Do you meet prospects during the course of your business?
We do.
And during the conversation on inbound marketing, the following do come up.
“It’s just any other business or marketing trend and will eventually fade away.”
“Is this just a new obsession for the marketers?”
“Inbound Marketing trend is just a fad.”
Like a good sportsperson, we duck some of these bouncers. But, we do look up data to check if we are right on track. After all, we are data-driven inbound marketers.
Let me explain this using some examples from Google Trends.
“Inbound Marketing” search term from 2004 (Source: Google Trends)
This is the Google Trends data for “Inbound Marketing” search term from 2004-2017 which shows a tremendous growth over time and is still growing. It is a sustainable trend. Now let’s have a look at the other example.
"Ice bucket challenge" search term from 2004 (Source: Google Trends)
So can you make out what is a “one-time” trend?“Inbound Marketing” search term graph looks nothing like that but it’s graph showing a consistently growing trend with no sign of downfall.
Inbound Marketing Trend Reasons
Why is the inbound marketing trend growing consistently? Let’s dig into the reasons behind this.
1) World Wide Web
Number of internet users is increasing at an unstoppable rate.
Source: StatistaWith philanthropists and internet executives like 'Mark Zuckerberg' and 'Larry Page' it will soon reach the entire world. Google has started a Loon Project and Facebook has started a Solar Aircraft Project which will provide internet connectivity even in the rural and underdeveloped areas of the world.
The number of internet users is predicted to reach 5 billion by 2020 and with this internet growth comes a decline for the Traditional Marketing Methods.
2) We Google Everything
Internet is the modern library and we won’t stop using the internet. Search engines dominate internet and google dominates search engines.
“Google searches in 2000 were approx 10 Billion and it has now increased to more than 2 Trillion from 2016 onwards.” (Search Engine Land)
Search indicates high intent and the entire SEO concept of the inbound methodology is based on what we are searching for and what are our interests.
3) People research, research, research …. and then maybe Buy
Modern customers want to learn and explore things before even selling is discussed.
“Consumers spend an average of 79 days gathering information before making a major purchase."(GE Capital)“57%—that's how far the average B2B buyer is through the purchase decision before engaging a supplier sales rep."
(CEB)Inbound Marketing is the marketing which people love. It is the technique of drawing customers to the product or service with the help of content marketing, social media, SEO and...
Helping buyers make the ‘best’ buying decision without any expectation of sale.
4) Changing Consumer Preferences
Why do we always skip the Youtube Ad?
Do you remember the advertisements which you saw last night while watching TV?
No one does, we only watch Ads which are actually relevant to us. This is the reason why selling directly has become extremely difficult so the marketers came up with this permission marketing concept which does not involves selling directly.
“Netflix subscribers for 2015 was 70 million and it crossed the 100 million mark by the end of 2016.” (Statista)
“More than 1 billion hours of content is consumed on the YouTube platform every single day as of March 2017." - Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube
This tells us how we have started inclining towards things which have no time boundation and which are of our own choice.
Inbound Marketing, aka Permission Marketing, does not forces any content or video on the customer it gives them information and allows them to make a decision of their own.
Conclusion
The modern marketers know these facts really well and this is the reason why inbound marketing trend shows no signs of fading away.
People who still think that it’s a trend which will disappear need to think about it again.
Your issues may not be relevant to inbound marketing depending on your industry structure, buying preferences and the acceptance of inbound marketing as a customer acquisition channel. If you are that person, do tell me your views in the comment section.
