“If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.”
—Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist of Canva
What’s the first instance of marketing?
Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern marketing, believes that the point of marketing was to “know and understand the customer so well that the product and service fit him and sells itself.”
He believes that inbound marketing dates back to the mid-1850s, when Cyrus Hall McCormick, inventor of the mechanical harvester, used market research to find out what generates interest in customers.
In 1902, the University of Michigan offered what many believe to be the very first course in marketing.
What is Inbound Marketing?
The main objective of Inbound Marketing is to create a valuable relationship with the prospects that have a positive impact on your business, as well as potential customers.
Inbound Marketing deals with the notion of creating content that directly addresses the problems and needs of your ideal customers. Furthermore, this helps you in attracting qualified leads and building credibility for your business.
Being a part of the Digital Marketing Strategy, Inbound Marketing uses a perfect blend of content marketing, search engine optimization, and social media to attract the attention of potential customers.
Brief History of Inbound Marketing
With time, marketing started becoming more consumer-centric but the internet changed the entire landscape of marketing.
Let’s have a look at some timeline to get a better understanding:
- 1995: First search engine launched
- 1997: The term ‘SEO’ was coined
- 2000: PPC advertising took hold
Social media came into the picture.
- 2002: LinkedIn was found
- 2004: Facebook was found
- 2005: Youtube came into the picture
- 2006: Twitter was launched
After the Social Media and internet revolution, there was a massive shift in the paradigm of the consumer mindset.
They wanted to be ‘marketed to’ and not ‘marketed at’. And this implied that the companies could only succeed if they created a powerful and personalized user experience.
This is where came into light the concept and the term “Inbound Marketing”.
The inbound marketing that we see today, didn’t exist before 2005, it was coined by Hubspot’s co-founder Brian Halligan.
Inbound marketing: Choice of Manufacturing Units
Inbound marketing as a marketing strategy didn’t become popular until after 2010. Before that, it was just getting some mentions here and there, but no one was giving it a serious thought.
The basic reason behind this was that Inbound Marketing is a time taking process and businesses usually desire immediate results. But the thing is that Inbound Marketing takes time, but the results are inevitable and unbelievable.
In its initial days of popularity, inbound marketing was considered to be a typical marketing strategy for SaaS and product-based businesses.
As a Hubspot partner, we ourselves have received hundreds of prospects that operated either in the SaaS industry or the B2C space.
As an agency, if we look back a couple of years, we can easily see that there is a shift in the trend, and Manufacturing units are considering Inbound Marketing at the forefront of their marketing strategy. Now we not only see companies but even industries that were considered as labor intensive and deep into manufacturing have started adopting digital and inbound means of marketing. Recently we came across a number of platforms that are working to bring the construction sector online. One such platform was maaal.in that is currently working in creating an extensive knowledge guide on TMT bars and other building materials.
We also say, there is uprising trend of Inbound Marketing in manufacturing is because of two reasons,
- an increase in the number of prospects that we receive who operate in the manufacturing space
- our recent client’s dedication to leveraging Inbound as a channel of growth.
Znbound and Lubrizol India
The Lubrizol Corporation is a Berkshire Hathaway company providing unmatched sciences that unlocks immense possibilities at the molecular level.
In 1959, the Lubrizol Corporation pioneered chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) for use in piping systems and has been regarded as one of the best piping materials ever since.
Objective
Znbound was assigned the role to look after the digital presence of two of the Lubrizol brands, in India.
The two brands are:
FlowGuard® Plus
FlowGuard® Plus CPVC Pipes and CPVC Fittings is one of the safest, most reliable, and cost-effective plumbing solutions on the market. Billions of meters of FlowGuard® Plus CPVC have been installed in residential and commercial buildings around the globe.
FlowGuard Plus CPVC plumbing systems have been successfully installed around the world in all types of residential and commercial buildings, including:
- Residential
- Retrofit
- Commercial buildings, such as offices buildings, hotels, and schools
- Government buildings
As a matter of fact, the first commercial CPVC House piping was laid by the company 60 years ago and it is still in working condition today.
BLAZEMASTER®
Blazemaster® manufactures fire protection systems that are specially engineered for use in all light hazard commercial and residential applications.
Blazemaster® has passed all standards and code approvals that are required for nonmetallic fire sprinkler material.
Fire sprinkler systems are designed to protect lives and property. But for building owners and contractors and building owners and contractors around the world have put their trust in BlazeMaster® Fire Protection Systems over steel piping and other nonmetallic materials.
BlazeMaster CPVC was the first plastic material introduced in the fire sprinkler market more than 30 years ago, and today it is the most specified nonmetallic fire sprinkler piping system in the world. BlazeMaster CPVC pipe and fittings meet – and exceed – global performance and manufacturing standards for CPVC piping systems.
Problem
The problem which Lubrizol was facing in India was a lack of digital presence in India.
People were aware of the licensees of the corporation that serves in India but were not aware of the brand names under which they operate.
Basically, Lubrizol wanted to create a brand awareness for FlowGuard® Plus and BLAZEMASTER® CPVC
Znbound’s commitment
For starters, we at Znbound have kept our focus on content marketing. It hasn’t been long, but we can already see the result of our efforts.
We at Znbound have committed to integrating various inbound marketing tactics such as content marketing with a range of other digital marketing tactics, like SEO, PPC, and email, to maximize the generation of traffic, leads, and revenue for Lubrizol India.
Inbound marketing has become the mantra of Success in 2021
No matter what kind of business or industry you operate in, there is always a scope for applying the Inbound Marketing mantra in your business.
Today’s consumer wants to be a part of the conversation with the companies they interact with. They want to make an informed decision and expect that the companies are going to help them.
By publishing insightful, relevant, and most importantly useful information you will gain your audience’s trust and give people the helpful interactions they are looking for.
