Small Business News

Author: blog.statuspage.io

It took us 6 months to get to $5k MRR, and then only 4 more months to 5x that to $25k in MRR.

What drove customer acquisition and awareness around our product to drive growth? You’re reading it.

Our blog was the biggest reasons for our initial revenue growth at StatusPage.io. We had occasional, but massive content marketing home runs that have driven huge numbers of sign ups and shares, for a product that people probably wouldn’t otherwise seek out or know that they needed.

Not every post takes off. But the ones that we do strike sweet take off, really fly, hit the bull and win a steak (#bullcity).

It’s may seem dramatic, but a single blog post can literally change the trajectory of your business. Here’s why.

Once you’ve written your article, it can be read by an unlimited number of people. A single article could easily pull an extra 100,000 people to your site. Compare this to sales — one sales rep can only contact a fixed, much more limited number of people.

You’d potentially have to spend thousands in advertising to see the same effect. For a mostly bootstrapped company like ours, we simply don’t have the capital on hand for that to be an option. There are few ways that a couple of hours of labor can turn into thousands in MRR growth like having a content marketing home run.

 

Read More at blog.statuspage.io

Author: moz.com

In October 2013, Fractl published a study on viral emotions on the Harvard Business Review. The research was picked up by several high-authority publishers, catapulted our brand’s authority, increased our brand awareness, and drove dozens of qualified leads. To our expectation, we proved that our client-facing, research-driven content marketing strategy could have the same long-term impact on our own brand. Then, we were off to the races.

In early 2014, we launched a survey of more than 500 top-tier publishers. Then, we released a study analyzing 2.6 billion social shares. By November 2014, we joined forces with influencer marketing tool BuzzStream. To date, we’ve launched more than 10 industry research–driven marketing campaigns, earning more than 180 pickups and 45,000 social shares.

The bottom-line impact? Fractl’s referral traffic grew 6,718%, its total site traffic grew 4,396%, and its contact list grew 1,900%.

Of course, this strategy wasn’t launched without lessons along the way; here is what I learned:

 

Read More at moz.com

Author: Kostas Tsiamis

There is a well-known saying that “content is king” and in today’s global virtual market nothing comes closer in describing its importance than that exact phrase. In an era where information and communication are channeled through a variety of venues, the value of solid content used to promote one’s business can’t be emphasized enough.

Effective and efficient content marketing campaigns need a strategy that is well designed up front, a strategy combining both content marketing and SEO goals that will pay dividends in the long term when it reaches the right audience.

The right kind of content will ensure that your business builds a lasting connection & engagement with your target audience while seizing opportunities to inspire customer action and develop a strong brand awareness.

The right strategy is rooted on four important steps: Analysis, goals, audience, content.

Before you set out to build your content it is vital that you conduct a comprehensive data collection regarding: the company, the product (s), the existing competition, the target audience (who are they, how old, where do they live, what’s their educational level), your current positioning in the market, your SWOT analysis(which will look into your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and the environmental factors (economic factors, socio-cultural developments) that can affect your campaign in the long term.

 

Read More at webseoanalytics.com

Author: itunes.apple.com

YOU158 – Why Live Events are a Great Business Building Model, with Chris Marr Creating and hosting a live event is an incredible opportunity for you and the people you’re serving. If you’ve ever considered hosting your own, or just wondered why in the world anyone would ever take on such a momentous task listen in to today’s episode! Chris Marr of The Content Marketing Academy in Scotland joins (…) Continue Reading

YOU157 – How Influence Drives Change and Innovation, with Gary Vaynerchuk There is one man among today’s entrepreneurs I’d classify as a living legend and he is here for today’s episode.

 

Read More at itunes.apple.com

Author: Tami Wessley

We were curious about what business professionals thought about marketing. We took a look at recent survey results and reports that compiled data on the topic, and created a list of 10 B2B marketing strategies commonly recognized as successful regardless of industry. Here’s what we found, in no particular order:

A marketing phenomenon popularized by startups with tight marketing budgets, growth hacking combines creativity, analytical thinking and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure. Growth hackers leverage social media, viral marketing and other low-cost alternatives to traditional media for one absolute focus: growth.

 

Read More at weidert.com