7 Outbound Marketing Techniques That Work to Create Network Effect
To understand how outbound marketing works and how to create effective outbound strategies, it’s important to understand why outbound strategies work in the first place.
1) Cold Outreach on Social Media
Do you want to expand your network, but don’t have time to make connections in person?
Social media is a great way to reach out and connect with people from all walks of life.
Use it to connect with fellow professionals and potential leads.
For example, when someone follows you on Twitter or likes your Facebook page, send them a personalized message that lets them know you saw their action.
It’s a great way to kick off a relationship online.
2) Engagement at Trade Shows
It’s no secret that face-to-face engagement is one of your best bets when it comes to getting leads.
The offline world still generates more prospects than online activity, so trade shows and other events are perfect opportunities to create a lasting impression on your target audience.
Make sure you have an outbound strategy in place for such events, or you could waste a lot of time, money, and resources trying to do too much at once.
3) Targeted Digital Ads
While targeted digital ads can be a powerful, cost-effective way to reach your ideal audience, they’re not right for every business.
If you have an email list of several thousand people who like your brand and know what you do, it’s probably not worth paying per click to reach them on Facebook or Google.
However, if your list is much smaller and you haven’t built up much trust with your audience yet, it might be worthwhile.
Just make sure that wherever you’re advertising–on social media sites or in search results–that it’s clearly connected to your company so that when people see those ads online they know exactly where they came from.
4) Network Effect
The network effect is what happens when a product or service gets more valuable as more people use it.
One of the most famous examples of a product with a strong network effect is email: The more people you can reach by email, and vice versa, the more useful it becomes.
Facebook is another obvious example: The more people on Facebook, and thus able to see your content and interact with you, the better your experience on Facebook will be.
As you grow an audience online using outbound marketing techniques—especially social media platforms—the value of those techniques will skyrocket.
5) Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnerships are a great way to build your network effect.
For example, creating a partnership with another company in your industry will help you both gain more exposure and grow more quickly.
However, make sure that your goals align and that you’re bringing as much value to them as they are to you—or else it won’t be worth it in terms of time or money invested.
Also, keep an eye out for companies that have potential synergies but aren’t direct competitors; these can often be some of your best options for strategic partnerships.
6) PR & Media Relations
PR and media relations can be a very effective form of outbound marketing.
By maintaining relationships with journalists, editors, and bloggers in your industry, you’ll be more likely to get your business mentioned when it’s relevant.
This form of public exposure is usually free or low-cost, but it can have big payoffs for businesses that are making their first steps into an existing market.
Network Effect: The network effect happens when a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it.
Take Gmail for example. Every new Gmail user creates value for every other user; with each new contact you add on Gmail, you increase its utility as your email list becomes larger and so does your address book.