be ferreting around online for peer opinions, blogs and myriad other informational web sites before they make up their minds. This means you need to make sure they find positive mention of your brand wherever and however they search, and I’m not just talking about your corporate website.  

Always bear in mind that anyone researching your product with a view to making a purchase is almost certainly going to do a Google search before making a decision.  I know I do! And the more money I’m about to spend the more thorough that search is going to be. 

And it hardly needs saying that your prospects are far more likely to trust the information and feedback they find in the impartial blogosphere than any claims you make about your products on your corporate website. It’s the way of the online world. So as a general rule of thumb, the more expensive your products, the more resources you need to dedicate to your online presence.

With this in mind, if you’re selling big-ticket items it is essential that you focus adequate resources on social marketing efforts such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.  And your most effective tool of all is to publish a corporate blog and, wherever possible, participate in other industry blogs and forums to gain vital exposure.  The more industry related sites displaying input from and about your company, the greater your credibility.  And don’t forget to take advantage of web video which, as I write, is the world’s fastest growing marketing medium. It enables businesses to deliver compelling content to many thousands of prospects at a negligible cost.

So to sum up, depending on your product, outbound prospecting should still form the major part of your overall marketing thrust; the art is to reinforce your outbound message with a carefully targeted web-based strategy:  identify the industry portals, blogs, forums, and keywords your prospects are using, and supply them with valuable content.  Conversions are sure to follow.

And finally…

For many years, Gucci was as well known for its founding-family feuds as for its premium fashion products.

It reached its ludicrous height in 1995 with the shooting of Maurizio, Rodolfo’s son, who had taken over the business. Upon being arrested and charged with Maurizio’s murder, his estranged wife Patrizia declared, “I would rather weep in a Rolls-Royce than be happy on a bicycle.”

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and, as ever, your comments and ideas are very welcome. 

And always to a higher response!

Norman

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