Confused about Inbound Marketing? You're Not Alone

As a kid, I remembering laughing at jokes I didn’t understand, too embarrassed to admit I didn’t get them. Everyone else was laughing so it must be funny, right? Hilarious! In truth, most of the others probably didn’t get it either, but who wants to admit that in front of a group? So I played along. 

Then again, maybe I WAS the only that really didn’t get it….

Regardless, I had a flashback to this feeling the other day at lunch with friends. Somehow, after the initial round of gossip and sharing vacation stories, we got on the subject of inbound marketing. A few of us that work in the field began comparing success stories and trading advice. Another friend was nodding along enthusiastically, but finally spoke up. She hesitantly admitted “I wasn’t going to say anything because I’m probably supposed to know, but what IS inbound marketing, anyway?”

Refreshing.

I was glad she asked, instead of simply playing along like I used to do. I use the term all the time, but it was a good reminder that "inbound" is an unfamiliar term to some. At adWhite, we believe in inbound marketing so much that we’re changing our business model to focus almost solely on it. We’ll attend Inbound 2016 in November, and have embraced HubSpot, a leading inbound/marketing automation software.

But, just as I’d be lost in a group of engineers tossing around engineering terms – or dentists throwing out dental acronyms – or financial analysts.. well, you get the idea. If you’re not in the field, you may not be familiar with the term. And that’s ok. So here ya go. According to Wikipedia:

"Inbound" refers to marketing activities that bring visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects' attention. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found, and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content.

This contrasts greatly with traditional marketing that pushes advertising OUT such as cold-calling, direct mail, radio, TV ads, flyers, email spam and telemarketing. Inbound provides customers with something they actually want, when they want it.

For anyone wishing to know more we created a free, short guide that describes inbound marketing, its key components and 11 benefits to incorporating the philosophy into your overall marketing strategy.