Online Marketing: The Great Inbound Shift
Have you heard of the Great Vowel Shift? A monumental phonological development, which took place between the 14th and the 16th centuries and shaped Modern English pronunciation into what it is today.
A similar tectonic transformation is happening now in the world of digital marketing. With the exponential rise of social media channels and online consumer engagement, it is getting increasingly difficult to reach consumers and increase ROI through traditional advertising. While big corporations keep shelling out on expensive outbound marketing campaigns, there is increased evidence of a major shift in consumer behaviour, with more and more people being in favour of opt-in promotional methods and tending to block out interruptive advertising messages.
Is outbound marketing on its way out?
The latest studies of online consumer behaviour indicate that online users are shedding their traditional passive audience role and moving closer to what is traditionally associated with a content producer. This has become possible with the rise of social sharing and the mushrooming content curation tools such as Scoop.it, Storify, Paper.li and the likes. Facts indicating this major shift are compelling:
- 78% of consumers are searching online before buying a product. (Hubspot)
- In 2010 UK internet users spent 64% more time using search engines than they did in 2007. (UKOM, July 2010).
- 44% of UK internet users aged 16 and over have their own social networking site. (Office for National Statistics, November 2010)
- Nearly a quarter of UK internet time is spent on social media and blogs, a 14% increase on 2007. (Ofcom, August 2010)
- As a 2011 Digital Equation report found, almost all age groups tend to favour unobtrusive internet advertising techniques and opt-in methods.
What do these stats mean for digital marketers? If anything, they certainly point to the need to adjust one’s marketing techniques to reflect the changes in consumer behaviour. As people actively search for products and services, and share information socially, marketers should be looking to “earn” consumer attention without being obtrusive.
That is not to say that the new consumer behaviour will sound the death knell of traditional outbound marketing – for some companies, especially in retail, TV commercials, radio and print adverts, direct mail, and trade shows can still deliver returns. But these approaches are losing their effectiveness, and frankly, few companies can afford the steep – and rising – costs involved.
From bought to ‘earned’ media
| Econsultancy’s Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing 2011 outlines three key trends within online: the shift from bought to “earned” media, the move from impression to expression, and the rise of multimedia content. These trends, the authors or the report conclude, have led to the emergence of practices such as content marketing, and to their broad incorporation into business strategies: |
‘ Many will argue that advertising, as we’ve known it (mass, interruptive, paid for etc.), is dying as it no longer works so well in a more fragmented media world rife with ad skipping technologies. As a result, rather than investing in „bought media?, brands are shifting budgets to invest increasingly in „owned media? (e.g. your own websites, e-newsletters etc.) and „earned media? (links to your site, what customers say about you via social media, ratings/reviews etc.). Both are very relevant to content as the latter two require significant investment in content to work.’
(Econsultancy’s Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing 2011, p. 37)
The power of content and why the time to go inbound is now
Inbound internet marketing, a marketing technique which relies on the power of organic attraction, follows the logic of the online trends and is in line with the new consumer behavioural specifics. The inbound principle is based on the idea that consumer attention can be earned through useful, relevant and compelling content and social media engagement, in contrast to traditional outbound methods which target consumers using broadcast-style tactics.
Inbound, in contrast, treats the consumer as an active participant in the conversation, trying – through search, social and blogs – to draw readers in, keep them coming back for more, convert them to leads and eventually – to customers. Thus, with inbound content marketing, your website becomes a marketing hub, a go-to destination for readers and potential customers where they could find relevant and useful information.
Companies using inbound marketing have seen a host of benefits: a 32% increase in leads per month and a cost-per-lead 60% lower than outbound marketing-dominated organisation (HubSpot State of Inbound Marketing Report). A study by MIT Sloan School of Management also found that inbound marketing early adopters have experienced a 60% increase in traffic.
By adopting a holistic approach to creating value content in the form of blogs, e-books, white papers, and infographics, optimising for the search engines and sharing across all relevant social channels, you can earn and maintain trust, establish thought leadership in your area of expertise, and last but not least, boost your visibility online, capture leads and convert them to paying customers.
All you need to do is acknowledge that just like the Great Vowel Shift, consumer behaviour, fostered by the Web 2.0, has changed forever. And the future of digital marketing belongs to inbound. So go ahead and make your website a marketing hub!
John Hornell is CEO of Brightfire.
