Inbound Marketing is concepts you may have heard when learning about Inbound Marketing. Is that true about Inbound Marketing? Let's find out what really reflects the meaning of Inbound Marketing in the article below.

I. What is Inbound Marketing?

1. Definition

Inbound Marketing is a term first used in 2004 by HubSpot - a company that develops software related products and tools to support marketing and sales. Accordingly, Inbound Marketing is a method that focuses on building quality, valuable content to attract users to you in the most natural way (without using advertising).

Valuable content is content for the user. By helping them solve a problem or help them get what they want. To do that, you have to follow the customer journey.

The ultimate goal of Inbound Marketing is to build valuable relationships between customers and businesses. You give useful advice and help customers solve problems, in return customers will buy, share your content to more people (Word of mouth)

What is inbound marketing?

2. The difference between Inbound and Outbound marketing

Contrary to Inbound Marketing which is to attract customers naturally, Outbound Marketing is a paid method (advertising) to reach the target audience. If we act as a customer, every day we approach both forms through the use of digital platforms (social networks, websites, TV,...). So what is the core difference between them?

Inbound is like a magnet, Outbound is like a sledgehammer hitting people in the head

The development of social networks led to advertising services also becoming popular, leading to many businesses abusing this form of Marketing. Surely we also get annoyed at times when an ad covers the movie we are watching (usually right at the moment when the scene is at its climax). This approach is both expensive and inefficient.

Inbound takes customers as the foundation, Outbound starts from business

To attract customers naturally that you say you do not care about customer needs, do not analyze to understand them, that is unlikely. Inbound Marketing is also called by HubSpot as a marketing method based on humanity. As for Outbound Marketing, you will write advertising content (about products, businesses) and pay for advertising platforms like Facebook, Tiktok to distribute content to more people.

Inbound emerges like "alcohol", Outbound stands on the side

According to statistics, the paid website only attracts 10% of the total visitors and the website (applying the Inbound Marketing method) accounts for 90% of the visits. Along with that, the tactic of "annoying" customers is losing its effectiveness as users tend to prevent distractions with ad blocking software and tools.

The difference between Inbound and Outbound Marketing

II. How to apply Inbound Marketing method to Digital Marketing strategy?

Digital Marketing is taking over almost the global scale and crept into every small corner of customers' lives. With such a context, applying Inbound Marketing to the customer's digital journey is a strategic thing that makes the success of the business.

Focus on creating “quality” content

The first step in applying Inbound Marketing is to produce content. You need to have a good, creative and experienced Content staff team with a lot of experience or understanding of customers to come up with useful and interesting content to attract viewers. Besides, it is impossible to mention the design and video editing department, a sharp image, eye-catching layout and harmonious colors also contribute greatly to the attraction of the content "magnet".

Lubricate the "launcher"

After you have quality content, you will distribute the content on your business's Digital platforms, in which social networks and Website are the two most important platforms.

For social networks, you will be "lubricated" with techniques to help increase natural reach such as: seeding into the right groups, posting golden hours, adding hashtags, ...

As for Website, SEO (search engine optimization) is no longer strange to us. In short, you will have to optimize the technical background of the Website and do signs of trust for Google so that your Website will rank high naturally.

Convert customers

After gaining the attention and trust of users, you need to convert them into your customers. Drive them with call-to-action (CTA) actions that include buying, signing up to receive information to drive them to make more decisions and engage with your business.

Epilogue

Inbound Marketing is an effective method to attract customers, but this method will take a long time to get results. The most optimal strategy is to combine the two, according to SanMedia, you should invest 80% for Inbound Marketing and the remaining 20% for Outbound Marketing to quickly reach customers.