6 Ways to Attract More Customers Through Outbound Marketing Outbound marketing is often associated with more traditional methods, like direct mail. The thing is, 'traditional' works.
By Thomas Smale Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In today's online business world, it's much more commonplace to hear experts extol the benefits of inbound rather than outbound marketing. While inbound marketing focuses primarily on the creation and promotion of quality content to drive customer traffic, outbound marketing is often associated with more traditional -- some would even say dated -- marketing tactics such as direct mail and cold-calling.
Related: 4 Reasons to Use Direct Mail Marketing Instead of Email Marketing
In fact, traditional or not, the benefits of outbound marketing are numerous. So check out these six innovative ways to tap into its power and put outbound marketing to work for your business.
1. Uplead
The verdict is in, and email marketing is not going anywhere any time soon. Uplead is a lead-generation platform that aims to connect B2B marketing and sales teams with over 30 million decision-makers at businesses worldwide. Users can search Uplead's database using variables such as industry, company size, technologies used and more.
What makes Uplead more useful than similar lead generation tools is its real-time data verification. Each email address you select in the Uplead database is verified before you send an email. This saves marketers valuable time and effort. No more frustrating email bounces from invalid accounts.
2. DirectIQ
The value of a well-thought-out email marketing campaign cannot be overstated. According to Wordstream, email marketing is one of the most powerful digital tools for businesses, with email users predicted to grow by 254.7 million by 2020 and a $44 return for every $1 spent on email marketing.
Related: Why Do You Need to Cold Call?
Of course, billions of emails are sent every day, which might make it seem that all marketers do is haphazardly draft up emails, send them blindly and sit back as the revenue starts pouring in. This isn't the case.
Studies show that curated, segmented marketing campaigns enjoy a 14.31 percent higher open rate than non-segmented email campaigns, according to Mailchimp. In this context, DirectIQ is one of the best tools to create email marketing automation campaigns. These strategies are key to keeping up with the competition; in fact, EmailMonday reports that 49 percent of marketers surveyed said they use some form of email automation.
DirectIQ allows marketers to upload a list of contacts, create a segmented campaign and report key metrics like recipients contacted, the number of successful deliveries and geo-tracking.
3. Midroll
Midroll is an advertising sales platform that enables marketers to purchase advertising on hundreds of highly successful podcasts. Midroll works closely with podcast hosts and producers. Typically, the host will deliver advertising messages personally and in his or her own words. This allows advertisers to tap into the trust and authority that podcast hosts have built with their audiences.
Advertising rates are based on the number of downloads a podcast receives and charged on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis. Rates typically range from $18 to $50 CPM.
Podcast marketing allows for specific targeting based on both demographics and audience interests. You can select the shows you want to advertise on for yourself or put yourself in the hands of the podcast marketing experts at Midroll. They will devise a campaign for you based on your budget and specifications.
4. Close.io
Cold-calling -- yes, cold calling -- is the oldest trick in the book, but is a strategy still employed by most businesses today. While it may seem strange to jump on the phone in today's era of digital marketing, retargeting potential prospects via cold calling is still part of many businesses' sales strategies.
In fact, according to RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, cold-calling is one of the most effective ways to connect with tech prospects. Tools like Close.io are excellent resources for optimizing steps of the process, like leaving pre-recorded voicemails to save time, setting API integrations, cold-calling funnel metrics and benchmarks, complementary emailing and reporting and other methods.
Such tools can help you bring bring cold-calling strategies to the next, more actionable level of productivity.
5. Facebook
There is no arguing with Facebook's reach. According to Statista, over 80 percent of U.S. iternet users use Facebook. The number of Facebook users worldwide now exceeds two billion. Joining groups relevant to your niche and opening the conversation to others about your product is an effective method of reaching out to potential prospects.
You can start a conversation right through Facebook's Messaging platform, reducing the barriers to getting in touch and coming across as a more personal outreach method. But it's not just Facebook's reach that makes it appealing to outbound marketers. It's the wealth of information Facebook gathers from users. This enables marketers to target with pinpoint accuracy which ones get shown their Facebook ads.
Facebook ads are also one of the most inexpensive ways to reach people. The cost to reach 1,000 people is much lower with Facebook ads than with almost any other form of advertising.
6. Jelli
With the exception of print advertising, advertising on the radio is about as traditional as outbound marketing gets. It remains a thriving marketing platform today. Radio boasts an audience of 245 million listeners weekly. This number rivals the online reach of Google and Facebook.
In the past, buying radio airtime was a time-consuming and complicated process. But Jelli takes the friction out of media buying by consolidating access to thousands of radio stations across the United States. Jelli's analytics give you real-time insights into your campaigns. Jelli's cloud-based SpotPlan platform allows you to upload new creative assets and get them into the rotation on your selected platforms in minutes rather than days.
Related: The Rise of Inbound Marketing and the Death of the Cold Call
Final thoughts
There are many outbound marketing techniques that deserve a place in the modern marketer's playbook. Whether it's targeting the ears of your potential customers through podcasts and radio, curating your email marketing campaign, displaying ads that are laser-focused on your demographic or utilizing valuable data to reach the right B2B customer, there is an outbound marketing tool that's right for growing your business.
