Inbound Marketing
In short
Inbound marketing is the approach of attracting customers instead of approaching them: with content that answers a real question, in the place where someone is already looking. Instead of cold calls, bought address lists or interruptive ads, you meet prospects through your website, search, articles and email, and guide them all the way to an enquiry. The method was popularised by the software company HubSpot.
The most common misunderstanding: inbound means writing a blog
Content is the start, not the whole thing. A good article brings visits but no enquiry if nothing follows it: no matching landing page, no clear call to action, no follow-up.
That is exactly where it differs from content marketing. Content marketing describes the content. Inbound marketing describes the whole path from the first search to the conversation, including the form, the email sequence and the measurement.
What HubSpot says today
HubSpot describes the inbound method in three stages: attract, engage, delight. Satisfied customers refer others and draw in new prospects, creating a loop HubSpot calls the flywheel.
The same company now places Loop Marketing alongside it, a four-stage method explicitly aimed at the new AI environment. The core idea remains; it is just that the search now often ends in an AI answer, without a click through to your own website. How to measure that part is shown in measuring AI visibility.
For a Swiss SME
Email is often the step from enquiry to order in inbound marketing, and in Switzerland it comes with a clear rule: mass advertising by email requires prior consent, a correct sender and a notice of a simple, free way to refuse further advertising (Art. 3 para. 1 let. o of the Unfair Competition Act).
There is one exception for existing customers: if you receive contact details in the course of a sale and point out the option to refuse, you may send them advertising for your own similar offers without consent. Bought address lists never qualify.
How we handle it
We build the path backwards: first the enquiry it should end with, then the page that triggers it, then the content that leads to that page. Success is measured in enquiries, not visits.
That covers SEO, email marketing and landing pages.
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