Tag: Marketing

marketing blog

6 Great Marketing Blogs

When researching to write your own articles – or just educating yourself on trends and best practices in today’s marketing world – it’s important to read a variety of marketing blogs to gather different perspectives and apply them to your campaigns.

The following list are some of our favourite content pieces we read regularly for education, tips, tricks, and more.

1.  HubSpot

Pretty much known for starting the inbound marketing movement, they are giants in the marketing universe. HubSpot has three blogs: marketing, sales, and agency – each targeted to a slightly different audience.

If that’s not enough to satisfy you, their full list of blog topics is sure to have plenty of valuable content for you.

With that three separate blogs and publishing every single day, it’s necessary for them to have many guest blog writers (in addition to their staff) who offer many different perspectives and expertise. In the end, HubSpot’s blog sets the standard for all things inbound marketing and we’re pretty sure their blog is a lead generating machine!

2. Content Marketing Institute

CMI posts a new article every day, even on weekends and holidays. Their “This week in content marketing” series is a hit as they talk about the most recent news and events as it relates to content marketing.

Their most popular blogs are broken out between “Current Hits” and “All Time Hits”. Just like HubSpot and their publishing frequency, they have many different writers that offer expert tips and analysis. (The only distraction is the social widget in the left margin blocking content as you scroll.)

3. Mention

Mention’s blog features a search bar, their featured images on posts are consistent in design, and categories are easily identified across the top of the blog. Categories are easy to sort through and include “Most Popular” and even a “Startup Life” to see what other readers deem as most important for each respective category.

One unique detail is that under each article’s featured image, Mention shows an estimated reading time for the article (smart!).

Posts often follow a how-to style, making it easy to apply what you learn in each article. Even posts that aren’t specifically how-tos often have a wrap-up section that helps you understand how to implement what you read.

To top it off, Mention regularly hosts webinars that tie-in with their blogs very well. Join their next webinar (we’re co-hosting with them!) this Tuesday, January 26th where we talk about letting competitors build your marketing strategy.

4. Autopilot

Autopilot’s “Liftoff” blog is very clean and organized. They have a search bar, publish a few days per week, and are building a great marketing automation tool where you can “automate the customer journey, visually.”

If you’re in the market for a marketing automation product, give Autopilot a serious look. Their visual journeys make planning and executing lead nurturing and onboarding a breeze!

5. Inside AdWords

This is Google AdWords’ official blog offering news, tips, and general information on their advertising platform. They may not publish very often, but when they do, you can bank on it being valuable insight.

If you’re advertising with AdWords, how can you not want to read the content from the original source?

6. Buffer

Buffer are experts in social media publishing. Their blog features big, bold images that are easy to share with your social networks. They keep their content simple and witty, while taking deep dives into data when appropriate and analyze that data very well.

Blog articles also examine large companies or people using social and break down what they are doing well (and sometimes where they could improve). This way, anyone can take the nuggets of information and apply it to their own strategy (smaller case studies, for example).

 

social media

5 Social Media Customer Engagement Tips

Social Media can help you to grow your business – by attracting new customers, by strengthening your relationships with your customers, and by getting customers to refer your business to their friends and colleagues. The key to making this happen is to learn how to use Social Media to engage your customers; to have a conversation with your customers; to learn more about your customers’ needs;  and to help them to see how your business can satisfy their needs. In this article, we’re going to expand on those engagement tips.

1. Finding your customers

The first thing you need to do before engaging customers via social media is to find them! While most of your customers will probably have profiles on several major sites, odds are they either spend most of their time on one site or use them for different purposes (social vs. professional).  Knowing which site (s) they frequent makes it easier to engage them.

The most effective way to know which site your customers come from is closed loop marketing, which is tracking your customers from lead source through customer acquisition. You might think the site that generates the most leads is the best bet, but this isn’t always the case.

If you are unable to close the loop, then you can ask your sales rep to find out from their leads which social media site they use the most. You can also survey your customers if you don’t have a high-touch sales process. Lastly, if all else fails, the general rule of thumb is if you’re B2B, then use LinkedIn. If you’re B2C, use Facebook.

2. Adding Customers to Your Network

After you find your customers, you’ll want to add them to your network, which makes it easier for you to engage them. Unless you have an army of interns that can personally send invites to all your customers, you might want to take a more scalable approach.

One of the simplest ways to do this is to have your sales reps and customer success managers promote a social media account in their email signatures, business cards, etc. If your customers are friends with your employees and your employees share the company blog posts and updates as well as promote your company pages, then it’s easy to reach your customers. Of course, this isn’t always possible, as your employees may be uncomfortable doing this or you may not have 1:1 relationships with your customers.

Some other options are to create your own group and promote it to customers on your website and in product documentation. Just let them know what the group will help them with,such as major news and announcements, strategy guides, customer conversations, feedback, etc. If you don’t want to run a group, then you can always promote your company pages on Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Anyone who likes or follows your company will be in your network.

3. Share Great Content

When trying to engage your customers, don’t just share company news or promotions. Make sure you provide valuable content. If you provide content your customers want to read, they’ll keep coming back. You can then work in some marketing messages on occasion, much like a blog.

