In SEO and Digital marketing arena, two terms are often heard and most of the marketers always had a confusing idea about them. The terms are Digital marketing and Inbound marketing.

Here, in this post you will be able to find the difference between both of them and also where you can use which type.

Somehow and sometime, the two of them seem to be similar in nature, as both of them are mainly applied online, and both of them are focused on creating digital content for people to read. So what’s the main difference?

The term ‘digital marketing’ doesn’t distinguish between push and pull marketing tactics (or what we might now refer to as ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ methods). Both fall under the category of digital marketing.

Outbound techniques focus on sharing a marketing ad directly in front of as many people as possible in the online space, regardless of whether it’s liked or welcomed. For example, the ad banner you see at the top, bottom or inside of many websites aim to show a product or promotion to the people who generally aren’t willing to grasp it.

On the other side, marketers who apply digital inbound techniques use some online quality content to capture their target audience on their websites by providing assets that are helpful to them. One of the simplest and most powerful inbound digital marketing assets is a blog, which provides fund to your website on the terms which your target customers are searching for.

Ultimately, inbound marketing is a tactic that uses digital marketing assets to promote, convert, attract, and happy customers online. Digital marketing, on the contrary, is like an umbrella term to describe online marketing techniques of any type, regardless of what so ever they’re called inbound or outbound. 

Now that you know what digital and inbound marketing is, you might face a difficulty in deciding which tactic to follow, inbound or digital.

If you’re a strategic marketer, a long term approach is something you would look for to drive business growth. Such an approach includes more than just having a beautiful website, thousand number of likes on social media or owning a popular business. Inbound marketing is an overall approach which get customers and conversions naturally, fuel growth through a self-built content and the one which drives interest and engagement of customers. Your route to inbound includes a definite set of expectations, defined and measurable long-term goals and it is customer-centric.

Whereas, digital marketing is your “go-to” place if you’re looking for brand up gradation or enhancing its visual appeal through the use of any number of single digital marketing tactic. It is short-term, budget friendly and perhaps a component of an overall inbound methodology.

I’m not here to blow trumpet of inbound marketing or defame digital. The purpose was to help you make right decisions basis your business needs.

But the important point to note is that both of these tactics are considered by many inbound marketing professionals to be within the overall inbound methodology.

You couldn’t get connected with the audiences without any branding, and you can't make user trust with low quality content; both are part of a lucrative inbound marketing approach. Also, inbound extends far beyond digital, and consists of many unique moving components. The key takeaway here is that for most online audiences, without any base digital marketing techniques do not work for only one reason: Value.

To sum all this up, Inbound Marketing is a philosophy that encourages businesses to help their customers always. And digital is only enabling it.

Also Read: frequently asked questions about affiliate marketing