6 Problems with Inbound Marketing Since we all read so much about inbound marketing and how it is going to overtake traditional way of interruption based and outbound marketing (yes it will), As much as I believe in it, here are 6 minor problems with inbound marketing (or shall we say say 6 things which confuses people). 1. Inbound Marketing is Not a Quick Fix Solution Unlike PPC or commission based affiliate marketing, Inbound marketing activities take time (can be few months and even more) before you start seeing significant difference in number of leads. sales and bottom line. If you are hoping that publishing some content, running a blog and creating landing pages will magically get leads and sales, you probably haven't understood the complete picture. Sometimes your product sucks, the pricing is not reasonable or may be the market is not there (it happens way more than you think). So inbound marketing is not some magic silver bullet which will fix fundamental problems with your product and business model. 2. People Really Don’t Understand What It Is It can get confusing for first timers to understand what inbound marketing is and many people still don’t understand it. I see at quora and on blogs asking if PPC is part of inbound marketing ? is affiliate marketing part of it ? Isn't it just traditional online marketing wrapped up in another fancy marketing term promoted by hubspot ? Is email marketing part of it ? isn't just content marketing ? These are of course no straight forward yes and no kind of answers for these questions and I think you can take the definition as you want to be. 3. It Do Takes Money, Time and Resources Inbound Marketing do takes money, time and resources. It is not something which you can switch it on and off at any time and do involve decision-making and human resources. Of course, the same applies to outbound direct marketing too, so you can't be overly critical. Everything thing needs time, money and resources, it is just that you want to make sure you understand this. 4. It is Difficult to Measure ROI of Inbound Marketing Campaigns Unlike other forms of marketing, especially direct and PPC marketing where it is easy to measure the metrics and analytics are broadly defined, Inbound inherently is qualitative in nature and specific activities cannot be accounted for definite conclusions which makes it difficult to measure the ROI. For example, you can invest x amount on Content Marketing and handling social media but it will be very difficult to measure the direct impact of that in terms of customer acquisition and sales. To validate this, 52% of marketers cite difficulties in accurately measuring ROI as their biggest source of frustration in social marketing. (Source: Adobe) 5. Clients and People Have Unreasonable Expectations Inbound marketing, although effective, is not magic. This is interlinked with the point of having unreasonable expectations of it working over night and producing immediate exponential results. Like any brand campaigning effort, it builds gradually and yields results in parts adding up gradually. A lot of this skepticism stems from the fact that it is not easily measurable in the short term and hence leads people to believe that it is not working. There are also times when clients expect inbound marketing to skyrocket their sales since they have invested a reasonable upfront amount for its execution. 6. Inbound Marketing is Not Suitable for Everyone If you are someone who is not looking for branding, doesn't have time and feels ROI through direct marketing or PPC will be more effective, then you probably want to skip inbound marketing sales cycle or can do it in parallel along with our sales processes. Previous Article How to measure ROI of your Inbound Marketing Campaigns ? Next Article 4 Ways to Create Whiteboard Videos Online for your Small Business