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Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online
Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah · 2009
In a sentence
A practical playbook for replacing interruptive outbound marketing with inbound methods that attract, engage, and convert customers by getting found online through content, search, and social media.
Shopping and buying have fundamentally changed: people ignore cold calls, spam, and ads, and instead turn to Google, blogs, and social networks to find what they need. Inbound Marketing argues that businesses must stop interrupting and start helping—creating remarkable content, optimizing it for search and social media, building a website that acts as an industry hub rather than a brochure, and then converting the visitors this attracts into leads and customers. Written by HubSpot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, the book distills hard-won lessons from building HubSpot and observing thousands of companies into concrete tactics for blogging, SEO, social media, calls-to-action, landing pages, lead nurturing, measurement, and hiring the right marketers. It promises that marketing effectiveness now depends on the width of your brain, not the width of your wallet.
The four lenses
- Science
- Statistics
- Systems
- Strategy
The model
A causal model linking inbound design levers (remarkable content, SEO, social media presence, website hub design, calls-to-action, landing pages, lead nurturing) to psychological and behavioral states (being found, visitor engagement, trust) and ultimately to outcomes (web reach, qualified leads, customers, marketing ROI).
Remarkable Content Creationdesign lever
The ongoing production of useful, unique, and shareworthy content (blog articles, white papers, videos, tools, visuals) that prompts others to remark, link, and share, serving as the core engine of inbound marketing.
Website Hub Designdesign lever
The structural transformation of a website from a static one-way brochure into a collaborative, living hub with RSS, email subscription, blog, and social syndication that connects to the rest of the web and pulls people in.
Remarkable Value Propositiondesign lever
A strategy that makes the company's offering truly remarkable and worthy of remarks—either by crossing market boundaries to alternatives or by narrowing the market to become the world's best within it—so that ideas spread virally online.
Search Engine Optimizationdesign lever
The practice of selecting keywords and improving on-page and off-page factors so web pages rank highly in organic Google results, increasing the chance of being found by searchers with specific intent.
Social Media Presencedesign lever
Active, genuine participation and profile-building across social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, StumbleUpon, visual networks) to reach, engage, and connect with potential customers where they congregate.
Inbound Links / Authoritybehavioral pattern
The number and quality of links from other websites pointing to a company's pages, signaling endorsement to Google and driving both authority for rankings and qualified referral traffic.
Being Found by Prospectsbehavioral pattern
The state in which prospective customers discover the company through search engines, blogs, and social media rather than being interrupted, reflecting successful pull-based attraction.
Web Reachbehavioral pattern
The total number of marketing contacts a company or individual can reach through email subscribers, blog subscribers, and social media followers across all channels, representing the breadth of the audience that can be influenced.
Compelling Calls-to-Actiondesign lever
On-page prompts that are valuable, easy to use, prominent, and action-oriented (VEPA), encouraging visitors to engage further by clicking through to offers and converting toward becoming leads.
Landing Page and Form Optimizationdesign lever
The design of focused, trust-building, navigation-free landing pages with short, simple forms that convert high percentages of targeted traffic into qualified leads by reducing friction and matching content to intent.
Visitor Engagement and Trustpsychological state
The psychological state of website visitors becoming interested, trusting, and willing to exchange contact information for value, reflecting perceived value exceeding skepticism about giving up personal data.
Lead Grading and Nurturingdesign lever
The process of scoring leads by quality and maintaining ongoing helpful communication with not-yet-ready leads across multiple channels so that the company stays top-of-mind until the lead is ready to buy.
Qualified Leadsoutcome metric
Prospects who have engaged enough (via calls-to-action, form completion, and grading) to be considered worthy of sales follow-up, representing the converted middle of the inbound funnel.
Inbound Marketer Capability (DARC)contextual condition
The capability of marketing staff measured by being Digital citizens, Analytical, having web Reach, and being Content creators—the human capital that enables effective execution of inbound marketing.
Funnel Measurement and Decision Makingcontextual condition
The discipline of building a sales/marketing funnel, measuring stage-by-stage conversion, channel yield, and ROI, and reallocating resources toward higher-yielding inbound channels to make better marketing investment decisions.
