For the clearest picture, let’s start with a comparison of inbound and outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing includes the channels and tactics that have been around for decades, such as billboards and TV/radio ads, as well as the display and banner ads we use today. Outbound marketing gets in front of audiences whether those audiences want to see it or not. This type of marketing and advertising still has its place, of course, especially when it comes to increasing overall brand awareness, but it can be very difficult to measure outbound marketing’s impact on a company’s bottom line.

Inbound marketing flips the equation: It seeks to pull in or attract new customers or clients for a business with content. There’s a long list of items that can fall under the “content” definition, but they are often blog posts, newsletters, social media posts, and other things that audiences want to read.

Inbound marketing content strategies are based on your company’s sales funnel and where your best prospective customer is in their journey to engaging with you. We look at each stage of the journey and plan content that will reach the right person at the right moment.

One key part of an inbound marketing content strategy is helping your best prospects find your content. Tactics to facilitate that connection include SEO, PPC, social media, and more. No matter how it’s done, inbound marketing is all about positioning your business to be readily found when people want to solve a problem with a solution you offer.

Although they have some tactics in common, they’re not the same thing, but they work very well together and increase the number of ways you can grow your business. Inbound marketing—the strategy of attracting prospects to your content—can be done without SEO, but we recommend both.

The answer to this question is different for every business—some may get the best results from a comprehensive email drip campaign, while others may have success by regularly posting videos. The real “best type,” however, is the kind that meets the search intent of your audience.

Regardless of the form your content takes, it should offer a clearly stated solution to the problem the searcher is looking to solve, provide links to more information that can help them make decisions, and make it easy for them to take the next step from one stage of the buyer’s journey to the next.

Your website is the foundation of all of your online marketing. It’s also home to much of your inbound marketing content and the destination that your off-site content, such as social media posts sends prospects to. What they experience when they get to your site can be a make-or-break moment in the buyer’s journey.

Here are a few things you should assess (and improve, if needed):

• Site speed—No matter how great your content is, if your site loads slowly, people will leave.
• User-friendliness—People come to your site to get things done, from learning more about your company, product, or service, to getting in touch with you. Remove obstacles that are in users’ way and make it easy for them navigate your entire site.
• Mobile-friendliness—Mobile is dominant, so make sure your site performs exceptionally well on small screens.

At Dagmar, we offer website design services that deliver a site that can customized to your needs, is mobile-friendly, and has powerful SEO features built right in. Get in touch for a free website consultation.

No marketing tool is perfect, and inbound marketing is no exception. While it has plenty of upsides, such as offering your prospective and current customers or clients truly useful information that establishes or builds your relationships with them, there are a few things to consider that may tamper your expectations.

It’s not for everyone: Some types of business will simply have more success with outbound marketing, especially if they don’t have a long sales cycle that requires nurturing prospects and giving them plenty of time to reach a decision. There are still valuable takeaways from inbound marketing for any company, such as offering high-quality, useful content that helps people get things done.

It’s not a set-it-and-forget it process: While there are automated platforms that help with inbound marketing, it still requires a commitment to strategic planning and all of the steps involved in executing your plan.

It requires certain skillsets: Since content (and content marketing) are essential to inbound marketing, your company may not have the team on board who can consistently produce top-level content, distribute it in the right places, gain insights from its performance, and continue to iterate.

It’s a marathon: Inbound marketing is about momentum, and building that takes time and patience. Simply setting it up isn’t enough—it’s a long-term strategy that needs attention to sustain great results.

For all of these cautions, don’t let them dissuade you from considering inbound marketing. And, if you’re concerned about having to go all in by signing up with an automated inbound marketing platform, know that you can still benefit from the principles and practices of inbound marketing without making a commitment to any platform or software. If you’re on the fence, we’ll be glad to talk through whether inbound marketing is right for your business.