Writing a blog is hard work. First, you’ve to come up with a niche that you want to focus on. Then you have to create a schedule of topics to discuss. Then you have to write about interesting topics, and you have to write well. Then you have to edit it. And then you have to publish and distribute it to the best of your abilities. And then… Well, there’s a bunch of other things that go before, during and after all that.

And to make things even harder, there are millions of blogs (152 million, to be exact) out there, and only so much time in the world for us to read them. That’s a lot of competition. 

The simple truth is: You’ve got to do things just right if you want to be successful at this blogging thing.

And you probably know that there’s a thing or do that you could improve.  Maybe they’re small details that you insist are too small to make a big difference to your reader numbers, or maybe they’re so big you’re scared to tackle them. But nothing worthwhile was ever easy, so first stop to figuring out what you’re doing wrong is to look at the basics. 

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You’ve probably noticed, and I apologize for sounding like a broken record, but there’s a particular wariness amongst quite a lot of people when it comes to marketing automation. Sometimes we love it, sometimes we hate it… But we always approach it with this sense of caution that seems to be specifically unique nowadays to marketing automation. 

It would take me weeks (if not months) just to compile a list of all the articles on the internet that have weighed in on the marketing automation debate. On a daily basis, we’re flooded with blog posts that argue for or against automation, for example: Is Marketing Automation Cheating or Just Slightly Creepy? & What’s Wrong With Marketing Automation? 

The battle rages on and on, and digital marketers who swear by automation tools are going way out of their way to defend them by telling you in excruciating detail exactly what automation is, how it should be used, and why it’s such an asset when used correctly. 

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You have a great idea for a business, the drive and passion that could make a business succeed, and the willpower to push this thing into life.

Of course, you’re going to make a few mistakes – It’s all a part of the learning process. But will you make one of these 10 mistakes that can kill a start-up?

Not if you read this blog post!

I’ve rummaged through the internet, reading, oh I’d say close to a billion articles, to come up with the top 10 reasons that start-ups fail. Heed these warning, and learn from these mistakes so that you avoid the fate of 90% of start-ups!

1. Failure to prepare a business plan

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In the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen Covey states that you should “begin with the end in mind”.

This is where your business plan comes in.

Sure, you’ve a great idea – But where do you want it to go?

Creating a business plan will allow for you to gauge exactly what resources you’ll need in order to succeed, and what are the different outcomes that you expect to see. It gives you some clarity with regards your business goals, and allows for you to understand what areas are urgent, what areas can be prioritized lower on the scale, and where to put your resources.

Remember:

“People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”

This blog post has been re-purposed into a Slideshare. Just scroll on down to the bottom of the page if you’d prefer to get the information through a visual medium!

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You’ve heard time and time again that you should be mixing up your content.

But it’s hard to get out of your blog post funk sometimes.

A great way to make the step is with a Slideshare.

Why?

Because creating a Slideshare is a lot like writing a blog post.

Both blog posts and Slideshares work very similarly: They both aim to tell a story, while adding value to their viewers lives.

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The only difference is that Slideshare presentations rely more heavily on visuals to effectively communicate these stories and use the written word to aid in understanding, while blog posts rely more heavily on the written word to communicate its message clearly, and use images to aid in understanding. 

Because of this, Slideshares require you to work with visuals as your main medium rather than text.

If you don’t have a good eye for visuals, then you may be balking at the idea of creating an entire piece of content created around visuals. But don’t worry – Powerpoint does most of this work for you. You don’t have to be particularly design-inclined to create a decent looking slideshare with Powerpoint.

At first, it can be hard (especially if you’re a bit of a perfectionist) but it’s far from impossible.

You can create a Slideshare from scratch, or you can create it using a blog post that you’ve already published it. Repurposing a blog post into a Slideshare is slightly easier in my opinion, so if you’re not super confident in your powerpoint skills, I’d suggest going down this route for your first time.

Here’s how you can create a professional Slideshare, even if you’re just a beginner!

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There are a lot of content marketing rules out there.

These rules range anywhere from telling you how many words should be in a blog post, to the correct procedure for dealing with a marketing crisis.

And while there’s nothing inherently wrong with rules, there is something wrong with a business that is so rule-bound that they can only ever be average.

So here’s the thing with rules: Truly great businesses rarely follow them.

To be great, you have to take risks. And to take risks, you sometimes have to bend (or break) a rule or two.

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Great businesses tend to view rules as more like guidelines. Sure, they can help steer a business in the right direction, but when the times calls for it, they’ll create their own course of action.

The following content marketing rules are ones that I see businesses adhere to time and time again, even when it’s clear that it’s not working for them. I see businesses cling to these rules like comfort blankets, telling themselves that as long as they stick by them, they will succeed.

But in fact, these rules might very well be hurting your business.

Here are 5 content marketing rules that you should definitely break.

Before there was mass media, before there was marketing, before there was “business” as we know it today, people relied on word of mouth to spread information.

Before writing, word of mouth was the main method of transferring information from one tribe to another tribe, often by a practiced storytellers whose job it was to remember these stories and tell them to others over and over again.

Later on in our history, we notice that a familiar expression in our various forms of literature begins to appear. The trope commonly appears in history books, fictional novels, poems and movies. You’ll recognize it from its allusion to popularity, awareness and geography.

For example, the expression may be “He was known through the land as the most skilled swordsman” or “her beauty travelled by portraiture and word of mouth to England and Europe”.