Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

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. 


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • 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

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ





                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Zoho CRM Calendar | Custom Buttons

                                    I'm working with my sales team to make our scheduling process easier for our team. We primary rely on Zoho CRM calendar to organize our events for our sales team. I was wondering if there is a way to add custom button in the Calendar view on events/meeting

                                  • Replace Lookup fields ID value with their actual name and adding inormation from subforms

                                    Hi everyone,  I wanted to see if someone smarter than me has managed to find any solutions to two problems we have. I will explain both below.  To start we are syncing data from Zoho CRM to Zoho Analytics and I will use the Sales Order module when giving

                                  • Can a Zoho Sites page be embedded into another website (outside Zoho)

                                    Hi All, We have a request from a client - they'd like to take one of our information pages created in Zoho Sites and embed it into their own website? I was told through an email with Zoho that this was possible >>Thank you for your patience regarding

                                  • Bug in allowing the user to buy out of stock items

                                    Hi i want to allow the user to buy out of stock items, according to the commerce documentation if i disable Restrict "Out of stock" purchases it will, but it doesnt work, so i want to know if it had any relation with zoho inventory, and if theres any

                                  • Transition Criteria Appearing on Blueprint Transitions

                                    On Monday, Sept. 8th, the Transition criteria started appearing on our Blueprints when users hover over a Transition button. See image. We contacted Zoho support because it's confusing our users (there's really no reason for them to see it), but we haven't

                                  • Zoho CRM Sales Targets for Individual Salespeople

                                    Our organistion has salespeople that are allocated to different regions and have different annual sales targets as a result. I am building an CRM analytics dashboard for the sales team, which will display a target meter for the logged in salesperson.

                                  • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

                                    The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Managing addresses

                                  • Transfer all Related Data to new Account Owner

                                    Currently when I change the account Owner I only see the option to change only the open deals But I want the new account owner to take over all the related modules and all the deal stages Is it not possible right now? Am I missing something? Do I really

                                  • Can i connect 2 instagram accounts to 1 brand?

                                    Can i connect 2 instagram accounts to 1 brand? Or Do i need to create 2 brands for that? also under what subscription package will this apply?

                                  • How to Calculate MTTR (Mean Time to Resolve)

                                    We want to calculate MTTR (Mean Time to Resolve) in our Zoho Analytics report under Tickets. Currently, we are using the following fields: Ticket ID Ticket Created Time Ticket Closed Time Ticket On Hold Time We are planning to calculate MTTR (in days)

                                  • How to export project tasks, including the comments

                                    Hi, how can I export the project tasks, whereby I can also see the comments associated to a specific task? The use-case is that often we use comments to discuss or update a task related ideas. I would like to export the tasks, where we can also see the

                                  • How to Install Zoho Workdrive Desktop Sync for Ubuntu?

                                    Hi. I am newbie to Linux / Ubuntu. I downloaded a tar.gz file from Workdrive for installing the Workdrive Desktop Sync tool. Can someone give me step by step guide on how to install this on Ubuntu? I am using Ubuntu 19.04. Regards Senthil

                                  • Introducing Version-3 APIs - Explore New APIs & Enhancements

                                    Happy to announce the release of Version 3 (V3) APIs with an easy to use interface, new APIs, and more examples to help you understand and access the APIs better. V3 APIs can be accessed through our new link, where you can explore our complete documentation,

                                  • Round robin

                                    Hi, I'm trying to set up a round robin to automatically distribute tickets between agents in my team but only those tickets that are not otherwise distributed by other workflows or direct assignments. Is that possible and if so which criteria should I

                                  • Does Zoho Sheet Supports https://n8n.io ?

                                    Does Zoho Sheet Supports https://n8n.io ? If not, can we take this as an idea and deploy in future please? Thanks

                                  • Bigin Android app update: User management

                                    Hello everyone! In the most recent Bigin Android app update, we have brought in support for the 'Users and Controls' section. You can now manage the users in your organization within the mobile app. There are three tabs in the 'Users and Controls' section:

                                  • Share records with your customers and let them track their statuses in real time.

                                    Greetings, I hope everyone is doing well! We're excited to introduce the external sharing feature for pipeline records. This new enhancement enables you to share pipeline records with your customers via a shareable link and thereby track the status of

                                  • Live webinar: Discover Zoho Show: A complete walkthrough

                                    Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar, Discover Zoho Show: A Complete Walkthrough. Whether you’re just getting started with Show or eager to explore advanced capabilities, this session will show you useful tips and features

                                  • Option to Empty Entire Mailbox or Folder in Zoho Mail

                                    Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Mail that would allow administrators and users to quickly clear out entire folders or mailboxes, including shared mailboxes. Current Limitation: At present, Zoho Mail only

                                  • Deal Stage component/widget/whatever it is... event

                                    Deal Stages I am trying to access the event and value of this component. I can do it by changing the Stage field but users can also change a Deal Stage via this component and I need to be able to capture both values. Clicking on 'Verbal' for instance,

                                  • Create advanced slideshows with hybrid reports using Zoho Projects Plus

                                    Are your quarterly meetings coming up? It’s time to pull up metrics, generate reports, and juggle between slides yet again. While this may be easier for smaller projects, large organizations that run multiple projects may experience the pressure when

