Rob Biederman says, “If only half of startups survive more than five years and only one-third make it to 10, what’s the one thing you could do to ensure your company is sustainable? The answer is to create a growth strategy for your business, of course. A growth strategy involves more than simply envisioning long-term success. If you don’t have a tangible plan, you’re actually losingbusiness — or you’re increasing the chance of losing business to competitors. Related: 5 Core Lessons for Expanding Your Growing Company The key with any growth strategy is to be deliberate. Figure... [...]

Ayaz Nanji says, “The most popular days and times that brands post content to various marketing channels aren’t necessarily the most effective, according to a series of reports from TrackMaven. The data came from a research series released last year by TrackMaven, including a Twitter report (based on 1.7 million tweets from 1,423 brand accounts), blog report (1.2 million posts from 4,618 brands), email report (93,000 emails from 2,000 email lists), Instagram report (accounts of Fortune 500 companies), and Facebook report (1.5 million from nearly 6,000 brand pages). Key findings from... [...]

Mike Kunke says, “Sales process and sales methodology are written about frequently. When I talk to leaders, both inside and outside the sales function, I still hear a lot of confusion on these topics. Why the confusion about sales methodology, you ask? I think there are two primary reasons. One reason is the confusion caused by some overlapping terms. Processes, when documented to a deeper level, involve “process steps” which are often not sales related or tied to the buyer interaction. Methodology includes frameworks and models, which have “skill steps” and involve the interactions... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “Tumblr began rolling out a major update on Wednesday that makes it more appealing to serious writers. While the blogging service remains hugely popular, with 420 million active users and 220 million blogs, many of its posts are only bits of text and media — abbreviated flotsam and jetsam — including celebrity quotes, animated GIFs, dog photos and so on. SEE ALSO: Ev Williams wants Medium to be the next big thing — after he redefines ‘big’ But the latest Tumblr update cleans up its overall look, and introduces new tools, including a text editor that... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Google announced full year 2014 revenues of $66 billion, which was up 19 percent vs. 2013. The fourth quarter saw revenues of $18.1 billion, up 15 percent vs. Q4 2013. Quarterly revenues and earnings per share were a miss, based on consensus analyst estimates. Shares were down in after-hours trading (but have since recovered). The following are the high level numbers from the release: Consolidated revenues: $18.10 billion. Google sites: $12.43 billion (18 percent growth). Network: $3.72 billion (up 6 percent). Other revenues: $1.95 billion (up 19 percent) GAAP operating... [...]

David Moth says, “As 2015 gets under way it’s clear that the opportunities for marketers have never been greater. But what will be the major digital marketing trends for the next 12 months? The latest Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing from Econsultancy and Adobe highlights the key digital trends, challenges and opportunities which marketers need to be aware of during 2015, covering topics ranging from customer experience and mobile to cross-channel marketing and personalisation. The report is based on a global survey of more than 6,000 marketers and internet professionals carried out... [...]

Lisa Hoover Mcgreevy says, “Despite a user base of nearly 300 million, Twitter recently announced plans to ramp up new account signups, along with a host of other offerings aimed at both individual and business customers. Reporting from Twitter’s first Analyst Day event in November, 2014, Mashable’s Seth Fiegerman said the company “plans to speed up its product development process to ease the onboarding process, broaden content syndication efforts, expand the overall app ecosystem and continue building up ad products.” Twitter execs have come up with a few different approaches... [...]

Pratik Dholakiya says, “You can’t count on Google. No matter how great you are as an SEO, counting on Google to send you traffic is risky business. Also, feeling entitled to free traffic from a search engine monopoly is a bad business model. I’ve always been a proponent of the idea that the best SEO strategy is the one that doesn’t count on Google. Such strategies aren’t only more profitable; they are also the most likely to last. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to get SEO myopia. That’s why I’ve put together seven traffic strategies that don’t rely on Google at all. While... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Facebook’s video surge is looking more like a tidal wave. In remarks during Facebook’s quarterly earnings call with investors today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook video is generating more than 3 billion views a day. That’s up from 1 billion daily views Facebook reported in September, a total that at the time prompted many to wonder if Facebook is becoming a challenger to YouTube. Today’s news — a tripling of views in three months — won’t diminish that talk. Of course, YouTube is still the video king. It no longer reports daily views — the most... [...]

Peter Beattie is releasing his latest templates for marketing videos, Instant Video Templates V5. These are the best and most diverse templates he ever released, and he has included 18 templates in his package, more than he included in his first 4 packages. The point of these templates is that he provides you background scenes and other video elements such as characters to use in building your animated marketing videos. These templates can be used to build videos in Powerpoint, Keynote & Open Office. You can also use the many video elements in software specifically made for marketers, such... [...]