Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing: The Battle Continues

by Admin on June 23, 2011

outbound vs inbound marketingInbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing. We talk about it here often. Inbound Marketing, a phrase coined by the folks at HubSpot, is permission based marketing. It is based upon the premise that a potential customer has a need for your product/service, is searching for someone to fulfill that need, finds you and gives you permission to tell him/her about what you have to offer.

Outbound Marketing is also known as interruption marketing. It is where a business interrupts a potential customer from what they are doing to try and convince them to buy something. A lot of outbound marketing is based upon conventional advertising- ads in and on TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. We have become so immune to conventional advertising that advertisers keep upping the ante to grab our attention.

When I got my MBA in Marketing some thirty plus years ago, outbound marketing was about all there was. And that was pretty much the case until the dawn of the internet and search engines. So I can understand why traditional advertising and marketing firms have a tough time “getting it”. Inbound marketing is a mind set and a process.

You can always tell when someone with a traditional outbound marketing background or mind set creates a website. They will continue to try to gain your attention, usually with flashy elements, after you’re already there. Their old style marketing had so much to do with getting your attention and having your remember their name, that they’ve forgot what to do when you said, “here I am, sell me.” And while all that flashy stuff may be cool to look at, it actually gets in the way. Studies show that people actually prefer a blander, but easier to navigate website to the flashier, or even more pleasing to the eye, website.

Inbound marketers, on the other hand, understand that they already have the potential customer’s attention. So they proceed to show the potential customer how they can satisfy his need or solve his problem. They do this through a series of calls to action, moving the potential customer from the top of the sales funnel to the bottom. And the beauty of this process is that it can be measured for its effectiveness.

If you are interested in learning how inbound marketing can help your business, email us at [email protected] or call 870.404.1985.

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