Guest Blogger Ekaterina Zelenkova: “With an economics background and over 12 years’ experience in the fields of finance, financial online journalism and management, Ekaterina has an exhaustive ground for passionate work in new market development, financial content writing and analysis. During the last 8 years, she has worked on digital projects too, and more recently with interpreting and translation services, web design, financial content writing and digital consultancy.”
More and more companies nowadays are looking for professional inbound marketing solutions and are adopting the philosophy and tools of the inbound marketing.
According to statistics, 71% of inbound organisations are confident that their marketing strategy is effective. Is this just a new digital fashion or does inbound marketing really bring success?
I’m going to discuss only one of the possible few answers to this question. It can be found in the roots, and by distinguishing the difference between the meaning, methodology and tools used by traditional outbound marketing and these of the new inbound.
According to market leaders in the field, inbound marketing is a new way of doing business based on the philosophy of help people. This new approach utilises customer-centric techniques and defines itself as more human.
Some experts state that outbound marketing is interruptive; it pushes itself at the customers, whether they want it or not. If you think about this, tap into your memories and recall a TV or radio, billboard, newspaper or magazine ad which you were neither interested in nor particularly happy to watch. Cold calling, pop-ups and contextual ads often are often not appreciated by many customers. They all belong to the outbound marketing tools category.
Within the last ten years, the compulsive character of outbound marketing resulted in its steep decline. Marketers’ use of traditional outbound instruments being redirected to the utilising of the new inbound marketing philosophy.
The most recent research report from HubSpot shows that 53% of Marketers see a higher ROI from inbound marketing strategies over their outbound, and only 16% of respondents stated that outbound marketing brings higher ROI than their inbound. 46% of marketing teams planned for higher budgets this year for inbound marketing too. The survey outlines that the most overrated marketing tactic is the paid advertising, which includes print, outdoor and broadcast ads.
With no intentions to tell you which is the best marketing approach for you individually, I will disclose a few more inbound marketing statistics which are worthwhile considering while you create your marketing strategy.
Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools in the inbound marketing toolbox.
A study done in Aberdeen shows that conversion rates are nearly six times higher for those who were using content marketing tactics in comparison to content non-adopters.
TopRankBlog found that the most effective B2B marketers spent approximately 39% of their marketing budget for content marketing, showing how much they rely on a solid content strategy.
Hopefully, these statistics will be able to help you effectively analyse the most recent marketing trends.
In finance we often say, “The trend is my friend”, meaning that you can minimise the losses if you adopt current and popular market trends.
So, do you still perceive the inbound marketing as a fashion only or a proven and effective marketing tool?
For more in depth knowledge on marketing, you could attend a digital skills training course.
