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Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing For Local Business

With the internet continuously growing and expanding, local businesses have to continually find creative ways to market themselves. People use the internet to search, find, learn, shop, share, and network. Adults and children of all ages use the internet.

Statistics show that in the United States, approximately one third of the population spends nearly three hours online each day. These statistics show that the amount of time the US population is online include:

  • Online 180+ Minutes = 35%
  • Online 60-79 Minutes = 33%
  • Online 1-59 Minutes = 14%
  • Never Online = 19%

The internet has come so far that instead of doing everything that we once did offline; we now do it all online. It’s becoming more and more alien to use snail mail because sending email is so much faster. When trying to find things, people search the web via search engines. Though schools and colleges still enforce using books for research, more research is done online. Who needs a newspaper delivered to their door when they can get online to read what’s happening? With home delivery available at nearly every store, people don’t go out to shop anymore unless it’s to purchase groceries. Why keep in touch with people over the phone or in person when there are social networking sites to connect with people and have real-time video chat?

With this information being true, local business marketing online is becoming more and more important every day. This is a realization that many local businesses have, thus they are changing some of their strategies.

Today, many business-to-business marketers are changing their budgets to inbound marketing. In 2011, over half of marketers increased their inbound marketing budget. In 2009, the average budget spent on social media and company blogs was approximately 9%. In 2011 it is at 17%. Within two years the average budget spent has nearly doubled.

The traditional local business marketing is outbound marketing. Though this is true, inbound marketing is actually often more cost-effective compared to outbound marketing. Plus, inbound marketing generates both leads and revenue.

With inbound marketing, such as blogs, social media, and search engine optimization, compared to outbound marketing, such as direct mail, telemarketing, and trade shows, inbound marketing costs approximately 60% less per lead. Thus, outbound marketing costs more. So basically, if you want your local business to be successful, it would be wise to start using inbound marketing techniques compared to outbound marketing techniques more often.

Find more information about the statistics provided here in the HubSpot report 100 Awesome Markets Stats, Charts and Graphs.

Written By

For nearly three decades, Chris Marentis, founder and CEO of Surefire Social, has been responsible for driving innovation and sales growth for large media and e-commerce brands as well as start-ups. With a long-history of counseling local businesses about their marketing efforts, Marentis provides insight on what it takes for small businesses to succeed and thrive in today’s evolving digital environment. His notable career includes creating the foundational blueprints for online marketing, e-commerce and content branding for AOL's Interactive Marketing group, where he served as Senior Vice President. While CEO of Clearspring Technologies, Marentis developed one of the most widely adopted venture-backed Web 2.0 technology platforms. Marentis is a frequent speaker at local digital marketing conferences and a contributor to SMB and technology-focused publications.

10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Jeremy

    December 3, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    I’ve found that leveraging my outbound marketing with my inbound provides a nice bump in response. Basically, I send out a direct mail campaign (highly segmented lists Dan Kennedy style) that drives people to a website that delivers on that list segment’s major pain points. It’s more work, but it really connects with my list.

  2. Jed

    December 4, 2011 at 8:36 am

    Actually three hours a day online sounds like nothing. I spend double that easily.

  3. Jasmin

    December 4, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    SEO is so crazy. You decide to market on keyword with over 3 million links found. Online businesses should still learn how to do offline marketing.

  4. Nishadha

    December 5, 2011 at 5:59 am

    It’s interesting to note that around 80% spend some time online during the day, so inbound marketing is definitely gonna be the future. Sooner you jump on board the better.

  5. Danny

    December 6, 2011 at 3:36 am

    Interesting numbers.
    I think the growth of inbound marketing is even higher in the bigger companies.
    The smaller (physical) companies are probably pulling these stats a bit down, because many company owners that have to do most things themselves are a bit older and don’t know much about internet marketing, and they don’t have the money to hire somebody.

  6. Dan

    December 7, 2011 at 2:46 am

    If done correctly, both inbound marketing and outbound marketing techniques can contribute to the success of a small business.

  7. TracyAnn0312

    December 7, 2011 at 10:17 am

    In my opinion, outbound is better than inbound when it comes in local business. One reason is because you can get the costumers you wanted. Although inbound is also good if your business is big because costumers are the one that can advertise you product to one another!

  8. Bestman

    December 7, 2011 at 10:38 am

    Outbound marketing strategies push your message out to your target market. Inbound marketing strategies pulls your target market to you.

  9. bilal

    December 27, 2011 at 11:49 am

    starting local business needs skill and some experience you have given amazing chunks of help , thanks

  10. Darrell Fore

    July 22, 2012 at 6:39 am

    Both outbound and inbound telemarketing can offer businesses with benefits. They just have to go for one that will definitely make them achieve their goals.

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