Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing… Which One Really Works Better

Ok, so odds are you know there are two types of marketing:

#1 – Inbound (social media, blogging, content, ads, SEO, etc.)
#2 – Outbound (cold email, LinkedIn messaging, Facebook outreach, etc.)

And odds are you know there’s lots of debate about which one is better. Some argue that Inbound wins hands down.   They make the whole “Positioning over Prospecting” argument. And it’s true… if THE ONLY THING you care about is positioning.

It’s the Hunter vs the Hunted dynamic.  When you do inbound and have leads coming to you, you’re the Hunted. It’s like being the hot girl at the club.  You’re in demand and get to pick and choose who you work with.

With outbound marketing, you’re positioning isn’t so great.  The obvious argument being:  If you’re such a hot copywriter, why isn’t your schedule full of clients? Why aren’t they beating down your door?

Here’s why that’s bullshit, and why employing outbound (or doing both) is the key to having FULL control over your sales and income.

#1 – Most companies out there can’t afford the ‘Top Dog’ industry leaders.

Meaning, they can only afford B and C level products and providers.  At the B and C level, doing some very basic positioning can very rapidly put your offer on equal – or higher – footing than the people you’re competing with.

Because of this, the whole argument about “outbound kills your positioning” becomes irrelevant.

#2 – Control

By relying on inbound, you have ZERO control over how many leads you get each month. Instead, your lead flow is entirely dependent on how many people:

1. Find your blog posts via Google searches (haha, riiiiight)
2. See your posts on FB (unless you’re Red Bull or Go Pro, good luck getting big organic distribution)
3. Watch your videos on YouTube (Lolz)
4. Follow up on your (most likely desperate looking) lead magnet sales page
5. Click on your ads and go through your funnel (unless you’ve found the maestro of setting up and running big ticket funnels, good luck making this work)
6. How many hours you spend in Groups “networking” and “building authority” (among the clients who’ve paid me upwards of $5,000 for my services, I’ve never seen a single one of them in an online forum, ever.)

#3 – Inbound takes a LONG time

Ignoring the option of spending huge sums on ads, doing organic inbound marketing takes a LONG time.  First you have to build up all those followers and get them to opt-in to your ‘seen it a hundred times’ lead magnet. Then you have to get them to trust you.
Then you have to get in front of them enough times with valuable content they become comfortable with the idea of actually spending money with you.

Does this method work?  Yes, of course it does…

But here’s the thing:

If at any point during the inbound process you exhibit low status behavior / do something to indicate you’re a not totally bad ass / amateur / don’t know what you’re doing…. It will instantly kill your credibility and lose their trust.
Not to mention, organic inbound takes a LOOOOONG time.

So if you’re fairly early in your business life and don’t have huge budgets, and you:

1. Don’t want to spend loads of time “creating content”
2. Don’t want to spend loads of time hanging out in Groups
3. Want actual *control* over your income and how many leads you generate each month
4. Are willing to put in a tiny bit of effort to understand basic positioning, so that right out of the gate you’re on equal footing with the clients who can afford your product or service.

I highly recommend you get over this whole organic, inbound, “Positioning VS Prospecting” argument.

At my old company, we spent a ton of time and money on inbound marketing. And ya know what they found?

The clients we got from our outbound efforts stayed on longer and spent more money.  Not to mention… A LOT of HUGE billion dollar companies are built using nothing but outbound.

So if you’re not getting as many clients as you want, you have two choices:

#1 Keep beating your head against the wall blogging, hanging out on social media, posting on your wall, and generally getting drowned out by the noise. (painful)

OR

#2 Develop a outbound system for consistently getting in front of the people you want to work with (and then execute on it)

Want to see how to do this?

Get in touch here, and I’ll show you how