Inbound marketing VS outbound marketing

When it comes to marketing, there are two primary tactics we can use: inbound marketing and outbound marketing. But which one can win in the final competition? Let’s see the differences first.

Inbound marketing: it uses blogs, eBooks, podcasts, social media networking, and other forms to make yourself easy to be found, attracts customers to your websites, and earns potential clients. Inbound marketing strategy is focusing on customers finding you. It attracts people’s attentions by posting creative, fresh, up-dated and targeted content. It is far less expensive than outbound marketing, and with more and more people having access to Internet, the number of targeted audiences is considerable.

Outbound marketing: it buys attention by TV ads, paper mail, radio, spam, cold-calling, and other traditional ways. As a matter of fact, most people never open a direct mail. Obviously, it is not only a waste of money, but also a waste of time, resource, and trees. Also, it is likely that we always skip the television ads. Compared with inbound marketing, this method is more expensive, and less effective.

However, outbound marketing is still in our life. There are still customers who usually do not spend much time online or who do not trust online businesses and are afraid to give their credit cards out online. And the point here is that inbound marketing should not necessarily play a replacement role for outbound marketing, but should serve as a complementary part of the marketing mix.