We explain inbound marketing in a series of blog posts.

Inbound marketing, in its simplest, is about attracting potential customers to you rather than chasing them. Chasing them is more like the traditional approaches of cold calling or paid advertising we see in print or on tv or radio.

To attract these potential customers you need to provide them something they want - this comes in the form of informative and engaging content which helps your visitors understand an issue, solve a problem or offers advice and guidance. You’re not directly selling a service or product, you’re making your company or brand a trusted resource for them.

To do this well you must understand your potential customers in depth, you need to know what their pain points are, what amuses and interests them and, importantly, where and when they consume their knowledge i.e. blogs, Facebook, Twitter etc.

To see returns you need to create a strategy for your approach and follow it through! You need to ensure your content is consistent across your website and social media and regularly updated.

You also need to ensure your website is optimised for search engines - it's no good creating all this great content without the search engines being able to find it. Adding share options on your content will also get your potential customers doing your work for you by sharing it.

For some really great resources on inbound marketing, go to the Hubspot Marketing blog - it's no coincidence that Hubspot’s Brian Halligan first coined the phrase back in 2005.