Inbound marketing differs from traditional advertising in that it seeks to draw the customer in by providing them with valuable content that they want to consume. This is contrasted with traditional advertising where a message is sent out in the hope customers will respond.
An inbound marketing campaign involves creating and distributing relevant content to customers that they will be interested in through a variety of channels. This content pulls visitors toward your website, allows you to cement your brand values, engages them, and hopefully converts them into customers and loyal followers. Outbound marketing includes traditional approaches such as direct mail, cold calling, radio and television ads, trade shows, and telemarketing. Outbound marketing is also often called interruption marketing because it interrupts the customer such as when an advertisement is displayed during a TV show, for example.
Inbound marketing campaigns are focused efforts to align all of your marketing channels around a single message that relates to your brand. Ideally, the process should start with an offer — something valuable and relevant for your audience that you promote through your marketing channels. These channels can include articles on your website, videos, social media posts, and so on.
Once the customer is engaged with the offer you can harvest leads from it (such as asking for an email address) and then move the customer along a marketing funnel that continues the engagement process and may ultimately lead to a sale.
By identifying where the most leads came from you can analyze your campaign to see where your marketing efforts should be focused in the future as well as seeing how many leads actually led to sales.
Inbound marketing provides benefits on both sides. Customers are drawn to it because they get valuable information, choose when they receive it, and in the format that is most useful to them. Companies find it effective because it makes it easier to get their message across, generates quality leads, and engenders long-lasting relationships with customers.
Through inbound marketing companies can nurture leads at all points in the sales life cycle: from an initial visit to making a sale. As companies get more information about their customers over time, they can create better messages that are personalized to customer needs and make each interaction better meet the desires of the individual.
Because inbound marketing is multi-channel it allows for a more natural approach to the customer which they find less intrusive than traditional advertising. With a good inbound marketing campaign, your marketing efforts will have a compounding effect and be much more effective.
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