What is Inbound Marketing?

Good marketing is important, regardless if you’re B2B or B2C. And a great strategy is to develop good inbound marketing. But what is inbound marketing?

Inbound Marketing

So inbound marketing is creating valuable content that allows people to have a positive impact with your business. In other words, it’s about giving something to the potential customer (whether it’s a person or a business). However, just because you’re giving them something, doesn’t mean that the customer wants it. It has to be good content.

For instance, if you’re a new restaurant about to open, you may give out free samples to try and entice people to come back. But if the food you give out in the samples sucks, people will think the rest of the food sucks too. That’s a negative impact that their experience created.

Some Examples

Full disclosure: this blog is an example of inbound marketing. At Colossus, we’re a digital marketing agency. So we’re offering advice on digital marketing tactics. Blogs that show thought leadership in a field are an example of inbound marketing.

Other examples include social media, eBooks, webinars, how-to videos, and whitepapers. By the way, if you’re in the market for good videography, you don’t have to look much farther than right here.

The Goal

The goal of inbound marketing is a three-phase process that leads to more leads (that ultimately convert into revenue):

• Attract
• Engage
• Delight

Your content will attract people who you want to turn into customers. Once they see your content, you want them to engage with it (read the blog, watch the video, attend the webinar). Finally, the goal is to delight them so they associate expertise with your brand. After that, if your product(s) fit their needs, they’re more likely to become customers. As Hubspot points out, good content can theoretically live forever on the Internet. And they get leads from their blogs that are 3 years old.

So it’s in your business’ best interest to start inbound marketing. Provide a positive impact on your customers, and they’ll reward you with a profit.