We have Hubspot’s Brian Halligan to thank for this buzzword, and he’s been talking about it at least since 2005 – though Seth Godin was echoing similar ideas six years earlier in his book, Permission Marketing. In truth, there were probably others talking about it, too — coalescing ideas whose time had come into an ethos that would eventually come to be known as Inbound Marketing.
Wikipedia offers a very concise and useful definition for Inbound Marketing:
Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects, making yourself easy to be found and drawing customers to your website by producing content customers value. Blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, enewsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing are considered inbound marketing.
This method of marketing wasn’t really possible prior to the web — or, at least, it wasn’t very feasible. The idea is simple: people want information, and they already get on their computers to look for that information. If you can provide the information they are looking for and make yourself easy to find when they’re looking, you can get their attention — and if you handle their attention properly, you can turn an information-seeker into a customer.
According to Halligan, the opposite of inbound marketing is outbound marketing — and it includes many of the things most people think of when they think of advertising and marketing: television and radio commercials, direct snail mail, telemarketing, etc. Godin refers to this as interruption marketing, the inverse of permission marketing. This contrast sheds light on some of the ethos of inbound marketing. While outbound marketers interrupt your favorite TV show, break into the music on the radio trying to sell you something, and stuff your mailbox with unwanted glossy postcards littered with the word ‘discount’, inbound marketers are your pals with the hookup. They have the information you need, they’re willing to share, and they respect your wishes. Any time you want them to stop talking to you, they will.
You might shorten the entire debate to say that outbound/interruption marketing bothers people in the hopes of making sales, while inbound/permission marketing seeks to breed loyal customers through mutual respect. Of course, that’s oversimplifying things; it colors one hat a little too black and the other a little too white. But just the same, it’s the general idea at the core of Inbound Marketing.
The verdict: If you take the time to learn what it is, inbound marketing is a good thing. It’s been a successful model for many, and there are very few businesses who wouldn’t benefit from it. It’s no magic bullet, however; just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. Successful execution of inbound marketing requires trained, savvy professionals ready to navigate a specific set of technological and social mores on the road to conversion. Don’t let that scare you off, though. Inbound marketing, done well, is very much much worth the investment.
