Sometimes, all you need to achieve breakthroughs in business is a good mentor. The path to growing a small business using digital marketing is never easy nor obvious. Yet, by following the guidance and advice of others, it can quickly become more clear.   Business owners these days have more advantages than ever when it comes to finding great marketing insights online. Whereas a few decades ago you’d have to buy books and attend talks in person, now mind-blowingly great advice is just a few clicks away.   To help you find the information and inspiration your small business needs to achieve greatness through digital marketing, we’ve compiled a list of 10 of the best digital marketing experts worth following. Their content and vision will help you cut out bad habits, embrace change and start engaging in strategies that grow your business reliably.   Neil Patel Twitter: @neilpatel Blog: https://neilpatel.com/blog/   Neil Patel has a ridiculously great resume to add to his inspiring, can-do personality. He co-founded KISSmetrics, Hello Bar, Crazy Egg, Quick Sprout and countless other companies.   Reading his bio on QuickSprout reveals a fairly inspiring rags to riches … [Read more...]

Promoting your blog posts on Facebook is one of the most cost-effective, efficient and smart strategies you can use to drive traffic back to your blog.   First of all, Facebook audiences are huge! Facebook also remains the most-used mobile app. 81{b235773794fa317823e0ea4e47f68f5abbefb7b28ba30d9813ac48dc3dfe14f1} of devices have it installed.   And, since the majority of internet traffic is now mobile and the majority of mobile time is spent in-app, Facebook represents one of the best chances you have at getting views, shares, likes and new followers for your business.   If you’re a business owner wondering how to drive traffic to your blog using Facebook, here are eight airtight strategies you can use to get maximum visibility and a higher rate of readers with each post.   Make It a Habit to Share Every Post You Write Make sharing every single post you create for your blog a habit. People are more likely to keep up with your content on the social platforms they already use compared to obsessively checking your blog page.   Consider each Facebook share as important as the blog itself. Think of the Facebook post as your store window. You want it to be enticing … [Read more...]

So you sit down to come up with topics for your next couple of blog posts and...nothing. You draw a total blank.   Sometimes business blog post ideas come hard and fast like a heavy rain. Other times you have a total mental drought on what to write about next.   Don’t sweat it! There are a couple of blog formats that can work well for just about any subject. Adding them to your repertoire can make coming up with your next blog post topics as easy as falling off a unicycle.   In fact, you can use this list to plan your blog strategy for months in advance. If you make some of these blog post types a recurring monthly series, for instance, you can know exactly what you’ll write about at least half the time.   So get out your notebook or spreadsheet and jot down the following eight great blog post formats that have a way of working well in just about any context.   (Note that the letter “X” stands for any number of list items you end up using. We’re also using [Topic] as a stand-in for whatever subject or focus you’re writing about.)   1. Best Practices in [Topic], X Killer Tips for [Topic], X [Topic] Hacks You Didn’t Know About, X Steps to Get Better at [Topic] … [Read more...]

With just a few improvements, your social media profiles could become the crown jewel of your digital marketing strategy in 2018. By switching up your approach and committing to a higher level of quality, you could soon be generating more leads, revenue, and interest in your company with minimal effort.   The great thing about social media marketing is that it doesn’t have to take a lot of your time to work wonders. If you plan ahead and use social media to reinforce your other marketing activities, you can achieve huge ROI through both organic and paid social campaigns.   So, to inspire you to improve your social presence and go beyond expectations, try implementing the following five highly effective social media marketing improvements in 2018.   Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy Document Writing down your marketing ideas matters. According to CoSchedule, professionals who document their planned marketing strategy are over five times more likely to achieve success. Also, 88{b235773794fa317823e0ea4e47f68f5abbefb7b28ba30d9813ac48dc3dfe14f1} of people who set marketing goals actually achieve them.   Documenting your social strategy involves both high-level and … [Read more...]

Few business owners have both the time and skill with words needed to do their company blog justice. Business blogs need to look polished and represent the brand well, yet learning to write professionally is a trial-and-error process.   Considering all these personal limitations and high expectations, outsourcing blog writing makes perfect sense. But there is a right way and a wrong way to hire a writer. Many business owners commit hefty mistakes when offering someone the chance to take the reins on their business blog.   Here are six of the biggest of those mistakes. Watch out for them when hiring a blog writer to avoid frustrating setbacks and to ensure your blog is as great as it deserves to be.   Going With the Lowest Bidder This is absolutely the most crucial mistake. Remember the maxim: “you get what you pay for.”   Hiring the cheapest writer you can find creates problems because it assumes the only goal for your blog is to have something published on it. In reality, you want every article published to fit a few criteria:   Proper grammar, spelling and syntax An engaging structure that is as easy to read to completion as it is to skim quickly A … [Read more...]

Content marketing and blogging have proven to be effective digital marketing methods. Done right, they can generate leads and convert people to the next stage of your marketing funnel.   Yet, plenty of company blogs completely struggle to meet their content marketing goals. For one reason or another, they fail to find the right audience — or, for some, any audience at all.   Other blogs earn plenty of traffic but lackluster conversion numbers. Still others have myriad issues of their own related to various mistakes in strategy, positioning, site design and more.   To help you pinpoint where your issues may lie and how you can improve your blog performance, we have come up with five reasons why your current blog may not be working. These observations come from common company blog mistakes in the industry and how the top blogs fix them to find success.   You Don’t Have Your Target Audience in Mind Before you write a new blog, you should always stop to check in with your audience goals. Namely: who is this blog for?   Consider your ideal target audience based on who you think will help you succeed in your business goals. If, for instance, you are a B2B software … [Read more...]

Facebook has come a long way since its debut in 2004, especially when it comes to the Facebook Advertising platform. Facebook has almost single-handedly turned paid social media marketing into a cornerstone of modern digital marketing tactics.   In the next year to come, we can all expect Facebook to evolve in deeper ways. These evolutions include both new features and shifts in the way business will be able to use Facebook ads to reach prospects.   Let’s explore the most important Facebook advertising trends for 2018. With them, you can improve your marketing funnel and hopefully find more leads than ever in the coming year.   The Importance of Facebook Video Ads Mobile audiences eat up video more hungrily than ever. Altogether, Facebook users watch over 100 million hours of video a day.   As a result of their demand and improvements in video players, we have seen an explosion in both paid and organic video content.   On average, videos on Facebook get 135{b235773794fa317823e0ea4e47f68f5abbefb7b28ba30d9813ac48dc3dfe14f1} more organic reach than photos.   Your business can potentially improve both its organic reach and engagement on paid posts by … [Read more...]

Email marketing has come back in full force, and brands that know their way around best practices can reap huge returns. According to a survey of marketers conducted last summer, the average ROI from email campaigns was over 100 percent! This ROI beat out other marketing channels by over four times, including social media, paid search, and direct mail. One study from 2015 even found that email marketing could generate as much as $38 for every $1 spent, which equals a mind-blowing 3,800{b235773794fa317823e0ea4e47f68f5abbefb7b28ba30d9813ac48dc3dfe14f1} percent ROI. For anyone trying to squeeze more out of their email marketing or turn around their lackluster campaign success, here are 7 pointers for increasing the effectiveness of your email efforts. Segment Your List (Or Risk Being Irrelevant) Talk to people about topics, products and ideas they are interested in. According to an infographic by Mailigen, using segmented, relevant messaging more than doubles your open rate while driving 18x more revenue for your campaigns. This approach makes a lot of sense if you have ever been to a party where someone is droning on and on about something you just don’t care to hear about or have any interest in. “Have … [Read more...]