The Difference Between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing

We're often asked to explain what the difference between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing is. Let's start with Outbound Marketing...

Think of outbound marketing as a small, needy child that will jumps and screams and does anything necessary to get your attention. Outbound marketing has been around for ages and includes tactics like:

• Billboards
• TV Advertisements
• Radio Commercials
• Newspaper Ads
• Direct Mail
• Magazine Ads
• SPAM Emails
• Videos at the beginning of YouTube Videos
• TELEMARKETERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All of these old-school marketing tactics attempt to interrupt you in the hopes that you will notice them and buy their product or service.

With the average person seeing over 2,000 of these messages per day, we've evolved and adapted to ignore them as much as possible. We've even produced tools that help us to bypass all of these outbound marketing messages, such as:

• DVR
• Blogs, eZines, Podcasts
• Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play Movies
• SPAM filtering
• Pandora, Spotify, Google & Apple radio
• Paid YouTube accounts
• Caller ID

The bottom line is that we have gotten really good at ignoring outbound marketing because we don't like to be interrupted. When we want a solution or product, we go online and research. It's much faster and efficient.

Enter Inbound Marketing...

Inbound Marketing speaks to today's buyer the way they want to be spoken to. It's about being there when a prospect needs you or is looking for you instead of interrupting your way in front of them.

With Inbound Marketing, you attract your best buyers to your website through tactics such as SEO, PPC and Social Media.

You provide them with excellent content through content marketing that entices these best buyers to convert into leads.

You add continued value throughout your lead nurturing workflows to close leads into sales.

Finally, you exceed customer expectations while fulfilling your side of the sale and delight your customers into raving fans that refer and repurchase.

Bottom Line

The difference between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing is the difference between making a smart marketing decision and one that leads to low, if any, ROI.

Today's buyer, whether B2B or B2C, doesn't want to be interrupted, and chances are good that they've done whatever they can already to limit the interruptions they get.

Today's buyer wants to learn what the best solution to their problem is, instead of being force-fed a solution. Inbound Marketing is the way to connect with your best buyers and grow your business.

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