by Neil Lakeland chairman, Chartered Institute of Marketing, Kent branch

Ralph Waldo Emerson is often quoted as saying: "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, though he builds his house in the woods the world will make a beaten path to his door."

Unfortunately, we all know that this is not the case. Unless people know about your mousetrap, and need the benefits of a mousetrap, they are not going to visit.

However, whereas a strategy of outbound marketing used to suffice - advertising, exhibitions, and telemarketing - the last few years have seen the rise of inbound marketing as the strategy of choice.

For those of you who are not aware of this term, "inbound marketing" is the discipline of converting people who have already heard about and engaged with your company (i.e. warm leads) rather than trying to attract lots of people in the hope that some will convert.

While it is not a new concept (inbound marketing used to be call "pull" and outbound "push"), the explosion of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, together with the trackability and customer insight that a web analytics package gives companies, has meant that it has taken off and is now firmly embedded in most companies' marketing strategy.

This is principally because inbound leads have been proven to be 61% less expensive than outbound ones.

So, how can you use it to grow your business?

The single most important aspect of inbound marketing is ensuring that your company can be found.

You therefore need to make sure that your website is optimised and visible for the relevant keyword searches (including any long-tail phrases that you want to own).

This is an ongoing process, and checking how it is working should be on any marketer's task list at least once every month.

When that is completed your next step is to create content which is good enough to bring people into your sales funnel.

This could be through a company blog which is optimised and linked to your website, writing whitepapers, or hosting webinars on topical subjects that are then available for download from your website or becoming known in LinkedIn groups as the authoritative voice within your specialised area.

Whatever method you choose (and the above examples are not mutually exclusive, I would suggest a strategy based on a mix of the different tools), the final critical step is to track the results of your effort through web analytics.

If you don't have one installed on your site I recommend downloading Google Analytics since it is relatively powerful - and free.

Successful marketing depends on a total understanding of your customer and with digital you can get close to this.

By setting goals and defining your sales funnel you can track what inbound channels are working for you and refine the ones which are not performing as you would expect.