Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media, or videos. Offering educational content to attract relevant potential customers to your website organically without paid media ads is inbound marketing. 

What's great about inbound marketing is that the buyers are not persuaded directly to buy the product. Instead, you are letting them understand its know-how and educating them. This strategy effectively opens a door to attracting more visitors to your website.

Enticing more strangers, converting them to leads, closing deals, and finally creating brand advocates can be easily achieved when you optimize your foundational blocks under the inbound marketing method. They are, i) understanding and defining your target audience, ii) mapping the buyer's journey, and iii) serving value through content.

Why create a buyer persona?

Spending time crafting quality content without defining your target audience, is a big no. 

Develop a buyer's persona by identifying, and defining target audience, leveraging data based on demography, challenges, and goals.

It helps you to think from your customers' perspective to understand their challenges and thereby figure out how your solution can help bridge the gap. It is easy to create a buyer persona by simply analyzing  this few pro-questions categorically. 

 

Demography

• What is the name of the persona? A pro tip: Naming the persona along with the role helps to remember the person's role throughout the process
  
• What age does your persona fall under?
  
• What gender?
  
• What is your persona's educational qualification (mention the highest degree earned by your persona)?
  
• What is the persona's role?
  
• How much does your persona earn per annum?
  
• What type of organization and where does the persona work? (mention its growth)
  

Responsibility

• What are the goals and objectives of the persona? (List at least two) 
  
• What makes this persona successful in the role?
  

Challenges

• What are the persona's challenges?
  
• What tools does your persona use?
  

 A final outlook would look similar to the persona I have created above. Analysing the answers helps in identifying where your solution best fits and you can tailor your message accordingly. If you are unsure of matching your customer's perspective, then you can interview your customers or prospects to get answers to your questions. 

What are the different stages of the Buyer's journey?

Knowing where your audience is in the pipeline helps you figure out the content that best suits them and eventually paves the way in product sales. Customer journey or buyer's journey what  tracks your customers' conversion path and optimizes strategy based on their status in the marketing funnel. The buyer's journey is divided into four stages. 

 

Discovering stage:

This is the beginning or the phase  where your audience is in search of solutions to their business problems. Providing 'how-to' guides and informative blogs resonate well with your audience and attracts new leads to your website. Don't pitch your product or service here. 

For instance: Let's say a user is looking for an ideal solution to manage his contacts. He is looking for contact management. To capture the user's interest, you can suggest they read a blog that explains the importance of CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

 

Considering stage:

During this phase, your audience wants to learn more about your product or service that might fit their needs. Prompting them to download an ebook or whitepaper as a takeaway allows you more information about your buyers.

 

If the user proceeds to download a suggested resource such as an ebook, the marketing team can follow up with an invite to a webinar or workshop to learn more about the product without being pushy. 

 

Finalising stage:

This last phase is also called the revenue-creation stage where the buyer decides whether to choose your solution or not. Regular follow-ups at right intervals maximize the chances of conversion.

 

After gauging the user's interest, the sales team pitches in with an offer of a  demo tailored to the user's needs. Showcasing the ability to address the user's problem with your product or solution is crossing 90% of this bridge. Patience and showing you understand and value the users's needs is key here. 

 

Promoting stage

Happy and satisfied customers will be your brand advocates and help in promoting and recommending your product or service to their peers. 93% of B2B businesses can easily convert a referral to a customer when your brand advocates recommend them. Also, there is a good chance of cross-selling the product to your loyal customer base effortlessly.

 

Once your deal is closed, it doesn't stop there. You have to assist the customers when required, constantly follow up and support them in their growth phase. This paves the way in building your brand champions who will bring in quality leads.

Why to capitalize on content marketing - the backbone of inbound marketing

Today we live in an information-dense world and it is no surprise that content is the key. Content marketing is a strategy to create and deliver contextually relevant information. It can be blogs, newsletters, landing page, emails, videos, social media - everything that serves information or shares content. Communities, blogs, and social media are widely considered the best platforms to share and promote content. 

Communities

Communities are networking spaces for a peer group with common interests to connect, learn, and share experiences, build expertise, and make contacts. Communities inspire trust and help build credibility for a brand. When content is shared or opinions are expressed, it endorses a brand and validates the thoughts of users and therefore influences buying decisions greatly.

Blogging

Blogging gives you a space to publish content that attracts visitors to your website. It opens up a world of knowledge that has made it a sought after medium to learn new things.

Simple tips that can go a long way in blogging:

• Choose a long-tail keyword topic as it is SEO friendly and more specific.
  
• Ensure your title is not more than 60 characters because the google display screen is 600 pixels.
  
• While drafting blogs, address the industry, not your business 
  
• While formatting, have a lot of white space for easy navigation and include images, gifs, and videos wherever necessary 
  
• Optimize your content for SEO, including your long-tail keyword in title, body, URL, Alt text, and meta description
  
• Your blog posts must be mobile friendly.
  

