Introduction
As a marketing student, this is all very new to me, so be kind, dear readers. I’m going to give you an overview of what I have learned about marketing so far, and I hope it can help you with your side project, your day job as a marketing manager, or to kick off your own venture as an entrepreneur.

Background
Marketing can be broadly divided into two areas: inbound and outbound. To give you an idea of what they are, and why they are important, I would like to tell you a tale.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Alice who loved to play video games and compete in online gaming tournaments. Now, in real life, Alice was a pretty nice person, but when she played, she was a force to be reckoned with. She had been playing for years, and competed in live tournaments, and had won so many times that she had gained a serious reputation among the community.

One day, Alice decided to set up a small business. She bought a domain, setup a website, and began to promote her business. However, she quickly found that the community around her didn’t know about her. The only people who did know about her were the people who she had met in real life at gaming conventions, or in online games.

So, Alice did what any good marketer would do, she put up some Facebook advertisements, and tweeted a bit to her followers. She even did a few SEO techniques to get her site to rise to the top of the search rankings.

However, no one came.

Alice had no customers, and no one knew of her business. So she did what any good marketer would do, she went out and started talking to people. She began to attend gaming conventions, and set up a booth to talk to people about her business.

She gave away swag, made friends, and kept in touch with her customers. She was able to get her business off the ground, and even begin to run it full time.

As she began to make more and more money, she started to invest in some new hardware, and began to hire some help. She was able to save up enough money to take a few months off from her business, and go on a nice vacation, where she met her soon-to-be husband.

(The End)

Marketing explained
Now, let’s talk about the two methods of marketing: inbound and outbound.

Inbound marketing is a set of techniques that helps you attract your customers to your business, rather than you having to go out and find them. These techniques include SEO, social media, blogging, and even setting up a booth at a convention.

Outbound marketing techniques, on the other hand, are techniques which you use to get in touch with people that you do not already know. These include cold calling, email marketing, direct mail, and even doing some light Facebook stalking.

Can you see now how the story of Alice portrays her attempt at both inbound and outbound marketing? Some of her attempts at inbound did not work, but also, some of her attempts at outbound did not work. Neither one is 100% correct! Each business is unique and requires experimentation to find an approach that works for that specific business, even within the area of inbound and outbound.

For the remainder of this article, I am going to give you a brief overview of some methods from each area, and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Inbound marketing

Blogging
Blogging is one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use. It is a way to build a relationship with your customers, and to get your message out there. There are a lot of different kinds of blogs, and I will go over some of the different kinds in a moment, but they all have one thing in common: they are good for business.

Social media
Social media is a great way to build your business. No matter what you are selling, there is a marketing channel out there for you. Here is a list of common channels, and what you can do with them.

Facebook
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms, with over a billion users. It is a great way to interact with your customers, and to bring you trust and social validation.

Twitter
Twitter is one of the best ways to get your message out there. It is a powerful marketing tool, and if you use it well, it can help you to reach an audience that you could never have reached before. Sign up for a new business account on twitter here.

Instagram
Instagram is a photo sharing platform, but it is also a great marketing tool. It is a powerful tool for outreach, and a great way to get your message out there. Make a new business account by logging into your normal Instagram account first.

SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is a technique in which you optimize your website so that it shows up at the top of the search engine rankings for relevant keywords. It is a long, drawn out process, and it is highly dependent on your content, and your keywords. Link building is one aspect of SEO, geared towards making links to your website, and not optimizing your website content itself. This is also a long process, but it is dependent on outside factors, such as your niche, and how much influence you have in it. One proven way to shortcut this process is to simply buy backlinks.

New social media channels are emerging all the time, and it’s good to stay abreast of new channels that could be relevant to your business.

Outbound marketing

Sales
Sales is one of the most important aspects of a business. If you have high-value customers, or if you are looking to have high-value customers, then this strategy is “a must” for you. Nothing is as effective as an effective sales person.

Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the cheapest ways to reach many potential customers for hardly any money. It’s a great way to stay in touch with your customers, and to build your business. We’ll try to get into customer loyalty in more detail in a future blog post.

Cold calling
Cold calling is a marketing strategy in which you call people you do not know, and try to sell them something. It’s a hard strategy to use, due to the fact that it can be very difficult to get people to hear you out, but it is a very popular method, based on the number of cold calls that my mom personally receives.

Direct mail
Direct mail is a marketing strategy in which you send direct mail to your customers. It’s a great way to build a relationship with your customers, and it is powerful marketing, often used by big retails shops with large budgets, and large-ticket items.

Summary
Now that you know a little bit about inbound and outbound marketing, make sure that you make efforts to experiment with both! Don’t just pick one and try to force it to work, you have to try both and see what sticks, and determine what is the most effective method of attracting customers, and what approach is the most relevant for your specific business. If you have any thoughts on types of marketing that have worked for you, please reach out to us via email. Thanks!