March 3, 2017

Hubspot has recently published their 8^th annual report on inbound marketing, after surveying more than 4,500 marketers globally. Marketers or no marketers, we are all witnessing this steady tectonic shift toward more human, interactive marketing approach that wants to earn the customer’s interest rather than buy it. As the report keenly observed, the key principle of inbound marketing is “matching how you market and sell with the way people actually want to shop and buy”. Customers are drawn by the experience they get from you and your website, not only by your products or services.

According to the report, marketing priority number 1 is conversion. Almost half of the respondents have noted that “it’s more difficult to get a response from a prospect than it was 2 years ago”. Users have become markedly more discerning, discriminating and critical, which has fueled the need to optimize your website for conversion. Interestingly and pleasingly enough, the report also highlighted blogging as a top global priority for inbound marketing. If blogging is your weak spot, have a look at our post on how to become a savvy blogger and an infographic about the content marketing pitfalls. However, long forms are not far behind on the priority list, so you might also want to outline your content marketing strategy for 2017.

Considering the above mentioned and the fact the audience has a growing control over advertising exposure, we feel it’s safe to say that marketing is locked on this course to becoming more inbound-oriented. So, here is what the State of Inbound 2016 has to share about inbound marketing.