To the B2B marketers out there who have just read the title of this blog post and either fainted (like a Victorian lady clutching at her handkerchief) or started shouting profanities at their screen... let me explain.
Although the title may seem a little controversial, the underlying tone of this article is in no way derogatory towards inbound marketing. The actual fact is, we love inbound marketing, but we also know its place in B2B marketing.
Having just spent a few hours catching up with popular B2B marketing-related websites, social media pages and publications, it became apparent that the industry is still fascinated and obsessed with inbound marketing. Who’s doing it? How are they doing it? What results are they getting from it?
A perfect example of inbound marketing’s omnipotence in today’s world is the fact that when looking for information on inbound marketing, the first thing I did was look at websites, publications and social media pages – inbound marketing in action.
It’s everywhere and it has been for a while. So why is it still being talked about like the best thing since sliced bread? Sliced bread has been around since the early 20th century, but we don’t run home and write a blog post about it every time we pop to the shop and buy a loaf.
We are as guilty as the next marketer when it comes to raving about this technique, having written our How-to Guide to B2B Inbound Marketing. But, the point of this blog post is to illustrate that using inbound marketing in today’s marketing campaigns should now ‘go without saying’. Savvy marketers (and not so savvy marketers) should now know that in order to get the best results from any marketing campaign, it needs to be multi-channel.
Only by combining inbound channels such as content, social media and blogging with outbound techniques such as email, direct mail and telemarketing will you see the best results in terms of B2B lead generation and ROI.
When you are planning your next B2B marketing campaign, blog posts, social media, and content should be added as readily as sliced bread is when making a sandwich.
Inbound marketing is here, it’s here to stay and we know it works. So, let’s get back to focusing on B2B marketing as a multi-channel approach instead of singing the praises of just one member of the team.
Here’s to the future and many successful B2B inbound marketing campaigns.
