{"id":13310,"date":"2016-10-17T08:05:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T12:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/?p=13310"},"modified":"2016-10-15T16:59:27","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T20:59:27","slug":"b2b-content-marketing-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/b2b-content-marketing-explanation\/","title":{"rendered":"B2B Monday Myth: Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing Are the Same Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/b2b-content-marketing-explanation.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-13318\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/b2b-content-marketing-explanation.jpg\" alt=\"b2b content marketing explanation\" width=\"1150\" height=\"647\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/b2b-content-marketing-explanation.jpg 1150w, https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/b2b-content-marketing-explanation-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1150px) 100vw, 1150px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Myth: Content Marketing and\u00a0Inbound Marketing Are the Same Thing.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h3><strong>The Truth: Content Marketing Expands Well Beyond Just Inbound.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>One mistake marketers\u00a0make fairly often is confusing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/contentmarketinginstitute.com\/what-is-content-marketing\/\">Content Marketing<\/a> with\u00a0Inbound Marketing. They see them as one and the same, when in reality Inbound Marketing is just a child of Content Marketing. Let&#8217;s take a closer look.<\/p>\n<p>First off, when we talk about content, here are some examples of what we&#8217;re referring to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog Posts<\/li>\n<li>Podcasts<\/li>\n<li>White Papers<\/li>\n<li>eBooks<\/li>\n<li>Social Media Posts<\/li>\n<li>Videos<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Content Marketing is simply how you distribute content to\u00a0your target audience. The way you do it can make or break your\u00a0marketing campaign. Sometimes, Content Marketing\u00a0takes the form of Inbound Marketing.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>So, How Does\u00a0Inbound Marketing Work?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketingterms.com\/dictionary\/inbound_marketing\/\">Inbound marketing<\/a> is a simple concept. It generates strong\u00a0leads for B2B brands because it lets the buyer find you instead of you hunting them down as you would with Outbound Marketing. It is passive marketing \u2013 you leave your fishing hook in the water and wait for the fish to come and take your bait. So the goal is to make your bait as attractive as possible by optimizing the content on your website and social media sites. If your content is good, hopefully others will use them as inbound links on their sites. This gives you credibility, not only to prospects, but to Google, who will then be more likely to put you at the top of the search list.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of Inbound Marketing, is once you draw a prospect to your content, you can capture their information, and they become a lead that you can now contact and (hopefully) convert.<\/p>\n<p>But this is only one way to use content.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Okay, What About Content Marketing?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Content Marketing encompasses more than just Inbound. It&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/mascola.com\/insights\/content-marketing-older-than-the-hills-but-still-relevant\/\">been around much longer than you might think<\/a>. John Deere started doing it\u00a0back in 1895 by creating <em>The Furrow<\/em>, an agricultural magazine that would appeal to his customers and prospects (millions of them). Walt Disney was a <a href=\"http:\/\/mascola.com\/insights\/walt-disney-content-marketing-strategy\/\"><em>master<\/em> of Content Marketing<\/a>\u00a0as early as 1954.\u00a0Both the Deere and Disney brands have been distributing their content to mass audiences\u00a0since long before\u00a0the Internet was even invented, never mind Inbound Marketing.<\/p>\n<p>But we needn&#8217;t put the division line between Inbound and Offline. There are other ways to drive people to your content online that are not considered Inbound Marketing. Optimizing your content can get you hot\u00a0leads who are searching for what you offer, but Outbound allows you to widen your net a bit. It&#8217;s basically marketing as you&#8217;ve always known it, but used to drive readers to content instead of to build awareness of your brand. With Outbound, you drive people to your content via:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social Media Ads<\/li>\n<li>Online Display\u00a0Ads \/ Retargeting<\/li>\n<li>Paid Search<\/li>\n<li>E-blasts via Trade Publications<\/li>\n<li>Webinars with Relevant\u00a0Trade Publications<\/li>\n<li>Email Campaigns (though there is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/blog\/tabid\/6307\/bid\/5526\/Is-Email-Marketing-Inbound-or-Outbound.aspx#sm.000boo2w94zmfnt11421iwdnp6p4q\">debate<\/a> as to whether this is considered Inbound or Out)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As you can see, Content Marketing\u00a0is a wide umbrella, and Inbound a highly effective methodology that falls beneath it. Their goal is the same: to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/feed-b2b-sales-funnel-through-a-creative-media-mix\/\">get prospects into\u00a0your sales funnel<\/a>. The key is to have good\u00a0content that can increase the number of leads you get from both your Inbound and Outbound efforts. Try what you think will work best for your target audiences, measure the effectiveness of each piece of your campaign, and fine-tune it until you have a well-oiled Inbound and Outbound Content Marketing machine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Myth: Content Marketing and\u00a0Inbound Marketing Are the Same Thing. The Truth: Content Marketing Expands Well Beyond Just Inbound. One mistake marketers\u00a0make fairly often is confusing\u00a0Content Marketing with\u00a0Inbound Marketing. They see them as one and the same, when in reality Inbound Marketing is just a child of Content Marketing. Let&#8217;s take a closer look. First [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[507,273,388,103],"tags":[578,580,579,581,105],"class_list":["post-13310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b2b-monday-myth","category-content","category-lead-generation-nurturing","category-marketing-strategy-2","tag-b2b-content-marketing-explanation","tag-difference-between-inbound-and-content-marketing","tag-inbound-marketing","tag-outbound-content-marketing","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13310"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13313,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13310\/revisions\/13313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgb2b.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}