How is marketing evolving? A simple, straight forward question and here is the answer. It is all in recognition to the Internet. Businesses are no longer relying on TV ads, billboards and radio ads which are all examples of “outbound marketing”. They are gaining knowledge about new products through the web. This has given additional processes for researching and buying these new products. The most common web assisted way of communicating these new methods is through social media which is an example of “inbound marketing”. Here is a list of more examples of inbound and outbound marketing to show more understandable descriptions of the two.
| Outbound | Inbound |
| TV, Radio, Print Ads | Search Engine Optimization |
| Billboards | Author of Books/Print Media |
| Press Releases | Sponsoring Events |
| Pop-Ups | Public Relations |
| Outbound Sales Calls | Blogging |
| Trade Show Booth | Social Networks |
| Most Social Media Advertising | Video Content |
| Forum & Comment Spam | Public Speaking |
| Paid App Reviews | Webinars |
| Video Ads | Podcasting |
In outbound marketing, they are trying to “buy” their way to the consumer. This plan is not as effective as it used to be, especially since consumers aren’t paying attention as much as they used to. It is costing a lot more per lead than it does for inbound marketing. Here is one stat to demonstrate this: 86% of people skip through television commercials.
Inbound marketing centres on earning a person’s attention through social media and appealing content. The roles of content management are very similar to the process taken by an inbound marketer. First the content needs to be created, then it needs to be edited, after that it is published and lastly the consumer can see it. Some examples of appealing content are blogs and podcasts. These marketing techniques will help engage more people to research and buy the product, so in return the cost is a lot less. Not only does inbound marketing produce leads, they also produce revenue. Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than outbound marketing.
Social media is always changing and growing so there is no doubt that inbound marketing will continue to change as well. The best technique to approach this is to properly assess the change and find out what is relevant to the business. To execute this inbound marketing there needs to be a team to create good content, design and development. With these steps it does take more time until you will see a difference in your marketing campaigns but studies have shown they are a lot more effective. An example of the way a successful marketing campaign should look is:
- Strangers will search blogs, social media, keywords and pages.
- Strangers become visitors, where calls to actions take place, landing pages, forms and contacts.
- Visitors become leads, where there is CRM integrations, e-mails back and forth and workflows.
- Leads become customers, where you keep loyalty.
- Customers will then promote your business.
