← DictionaryInbound Marketing
also called inbound
Attracting demand by publishing useful material people seek out.
They find you.
What It Is
You will find Inbound Marketing in the Marketing layer, alongside the rest of Approach. The working definition is simple: attracting demand by publishing useful material people seek out.
It is an idea you reason with rather than a deliverable you hand over, so two teams can both hold it correctly and still apply it differently. Once it is defined that clearly, arguments about it usually stop.
How It's Used
Inbound Marketing comes up in campaign planning, channel choices and the reporting that follows them. It is usually discussed together with Outbound Marketing, Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. The practical test is whether a decision changes because of it.
Why It Matters
Getting Inbound Marketing wrong is expensive in a quiet way. When it is unclear, spend keeps moving but nobody can say what it bought. It is worth pinning down before anyone builds on top of it.
It is a way of thinking, not a thing you can hold. They find you.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Practitioners use Inbound Marketing as shorthand and expect no explanation — attracting demand by publishing useful material people seek out.
Outside the industry, most people would just say: they find you.
The Bottom Line
If you only keep one thing about Inbound Marketing: they find you. Everything after that is detail.