Marketing – in the old days – used to be done when, where and how marketers wanted to do it. Now everything is on the buyers terms.
You'll recognise outbound marketing as:
The photo below illustrates this in an Asian street scene.
This type of marketing is less obvious at first:
Look closer at the same Asian street scene above and you'll find people are more engaged with consuming content on screen than what's happening in the street.
Since 2006, inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.
It's all about creating great content, and marketing the content, to bring potential customers to you – as opposed to the old days when your marketing efforts fought for their attention. Also, sharing is caring and inbound marketing is about creating and sharing content with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more.
Along the top are the four actions (Attract, Convert, Close, Delight) inbound companies must take in order to obtain visitors, leads, customers, and promoters. Along the bottom are the tools companies use to accomplish these actions. Note the tools are listed under the action where they first come into play, but that’s not the only place they’re applicable! Several tools, like email, can be essential in several stages of the methodology.
Mike Eastwood is certified by HubSpot in Inbound Sales and Marketing.