Top 10 Small Business Marketing Blogs Today In 2012

Who Do You Listen To About Marketing?

First let me say that the image above has absolutely nothing to do with the post.  I just thought it was funny and people would get a kick out of it.  I know my wife did, she looked like this after she saw it.   But it was worth it, she was mad at me today anyway.  Something about doing the dishes or what not.

Anywho, lets get rolling on this post, what do you say?

When I began marketing online, or anything for that matter, I have learned that you need to qualify your mentors.  You don’t want to be following some one hit wonder and find out later that they just got lucky.  Or worse yet, they are someone who is just repeating some stuff that they learned somewhere else.  You need to be listening to people who are actually doing what they are teaching.

For example, lets say you want to learn how to make money in the real estate business.  Who are you going to listen to?  Lets say you had access to anyone that you wanted.  I personally would choose Donald Trump.  They guy has been in and out of bankruptcy a couple times.  But today he’s still worth billions.  I wouldn’t listen to some TV reality show star who is famous because of the show.

In marketing I choose to listen to people who are out there doing today.  Not someone who has taken to just teaching it.  With that in mind here is how I qualified each of these small business marketing blogs and have declared them my Top 10 Marketing Blogs for 2012.

How I Qualified Them

The first factor I picked is probably the most important.  Quality of the content on the site.  If the content provided me absolutely no value or was just a teaser to get an opt-in I passed.  Nothing worse than reading a post from an expert only to get told you only received half the story.  Why write information if your only going to give up half.  Now don’t get me wrong I don’t expect people to give away the farm for free, but at least live up to the headline right?

The second factor I used was traffic to the site.  How can you be good marketer or a recommend resource if you don’t have people coming to your site all the time?

The final factor that I used was the amount of people who made comments on the site.  Good quality content tends to generate tons of comments from loyal fans.

Top 10 Marketing Blogs

In the spirit of David Letterman’s Top Ten List, here we go!

NUMBER 10 – Digital Ethos (http://digitalethos.org/) Digital Ethos (formerly DBMEi) is a Not For Profit organization responsible for “Facilitating Awareness & Education in Digital Communications”.  The site has many different resources a marketer can access in order to learn more about their craft.  The organization uses its blog, newsletters, a print magazine, distance learning portal, and live conferences in order to educate people on all things digital marketing.

NUMBER 9 – Hubze (http://hubze.com/) This site is all about social media marketing.  They provide access to tons of content about the subject.  There is also access to a couple cool tools that you can use for your business.  I have used some of there paid tools and they were not too bad.  I would recommend them if asked about their Facebook page tool.

NUMBER 8 – Marketing Tech Blog (http://www.marketingtechblog.com/) If your like me you enjoy taking advantage of technology to not only enhance your marketing, but to make it that much easier.  Now don’t get me wrong, tools can hurt your business as much as they can help if used improperly.  That is why this site is on my top ten list.  Not only do they recommend the use of technology.  They actually show you how to use it right!

NUMBER 7 -Viral Blog (http://www.viralblog.com/) I know you have heard thousands of different methods to get website traffic.  And every marketers dream is to create a piece of content or image that goes viral.  This website gives you some great tips and usable ideas to actually do it without some gimic involved. They also discuss disruptive marketing and social media strategies.

NUMBER 6 – Tatango (http://www.tatango.com/) The Tatango SMS Marketing blog is unique from the rest of the blogs on the list because it provides tips, tricks, and advice on text message marketing. This type of marketing campaign is fairly new, and finding helpful information is difficult. Tatango, however, does a great job of providing quality information on text message marketing, in addition to attaching engaging graphics with every post.  Wondering if text is right for you?  Think about this, an average of 3-5% of emails are opened when sent.  An average of 97% of text messages are opened.

NUMBER 5 – CopyBlogger (http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/) Want more traffic, links, subscribers, and a profit-generating website? Copyblogger gives you the solutions you need to succeed.  There are several different tools that you can use including their Scribe plugin that help you optimize your site both on and off page.  They are also the creators of the ever popular Genesis WordPress theme and Premise Plugin that creates landing, capture, and sales pages with ease.

NUMBER 4 – Hubspot Blog (http://blog.hubspot.com/) Hubspot is a company that provides a software to help people who are marketing online through SEO, email marketing, and social media marketing.  One of themes of the site is inbound marketing, which basically means any piece of content that is created in order to bring people to your site or funnel.  Of course the entire site is designed to bring you to a landing page to get a demo of the software.  But you can take advantage of the tons of free information and training available.  I was on a few of their webinars and they were all no pitch zone and the training was very valuable.

NUMBER 3 – Jeff Korhan (http://www.jeffkorhan.com/) Jeff brings his experience in business and couples it with social media marketing.  Being able to apply these techniques is key if your small business is going to survive in the new marketing environment.  When your looking for someone to listen to, qualify Jeff as a Fortune 50 Sales and Marketing Manager with an MBA. Founder of a construction services company that was twice named Business of the Year.  And someone who now applies three decades of marketing experience to helping people develop sustainable marketing practices that capitalize on emerging trends.

NUMBER 2 – Jeff Bullas (http://www.jeffbullas.com/) Jeff is a consultant, coach, mentor and speaker and works with companies and executives to optimize their online personal and company presence and brand with digital marketing and social media through the use of social media channels and other web and mobile technologies.  This blog is about all things to do with Social Media and Online Marketing, including Twitter, Blogging, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and inbound and content marketing.

NUMBER 1 – GKIC Small Business Marketing (http://dankennedy.com/) I won’t sugar coat why Dan Kennedy and his partners at GKIC are the absolute best when it comes to marketing online.  They are behind some of the most successful launches around.  They host some of the most successful live conferences around.  And more importantly, Dan has taught some of the biggest leaders in the industry not only online marketing but direct marketing offline as well.  Through the use of both mediums, if you want to make money quick and over and over again for your business.  This is the blog you need to read everyday.

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