Inbound marketing remains a crucial priority

Does the future success of your business really depend on the quality of your inbound marketing? It seems, by many accounts, that the strength of a company’s inbound marketing has never been more crucial to its future survival. When the many factors regarding inbound marketing are tallied up, what remains is a glimpse of where you need to be to maintain that competitive edge. In some recent research data published by Hubspot, it becomes quite clear that inbound marketing must remain a priority. The following are some of the results of that report published at Ingenenxdigital:

  • Social media no longer (if it ever was) is merely broadcasting links to your blog posts, videos, etc. Today, marketers are using social for social listening, a tactic in which you monitor your social channels for those times users mention your brand, your competitors, your services/products, etc. Doing so allows you to respond to conversations, but to also track and analyze the conversations. It’s a terrific means of performing audience research.  According to the report, about 43 percent marketers say they get the best ROI from Facebook, while 33 percent say they get the best from Instagram (the two platforms are the top spots for ROI). Interestingly, Instagram is more popular with marketers, but Facebook wins when it comes to ROI.)
  • Forty-eight percent of marketers are using hashtags in their social media marketing efforts, while another 46 percent are using live video. (Nineteen percent also are using augmented reality.)
  • Blogs – while still critical – have been usurped by video content marketing.  Millions (409 million) of people read  about 20 million blog pages PER MONTH, a number that has increased by 12 percent in the past 5 years. Still, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that 2 billion people watch YouTube videos a month (120 million per day), for at least 18 minutes per day. That said, it’s no surprise that the HubSpot marketing report says that 82 percent of marketers state they “actively” use content marketing (which is up 70 percent from 2020).And the top form of content marketing? Video (55 percent of marketers). Number two? Blogging (about 42 percent of marketers).

  • Conversion “events” increased by 30 percent last year. In fact, to better drive engagement, conversion events at the beginning of a video result in the highest conversion rate (12.7 percent).  In addition, email collection forms were best at converting viewers (15 percent conversion rate), which suggests that if your video is compelling enough, prospects are more willing to provide you their contact information.
  • Short-form video (less than 60 seconds in length) converted best (55 percent), followed by 1-3 minutes (53 percent), 3-5 minutes (50 percent), 5-30 minutes (40 percent), 30-60 minutes (25 percent), and 60-minutes-plus (15 percent).
  • Embed videos in your email marketing. Videos in an email message can increase your click-through rate by as much as 300 percent.
  • 33 percent of viewers watch the first 30 seconds; 45 percent watch less than one minute. Get to the point quickly and make sure that the “interesting” stuff is within the first 30-seconds or one minute.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer