Inbound and Outbound Marketing

My company survives purely on inbound marketing, it does not run commercials, or prints ads, and every new customer comes and finds us, but there is a catch; we are the electric company, a customer doesn’t have a choice, they have to buy electricity from us.   In my opinion, marketing is all about differentiation from competitors and need, the more a customer needs your product and the fewer amounts of competitors and or substitutions, the more a company can rely on inbound marketing.  Utilities are the extreme on inbound marketing they have a product that customers can’t live without, (with the exception of the Amish, super green people with solar panels and wind turbines on their property, or people that don’t use water).  Other companies that can survive are super “duper” brands, for example, to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen an ad for Facebook, it gets plenty of press from the media, and word of mouth, there are plenty of competitors, substitutes; and plenty of people live without it, but it continues to grow and build its brand, being a network the bigger it gets, the harder it is for a person to not get on it.  Some companies inherit the benefit of needing only inbound marketing by having a first mover advantage; such is the case of the only gas station or hotel in a city.

My company does carry on some outbound marketing though, mostly to build its brand; it does a lot of PR with sponsoring charity walks, volunteer activities, and academic scholarships.  NSTAR has to have a good public perception because it is regulated by the state, and if its customers aren’t happy they complain to their representatives, which make life very difficult for NSTAR. 

Our Gas division on the other hand, does do a significant deal of outbound marketing, though they are the only ones who can sell gas in their respective regulated territory, there are plenty of substitute products such as, Oil heat, and wood pellet stoves, and other technologies.