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Is it possible to have inbound marketing without some kind of marketing outreach?
The way inbound marketing has been defined, it seems to be non-dependent on marketing outreach. If that's the case, what causes inbound marketing to occur? If inbound marketing has some dependence on previous outreach, how does it differ from the response portion of the traditional "marketing transaction" -- i.e., impression delivered, recipient behavior influenced, subsequent response occurs?
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10 Answers
Great question. The technical answer, is, I believe, yes: you can have inbound marketing without any kind of outreach. Would doing so be practical or advisable? Not really. But it’s certainly possible.
As Dharmesh points out, you could load up a Website with white papers, videos, Webinars and other gated content and just wait for SEO to do its thing. It would be a remarkably passive approach to lead generation, but there’s no denying that you’d eventually generate leads. To pretend otherwise is just silly.
However, if you were also to employ email, content syndication, social media (e.g. Twitter), paid search (SEM), cold-calling, general advertising and other outreach vehicles to actively promote your content to the marketplace, you’d almost certainly generate a greater ROI.
I’ll suggest that the degree to which a company can subsist largely on inbound marketing depends largely on the answer to one question:
“Does your product or service A) solve a problem that people know exists, and for which they’re aware of products like yours to solve it for them, or B) solve a problem that people don’t know they have, nor are they aware there are even products that address the issue in the first place?”
Where you fall on the spectrum between A and B, I would argue, dictates the extent to which you can rely on inbound marketing. If you’re in a commodity market (Scenario A), marketing is often a matter of simply being in the right place at the right time, an ideal prescription for inbound. However, if you first need to convince people they even have the problem you can solve, then no amount of SEO or other inbound tactics will help, not alone anyway. In that scenario, it will be imperative that you also promote your product, message and content through effective outreach.
Show me someone who's a purist and I'll show you someone who's penniless. Inbound marketing is as much a mindset as it is a toolset. It's about a shift in philosophy from forcing the conversation to center on what you want to sell to adapting to a conversation abut what your buyers want to learn.
As such, it absolutely requires a fair measure of marketing outreach. But content-for-content, quality inbound content should require less of a push than, say, a self-referential asset of some sort might. Ultimately, effective inbound content spreads laterally (from peer to peer) better than "corporate" content tends to, and it's in the lateral spread that the credibility is found.
I think this is why "inbound marketing" sits very close to "influencer marketing" ... that is, inbound content is written/designed in such a way that it induces people to share it, but for it to truly spread, it often needs a jump-start. Influencers tend to trigger disproportionate spread -- especially among loose-tie relationships -- making them the ideal hub for the inbound wheel. Of course, this is easier said than done. But the ideal first step is to create something that's share-worthy. That is enough to get the wheel spinning.
Joe Chernov / Eloqua / @jchernov
Even at HubSpot, we are not purists on this matter.
A few additional thoughts to add to Joe's stellar response:
In theory, if you write a piece of content, Google will find it. If could start ranking for specific long-tail terms. That could then generate some minimal traffic. (No marketing outreach has been done yet). One of those trickle of visitors could be a blogger, and link to the article. One of those readers could be an avid social media user, and share a link to the article on twitter and Facebook -- causing more people to see it. The links and sharing can start to drive the article up in the search rankings -- driving yet more traffic.
So, in theory, it is possible to get inbound traffic without *any* outreach. In practice, we've found that "seeding" great content and helping promote it and get found works well.
When I think about inbound marketing (and the way we describe it in the Inbound Marketing book), we think of the optimization and promotion activities as part of the inbound marketing process.
The answer to your question, sir, is unequivocal … any business to business organization MUST conduct marketing outreach.
The outreach certainly can include floating the content. But if that is all you do, it’s going to be a long, hot summer.
And counting on lateral content spread is risky because it leaves the communication sequence and timing in the hands of others, and makes sales forecasting difficult and likely unreliable.
I don’t have a horse in the inbound marketing / MA / RPM race, but I sure have one in the customer acquisition derby. That’s why it seems to me we have to do both outbound and inbound to sustain and grow our businesses.
BTW: if one believes that outbound is dead, they simply can count the billboards on the way home, the evening’s TV commercials, and their daily ration of direct mail from CapitalOne.
I'm with Michael.
Inbound only is is not marketing at all. Real marketing is about telling your target audience what you've got for them and differentiating it from the other choices they have available to them. That's fundamental.
Inbound-only thinking is a version of the naive belief that all you have to do is build a product — and then wait at your website for the purchase requisitions to come through. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. Never has, never will.
Al Shultz
http://www.alshultz.com/
Hi Everybody,
Thanks for your thoughtful and insightful responses. Joe’s reference to inbound marketing being a mindset more than a toolset is a nice succinct way of summing it up. And Dharmesh’s mention that Hubspot regards optimization and promotion activities as part of the inbound marketing process simply confirms it.
What’s always confused me about inbound marketing – which is why I asked the question – is that as a long-time direct marketer, this seems to be what we’ve always done. Usually, we’ve called it something else like response management, but the focus has always been on the “return” (or inbound) half of the marketing transaction; namely, what happens after the marketing touch/impression has been delivered.
If the similarities between direct and inbound marketing are true, then the place for the outreach requirements that Howard, Michael and Al talk about is the “outbound” half of the marketing transaction; namely, delivering the marketing touch/impression. Since we all seem to agree that we need outbound to trigger inbound, perhaps the real issue is how much of a responder’s perspective we bring to the process?
Marketers find the concept of "inbound marketing" irresistible, but quickly realize (as many have pointed out here) that it's not going to drive a sales quota. Reminds me of the problem with an earlier concept, "permission marketing," which was also an attractive notion, but never addressed how to generate a fresh prospect.
Interesting conversation so far. Although I am a practitioner of inbound marketing and lead generation, both inbound and outbound are necessary for growth. We're really speaking about different audiences, subject to change based on who your key influencers are.
Scenario A:
Buyer uncovers a need. May know of solutions via blogs, trade press, trade shows, etc. Will research that. Will also research social media and search engines. Inbound.
Scenario B:
Buyer is unaware of need. Now need to create demand. Outbound becomes key here: Advertise, sponsor, warm call. Outbound.
My target is a C-suite executive. Usually his/her team is involved with the research and thus are key influencers, but targeting a C-Suite is a different strategy that targeting a purchasing guy or a CIO. How many CEOs are Tweeting frequently, for example.
Just food for thought.
Paul Mosenson
President
NuSpark Marketing
www.nusparkmarketing.com
@nusparkmktg
So many phenomenal answers exist already - that I'll just share a quote (from an avid inbound marketer, Ilya Mirman) that underscores the need for BOTH inbound & outbound marketing.
"If you're trying to do marketing solely using outbound tactics, it's like you are trying to clap with one hand."
There is a balance and each company / target market will have a different balance based on their audience, maturity and the ROI of each channel they use.
Here's Ilya's full post from a recent E2.0 panel where exactly this topic was debated: http://www.ilyamirman.com/bid/57941/Can-Inbound-and-Outbound-Marketing-Co-Exi...
Inbound Marketing sounds a bit like Inside Sales. But you sell a singular product, you market to create a need for the company products. Your customer may have been told about your product from another customer, or saw your product name at e.g. a jobsite, and is inquiring about the brand name. The customer doesn't have a defined product need yet so you have to create one, hence marketing rather than sales. I did tech support before and in addition to fixing the customers issue we were encouraged to mention other company products or upgrades.
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