Outbound marketing, also known as push marketing, is where the organisation or company reaches out to clients, rather than the clients coming to the organisation or company (which is known as inbound marketing).
This type of marketing comes in many forms, with the biggest and most common being paid advertising. Paid advertising includes TV, radio, newspaper and magazine adverts, as well as digital advertising such as what you see on websites, and digital billboards.
It also includes cold calling and cold emailing. When done correctly, cold outreach can be an incredibly effective form of outbound marketing. Knowing who your potential clients are and targeting them with the intention of helping them with their pain points is key for effective marketing.
Outbound marketing does come with drawbacks, notably with digital outbound marketing. For example, ad-blockers can prevent you from reaching the intended audience. It’s estimated that around 47% of internet users use ad-blocking of some form, and while some websites such as Facebook circumnavigate ad blockers by embedding their ads in ways that ensure they can’t be picked up, this is still a large percentage of an audience that you will miss. There is also the risk that outbound marketing could potentially be perceived as annoying or bothersome.