Business Growth Blog

Business owners that I talk to commonly tell me they are hiring an “SEO Company” or an “SEM Company” to drive organic traffic to their website. Here’s the thing: SEO is not a stand-alone service. It should be the backbone of every marketing initiative you do. In this video, I share the one thing every business can do to get found on Google. Without it, your SEO success will be limited – or non-existent.

Business leaders and sales and marketing teams work hard to find and engage new prospects and keep existing customers happy. Sometimes teams are so busy creating campaigns and pursuing their top accounts that other highly qualified leads slip through the cracks. Engaging and maintaining contact with warm prospects that need more time or education to make a decision is essential for sales pipeline growth and sustainability.

To help explain how to get started developing a warm lead follow-up program to convert more low-hanging fruit into real sales opportunities, I interviewed Shannon Mulligan, Owner of Vast Results, a virtual sales team. Her team helps organizations create and implement professional and consistent follow-up campaigns.

We’ve rebranded! When we added Moon Marketing as a DBA back in 2013, we thought it had a nice ring to it. It’s alliterative, Moon is my last name, it’s descriptive, and it’s a fun theme to play off (space) - so why change it? There is one primary reason why we decided to make the shift.

It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it. Whether you’re writing an email, blog article, or social media content, you need to integrate compelling words that will make your readers want to take action. The first 30 words can make or break a piece of content that's packed with valuable information. Engage readers with interesting words and spare them the monotony of repetitious text that will send them running. Here’s a great infographic on verbs I ran across recently that I thought would be a valuable tool to help with creating compelling articles your readers won’t scroll past your content.

You want to grow your business. You know you need to do more marketing to expand your reach and attract more customers. You also know that good marketing isn't cheap. It's scary because you're thinking of increasing expenses, but you don't have a clear vision of what you'll get in return.

I regularly talk to companies that are considering starting an inbound sales and marketing program, but they lack the technological capacity required to do the work.

While there's a variety of sales and marketing technology available, the tool we've had the most success with is HubSpot. They put all the necessary functionality required into one system, which improves data sharing, communication between the teams, and work efficiency.

The hardest part of implementing a content marketing plan is figuring out what to write about. Companies usually begin in the self-promotional phase: they write about upcoming trade shows, new hires, case studies, and press releases. The content is very company-centric.

While it’s great to showcase the company culture, products, and services, it’s kind of boring stuff. It’s not likely to pique the interest of many new potential customers.

The most successful content marketing strategies are customer-centric. The content is written to teach, inspire, and motivate. Prospects find it interesting and helpful and become followers and evangelists for the brand. Good content helps companies build a following, generate leads, and increase sales efficiency.

Here are eight steps to help you start developing a list of relevant, highly valuable topics for your content strategy.

Hiring an outsourced marketing agency is a big decision. It’s not much different than hiring an internal person. These are people you’re going to work with to get important work done, and you want to ensure they’re capable and a good fit.

While there’s no question that each agency is unique and brings different skills and resources to the table, here are 7 things you should expect from any outsourced agency you hire.

I was talking with a client recently, and she told me an interesting story. She said people frequently email her to share that they really enjoy her daily email newsletter. Which is great, except for one thing: She only emails newsletters once or twice per week, not daily!

When she replies to thank them and shares that she only sends newsletters a couple of times per week, her readers are surprised. They really thought they were getting an email from her every day.

When I heard this story, it got me thinking about what this actually meant.

Sometimes I go an unsubscribe spree - I unsubscribe from almost every newsletter that comes into my email inbox. Even emails I like to read. After a while, I just get too many, and it becomes overwhelming. I never read half of them anyway. I hit the “select all,” quickly scan to see if anything stands out, then hit “delete.”

I tell my clients that email marketing is a crucial part of a business growth strategy. And here I am, opting out after opting out. So what's the deal? Is email marketing important or not? Here's my philosophy on what email marketing is really about.