FAQ About Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

It is a technique used to attract customers to products and services through content marketing, social media marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), and branding.

In other words: It is a marketing method that focuses on creating value for customers throughout their purchasing journey and makes customers come to you.

The basis of inbound marketing is to produce accurate and interesting content. So, creating videos and blog content where your potential customers can learn and give advice would be an example. Since inbound marketing is a type of marketing focused on establishing a dialogue with the target audience and attracting attention, there is a two-way communication with the target audience.

1. By attracting your potential customers to your website, you can turn them into loyal customers. You can use content marketing tools such as blog, SEO and social media to generate the right traffic on your website.
2. After attracting your target audience to your website, it is extremely important that you get in touch with these people. Ensure that your target audience, who comes to your website and examines your brand, communicates with you. To convert your website visitors into potential customers; You can use call to action phrases/mottos and create forms that will allow them to contact you.
3. After attracting the right people to your website and converting them into leads, what you need to do is turn them into your loyal customers. At this point, when you contact your potential customer, you can create an e-mail describing your brand and the product/service you have developed.
4. The most important point for inbound marketing is to create content that attracts attention. You need sustainable communication and interaction for someone you convert into a customer to become your loyal customer. In order to establish a two-way communication with your potential customers, it is extremely important to prepare content that you can interact with your messages that you will publish on social media.

Content creation: The content you create should answer your customers' key questions and needs.

Lifecycle marketing: As people get to know your company, their approach changes. You should use a different marketing method at each stage.

Personalization: Over time you learn more about your potential customers and can create messages that fit their personal needs.

Multi-Channel: Inbound marketing requires multi-channel use because you have to reach people where they are, through the channel they want to contact you through.

Integration: Your posts and analytics tools work together, allowing you to share the right content at the right place and time.

The most important part in this marketing method is content and timing. By posting the right content at the right place and time, you help and engage your customers.

1. Get Attention

It is important that you drive the right traffic to your site. You should aim for people who are likely to become customers to visit your site. So who are these people? Ideal customers are people who are genuinely interested in your products and services. You set your goals and challenges with these people in mind, and all your customers usually have similar characteristics.

2. Use Conversion

After you start receiving visitors to your site, the first thing you should do is to get the contact information of these people and convert them into potential customers. At least try to find out their e-mail addresses. Contact information is one of the most important information for online marketing. To get your visitors' contact information, you have to give them something in return. The reward you offer in return should be relevant to your business and appealing to your target audience.

3. Maintain Interest

You are on the right track. You attracted the right people to your website and turned them into leads. The next step is to turn these people into real customers and make them permanent.

4. Evaluate

Regardless of whether the user is a visitor, potential customer or existing customer, the most important thing for inbound marketing is content creation. You must ensure that someone you convert into a customer will never forget you. For this, you need constant communication and interaction. Thus, you can turn your existing customers into happy promoters who love your product/service.

Inbound Marketing Examples:

• Creating a blog,
• SEO studies,
• Social media marketing,
• Content marketing,
• E-books, promotional videos, viral videos, infographics etc.

Since there will be multiple channels where this method is applied, it will not be an understandable result to easily measure the effect. For this reason, the key to working is to be clear in the first place. That is, while planning your campaign, in line with the target you set; Knowing what you want to achieve and determining KPIs (key performance indicators) in line with this goal allows you to measure impact more easily.

It is based on the mass marketing approach that you are familiar with from traditional marketing and advertising systems. Television, radio, newspaper, magazine advertisements, fairs, seminars, pop-ups, pop-unders, banners, SMS, e-mail and e-bulletin are examples of outbound marketing. Outbound marketing, a one-way communication method, focuses only on the product and why people should buy it.

Identifying Your Target Audience: Specify your target audience. You should draw up a roadmap to whom, where and when you can reach. Thus, you can learn the expectations of your target audience from you and plan how you can meet these expectations.

Distinguishing From Your Competitors: By analyzing your competitors and the target audience you share, you can propose innovative solutions for the expectations, needs or solutions of your target audience, or you can create a difference by creating a new need.

Attracting the Attention of Your Customers: You can produce useful content that will inform your target audience about the product or service you offer. In this way, you can turn your target audience into your customers, who find solutions to their needs/expectations.

• Focuses on traditional marketing activities.
• Media such as radio, television, newspaper are used as advertising media.
• Printed advertising tools are frequently preferred.
• It is preferred in the promotion of products and services.
• It is needed for promotions, discounts, new product or service promotions.
• It deals with the target audience's purchase of the product or service.
• It focuses on calls to action that will create incentives to buy.
• It can be used for brand awareness or brand permanence.

