Unlike Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing has a more specific and limited in regards to meaning and application. It refers to the earned media strategies and tactics to drive traffic and conversions to a marketeer’s website to turn them into leads. Content Marketing is deliberately broader so that emphasis is placed on each individual piece of content.
By making the marketing at a broader standpoint, each piece of content whether it is text, an image, a video or another type of media and it distributes it appropriately and measures its effects. This allows each individual aspect of the marketing tactic stand out in its own way. Each part is emphasized and draws attention from the audience. The content will come from places that will best target specific consumers that are most likely to find, friend, follow and forward it. Through this, different people will be attracted to the many different parts and ultimately, you will have a larger pool of potential conversions.
The emphasis is also not necessarily to create traffic and sales that lead back to the marketeer’s website just like it would through inbound marketing. Although it may be one of the goals, the main goal is to create conversations and conversions to where the marketeer’s products or services may be — whether that be on the phone, online, in store or in person.
By seeing marketing in this light rather than from a specific “inbound marketing” perspective, you can have a much better use of content and target a larger range of people that are catered to each of their specific needs and interests. That is the kind of consumer you want: one that purposefully loves your product and wants to share that with those they interact with as well.