Outbound marketing: what it is, what it means and examples

If you haven’t heard of outbound marketing until now, or simply aren’t quite sure what it is, there’s a very simple way to define it: it’s the marketing actions that interrupt, the kind that can be annoying.

In reality, they’re only annoying when the strategy isn’t well defined, because, as you’ll see, outbound marketing can be very effective.

Outbound marketing is very often explained in contrast to inbound marketing because they’re completely different styles: while the former uses interruption techniques to grab attention, the latter uses attraction strategies.

Pull vs push. While one goes for pulling, the other goes for pushing, basically.

If you apply it to a physical action, you’ll see that pushing is always easier than pulling, or at least more efficient.

But this doesn’t mean that interruption marketing doesn’t serve its purpose or that it doesn’t also have advantages and benefits. In fact, when used well, it can deliver very good results and excellent returns on investment.

So, what is outbound marketing? How can it help you promote your business without seeming aggressive or annoying? Is it possible to launch promotional actions of this kind without bothering your audience?

Let’s dive right in, but first let’s define exactly what outbound marketing is.

What does outbound mean?

Outbound is an English word that means “outgoing” or “outward”. It’s used for anything that goes out from the company to the outside world, without anyone having asked for it first.

That’s why the term shows up in several contexts:

In marketing, outbound is also known as interruption marketing or traditional marketing: the message reaches people while they’re doing something else, like watching TV or reading a website.

What is outbound marketing

Until relatively recently, outbound marketing was simply marketing.

In fact, this category includes all the traditional marketing actions and channels for reaching potential customers. This includes email, direct mail, radio, television and print ads, as well as billboards and trade shows, among others.

More recently, digital advertising has joined this list ―programmatic, banners, etc.―.

But with the arrival of new, less intrusive promotional strategies like inbound marketing, traditional actions began to be known as outbound marketing.

We’ll talk about this contrast later; for now, let’s focus on the definition of outbound marketing.

Outbound literally means “outgoing”. In other words, something that goes out, from the inside out.

Since “outgoing marketing” sounds odd ―and not very cool― we’ll stick with the English term.

Continuing with the definition, the term “outbound marketing” refers to all those promotional techniques used to actively reach the public through external channels.

We could say that the meaning of outbound marketing has to do with a marketing strategy that’s directed “outward,” toward the audience in general.

In short, instead of waiting for consumers to find information about the product or service on their own, it’s the company or brand that puts itself out there to be seen.

Hey, look at me, I’m right here! I’m awesome, can’t you see?

The goal of marketing with outbound strategies is to increase brand awareness and generate leads with a direct approach based largely on interpersonal communication and persuasion.

But it’s much more than that.

In outbound marketing, it’s not just about sending a message to potential customers, but also about building relationships with them. This means it’s important to make sure the content resonates with the target audience and appeals to their interests.

This already gives us a basic requirement for this strategy to be effective: you have to make sure the message is tailored to the audience and speaks to it in a conversational, friendly tone, adapted to its needs and interests.

It’s also necessary to create ads or content that, while promotional, are also interesting and appealing. This means that, as far as possible, it should be informative and/or entertaining.

It should also grab attention right from the start. There’s a lot of content to compete with, and you need to stand out 🤯

Benefits of outbound marketing

Even though newer marketing techniques may have taken the spotlight away from traditional ones, the truth is these still work if applied correctly and backed by a well-designed strategy.

If you’re looking to attract more customers and grow your business quickly, outbound marketing is an excellent way to start.

Keep in mind that outbound marketing lets you reach a broad and diverse audience, generate interest and awareness about a product or service, drive people to a website, build a strong presence in the market and, ultimately, increase sales.

And all this in a short period of time ―although this largely depends on factors such as investment―.

Want to know why?

Mainly because outbound marketing offers the following benefits:

1 Generates interest and awareness

One of the key benefits of outbound marketing is that it lets you generate interest and awareness about your product or service among the general public.

