Pretty often you find people asking you: “What is inbound marketing? How does it differ from digital marketing? What are Inbound Marketing Tools? How are they different from digital marketing?"
The scope of marketing has expanded so much in recent years that the very style and tactics of marketing have blended into undefined and new paths. One particular reason is the dawn of the digital age. It’s often perplexing to understand but it's not as hard as one might think. Let’s make an attempt to understand what the work of HubSpot Digital Marketing is all about.
What’s Digital Marketing?
Giving it a reverence of seniority, I will explain the concept of digital marketing first. Digital marketing is a collection of standalone tactics a business can use to reach users. Social media, in particular, has been a great ambassador for the cause of digital marketing. But in this type of marketing, communicating a message includes both online as well as offline platforms.
Digital marketing tactics vary from, email marketing, web banners, digital brochures, micro-sites, influencer marketing, mobile marketing (via text or media), PPC, video marketing, electronic billboards, affiliate marketing, in-app mobile advertisements and more.
With the diverse range of digital marketing tactics available, HubSpot offers a one-stop solution for businesses to effectively manage and execute their digital marketing campaigns with its integrated platform of tools.
HubSpot is a comprehensive digital marketing platform that provides businesses with the tools they need to create, execute, and manage effective digital marketing campaigns. The platform integrates a wide range of digital marketing activities, including inbound marketing, email marketing, content management, lead management, and analytics, into one user-friendly and intuitive platform.
With HubSpot, businesses can create and publish high-quality, engaging content that is optimized for search engines, capture and qualify leads through forms and landing pages, send targeted, personalized emails to their subscribers, and engage with their target audience on social media. The platform also provides analytics and reporting features, so businesses can track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions
What’s Inbound Marketing?
It is a holistic, data-driven approach to marketing. It’s all-or-nothing, making it an effective strategy. In an inbound strategy, all elements and practices are aligned, which pushes qualified leads through your sales funnel in a natural way.
It involves a great deal of content creation for a more dynamic and educational experience which appeals to prospects at all levels of the buying process. Inbound marketing does it via blogging, SEO and website pages that keep the prospects coming back for more. In a way, one can say that Inbound Marketing is HubSpot Digital Marketing.
What’s HubSpot’s role in Inbound Marketing
HubSpot plays a significant role in inbound marketing by providing businesses with a suite of tools to attract, engage, and delight their target audience. Inbound marketing is a customer-centric approach to marketing that seeks to build trust and establish long-term relationships with prospects and customers. Here are some of the key ways that HubSpot supports inbound marketing:
1. Content creation
HubSpot provides a content management system (CMS) that makes it easy for businesses to create and publish high-quality, engaging content that is optimized for search engines. The platform also integrates with other tools, such as social media management platforms, making it easier for businesses to share their content with their target audience.
2. Lead generation
HubSpot's lead generation tools, such as forms and landing pages, help businesses capture and qualify leads, making it easier to nurture them into customers. The platform also provides analytics and reporting features, so businesses can track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
3. Email marketing
HubSpot's email marketing features allow businesses to send targeted, personalized emails to their subscribers. The platform integrates with other tools, such as lead management and analytics, to ensure that businesses are able to measure the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
4. Social media management
HubSpot provides a social media management platform that makes it easier for businesses to engage with their target audience on social media. The platform provides analytics and reporting features, so businesses can track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.
Inbound Marketing vs Digital Marketing
Now that you know what digital and inbound marketing are, you might (being a CEO or a marketer) face a dilemma as to what approach to follow, inbound or digital. In that case, you need to understand what your marketing priorities should be. The answers to the following questions should help:
- Are you looking to execute any digital marketing tactic?
- Are you looking for a strategy integrated program?
- Do you want your brand to look good?
- Do you want to drive results?
If you’re a strategic marketer, a long-term approach is something you would look for to drive business growth. Such an approach includes more than just having a pretty website, thousands of likes on social media or being a popular business. Inbound marketing is an overall approach which gets customers and conversions organically, fuel growth through a persona-tailored content and the one which drives interest and engagement of customers. Your route to inbound includes a definite set of expectations, defined and measurable long-term goals and it is customer-centric.
Whereas, digital marketing is your “go-to” place if you’re looking for upgrading your brand or enhancing its visual appeal through the use of any number of single digital marketing tactic. It is short-term, budget-friendly and perhaps a component of an overall inbound methodology. I’m not here to blow the trumpet of inbound marketing or defame digital. The purpose was to help you make right decisions basis your business needs.
HubSpot Digital Marketing
But the important point to note is that both of these tactics can be united under the umbrella of HubSpot Digital Marketing are considered, by many inbound marketing professionals, to be within the overall inbound methodology. You can’t connect with audiences without branding, and you can't build user trust without high-quality content; both are elements of a productive inbound marketing strategy. Also, inbound extends far beyond digital, and consists of many unique moving components. The key takeaway here is that for most online audiences, bare-bones digital marketing tactics fall short for one reason: Value. To sum all this up, Inbound Marketing is a philosophy that encourages businesses to help their customers always, while digital marketing can enable them to do so. Thus, one can say that Inbound Marketing is essentially HubSpot Digital Marketing. If you’re interested in knowing more about Inbound Marketing, visit our website. :)
And I would appreciate your comments on my attempt to make a distinction.
P.S: This blog post is inspired by Mike Lieberman’s “Inbound - The Blog: The Secrets Behind Click To Close” and Ian Blake’s “What’s the Difference Between Inbound and Digital Marketing?”
