Everything you need to know!
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing (or Attraction Marketing) is the set of strategies that aim to attract and convert customers voluntarily. Unlike Outbound, Inbound Marketing is based on consumer relationship and education, using strategies such as Content Marketing and Marketing Automation.
In fact, we can consider that the methodology Inbound Marketing has three main pillars: SEO, Content Marketing and Strategy in Social Networks.
One way or another, marketing has always been about interruptions. Companies took people’s attention away from their daily tasks to show how product X or service Y would be advantageous in their lives. To make matters worse, it was not uncommon for cases where the quality of the solutions sold was undesirable, could do to use their rights. Times have changed.
Digital transformation and radical changes in consumer behavior have changed the rules of the game forever. Faced with this, companies needed to create new ways to win over and retain their customers, and Inbound Marketing was the best of them.
Millions of companies around the world use this Digital Marketing strategy that brings excellent results.
The concept of Inbound Marketing officially emerged in the United States and began to become popular in 2009 after the launch of the book “Inbound Marketing: Be Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs,” by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.
Since then, Inbound Marketing has exploded, and more and more companies of different sizes are joining the method to win more customers, generate more sales, and reinforce their authority to the audience.
The main difference between traditional marketing – which we call Outbound Marketing – and Inbound is that, in the second, the one looking for the company is the customer and not the other way around.
That is, actions are taken to attract the potential client to your blog or website and, from this attraction; a whole work of relationship with that person is done. This relationship is performed through personalized and authorial content.
This content is a way to educate your audience and potential customers about your business segment, turn your business into a benchmark for a particular subject related to your market, and influence the buying decision of prospective customers.
Want to learn more about it and see if Inbound is for you? So you have come to the right place, since in this post you will learn:
- 1 -
What is Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing builds on the idea of creating and sharing content targeted to a specific audience, to gain the permission to communicate with your prospect directly, creating a relationship that can be long lasting.
In other words, instead of disrupting potential customers, the idea is to attract you through relevant content.
From there, people impacted by this content tend to feel confident enough to allow the company to get closer and gradually build a healthy relationship that can result in the sale.
It is no wonder that the term Inbound Marketing can be translated as Attraction Marketing.
In order to make the concept of attracting rather than interrupting still clearer, see below a video that explain what Inbound Marketing is. Only 3 minutes to change your business!
Source: Instapage
In short, Inbound Marketing is the strategy in which customers come to your company, attracted by your message. From there it is easier to present their solutions, turn them into customers, and even brand promoters.
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Origin of Inbound Marketing
Marketers have practiced Inbound Marketing for some time, even unconsciously.
How did Inbound Marketing come about? At what point did brands understand that they should not interrupt their consumer, but rather help them and create relationships? Let’s explain this in this topic!
The term began to be used to Brian Halligan, cofounder of the company Hubspot.
However, according to the American guru Peter Drucker, the principles of Inbound Marketing have been developed for decades and its main foundation is the concept of Seth Godin, Permission Marketing, found in the 1999 Permission Marketing book.
This book contains the main guidelines of Inbound Marketing and can be an interesting read for anyone who wants to improve in this area.
If we delve deeper, we will see that the concept of Inbound Marketing arises parallel to digital marketing and the relationship between the consumer and advertising, in this case, Internet user and online communication.
If before the consumer had no control over what he consumed, on the internet he can choose everything: channels, content, ways to consume etc.
Therefore, nothing better than conquering him with what he wants to absorb. Hence the importance of working with intelligent strategic planning and with high performance actions.
Inbound is like a magnet, which attracts the customer through published content.
Inbound Marketing X Outbound Marketing: Understand the Key Differences
So far, we’ve only touched on the concept of Outbound Marketing, but it involves the practices we’ve been accustomed to seeing “forever”: advertisements of various kinds, direct contact by phone, email, sales booths at events, etc.
The cost of stocks is usually higher, and it is not always possible to accurately measure Outbound stock results.
Inbound, on the other hand, uses the content to attract the attention of the public, through channels such as blog, social networks and e-mail. The cost is lower and the results can be measured quickly and accurately.
Key Features of Inbound
Since Inbound Marketing is about delivering content that satisfies the public’s doubts, there is more openness to a close relationship.
With this you can expect:
- open communication: brand and customer engage in discussions and initiatives, interaction is open and constant;
- continuity: instead of interrupting people, the message of the brand is passed continuously, at the most convenient moments for them;
- greater engagement: from a trust relationship created by the constant generation of value without interruptions, the engagement is greater.
Outbound Key Features
Outbound Marketing’s main strategies include ads in print and digital publications (from newspapers and magazines to blogs and social networks) as well as TV and radio commercials.
Because of this, the main characteristics of Outbound are:
- unilateral communication: in an advertisement there is little or no interaction. The brand speaks and the audience hears;
- constant interruption: the consumption experience is paused (often reluctantly) for the sales message to be released;
- less engagement: if the product sold is not what the person needs, at the right time, the advertisement will have little effect on it.
Source: Instapage
- 2 -
Origin of Inbound Marketing
Marketers have practiced Inbound Marketing for some time, even unconsciously.
How did Inbound Marketing come about? At what point did brands understand that they should not interrupt their consumer, but rather help them and create relationships? Let’s explain this in this topic!
The term began to be used to Brian Halligan, cofounder of the company Hubspot.
However, according to the American guru Peter Drucker, the principles of Inbound Marketing have been developed for decades and its main foundation is the concept of Seth Godin, Permission Marketing, found in the 1999 Permission Marketing book.
This book contains the main guidelines of Inbound Marketing and can be an interesting read for anyone who wants to improve in this area.
If we delve deeper, we will see that the concept of Inbound Marketing arises parallel to digital marketing and the relationship between the consumer and advertising, in this case, Internet user and online communication.
If before the consumer had no control over what he consumed, on the internet he can choose everything: channels, content, ways to consume etc.
Therefore, nothing better than conquering him with what he wants to absorb. Hence the importance of working with intelligent strategic planning and with high performance actions.
Inbound is like a magnet, which attracts the customer through published content.
Inbound Marketing X Outbound Marketing: Understand the Key Differences
So far, we’ve only touched on the concept of Outbound Marketing, but it involves the practices we’ve been accustomed to seeing “forever”: advertisements of various kinds, direct contact by phone, email, sales booths at events, etc.
The cost of stocks is usually higher, and it is not always possible to accurately measure Outbound stock results.
Inbound, on the other hand, uses the content to attract the attention of the public, through channels such as blog, social networks and e-mail. The cost is lower and the results can be measured quickly and accurately.
Key Features of Inbound
Since Inbound Marketing is about delivering content that satisfies the public’s doubts, there is more openness to a close relationship.
With this you can expect:
- open communication: brand and customer engage in discussions and initiatives, interaction is open and constant;
- continuity: instead of interrupting people, the message of the brand is passed continuously, at the most convenient moments for them;
- greater engagement: from a trust relationship created by the constant generation of value without interruptions, the engagement is greater.
Outbound Key Features
Outbound Marketing’s main strategies include ads in print and digital publications (from newspapers and magazines to blogs and social networks) as well as TV and radio commercials.
Because of this, the main characteristics of Outbound are:
- unilateral communication: in an advertisement there is little or no interaction. The brand speaks and the audience hears;
- constant interruption: the consumption experience is paused (often reluctantly) for the sales message to be released;
- less engagement: if the product sold is not what the person needs, at the right time, the advertisement will have little effect on it.
Source: Instapage
Alan Ribeiro
UX Designer, Digital Marketing Specialist by Hubspot and Entrepreneur, Co-founder of uWork Digital & Cosa Nostra Skin.