By leveraging external communication channels such as TV and radio ads, print advertising and digital media, among others, it’s possible to reach a large number of people and generate interest in a product or service.

This not only means a possible increase in sales, but also allows brands to establish themselves as a trusted leader in their industry.

2 Reaches a broad and diverse audience

Because external communication channels can reach a large number of people, outbound marketing techniques let you reach a very broad and diverse audience.

This way, you can target different demographics such as age, location and interests to make sure your message reaches the right people.

This effectively increases brand visibility. In turn, this increase in awareness can generate more customers, more sales and greater success. And with the added advantage that you can measure your campaign results and make decisions about future actions and strategies.

3 Drives traffic to your website

Outbound marketing can also be used to drive people to a website using external channels such as print and digital advertising, for example. This way of bringing people to a website can increase traffic and improve conversions.

There are many reasons to bring visitors to a page, from finding information about a product or service to viewing or taking advantage of an offer. It can also be a good way to get newsletter subscribers who agree to receive regular information about the brand.

4 Improves brand visibility

Improving brand visibility helps build a strong presence in the market and establish yourself as an authority in an industry or sector. Keep in mind that brand visibility is a key element for any company’s success, since it’s how consumers perceive and recognize it.

By connecting with the public through external channels, outbound actions can reach a wide variety of people and increase visibility. This helps build relationships with customers and increase trust, building a solid reputation, while also reinforcing the brand image and improving its perceived value among consumers.

5 Increases sales

All of the above leads to an increase in sales, which is, after all, the direct or indirect end goal of any marketing action, right? This is achieved both through lead generation and direct consumer conversion.

An important point of outbound marketing is that it seeks to close sales more directly and in the short term; for example, in a promotional campaign.

However, although they’re different, outbound and inbound can not only coexist, but complement each other. But to understand this, you first need to know what inbound marketing is and how it differs from outbound.

Inbound vs outbound marketing

Inbound and outbound marketing are two different strategies used to generate leads and increase sales.

The basic difference has to do with the approach.

Inbound means “incoming”: from the outside in.

Just the opposite of outbound.

This means inbound marketing focuses on attracting customers, not reaching out to them.

This is done through content creation, social media engagement, search engine optimization (SEO) and other techniques and strategies designed to attract consumers to products and services.

This difference in approach shows two opposite sides of how to reach an audience: while inbound relies largely on creating appealing content that customers actively search for, outbound focuses more on getting a company’s message to as many people as possible in a short period of time.

However, these two ways of doing things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Many companies use both, since although inbound marketing has many benefits, results take time to show. While this happens, outbound marketing offers the chance to reach the audience sooner and even give a boost to the content that’s part of the inbound strategy.

This table sums up the differences:

Outbound marketing strategies

The key to outbound marketing success is finding the right channels and messages for your target. Before launching a marketing campaign of this kind, you need to research the target market, identify its needs and determine the best way to reach your audience.

Got it?

If so, it’s time to choose one or more outbound marketing strategies that fit your goals.

The main outbound marketing techniques, generally accessible to small businesses and freelancers, are the following:

• Advertising in traditional local media, such as television, radio, newspapers or magazines: this strategy lets you reach a very broad and diverse group, located in a specific demographic area. You can select specialized media or programs to further target your audience.
• Direct mail: this involves sending promotions or information about a product or service to a list of contacts through postal mail.
• Point-of-sale advertising, such as in stores or supermarkets: offers the potential to reach prospective consumers at the moment they’re making a purchase decision.
• Event promotions such as trade fairs, conferences, sporting events, teams or local associations: this technique lets you reach a broad target and generate interest and awareness about a product or service.
• Email marketing: sending emails to your subscriber list or a contact base that has given consent, with the goal of generating interest and awareness about a product or service.
• Social media advertising: lets you reach broad and diverse groups with a high degree of targeting, as well as measure the campaign’s impact.
• Interactive advertising such as surveys or online games: this outbound technique lets you generate engagement with your audience and measure the campaign’s impact.
• Performance actions: programmatic campaigns, Google Ads, retargeting and other performance marketing strategies are a very effective way to show advertising targeted by interests.

