Competition in the market is growing year by year – no matter what industry you operate in. Therefore, it is obvious that you are looking for newer and newer methods that will guarantee that the customer will reach you and not another entity. You win primarily with the good quality of products or services. However, this is not all. After all, a customer needs to:

A. be aware that your brand exists,
B. know that you offer solutions that they need (and feel the need to reach for them),
C. be convinced that your products meet his needs and are better than what the competition offers.

That is why marketing is such an important element of the sales process. However, the question remains: what? In modern terminology, two types can be distinguished: inbound and outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing vs inbound marketing

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about inbound marketing – it has become extremely popular and is increasingly used in the digital space. Outbound marketing is somehow contrasted with it – often as less beneficial or outdated. But is it really so? Not necessarily. It all depends on how you approach it.

Before we go into a specific analysis, however, it is worth explaining both concepts to understand the difference between them.

What is outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing is outbound marketing (this statement does not hide anything from us), i.e. any activity in which the company addresses the client, directly encouraging him to take advantage of its offer. The initiator of the entire process is a brand that has a whole range of tools at its disposal.

As you may have guessed, inbound marketing is inbound marketing (this statement does not hide anything from us). In practice, it is about communicating with the market in such a way that the customer himself expresses his interest in your offer, and then lead him down the sales funnel to the finalization of the transaction.

At first glance, the inbound strategy seems to be more attractive and effective. Indeed, in many situations the “inbound” direction is the best one to choose. However, not always.

What are the advantages of outbound marketing?

The key advantages of using an outbound strategy are:

– full control over the course of communication
Inbound traffic is focused on interaction, to a large extent relies on the reaction of recipients to the message. This is where you speak more, waiting for specific actions from potential customers.

– the ability to achieve quick results
Inbound strategies are usually long-term in nature. But what if you want to carry out a quick sale in your e-shop? Then you reach for a specific, direct advertising message and direct it to a wide audience.

– possibility of application on a large scale
Outbound are activities that you can address to a mass audience – e.g. to radio listeners or to all recipients of a given website. Contrary to appearances, you also have the option of targeting, but of course it will not be as accurate as in the case of the Internet.

What about the disadvantages?

Like any advertising strategy, this one has two sides of the coin. So you need to remember that outbound marketing messages:
– can be considered disturbing and undesirable – if the campaign is not carried out properly,
– can be ignored – it must be remembered that the huge number of advertising messages that reach us has made the recipients used to “filtering” them,
– can be expensive – requires active actions throughout the campaign, its carriers (television or press) are usually expensive, and moreover, the target groups are less targeted, which means that the investment is less effective.

Therefore, you must use the tools in this range wisely. However, this does not mean that outbound marketing is a thing of the past. On the contrary! There are many ways to use it effectively!

What are outbound marketing tools?

The tools used in this communication strategy are basically all techniques that are aimed at advertising the product and encouraging the customer to take advantage of the offer. However, you can very specifically indicate the most commonly used among them. Here is their overview – both in digital and traditional channels.

Let’s start with the most traditional forms of outbound marketing – outside the world of the Internet.

ATL
All “Above the Line” channels in traditional media. It is mainly about: TV and radio advertisements, outdoor advertisements, advertisements in the press.

… All those that are well known and widely used both by large concerns and local companies. Their disadvantage may be the high cost of publication. The advantage – wide coverage and reputation.

Direct marketing
We are talking here both about direct contact with the customer, conducted by sales representatives, but also about telephone contact – when the telemarketer calls with a specific offer.

POS, leaflets etc.
Any catalogs, advertising leaflets, folders and the like are also a direct offer to encourage the customer to make a specific product.

Outbound marketing on the Internet

Of course, outbound techniques are also commonly used in digital advertising. There are many tools that you can use in this area. Here is an overview of the most widely used.

Paid advertising (PPC and PPV)
The most popular form of promotion on the Web – consisting in the publication of various types of banners and other messages. This group includes all ads that are published on websites, but also in search engines and social media. It is about, for example:

– Google Ads – and therefore paid promotion in search results, in the form of sponsored links, but also promotional banners,
– Facebook Ads – and therefore about ads that are displayed both on the wall and in the side panel of the website,
– banners and (recently less popular) pop-up ads.

It is worth remembering that there are different accounting systems. The most popular are pay-per-click, where you pay only for ads that have been clicked, and pay-per-view, where payment is made in relation to the page views of the message.

