Most marketers are not unfamiliar with the two concepts of inbound marketing and outbound marketing. Unlike inbound marketing, which focuses on conveying marketing messages to employees working for the company and groups of old customers, outbound marketing targets groups of new and potential customers. The question often asked when you plan an overall marketing campaign is: which form of marketing is more important and will you need both forms of marketing or just one?
Usually, implementing an inbound marketing campaign is easier for businesses. You only have to convey promotional messages about your products and services to people you know. Overall, the goal of inbound marketing is to maximize available resources to turn opportunities into revenue. The advantage of inbound marketing is cost savings because you know exactly who you are reaching. Means of deploying inbound marketing are also much simpler and easier to control, including internal communication networks such as flyers, websites, internal chat channels; corporate events; set of internal regulations...
More difficult to implement but also promising greater success, you can expand your existing customer base through outbound marketing. External forms of advertising such as television, advertising posters, yellow pages... can bring your products and services to a large number of potential customers. However, the costs for external advertising forms are therefore relatively large compared to internal marketing.
If your business's modest goal is to maintain sales, you can achieve this simply through effective inbound marketing campaigns. However, the interesting thing is that the increasing competition in every business environment causes a business that is stagnant to become lagging behind. Even when applying the "hybrid" form of word-of-mouth marketing, in which company employees and old customers are encouraged to continue to convey promotional messages to potential customers and businesses sooner or later. Must also combine marketing implementation in both forms to achieve development goals.
Walk with both feet
"Many domestic businesses attach development goals and increased sales to outward marketing plans but forget the importance of inward marketing," said Mr. T. Tuyen - marketing manager of a components distribution company. computer in Hanoi commented, "I think it would be a mistake for businesses to focus on pouring money into TVCs (television advertisements - authors) or posters in crowded places and forget that the Our employees, partners and regular customers are also subjects that need constant care."
According to Mr. Tuyen, for small and medium-sized businesses, inbound marketing is even more important than outbound marketing because in most of these businesses, the budget for marketing is not large. In addition, continuously updating information will also create conditions for marketing activities to be conducted on a large scale by all company employees, partners and groups of regular customers, rather than being confined to one area. a functional department.
Similar to the objects of outbound marketing, a business's employees are also affected by the business's brand and development plans. A team of well-informed employees who are proud to work for their company can significantly increase productivity and proactively create and build relationships with customers. However, if these "internal customers" do not fully grasp the outbound marketing plans or participate ineffectively in the process of implementing commitments to potential customers, the results of these strategies will be affected. Outbound marketing will be negatively impacted. Thus, internal marketing can be considered as the first step, the foundation to create momentum and stability for the next step, which is external marketing. To achieve the goal, through marketing tools, businesses need to adjust their employees' perspective of the business (internal brand) to be similar to the business image as perceived by employees. Potential customers (external brand). It is this unity that will create a very important resonance between inbound marketing and outbound marketing.
For inbound marketing to be successful?
Inbound marketing is a continuous process and requires maximum creativity and support from the company's leadership. In general, a successful inbound marketing campaign needs to converge the following two characteristics:
First, businesses need to parallel the organization's goals with the behavior of its staff. Based on each specific job position, please share so that all employees understand the development direction of the business. Combined with the working environment, welfare policies, etc., allowing employees to continuously update this information will arouse a positive working attitude and maximize the potential of each individual.
Second, operate and develop internal information channels well, promote corporate culture building activities. The advantages of new communication utilities such as intranet, internal website, internal newsletter... need to be fully utilized.
Third, during the implementation process, businesses also need to keep in mind that marketing is a continuous process of testing, checking results and making necessary adjustments to achieve the best results.
DNSGCT
