RIP Inbound Marketing 🪦

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You might be seeing this with your own website.

You hit publish on a new blog post.

You or your content team spent hours carefully researching and crafting it.

…only to get a couple dozen views.

Multiple trends are showing that blog traffic is on the decline.

The definition of inbound marketing

Let’s set the table first.

Inbound marketing is much more than just blogging.

It’s a methodology that was promoted heavily by Hubspot, including a certification that I and everyone in marketing took back in the day.

It goes like this: instead of paying for traditional advertising, marketers create organic content that

• attracts prospects to your business

• engages them at the right time and

• delights them enough to convert them into customers.

It was all the rage.

In 2016, inbound marketing hit its peak. Back then, creating content typically meant publishing content on your website, and the easiest way to do that was a blog.

Soon, every business had a blog on their website. And still does.

So why is it in decline?

Well, eight years later, inbound marketing looks much, much different.

In 2024, inbound marketing is more “outbound.”

Take a look at recent history to see what’s happened to the blogosphere.

Since 2016, 14+ additional social networks launched.

• 2016 - Microsoft acquired Linkedin

• 2017 - TikTok launched

• 2018 - Parler launched

• 2020 - Clubhouse, Instagram Reels, and BeReal launched

• 2021 - YouTube Shorts and Truth Social launched

• 2022 - Mastodon, Kick, and ChatGPT launched

• 2023 - Threads launched, Twitter relaunched as X

• 2024 - Bluesky launched publicly

Today, it’s no surprise people spend the vast majority of their time on social media apps, especially YouTube and TikTok.

Social networks punish external links. Their algorithms penalize posts with URLs in them so fewer people see them. They never want you to leave.

Don’t forget about King Google, the #1 visited website in the world. And it’s not even close.

Inbound marketing, and its more technical cousin, SEO, is being eaten alive by generative AI SERPs. You get right what you need in the search result, no click necessary. You never leave Google - so Alphabet can keep serving you ads. It’s genius.

ChatGPT is now used by over 180 million people monthly and growing faster than any social network. People can get the answers they want without even opening a browser.

Marketing is always evolving and changing (part of what makes it fun), but it’s time to think outside the blog.

Here are a few examples of what’s working in the post-inbound marketing era. Study these.

1. Produce very high-quality media

2. Grow a strong community

3. Get wildly creative with your brand 

4. Build amazing products with no marketing 

5. Lean into being an authentic human 

Blogging isn’t dead. Far from it.

Rather, evidence suggests inbound marketing hasn’t adapted to the changes in technology (ChatGPT, Gen AI SERPs) and shifts in online user behavior (more video, more social apps).

As a result, there is less “inbound” traffic to your website and more traffic remaining on “outbound” channels.

Takeaways for entrepreneurs

• It’s time to go outbound. If your content marketing strategy still consists of just publishing blog articles and sharing the link on social channels, don’t expect it to work anymore.

• It’s time to get creative. Creative native content on each platform. Repurpose, repackage, and repost your blog idea. Focus on two channels first before broadcasting everywhere. Be consistent. Engage with partners. Find what works, then scale. Always test, test, test.

Good luck out there.

"Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else thinks." —and doing what no one else is doing.

–Albert Einstein, The Marketer

See you next Thursday,

Dave

PS. Know anyone who would benefit from reading this? Share it with them!

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