Are you looking to tighten up your marketing strategy? There’s always room for improvement and optimization in the world of marketing, and to stagnate is to fail.

Taking time to review the basics of inbound vs. outbound marketing is a great way to shore up your campaigns, and will see you well on the road to more clients and customers. Keep reading to learn more about the differences between traditional outbound marketing, as well as how the top SEO companies pick which one is best for your business.

What is outbound marketing?

Outbound marketing is traditional marketing. You actively pitch leads through several mediums, including TV, radio, print, and billboards.

Outbound marketing has made up the lion’s share of marketing efforts for centuries, and many companies still see great success channeling their efforts into outbound marketing. There is no reason to stop doing so if you’re seeing worthwhile returns.

However, there has been an industry-wide shift in recent years. Many companies are now seeing better momentum and ROI from inbound marketing campaigns than from outbound efforts.

What is inbound marketing?

The most important distinction between inbound and outbound marketing is that outbound marketing efforts are unsolicited. When’s the last time you got excited about commercial breaks, or were happy to chat with that telemarketer who interrupted your dinner? No one enjoys an unwanted sales pitch.

Inbound marketing eschews more disruptive methods in favor of attracting leads naturally. This means letting the customers come to you.

To put it simply, inbound marketing provides value to customers who are already looking for something. There are thousands of ways to do this, like creating free ebooks, writing awesome blog posts, ramping up social media campaigns, or improving SEO efforts.

No matter how you do it, you want to be helping the customer in some way.

Why does inbound marketing work?

Inbound marketing strategies build brand trust, demonstrate a commitment to providing true value to customers, and establish you as a friend and resource instead of a nameless sales pitch.

Even better, inbound marketing efforts yield qualified, high-conversion leads by nature. Customers feel like they are being helped, and not just sold to.

As for cost, you’ll be shocked at how inexpensive successful inbound marketing can be.

So, let’s recap…inbound marketing is cheap, effective, and has a low barrier to entry. That’s a formula for success if we’ve ever seen one!

An example of inbound marketing

Take used cars. When buying, do you start by trying to remember the names you’ve heard on radio and TV ads? No.

No one likes being sold to, especially in an age when consumer attention spans are lower than ever. Nearly everyone can and will turn to the Internet for solutions over listening to sales pitches.

Instead, you sit down at your computer, search something along the lines of “best used cars near [your city],” and click on a dealership’s site. You click around their site, and see a detailed blog post listing the top ten things to keep in mind when buying a used car.

Are you going to go back to those loud TV ads, or continue with this helpful and unobtrusive dealership site? We know which option we’re taking.

Inbound? Outbound? Both?

Like we said before, outbound marketing is still perfectly viable and profitable for many companies. If it’s working for you, don’t stop doing it.

However, it is important to recognize that inbound marketing has its own set of unique advantages. In fact, many inbound strategies outperform their traditional counterparts in leaps and bounds.

Now is the perfect time to put some of your eggs into the inbound marketing basket, and it couldn’t be easier. Contact one of the agencies on our list, and ask how your company can begin using SEO and other inbound strategies today!