B2B Outbound Marketing Not Quite Dead Yet

As much as I love and depend upon inbound marketing (e.g., content creation and curation as part of Curata’s content marketing strategy), I am occasionally reminded that there really is still a place for traditional outbound marketing in B2B technology. In addition, old school segmentation and targeting can help make it quite effective. My most recent encounter with this alleged dinosaur (i.e., outbound marketing) was on the Red Line subway in Boston.

As I was enjoying the view of the Charles River during our train’s crossing of the Longfellow Bridge, a poster ad in the subway car caught my attention. This wasn’t your traditional subway ad for a bank, college or language course. It was an ad for technology that will help you advance your genetic research by life Technologies, recently acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific. As a former chemical engineer, I did find this ad interesting. However, why in the world would they have this ad in the subway? Does the average Boston tourist or subway commuter get involved with genetic research? Perhaps this ad was put there by mistake by some marketing agency or T employee?

After further thought, I realized that placement of this ad was quite strategic since the Red Line passes right by Mass General Hospital. That means hundreds if not thousands of medical professionals involved in the use and/or purchase of genetic research products pass through this subway each week. Now I can’t be too sure about the ultimate ROI of this ad. However, I do give the marketer responsible for its placement credit for resorting to “old school” marketing for such a high tech product. This is exactly the type of innovative, and “against the grain” thinking that’s needed to rise above the noise in today’s digital economy.