If you're looking for an inexpensive way to market your business that really connects with your ideal buyers, content marketing is your answer. Need a refresher on content marketing? We have a whole category on this blog about it here, including a 'What Is Content Marketing?' post.
Hopefully you have a pretty solid foundation on what it is and some ideas on how to use it for your small business. Often the biggest challenge SMBs run into when starting their content marketing efforts is making a list of what content pieces they should offer. I suggest subscribing to some content marketing sites using an RSS reader like Feedly. You'll get plenty of ideas if you follow the right resources. All you have to do is do a search for content marketing in Google and a plethora of online resources will come up. When you visit any of these sites, look for this icon:
When you click on that icon, you will be taken to an RSS feed page on that site. It's going to look like something went wrong, but that's OK. You're good! You haven't broken their website!! The RSS feed page is a file that RSS readers like Feedly use to pull in the articles for a blog. The page you see should look like this:
Like the image suggests, you really just want the URL or web address of this page. Click in the address bar, highlight the whole address and choose Edit > Copy or Ctrl-C. Then, paste it into Feedly. That's it, Feedly will now pull the articles from that blog or site. The real value comes from adding multiple sites to Feedly so that you don't have to jump from site to site looking for inspiration. Just open feedly and there they all are.
Some Content Marketing Sites You Should Add To Feedly
I'll save you some time and list some great sites to follow for content marketing ideas and tips. Just copy the address to the right of the name into Feedly and you're good to go!
- protocol 80 - http://www.protocol80.com/feed/
- Content Marketing Institute - http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/feed/
- Marketo - http://www.marketo.com/content-marketing/
- Duct Tape Marketing - http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/category/content-marketing/
- Copy Blogger - http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/
- HubSpot - http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing
How to Audit your Online Marketing
If you are executing digital marketing, congratulations! You are most likely already one step ahead of your competition, and making strides to meaningfully connect with prospects online. But, how do you know if you’re seeing continual success year over year, and improving your metrics?
Without the tools in place to analyze and benchmark your efforts, it is impossible to scale your online marketing and ensure continuous success.
