Top 20 Marketing Blogs to Follow

 

There’s a wealth of information online, but when it comes to marketing your small business, you want to separate the fluff from the actionable advice you can really use to grow your business. We’ve compiled your short list.  Check out these 20 small business marketing blogs.  Follow them on Twitter. Add them to your RSS feed.  Bookmark them in your browser.  Or just keep this list handy so you know just where to go to stay up to date on marketing trends, tactics and strategies.

1. StoryNeedle

Those who find themselves alienated by dry marketing lingo may wish to check out StoryNeedle and its narrative-focused approach to marketing. This blog from Michael Andrews, an independent content strategist currently based in Rome, Italy provides content strategy for a “post-device era.”

2. MarketingProfs

Run by a network of marketing professionals (it lives up to its name), MarketingProfs is the go-to source for comprehensive information on most any marketing topic. Headed up by Ann Handley, it’s a must-read blog for marketing professionals and newbies alike.

3. Copyblogger

This is a great place to start if you’re new to content marketing. Get superior content marketing education so you can build a remarkable online presence in the format you prefer – Copyblogger shares content in article, audio and video format so you can easily download and digest.

4. Coschedule

Coschedule is another awesome content marketing resource. And, you can check out their free headline analyzer tool to make sure your content is getting every ounce of attention it deserves on social media.

5. Buffer

Not only are they social media gurus, but Buffer is also known for their transparent take on business. You can follow their social media blog as well as Buffer Open, Buffer’s journey to great productivity, more transparency and a happier work culture.

6. Social Media Today

Every small business knows they need to be on social media – but creating a presence, measuring engagement and converting social media leads into customers can be tricky.  Social Media Today offers up best practices, tips and tricks to help you make the most of the resources you dedicate toward your social media channels.

7. Fast Company

Fast Company puts the spotlight on innovation and creativity in the world of work – taking a look at technology, leadership, and the most innovative companies. Follow their blog to get inspired by thought leaders who are actively inventing the future of business.

8. Hootsuite Life

Hootsuite Life is “an owl’s-eye view” of Hootsuite’s people, products, and community. Hootsuite has long been the social media champion of small businesses, and is a great place to go for social media advice.

9. Duct Tape Marketing

As a small business owner, sales and marketing isn’t always your specialty. Headed up by John Jantsch, the Duct Tape Marketing blog offers up sound advice for small business owners who are literally “duct-taping” their sales and marketing together on a dime, but need big results to grow.

10. Moz

11. Small Business Trends

Headed up by Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends is an award-winning online publication for small business owners, entrepreneurs and the people who interact with them. It is one of the most popular independent small business publications on the web. Check out their marketing section for marketing help.

12. Violeta Nedkova

Violeta Nedkova‘s blog is perfect for all the rebels out there who’ve decided to embark on the journey that is owning your own business.  Check out her site for tips on branding and setting yourself and your business apart from the pack.

13. DIY Marketers

Ivana Taylor and her team provide easy and affordable tips for small businesses who need big results, but have limited resources and limited budget. Get DIY marketing ideas, tips, tools and strategies to help you reach more customers in less time – for less money.

14. IMPACT

The IMPACT blog is the perfect resource for owners who are new to the arena of inbound marketing.  Get the latest in inbound marketing, sales, design, & conversion rate optimization.

15. OkDork

OkDork is the personal blog of AppSumo‘s Cheif Sumo, Noah Kagan. It is focused on startups, marketing, self-exploration, and tacos. He shares secrets about the best ways to write a cold email, business books he’s read, memorable experiences, how to deal with depression, growing email lists to 20,000+, and how to make it easy for others to say yes.

16. Marketing Land

Marketing Land is a daily publication that covers all aspects of the digital marketing industry. Daily news coverage includes breaking stories, industry trends, feature announcements and product changes at popular platforms used by digital marketers to reach consumers online.

17. Seth Godin

Best-selling author and marketing expert Seth Godin offers up business & life advice on his blog.  His posts are digestible chunks that get to the point, yet really make you think.  When you need to look at your business from a different perspective, Seth’s blog is the perfect place to go for game-changing insight.

18. Oktopost

Want real marketing hacks that actually work? Head over to the Oktopost blog for data-driven social media strategy, advice and tips that get you what you really want…leads, conversions and customers.

19. Jeff Bullas

Jeff Bullas is an entrepreneur, blogger, author, marketer and speaker who works with personal brands and businesses to optimize their online personal and company brands with emerging technologies, content, social media technologies and digital marketing. His blog covers entrepreneurship, social media, content marketing and digital.

 

20. BenchmarkONE

Our small business sales and marketing experts share content daily.  Geared toward small business owners and marketing agencies that serve small business content, we deliver actionable advice that you can use now to start attracting more leads and customers.  Check out our blog so you can stay in the know when it comes to digital marketing, social media, and running a small business.

