Email marketing is a popular and effective online strategy for small businesses (as well as large corporates).
Awesome marketing articles every entrepreneur should read
Content fatigue, when it comes to finding innovative and creative marketing advice, is becoming a serious time burglar for me. It is getting harder and harder to find the really useful nuggets of info hiding behind mounds of mediocre content and fake influencers.
That's why I've decided to put together a list of the best articles I come across over the course of 2016 - to save you the hassle of monitoring hundreds of sites yourself. I'll continually update this page whenever I see something genuinely useful that I deem worthy.
Topics include everything from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to email marketing, social media marketing, strategy, tools, services, guides, tutorials and anything else you and I need to know about the state of marketing on the Web.
So, without further ado, here's my list of the latest, greatest articles in the field of small business marketing.
Short or long content? Here's what the data says
Given the massive glut of online content it's not surprising that smart people are figuring out ways to get their noses in front when it comes to competing for traffic.
To make things more complicated, Google enjoys changing its mind about what it prefers. There's some evidence to show that it likes more in-depth content... but not always. Confused yet?
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
What's nice about this article is the data driven approach showing actual Google positions plotted against total word counts, plus graphs on where the optimum article length generates the longest time on page visits. Super interesting.
16 Copywriting Mistakes You’re Probably Making (and How to Fix Them)
Entrepreneurs and small business owners are in a difficult spot. They aren't publishing experts, yet it is important to leverage the power of content as a way to bring in traffic, generate buzz and drive engagements and relationships. Shanelle Mullin offers some great examples of some of the most common copywriting pitfalls, with intelligent solutions to steer your company clear of them.
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
Whether you are thinking about how best to produce blog content, or convert leads using emails there is a lot to be said for being smart, focused and professional about the content you put out there on behalf of your business.
We Analyzed 1 Million Google Search Results. Here’s What We Learned About SEO
Brian Dean's article on BackLinko shares the data and analysis they gathered from looking at a million Google SERPs. The results are a big wake up call for anyone who thinks that being able to drive organic search traffic is not that hard.
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
A really short summary of their findings would be 'rich, in-depth content with many quality backlinks on high authority domains will dominate'. Doesn't sound too hard, right?
How We Answer Quora Questions to Drive Traffic to Our Website
Cara Tarbaj offers some excellent practical advice (along with screenshots of their traffic showing proof that it works for her) on how to make the most of Quora in order to generate referral traffic from useful answers.
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
While Quora's links are nofollowed (meaning you get no backlink benefit in Google), providing great answers that link to your own content will ultimately drive qualified and engaged referrals.
40 Tips for Dramatically Better Emails
Jimmy Daly brings an expanded and improved version of the original post, '20 email best practices', that proved extremely popular. Now with 40 tips, illustrated and explained with plenty of examples and screenshots, you are bound to find at least a handful of things to improve your own email campaigns.
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
As Jimmy says, much of the content may seem a bit basic, but almost all of the advice form part of the core of emailing best practices.
Monitor competitors' sales & learn their marketing mix
If you're in the eCommerce industry then it's likely you would be rubbing your hands in glee if someone could share all your competitors' sales data and marketing strategies, right? That's exactly what SME Pals shows you how to do using RT500 Enterprise - an online tracking service that monitors product sales in real-time (as well as offering a free Amazon best sellers research tool) and notifies you when items experience unusual sales peaks (or dips).
My favorite quote from the article:
It's probably worth pointing out that since RT500 has over 5000 customers, it's likely that some of your competitors are monitoring your sales and learning from your marketing . So why not learn from them?
10 Tips for Getting Long-Term Traffic to Your Content
Sujan Patel does a great job of demonstrating how content is not simply the act of writing blog posts and hoping for the best. Instead it requires research, planning strategy and that's all before you've even put pen to paper.
My favorite quote from the article:
What's really worthy of closer inspection is the section on outreach and how to use services like BuzzSumo to reach out to the right influencers who can help generate some traffic.
How To Go Viral: Lessons From The Most Shared Content of 2015
Steve Rayson uses data gathered from the most popular articles of 2015 in order to research and analyze what features endowed them with viral(ness). To sum up, surprise people, use trends, be inspirational, and use stunning rich media - images and videos.
Here's my favorite quote from the article:
The truth of the matter is that no-one has a foolproof formula for what makes content go viral. But, starting with a huge platform of engaged followers is arguably the best start you can make.
So that's all we have for now. Please bear in mind that I'll add to this list every time I come across a genuinely brilliant article, so bookmark this page (and share it with your followers) and check back in regularly.
Also, if you have any suggestions for articles I should include here, feel free to drop me a line in the comments and tell my why you think that article should be among the best of the best.
"Are you looking for some great content marketing strategies that will help to generate plenty of buzz around your blog posts and articles?"
Content marketing is not only important for getting your content read by other people.
One of its primary purposes is to help establish authority so that your content enjoys high page rankings and gets plenty of organic search traffic from Google.
Modern email marketing campaigns, especially from small businesses, need to be able to grow a killer mailing list and deliver awesome emails to the right aud
Use three quick and easy steps (plus a few secret SEO & marketing hacks) to research competitors online, learn what they are doing to succeed an
Coming up with marketing ideas for small business can be a challenge.
Starting an affiliate program to market your business online is a great way to get real growth - but it comes with dangers that you must manage pro-actively from the start.
By definition, affiliate marketing hands a degree of control over to the publishers who market on your behalf.
Because these publishers are incentivized with sales commissions, they may end up using advertising and promotional strategies that your own company might not be comfortable with.
It can be a challenge, especially if you're new to the game, understanding what marketing jargon means.
Any company that outsources their customer service is being silly, and are inviting competitors to swoop in and pilfer their client base.
Customer service is one of the few real opportunities you have to forge a solid relationship with people. Why on earth would you want to hand it over to someone else (who hides you from the people that sustain your business)?
And while handling customer complaints and queries can seem like a chore, it can be converted into one of the most powerful marketing strategies available to you.
Anyone looking to grow their business using a mailing list will likely want to make use of one of the leading online email marketing services - but which one?
As a business owner, you probably don't have time to set up a free trial on every site around, so it helps to know which one can get you started the easiest.
SME Pals has already done an analysis and comparison review of the top email marketing services, but that analysis doesn't really speak directly to how easy or hard it is for a beginner to set up their own email based campaign.
The first time I started an online business I spent the vast majority of my time actually creating the service.
When I started my first company some years ago I placed all my focus on creating a great offering, but almost no effort went into sales and networking. Needless to say that it took an incredibly long time to get off the ground - 6 years in fact.
During that time I learned a lot about how business works, and my focus has shifted almost completely onto sales, marketing and networking.
Nowadays, a good idea with a quality product backed by excellent service is the bare minimum required to succeed. Because there is so much competition (especially online), what sets companies apart these days is how effectively they can network and promote themselves.