I wrote this article here because this is my personal view, not a company's official opinion.
When I was in Google, I often visited advertisers with agencies to introduce new products or to plan their campaigns. At some meeting, I felt trouble with discussion with advertisers and agency guys when they argued how to increase "conversion" on search engine advertising - in this case, "conversion" means "product purchase","subscription" or "request for brochure".
From the view point of search users, they are not always on the stage of "purchase","subscription" or "request" in their purchase process. Yes, They are doing - "searching" information that is helpful and useful for them. Can marketers drag them into ideal "purchase" stage? It's non-sense! Most of users/Consumers use search engine like Yahoo and Google in order to get information that meet their needs. They are using Google/Yahoo for themselves, not for marketers.
In a meeting that I participated in, agency was struggling with how to increase their client's demand - increase of conversation rate, I suggested them that they should have eNewsletters or blogs or something to keep in touch with "visitors" of landing pages. As you know, to increase conversion is not easier than ever and Cost of Acquisition no longer can be bumped up that it was before. But do you think that landing pages are the "media" where people with certain intentions gather? Why don't you earn their permitted contacts - email adresses and aim to continue communication with them? My suggestion was a prescription for such a marketing challenge, I thought. At least I thought. But unfortunately, agency guys didn't understand what I meant and how it work. What they concerned about is: if they adopt my idea, there might happen decreasing of the conversion rate because visitors of landing page can click and convert to subscribe of eNewsletter. They were worried only about the "conversion" that happened in landing page. Unfortunately they didn't understand "integrated" online marketing, they'd learned only SEM and display ads - and how to sell them - in their company. I found lots of young agency people unfamiliar with email marketing, permission marketing, viral marketing, blog marketing, community building, lead generation, lead nurturing … tools and methods which online "marketing" in decades has borne and invented. I'd like to say this symptom, "lack of integrity" of people's skill in digital marketing.
I know some people - especially people in marketer-side - have been doing integrated online marketing strategically but the majority is made up with the rest. From my personal opinion, "Inbound marketing" is a method of learning on integrated online marketing for people who are not familiar with non-advertising practice in digital marketing. In "Inbound marketing" practice, SEO strategy, Content marketing strategy, Landing Page optimization, email marketing … many online marketing tactics are required. It is necessary to understand all the online marketing tools and methods if people wanna do execute inbound markeitng strategy/tactics.
I have many friends and acquaintances in this industry. I have many followers in Twitter and subscribers in Facebook. Some of them are in digital marketing industry. For me, Introducing "inbound marketing" does mean providing authentic "digital(online) marketing" to young markers and agency people in Japan. I hope they become "authentic" digital marketers.