Outbound Marketing Is Dead -- Hogwash

Written By Ted Grigg

Some online and social media proponents are proclaiming that inbound is replacing outbound marketing activities and that we are seeing a healthy and dramatic shift from promoting products to 100% customer engagement.

These proponents point out that outbound marketing is dead or will be in the next few years. Why? Because interruptive marketing to get people's attention doesn't work anymore.

Pardon my bluntness, but this is baloney.

I think there has always been a crying need to engage the customer. It's just that today customer expectations are higher due to the power of an interactive network we call the Internet.

Some wrongly conclude, however, that the need to announce our products or spread the word using any channel has or is going the way of the dodo bird.

Outbound advertising has existed since the caveman who put out his sign saying "Wheel Maker Here" and will always be a part of a free society.

Social media is essentially word of mouth and PR on steroids. Customers now converse with one another about a given product -- and the companies that produce them can chime in. But this by no means eliminates the need to get the message out to prospects who know little or nothing about our products.

Bottom line: we must continue to be "push driven" outbound marketers while also engaging in conversation with our customers through social media. One does not diminish the other in any way.

This is not wholesale change, but an enhancement enabled by technology.

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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