The marketing landscape is constantly evolving. The biggest challenge? Knowing how, what, and where to connect with your audience. Here are 3 strategic takeaways on how to reach the people that matter most to you (and why it matters), from my week at Hubspot's Inbound conference:

1. Content is still vital in marketing.

There are 6,586,013,574 searches a day worldwide—and that number is growing. If you’re still debating Inbound marketing as a methodology, don’t be persuaded into thinking it’s a fad—or for that matter, a quick fix solution to your sales troubles.

Building your inbound content strategy is hard work but has to be a piece of your larger marketing and sales execution—especially when the majority of internet traffic starts by searching for content! It’s content that helps you get found. And it's content that helps you till only the most fertile ground when you're working with limited resources.

If your content isn’t doing that, or doesn’t feel like it’s accomplishing those objectives, it’s time to rethink your approach (shameless plug warning: we can help with that!)

2. Video for marketing purposes is (still) growing.

Viewership for video is up. Bigly. That’s thanks in part to social media outlets focusing more of their attention on moving images as content. Today, Facebook has a bigger share of video views than even YouTube! In fact, native videos on Facebook have 10 times higher reach compared to YouTube links.

Video engagement has also changed. The old 30-second rule has been extended—at least for certain market segments. Our affinity for watching videos, it seems, has driven the sweet spot of viewership to between 60 and 90 seconds. After that, there’s a steep drop off. BUT, if you can hook them to hang in there, there’s actually a second sweet spot at the 6-to-12 minute mark!

The lesson? More doesn’t always equal more… but sometimes, it can!

The key is to make your content as relevant to your audience as you can. Define your personas, build your content to match, and target them at the right place and time to captivate them and maximize your impact.

3. Social can be Good for Business Marketing Too.

LinkedIn has always been business-focused, but it shouldn't be the only consideration for B2B social advertising. If you still think Facebook is only good for getting likes and building brand awareness, it’s time to rethink Facebook’s advertising solutions. The Social Media giant boasts the largest online audience right now. Combined with the rich targeting and re-targeting options they offer, it’s now easier than ever to build loyalties and attract new audiences using look-alikes.

Installing Facebook’s Pixel should be as obvious today as installing Google Analytics. And using a single platform like HubSpot to track and engage users across your social, blog, and website experiences is critical to a successful social strategy.

Interested in learning more about how to leverage any of these ideas in your current marketing strategy? Schedule a time to chat with me or follow me on twitter, where I share more thoughts like this.