B2B marketing has two main modalities: outbound and inbound.
Outbound is the most familiar. The marketer blasts their message to an audience – perhaps by sending out a bulk email, posting on social media, or by running an ad somewhere.
Outbound marketing is a game of percentages. You might consider an email blast to be successful if 2% of the targets respond – while an even smaller percentage convert, that is, buy something from you.
Social media or targeted advertising might up this percentage a bit, but most of your marketing dollar goes into the toilet regardless, as your outbound marketing generally falls on deaf ears.
Inbound marketing is a bit harder to get one’s head around. Provide something of value and wait until people find it, engage with it, and reach out to you to learn more.
On the plus side, when someone does reach out, they’re already a warm lead. They have a need they think you might be able to fill.
On the downside, however, inbound doesn’t have the immediacy of outbound. You can’t be sure who will see what you’re offering or when they’ll choose to engage with it. In other words, inbound marketing requires patience.
In the enterprise software marketing world, the most important value you can provide to attract people is content – typically written content, but also webinars, podcasts, videos, and other types of content.
Put out the right content – content people want to read to the end, like and share on social media, and circulate amongst their colleagues – and your prospects will beat a path to your door.
Copyright © Intellyx LLC. No AI was used to write this article. Image source: Craiyon.
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