It may seem that the challenge for this promotion system is the fact that many people use software to block such advertising messages. Nevertheless, more and more portals encourage their recipients to unblock promotional content or protect themselves against it by preventing access to the content while using a blocker. Therefore, reasonably prepared outbound marketing ads create an opportunity to effectively reach the customer.

You cannot forget about remarketing, i.e. the strategy of displaying personalized advertising banners, based on the user’s cookie files. It is a very effective outbound tool that directs a potential customer straight to the offer they were already interested in.

Mailing
Mailing is often viewed in terms of inbound promotions. Indeed, it is often the case that a company obtains leads from potentially interested people, and then sends e-mails encouraging people to read blog articles etc. ? What if the messages are purely advertising? While many of these messages can be classified as spam, some will “make it through”. So when such messages are sent on a mass scale – and this is a relatively cheap solution – there is the prospect of profit.

SMS messages
Although in order to receive them, you must subscribe to a specific SMS newsletter, it is a typical form of outbound advertising. The recipient usually receives very specific advertising messages, with information about current promotional campaigns or discounts available to him. The company therefore directly encourages to take advantage of its offer and aims to obtain a quick conversion.

Is it working? This form of promotion can be beneficial, for example, when the target group includes many middle-aged people. They are still attached to sending traditional SMS messages in exchange for communication using Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

On-site advertising
So, all those that appear directly on the company’s website. The website itself is obviously a promotional tool. However, you can use additional tools to increase conversion. Those from the outbound catalog include, for example:

– pop-up pop-ups – e.g. those with messages about promotions or with a discount code for purchases,
– on-line chats – they also appear on the website, not called by the recipient, to encourage him to contact,
– web push notifications – i.e. pop-up notifications for the client or “flashing” page header in browser tabs.

These types of messages can be highly effective and carry a lot of sales potential.

How to conduct outbound marketing and what mistakes should be avoided?

Outbound marketing, as you can see, can be an effective sales tool. Nevertheless, the method of conducting activities must be adapted to the expectations of a modern recipient.

Remember: times of intrusive communication, in which the client might feel pressured and persuaded, are a thing of the past. That is why in outbound communication it is worth focusing on:

– relative personalization of communication – wherever possible. When preparing each advertising message, its purpose should be precisely defined, the expected reaction of the recipients, as well as the characteristics of the target group,
– advisory tone – modern sales is about accompanying the customer in making decisions, and not about persuading him by force,
– skillful selection of outbound channels – others will be suitable for running a nationwide campaign, and others for promoting a niche e-shop.

And finally, the most important thing: if you want to achieve marketing success, mix inbound and outbound strategies. If you are not sure how to find the balance between the two tools, get help from experts.

Why is it so important? The answer to this question is simple. Specialists:

– they will analyze your market situation as well as what you have to offer to your customers,
– define what the target group of your recipients looks like – outline their personas, thanks to which you will know who and in what form to address,
– they will adjust marketing tools to your budget and the time range of the goals to be achieved,
– prepare a specific advertising publication plan – with the selection of media, tools and specific messages,
– they will watch over the effectiveness of campaigns and report their results.

Thanks to this, you will be sure that the funds invested in the inbound and outbound promotion will work for themselves and return in the form of an expanded customer portfolio.

Who chooses keywords for positioning?

As we indicated in the introduction to this article, despite the growing strength of the website positioning trend focused on increasing overall visibility, without focusing on specific keywords, positioning on specific phrases, combined with their regular, daily monitoring is still important. That is why the selection of keywords stored in the positioning contract is so important. We know from experience that the results and presence of keywords in the top 10 are one of the bases for assessing customer satisfaction with positioning services, along with increased visibility and website traffic.

Our clients have unique knowledge about what part of the range is crucial for their business, what people interested in their offer ask, what phrases they use, etc. This information is very useful in the context of creating a set of keywords. That is why in-depth customer interview regarding keyword expectations is so important.

A good set of keywords is the result of knowledge of the client and the account manager. The first one is the person who knows his business best, knows what brings him the most money, which is an important and profitable niche worth promoting, which products will soon disappear from the offer and as such are not worth advertising, etc. Paraphrase-Online customer care specialist is a specialist who has an overview through search engine trends, has access to tools dedicated to keyword selection, knows from practice what works in promotion, observes changes in Google search engine (e.g. the issue of local positioning).

