Inbound marketing has for years been positioning itself as a trend and supereffective methodology to capture online customers. But have you ever wondered where it comes from? The term "inbound marketing" was first coined in 2005, but its origins go back much further. We are going to review the history of inbound marketing and see what the future holds. Do you want to fully understand the
Guatemala Phone Numbers List Inbound Marketing of the future? Click here and sign up for free in our complete training to develop a global strategy to help you attract and convert users into customers. A brief history of inbound marketing History: The Background Before the advent of inbound methodology, traditional marketing and advertising were almost completely outbound, but there were already glimpses that gave us a glimpse of what the inbound marketing of the future would be like.
According to Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern marketing, inbound marketing has its earliest antecedents in the mid-1950s. It was then that Cyrus Hall McCormick , the inventor of the mechanical harvester, used market research to develop inbound methods and generate consumer interest for what was then a radical evolution in agriculture. Later, in 1888, Richard W. Sears and Alvah Roebuck did something similar, publishing a catalog that grew rapidly from 80 pages to more than 300 pages. This catalog was a powerful sales tool that enabled Sears and Roebuck to quickly capture information on thousands of consumers at low cost. The 1950s and 1960s saw the development of market research, which allowed marketers to gather information on consumer interests and habits . This information allowed marketers to create better targeted campaigns and a deep understanding of the customer journey. Of course, at that time this data was used mainly for outbound campaigns (outdoor advertising, door-to-door sales, TV and radio advertisements, etc.).
In the 1970s, Drucker's marketing theories were gaining popularity. Drucker believed that customer orientation and market segmentation were critical to developing marketing strategies. In his own words, the point of marketing was "to know and understand the customer so well that the product and service fit him and sell themselves." In addition, Drucker believed that, with the right marketing method, the company only has to make the product available to consumers, so that customers are reached "through logistics rather than sales." History of inbound marketing: the age of the internet The arrival of the internet was a real explosion in the world of marketing. The first search engine was launched in 1995, SEO was born in 1997, and pay-per-click advertising began in 2000. Then came the birth of social media: LinkedIn was founded in 2002, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006. And by 2010, smartphones were dramatically changing the digital environment.