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I want to take a moment to define inbound marketing, because I’m going to be talking a lot about it.

Inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. So let’s start by defining outbound marketing.

Outbound marketing is about pushing your message out far and wide while hoping it resonates with somebody. It’s a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Examples of outbound marketing techniques include trade shows, email blasts to published lists, cold calling, telemarketing, and advertising.

Outbound marketing techniques are becoming less effective for two reasons. One, people are tired of being interrupted. So they are fighting back against rudeness with TiVo, Sirius/XM radio, their iPods, the National Do Not Call Registry, and other techniques designed to stop the madness. Two, inbound marketing is cheaper and more efficient.

Now that we’ve defined outbound marketing, we are ready to tackle inbound marketing.

Now that people are getting better at blocking outbound marketing messages, marketers realized that they would be better off targeting people that actually wanted to hear their message! What a quaint idea! So inbound marketing is about being found by these people that want to hear your message. Thank God for common sense. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.”

Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, gives a terrific analogy while attempting to define outbound vs. inbound marketing. He says:

Traditional marketers trying to drum up interest from potential customers are “like lions hunting in the jungle for elephants. The elephants used to be in the jungle in the 80′s and 90′s when they learned their trade, but the don’t seem to be there anymore. They have all migrated to the watering holes on the savannah (the internet).”

In the end, he says, “rather than continuing to hunt in the jungle, (set up) shop at the watering hole or (convert) your website into its own watering hole.”

Well said, Brian.

Questions? Thoughts? Let me hear them in the comments. I’ll be around to answer them.