By You've been outbound marketing for a while now. You meet your KPIs (most of the time) and are generating leads. Still, things could be better. You recognize that some of your marketing strategies are a little out-of-date and disjointed. But you're not quite sure if it's time to update them.
Let's evaluate the signs that outbound isn't as effective for you as it once was and look at practical solutions to get less effective marketing strategies back on track.
1. Buyers Aren't Paying Attention to Your Outbound Marketing Messages
How do you feel when you get an unsolicited call, text, or email asking you to buy something? What do you do when an obnoxious ad pops up on your screen? The advertiser could even have something you need, but you want to make buying decisions on your own terms. Your customers feel the same way.
When your target audience ignores and avoids your outbound marketing, it doesn't mean you don't have a fantastic B2B technology product or service. They may know you have great offerings. You've told them enough times. The way you're approaching people is turning them off.
The Fix
Turn your brand into a magnet instead with inbound marketing. Attract high quality leads who are actively searching for the B2B technology solutions you offer. These sales qualified leads are ready to listen and engage with you. They find value in the content you share online and want to know more.
Not all of them are ready to buy at this very moment. But through inbound marketing, you get the right message into their hands at the right time, filling up your sales funnel and guiding people through it.
Outbound marketing and inbound marketing can significantly improve your marketing ROI when they work together. But outbound alone struggles to do this with modern, educated B2B buyers.
2. Buyers Don't Understand Your Product
You've built a product that addresses all of your customers' pain points. But they still "don't get it." They don't understand why your product is worth what you charge or better than a competitor. With outbound marketing, you're restricted to advertising space. You just can't say all you need to say within those confines. And often you bluntly talk about solutions before people really understand the problems you're solving.
The Fix
In inbound marketing, it's still important to be clear and concise. You need to convey in seconds what you're all about. But you'll use inbound content to encourage exploration of their challenges and then ways to fix them. This organically guides them toward the function and importance of your B2B technology.
Employ inbound techniques like these to increase understanding and further the buyer's journey:
- SEO to increase visibility of resources in search
- YouTube videos to visually convey information and increase shareability
- Twitter and Linkedin to share these resources and build a following
- Email marketing to regularly re-engage your audience and increase your marketing ROI
- Social media and search ads, including remarketing, to expand your reach and re-direct people back into your funnel
3. Leads Are Sporadic and Low Quality
Outbound marketing often struggles to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time. So lead generation is unpredictable.
The Fix
Inbound marketing is about building a relationship with potential customers early in the buyer's journey before they may even realize they need your B2B technology. Establish yourself as a thought leader by providing insight and useful resources. This creates a consistent and reliable stream of high-quality leads.
Focus on quality over quantity when it comes to website traffic. Create a quality experience on your website by researching your audience to know what they're looking for. Use SEO and a mobile-first strategy to make this content more findable in search when they need it.
4. Click-Through Rate Is Pitiful
Something isn't resonating with your target. Chances are your marketing strategies aren't aligned and supporting each other. This is also a matter of timing. Your calls-to-action are for the decision-making stage (right before someone buys). But the person seeing it is still in the awareness stage (just becoming aware they have a problem).
The Fix
Audit your entire marketing setup. Make sure you have analytics resources in place to understand where traffic is coming from and how to attribute leads. Map out the buyer's journey and make sure your CTAs align with that journey.
Bridge the gap between outbound marketing and inbound marketing. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. It's when they work together that you can achieve the highest marketing ROI.
Is your outbound marketing delivering the sales qualified leads you need to grow your company? Download our case study to see how one B2B tech company is currently using these fixes to increase their marketing ROI by 132% YOY. 
