Determining a well-defined target market is the first step towards a successful marketing strategy. Ask yourself who is already interested in your product or service – as well as who might be – and you can attempt to address their needs (as well as reach your clearly defined marketing objectives) with specific content marketing. For [...]
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Elizabeth Quintanilla, a marketing consultant and owner of EQ Consultant Group in Austin, Texas. She shared some valuable insights on her path to becoming a marketing consultant and ideas for using LinkedIn to help your career. What led you to choose marketing as your profession? What you are [...]
Derek Halpern is the author of Social Triggers, a popular blog that shows how to use findings from academic research to be more effective in marketing and business. In this talk at Affiliate Summit, he discusses research that suggests ways to improve conversions on your website. Some key takeaways from the talk: -The British College [...]
A successful campaign to increase valuable traffic to your website starts with understanding the right keywords that you want your website to rank for. Keyword research can help you determine what potential customers are searching for and uncover opportunities where your site can move up to the first page in search results. The following resources [...]
Hiring for SEO can be tricky for two reasons: First, it’s difficult if you aren’t overly familiar with SEO yourself, and second, even if you do have an SEO background, it can be tough to know what questions to ask someone because it is such a new industry. Most colleges and universities don’t have classes [...]
I recently had the chance to chat with Alex Avery, an online marketer who started his own SEO and web design consultancy, Webology Marketing in Seattle, Washington. In this interview he shares insights from his experience of starting an independent SEO business and things that have helped it grow. How did you get started in [...]
What kind of behavior brought upon the notion of the Pepsi challenge? Did Pepsi suddenly get curious, wanting to battle with competitor Coke without prompt? No, Pepsi wanted to clean the ‘brandwashed’ associations residing in Coke drinkers’ heads. A number of consumers are ‘brandwashed,’ routinely seeking the same services and products, forming an allegiance to [...]
David Meerman Scott, author of several successful marketing books including The New Rules of Marketing and PR and World Wide Rave, gave this talk about inbound marketing at the Inbound 2012 conference. Takeaways from the talk: -Hubspot generated a million dollars of business from the free tool, Website Grader. -Amanda Palmer fired her record label [...]
This instructographic by Portent Interative provides some helpful tips if you want to reach out to bloggers, editors, and webmasters to try to get a link to your content. Even if you create an awesome piece of content, you still have to promote the content to get it in front of influencers who can help [...]
I recently received a Google Nexus 7 which is a great compliment to a larger tablet like the iPad. The smaller form factor of the Nexus 7 (it has a 7 inch screen) is more convenient for times when you don’t want to carry the larger device. The 1.33 pound iPad 2 can start to [...]
We all know having a website for your business is crucial if you’re going to stay relevant to your customers. Unfortunately, a lot of small business websites are less than stellar. I would argue that having a bad site can be even more damaging than not having a site at all, because a site with [...]
The holidays present wonderful opportunities to email marketers. They give you another reason to connect with your subscribers at a time when offers and the promise of savings are more enticing than ever. If you have a product or service to promote, they can be an integral part of the strategy that helps you generate [...]
A good marketer never stops improving and strives to keep up with the constant changes in the marketing landscape. That’s why a marketer should never stop honing their marketing and people skills. There’s such an overabundance of marketing books out there that sometimes it’s difficult to choose one that will be worth your time. Here’s [...]
Seth Godin has been challenging conventional business ideas for over a decade with influential books like Purple Cow, Tribes, and Linchpin. Here are some great videos of Seth Godin sharing his ideas about marketing, challenging the status quo, and being remarkable. I also included my notes of the top takeaways from each video. How to [...]
I recently purchased the Point Blank SEO Link Building Course and highly I recommend it for anyone whose job involves building and earning links. Jon Cooper is a bright young online marketer who also attends the University of Florida. He is the author of Point Blank SEO, one of the best blogs on the topic [...]
I recently had the opportunity to interview Lauren Hall-Stigerts, a marketing consultant and founder of Marketing Gal, a marketing consultancy in Seattle, Washington. She shared her insights into what it is like to run a small business, tips for time management, and how she uses social media to develop relationships. Can you tell us about [...]
“Getting someone, who has a need, to know, like and trust you.” -John Jantsch “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” -Peter Drucker “Marketing is about communicating true value and significance to your audience.” -Ian Lurie “Marketing is telling a story about that value that resonates with people enough that they want to [...]
I recently had the opportunity to review Nick LeRoy’s recently released eBook on conducting an SEO audit. Nick LeRoy is a well respected SEO consultant from Minneapolis and has contributed to popular sites like SEOMoz and Point Blank SEO. This is an excellent eBook to pick up if you work in marketing or own a [...]
As a general career path, Steve Huffman has had it pretty sweet. He has some pretty impressive skills under his belt and some pretty impressive achievements, too. But as with any successful business man – it hasn’t been plain sailing. From his role as web developer and co-founder of Reddit, to the founder of new [...]
Guest blogging is an effective way to increase your online visibility by getting in front of new audiences and earning authoritative links back to your site. When used right it can increase traffic through referrals and improved search engine rankings. However, be careful to avoid the trap of wasting time on sites that are off-topic [...]
