Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing and its opposite outbound marketing have various meanings depending on the context.

One pair of definitionsare:
- Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin’s idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers “publish their way in” (via blogs etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to “buy their way in” (via paid advertisements). Next best action marketing can also be applied.
- Traditional marketing (outbound marketing) is where companies focus on finding customers by advertising. This sense is related to intrusion marketing and Godin’s term interruption marketing.
An older pair of definitionsare:
- Inbound marketing is market research. In this sense, pieces of information about customer needs, not customers themselves, flow into the company. Knowledge of customer needs drives future product capability. This sense is related to the term product management. Peter Drucker believedthis to be the quintessence of marketing.
- Outbound marketing is marketing communications. In this sense, information about finished product capability flows out to prospective customers who have a need for it. This sense is related to the term product marketing.