Heard of Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is based on a “pull” approach, as opposed to traditional Outbound Marketing that relies on “pushing” the message out, e.g. via paid ads. Inbound Marketing is also known in the industry as “permission marketing” - compared to the “interruption marketing” that is Outbound Marketing.

According to Hubspot, companies that spend 50% of their resources on Inbound Marketing spend 60% less per sales lead, compared to those who engage in Outbound Marketing. The logic is simple - consumers are already bombarded with so many marketing messages a day that they have become immune (ad blindness) to these promotional messages most of the time. In addition, Outbound Marketing like print and TV ads also tend to be less targeted, hence, the higher cost per lead.

On the other hand, the cost of Inbound Marketing is much lower - the most common Online Marketing methods are SEO and Social Media. Basically, you create useful and compelling content, and then spread them through blogs and social sites like Twitter and Facebook. Then when a consumer searches for a related product or service, they find your site and ends up buying from you.

SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, is the process of optimizing a website to rank high in the search results for the targeted keywords. It is a tedious process that involves increasing the website’s relevance and search-engine friendliness, and building links to improve its authority (trust) in the eyes of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Because of the “pull” approach, the sales leads are already pre-qualified to have an interest in your product or service. Hence, it is more targeted, which results in a higher conversion and lower cost.

Naturally, if this is your first time hearing the term “Inbound Marketing”, I believe you will start to see how compelling it can be and give you a new perspective on your marketing approach. Many companies have switched from traditional Outbound to Inbound Marketing in 2008/2009, i.e. during the financial meltdown when budgets were slashed significantly.

An example of a company that has been quite successful at using Inbound Marketing is QNET (previously QuestNet) - a global network marketing company established since 1999. In addition to its corporate website, the company engages with its customers and members (called Independent Representatives) through the QNet Facebook Fan Page. There is also the official QuestNet Blog, which talks about anything related to the company - from its parent company QI Ltd to news about its founder Vijay Eswaran and the latest CSR effort at RYTHM.