If you are interested in pursuing a career in the field of marketing, an important question has probably crossed your mind: What is inbound marketing? By reading the information found below, you can obtain an answer to this question and several others that pertain to inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing – A Brief Overview
Although broadly defined, inbound marketing is a form of advertising that involves promoting a business’s goods and/or services through podcasts, blogs, eBooks, video, whitepapers, e-newsletters, social media marketing, SEO and other types of content marketing that help bring prospective clients and loyal customers closer to the brand. Inbound marketing stands in distinction from outbound marketing, which involves cold-calling, buying attention, direct paper mail, TV advertisements, radio, spam, sales flyers, traditional advertising, and telemarketing. Although inbound marketing is effective for several reasons, it is basically efficient as a result of its ability to earn customer attention, make it easy to find the business, and draw customers to the blog or website through the production of interesting, informative content.
Inbound Marketing-Major Themes
In discussing the various facets that make inbound marketing the form of advertising that it is, HubSpot identifies the following five themes:
1. Content Creation
This aspect of the inbound marketing process involves the creation of targeted content that is somehow useful, such as a blog post that answers the customer’s questions or is somehow entertaining. One of the goals with content creation is to ensure that the written data is viewed by a broad yet targeted audience.
2. Lifecycle Marketing
In recognizing that customers go through various stages in their lives, inbound marketing understands that each of these stages will require unique, specific marketing actions. Responding to this reality with different and perpetually evolving marketing techniques is referred to as lifecycle marketing.
3. Personalization
As many marketing experts know, one of the keys to success in selling goods and products is to develop a personal relationship with one’s customers. This process is called personalization and involves learning more and more about leads and customers over time. Once this is done, marketers can personalize the messages sent to these individuals so that their specific needs are addressed and met.
4. Multi-channel
Inbound marketing is a multi-channel endeavor, meaning that it can transpire across several platforms such as social media sites like Twitter, blogs, websites, and e-mail newsletters.
5. Integration
Inbound marketing involves the use of analytics and publishing tools that work in a synergistic fashion that enables the marketer to publish the right content at the right time and in the right place.
Inbound Marketing – Careers
Individuals who find the world of inbound marketing to be fun and/or intellectually stimulating should know that there are a wide variety of careers that involve the use of it. For example, web content writers spend a great deal of time creating the type of unique and information-packed blogs and web articles capable of catching and keeping the attention of prospective clients and loyal customers.
Related Resource: Outbound Marketing
Conclusion
If you are thinking about pursuing a career in marketing, you should know that understanding and making use of inbound marketing strategies can help you excel within your chosen field. Now that you have an answer to the question “What is inbound marketing?,” you can make an informed decision regarding whether specializing in this sector would be appropriate and advantageous for you.
