Marketing is an evolving industry. There are traditional marketing outlets, such as television commercials, radio advertisements, email marketing, and telephone advertising. This is called outbound marketing. Many people in marketing consider this to be an antiquated way of advertising and have since moved on to inbound marketing. What is inbound marketing? Inbound marketing focuses on creating content such as blogs, white papers ebooks, podcasts, and more to draw in people to their brand. It is meant to create content that your audience would naturally be drawn to. Inbound marketing relies on earning the interest and respect of their desired audience, as opposed to forcing them to check out their product or service. So you might be wondering where should I put my efforts into inbound marketing or outbound marketing? Well, as an inbound marketing company in Brooklyn, we are here to show you the differences between inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing.

 Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing, as stated before, is everything that is considered as “old school advertising”. These forms of advertisement usually date to “pre-internet” times or during the early days of the internet. As mentioned before, they usually fall under TV ads, billboards, newspaper ads, typically anything that falls outside the internet realm of ads. Usually, these advertisements target an older audience, as they are generally more invested in these types of mediums, more so than younger people. The problem with outbound marketing is that a lot of people are not paying attention to the ads. Here are some statistics are given by Mashable through their outbound infographic.

84% of 25-34-year-olds have left their favorite website due to intrusive or irrelevant advertisements. 200 million people in America have their phone number on the “do not call list” 86% of people skip Television ads. 44% of direct mail is never opened. As you can see, people have started to ignore outbound marketing. While it may seem beneficial to invest in outbound marketing, because you will be able to reach a wider audience, it does not pay off in the long run, because those people do not want to see your ads or content, if it is forced upon them.

Inbound Marketing

Any inbound marketing company will tell you, inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing by working towards creating content that people are naturally drawn to, and respect. Now, naturally, your audience is going to be much smaller than an outbound marketing audience. However, it does not matter, your inbound marketing audience is mostly willing to accept your content with good graces. Here are some more statistics from Mashable 

There are also more ways to reach the exact audience you want. For example, by targeting specific keywords and including them in your SEO strategy, you’ll be able to reach those who are looking for your keywords. For example, if you run a Sushi restaurant in Brooklyn, you can target the words “sushi in Brooklyn” and have a better chance of reaching the audience that you want, as opposed to putting a short television commercial on the Food Network. Learn more about our SEO services from your local Brooklyn SEO company.

So what should you focus on?

Well, as you can see, the world of marketing is evolving very quickly. More people are flocking over to the internet and ignoring many old school, outbound marketing tactics. So as a business, it is important to establish a digital presence and invest in inbound marketing. It is overall a more effective form of advertising, especially for a start-up company. By creating quality content, you are making your business something that people would want to be a part of. If your content is good, people will follow. Just look at how much money you save by investing in inbound marketing

To learn more about inbound marketing, check out Park Slope Softworks, a Brooklyn inbound marketing company. Call today to request a free consultation, and check out our white paper below on 10 ways to get people to take action on your website.