Allbound Marketing 101

Back in the dawn of man, the only form of marketing was outbound marketing. One caveman would throw a rock at another one to get his attention so they could talk shop about this newfangled product called “the wheel.” And so, outbound marketing reigned for millennia until the dawn of the digital age.

With the invention of the internet, so came the idea that inbound marketing could involve your brand in a position to be found by potential customers and then nurturing them through the buyer’s journey, a more holistic approach than throwing rocks. Inbound marketing lets the buyer come to you, instead of you going to the buyer.

While many marketers firmly believe that inbound marketing is the way to go, traditional outbound marketing methods are still quite effective (despite my caveman jokes!). It’s why we suggest implementing an allbound marketing strategy, which makes use of both inbound and outbound marketing techniques that compliment one another.

The Benefits of Allbound Marketing

The thing about inbound marketing and outbound marketing is that both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages (to get more in-depth on this, check out our post about Inbound Vs. Outbound). The Too Long; Didn’t Read version of this is: outbound marketing can be a great way to increase brand awareness on a large scale and to close leads immediately, while inbound marketing is more effective for reaching your target audience and nurturing leads over the long term. Outbound and Inbound are like PB&J–a lovely partnership that makes people happy!

When outbound and inbound work together, we get Allbound. The major benefit of allbound marketing is that it allows you to take advantage of the strengths of both inbound marketing and outbound marketing while at the same time eliminating their individual weaknesses.

Allbound Marketing Strategies

The following are just a few examples of how inbound marketing and outbound marketing can work in harmony together:

1. Using Tradeshows to Build Email Lists

Tradeshows are a traditional form of outbound marketing where companies set up booths and physically engage with potential leads, handing out pamphlets, showing videos, and performing other types of presentations. You can leverage the outbound work you do at your tradeshows by getting attendees to sign up to an email list. By utilizing this strategy, you’re capturing leads using outbound techniques so that you can later nurture them with inbound tactics.

2. Driving Social Media Engagement and Web Traffic Via Outbound Tactics

The amount of people that now use their smartphones or tablets while watching TV is staggering. This provides a lot of opportunity in terms of allbound marketing. For example, you can run ads on TV with a call-to-action that encourages viewers to follow you on social media or to visit your website. This can be very effective since recent studies on second screen activities have shown that 71 percent of second screen users check social media while watching TV, while 68 percent of second screen users look up information about what they’re watching on TV. This means that TV commercials, in particular, are a great way to generate new leads for your inbound campaign.

3. Using Inbound Tactics To Nurture Leads and Outbound Tactics to Close Them

Inbound marketing allows your leads to go through the first few stages of the buyer’s journey on their own. Once they are further down the sales funnel, you may begin engaging with them through emails and premium content offers. However, you can also begin implementing outbound tactics; for example, sending them an email highlighting a special event at your physical store where you can then close your lead.
Inbound marketing may be a more cost-effective strategy that’s based more on long-term success, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore outbound marketing. Instead, take advantage of the strengths of both by implementing an allbound marketing strategy.

 Allbound Marketing Makes Sense

If you’re beginning to catch on to a theme here, it’s that Inbound and Outbound must work together! We’ve talked about Smarketing before, and we continue to champion it because it *works.* Real life example: Because our Marketing team works very closely with our Sales team, we were able to bring on 3 new clients in DECEMBER–that’s right, December. The time of year when everything shuts down so we can drown ourselves in hot cocoa and whipped cream. Our big wins are because we practice Allbound (and because we’re awesome) and wins like this can happen for your company, too!

Now, let’s be clear: Allbound is not a magical tool that will increase your sales 10000000% in 24 hours, but it is a strategy and a way of thinking that can do wonders when it comes to transforming the way your business works and how you generate and nurture leads.