What is Inbound Marketing ?

Hi Molly -

A little late in responding, but I'd love to share how HubSpot (arguably the company that coined the term as it's being used today) thinks about Inbound Marketing.

Allen's definition is absolutely correct - but I'll expand a bit.

Inbound Marketing is about drawing potential customers in to your business, be it to your website, social media outposts or even a physical store. Most of the way we discuss inbound is digital, but you could theoretically apply it to offline concepts as well.

Inbound Marketing leverages today's consumer behavior to help marketers 'get found' naturally by the most qualified possible leads at the right time - the time of research & need.

Today - people use search engines and social networks to find information about products and services that can meet their needs. Today - people use Tivo, CallerID, SpamFilters and more to block out messages about products and services they don't care about.

Inbound is about ensuring that your business is the best result for the search or social inquiry.

At HubSpot, we describe the whole Inbound Marketing lifecycle in three steps:
1) Get found by more qualified visitors
2) Convert more of those visitors to leads
3) Analyze what worked & what didn't, so you can keep doing what works

Getting found involves: creating content that is optimized for search and social, then promoting that content and engaging in social media to ensure that you are present in the most relevant conversations.
Converting more leads involves: using forms / landing pages liberally on your site and giving away content or tools for 'free' in return for prospect information. Next you nurture those prospects to become a qualified lead and provide your sales team with robust intelligence so they can have a smart conversation with the potential customer.
Analyzing it all means: getting closed loop marketing data that goes beyond just traffic to help identify which campaigns drive the most leads & customers. Only those activities yielding ROI make sense to continue.

We publish an annual report on the state of inbound marketing - here's the most recent. http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/resellers/reports/state_of_inbound_mar...

Here is a compilation of content on inbound as well: http://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing-hub

And - our co-founders also wrote the book 'Inbound Marketing' - in case you haven't checked it out - it's a super quick and tip filled read!

Love to help with your inbound marketing efforts!