The Web has empowered consumers in many ways, giving them new methods for finding, researching, and buying products. Marketing communication as a two-way dialogue emerged in response to these changes in behavior. People no longer rely solely on TV/newspaper/magazine ads, billboards, direct mail, email, banner ads, and other traditional outbound marketing channels to learn about new products. These methods are now viewed as too intrusive, especially among younger consumers who regularly tune out the tactics. So what’s the difference between inbound and outbound marketing, anyway?

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing focuses on consumers finding you. This approach  is attractive to marketers because it zeros in on people who are already actively searching for a product or service and generates more qualified leads. The components of this method are fairly simple: Create fresh, relevant, targeted content specifically designed to reach a distinct audience. Online research is now routine for consumers, who have embraced daily pre-purchase analysis in huge way. Inbound marketing is significantly less expensive than outbound marketing. Strategies include:

• Social media marketing
• Blogging and content marketing
• Podcasts
• White papers
• Ebooks
• Infographics
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay per click (PPC) advertising

What is Outbound Marketing?

Outbound marketing focuses on paying to broadcast your message to find consumers who will listen to you. It’s a shotgun-blast approach to promotion — the campaign is broad-based and distributed as widely as possible to a large and diverse audience in hopes of generating the greatest number of sales. It’s a value-driven numbers game: The more billboard ads or banner ads you pay for = the more people see your product = the more sales you’ll make. Outbound marketing strategies include:

• Print ads
• TV ads
• Banner ads
• Trade shows
• Telemarketing
• Cold Calling
• Press Releases
• Trade Shows
• Email Marketing
• Direct Mail

This infographic highlights the differences between inbound and outbound marketing

This infographic from Voltier Digital pits inbound marketing against outbound marketing — can you guess which one is winning?

Some interesting stats:

• 44% of direct mail is never opened, so it’s a waste of time, postage, and trees.
• 86% of people skip through television commercials.
• 91% of email users have opted out of company email that they had previously subscribed to.
• 84% of 25-to-34 year olds have left a favorite website because of an “irrelevant or intrusive ad”.
• The cost per lead in outbound marketing is 62% more than for inbound marketing.

Check out the image below and let me know what you think…

So let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I started a BLOG and started writing about my views and experiences as a B2B sales and marketing junkie. After 30+ years in the field, first 20+ working with a number of software companies in every aspect of field operations and then 10+ as a consultant, I felt I had something to say so I did what every warm blooded marketer feels they need to do and started cranking out CONTENT. First a web site, then BLOG posts with a few choice podcasts and webinars. A couple of plum conferences in front of live audiences; interviews for trade pub articles and some articles and white papers of my own. Lots of arguments and opinions supported by facts and stats and use cases.

But what is the end game of all this content creation and publication? Followers? Likes? Retweets? In my case, it’s all about building trust with my audience and to find buyers and influencers who believe what I believe. God knows we have created mountains of content and information to supposedly make it easier for buyers to buy. Buyers should be able to defend their decisions as intelligent and authoritative, but are they?

But Are We Telling Good Stories?

It depends on how you measure and from whose perspective … yours or your buyer? My head, or my “thinking brain” says yes, but my gut, or my “emotional brain” says no. I had been feeling this way for a while, then I read a fascinating book and attended the author’s workshop. It was a “eureka” moment for me.

The author is Mike Bosworth, legendary creator of Solution Selling and Customer-Centric Selling. The book is entitled, “What Great Salespeople Do: The Science of Selling Through Emotional Connection and the Power of Story”. Now the importance of storytelling is not new for sellers and marketers. But when we look at how it influences buyer behavior and why it works, we see more clearly that there is a right way and wrong way to tell stories.

What’s the Secret to Good Storytelling?

The secret lies in making an emotional connection with buyers. Why? Because as Bosworth and co-author Ben Zoldan (Customer-Centric Selling) so expertly explain, “breakthroughs in neuroscience have determined that people don’t make decision solely on the basis of logic … in fact, emotions play the dominant role in most decision-making processes.”

I’ve always known this point to be true – it probably has been one of the keys to my success in B2B sales and marketing. However, reading the book and going through the Story Leaders workshop last week provided a field-tested framework for how to construct and deliver stories to build trust and rapport with buyers. I like frameworks. I use them all the time in my practice and have relied on them throughout my career. They feed my (sometimes overly) analytical personality … thirsting for information, facts and figures, logic, process-driven. Very left-brain though … the “thinking” brain.

But frameworks must be based on beliefs and points-of-view that prove out to be true. And ignoring the importance of establishing rapport may help explain why all of the sales enablement training and methodology programs have not raised the performance of those it was targeted to improve – the 80% of the sales force that only delivered 20% of the sales. Bosworth and Zoldan point out that recent research shows that the old 80/20 rule – where 20% of salespeople deliver 80% of the sales – is more like 87-13. The gap has gotten worse between the best and the rest of the pack. Ouch!

Marketers Need to Apply the Story Telling Teachings to Build Trust

I believe that successful content marketing strategies are about quality, not quantity. We need to tell our stories with authenticity and real passion in order to cut through the information overload that buyers are experiencing. Most company stories on web sites lack characters and people to make them real and believable – they don’t draw me in emotionally. What I like about Bosworth and Zoldan’s approach is that they actually teach you how to make your ideas, beliefs and experiences “storiable” using a proven story structure. Their approach shows marketers, as well as salespeople how to develop stories that overcomes buyer skepticism to connect with the emotional brain where trust is formed.

So that’s my story today. What’s yours?

Author: Henry Bruce     Henry Bruce on the Web Henry Bruce on Twitter Henry Bruce on LinkedIn Henry Bruce RSS Feed

Henry Bruce is the founder of the Rock Annand Group, a client acquisition strategy consulting firm focused on the B2B software industry. Henry is a passionate B2B sales and marketing strategist and blogger who brings over 30 years of operational software experience to his engagements. Henry specializes in developing programs… View full profile

This article originally appeared on RockAnnandGroup and has been republished with permission.

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