I love events.

I’m one of those people that thrives on the energy of a crowd.

I love meeting strangers. I love the awkward pauses. And I love the “great unknown” of what can happen when we all get together to talk shop.

In fact, the only thing I don’t like about events are the cheap coffee and small name tags (no matter how often I spell “Alexandra,” the “ndra” always gets squished together so it looks like one letter).

So, when Chris and I started Spokal over 2 years ago, I went to a ton of events.

They were great.

There was only one problem – our company wasn’t growing as fast as we wanted. When we started looking at how much time we were spending at events, and what we were actually doing there, the ball dropped.

I realized I was drinking the event Kool-Aid.

To rock a networking event, and make sure you don’t get overwhelmed by the sweet temptation, you need to do these 4 essential things.

We couldn’t emphasis enough how much we love blogging.

And how much it’s allowed us to grow Spokal.

So when people ask us if they should start blogging, I’m at a crossroad.

“Of course!”

Is what my content marketing brain says.

And

“You’ve got to be crazy!”

Is what my small business hat says.

There’s no doubt that content marketing builds million dollar businesses. And there’s no doubt that blogging is one of the best ways to create content that converts on a regular basis.

But, blogging isn’t easy.

Here are the 5 things that you don’t want to hear about blogging.

This is a guest blog post by Matt Carter at MGX Mindshare.

If you’ve read other articles about how to get started writing a blog for your organization, you already know how important setting up a blog is so you can get more traffic and backlinks pointing to your site.

One of the most common things I hear from people hesitant to get started with blogging is how to start a blog in a “boring” industry.  “How do I write a blog about boring stuff?”

This is an excellent question that many people encounter when they start to set up a blog for the first time. It’s hard to make forklifts or pillowcases seem exciting to the everyday consumer.

Luckily though, there is a way for you to take even the most mundane of topics, and spin it into a helpful, educational, and worthwhile blog that will garner you:

I saw 3 customer worthy examples of micro-content in the real world last week.

One from a local Victoria company.

One from a national company.

And one from one of the biggest brands in the world.

They all surprised me because they were exactly what micro should be.

Numbers don’t lie.

Right?

There are countless ways for creating the anatomy of a perfect blog post.

This is one of them.

According to science and numbers.

You can fill a room with 5,000 manikins.

And you won’t sell a thing.

That’s the problem.

Even if you follow a solid blogging strategy, promote your content on a regular basis and capture leads via email campaigns, how do you make sure you’re attracting people who are actually likely to become your customer?

Attracting qualified leads is crucial to getting customers online – here are the 3 essential ingredients you need to make that happen while blogging.

We’re obsessed with creating great content.

We write about it.

We talk about it.

We speak about it.

We go to conferences dedicated to it.

We dream about it. Yes, dream about it.

Marketers love content almost as much as celebrities love fame.

But you know the funny thing?

Customers don’t care.

In fact, not only do they not care, most of them don’t even know what “content marketing” is.

We’re the experts. Yet, they determine if we’re successful. Or not.

So, while your customers may give you the blank stare if you ask them how much they like your content campaign, this is what they want you to know.

Even if they don’t know it yet.

Note: This is a guest blog post by Adam Tuttle at ActiveCampaign. 

Spokal helps drive a ton of new traffic to your site, helps convert them to leads, and provides a ton of data about the people viewing your site. But what do you do with the leads once you have them?  How do you make them value adding to your business?

One of the strongest opportunities for capitalizing on captured leads is to tie it directly into a strong email / marketing automation platform. [Editors note: Spokal & ActiveCampaign integrate very tightly together) By doing this, you are allowing yourself the possibility as a marketer not to default to a simple, generic email blast; instead send targeted emails based on what actions your contacts are taking on your website or how they are interacting with your emails. You can reach the contacts with higher potential through lead scoring, and various other incoming metrics through your sales funnel (Spokal) at exactly the right time.

Timing is everything.

Coca-Cola knows this.

They know that even though you prefer Pepsi, when you have the choice of Coca-Cola or nothing, you’ll choose Coca-Cola.

Almost every time.

That’s why their mission is “to be within reach at the time of thirst.”

Because they need to be in the right place at the right time to make a sale. And considering they sold $46.9 billion worth of products last year, I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job.

So, what does this mean for your business?

Well, what if you could “be within reach at the time of thirst” for your customers?

What if there was a way to target customers at the time when they’re most likely to convert?

And what if it fit within the $7 a day that most small businesses spend on marketing?

We’re 106 days into 2014.

So while it was fun to predict what’s going to happen this year, it’s already taking place.

The Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG) just released their Digital Marketing Report for Q1 of 2014.

Curious to see what’s impacting your business this year?

We were too…