According to Serious Decisions, all products fit into one of the following three types:
Established Market Product:
This is a very mature market, already experiencing slow growth and with multiple competitors (the typical Red Ocean from the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” by Chan Kim and Mauborgne ). The customer knows the product and the category, and is actively looking for it.
New paradigm:
This is a product that brings an innovation to the market, with respect to current options. It is an innovation for something already known, therefore it requires the client to make some change, to get out of their status quo .
New concept:
This is a totally innovative and disruptive product. It represents a paradigm shift and even the creation of a new market category. It is the Blue Ocean: since it is a totally new product, it is not known and neither is its category, therefore the customer does not look for this product.
What then is the best demand generation strategy for each case?
If our product is from an established market, we find a customer who searches on mobile phone saudi arabia mobile number directory the Internet, who knows the product, who has a lot of information about features, benefits, competitors, prices, etc. Therefore, we do not need to educate the buyer, what we need is to be there when they look for us.
In this case, the Inbound Marketing strategy and positioning through organic content combined with Lead Generation at the Bottom of the Funnel stage would be the most appropriate.
If our product is a New Paradigm, the challenge will be to convince prospects that they must change the way they are doing their processes to a more innovative one: “Leave that obsolete ERP behind, move to one in the cloud.”
In this case, the client knows the characteristics of the product (the category), but must learn and understand the characteristics of the innovation. This requires a consultative approach from the sales perspective, and an educational approach in demand generation.
Finally, if my product is a New Concept, I am facing a completely new scenario, different from any previous stage. The client does not search because he does not know the category, nor does he know that it exists. In these cases, Inbound clearly does not work as a means of attracting, so we need other Outbound strategies that allow us to reach the prospect directly (1 to 1) or at scale (1 to many) to produce an impact with a value proposition message.
All of this makes one thing clear: there is no such thing as Inbound vs Outbound. Both strategies serve different scenarios, and a company can use them in a complementary way.