Inbound marketing has grown in popularity over the past several years among businesses looking for better returns on their marketing investments. In theory, it's simple. You create a blog, a video channel, or some other form of content which is engaging, entertaining, and offers value to your viewers. This builds a relationship with your audience, and it sets you up as a reliable voice on a certain topic (car repair, website troubleshooting, makeup tips, what have you). Once you have an audience who recognizes you as an expert, they'll be easy to transfer from a follower into a customer.

It sounds straightforward, but inbound marketing is something that's easier to understand than it is to succeed at. Businesses looking for a little expert advice could do worse than following these tips, brought to you by Smarte Inc., and Hubspot.

Tip #1: Nail Down Your ENTIRE Plan Before You Start

Inbound marketing, like any other kind of marketing, isn't something you should let fly by the seat of your pants. In order to make sure your plan is ready you need to make sure you know what topics you're covering, what your update schedule is going to be, what your social media strategy is, and what other, existing platforms you're going to promote on are. For example, you plan to make two videos a month about cloud computing and associated topics. You'll promote those videos on your company blog, as well as on your social media sites.

It sounds simple, but most blueprints do before you start building the house you've laid out.

Tip #2: Focus on Creating Good Content

It's important to remember that inbound marketing is a long-game. Companies who want to start seeing a jump in clients after their blogs or videos have been up after a month will be disappointed. Positioning yourself and your company as a reliable source of expert information (and really engaging content) takes time, and a lot of effort. Instead of focusing on when you'll get a return on investment in the form of new leads and customers, focus on growing your audience and ensuring your reputation.

The new customers will come, after your content becomes popular.

Tip #3: Listen to Your Feedback

The common wisdom on the Internet is never to read the comments, but if you're building an audience through inbound marketing, you really should. If certain topics get a huge amount of positive feedback in the form of likes, shares, and lots of comments, make a note of that, and expand into that content in the future. Alternatively, if the same complaint crops up time and time again, maybe you should consider altering the way you create your content based on that complaint.

Give the people what they want, and you'll do pretty well as an inbound marketer.

Tip #4: Spread The Word!

This one gets an exclamation point because it's really important. If you're putting a lot of effort into creating a video, a blog post, or any other kind of content, then you are essentially cutting down a tree in the forest. If there's no one around to see it or hear it, then you may as well have never done it in the first place. In order to grow your audience you need to spread the word. If the people you tell like what you've done, then they'll tell their friends, and their friends will tell their friends, until suddenly you've got a huge crowd eagerly awaiting the next tree you decide to chop down.