As you can see, there are many outbound marketing strategies and techniques you can use to reach an audience and generate interest and awareness about a product or service.

Now all that’s left is to see how we can put all this into practice. To do that, let’s look at some examples of outbound marketing that work.

Examples of outbound marketing

As we’ve seen, the fact that outbound marketing includes traditional advertising techniques doesn’t mean we can’t use the digital tools available to us. Quite the opposite.

You can skip TV, radio, newspapers and other old-school media. There’ll be time later to use them if they really interest you.

The digital advertising options available today are much more efficient and deliver measurable results that, in turn, help improve campaigns and increase return on investment.

However, there’s one thing to keep in mind: no matter how digital an outbound strategy is, careful: it’s not guaranteed to work. Not just anything will work. And it’s important to have a good strategy behind it.

But some examples of outbound within digital marketing that work particularly well, among others, would be these:

• Social media ad campaigns
• Google Ads or Google Shopping ads
• Remarketing campaigns
• Programmatic advertising
• Promotional videos on YouTube
• Email marketing offering useful, valuable content to users ―not just promotional―

Email marketing is a very interesting outbound marketing strategy because it lets you reach an audience that’s genuinely drawn to what you offer and has agreed in advance to receive those messages. Plus, you can complement it perfectly with an inbound strategy.

With a powerful email marketing tool, you’ll be able to make the most of your campaigns and get the most out of all your marketing actions.

So why wait to try it?

For this strategy to work well, it’s a good idea to really fine-tune your customer targeting, since the message reaches a lot of people who haven’t asked for it.

Outbound email marketing: what you can and can’t do

Email appears on many lists of outbound techniques, but you need to be careful: writing to your list isn’t the same as writing to strangers.

In Spain, the LSSI requires prior consent to send commercial communications by email, including to businesses. Buying a database and sending it offers exposes you to fines and damages your deliverability. We explain it in our post about buying email databases.

What does work is combining both strategies:

This way, every euro you invest in outbound isn’t lost when the campaign ends: it turns into contacts you own and can email whenever you want.

How to measure an outbound marketing campaign

Since outbound usually costs more per contact, it’s worth measuring it well:

Cost per contact or per lead. What you invest divided by the contacts you get.

Conversion rate. What share of those contacts ends up buying or asking for information.

Return on investment. Whether revenue exceeds what you’ve spent. You’ll find the formula in the ROI glossary entry.

Source of each contact. Use a URL with UTM parameters or a different code for each channel to know which ad, trade show or call worked.

How Mailrelay helps you

With Mailrelay, you turn the audience you reach with your outbound actions into a list of your own. You can create forms with double opt-in, send the welcome email automatically and segment each contact by the channel they came through.

The free account includes up to 80,000 emails a month and 20,000 contacts, with human support on every plan.

Frequently asked questions

These are the most common questions about outbound marketing.

What does outbound mean?

It means “outgoing” or “outward”. In marketing, it refers to actions that go out to find the customer.

What is outbound marketing in a nutshell?

It’s marketing that takes the message to people who haven’t asked for it, such as ads, sales calls or trade shows.

What’s the difference between inbound and outbound?

Outbound goes out to find the customer. Inbound attracts them with useful content so that they come to you.

Is email marketing inbound or outbound?

It depends on who you’re writing to. Sending to your subscriber list is inbound, because they’ve given you permission. Writing to strangers is outbound and, in Spain, the law heavily restricts it.

Does outbound marketing still work?

Yes, especially for getting known quickly or reaching audiences that aren’t looking for you. It works best when you combine it with an inbound strategy so you don’t lose the contacts you gain.

Jose Argudo

CMO at Mailrelay. Writes about email marketing, copywriting and conversion for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

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