HubSpot team says, “Business owners and entrepreneurs are busy people; they often lack the time to read through marketing materials. So how do you get them to pay attention to your info? For many, the answer has become video. Short videos are easy and personable — just the thing to encourage sales. So we asked 13 successful founders how they were incorporating video into their marketing efforts, and why it was working”. 13 Interesting Ways to Use Video in Your Marketing HubSpot  [...]

Emma Snider says, “For all the powerful processing work the human mind can do, it’s still prone to making bizarre assumptions or jumping to an illogical conclusion every now and then. Problem is, we don’t even recognize these patterns as strange. They’re built into the fabric of our thought — so to us, they just seem normal. But upon examination, they’re revealed to be anything but normal. Why else would we buy Beanie Babies in bulk? Or consider a rhyming tagline to be “truer” than a non-rhyming tagline? Thanks, psychological biases. Like it or... [...]

Brittany Leaning says, “Hey there, marketer. I’m curious … what’s really going in that day-to-day work life of yours? When you say you’re working from home, are you actually being productive? When you have a deadline, do you wait until the last minute? What are you actually doing on LinkedIn? It’s time to speak the truth. Below are 15 graphs and charts showing how we really spend our days. If you can relate to one, click the “Pin It” button to share it with your friends and colleagues. And don’t worry, we won’t tell your boss”. The Life of a Marketer: 15 Charts... [...]

Everybody needs a place to sit, a bed to sleep in and a table to eat from. That’s why all around the world, people spend billions on furniture every year. Amazon affiliate marketers like you and me can take advantage of this constant stream of traffic buying furniture to build a business selling the furniture everyone needs. The home furnishings industry offers any Amazon affiliate the chance to make money with an affiliate site catering to this niche. When you enter this niche you are offering everyday people an opportunity to create a better life for themselves by making their home more comfortable. CoolIce... [...]

There’s an attractive new WordPress theme that can be used in many ways, but is being targeted to small business websites and sites that collect leads for small businesses. The Metropoli Theme builds attractive sites and is easy enough to use that you don’t have to have any tech skills to make a good-looking site. If you build sites for clients, or rent sites to local clients or sell leads, this theme can give your work a fresh modern look. You get a developer’s license, so you can install on your own sites and client sites, as many as you choose. Metropoli Theme comes with loads of flexibility.... [...]

Eric Devaney says, “284 million. That’s how many monthly active users Twitter has. Believe it or not, Instagram has actually surpassed Twitter with 300 million monthly active users. (For comparison, the fourth most populous country in the world, Indonesia, has a population of 255 million.) And then there’s Facebook, with 1.35 billion monthly active users. That’s billion … with a “b.” In other words, Facebook’s user base is just a hair smaller than the population of China, the most populous country in the world (with about 1.37 billion people). Stats... [...]

Siobhán McGinty says, “According to retargeting platform AdRoll, only 2% of shoppers typically convert on their first visit to an online store. That’s a lot of people slipping through the cracks. What’s a marketer to do? Enter retargeting. Retargeting allows you to zero in on those 98% of visitors, giving them a second (and in some cases third, fourth, and fifth) chance to convert. Here’s how retargeting works: It allows you to show targeted ads to potential customers via search, social media, and other websites. They see them, click back to your website, and then... [...]

Mike Kunke says, “Sales process and sales methodology are written about frequently. When I talk to leaders, both inside and outside the sales function, I still hear a lot of confusion on these topics. Why the confusion about sales methodology, you ask? I think there are two primary reasons. One reason is the confusion caused by some overlapping terms. Processes, when documented to a deeper level, involve “process steps” which are often not sales related or tied to the buyer interaction. Methodology includes frameworks and models, which have “skill steps” and involve the interactions... [...]

Eric Murphy says, “According to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 B2B and B2C benchmark reports, less than a quarter of marketers are able to prove content marketing ROI. Measurement is a key area of difficulty: 49% of B2B and 51% of B2C marketers were challenged with measuring content effectiveness in 2014. While definitions of effectiveness may vary by team, it should at least be simple to figure out if you’re successful once you define what “success” means. Here are two simple steps to establish a baseline for content effectiveness and prove if it’s failing (or not). Step... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “Creative trends can be fickle. Remember those super glossy CTAs that used to be on every website? Now, flat, minimalistic design is in. Whether you’re a seasoned or amateur designer, no marketer should be in the dark about the latest design trends. So what’s in store for 2015 in the creative world? Using their impressive collection of video clips, music tracks, and over 47 million images, Shutterstock created an infographic that predicts this year’s up-and-coming design trends. Check it out below to learn what trends are on the up-and-up around... [...]