Whether you’re a CEO looking to grow your business, a Marketing Manager who needs to demonstrate tangible results and ROI, or a Sales Manager who craves a greater number of quality leads, Inbound Marketing Lead Generation may just be your ticket to success.
The best way to describe Inbound Marketing is to compare it to Outbound Marketing, which is something you already know.
Outbound Marketing is the advertising you see on TV, hear on radio, and read in print vehicles like newspapers, magazines and direct mail. It’s referred to as “outbound” because, by definition, it is pushing a message “out” to the total potential target audience at any given point in time.
In essence, Inbound Marketing Lead Generation is the opposite of Traditional Outbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing is the process of using helpful content like blogs, eBooks, podcasts and online videos, social media, and search engine optimization to attract your target audience to your website like a magnet, landing pages with forms to capture leads, and marketing automation tactics like drip email to nurture those leads to the point that they become willing buyers of your products or services. It is referred to as “inbound” because, by definition, the process pulls customer prospects “in” to discover what you and your business are all about.
The Advantages of Inbound Marketing for Generating Leads
Have you noticed that your traditional Outbound Marketing activities are becoming less and less effective in helping you reach your revenue goals? If so, you’re not alone. And guess what? This issue isn’t going to go away.
The problem is that traditional Outbound Marketing inevitably tries to sell things to people before they’re ready to buy. It forces a message upon the whole universe of customer prospects whether or not they happen to be in a buying cycle for your product or service at that particular point in time. As you can imagine, this represents a huge waste in marketing spending. Unless consumers are currently in the market for your product or service, they’ll naturally resent being “interrupted” by your unsolicited marketing messages (like you feel every time your dinner gets interrupted by a telemarketer).
To make matters worse for Outbound Marketers, advances in technology have given consumers the ability to “tune out” these interruptive messages. They now use their PVR to skip over your TV commercials, SiriusXM to avoid your radio spots, and SPAM protection to block out your unwanted emails. Admit it … you do this too!
Inbound Marketing lead generation tactics are inherently very efficient because the customer prospects initiate the process themselves at the time they are starting a buying process for your type of product or service. Their buying process always starts with a research phase and having your valued content easy to find online as they start their Google searching is appreciated rather than resented. They voluntarily give you their name and contact information, and provided that you don’t try to sell them something immediately and just keep giving them access to more helpful information as they move through the buying cycle, they start to like you and trust you and want to do business with you.
Makes sense, right?
Ken – thank you for your clarity in “demystifying” in-bound marketing. The e-booklet is full of useful insights- thanks again much appreciated. Thanks too for taking my call and offering to help me
Hi Tim – I’m glad you found this explanation of inbound marketing to be helpful … and I’m always happy to take calls and answer questions. Please let me know if you need any more information.
Hey Ken,
Great explanation of inbound marketing although I’d like to point out inbound marketing concepts started long before 2006.
Hi Becky – Thanks for your comments. And yes, you are quite right that the concept of inbound marketing did start long before 2006. In 1999, Seth Godin in his book “Permission Marketing” was describing the concept of marketers first obtaining permission before sending people information to help them with their buying process and contrasted this against traditional “interruption marketing”. The point I was trying to make is that Brian Halligan, co-founder of HubSpot is credited with coining the term “Inbound Marketing” and contrasting it against traditional “Outbound Marketing”.
Good post Tim, that summarises the differences between inbound and outbound marketing well. Where do you stand on the PPC debate? Inbound, or outbound?