How Well Do You Know Your Customer? This Week in Inbound Marketing

This week in inbound marketing we look at the importance of knowing and talking to your customers, three examples of complete buyer personas, plus we'll explore four ways to make your videos more effective.

1) New & Noteworthy

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

Most companies think they know their customers. The problem, though, is that many companies who claim to know their customers don’t talk to them regularly. And if you’re not talking to customers on a consistent basis, you’re not really in touch with them. In this blog, Evan Magliocca discusses how brands don’t know their customers like they think they do, and shares some insights into how you can use data to evaluate the people you should be marketing to.

Rise of Voice Technology Means New Opportunity for Podcasting

A new report from NPR and Edison Research reveals that one in every six Americans owns at least one voice-activated smart speaker. As voice search continues to increase, podcasting is also becoming more popular, because it gives brands and individuals a chance to share thoughts and content in an easy, accessible way. Read more about the rise of voice technology and see what it means for podcasts.

 2) Grow Your Inbound Marketing

3 Examples of Buyer Personas to Help You Create Your Own

Perhaps you’ve heard of buyer personas before (Note: they are crucial for successful marketing), but have you or your company actually created them? Do you know what a finished persona should look like? If not, here are three examples of buyer personas that can will help you create your own.

4 Ways to Make Your Videos for Lead Generation More Successful

If you haven’t yet dabbled with video as a marketing channel, you’ve likely thought about it or have seen stats showing video’s meteoric rise in popularity. Many companies are using video to help with demand generation, but the problem is that not all are using it effectively. Here are four ways to make your lead-generation videos more successful.

3) Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

Report: 5G Will Drive $12B in New Mobile Commerce by 2021

Adobe Digital Insights recently released a report on U.S. and international smartphone usage and projected that mobile commerce will increase by $12B by 2021, as smartphones get faster and more people use them. Marketers have worked tirelessly over the last several years trying to optimize for mobile experiences, and reports like this are the reason why. As more and more people are on the go and internet access becomes more ubiquitous, products and services must also be available everywhere and easy to access. Read the full article.

Majority of Mobile Marketers Plan to Increase Video Spend in 2018

Above we shared insights into how to make your videos more successful from a lead-generation perspective. But perhaps you’re on the fence about whether video is something you should do or continue to do going forward. In this blog, we look at why the majority of mobile marketers plan to increase their video spend in 2018.