The Executive Suite: Inbound Marketing Trends to Look For in 2016

With 2016 fast progressing, it’s time to get ahead of the marketing trends before they get ahead of you.

Inbound marketing plays an indispensable part when it comes to attracting and engaging visitors, and converting them into potential buyers. Over the past few years, inbound marketing has experienced a substantial transformation and has proven to be the most effective marketing technique for doing business online. With so much happening in the field of marketing, companies are adopting the inbound approach to attract qualified prospects to their business. However, consumers nowadays demand engaging content — and that is what a website needs to stand out from the competition and gain satisfactory appreciation.

It’s that time of the year – when marketers need to learn from their previous experience and come up with something that is fresh and out of the box to get the attention they look for.

Here are some innovative, upcoming trends in the field of inbound marketing that will be critical for growth in 2016.

1. The Rise of User-Generated Content
According to a survey, it has been determined that B2B companies that do blogging generate 67 percent more leads every month than the companies that don’t. With more than 85 percent of B2B marketers and 75 percent of B2C marketers using content marketing in 2015, it has been predicted that content marketing will continue to make waves in 2016. User generated content has always been a game changer for marketers. One of the finest examples is Starbucks’ White Cup contest held in April 2014. Customers were supposed to decorate a Starbucks cup with their own creativity using customized art, take a picture of it, and then submit it on Starbucks’ social media account using #WhiteCupContest. The contest received nearly 4,000 entries in just three weeks – helping the company increase its level of engagement, publicity, and profit.

2. The Power of Marketing Analytics
Customers today use a variety of digital devices to carry out their daily work effortlessly, producing vast amounts of data. It is thus necessary for marketers to make use of the correct tools to automate data. Marketing data is becoming critical in all marketing endeavors. With analytics tools, the acquisition of data will be easier and faster. This is the reason why marketing analytics is expected to rise by 60 percent in 2016.

3. The Success of Visual Storytelling
Storytelling has always been an interactive way of developing deeper connections with your target audience and nurturing your leads. To excel as a marketing firm, it is important that you stand out from the crowd and do something extraordinary. This is only possible if you convey your business message in an interesting and surprising manner – interactive storytelling. Using videos, storytelling can seamlessly trigger and inspire the emotions of your target audience, helping you send a clear message to your consumer communities.

4. The Downfall of Guest Blogging for SEO
According to Matt Cutts, the one who leads Google’s webspam team – “so stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.” This statement portrays that with the advancement of Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, there will be no tolerance for spam. So, if you are considering guest blogging for building links to your business website, you must find a better way instead to avoid creating links to spam sites. However, the benefits of guest blogging will remain the same for those who do it for attaining exposure, branding, increasing reach, etc. via unpretentious blogging practices.

5. The Retaliation of E-mail Marketing
A while back, e-mail marketing was declared dead by many but, the truth is that it never died and never will it. According to McKinsey & Company, a private American worldwide management consulting firm headquartered in New York City, it has been determined that e-mail conversion rates have 17 percent higher value than any other means of conversion, which includes social media marketing.

Still having second thoughts about the comeback of email marketing? Here are some proven stats that will probably convince you to use this trend in 2016.

• More than 90 percent users check their e-mail on a daily basis. (Source: IMPACT)
• Businesses using e-mail generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads and at 33 percent lower cost. (Source: HubSpot)
• For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44.25. (Source: ExactTarget)
• 59 percent of B2B marketers say e-mail is the most effective channel for generating revenue. (Source: BtoB Magazine)
• 49 percent B2B marketers spend more time and resources on e-mail than on other channels. (Source: HubSpot)
With e-mail m-arketing, you can easily personalize your e-mails according to the needs and requirements of your target audience. Also, it helps you determine ROI for all of your efforts. Not only this, the new feature of e-mail marketing allows you to create and send promotional e-mails, and share it across your marketing campaigns – driving engagement and revenue alongside.

10 Takeaways for your Inbound Marketing Strategy in 2016

• The use of inbound marketing continues to rise in 2016;
• User-generated content proves to be the most important tactic for inbound marketing;
• Marketing analytics makes data acquisition easy and fast than ever;
• The magic of interactive storytelling continues to grow;
• The chapter of guest blogging rolls out from the books of marketers;
• E-mail marketing rises again to give marketers something to cheer for;
• Marketing automation produces remarkable results;
• In-house content creators are on the decline;
• Marketers should focus more on increasing the number of leads;
• Blogging seems to have a bright future in 2016.

These are some trends in the world of inbound marketing that you should not forget to include in your marketing strategy this year.