If you’ve ever sold something, you probably know at least a little about traditional marketing (outbound marketing), and perhaps inbound marketing. What you may not fully understand, however, is which of the two proves more effective. The short answer? Inbound Marketing. The long version? Keep reading.

Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing Go Head to Head

1. General Inconvenience

Ultimately, there are better ways to receive messages when you’re looking to buy, and a plethora of ways to avoid them when you’re not; the customer knows this well. In this day and age, marketing as it were is a major inconvenience.

2. Traditional (Outbound) Marketing Is Aggressive

Nobody likes receiving telemarketer calls, or being solicited to as they go about their day. When it comes to opportunities, customers want to find them on their own instead of being railroaded, which is the workhorse of old-school marketing.

Read: Are We Doing Content Marketing Right?

3. Mobile Devices Provide Better Options (or Distractions)

Traditional marketing is pretty much limited to phone calls when it comes to mobile devices. However, mobile devices allow access to advertising (and other things) in an on the go/on demand basis; they also provide the owner with something to do. In a sense, they are hardly phones at all.

4. Social Media Provide more Exposure

Social media allows a customer to feel in control of the content they see instead of being bombarded by messages.

5. Outbound Marketing Is a Shot in the Dark

Setting aside the matter of customer attention in the first place (this is an issue, mind you), even assuming you have an audience, there’s no guarantee they will be interested in the product or service you are selling.

6. Outbound Marketing Fails to Identify with Customers

Similar to the previous point, aside from a specific demographic being targeted, traditional marketing techniques do not have the customer in mind; this leads to a limited return, because customers are not convinced that a business is interested in their needs/values.

Read: Why Developing Buyer Personans is Crucial for Business

7. Techniques Don’t Synergize

Old fashioned marketing tends to flood various mediums with ads for business, but these separate messages do nothing to assist one another, limiting their overall effect.

8. Traditional Marketing Is High Maintenance

Constantly generating and distributing new messages requires a lot of time and energy, and when it comes to commercials or mailing (and especially solicitation) the return is very limited, typically in a linear fashion with the effort expended.

Read: How to Build a Powerful Inbound Marketing Strategy

9. Questionable Measurability

Taking the above into account, it’s difficult to quantify the ROI and other factors of traditional marketing. It’s far easier to do so with Inbound marketing, where everything works together.

10. Inbound Marketing Is far Superior

By now you’ve probably noticed a common trend – convenience, avoidance, and a whole lot of “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” The truth is, the marketing game has evolved with technology, and our lives have only grown busier; With that in mind, it makes more sense for consumers to do the seeking, rather than advertisers, otherwise you waste time and money preaching to a crowd that can’t (or won’t) hear you. Inbound marketing works because all of the strategies work together using relevant content (stuff your potential customers actually care about) to draw potential customers to your virtual storefront.

Unlike outbound, inbound marketing puts buying and selling on the customer’s terms, which makes them more receptive, and therefore increases your profits. A marketer-centric strategy is no longer viable; in the past, it simply had mixed results, but as time advances, it actually discourages customers from buying products.

Read: 10 Best Inbound Marketing Strategies and Why They Fail