New Customers and Growthoutcome metric
The ultimate business outcome of inbound marketing: paying customers acquired at lower cost, fueling business growth, with inbound leads averaging 61 percent less expensive than outbound leads.
Commitment and Patiencecontextual condition
The sustained, persistent investment of time and effort in inbound marketing over months despite slow initial returns, which is necessary because inbound benefits accrue cumulatively and reach tipping points over time.
How they connect
- remarkable strategy → influences remarkable content
- remarkable content → predicts inbound links
- remarkable content → influences social media presence
- inbound links → influences search optimization
- search optimization → predicts being found
- social media presence → predicts being found
- website hub design → influences web reach
- social media presence → predicts web reach
- being found → predicts visitor engagement
- calls to action → influences visitor engagement
- visitor engagement → mediates qualified leads
- landing page optimization → predicts qualified leads
- calls to action → predicts qualified leads
- lead nurturing → predicts new customers
- qualified leads → predicts new customers
- web reach → influences qualified leads
- marketer capability → moderates remarkable content
- measurement decisions → moderates new customers
- commitment patience → moderates web reach
A candidate measure
Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online — derived measurement candidates
Remarkable Content Creation
Number of pieces published; Social shares; Linking sites; Indexed pages
self-report suitability: medium
Website Hub Design
Feature presence checklist; Number of external connections
self-report suitability: medium
Remarkable Value Proposition
Profit margin; Share/spread rate; Positioning distinctiveness
self-report suitability: low
Search Engine Optimization
Keyword rank positions; Indexed page count; Organic traffic
self-report suitability: low
Social Media Presence
Followers/fans/members; Retweets and shares; Comments
self-report suitability: medium
Inbound Links / Authority
Number of linking domains; Linking-page authority; Anchor text relevance
self-report suitability: none
Being Found by Prospects
Organic traffic; Referral traffic; Search impressions
self-report suitability: low
Web Reach
Email/blog subscribers; Social followers; Group members
self-report suitability: medium
Compelling Calls-to-Action
CTA click-through rate; Visitor-to-lead conversion rate
self-report suitability: low
Landing Page and Form Optimization
Landing page conversion rate; Form abandonment rate
self-report suitability: low
Visitor Engagement and Trust
Repeat visit rate; Form completion rate; Perceived trust ratings
self-report suitability: high
Lead Grading and Nurturing
Lead grade distribution; Nurturing click-through; Lead-to-customer conversion
self-report suitability: low
Qualified Leads
Qualified lead count; Lead grade; Source channel
self-report suitability: none
Inbound Marketer Capability (DARC)
Reach Grader scores; Analytical artifacts; Content funnel impact
self-report suitability: medium
Funnel Measurement and Decision Making
Stage conversion ratios; Channel yield; Channel ROI
self-report suitability: low
New Customers and Growth
New customer count; Cost per customer; Revenue growth
self-report suitability: none
Commitment and Patience
Posting frequency over time; Duration of sustained effort; Scheduled dedicated time
self-report suitability: medium
The story
The reader A business owner or marketer who wants more website visitors, more qualified leads, and more customers to fuel growth.
External problem
Traditional outbound marketing tactics no longer reach buyers who block interruptions and shop online instead.
Internal problem
They feel frustrated, behind the times, and unsure how to get started or make new methods work.
Philosophical problem
Interrupting and harassing people to sell to them is fundamentally wrong; marketing should help, not annoy.
The plan
- Make your value proposition remarkable and turn your website into an industry hub.
- Create remarkable content and get found via blogging, Google/SEO, and social media.
- Convert visitors into leads with compelling calls-to-action, landing pages, and forms.
- Grade and nurture leads to convert them into customers.
- Build a funnel and measure channel yield and ROI to make better decisions.
- Hire and develop digital, analytical, far-reaching content creators.
Success
- You get found by eager buyers searching for what you offer, generating qualified leads at lower cost.
- Your website becomes a magnetic hub for your industry with durable, compounding assets.
- Marketing becomes more fun, more rewarding, and less dependent on budget size.
At stake
- Buyers continue to block out your interruptive messages and you lose leads to more agile competitors.
- You remain stuck spending money to keep interrupting people with diminishing returns.
- Your company risks decline as the marketing landscape shifts beneath you.