Happy Fourth of July week from Denamico!

As the long weekend approaches, many of us are looking forward to firework spectacles and cookouts with family and friends.

If you’ve got hot dogs, parades, and baseball on the brain this week, your company’s marketing strategy probably isn’t the top thing on your mind. But Independence Day is a great time to talk about the importance of questioning tradition and embracing change.

Challenging the status quo isn’t easy. It takes guts to point it out when business-as-usual practices have become tired, ineffective, and stale - especially if things have been done that way forever.

On average, companies devote about 90% of their marketing budgets to outbound marketing, and many business owners view it as a cost of doing business.

A lot of companies get stuck in a marketing rut that looks like this: they are comfortable with outbound marketing, so they keep falling back on default strategies like print and billboard advertising, telemarketing, and direct mail - even when they are seeing fewer results from these tactics year after year.

If your company has always used traditional marketing to promote its products or services, it can be intimidating to question the value of those strategies. But just because a marketing model has served you in the past, it doesn’t mean it will keep getting you results in the future.

Challenging the Status Quo

This Fourth of July, take the opportunity to challenge old marketing mentalities and hash out why your outbound strategies aren’t working.

If you take a look at the third paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, you’ll see it’s essentially a laundry list of offenses committed by the British King George III. They devoted almost half of the document to this point-by-point description of the failures of the old regime.

You could use this approach as you address the problems with your traditional marketing techniques. Identify what isn’t effective, then create a list of all the ways your marketing tactics have let you down in the past year.

Be brutally honest. Is your company trying the same marketing channels year after year with fewer results? Have you been disappointed by the results of your advertising campaigns?

Write down whatever is frustrating you and hurting your business. Here’s a list to get you started:

The Offenses of Outbound Marketing:

• It makes it difficult to track return on investment.
• It costs about 60% more per lead than inbound marketing and is less profitable.
• It relies on massive advertising campaigns that are poorly targeted and cannot be personalised to specific customers.
• It is interruptive and discourages relationships with potential customers.
• It becomes less impactful as consumers make increasing use of ad-blocking options.

Look for anything you’re currently doing that’s outmoded, ineffective, and overly expensive. Once you know what isn’t working, you’re in a position to figure out what will.

The Fourth of July is about more than hot dogs and fireworks - it’s about change. Challenging your company’s investment in traditional marketing isn’t easy, but it will benefit you in the long run.

For more resources, check out the SlideShare outlines we featured in our post “How to Convince Your Boss to Try Inbound Marketing” or download our inbound marketing resource pack.

Image by Epic Fireworks via Flickr, licensed under CC BY