Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

Marketing has changed. I am certain it will continue to change but the developments over the last few years have been unusually dramatic. I have tried all kinds of marketing ideas. I’ve done direct mail, radio, TV, print ads in the Washington Post and other ideas. Some of these have been successful and others were not effective at all. These past techniques are called Outbound Marketing. They also include trade shows and seminars. I have done them all.

Outbound marketing techniques are becoming less effective. Outbound marketing is a shotgun approach that is intrusive. All day long we are bombarded with Outbound messages and so we have tools to help us block them like TiVo, Spam blockers and satellite radio.

So, rather than attempting techniques that put you in an adversarial position with your potential client, I advocate Inbound Marketing. Inbound Marketing is about “getting found”. And the best place to get found these days is on the Internet. I don’t think that is going to change. The search engines are getting smarter and are producing better and better search results for users. It is the resource of choice for finding solution and learning new skills. So, if you are spending a lot of money on Outbound Marketing, you might want to consider shifting your efforts to Inbound Marketing.

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