Jayson Demers says, “You already know that content marketing is one of the most valuable marketing strategies you can use for your brand. It doesn’t cost much time or money in the startup phase, and it has the potential to bring an enormous return. And all of that is great. But how, exactly, do you know how much of a return your content marketing is bringing? What if you end up spending more money on it than it’s worth? Knowing how to calculate ROI for your content marketing campaign proactively addresses these dilemmas. When you know your ROI, you can make the necessary adjustments... [...]

Brian Patterson says, “There has been a lot written about click-through rate (CTR) as it relates to SEO. Some say that itreally doesn’t matter. Others say that it is very possible it does. Reading articles, experiments and case studies is great, but we’re always eager to test things out for ourselves. We maintain a bunch of test websites for just that purpose. And so we decided to run a CTR test on one of the websites we hadn’t touched in a long while. The hope was to gather some evidence of our own. If you’re looking for a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled test, this... [...]

Andrew Ruegger says, “Market-leading site analytics providers such as Google and Adobe continue to bring new insights about consumer behaviors through advancements in their analytics and tag management offerings. Both Adobe (Marketing Cloud) and Google (360 Analytics) have made big strides in improving their offerings to include tag management, measurement, attribution, optimization and more. These are designed to equip brands with the tools needed to maximize the value of their media investments and web traffic data. One free and easy place to look for new insights into your consumers is... [...]

Lauren Hintz says, “A sales sequence is an outreach strategy that’s personalized to each and every buyer, but also part of a repeatable framework. What’s the best way to reach out to a prospect? When? How many times do you reach out before you give up? Creating sequences for your company’s buyer personas will add structure to those ambiguous questions. The first step in determing the right sequences for your sales team is to create buyer personas. When developing your personas, keep them simple at first. In practice, you might target small and large companies in three... [...]

Andrew Gazdecki says, “Not so long ago, mobile apps were a reserve of large corporations and businesses. However, that ace in the hole for the big guys has changed rapidly over the past two years. Today, smaller companies are serving clients better and seeing much greater returns on investment thanks to mobile apps. Any way you look at it, humans are wired to be social. Nobody wants to be secluded from what is happening in the world. The fact that mobile is social cannot be overemphasized. Just like in formal chatting and video calling, businesses can push sales through the mobile device.... [...]

Iman Jalali says, “I value LinkedIn more than any other website. I would gladly give up access to Facebook, Twitter, or my vice, Reddit, before I would let go of LinkedIn. Whenever I mention this, people think I’m crazy. You might be thinking that right now. Well, it’s probably because you’re not taking advantage of everything that LinkedIn can do for you or your business. Time to level up. If you think of LinkedIn as a large database of resumes and nothing else, you’re so wrong. It’s a rich source of information and a social network. If you’re in sales, and you’re not using... [...]

Dawn Papandrea says, “Does this sound familiar? You have a limited marketing budget, but you need to make meaningful connections with your target audience. Adding to the challenge is that your target audience is not known for its tech savvy. That’s exactly the situation Thao Le, vice president of marketing at Hyland’s, set out to conquer when tasked with promoting the homeopathic medicine company’s Hyland’s Leg Cramps product to active seniors. She never anticipated that the journey would lead to the creation of a hyper-niche content platform called Pickleball Channel. Yes, pickleball! Within... [...]

Lena Brooks says, “In 2016, video is an important part of the content marketing mix, and it’s here to stay. Video has an uncanny ability to quickly warm up potential customers and connect them to you and your product. YouTube, the largest repository of videos, offers you the opportunity to create a dedicated audience of subscribers; and as the second largest search engine after Google, it’s not to be ignored. All that sounds very tempting, but if you don’t have video experience, it can also be very intimidating. When Magoosh, the company I work for, started making branded... [...]

Annie Pilon says, “There are so many different ways to market a business online these days. But luckily, you don’t need to try all of them in order to find out what works. Members of our small business community have already done some of the legwork for you. Here are some of their top tips for developing an effective online marketing strategy. Increase Website Traffic and Get Better Leads Getting traffic to your website only really helps your business if you’re able to convert some leads. But there are some simple methods you can use to increase your web traffic while also converting... [...]

Samantha Anderson says, “B2B inbound marketing can be incredibly effective in regards to your specific marketing goals, whether it’s to generate new leads, improve your sales, build brand authority, build brand trust or simply increase brand exposure. However, what some businesses don’t understand is that B2B inbound marketing is a long-term strategy, not a short-term one. Inbound marketing consists of numerous strategies. If one element happens to result in instant results; for example, a video that goes viral and receives thousands of shares, it’s generally an anomaly. Trying... [...]