4. Actively Engage Customers

In addition to sharing content, you also need to engage your customers. If all you do is share content, you’ll still grow your network and you’ll get some readership. However, to really develop customer loyalty, you need to engage your customers so they feel special.

This doesn’t mean sending them messages and posting on their wall like your great friends. However, you do want to communicate with them. If you have a group or forum, don’t just answer questions but try to ask some of your own and generate discussions. Follow your customers and occasionally promote a great blog article they write or re-tweet something they post. Monitor social media in general for any mentions of your business so you can respond.

5. Stick With It

One of the more frustrating things about using social media and content marketing as a way to engage customers is that, more than anything, it takes time. You need to find your customers, get them in your network, engage them, and get them hooked on your content. This doesn’t happen overnight. In the end, the benefits will be well worth it, but you can’t stop a few months in. If you’re not getting results you want, try changing tactics, but don’t stop. If nothing else, think about how your competitors are doing the same thing. So unless you want them having more loyal customers than you, stick with it.

 

The Cheapest Marketing for Your Business

If you’re a small business owner, you want to maximize your marketing dollars to get the best results with the least amount of cash. They’ll look for promotions and buy content in bundles to save money. However, many business owners miss the cheapest opportunity around.

Your Social Media Bio

Most people don’t think of their personal social media account bios as a place to market their business, but it is. Sure, you don’t want to be that person who fills up their feed with promotional content or spam message all of your high school friends. However, you can and should use your social media bio to succinctly say what it is you do and why people should care. People are naturally curious about other people’s jobs, so make sure to use it wisely.

What Not To Say

Do not say “business owner” at a company they don’t recognize or simply “Self-Employed.” It might be cute but it says little about who you are and what you offer them. You want to maximize this opportunity to say what you do in something they recognize.

What to Say

Find how to translate what it is you do into what they understand and need. If you own a soap company, don’t say you’re the owner of a soap company. Say you’re an artisan soap maker with products available at this website. If you sell IT services, the word consultant means nothing. Use your bio to say what type of products you sell or have expertise in. Let them know.

You should never harass your friends to be your customers. Many of them won’t be. But someone might know someone that might.

marketing plan

How Business Owners Fail Marketing 101

Working on 1,500+ marketing projects this year gave us an indispensable look into how the business owners of small to medium-sized enterprises make decisions about how they market their business. We uncovered certain aspects of marketing they struggled with and how certain marketing tactics performed in the “real world.” We made this list of the most common ways business owners fail in marketing so you don’t have to make the same mistake.

Focus on Cost over Expertise

Recently at a vendor event, we spoke to the owner of a small retail store. He confessed that blogging was a major part of his business strategy but a real pain. Evidently, he bought 500-word blog posts on Fiverr from overseas writers who receive $4 before PayPal fees to write the post. He confessed they were so poor in quality he spent a few hours cleaning them up before finding a royalty-free photo and scheduling it to go out.

Triassic Media Group charges $100 for a blog post. On an initial comparison, this is more money. However, in many ways, it’s not. First, there’s the time of the original writer working for less than $4 an hour. (What kind of writing expertise does that kind of money buy? We’ll let you make your own conclusions here). Second, there’s the three hours or so the business owner spent re-writing the bad posts at around $33 an hour. Surely the business owner’s time is worth more than that. Third, the business owner is not a writing or marketing expert. Wouldn’t the business owner’s time be better spent working on their business or own area of expertise?

Our blog posts are 500 words that you won’t have to re-write. They’re written by a writer who’s earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and who writes professionally 40+ hours a week. They have the expertise to know what performs well and how to engage readers. We find royalty-free photos for our clients and create the meta data they need to keep up with SEO rankings. Plus, we schedule the post for you.

Try to Do-It-Yourself Marketing

When business owners try do-it-yourself marketing, I can’t help but think of the time I thought it was a brilliant idea to lay down laminate tiles in my living room. It looked so easy and think of all the money we’d save! Let’s just say, it took us 2 weeks to lay down the flooring and it looks goofy around the edges. We’re saving money up to replace it because every time I pass it I only see the issues with it.

Do-It-Yourself marketing is the same thing. It’s true eventually you may get it, but at what cost? The loss of a lot of time and a giant learning curve.

Post Inconsistently on Blogs and Social Media

Blogs and social media accounts can be great ways to reach your customers. Many small business owners heavily create content for these channels in the beginning when they have time. When they get slammed with work, they stop posting regularly if at all. The problem with this strategy is that it negatively impacts your business. Don’t start something you can’t keep up with.

If you visit a business’s website with a blog that hasn’t been updated in 3 years, do you think they’re still in business? If a social media page you liked a year ago posts something randomly for the first time, do you unlike the page because you forgot about this business?

Put All Your Marketing Eggs in One Basket

Some marketing techniques work for one business but not yours. Some take a long time to pay out. Some work for a period of time before not working. In many B2B businesses we’ve spoken to, they feel that their existing technique is SO GOOD they don’t need a blog. A few months later, they’ll reach out because sending catalogs out isn’t working anymore. This is why you need to diversify your marketing efforts and not rely solely on one strategy.

Marketing can be expensive, time-consuming and overwhelming. If you’re ready to invest in a strategic partner that relieves some of this pressure, contact us today at info@triassicmedia.com. For $1,000 a month, your marketing is done at much less than the cost of an employee.