Can a company today survive on inbound marketing? Why or why not? What is the role of outbound marketing?

PLEASE NOTE, THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT ON THE MARKETING FUNNEL IS POSTED BELOW THIS POST.

This is a very hard set of questions to answer, because there is absolutely no fixed right or wrong answer.  My initial gut reaction is to say NO it is not possible to survive solely on inbound marketing.  It is what I was harping on all week when we discussed the Hub Spot case.  I argued that Hub Spot needed to utilize outbound marketing if they wanted to survive, so my gut says “If they can’t survive on inbound marketing alone, than who can???”

When I really sit back and think about it, however, I really think that the correct answer is “It depends.”  There are so many different types of industries out there that it would be impossible to answer this question with one answer for every possible case.  Let’s take a huge well-known brand for example like Budweiser.  We see outbound marketing for Budweiser on TV literally every single day.  They are absolutely everywhere.  A huge part of the reason they are so successful is because of their extremely expensive outbound marketing campaigns.  Especially for a product of that price, if you walk into a store looking to buy beer and are unfamiliar with other types of beers, you are going to see the one you recognize from TV and not think twice because it’s cheap.  Budweiser could never survive on inbound marketing alone, because other than beer connoisseurs, there isn't a huge pool of people researching beer on the internet.  Even those who are are looking for a much higher quality of beer than Budweiser.

Now with that said, there are some types of businesses who theoretically could survive on inbound marketing alone.  Take the affiliate marketer for instance.  This is a person who makes a living by writing in-depth insightful articles about various products, and makes a living from the commissions they get from referring customers to buy those products.  This type of business survives almost entirely on inbound marketing.  Websites like www.TopCashBack.com which collect referral commissions and pass them on to their customers survive almost entirely on inbound marketing, and they don’t even develop any content. 

When it all boils down, the role of outbound marketing is to draw in all of those customers who don’t know what they need to make their lives better, and there are a LOT of customers like that.  On the other hand, inbound marketing is usually best for those niche customers who know basically what they are looking for, but aren't sure if it’s available, and need more detailed information before making a purchase.