Moz has a dynamo of a post on inbound marketing trends for 2014. It’s an interesting read, but it causes me to stop and ask: Should inbound marketers follow the trends or create the trends?
The interesting thing about a trend is it tells you what most other people within a given class are doing, but it says nothing about what they should be doing.
As a summary, here’s the list of trends in inbound marketing for 2014:
- Content creation has the highest demand in the industry followed by analytics
- Marketers are still spending quite a bit of time on SEO
- More companies are moving toward automation of certain tasks
- Facebook is still the dominant social network, though it may not be the most desirable
- Mobile marketing and responsive design are at the forefront
- Local mobile searches convert well
- E-mail marketing is still a low cost way to get big results and 98% of inbound marketers plan to increase their spend
So the big question is this, do you follow these trends or look for ways to be a trend setter?
One way to look at it is like this: If you see yourself as a trend setter, you should know that you are taking a big risk. The reason trends develop is because the early adopters prove the value in those marketing tactics and everyone else is following them. You can join the herd or try to start your own herd, but the trend setting is best left to those who are already considered leaders in their fields.