Due to this, it is worth cooperating with each other in the selection of keywords – for the common good, it is not worth underestimating the knowledge of both the client and the account manager.

What characterizes a good set of keywords?

Despite the specifics of each positioned website and the uniqueness of the set of keywords matched to the promotion, one can distinguish a pool of common features that characterize well-chosen keywords. We will present them at this point:

A. Matching keywords to the offer visible on the website – this is related to the construction of the Google search engine itself, which in matching pages to the results displayed in the search engine is based on the content of websites. In short: if something does not appear on the website literally (this applies primarily to the content and appropriate meta tags), then Google’s web robots are not able to match such a page to the query – keyword. Therefore, it is not possible to effectively position yourself for phrases absent from the site or “on stock” (unless a sub-page announcing the appearance of a new product or service in the offer is available – such a pre-premiere presentation). For the same reason, it is also not possible to effectively position yourself on competition-related phrases (apart from the ethical overtones of such a situation).

An interesting case related to the selection of phrases is the situation in which some customers searching for a given product or service uses the incorrect term – colloquial, not professional, with a spelling mistake, etc. In the ancient past SEO in the positioning of keyword sets appeared keywords with popular spelling mistakes, but today Google is good at understanding the intentions of the user and correcting spelling mistakes. It looks a little different in the case of synonyms, colloquial names, etc., which are often considered incorrect from an industry point of view, and the customers themselves do not want to have them because of the “unprofessionality” used on their website (although they also want to promote them) efficiently). Their Google robots are not so good at matching terminology yet. In such a situation, a compromise solution is e.g. the use of these colloquial phrases in the texts in the blog part, and not on the product category subpages. The blog entry formula allows for greater freedom and clarification in the entry of the relationship between colloquial and professional naming. This is a compromise, although not perfect solution. However, it allows a meaningful link between the website and the desired keywords.

B. Keyword diversity in length – general, specific and long tails. We have already described the topic of phrases with long tails on our blog. In this post, we also want to present in more detail the trend regarding the length of typed phrases in the search engine. The relationship between shorter and longer phrases definitely indicates the reverse of the “one-word” trend.

C. Matching phrases to business location – this is particularly important for local service businesses. The place names appearing in the keywords must correspond to the real seat of the company (head office, branch, store, stationary point etc. – what has its stationary address). Positioning on a “uncomfortable” town will not be effective. Due to Google’s preferences in matching the displayed results to their location, it is definitely worth placing your stationary address on the website, even if the service is largely provided away or at the company’s clients.

D. Linking phrases with each other – if you decide to position your website on related passwords (forming a kind of family) then you can count on a better effect than in the case of several unrelated terms. It is good to bet even on several groups of terms referring to different elements of the offer than on unrelated passwords. When planning a set of keywords, it is worth consulting a mentor who, based on his experience, will advise on the right set of keywords, supporting the positioning process and properly presenting the offer of the promoted company.

E. Competitiveness of phrases and pace of entry to the top 10 search engine results – it is worth focusing on such a set of keywords that will ensure website visibility at the first stage of the positioning process. For this reason, it’s also good to have less competitive terms in the set, which will quickly enter the top 10 search results and ensure visibility and traffic on the site at an earlier stage of the positioning process. For this reason, it is not worth betting on the very highly competitive phrases, in which we will have to wait for the results, and thus the benefits associated with them.

Selection of keywords – what do people enter in the search engine?

Contrary to popular belief, general passwords are not the most popular and are not the most frequently entered. Research indicates that as much as over 80% of keywords entered in a search engine consists of 2 or more keywords. It should be noted that these more elaborate expressions with long tails are less often described as separate queries (which is a logical consequence of their greater diversity), but in general they constitute the majority of phrases that are typed in the search engine. Therefore, it is important to properly interpret the results for keywords after which potential customers reach the given website. Phrases with long tails will not be at the forefront of such results, but this does not mean that you should give them up.

There is also the question of readiness to buy from a potential customer – the person who enters a more precise password is closer to throwing the product into the basket than the one who searches for approximate general terms.

General or specific keywords?

In this case, a lot may depend on what budget allocated to the positioning service we have. The budget largely determines the planned and feasible actions. That is why it is so important to determine at the outset the amount that can be spent on SEO per month.

