2017’s Top Marketing Blog Posts from the Inbound Accelerator

It’s been a busy year for the Inbound Accelerator. We’ve talked about branding, working with (and choosing) an agency partner, marketing automation with HubSpot, healthcare marketing, video marketing, and all the individual elements that go into creating and implementing inbound marketing programs. Have you kept up?

If not, I know you may not have time to go back through all of our posts, but here are the top marketing blog posts that you shouldn’t miss.

Our 10 most-read posts of 2017:

1. 6 Branding (and Rebranding) Mistakes to Avoid

Marketing strategies start with a firm understanding of — and plan for implementing— your company’s brand. Your brand is at the center of who you are and what you do. But it can be tempting, in the rush to keep up with all of the changes in marketing channels and all of your daily duties to forget to take time to make sure that basic foundation is in place.

Whether you are launching a new company or product, or working to revitalize your existing brand or rushing the process, overlooking steps will only cost you results in the long run.

2. Choosing a Branding Agency: Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Remember that branding is more than a logo, and experience in your industry is key to truly understanding your company. Ask questions that get to the heart of what you really need from a agency to find the right partner for your brand.

3. Healthcare Marketing 2018 Trend: Personalized Patient Engagement 

Healthcare is one of our focus industries. Through surveys of patients and providers, we know that personalized patient engagement, focused on educational content, is a key component in patient satisfaction, and it should be a part of the marketing strategy for healthcare providers.

4. 3 Offers to Use for Each Stage of the Sales Funnel 

Leads look for different types of information at different steps along the buyer’s journey (aka sales funnel). Be sure to create content for each stage — this post offers suggested content types that target leads where they are in the process.

5. 6 SEO Metrics You Should Be Tracking

Marketing requires both art and science. The science lies primarily in data analysis of what works, what doesn’t and why. SEO is one of the elements of marketing where analyzing the metrics can often point to simple, yet powerful changes you can make to improve performance.

6. Applying Earned, Owned and Paid Concepts to Social Media  

Here we shared a great infographic from Tracx about the “social trifecta” of earned, owned and paid content, and how they work together to drive traffic on your social media networks. Don’t forget to also be sure your social media networks are pointing to your website to take advantage of the potential for lead generation.

7. 5 Decisions to Make When Planning Video Marketing Content 

If video is the next natural step in your content creation process (and it probably should be), take time to think through these five decisions before jumping in. And remember, video is a component of your overall inbound marketing strategy, not a separate entity.

8. 8 Pieces of the Landing Page Puzzle 

Crafting a great landing page that converts visitors to leads relies on getting each element right. Here are tips for each decision you make.

9. Are You Truly Doing Inbound Marketing?   

You may be doing digital marketing, and content marketing, but neither of those is quite the same as inbound marketing. Let’s look at each definition, and why inbound (which incorporates digital and content) has the upper hand.

10. Inbound Marketing’s Biggest Benefits When You Do it Right

When you get inbound marketing right, it has the power to trigger growth in traffic, leads and sales. Would you like to gain the five benefits outlined here?

Not all of our blog posts are long-form posts. We know that many readers are drawn to visual content, so every week we feature an original infographic and other great infographics from trusted sources, and our readers love them. Check the links below for the most popular, or see our full library of infographics in one convenient page on our Pinterest page.

5 Infographic Posts Our Readers Love

1. Social Media Use: Paid, Organic or Both?

2. A Bit About Business Bloggers

3. Social Media Marketing Strategy: What’s New & What to Do

4. What Consumers & Businesses Say About Explainer Videos

5. What Matters Most in Search Rankings

Which of our 2017 posts have you found to be most useful or inspiring? Please tell us below what you love, or what you’d love to see us talk about next year.