Why Investing in Outbound Marketing Is a Mistake: 3 Reasons

When was the last time you willingly clicked on a display ad while you were browsing a website? Or, accepted an unsolicited call?

Consider these statistics:

• 72% of consumers say they would have a lower opinion of a brand if the brand subjected the consumer to a pop-up ad. (HubSpot, 2016).
• 33% of inbound marketers and 31% of outbound marketers rank outbound marketing practices, such as paid advertising, as the top waste of time and resources (HubSpot, 2016)
• Only 16% of marketers say outbound practices provide the highest quality leads for sales. (HubSpot, 2017)

Seems like a tiring way to get your message across, doesn’t it?

Here are three other reasons why outbound marketing may not be the best investment for your marketing dollars.

#1: The Buyer Is Now In Control

At the core of outbound marketing is interruption.

With outbound marketing, marketers interrupt people who were consuming content they were interested to view.

However, with the advent of search engines and the Internet, the relationship between marketers and buyers has changed. Buyers can now go to the Internet and research what options were available, look at user reviews, and do a competitor comparison, before coming to their decision.

In fact, while buyers used to contact a product seller at the initial stage of research, now buyers can be 50-70% through their purchase decision process before their first contact with the seller.

#2: Tracking Marketing ROI With Outbound Marketing Is Hard

One common question we typically get from clients is “So if I put in X amount, how many leads will I get?”

This is a pertinent question. As a marketing manager, you are assessed based on the number and quality of leads you bring to your salespeople. You need to explain to your boss why you think your marketing initiatives will work and why you need this amount of money.

In short, you need to be able to measure your ROI.

Consider the cost of advertising in the Straits Times.

You need to think about day of insertion, the size of your ad, whether it is a single or multi-colour ad, what page the ad is on … and the list goes on.

With all that money spent, do you know how many people will see your ad? Are these people qualified traffic for your business? Do you know if these people will convert into paying customers?

How do you know if you will get your money’s worth? Which brings me to my next point…

#3: Outbound Marketing Has A Shorter Shelf Life

Let’s say you do a print advertising campaign in a newspaper.

You spend time on the ad creative, copywriting, and pay money for the ad insertion.

A typical outbound advertising campaign will last a week to a few months, after which it will not be seen again. You spend all that money and time for something that will not last.

In comparison, you can create a series of blog posts or a content asset that is evergreen, and compounds on your website. If done properly, your blog will continue to generate visitors way beyond the date of post publication. Older eBooks can either be repurposed into an infographic or a SlideShare presentation to continue working for you to generate leads.

Provide value to your website visitors and this will keep reaping benefits for you. Would you rather interrupt your potential customers with something that doesn’t last, or invest money into creating something that genuinely provides value to your customers?

You choose.