Determining the most accurate method for the brand is possible by analyzing the data in the most accurate way. Since the returns of the methods can be different every year, it is important to analyze the market and to follow the marketing trends considering the constant changes in the world. When you are conscious of the difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing, it becomes easier to choose between the type of marketing and the tools to be used.

Although inbound and outbound marketing are different from each other, their use together is important for the success of brands and is also a necessity. Of course, there are sharp differences between the two concepts.

• While inbound marketing focuses on the target audience that may be interested in the service of the brand, strategies independent of the target audience are developed in the Outbound marketing method.
• In the inbound marketing method, the customer searches for the service they need and obtains information by examining the brand's promotional articles, blog contents, infographics or social media posts. In the outbound marketing method, the purchase is planned by following sales-oriented marketing strategies.
• While inbound marketing consists of versatile and fluid strategies, Outbound marketing is carried out as a one-way marketing strategy.
• As a permission marketing type, Inbound marketing is preferred by brands with a 75% higher response rate than Outbound marketing.
• In order to do inbound marketing, the brand must have a website and on this website the prospects must find the information they are looking for. The fact that content has been on the agenda in the marketing world in recent years is the result of the effect of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is not done without producing content. Producing content in inbound marketing; It covers applications such as product and service information, product configurators, product and service comparisons, e-books.
• It is a vital step for inbound marketing to bring the brand in front of the person who writes the product or service they are looking for in the Google search engine. The prerequisite for organic (without advertising) customer leads to the brand's website is to do an effective SEO work. (The term SEO consists of the English initials of the words "search engine optimization") In order to rank high on Google search results pages, it is necessary to work on the content using "Google-friendly" methods. As we all know today, Google is the busiest shopping street in the world. In order to have a visible place on this street, the brand must write and place the content entered on the website in accordance with Google's working logic, that is, in accordance with Google algorithms.
• An inbound marketing company must use a customer relationship management (CRM) software as well as marketing automation software, because without these software, it is not possible to recognize the leads coming to the website, save them in the system, and understand what information they get from which pages on their next visit. Thanks to CRM and marketing automation software, companies that implement inbound marketing can track the purchasing journeys of their leads, and after converting them into customers, they can make these records available to the sales department and the after-sales service department. Inbound marketing cannot be done without CRM software, but CRM is not required to do Outbound marketing.

Since inbound marketing is among the types of digital marketing, it is a type of marketing that e-commerce sites use extensively. Inbound marketing techniques adapt to the fast, accessible and innovative services of e-commerce.

For businesses that sell online, a successful virtual store, sales and quality service are the most important elements. Inbound marketing activities constitute an important part of the work that e-commerce sites will do to achieve these 3 elements.

The older the average age of the target audience, the stronger the chance of outbound marketing methods to influence them. The first is the marketing style most old customers are used to. This scale of customers likes to watch television and radio advertisements and may even pay attention to scanning newspaper advertisements and brochures when they are ready to buy.

Outbound marketing is also particularly effective in business-to-business marketing and/or transactions involving high-end products. While businesses may research other companies, they ultimately seek personal contacts established through face-to-face meetings or networking at industry events and trade shows.

Inbound marketing brings several advantages. Some of those:

Qualified leads: By having control over the information consumers are looking for, inbound marketing strategies ensure that consumers have access to this relevant information. There are certain inbound tools that filter out your target audience, and these people are already interested in your services and ready to take action.

Increases brand awareness: Your brand is the recognition of your business. Word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful sources that can make your brand known in the market. And with inbound marketing, you can share your services with blogs, videos, ads, etc. You can publish via As your brand starts to spread outside the community, more people will talk about your products and services and eventually reach out to you.

Your brand's preferability increases: Brand preference is choosing a particular brand over others in terms of impact, price, and availability. And inbound marketing is the most powerful weapon to build brand awareness among the target audience. In fact, market research is a way to shape brand preference. Inbound marketing involves addressing customers' problems, providing them with appropriate solutions, finding the most appealing to customers, and products and services that motivate them. Brand preference is a reflection of brand awareness, successful marketing strategies and customer loyalty.

Improves website ranking: Not only people but also search engine bots should approve of your inbound marketing strategy. These bots will crawl your website and analyze whether it is useful for customers. At the same time, indexing, checking relevance and authority, etc. It also performs some actions such as Therefore, inbound marketing strategy also includes SEO practices (search engine optimization) that make the website suitable (for both humans and bots). This contributes to your website ranking.

Increases sales: An efficient inbound marketing strategy that helps potential customers find the right solution when they need it leads to increased sales.

• Increasing the number of visitors
• Increasing conversion and engagement rates
• Increasing the average order value
• Increasing brand awareness and value
• Providing customer loyalty
• Reaching potential customers