                                  • Add an option to disable ZIA suggestions

                                    Currently, ZIA in Zoho Inventory automatically provides suggestions, such as sending order confirmation emails. However, there is no way to disable this feature. In our case, orders are automatically created by customers, and we’ve built a custom workflow

                                  • Email Integration - Zoho CRM - OAuth and IMAP

                                    Hello, We are attempting to integrate our Microsoft 365 email with Zoho CRM. We are using the documentation at Email Configuration for IMAP and POP3 (zoho.com) We use Microsoft 365 and per their recommendations (and requirements) for secure email we have

                                  • Formula field with IF statement based on picklist field and string output to copy/paste in multi-line field via function

                                    Hello there, I am working on a formula field based on a 3-item picklist field (i.e. *empty value*, 'Progress payment', 'Letter of credit'). Depending on the picked item, the formula field shall give a specific multi-line string (say 'XXX' in case of 'Progress

                                  • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

                                    Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

                                  • update linked contacts when update happens in account

                                    Hi, I have a custom field called Licence in the Accounts module. When someone buys a licence, I’d like to update a custom field in the related Contacts. How can I achieve this? I noticed that workflows triggered on Accounts only allow me to update fields

                                  • Zoho CRMの流入元について

                                    Zoho CRMとZoho formsを連携し、 formsで作成したフォームをサイトに埋め込み運用中です。 UTMパラメータの取得をformsを行い、Zoho CRMの見込み客タブにカスタム項目で反映される状況になっています。 広告に関してはUTMパラメータで取得できているため問題ないのですが、オーガニック流入でフォーム送信の場合も計測したいです。メールやGoogle、Yahoo、directなどの流入元のチャネルが反映されるようにしたいのですが、どのように設定したら良いでしょうか。 また、

                                  • Error While Sign in on Zoho Work Drive

                                    Dear Team, I hope this email finds you well. I have recently created a Zoho account and started using it. But while I am trying to log in to Zoho work drive it won't log me in its crashing every time I try it. I have tried it on android app, phone browser

                                  • Choosing a portal option and the "Unified customer portal"?

                                    I am trialling Zoho to replace various existing systems, one of which is a customer portal. Our portal allows clients to add and edit bookings, complete forms, manage their subscriptions and edit some CRM info. I am trying to understand how I might best

                                  • Elevate your CX delivery using CommandCenter 2.0: Simplified builder; seamless orchestration

                                    Most businesses want to create memorable customer experiences—but they often find it hard to keep them smooth, especially as they grow. To achieve a state of flow across their processes, teams often stitch together a series of automations using Workflow

                                  • Unified Directory : How to Access ?

                                    I signed in to Zoho One this morning and was met with the pop up about the upgraded directory (yay!) I watched the video and pressed "Get Started" ... and it took me back to the standard interface. How do I actually access the new portal/directory ?

                                  • Translation support expanded for Modules, Subforms and Related Lists

                                    Hello Everyone!   The translation feature enables organizations to translate certain values in their CRM interface into different languages. Previously, the only values that could be translated were picklist values and field names. However, we have extended

                                  • Send Automated WhatsApp Messages and Leverage the Improved WhatsApp Templates

                                    Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're excited to announce a major upgrade to Bigin's WhatsApp integration that brings more flexibility, interactivity, and automation to your customer messaging. WhatsApp message automation You can now use

                                  • Unified task view

                                    Possible to enable the unified task view in Trident, that is currently available in Mail?

                                  • Bigin, more powerful than ever on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26.

                                    Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest OS updates, we’ve rolled out several enhancements and features designed to help you get the most from your Apple devices. Enjoy a refined user experience with smoother navigation and a more content-focused Liquid Glass

                                  • Importing data into Assets

                                    So we have a module in Zoho CRM called customers equipments. It links to customers modules, accounts (if needed) and products. I made a sample export and created extra fields in zoho fsm assets module. The import fails. Could not find a matching parent

                                  • Allow instruction field in Job Sheets

                                    Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to have an instruction field (multi line text) in a job sheet or if there is a workaround to be able to do it. Currently we are pretty limited in terms of fields in job sheets which makes it a bit of a struggle

                                  • Streamlining Work Order Automation with Zoho Projects, Writer & WorkDrive

                                    Hello Community, Here is the first post in 'Integration & Automation' Series. Use Case :: Create, Merge, Sign & Store Documents in Zoho WorkDrive. Scenario :: You have a standard Work Order template created in Zoho Writer. When a task status is chosen

                                  • The dimensions of multilingual power

                                    Hola, saludos de Zoho Desk. Bonjour, salutations de Zoho Desk. Hallo, Grüße von Zoho Desk. Ciao, saluti da Zoho Desk. Olá, saudações da Zoho Desk. வணக்கம், Zoho Desk இலிருந்து வாழ்த்துகள். 你好，来自 Zoho Desk 的问候。 مرحباً، تحيات من Zoho Desk. नमस्ते, Zoho

                                  • Multi-line address lines

                                    How can I enter and migrate the following 123 state street Suite 2 Into a contact address. For Salesforce imports, a CR between the information works. The ZOHO migration tool just ignores it. Plus, I can't seem to even enter it on the standard entry screen.

                                  • Next Page