17 marketing blogs every small business owner should read

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1 17 marketing blogs every small business owner should read Marketing is one of the most important yet least understood topics required to turn a small business into a big business. There are many different channels you can use to grow your reach, both free and paid, but a great marketing plan starts with a strategy and understanding your options. To help, we ve compiled a list of great marketing blogs every small business owner should read. You can use an app like Feedly to subscribe to these blogs and really start to boost your marketing knowledge. Whether you have a big budget or not, investing time to understand the right way to market your business is the one of the key factors that will determine your success. 1. The Buffer Blog Buffer is a social media scheduling tool that lets you post to Twitter, Facebook and other networks at scheduled times throughout the day. Their blog is a wealth of information not just on marketing, but also productivity and building a successful startup. 2. Ramsay Taplin In his blog, Ramsay Taplin focuses on the one objective that all successful small business are based on: making customers happy. For two years Taplin penned his no holds barred

2 posts under the pseudonym Blog Tyrant and gained 10,000 subscribers; the onetime Robin Hood of the online marketing world definitely knows his stuff. 3. Small Business Mavericks Like all good bloggers, self-professed Marketing Geek Caroline Melberg updates her website daily and she s a good contact; if there s something happening in the industry that involves small businesses, Melberg will let you know about it. At around 200 words per post, her blog is a perfect morning quick info fix. 4. Damn, I Wish I Thought of That! Andy Sernovitz is a genius; his oddball take on marketing and branding is imperative to small businesses as his niche is connecting with clients on a human level. It s basically Business Psychology 101. Also, check out WordofMouth.org where Sernovitz details how to make everyday communication buzzworthy. 5. Boost Blog Traffic Written by former chief editor of CopyBlogger Jon Marrow, this is a great blog for small businesses who want to tackle the allusive art of effective content marketing. Articles like Why You Suck at Guest Blogging (and What The Pros Do Differently) provide a baseline no-nonsense approach to generating quality content. 6. Influence Marketing This blog focuses on understanding how to measure the effectiveness of brand influences in social media marketing. Influence Marketing dissects complex platforms and new technological advances in an easily digestible often humorous manner (e.g. they refer to Klout as the Official Kardashian Sister of start-ups ). 7. Small Business Brief Perhaps a little daunting for a marketing rookie Small Business Brief is a list of links to lengthy corporate-style articles. This is a strictly business means business blog, albeit a

3 very solid one they source their content from industry heavyweights like The Wall Street Journal. 8. CopyBlogger The authority on how to write amazing copy (text) and why it matters. Helpful when writing product descriptions, s, thank-you cards, marketing material and so much more. You ll learn a lot from this blog. 9. Mari Smith Mari Smith is a Facebook Marketing Expert, Relationship Marketing Specialist, and allround Social Media Wonder Woman (just check her stats over 120,000 Facebook followers). 10. Project Socialize Project Socialize is a fun, hip approach to small business marketing that puts a big emphasis on establishing and cultivating an online community. Recent posts include Snapchat for business, creative crowd funding and the importance of Pinterest. 11. Marketing Eye Contains over 400 posts dedicated to small business marketing. When the company launched a decade ago, founder Mellissah Smith envisioned creating the world s best small business marketing firm; her posts are all about taking big ideas and formulating practical strategies to make them come to life. 12. Get Busy Media This group of start-up young guns are a fresh new voice in the world of small business marketing. The team of 7 post articles from the very pragmatic New WordPress Themes for Small Businesses to the entertaining How to Look Like A Social Media Superstar. The beauty of this blog is that the variety of posts makes for good reading business or pleasure.

4 13. Small Biz Survival The owner of a liquor store in rural Kansas Becky McCray knows all too well the challenges and pitfalls of running a successful small business. Small Biz Survival is about exactly that how to maximize marketing to ensure your business stays afloat. It s honest, heartfelt and realistic advice from a professional who has been there. 14. Attention Getting Marketing Marketer and author G.B. Oliver was crowned by the American Express Open Forum as one of their Top 10 small business blogs to follow in Oliver knows how to sell tangible products online and although this blog is engineered primarily for the retail sector, his infectious go get em attitude can be applied to every small business. 15. Duct Tape Marketing Marketing consultant and author of The Referral Engine John Jantsch covers simple, effective and affordable marketing techniques for small businesses on their way up. By simplifying new technologies and social media platforms, John provides a plethora of accessible solutions and it s well worth subscribing to his weekly marketing podcast and newsletter. 16. Small Business Branding Run by small business owner Ken Chandler, this blog comes from a team of authors who all specialize in a specific field (branding, affiliate marketing etc). The content is fairly heavy and takes longer to digest than standard posts, however this blog provides the complete picture on how to market, brand and grow a small business. 17. MarketingSherpa A wealth of not just blog posts but also whitepapers and research on every marketing topic imaginable. MarketingSherpa has long been known as the marketer s marketing bible and for good reason.

5 What are your favourite small business marketing blogs? Do you write one that could help our readers? We want to hear from you on Twitter or in the comments below! Feature image by Adriam Spender via Flickr