 

Social media

On average a person spends 142 minutes a day on social media. Social media marketing became and continues to be the hub to spread content and create brand awareness to attract more users, and drive growth. There are a lot of social media platforms. Choosing your ideal platform extends better reach and visibility. 

For example, If you want to increase your engagement rate, you can give Instagram a shot as its engagement rate is 10 times more than what Facebook and 80 times more than what Twitter gives you.

If you want to know more about your target audience or build a leadership portfolio, Linkedin is the right platform. 

Best social media strategies to increase your overall engagement rate:

• Always keep a tab on your social media performance. Continuous monitoring helps to spot the areas that need more attention.
  
• Don't focus on the likes. Other crucial parameters define the quality of the content such as shares, comments, and followers.
  
• Identify your optimal time and optimise the posts further. 
  
• Captivating user-generated content creates more engagement and builds credibility.
  
• Using relevant hashtags bring more traffic. Don't use generic hashtags as the search results are high in volume.
  

Each social media platform is different and unique in its purpose. Identifying which social media handle your audience spend more time on, helps tailor the content that is more relevant and meaningful in delivering the message.

 

Pro tip: Perform social listening. Social listening tools surf the social media to find out if someone mentions you, and notifies you instantly. There are free tools for social listening such as google alerts and Zoho Social to monitor mentions and also analyze your social media performance.

 

Whether it is blogging, communities, or social media marketing, content marketing is core to all these mediums, and great content marketing is the art of delivering value without selling. 

• Topic Participants

• Shaveethira G

• Alex

• Kirian

• Vinit Tibrewal

  

• Sticky Posts

• 10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales

  Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.

• Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!

  Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverage

• Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

  According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,

• How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!

  Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is the

• The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

  Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell?  Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging

• Recent Topics

• Synchronization between Gmail and Zoho Mail

  Hello! I am using Zoho Mail within the Zoho One platform. I have completed the basic setup and added all the required DNS records with our domain provider. Our goal is to set up two-way synchronization between our current Gmail inbox and Zoho Mail, but

• IMAP login problem

  I have my domain hosted with zoho @wilson.ie I have added a new user and have enabled IMAP access to this user account The user can login to zoho mail on the web. When we enter the server settings into Outlook as per below, Outlook cannot login to the

• Contact data removes Account data when creating a quote

  Hi, Our customer has address fields in their quote layout which should be the address of the Account. They prefill the information, adding the account name - the address data is populated as per what is in the account - great. However when they then add

• Changes to subform in Zoho CRM Portal Timeline History Unavailable

  Hi Support Team, We have noticed a feature limitation in the Zoho CRM portal. We created a portal for our vendors to edit records directly, but when vendors make updates, the Modified Time and Date fields are not being updated. Additionally, these updates

• This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

  Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?

• Function #11: Apply unused credits automatically to invoices

  Today, we bring you a custom function that automatically applies unused credits from excess payments, credit notes, and retainer payments to an invoice when it is created. Prerequisites: Create a Connection named "zbooks" to successfully execute the function.

• Duplicating report but custom layout does not

  Dear Zoho Creator, I need to duplicate a report into 10 copies, but unfortunately the custom layout (detail view) doesn’t copy along with it. I tried exporting and importing the custom layout, but the field mappings are incorrect. I believe everyone are

• Credit Card Readers?

  We would like to use our commerce website at conferences (and eventually in store) to swipe credit cards to pay for orders. How would we accomplish this? Does Zoho have anything available for a developer write code to integrate something like Stripe Terminal

• Stock count by bin location

  Is there a configuration to make a stock count by bin or area and not by product. these is useful to manage count by area Regards

• Add Prebuilt "Partner Finder" Template with Native Zoho CRM Integration in Zoho Sites To: Zoho Sites Product Team

  Hi Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request a prebuilt "Partner Finder" template for Zoho Sites, modeled after your excellent implementation here: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/partners/find-partner-results.html ✅ Use Case: Our organization

• How Do I Refund a Customer Directly to Their Credit Card?

  Hi, I use books to auto-charge my customers credit card. But when I create a credit note there doesn't seem to be a way to directly refund the amount back to their credit card. Is the only way to refund a credit note by doing it "offline" - or manually-

• Zoho Learn Course Completion Notifications/Triggers/API

  Zoho Learn works great and will suit our course creation needs, but it appears to be lacking a bit when it comes to integration with other Zoho services (creator etc.) when it comes to course completion. 1) Is there an API or Zoho Flow trigger for when

• Enhanced Recording Permission Controls for Zoho Cliq Meetings (Similar to Zoom)

  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the recording permission functionality in Zoho Cliq Meetings. Current Limitation: in Zoho Cliq Only hosts and co-hosts can record a meeting. Participants cannot

• Phone Connection

  When on a call the person on the other end complains that there is static, I am cutting in and out or they can't hear me all. This happens on the cell connection as well.

