Inbound vs Content Marketing: Differences Explained!

JetPage Team Oct 25, 2022

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Are you confused about the similarities and differences between inbound marketing and content marketing?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone! In this article, I’m going to explain as simply as possible what separates inbound marketing from content marketing.

You may hear these terms used rather loosely, but there is some key differences between the two.

First, let’s define each term specifically to get a better basic understanding.

What is “Inbound Marketing”?

“Inbound marketing” is a methodology of attracting, engaging, and delighting customers, according to Hubspot.

To put it simply, inbound marketing generates warm leads by “pulling” them in through various inbound marketing channels, including:

SEO
Blogging
Content Marketing
Your website
Email marketing
Social media
Customer support
Narrow, targeted paid advertising
And more…

This is the opposite of “outbound marketing”, which involves cold-calling and cold-emailing prospects and leads. Outbound marketing is the “push” to inbound’s “pull”.

Now it’s important to note that inbound marketing doesn’t just stop at the top of the funnel with lead generation. But actually involves engaging with current customers and empowering them to become successful.

This is where the “engage” and “delight” parts come from in Hubspot’s definition.

Now that we’re familiar with inbound marketing, let’s define content marketing next.

What is “Content Marketing”?

Content marketing is raising brand awareness and attracting leads through various forms of content including:

Blogging and guest posts
Whitepapers
Website landing pages
Videos (YouTube or self-hosted)
Social Media Posts
Advertisements

These days, there is a saying that goes “content is king”, and I completely agree with that.

With so much competition in the market these days, consumers are looking for brands that show expertise, authority, and trust.

High-quality, relevant content can be the key differentiator when it comes to potential customers making a purchase decision.

Now that we’ve defined both terms, let’s discuss their similarities and differences…

What are the similarities and differences between inbound marketing vs content marketing?

If you look at the list below “inbound marketing”, you can actually see that content marketing is part of it.

This is the main difference (or similarity) between the two: Inbound marketing is the broader umbrella term that encompasses various channels including content marketing.

So in a way, content marketing and inbound marketing are quite similar, since mostly all content marketing falls under the umbrella term of inbound marketing.

As a key difference, however, not all inbound marketing is content marketing, such as customer support for example.

If you’d like to learn more about inbound marketing, including 10 concrete examples you can use as inspiration for your business. Check out this related post we wrote here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both inbound and content marketing are arguably two of the best ways to grow your business and attract more customers today.

If you’re interested in getting more success with content marketing and SEO specifically, please continue reading.

Most people and companies use WordPress for their blog. But what if I told you that you could get an SEO advantage on millions of these WordPress-powered blogs and websites in just seconds?

If you’re going to spend hours writing content. Make sure that effort isn’t wasted on a slow-loading and poorly-optimized website that Google penalizes.

JetPage is a new blogging platform that is much simpler and faster than WordPress, built specifically to rank higher on Google through technical SEO and blazing fast 1-second load times.

We are constantly working on the JetPage platform and are always open to feedback and feature requests. Please feel free to reach out to us via our Facebook Group, Twitter, or the Live Chat support on JetPage.co :)

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