As we near the end of 2019, it’s a great time to reflect on your marketing efforts from the past year. What worked? What didn’t work? Did your business grow as you expected? When it comes to strategizing for the new year, now is the perfect time to start implementing inbound marketing into your marketing plan. If lead generation and increasing your customer base are top priorities for your business, inbound marketing is a critical strategy to your success.

At first glance, coming up with your company's business goals may seem like it’s a walk in the park, or maybe it's daunting. What’s most important? Growing revenue by increasing clients? Maybe it's increasing your digital footprint or the number of visits to your website. While these goals are great and important to all businesses big and small, they lack the depth of a SMART goal. What are SMART goals you ask? Let's dive in.

If 2018 taught us anything, it was that we should not lose sight of the customer. So it's not surprising that for 2019 some of the biggest trends in inbound marketing would relate to how we as marketers and business owners can retain value around the ways we are connecting and engaging with the customer.

With all of the hype around social media, it may be surprising to learn just how effective email newsletters can be for your association, if done right. In 2017, 269 billion emails were sent by 3.7 billion email users. Both numbers are expected to grow into the 2020s, despite new communication options entering the market such as Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger and Slack, among others.

When potential customers are looking for your business online, what impression do they get?