5 Reasons Why Inbound Marketing is Better Than Outbound

During my time in marketing, the battle between inbound and outbound is one that comes up the most. Sure, outbound tactics were effective at one stage, but technology has allowed us to do marketing in a much more effective way.

I’ve also heard the same myths about inbound marketing. It’s all about writing blogs every week, it takes years to get results, it’s too expensive, you can’t measure your ROI or it just doesn’t work. The list goes on. But myths and misconceptions like these tend to start by those who don’t understand the concept.

But what if I told you that inbound marketing generates 3x more leads than traditional advertising? Or that leading marketing companies reported receiving 300% higher ROI with inbound? 

I know, that second stat probably has made you sit up in your seat and start listening. So, here are five reasons why inbound marketing is better than outbound.

1. Inbound Marketing is More Personalised

Personalised content is more relevant than ever. While outbound is more disruptive, it’s also a one-size-fits-all approach where you can’t really tailor your marketing efforts to specific leads.

Inbound marketing puts a huge emphasis on building relationships with prospects and leads through customised content. It’s a lot more engaging to individuals and it’s also a lot more relevant than traditional methods of marketing.

Put it this way, SalesForce research has shown over 57% of consumers that were surveyed were willing to share personal data in exchange for personalised experiences. So, it’s pretty important to leads today. Put yourself in their shoes – wouldn’t you want a personalised experience rather than being marketed to like thousands of other people?

2. Inbound Marketing isn’t Disruptive or Aggressive

Letters, direct emails, advertising and cold calling. These are some of the common outbound tactics which, as you can imagine, are slightly aggressive and disruptive. On the other hand, inbound marketing isn’t interrupting people’s daily lives.

Outbound is all about pushing plenty of marketing messages through various channels in the hope that one right message makes it to the right person. This is without considering whether they want to hear it or not.

Inbound marketing doesn’t force anything – it earns interest. It’s because the relevant content is given to people who are looking for a particular solution.

3. Inbound Marketing is Actually Much Cheaper

Inbound marketing is more beneficial for businesses with long-term business plans, but that doesn’t mean it’s more expensive. Just look at the traditional means of outbound marketing, such as television and radio. 

Sure, they’d interest viewers, but only a tiny percentage. Inbound is cheaper because it’s focused on a smaller percentage of people. But this smaller percentage of people are your ideal customers, meaning you’re much likelier to convert leads.

Plus, if you need any more convincing, HubSpot’s research has shown that inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional outbound methods.

4. Customers Stay in Control, So They Trust You More

Inbound leads have a close rate of over 14% while outbound marketing can only manage less than 2%. What do these stats tell you? It shows that customers are more empowered than ever and aren’t going to be persuaded by interruptive marketing tactics.

The internet is partly responsible for that as it’s changed the customer buying journey quite a lot. With the power in customers’ hands, they can research and learn in their own time.

With aggressive tactics, customers are likely to get frustrated. While this is happening, your content and marketing efforts are waiting to be found by the right people who will be glad you didn’t force your efforts. 

Plus, with so much value being given to them in their own time, they’ll trust companies using inbound a lot more.

5. Inbound is Continuous, Outbound Isn’t

Whether it’s through the use of eBooks, whitepapers or any other form of downloadable content, inbound marketing can sustain itself and remain evergreen. Traditional outbound methods can only really be done once at a certain time period before information is outdated.

So, when that happens, businesses need to reinvest yet again (which adds to those increasing costs).

Using inbound tactics, when content has been created once, you’re good to go. As people can download it year after year, it depends on which stage they’re at in the Buyer’s Journey. So, even if you produced something years ago, it might still be able to convert leads.

Plus, the more content you do create and the more pain points you solve, the more you can keep customers delighted as there’s no cut-off point.