One of the reasons that successful marketing has become more and more difficult to achieve is because people are becoming increasingly annoyed of advertisements.  No one wants to be interrupted in the middle of a suspenseful TV show to find out what the softness new toilet paper is or what the latest sandwich is at a fast food joint.  Outbound marketing, now referred to as “old marketing”, is the traditional style of marketing where companies reach out to their customers through commercials, print ad’s, flyers, and cold calls.  This style of marketing hunts customers down and pushes products on them and these consumers have no say in the matter.   Inbound marketing has begun to take over the advertising world as it has proven itself as the master of efficiency.  Inbound marketing promotes an advertising strategy of “getting found” by customers.  Inbound marketing uses strategies that involve Ebooks, podcasts, blogs, online videos, and white papers.  It focuses on a two-way relationship between the company and the consumer so that people are more in control of what information they receive.  In the last two years the amount spend on company blogs and social media has nearly doubled, making it clear that outbound marketing is on the decline.

So why make the switch? 

Here are a few important reasons that you should make the switch from outbound marketing to inbound marketing:

• People ignore traditional marketing

In 2011 it was found that 86% of television ads are skipped by viewers, and about 200 million Americans have registered themselves on the “no call list” to limit the amount of spam calls they receive.  Some may ask why Netflix has become so popular? Simple: Aside from being a cheap and convenient way to stream TV online, there are no advertisements.  As people become more frustrated with products being thrown in their faces, they begin to do whatever they can to ignore these companies marketing strategies and block them out.  By using blogging or other forms of inbound marketing, you are allowing the consumers to find you themselves, which makes for a much happier customer.

• Inbound marketing is cheaper!

Companies are profit maximizers so who wouldn’t want to save money marketing? A study from Hubspot, which surveyed 972 marketing professionals in 2012, found that inbound marketing generates a 61% lower cost per lead than traditional marketing. 

• Generates leads

Inbound marketing is more appealing to customers, which promotes customer loyalty and ultimately should help create a happier consumer.  Inbound marketing attracts potential customers by using appealing quality content and allows customers to find them without having to throw their company in the consumer’s faces.  As social media continues to become more and more present in our every day lives, consumers are better able to find companies online, thus generating more leads.

• Social Media

Consumers are beginning to switch to social media and leave behind old forms of entertainment, especially within younger generations.  It is important that in order to optimize sales you use inbound marketing ideas on cites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It’s as simple as creating a blog and posting links to your articles on your Facebook page!  Social media has become an aspect of advertising that outbound marketing simply cannot compete with.  

• Keep up with your competition!

According to Hubspot, 89% of businesses are maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing.  In order to stay competitive with competing companies it is essential that you continue to increase your inbound marketing strategies as they are doing the same! You don’t want to fall behind the game.

• Become eco-friendly!

From as environmental aspect, inbound marketing far exceeds traditional marketing strategies.  Outbound marketing produces greenhouse gases, fills landfills, and kills trees.  Over 100 million trees must be killed in order to produce the junk mails that arrives in mailboxes in America every singly year. 

8 Simple Ways to Make the Switch:

1. Turn direct mail into email marketing
2. Turn cold calls into blogs
3. Turn print ads into CTA’s (Calls to action)
4. Turn TV commercials into online videos
5. Turn flyers into monthly newsletters
6. Turn billboards into social media advertisements
7. Turn newspaper advertisements into search engine marketing
8. Turn a storefront into a website