Carrie Gallagher, HubSpot Consultant - Blog Archive

Author: John Rampton

Did you know the first business incubator opened in the U.S. in 1959? Now flash forward to today and there are more than 7,000 incubators worldwide (including Paul Graham’s Y Combinator). For decades, they have been helping startups with everything from technology training, crafting pitches, gaining knowledge from advisors, networking, office space and obtaining seed money.

It’s also been found that “the survival rate of incubated firms can be more than three times higher than non-incubated firms.”

SEE ALSO: Age of the freelancer: How a new breed of worker is redefining the 9-to-5

But what happens after you’ve made it through your incubator? Remember, 90 percent of startups will fail, so here are nine things to help you reduce those odds and grow your business.

Let’s start at the very beginning to make sure you chose your incubator wisely. Entrepreneur recommends you ask the following questions when selecting, or deciding if you need, an incubator:

What can you do and what should others handle?

Do you need the help of a specialist?

 

Read More at mashable.com

Author: Brian Clark

I once asked the Copyblogger community to name their biggest writing challenges.

From the many responses, a pattern developed:

How to get started

How to cut the fluff

These three issues are really symptoms of the same painful problem, which boils down to not clearly understanding what you’re trying to accomplish with your writing. Don’t worry … it’s a fairly common ailment.

There’s a five-step process you can work through that will help clarify your objectives, which leads to greater clarity in your writing.

This method also helps you kick-start any writing project (and finish it) with only the necessary elements, because you’ll know exactly what you’re after and how to make it happen.

Step #1: Begin with the end in mind

The most important step in the process happens before you even write a word.

You must understand your objective for the content.

You have an idea, but what’s the goal? From a content marketing standpoint, you’re usually seeking to educate or persuade (often both, and as we’ll see in the next step, they’re actually the same thing even when intentions vary).

 

Read More at copyblogger.com

Author: Ioana Lupec

Conversion rate optimization is a mandatory procedure for companies that aim to be the best player in their industry and stand out from the crowded eCommerce market. Even though we first heard of conversion rate optimization back in 2007, it’s benefits only became popular in the last three years. It’s a digital marketing trend that will certainly be on the “what’s hot?” list for the next year: early adaptors will be ahead of their competitors, building their reputation as leaders and as a top of mind choice, while those who lag behind will lose the chance to innovate their business.

As studies have shown, only 22% of businesses are satisfied with their current conversion rate. So there is plenty unexploited territory and many ways to get the attention of your website’s visitors: 78% of companies are not reaching their true potential and aren’t happy with their conversion rate.

So, the question is what can you do to upgrade your business to the next level and be recognized as top eCommerce website? In this article, I’ll provide a list of top five tricks you can apply on your eCommerce website to boost your conversion rate.

 

Read More at semrush.com

Author: Author

Have you stumbled upon a blog article or video that you shared with your friends through social media?

Then you’re living testament of how effective content marketing can be. In fact, it’s expected to increase in demand in 2016 and beyond. Why is that? You’ve seen it yourself: people nowadays enjoy learning and sharing information. Whether it’s a blog, video, news, or app (as long as it’s relevant to a particular group), that content has the potential to enhance brand awareness, attract leads, and even help customers complete the buying process.

If your business has not invested much on content marketing – or you feel that your strategies aren’t working – then it’s time to fill in the gaps.

You’ve heard it time and again: you can’t sell if you don’t know WHO you’re selling to. Unfortunately, most companies still make this mistake.

Marketing for businesses is highly different than marketing to end users. This is because they have different motivations. For example: an organization trying to sell software to a business that offers personal computers would need a special pitch to bait their client. It could be in the form of a proposal or a webinar. Meanwhile, the computer company should also have a customized marketing approach when selling their PC’s to end users (like us).

 

Read More at business2community.com

Author: moz.stfi.re

The problem is that the process looks easy. You brainstorm some ideas, choose one that you like, design and build it, do some outreach and you get traffic, links and social shares. Job done.

It’s a bit like link building, where someone may say, “Just build great content and the links will come.”

Unfortunately, it’s very rarely that straightforward.

Yes, sometimes you can get lucky and something will fly with little effort. But anyone that says that content marketing is easy has probably never done it over and over again. This is one of the reasons that I really liked this post last week by Simon Penson, because he admitted that he’d failed many times before getting it right. Simon pointed out that the plan he shared just increases the possibility of success — it doesn’t guarantee it.

In this post, I’m going to share our process for putting together a content marketing campaign. It doesn’t guarantee success either, but I’m positive that it puts us in a much better position than if we didn’t have a process at all. We’re always trying to improve this process, and it’s never going to be 100% perfect. With each campaign we do, there’s usually something we add or take away which also reflects the ever-changing nature of our industry. It’s also hard to manufacture and force that “ah-ha” moment, when you get a great insight into something and which then generates a great idea. Although this slide deck by Mark Johnstone helps make sense of how we get those moments in an excellent way.

 

Read More at moz.stfi.re