Thank you for the post… the best one I’ve came across all morning.

There is no doubt that it is too often B2B marketers don’t find the right balance between outbound and inbound marketing. The right blend of the two will most likely generate better results than just focusing all efforts on one.

A simple way of looking at it is inbound gathers information (becomes intelligence) to strengthen the “relevance” factor for outbound efforts.

Planning and the right marketing automation/data management solution(s) is the key to making this entire process less painful and more efficient.

-Willv

However, I suspect that the reason this is hard is that the next step in the communication is in a very challenging middle-of-funnel level. It’s not quite as high level as the industry-educational thought leadership content that gets you discovered using the techniques of inbound marketing, but it’s also not as low level as the direct selling conversation.

To keep people engaged during a nurturing process, the content must continue to add value, without being salesy, as the prospective buyer learns more about the industry and how you serve it. This often requires true subject matter expert content, and that can be challenging for many organizations.

You do make a good point though, and I very much agree.

But yes, Inbound and Outbound can work together!

One case that seems to work well is if you have built a solid Inbound marketing program and are getting a nice flow of low cost and highly interested leads, sometimes they might be someone in the company who is interested and is an influencer, but not the final decison-maker.

You can use the combination of contacting that Inbound lead, along with some Outbound markeitng using data sources like ReachForce, JigSaw or LinkedIn (depending what you are trying to do) to reach the senior decision-maker to expand the number of people you are talking to at the company.

Robert