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

                                  • Copying records from a Custom Module into Deals

                                    Hello, I recently created a custom module to handle a particular type of order/transaction in our business. Having got this up and running I've realised that it would be much better to use the Deals module with a different layout instead. We've entered

                                  • Creator App on Mobile - Workflow "On Create / Edit - On Load" not triggered ?

                                    Hi Everyone, I built an application to track assets, which is used both at the office (desktop) an in the field by technicians (mobile app). In the field, technicians open an existing form and add rows to a subform at some point. One field they have to

                                  • HOW TO VIEW INDIVIDUAL COST OF NEWLY PURCHASED GOODS AFTER ALLOCATING LANDED COSTS

                                    Hello, I have been able to allocate landed costs to the purchase cost of the new products. however, what i need to see now is the actual cost price (original cost plus landed cost), of only my newly purchased products to enable me set a selling price

                                  • Custom Function to get custom field of lookup type in Books

                                    Hi, Here's the situation. In Purchase Order, there is a custom field (lookup) to SO. The requirement is to update to the related SO if PO get updated Right now facing challenge to get the id of custom field (lookup) in PO. Please find below the sample

                                  • Custom From Address is now Organizational Email

                                    We're introducing a small yet meaningful change in Zoho Recruit, one that sets the foundation for bigger improvements coming your way. What’s changed? We’ve renamed the Custom From Address to Organizational Email. The new name was chosen to better reflect

                                  • What's New in Zoho Billing Q2 2025

                                    Hello everyone, We are excited to share the latest set of updates and enhancements made to Zoho Billing in Q2 2025, ranging from image custom fields to support for new languages. Keep reading to learn more. Upload Images From Your Desktop to Email Notifications

                                  • Map dependency on Multiselect picklist

                                    I need help in Zoho CRM. I have 2 multi-select picklists. For example, Picklist A has country names. Picklist B has state names. Now I want to show states on the basis of the selected country from Picklist A. Both are multi-select fields, so the standard

                                  • Tip of the Week #63 – Keep personal emails out of team view.

                                    Shared inboxes are great for teamwork—they let everyone stay on the same page, respond faster, and avoid duplicate replies. But not every message needs to be shared with the entire team. Think about those one-on-one chats with a manager, a quick internal

                                  • Episode III : Powering Automation: Custom Functions in Action

                                    Hello Everyone, In our previous episodes, we explored custom functions and the Deluge programming language. If you’ve been wondering why the Episode series have been quiet, here’s the reveal! On our community, we've been showcasing custom functions integrated

                                  • Narrative 2 - Understanding Organizational Departments

                                    Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series Narrative 2 - Understanding Organizational Departments A ticketing system's departments are essential because they provide an organized and practical framework for handling and addressing

                                  • Zoho Projects Plus for the healthcare industry

                                    The global healthcare industry is complex and diverse; from patient record maintenance, healthcare supply chain, to manufacturing complex medical equipment, the industry functions on many layers. Managing all these layers requires tested out techniques

                                  • Missing Outlook calendar option in Calendar

                                    Hi all I don't have an Outlook Calendar option in the Settings > Synchronise settings of Calendar. Any ideas why not?

                                  • Zoho Meeting Android app update: Breakout rooms, noise cancellation

                                    Hello everyone! In the latest version(v2.6.1) of the Zoho Meeting app update, we have brought in support for the following features: 1. Join Breakout rooms. 2. Noise cancellation Join Breakout rooms. Breakout Rooms are virtual rooms created within a meeting

                                  • Whats App Automation

                                    It would be nice to be able to send out an automated whats app message template on moving stages or creation of a ticket (same as you can do for automated emails). Currently only automated emails can be sent. Also, if whats app could be used more effectively

                                  • Zoho Projects Android app update: Enhanced Documents module within the projects.

                                    Hello everyone! In the latest Android version(v3.9.35) of the Zoho Projects app update, we have enhanced the documents module within the projects. Now, you can view all the attachments that you have added across the project in tasks, bugs, comments, etc,

                                  • Lead Source Disappears

                                    When adding a new lead and saving the page, the page refreshes itself and the lead source field becomes blank. We set the "Lead source" as a required field to see if it would help, but the problem persists and we always have to re-enter the lead sou

                                  • Inquiry Regarding Monitoring ZOHO CRM API Credit Usage

                                    Hello ZOHO Community, I hope this message finds you well. I have a question regarding monitoring the usage and remaining credits of the ZOHO CRM API. I recently discovered that within ZOHO CRM, by navigating to Settings ⇒ Developer Hub ⇒ APIs & SDKs,

                                  • Payment Gateways - A unified hub to manage all your payment integrations in Zoho Creator

                                    Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce that we've completely reimagined the way payment gateways are handled in Creator. The result is a centralized Payment Gateways section that provides a clean, user-friendly interface to configure and manage all

                                  • Community Digest Julio 2025 - Todas las novedades en Español Zoho Community

                                    ¡Hola, Español Zoho Community! Ha pasado un tiempo desde el último Digest pero, ¡ya estamos de vuelta con las novedades más relevantes en las aplicaciones de Zoho y su universo! Si no te quieres perder ninguna de las novedades que vamos publicando, te

                                  • Tip #35- How to use Notifications in Zoho Assist to stay on top of session activities- 'Insider Insights'

                                    Hello Zoho Assist Community! This week, we’re exploring Zoho Assist’s built-in notification system for improved visibility and accountability. Keeping track of session activity is crucial, especially when you're managing multiple remote devices and technicians.

                                  • Assistance with Exporting Specific Data from Zoho CRM

                                    Hi, Could you please guide me on how to export specific information, such as the model number and serial number, from the Accounts module in Zoho CRM? Thank you in advance for your assistance.

