It’s been a long and not so cold winter around here, finally getting back to updating with some new and interesting material.

Here is great article on Allegra’s (our parent company) marketing innovations. Read More

Using social media is no longer an option–it’s practically a requirement for small businesses who want to connect with their customers. While the tools change almost daily, the goal stays the same: interact with customers and create trust. If you’re late to the bandwagon (or just want the latest), check out the link below.

Internet Marketing for Small Businesses

This week’s post is going to share some content marketing tips that prove not only helpful, but successful. Top Rank Marketing Blog shared these tips and I thought I would share them with you. Checkout 10 Tips for content marketing success for more in depth information on these topics.

• Ensure all content passes the “So what?” test
• Create remarkable content, take chances, stand out
• Speed and agility are factors
• Personality is essential
• Content should forge connections
• Worry less about perfection, more about tone
• Make content scan-able (and attractive)
• Draft sticky headlines
• Consistency and quality
• Realize promotion can’t help bad content

By utilizing these tactics, you can insure that your efforts are as productive as possible. Consider the following quote from Top Rank concerning content and advertising:

The captive audience is dead. There is no captive audience online. Everyone surfing the web has billions of choices on what they can be viewing, and they don’t want to be viewing intrusive and annoying ads. They’ll either ignore them, block them or go elsewhere.

Advertising is content. You can’t think of ads as separate things any more. Without a captive audience, there’s no such thing as “advertising” any more. It’s just content. And it needs to be good/interesting/relevant content if you want to get anyone to pay attention to it.

Content is advertising. Might sound like a repeat of the point above, and in some way it is — but it’s highlighting the flip side. Any content is advertising. It’s advertising something.

Here is a great resource for free case studies that generate great content marketing ideas:  Idea Launch It always helps to see what others have done and what has been successful in the past. Do you have any great content marketing ideas? We would love to hear about them and share them here.

Understanding and navigating the marketing world takes understanding. The changing landscape of marketing and sales is constantly being changed and mutated by technology, communications, and social interaction.

This week we want to share a great resource and article from entrepreneur.com. In a guest article, Susan Guneliu, shares 10 Marketing Trends for 2010 that will help to educate and inform on potential marketing strategies that will prove productive in the coming year.

Susan Gunelius is president and CEO of KeySplash Creative Inc., a full service marketing communications provider and branding consultancy, and owner of WomenOnBusiness.com, a leading blog community for business women. She is the author of several books, including Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps, published by Entrepreneur Press. Her newest book, Building Brand Value the Playboy Way, is now available.