In the Tinder dating app, users “swipe right” when they are interested in a person and want to meet them to potentially date. Drumming up new business is actually quite a bit like dating. You’re working to put your product or service’s best face forward like you would on a dating app.  You’ve chosen the best profile picture possible to attract your target audience. You’re also looking to generate as much interest as possible, messaging each potential partner for a while before deciding to meet up – kind of like how marketers nurture each potential lead for a while before the decision to make a purchase is finalized.

Since a Tinder-like app doesn’t exactly exist for small business owners (if only it were that easy!), you have to come up with other ways to find and attract new top of funnel leads.

But don’t worry – getting those top-of-funnel leads to “swipe right” for your business is easier than you think.

Write On

Just like in online dating, you have to put yourself out there to get noticed. Yes, you have a great product, but does the world know that? Probably not. One way to spread the word and drum up new leads is to tell people — through writing blogs and social media posts.

Use blog posts to tout yourself as an expert in your industry and discuss the latest trends and problems around that topic. As long as you’re utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) when you’re creating these blog posts, people will find them when they’re doing a search on the topic. Those searches will bring them to your site where, should you have a nifty little checklist, white paper or other offer alongside your content, presto, you have a new potential lead.

For social media posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, you can link to your blog posts, of course, but you should also post more than just that. If every one of your posts looks like it could have come from an RSS feed, the followers you have will bail and you won’t obtain new ones. Woo potential leads by giving your social media posts some personality. Also comment on news in your industry to again be seen as an expert in the field.

Like in dating, being authentic through content and social media is a great way to pique the interest of new leads, enticing them to learn more about your business.

Coffee Talk

Coffee or drinks are both informal ways to test the waters with a date – or with new leads. Is your office spacious or unique in some way? Offer up your space to a local networking event first thing in the morning or during happy hour. Typically, the creator of the event will thank you by giving you a few minutes to talk about your business. Use social media to broaden your reach by asking attendees to “check in” on FB at your business, reaching their friends, who may check out your site and become a new lead or customer.

If you don’t have a great space for hosting, consider sponsoring an event to build brand awareness.

No Booth Babes

When it comes to online dating, there’s always the potential to misrepresent yourself – whether through a fake profile pic or content that’s just not true to you.  While tempting, faking it to attract your audience – in dating and in business – usually ends badly.

So, forget the “booth babes” at your next tradeshow. Instead, you and your sales team should be there to showcase your authentic business and culture.

Sometimes, as an exhibitor at a tradeshow,  you’ll get lucky and receive a list of all of the registrants after the show, but often, you won’t and it’s up to you to wrangle and track those leads yourself. There are a number of apps you can use to scan conference and tradeshow badges to gather the leads, which makes it easy for you to then upload those leads all once into your CRM.

Either way, use tradeshows as an opportunity to showcase your unique personality, style, and value-prop.  Create an authentic experience at your booth that will draw in attendees and keep the buzz going about your business at the event, on social media, and beyond.

Seal the Deal

Like in dating, you never want to come off as clingy – it makes you appear desperate, and let’s face it, undesirable. So, once you have all these new top of funnel leads, resist the urge to send them a one-off “Hey, buy my stuff. It’s great!” email and consider it done.

Instead, nurture those potential leads throughout the buying cycle from the top of funnel “awareness” stage all the way through to “purchase” with personalized emails and offers.

As a savvy small business owner, you understand how important it is to focus on sales and marketing. Even if you don’t feel like you have this crucial business discipline wired yet, it’s at least on your radar.

But even though you are focused on marketing, you many have overlooked certain “tools” that could add some real juice to your marketing results.

Today, let’s focus on one of the biggest: social media. Done right, social media marketing can be a business booster for small companies like yours. But what’s the operative phrase here? You guessed it. “Done right”. The goal of this article is to give you some practical, easy-to-implement tips that can help you do social media marketing right for your small business.

Remember The Big Picture

Now social media is a small (and big) business hot topic. There is a myriad of options you can choose. And the current mania seems to be to try the latest social media or digital marketing tool just because it’s cool or the latest thing.

Before we go any further, I have one word of advice about this: Don’t! Do not choose a social media platform, or any marketing tool, just because it’s popular. Likewise, don’t discard what’s working for you just because it’s “old”.

Work from a well-designed, comprehensive marketing plan that addresses every aspect of your marketing efforts. And plan for, analyze and research every choice you make regarding social media platforms for your business.

Some social media platforms will be wrong for your business. Think about it. If you have a small distributorship that sells industrial machine parts to manufacturers, do you think you are going to find much of an audience on Pinterest, a platform on which 80% of the visitors are women between the ages of 25-45, many, if not most of whom are on the site for hobby, craft and lifestyle-related interests?

If you sell arts and crafts, do you think you will find much of an audience on LinkedIn, the world’s largest social media site for business professionals?

Understand your buying audience well and go to the online sites where they are most likely to congregate. Do your research and leg-work before you embark on your social media journey. Some questions to ask yourself:

Is my business focused on Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing?

What products or services do I sell?

What is the age range and predominant gender of my audience?

