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Wouldn\u2019t we all rather have customers willingly walk through our door instead of having to stand on the sidewalk and wave our arms for attention? Once upon a time, business had a solid advertising model to get an audience\u2014you have a product, so you pay for print ads, billboards, television time and radio spots to get the word out. Commerce had to rely on well-placed advertisements to show up and be positioned where the target audience was. But now, in the Internet age, people are surfing in droves on the web. We know where they will be, and the savvy marketer can now get a very clear view of their searching and browsing behavior. So, instead of making a lot of noise with paid marketing and vying with your competitors for ad space (outbound marketing), you can carefully place attention-grabbing content in key online venues and\u2014in very targeted ways\u2014engage your audience, intrigue them and get them to come to you. Welcome to inbound marketing.\nLet\u2019s be clear on the difference between these two approaches. Outbound marketing requires outreach on the part of the marketer through concerted efforts such as paid and search engine marketing techniques. You find the customer and try to actively capture their attention. Inbound marketing is the opposite, wherein intelligently placed content (blogs, articles, syndicated content on sharing sites, social media posts, etc.) is distributed and made available for the public to find and digest, hopefully influencing their decision to come to you to find out more. Whereas outbound marketing is typically \u201clive\u201d only for a finite period through budgetary spending and rented digital space, inbound marketing content is perpetual and available for discovery without boundaries. Because of this key difference, it is important to make sure the everlasting content you put out there to drive people to you is of high quality, is relevant to your target audience and provides genuine thought leadership in your industry.\nLet\u2019s take a look at some helpful questions to ask yourself as you attempt to strengthen your inbound marketing strategy and gauge its effectiveness:\n\n\n \tWhat are current trending topics? Thought leadership is an important part of inbound marketing. People will gravitate towards your content and follow through to your website or offer if they recognize authority and influence in what you have to offer. Can they learn something? Can they benefit from what you offer? And why would they listen to you? The best way to be a thought leader is to put out relevant content on a regular basis that revolves around topical and trending discussions in your industry or space. Spend some time researching and thinking about the current topics of interest in your industry space, and then create assets that answer or speak to those discussions to distribute on sites like LinkedIn, SlideShare, YouTube and Facebook. Be timely, be relevant.\n \tWhat are your competitors talking about? Listening to what your audience is talking about is not enough. You also need to pay close attention to what your competitors are saying and what kind of buzz they are creating. Like you, they are probably distributing their own content on hot topics, but what if they\u2019re missing the mark? If your service or product does a better job of addressing a trending issue or pain point, then jump on it. Use your inbound marketing resources to enter the discussion and show you have a better solution, and do it in a way that ties back to your offerings. Instead of coming off as a veiled ad, your content should position your offering as a more intelligent and beneficial approach to the specific problem or issue under discussion.\n \tWhat are industry analysts and influencers blogging or commenting on? Every industry has its share of analysts and influencers. Analysts (who make a living performing primary and secondary research on specific industries) and influencers (who have authority based on reputation and public acclaim) can be your b...