In The Small Business Blog, Adrian Swinscoe writes that inbound marketing is now the way to go.  What is inbound marketing, you ask? How is it different from ‘old’ marketing? Inbound marketing is finding ways of ‘earning people’s trust instead of buying it‘. Old marketing, or outbound marketing, is ‘any marketing that pushes products or services onto customers‘, i.e. all those annoying tactics listed above. Take a look at this cool info-graphic at Mashable that illustrates these concepts.

Case in point: those awesome Old Spice commercials. We all watched them because they were hilarious and frankly, Old Spice Guy has nice abs. ‘Aha!’ you say. ‘But they’re television ads, so aren’t they outbound marketing?’

No. The smart folks at Old Spice figured out they could use social media to their advantage, and asked its followers to send questions for Old Spice Guy to respond to. Old Spice kept its audience entertained and involved. These commercials were interesting and interested in its audience, and they worked, with total of more than 70 million views. I know I’d watch Old Spice Guy over a boring TV advertorial any day.