Do they prefer visual or written content?

Is the scope of my sales and marketing local, regional, nationwide or larger?

Mapping out your buyer persona can help you answer all of these questions about your audience.

Some Universal Rules

Even though you may never meet your social media audience members in person, you still want to develop a relationship with them. Relationships are a two-way street. There is give and take. So don’t just blast out content; don’t just “talk”. Use social media to listen to your audience.

Approach the relationship with a generous attitude of giving. Give value to your audience with no conditions, with no expectations or demand that they give anything to you in return. Here’s a thought to consider: give enough in a spirit of sincere generosity, and you will get. Big time!

Here’s a huge social media no-no, especially on LinkedIn. When you connect with a new person, don’t immediately spam them with a request to buy your product. Of course you hope they will buy from you one day, but don’t ask them right away. Build a relationship first. Add value to this relationship. Maybe, down the road, you can approach them in a low-key manner about buying from you.

Here’s a great way to add value on a social network like LinkedIn where you have connections with specific individuals, not just followers. Once you have a network built up, look for situations where you can introduce members of your network to each other for their benefit.

This is powerful! You serve them unselfishly. They can benefit from the introduction, assuming you introduce the right people to each other. They will remember what a nice thing you did for them. Everyone wins!

Remember that social media doesn’t exist in an online marketing vacuum. It needs to be integrated with other parts of your online marketing. Put a link to your email signup/content download page on your social media profile or company page. Make it easy for readers to share your latest blog article on their favorite social media sites. And remember that you want your website to be your online marketing hub. Make it your goal to use social media to drive traffic back to your website.

Once the traffic is there, work on converting it into leads and ultimately sales. Don’t disregard this last step. In social media marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in vague, fuzzy notions like “engagement” or awareness. I’m not saying these don’t matter. They do. But the ultimate goal should be to impact website traffic, leads and sales.

So along these lines, focus on what matters most. “Views”, “likes” and “shares” are nice. But they don’t pay your bills. Sales pay your bills. And effective social media marketing can help you make sales.
One more thing: Once you have all of those leads, you need a proven tool that can help you turn them into customers and raving fans. Find out more here.

Your website is often the first encounter that a potential customer has with your company. They may stumbled across it through a Google search, or get directed there via a social media post; an advertisement; or a friend or colleague. But, for most visitors, the journey isn’t over once they get to your site. You need to make sure that they stay on your site and — most importantly — convert into a lead or customer for your small business.

You need to design your website for conversion to entice them stay, give up their valuable contact information, and leave them wanting more.

Here are 4 website conversion tips to help you do just that:

1. Serve Up Something Sweet

In order to get visitors to your site to convert and become a potential lead, you need to offer them something in return for their contact information. No, offering visitors “the ability to be emailed by us repeatedly” is not an incentive. Trust me. It’s not. Instead, try offering a targeted email course that gives your website visitors real, tangible value. 

Putting your blog posts or articles behind registration doesn’t work either. Visitors won’t register for content they expect to receive freely – like blog posts and videos. They will register for content that solves a problem they face – whether it’s in the form of an infographic, ebook, white paper and beyond. Give them something that’s worth their while, and they’ll happily give you their name and email address. It’s a great way to start a relationship with a potential customer.

2. Light the Path to Conversion

One way to entice visitors to convert is to ask them for the least amount of information possible the first time they register on your site. Think about it: When you first visit a site, are you more likely to fill out a form that has just 3 to 4 fields in it or one with 10 plus? That 10 to 12 field form would have me running for the hills and thinking twice about if I really want that piece of content, while the shorter form is far less scary.

Through the use of marketing automation on your site, you can first ask for just a first name, last name, company and email address. Then, when that contact revisits, sales and marketing technology can recognize them, track their activity, and send a relevant email or email campaign to guide them to the next step in the sales funnel. As that person revisits your site and downloads more content, you can gauge their level of interest in your business, knowing just the right time to follow-up with a sales call.

By letting your visitors progressively build interest in your business at their own pace, you nurture fruitful relationships – instead of scaring them away with aggressive, sales-heavy messaging.

3. Know Your Audience

Make sure that the content you’re offering on your site is applicable to your target audience. It should be a mixture of content that covers each stage of the buying cycle – from people who are brand new to your site (aka “Leads”) all the way through to those who are new and current customers. That content should run the gamut from blog posts, videos and checklists for your brand new visitors all the way to user guides and FAQs for your customers.

If you need help, our Content Grid infographic is geared toward what content to send during an email campaign, but the same concepts work for your website as well.

4. Test for Success

Just like you need to do A/B split tests when sending emails, you should also be doing so with your landing pages. Test two different versions of one landing page; see which performs the best; test it again; see which performs the best; and test again until a clear winner (with the “winning” based on which page gains the most conversions) is shown.

When it comes to website conversion, there’s no room to be complacent. Even a small percentage increase in conversions can turn into big bucks for your business, so try these conversion tips and keep on testing.