Inbound and Outbound Marketing

Inbound and outbound marketing is a cultural shift in the marketing industry, particularly when we see the growth and importance of digital marketing.

Outbound marketing is what was traditionally known as 'marketing', it pushes your message out to an audience whether the audience wants it or not. These usually refer to channels such as radio, tv, telemarketing, billboard ads, display advertising or newspaper ads/inserts etc. Over the last 10 years, outbound marketing has taken a hit, some blame an oversaturated market which caused people to ignore display advertising. Others blame the invention of ad blockers, but according to Hubspot adverts on TV, print and outdoor are the higher overrated marketing tactics. (Kieffer, 2019)

Inbound marketing is a relatively new concept, its where marketers attempt to "pull" in customers with interesting and valuable content. Inbound marketing uses tactics like blogging, SEO and email marketing etc, it's all about the content being the main driver. Inbound marketing creates a sales funnel by increasing engagement with the brand, the consumer wouldn't even know they were in this funnel which goes to show how seamless inbound marketing can be.

Inbound effectiveness can be hard to measure as you rely on raising your brand's awareness which can be hard to quantify at times. However recent upgrades in audience retargeting pixels lookalike audiences on Facebook, Google or Twitter means adverts can be put in front of the right audience where you're more likely to get conversions with trackable functionality (Google Analytics) rather than casting a net and hoping you'll catch something. (Ference, 2017)

In the current marketing landscape employing a combination of outbound and inbound marketing is important, you have to test and learn until you find your golden nugget. As times change so will your audience so keeping your strategy as an experiment, measure, repeat is the best way to continue your growth.



1) Kieffer, "why you should focus on inbound marketing in 2020", 2019. https://kiefferconsulting.com/why-you-should-focus-on-inbound-marketing-in-2020/

2) Audery Ference, "what is the difference between inbound and outbound marketing?", 2017.
https://www.outbrain.com/blog/inbound-vs-outbound-marketing/