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Reduce Reliance on Traditional Advertising Through Outreach Marketing

In the world of digital marketing, there seems to be little need to invest in traditional forms of advertising anymore. With all the options and possibilities that the online space offers, the question arises: why should businesses spend time and money on TV ads, radio spots, or billboards? Right.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that there is always a time and place where you can focus on more traditional forms of advertising, and they can also bring results. However, the main problem here is that traditional ads are expensive and time-consuming to create, and are often less effective compared to digital ads.

And when we talk about digital advertising, these days you may not need to rely on it as much as you used to. It’s all thanks to outreach marketing. Today we’re going to dig into outreach marketing, which offers your business new ways to generate quality leads, attract customers who share your vision, and cut down on financial waste in the process.

Let’s take a closer look.

What is traditional advertising?

Traditional advertising includes all offline media used for advertising purposes, but today also includes digital advertising and PPC, on which businesses large and small expend vast resources.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, traditional advertising remains a significant part of their marketing efforts, both online and offline. For example, in the United States alone, spending on traditional advertising has been steadily increasing in recent years.

Certainly, there is a time and place for any kind of advertising, whether traditional or digital, but not so much for small businesses and more for those with more money to spend.

When it comes to your business, your marketing and advertising budget may be better spent elsewhere where you can achieve a greater reach and develop a highly personalized and targeted outreach strategy that attracts the right prospects.

What is outreach marketing?

Outreach marketing includes the tools and tactics you use to get your brand in front of the right people through relevant channels and influencers. These channels include LinkedIn, which has a 3x higher response rate than email, other social media, and email outreach.

The word “influencer” is important here because we’re not just talking about external influencers like popular bloggers or social media personalities in your industry.

Outreach marketing captures qualified leads by reaching the right prospects at the right time and offering a unique solution to their problem. It’s one of the best ways for B2B companies to boost lead generation, but it also has its place in the B2C scene and on traditional social media like Instagram and TikTok.

Now that you know what outreach marketing is, let’s take a closer look at outreach marketing and how to do it right, so you can increase your lead generation while saving money and time.

Start with Internal and External Influencers

When it comes to effective public relations, companies often overlook one thing: they need to assign and identify the best internal and external influencers for their campaigns.

Typically, for example in B2B, business leaders try to focus only on internal personas to leverage the CEO’s influence to generate interested responses and leads. This is great and should be a key part of your campaign.

On the other hand, if you don’t also identify potential external influencers to do public relations for you, you’re missing out. By combining both options, you can achieve maximum reach and combine the influence of internal and external authorities to attract, engage, and sell to customers.

First, you need to identify who your most important contacts are within your company. This will usually be the CEO, as these individuals will naturally hold the most important role due to their position within the industry. You can also name a few other senior people within the company to contact.

Externally, you should research your field to find notable people to work with. These people can reach out to audiences and individual prospects, pique their interest, and encourage them to book a call with a sales rep.

When a trade goes through, you usually receive a commission.

Connect with Qualified Prospects on LinkedIn

LinkedIn continues to be the best platform for expanding your professional network, both as a business leader and as a brand.

Once you have your internal and organizational personas and external influencers, you can start sending connection requests to qualified prospects. However, for LinkedIn Outreach to work, you need to focus on your ideal prospects and create a list of prospects that align with your brand goals.

This is one area where LinkedIn automation can help, allowing you to automate your prospect research and automatically send connection requests to the right people. This is a great way to save time and money, minimise the risk of errors, and ensure you spend your time actually reaching the right, qualified prospects.

You can then research each individual prospect and create personalized outreach messages to send through the CEO’s or other influencer’s profiles. This is exactly what hyper-targeting means – it allows you to personalize your messages to address the needs and pain points of prospects in your specific industry or niche.

Find Opportunities on Traditional Social Media

Outside of LinkedIn, outreach marketing is a powerful way to connect with prospects on non-professional social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and more.

These entertainment-based social platforms give you the opportunity to connect with influencers who can promote your brand and its message to a larger audience. This helps build your brand and boost your reputation among potential customers as you can reach them with direct messages that include special offers, coupon codes, links, and more.

Another benefit of non-professional social media is that influencer posts tend to get a lot of engagement. Likes, shares, comments, and clicks on links in your profile are all opportunities to introduce your products or services to potential customers.

With the added benefit of video content, you can effectively build your outreach strategy on video-based platforms like TikTok and Instagram by leveraging influencers. The aim of these influencers is to build your brand’s image and credibility so that potential customers respond positively to your outreach.

Develop an Effective Email Outreach Strategy

Email outreach is one of the most effective and profitable ways to get people to interact with your brand and generate an interested response. Your goal is to get qualified leads who will click on your link to learn more about you or schedule a call with a sales representative.

While the latter may take time and require multiple follow-ups, the first contact must be impactful and personalized enough to captivate the recipient.

Your email reach depends heavily on the quality of your subject line. The subject line must be concise, yet effective enough to pique your interest. Additionally, it is essential for your team to create a list of spam words for your emails to prevent them from being marked as spam and actually reaching the inbox of your prospects.

In the body of your email, you should introduce yourself, explain in a few sentences what you do and why you believe you’re the best solution for your customer. You should include a strong call to action inviting the lead to a meeting or learning more about your offer.

Continually build your brand authority.

For outreach marketing to bring you the desired results and allow you to gradually move away from traditional advertising, it must be based on a strong brand identity. This includes your company brand and your personal brand.

If you are a business leader, you need to build your network, social proof and personal brand so that social proof speaks and works for you. You can be sure that every potential customer you contact will look you up online before deciding how to respond. Therefore, you need to make sure he finds encouraging information and a proven track record.

To do this, you need to create high-quality content on your website, post on social media and diversify your content. Create as much value-driven content as you can. Examples: Examples include case studies, white papers, guides and templates, and other resources that your potential customers will find useful.

You can then use this content as a lead magnet to entice prospects to learn more or get in touch. Above all, always share high-quality content for free and distribute it online to build your authority and your business and personal brand

Now it’s your turn

There are many reasons why outreach marketing will be the focus and primary driver of lead generation in 2024 and beyond: it’s cheaper, much more effective because it’s targeted, and most importantly, it connects your brand with the right people.

It doesn’t just take anyone, it takes the right people.

But to build, distribute and leverage your outreach marketing strategy, you need to follow the rules outlined above. Building and maintaining a strong brand identity and focusing on social proof are one of the best ways to make your outreach campaigns more effective.

By following these rules, you can reduce your reliance on traditional and even digital advertising, saving you time and money and achieving results through public relations.