have you ever asked yourself this question, how and why has marketing evolved towards Inbound Marketing? Today we want to help you answer these questions by taking a journey through history.
The first thing we need to start this journey is to be very clear that content marketing and Inbound Marketing are not the same. Although for many companies it is still a new world to discover, the Inbound methodology began to manifest itself around a decade ago. Similarly, there are still many companies that confuse the two concepts because of their close and undeniable relationship.
While content marketing is, in addition to being a part of Inbound Marketing, a strategy whose objective is to attract and retain online traffic, the Inbound methodology decides to go further. It focuses on searching for and obtaining a real database and making people interested in the brand aware of the benefits of its products and eventually purchasing them. In short, it is about educating potential customers, accompanying them on their journey and building loyalty.
A change of approach in marketing
what do we want to buy? A product or a service, right? So let's direct our marketing strategies towards them. This was the traditional thinking that companies have been bringing until relatively recently. Their focus was, and some still are, on satisfying physical and functional needs with an eye on the company's products and services.
The sole objective was to increase sales, as evidenced by the number of brands that, for so many years, have engaged in intrusive advertising using media such as radio, television, newspapers, billboards, etc. The years have gone by.
The years have gone by. Media, technology, the Internet and people have evolved. We are used to hearing that traditional marketing, the same marketing we have been telling you about, is dead or obsolete. In the same way, the results show that digital marketing is what works now.
However, I would not go so far as to say that traditional marketing is dead, but rather that it has evolved. In short, it has undergone a change brought about by the digital age. As a result, we are faced with new ways of buying and selling.
Focusing on customers
Some time ago, companies began to notice a marked change in the behaviour of their customers. The ways of buying were changing, as the internet provided them with an unrivalled opportunity to consult products and services, make comparisons, etc. As a result, companies were left with only two options: join the change, or disappear. Those that opted for the first option, began to transform their ways of selling.
What matters now is no longer so much the product or service, but the customer. Their values, their way of interacting, their problems, their needs, and their way of thinking have become the target at which companies are aiming. Companies are trying to create their own identity in the midst of an increasingly modern and up-to-date society. This is why we are faced with attraction marketing, what we prefer to call Inbound Marketing.
The Inbound methodology is a strategy based on attracting potential customers through the generation of useful, relevant content capable of adding value in the stages of the buyer's journey (discovery, consideration and decision). It is no longer you who knocks on the customer's door, but it is the customer who finds you through different channels, such as blogs, search engines and social networks.
Start by gaining their trust, because the raison d'être of today's marketing is to go further, i.e. to detect and satisfy human needs.
It's no longer about making sales, it's about winning customers.
where is Inbound Marketing heading?
Undoubtedly, towards the generation of leads or sales opportunities. In the history of attracting potential customers, it could be said that Inbound Marketing is the main protagonist, and within it, content strategies are. Companies have focused all their attention on one priority objective: to increase traffic to their website and convert strangers into sales opportunities.
With these objectives, some reports such as the State of Inbound 2016 already showed us that these were the two priorities of brands in their business for marketing and that, without a doubt, Inbound Marketing played a fundamental role in their achievement. A year later, in the State of Inbound 2017, "63% of marketers said that their main challenge was to generate traffic and leads". History repeats itself.
know and understand your leads!
