Inbound marketing

Marketing
Key concepts
Product marketing · Pricing Distribution · Service · Retail Brand management Account-based marketing Ethics · Effectiveness · Research Segmentation · Strategy · Activation Management · Dominance Marketing operations
Promotional contents
Advertising · Branding · Underwriting Direct marketing · Personal sales Product placement · Publicity Sales promotion · Sex in advertising Loyalty marketing · SMS marketing Premiums · Prizes
Promotional media
Printing · Publication · Broadcasting Out-of-home advertising · Internet Point of sale · Merchandise Digital marketing · In-game advertising In-store demonstration · Word-of-mouth Brand ambassador · Drip marketing · Visual merchandising

Inbound marketing and its opposite (outbound marketing) have two pairs of meanings depending on the context:

One pair of definitions^[1]^[2] are:
- Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin's idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends^[3] that marketers "earn their way in" (via publishing helpful information on a blog etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to "buy, beg, or bug their way in" (via paid advertisements, issuing press releases in the hope they get picked up by the trade press, or paying commissioned sales people, respectively). Brian Halligan, cofounder and CEO of HubSpot, claims^[4] he coined the usage of the term in this sense.
- Antonym for this usage: In this pair of senses, outbound marketing is a pejorative term for traditional marketing that focuses on interrupting customers through excessive and inappropriate advertising and promotion. This sense is synonymous with interruption marketing.
An older pair of definitions^[5] are:
- Inbound marketing is market research. In contrast to the above, pieces of information about customer needs and interests, not customers themselves, flow into the company. Knowledge of customer needs drives future company offerings, and product or service capability. This sense is related to the term product management and product ownership in Scrum. Peter Drucker believed^[6] this to be the quintessence of marketing.
- Antonym for this usage: In this pair of senses, outbound marketing is a non-pejorative term for marketing communications: information about finished product capability flows out to prospective customers who have a need for it. This sense is almost synonymous with product marketing.

Notes

^ Vittal, Suresh; Anderson, Elana; Joseph, Jennifer (January 9, 2007). "How Technology Enables Inbound Marketing: Evaluate Interaction Management To Optimize Real-Time Recommendations". http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,40760,00.html. Retrieved May 7, 2009.
^ Halligan, Brian; Shah, Dharmesh (2009). Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0470499311.
^ David Meerman Scott. (2010). The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly. (2 ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons Inc. ISBN 0470547812. http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm.
^ "Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO & Co-Founder". InboundMarketing.org. http://inboundmarketing.com/brian.
^ McNamara, Carter. "Marketing - A Commonly Misunderstood Term". http://managementhelp.org/mrktng/mrktng.htm. Retrieved 2009,April 19.
^ Drucker, Peter F. (1974). Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. New York, NY: Harper & Row. pp. 864. ISBN 0-06-011092-9. "There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available..."