• Can't add a sender adress from zoho campaigns

  hi, I need to change the sender address for a campaign.  When i try to add it i get a message to say 'duplicated email address found while adding your sender address'.  This is the first campaign i'm sending so I don't understand why this message is displayed? Thanks Jane 

• Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

  My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these

• This domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is the

• This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

• Export History timeline

  Hi, I have an idea, bout zoho desk history of the ticket it would be great if the agent or admin of the zoho desk can export the timeline of the ticket history for agent report or on other matter.

• Desk fails to create a new ticket on Reply email

  When I send a direct email to support@mysite.com, Desk will create a new ticket as expected. When I REPLY to an email sent from support@mysite.com, Desk will NOT generate a new ticket. This is very bad. How can I fix this? Use case: In a separate system

• Ask the Experts 25: Experience the full spectrum of Zoho Desk’s autumn and spring releases for 2025

  Hello Everyone, We’re on the 25th episode of our ATE series! It's a true milestone in our live community interactions! It’s been an amazing journey since we started in October 2018. Zoho Desk has come a long way, evolving with the support of a wonderful

• Addin Support in Zoho Sheet

  Is there any addin support available in zoho sheet as like google marketplace to enhance productivity by connecting with other apps, providing AI data analysis, streamlining business processes, and more?

• Zoho Books | Product updates | November 2025

  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From translating email notification templates to the new transaction locking restrictions, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. Making Tax Digital

• Function #61: Automatically add free item to the invoice based on item quantity

  Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Custom Function Friday! During holiday seasons or special promotions, businesses offer deals like BOGO (Buy One, Get One), Buy 3 Get 1 Free, Buy 2 at 50% off, and much more to attract customers. These promotions

• Notes for Items for Future Purchase Order

  Next time when I order an item, tau have to make some changes in it, that order has to be placed after 4-5 months, I want to save those changes or points somewhere in the item, how will that be possible..

• Schemes of different tyoe

  How can easily apply hourly, day wise or month wise  schemes on Bill, Quantity, and other schemes. Like I want to apply a scheme  Form today to next 7 days .where i can mention in zoho books so scheme will implement automatically to all customers and

• Zohomail

  Im trying to setup email address zoho

• Clients not receiving emails

  I've been informed that my emails are not being received. Is there anything that I should look into to rectify this? Many thanks!

• Free Plan mail accounts details

  In the zoho mail pricing there's a free plan that includes: FREE PLAN Up to 25 Users 5GB* /User, 25MB Attachment Limit Webmail access only. Single domain hosting. I need to make sure that I'm able to create multiple email accounts in the form of: name@domain.com

• ZOHO Mail App Not working

  There seems to be an issue with Zoho Mail App today. It is not connecting to server, internet is working fine, tried uninstalling app and reinstalling, loading circle keeps spinning round. Is there an update on the way?

• No more IMAP/POP/SMTP on free plans even on referrals with NO NOTICE

  Outraged. Just referred a colleague to use her domain (not posting it publicly here) to Zoho, just as I have other colleagues, clients, friends. Expected the exact same free plan features as I have and as everyone else I ever referred got. I was helping

• Unable to receive email - "5.3.0 - Other mail system problem 554-'5.2.3 MailPolicy violation Error delivering to mailboxes'"

  My users are unable to receive emails from one particular domain, apparently. The domain known to be kicked back is whitelisted in the spam control. I sent an email to support earlier this morning but I have not received a reply. The error in the title

• Caixa de saída bloqueada. Como desbloquear?

  Olá, meu e-mail isabela.celli@sivirino.com está com a caixa de saída bloqueada. Não consigo enviar e-mails. Acredito que tenha sido porque mandei o mesmo e-mail para várias pessoas, pedindo uma cotação de serviço. Vocês podem desbloquear para mim? Quantos

• Zoho Forms - Improve the CRM integration field to query data from more than one module

  Hi Forms team, Something I get stuck on regularly is pre-populating a form with data when that data is spread across 2 or 3 modules. For example Contacts, Accounts and Deals. I don't want to duplicate the information in CRM so I end up writing a function

• desbloquear cuenta

  Buenos dias  Cordial saludo Tengo una cuenta libre en zoho mail asociado a un dominio, pero uno de los usuarios se bloquea el correo porque dice que ha excedido el límite de correo, por favor podrian desbloquearla y como hago para que esta persona debe enviar sus correos sin ningun probleama. Gracias de antemano

• Not Receiving Incoming Mail

  I can send emails from my account but I do not receive any. I originally set up forwarding and it worked for a while and then stopped. I turned off forwarding and now do not receive any emails. Could you please check what is causing this issue? Thank you

• Will zoho thrive be integrated with Zoho Books?

  title

• BARCODE PICKLIST

  Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?

• Making preview pane "stick"

  Hello, Is it possible to fix/dock the preview pane so that it's always there? The modern monitors are all very wide so there's plenty of space horizontally. Having the preview pane disappearing and appearing again when you click on an email message in

• Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked

  I have been struggling to set up my email address for some time now; it's difficult to locate what I need. Additionally, I cannot send or receive any emails. I keep receiving the "Reason: 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked" error. There doesn't seem to

• Next Page