HubSpot, a company that sells inbound marketing software and even coined the term “inbound marketing,” just released its sixth annual “State of Inbound” report for 2014–2015. The report, based on a survey of 3,570 marketing and sales professionals—44 percent of which are HubSpot customers, and 68 percent of which are B2B marketers—finds that inbound marketing is trending upward and is here to stay.
Before digging in, though, it’s important to understand what inbound marketing is, why it’s so important to marketers, and how it relates to content marketing.
HubSpot’s own website defines inbound marketing against its counterpart, outbound marketing:
Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and praying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be.
In other words, it’s an “out with the old, in with the new” form of advertising that engages consumers by appealing to their interests, not by shoving ads in their faces.
Why Inbound Marketing Is on the Rise, and What That Means for Content Marketing
