After several years of vibrant Internet discussions, we're still getting pulled into the debate about the differences between Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing.
The marketing world doesn't seem to be settled on a good answer yet, but in our opinion, we have a strong view on this. These are the typical questions we get asked, "Isn't Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing the same thing?" Or, "We do Content Marketing already, so why do we need to do Inbound Marketing as well?"
Our first reply to these types of questions is that we believe Content Marketing to be a subset of Inbound Marketing. However, they're totally joined at the hip ... there is no Inbound Marketing without Content Marketing, and, you can't do really good Content Marketing without some form of Inbound Marketing.
Let's look deeper at the main differences - this isn't an apples and oranges, black and white discussion, as there is some overlap. But we do think Inbound Marketing is the better way to go as it includes the best practices of Content Marketing.
The Content Marketing Institute defines Content Marketing as a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Additionally, content marketing can include blogging, ebooks, social media, white papers, reviews, info sheets, etc., as quality content like this can directly impact the lead generation process, and help with lead nurturing, customer retention, upselling, and customer service.
Okay, that sounds pretty straight forward so far, Content Marketing is all about creating and distributing different types of content, for different stages of the buyer's journey.
From this definition, we also learn that Content Marketing clearly doesn’t include website design, CTA and landing page development, email marketing, online event marketing, PPC or other types of digital marketing activities, whereas Inbound Marketing does include this variety of diverse digital marketing tactics, and more.
Inbound Marketing on the other hand, is more about following a strategic methodology that helps companies adjust their marketing to better fit the way today’s buyers are shopping for products and services, starting with the persona and the buyer's journey.
Inbound Marketing includes certain tactics that help companies get found when people are looking for their products or services, and provides a systematic approach to turning those anonymous website visitors into qualified leads, and then helps nurture those leads until they become sales ready.
Lastly, Inbound Marketing is a real-time, data-driven process that generates analytics and insights that can be used to continuously improve the optimization and conversion process, performance and ultimately business results.
Getting back to what we believe is the best answer to help alleviate the confusion between the two ... "Content Marketing is one piece of a complete Inbound Marketing strategy".
Agreed, you need Content Marketing as a very important component of your overall strategic marketing plan, but you also need a whole host of other Inbound Marketing tactics, and a methodology to deliver the business results you need.
Let's put it another way, as it all comes down to business objectives and results.
If your goal is to increase your website traffic, leads and sales, by building a repeatable, scalable, predictable lead-generation machine, then Inbound Marketing, with all its Content Marketing components, is the better option for your company.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a B2B Inbound Marketing Agency providing Inbound Marketing, Inbound Website Design and Inbound Sales services to companies around the world. We're focused on growing website traffic, qualified leads and sales, using the Inbound lead generation and marketing automation process.
THE BRIT AGENCY is a certified Gold Tier Hubspot Partner, a HubSpot COS certified Inbound Website Design Agency, a Shopify eCommerce Partner, and a certified "Google Badged Agency Partner". We have offices in Toronto and Barrie, Canada, and Salisbury, UK.
