What Gives? How are Content and Inbound Marketing Different?

Business Solutions from an?Inbound Marketing Agency

When it comes to online marketing, the words inbound marketing and content get thrown around a lot. For many business owners, these two phrases seem to be treated as synonyms when the reality is they are actually very different. The fact is that content is actually a subset of inbound marketing. Without content, there is no inbound. Ask any inbound marketing agency professional the difference and they will tell you, inbound is the methodology, but content is king.

That?s not to say that all of your inbound efforts are totally dependent upon content creation to be successful. Your inbound efforts should be inclusive of your content, but not limited by it. There are many other aspects to successful inbound marketing that need to be addressed along with the delivery of content. Let?s examine and define the difference between inbound marketing and content, and see how they form a symbiotic relationship that works to improve the results of your online marketing.

What is Inbound Marketing?

The function of an inbound marketing agency is to concentrate on your online efforts to attract and engage potential consumers of your product or service on your website in order to develop a relationship that will cause them to act and enter your sales funnel. This effort happens through the use of a variety of online marketing techniques that your inbound marketing agency will use such as email, pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, and other methods to drive traffic to your website. Once you have attracted traffic, using other inbound techniques like blogging and social media will keep their interest and keep them coming back.

Once visitors arrive at your site, the delivery of high-quality, relevant, creative content is what pulls these visitors into your sales/lead funnel and gets them to engage with your company. By aligning the content you create with your target markets interests, needs, and pain points, you can naturally attract targeted inbound traffic that you can then convert and close over time.

What is Content?

Content is anything your target market finds engaging, relevant,?entertaining, or informative.?Delivered as text, video, audio, or imagery, content?addresses the particular needs, pain points or interests of your visitor. It should be useful, have context, be easy to consume, easy to access across multiple device platforms, and non-intrusive.

Well produced content will spur your visitors to engage with you, whether it is through a purchase, delivery of customer information, or a further inquiry. This is the goal of inbound marketing. By providing relevant, informative content to your visitor, you are working to develop a relationship based on trust as opposed to ?selling? your product or service.

Inbound marketing uses content is a strategic approach that is designed to attract and retain a specific audience and ultimately lead them to take action by making a purchase. Content creation is an ongoing process that adds value to your marketing efforts. Remember, inbound marketing is the process, and content is the way you engage with customers and drive action.