                                  • Coming Soon in Zoho Invoice: Send Invoices Instantly via WhatsApp

                                    We're working on bringing a new level of convenience to your invoicing experience. Introducing a much-requested feature in Zoho Invoice: You can now share invoices directly to your customers via WhatsApp! With this new option, you can: Share invoices

                                  • field update from the value of another field

                                    Hello, I need to do a field update from the value of another field, but i don´t know how can i do it. In the mass update option it is not possible... I need to put the last name value form the leads module to other custom field that i have created. thanks for your help

                                  • What is a realistic turnaround time for account review for ZeptoMail?

                                    On signing up it said 2-3 business days. I am on business-day 6 and have had zero contact of any kind. No follow-up questions, no approval or decline. Attempts to "leave a message" or use the "Contact Us" form have just vanished without a trace. It still

                                  • Playback and Management Enhancements for Zoho Quartz Recordings

                                    Hello Zoho Team, We hope you're all doing well. We would like to submit a feature request related to Zoho Quartz, the tool used to record and share browser sessions with Zoho Support. 🎯 Current Functionality As of now, Zoho Quartz allows users to record

                                  • Is there any way to prevent the row cloning feature(on edit page)

                                    My initial requirement is to prevent some users from adding new rows in the subform. For that, I have implemented the client script, and the script is working fine. But users are able to clone the row and make changes. For that, I was unable to find any

                                  • Using Another Field Value for Workflow Field Update

                                    I'm trying to setup a Workflow with a "Field Update" action on the Lead module, but I would like the new value to actually be taken from a DIFFERENT Field's on the Lead record (vs just defining some static value..) Is this possible? Could I simply use

                                  • How Do I Change Business Location

                                    Ive just shifted my business to a new country and would like to update my address and Business location in the "Organisation Profile" page but it is locked in the previous country. How do I unlock it / change it? Thanks

                                  • Verify details pop-up windows

                                    Hi, Is it possible to turn-off the anoying "Verify details" window that ask for closing date, "Reason for Lost" or other concepts. If I would like the user to enter such data, I will implement a rule .... How can I turn-off such pop-up? it's not necessary

                                  • Monthly overtime wrong after adding/changing attendance time for past month

                                    Hi there, as I understand it, the montly overtime overview under attendance is calculated at the end of each month. If someone was not able to enter his attendance in time but entered it in the new month, this time will not be considered in the overview.

                                  • As a security measure, you need to link your phone number with this account and verify it to proceed further.

                                    I want to disable this feature as my one staff travels with different phone numbers so it is hard to verify by phone. How do I do that?

                                  • Asset Tracking

                                    I am looking to create custom modules to track customer assets. We install serialized and non-serialized equipment into customers vehicles. So we will have vehicles belonging to the customer then equipment that will belong to a vehicle (if installed)

                                  • 【参加無料】8月8日(金) 福岡 ユーザ交流会 参加登録 受付開始！

                                    ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 8月8日(金)に1年ぶりに、福岡でZoho ユーザー交流会を開催します！ ユーザー事例セッションでは、CreativeStudio樂合同会社の前田 美知太郎さまが、労働時間を削減したZoho活用のリアルな工夫を語ります。 Zoho社員セッションでは、データ収集から自動処理まで一気に効率化できるZoho Formsの最新活用アイディアをお届けします。 ▷▷詳細はこちら：https://www.zohomeetups.com/Fukuoka2025#/?affl=fuk2508forumpost

                                  • Unusable due to "server" issues but there's nothing on Zoho or Down Detector saying there's an outage

                                    I just started the Zoho trial and I cannot do anything because no apps or even the "contact support" will actually load. I tried to create a project but it keeps giving me the error "server is unable to process your request at this time". I tried to load

                                  • Issue After Updating to Zoho Desk Android SDK v4.5.0 – Authentication Fails (Status Code 204)

                                    Hi Zoho Support Team, I was previously using the Zoho Desk Android SDK with the following dependency: implementation 'com.zoho.desk:asapsdk:3.0_BETA_17' Everything was working as expected — including user authentication, the tickets section, and the

                                  • add another department to helpcenter

                                    After activating multi-brand, how to add another department to help center? For example department A has associated with help center 1. We have another department B and would like user to be able to submit ticket to department B via help center 1, how

                                  • Task and Milestones - Dependency feature needed

                                    I'm sure we're not the first to bring this up. We've been using zoho project for a while. Every project manager knows that to manage a successful project you need option to stack tasks and milestones and be able to create dependencies between tasks and milestones. I think you get the idea... Can you let us know if this feature is in the making or not? any chance we'll see this in future releases? If you need customer feedback about this feature or other enhancements, we'll be happy to test new products

                                  • How to update task start date when project start date changes?

                                    Hi there, When the start date of a project changes, it's important to update the start dates of the tasks associated with that project to reflect the new timeline. Is there a way to shift the start date of all project tasks when the start date of a project

                                  • ZOHO DESK | SET PERMISSION NOT TO ALLOW SPECIFIC AGENTS TO CREATE TICKET

                                    Hi Zoho Team, I have a question regarding this: "Team Desk are the ones to have the permission to create a ticket, Team OPS resolvers must not create a ticket." - How to set permission to Team OPS resolvers for not creating a ticket? Only Team Desk should

                                  • On success Workflow not triggering from external Zoho Form submission

                                    Hello everyone, I'd really appreciate your help. I'm building a system, where I'm using Zoho Creator as a crm/spreadsheet to manage movements of inventory. I have 3 "forms" or tables, where one is a main table for obersving status on all inventory, another

                                  • Next Page