We are all overwhelmed as marketers with the millions of tools, tips, and help available for startup marketers on the web. From scam artists to wannabes, there is far too much junk to climb through to get to the good stuff. The folks at exploreB2B compiled a list of 30 resources and I found that a large number of my favorites are here, but felt like I should compile a list more oriented to the needs of startups here in Miami. The list contains people that are practicing the absolute best at content marketing, by providing incredible value to their readers to build their authority. If you are responsible for marketing for your startup, then this is the list for you. The key is to find your favorites and put them in your RSS feed reader or setup email alerts for those that really speak to you and meet your needs.
If you want to learn online marketing or want to take your skills to the advanced level, this list will get you there.
There a couple of missing sites from their list that I put in mine. My go to site for a lot of training and incredible depth of knowledge is Marketing Experiments. They are the parent company to one of the sites on the list, but do a far better job providing hands on training, posts, and webinars as well as studies around everything that is marketing online. MarketingExperiments.com out of Jacksonville, FL should be the number 1 site on your list. I use them and I force everyone that works for us to use them to learn the very best in the fundamentals of marketing. I 100% vouch for the incredible knowledge to be gained by using the resources at this site for promoting your startup or established company.
Another resource from the b2bexplore list also has a sister site on the list – KissMetrics and that is Neil Patel’s SEO and Content Marketing site called Quick Sprout. I can’t tell you how much I have learned from his posts and newsletters and guides. What I can tell you is that while we do a great job for our clients using SEO techniques, his Advanced SEO Guide is the absolute best resource for rocking search engine optimization. After 3 months of work on a client’s site following the instructions in that guide, we have already seen a massive increase in traffic for our targeted keywords and it just keeps growing. I can’t wait to try out his recently released Advanced Content Marketing guide.
Here are my top 10 marketing resources for startups and really companies of any size or age:
- Marketing Experiments – See description above
- QuickSprout – See description above.
- Copyblogger – Excellent writing tips anything from style to structure to headlines.
- Marketo – This marketing automation software company practices inbound marketing at it’s best and provides a great deal of phenomenal content.
Hubspot – Relentless suppliers of marketing content in the form of ebooks, ppts, videos, and more. Always the best quality. This is another marketing automation tool provider.- Kissmetrics – This company is also owned by Neil Patel and their detailed analytics tool is excellent, but their free content is even better.
- Content Marketing Institute – When you are ready to get serious about content marketing or inbound marketing, then this is the place to start. They are the reason that this strategy has become commonplace and will someday save us from the inane advertising that clogs up the Internets. They make their money from conferences and resources, but provide a lot of free information.
- Moz (formerly known as SEOmoz) – Great tools and great content, including the bible of SEO – The Beginners Guide to SEO. Start here for SEO even if you think you already know it. This is a great open book company recently funded by my friend Brad Feld of the Foundry Group. Climb into CEO Rand Fishkin’s blog for more on how to run a great technology startup. You will learn a great deal.
- Velocity Partners – These guys are the UK rockstars of content marketing and they prove it every day on their site with incredible how-tos and tools posted along with an open and honest look at themselves and their strategies. Example Blog Post: Crap: the single biggest threat to B2B content marketing. Get started with Velocity with B2B Content Marketing Strategy Checklist.
- Seth’s Blog – If you don’t know Seth Godin, then you don’t know marketing. Go to his blog, buy his books, and wake up! 🙂
Those are my top picks, but there are plenty more on the list, so go check them out and start learning.
What are your favorite online marketing resources. Post them in the comments and I’ll put them in a later post.
H/T – 30+ Great Resources for Online Marketers – exploreB2B.
