Are Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing Becoming Mutually Exclusive in 2022?

In a previous post, we emphasized the return of the marketing segmentation with the rise of the digital divide after the pandemic. We’ve been captured by the idea that the pandemic was the last nail in the coffin of marketing based on segmentation and the reign of digital marketing. However, as the pandemic began to unfold a digital divide has risen separating people into two groups. The ones who want to return to normal office work and the ones who want to continue utilizing the technology to stay virtual and work remotely. We also emphasized the importance of rethinking your marketing strategy by integrating your practice inbound marketing strategy (blogs, social media, digital marketing, …) with the outbound marketing strategy (TV ads, billboards, radio, newspapers, magazines, sprees, …).

We received many comments and messages regarding our conclusion being not so accurate because with the digital divide in 2022, inbound marketing and outbound marketing are also becoming mutually exclusive. For inbound marketing proponents, this has been largely caused by the fact that inbound marketing is proving to be better over time.

The list of arguments in favor of inbound marketing is long. One often-used argument is that the Return on Investment ROI of inbound marketing is traceable, whereas it is hard to trace ROI in outbound marketing. Another argument against integrating inbound marketing and outbound marketing is that each strategy has completely opposing language therefore outbound marketing dialogue reverses the relationship created between the organization and the customer by inbound marketing. Outbound marketing is intrusive, it pushes the product into the view of the customer without even expressing his interest in the product. Whereas inbound marketing is not intrusive, it is where the customer pulls the product from the organization after being convinced through searching, reading blogs, and reviews that he is interested in this product.

It is true that customers are becoming more demanding, mobile buyers, and rely on social media interactions to make decisions. For these reasons, outbound marketing is not sufficient to address this era of digital buyers. On the other hand, inbound marketing may address those demands but is not intrusive. We cannot assume that one of them is the right strategy and go along with it. We believe integrating both strategies is better than selecting one of them. Recently we’ve seen the four Ps of the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) shifting to something completely new. The Product is now the Experience, the Price is now the Value, the Place is now Omnichannel, and the Promotion is now Influencers and Storytelling.

To provide the customer with valuable experience available at his convenience and that he has seen or heard of from his influencers you need to build an extensive marketing knowledge and expertise. If we take contact lenses as an example: when disposable contact lenses were first introduced in the market they were pushed into the view of the patient by employing outbound marketing. As marketing contact lenses shifted to inbound marketing, it became more vulnerable to the intrusive marketing of refractive surgery as well as the increased number of dropouts who need to be reached by intrusive outbound marketing.