Inbound marketing

Instead of interrupting people who asked for nothing, you publish what they are already looking for: an article that answers their question, a template that saves them time, a study that helps them decide. The people who have the need find you.

The approach was popularized in the late 2000s by HubSpot, which turned it into both a method and a product. Its principle fits in one sentence: earn attention rather than buy it.

In B2B, inbound often takes the form of a blog, an active LinkedIn account, webinars, downloadable guides and free tools. Each piece of content draws visitors, and some of them leave their contact details.

The method is often described in four stages: attract strangers with content, convert visitors into contacts (an email in exchange for a resource), close contacts into customers through follow-up and sales, then delight customers so they refer others.

Content is the engine. It has to answer a real question your target has, not tell your company's story. The best topics often come from the questions prospects ask in meetings.

Conversion needs a clear exchange of value. A genuinely useful guide in exchange for a work email works. A twelve-field form to read a generic article does not.

Follow-up is what turns a contact into a customer. A visitor who downloaded a guide is not ready to buy: they expect more useful content, then, when a signal shows a real need, a direct conversation. Without that follow-up, contacts pile up in a database that produces nothing.

In inbound, the prospect chooses to come. In outbound, you choose who to contact. The first arrives with interest, but you do not control who shows up. The second lets you pick the target, but interest still has to be created.

Inbound is slow to start. A piece published today can draw visitors for years, but the first months produce little. Outbound produces quickly and stops as soon as you stop.

The two reinforce each other. A prospect contacted through outbound who then finds your articles or posts trusts you more easily. An inbound visitor who fits your target deserves direct contact.

Track the funnel end to end: visitors, contacts, marketing qualified leads (MQLs), opportunities, customers. Content that draws lots of visitors but no contacts in your target does not help your sales.

Measure cost per inbound customer including the time spent producing content. That time is often forgotten, which makes inbound look free when it is not.

Finally, look at timing. A piece of content is judged over several months, not over its first week.

The first is time. Building an audience and search rankings takes months of regular publishing before meetings arrive in numbers.

The second is control. You attract the people who are searching, not necessarily the ones you want. A popular article can attract students and competitors as much as buyers.

The third is passivity. An interested visitor who fills in no form stays anonymous, and without action on your side they leave the way they came.

LinkedIn is an inbound channel in its own right: your posts draw reactions, profile visits and invitations. Those gestures are signals of interest, and they are worth a lot. In MimikFlow's 2026 LinkedIn Prospecting Observatory (published in French), contacted profile visitors replied 68.4% of the time and people who had reacted to a post 74.6%, against 35.6% for strangers found through search.

The problem is that those gestures often go nowhere. MimikFlow turns your profile visitors, the people who react to your posts and the invitations you receive into prospects after checking them against your target, then writes them a first message and carries the conversation to a meeting. The inbound from your profile feeds your prospecting.