It happens that our clients suggest that they find the most general phrases among their keywords, considering that such phrases catch the largest number of their potential customers. General and very varied (unrelated) phrases are best in small quantities, because it will be cheaper – a set of terms such as “windows”, “doors”, “gates”, “drives”, “blinds” – this is the recipe for ineffective positioning .

In the case of a small budget, it is better to bet on varied phrases, among which there will be ones that will bring the effect and visibility faster, and thus more quickly reveal their potential in attracting customers. We write about a small budget because it places the biggest restrictions on positioning and choosing phrases. It is also worth realizing that the concept of “small budget” is relative and something else will be a small amount for a local business from a small town, and something else for an online store. That is why it is sometimes necessary to realize that some amount may be too small to be able to carry out effective positioning activities. In this situation, we inform our potential customers about it, not wanting to expose them to unnecessary and unprofitable expenses. The same way we inform our clients before signing the contract about the fact that a given page is extremely unadapted for positioning and before the SEO specialist starts working with it, it should be looking forward to its new version.

Facebook Blueprint – available certificates

Level Associate:
– Facebook Certified Digital Marketing Associate

Level Professional:
– Facebook Certified Media Planning Professional
– Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional
– Facebook Certified Marketing Science Professional (Pilot, available only on individual invitation, related to data analysis and visualization, requiring, among others, knowledge of Python, MySQL, and Big Data issues)

Level Developer
– Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer
– Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer II
– Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer III

What is the exam process in Facebook Blueprint?

The exam conditions are very precisely defined by Facebook. If we fail to do so, we may be disqualified, so you should read them well before taking the exam.

You can use the option of taking an exam at work. The conditions for taking the test are to disable all programs and applications, stay in a room where there is nobody else. During the exam, we are observed by the examiner, who can ask to show any place in the room at any time through a webcam built into the laptop. He may also notice when we make any “suspicious move”

Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer I

Facebook Certified Ads Product Developer I is a certificate that was created in place of the former Facebook Bronze Certification. To obtain a certificate, you must complete two parts: a multiple-choice test and an exercise in which a previously created pixel should be installed on the test page, along with several selected events, parameters, a code responsible for advanced matching, and a pixel should be connected to the directory on FB. The exam is a condition of joining Facebook Marketing Partners, and checks knowledge of:

– creating and managing Business Manager and its resources
– creation and implementation of the FB pixel, along with all available events and parameters, and the use of custom conversions
– creating catalogs and catalog-based campaigns
– understanding and implementing processes related to (Advanced Matching) in manual or automatic implementation
– connecting the FB pixel to the catalog
– solving problems related to incorrect pixel implementation,
– troubleshooting problems related to directory errors
– solving problems related to problems connecting pixel signals with products from the catalog

Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional

Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional is an exam for people professionally managing Facebook ads. The exam covers issues in the field of planning, setting, optimization and reporting of campaigns. Exam questions concern practical issues, most of them contain a description of an imaginary situation and possible variants of behavior in it.

Unlike the Product Ads Developer exam, in this case, we can start with a mock exam with 30 questions, the result of which has no effect on the final exam.

How much does the Facebook Bluprint certificate cost?

Each exam takes $ 75.

How do you study for the Facebook exam?

I describe the level of difficulty of both exams as high – certainly, in order to approach it at all, it is necessary to have practical experience in working with various types of campaigns. On the Facebook Certified Media Buying Professional exam, the questions cover a whole spectrum of topics, including reach and frequency campaigns, unavailable for most accounts. In order to take the exam, in my opinion it is necessary:

– reworking the Blueprint course
– min. 1-2 years of experience working with different types of campaigns and on large budgets, regular use of different types of campaign optimization, regular testing of new solutions
– understanding the optimization rules, the ability to respond appropriately if the campaign does not go according to plan – e.g. if the result is not adequate, or if the campaign does not spend the budget

For the Facebook Product Ads Developer I certification exam, it is necessary to have experience with the implementation of the pixel along with all events and parameters, on various CMSs and directly in the code. Unfortunately, after all we do not get information as to where we made mistakes.

Pros and cons of the exam process itself?

After the exam, we wait up to a few minutes for the result and it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone at that time would be sure of success. The level of difficulty of the questions is high, therefore passing the exam gives enormous satisfaction and certainty that we do our work at a high level.