Welcome to Spokal’s Startup Spotlight Series – A series that features brilliant startups from all around the world and takes an inside look at the wins, the loses, the ups and downs, the struggles and the successes of what it takes to be part of a startup.
This week we have Co-founder Alex Turnbull talking to us about his startup, Groove!
Welcome to Spokal’s Startup Spotlight Series – A series that features brilliant startups from all around the world and takes an inside look at the wins, the loses, the ups and downs, the struggles and the successes of what it takes to be part of a startup.
This week we have Co-founder Dave Nevogt talking to us about his startup, Hubstaff!
Last week we talked to Jimmy Daly from email marketing startup Vero. We got some great insights into what works for them on how they create and spread their content.
This week we’re talking to Unbounce, a landing page service that has been taking the marketing world by storm.
One of the blog posts I get a lot of comments and questions on is actually the very first blog posts I ever wrote for Spokal. Faced with the daunting task of what to write for my very first blog post, I kind of went a bit meta and wrote on the topic: “How To Overcome Your Fears And Write The Perfect First Blog Post”. Get it? Because that’s exactly what I was doing? Well, I thought I was clever, anyways. And I guess I was because we still get so much engagement on it! (More than any of my following blog posts probably… beginner’s luck? Oops).
Anyways, that blog post needed a part 2. I knew it. Our readers knew it. But I just didn’t know how to move on from there. “How To Overcome Your Kind-Of–Fears and Write the Perfect Second Blog Post” just didn’t seem to make sense to me.
But that’s when I realized that the reason it was so hard to write the second part to that blog post was because the ideal thing for my readers to be doing at that point, was to not read another blog post, but instead just write their own.
There couldn’t be a second blog post because, well, that defeated the purpose of the first!
But the reality was that not everyone left that blog post and started writing their own, which means that I didn’t do my job successfully. So, we’ve more work to do to make sure you start writing your first blog post today.
Running a startup is tough. We know this, you know this, they know this… we all know this. And sometimes there are days when we don’t think that we’re going to be able to do it anymore. We just don’t know how to proceed. We’ve hit a roadblock and it just doesn’t seem like there’s any way through it.
But, rest assured, it is possible to succeed. And we know it’s possible, because there are startups out there succeeding every single day.
But – you might be wondering – where are all of these wonderfully successful startups hiding?
Well, they’re not hiding exactly. They’re just busy with startup things. Plus, where would you even start looking for them? There’s not exactly a “startup spotlight” blog series that you can pop over to and have a look at, is there?
Oh, wait.
That’s us! That’s this! Hurrah!
While at first glance social media and SEO might not seem like the world’s next power couple, as the years go by it’s becoming more and more apparent that the two topics have much more in common than we first realized.
Just like Brad and Angelina, this couple has taken the world by surprise… but we’re not exactly upset about the match either!
So let’s start with a little exercise.
What’s the first 5 things you think of when you think of social media? Here are mine:
How many of you can say “You’ve got mail” without putting on the AOL computer voice? I know – what memories! Sitting there, impatiently waiting for your dial up to connect, and then tada! Mail!
It was unbelievably exciting.
But, if you were anything like me, most of your mail was spam. Actually, my first decade of email experience was tainted by spam. I even had to create a special email address just to send all the spam to! And I know I wasn’t the only one. In fact, I didn’t start to take email seriously until I was in my first year of college which was in… 2007!
But, this was a problem, and as technology grows, it’s a problem that we’ve – for the most part – solved. Now, our inboxes are smart enough to fish out spam and send it straight to our junk mail, without us ever having to lay our busy little eyes on it!
And when we do get mail that we don’t like, it’s just a matter of clicks before we never have to see it again!
While in these days it’s much less common to get notifications for every email we receive, and instead social media that reigns supreme in that department, that doesn’t mean that email has become any less important. In fact, our email inboxes have become somewhat of a place for solitude for us. Unlike social media – where the content that pops up on your feeds can be sporadic and oftentimes, overwhelming – email is where we receive messages that we’ve carefully chosen to receive.
That’s why, if you’ve been in the marketing world for any length of time, you’ll have heard the amazing value that email can provide businesses and marketers with when it comes to communicating with their customers. But, while email marketing is an amazing vessel for business’ marketing messages, it’s one of those tricky tools that not every knows how use.
So, in an attempt to right that wrong, let’s get started…
The hustle and bustle of a Mexican marketplace fills my ears. Spicy incense and exotic scents tingle my nose. Colorful walls, bright bunting, patterned ponchos, and animated faces crowd my vision. All along the side of the street, different stalls have been erected, with their products prominently on display for passer-byes to admire.
This is a Mexican street market.
As I squeeze through a local family of 3 generations, who have no doubt come to this very market every Sunday for the past 100 years or so, I realize that every one of these stalls’ vendors have their sights set on me.
Me, and every other pale-skinned, short-wearing (it’s April, and everyone else is wearing jeans) and big eyed tourists that roam these narrow streets.
We are their target audience. We are their subsistence.
And they have work to do.
When marketers want to make a big impact on their marketing, they often focus on going after a big project. You know the kind: a big email campaign, or a huge website redesigns or a big social media project!
But while big projects can have big payoffs (as long as they’re executed smartly), it’s undeniable that they can also be very time consuming. And we all know that you’re already struggling enough keeping up with these 3 minute meetings, scarfing lunches down while listening to podcast proofs, before rushing off to your next meeting.
But not to worry – there are ways to make a big impact without having to run a big project. Instead, small tweaks can often make a world of difference. Especially when they’re on your call-to-actions (CTAs).
Do you ever see a marketing campaign and your first thought is “what in the world were they thinking?” Yes, we’ve all been there. Sometimes these things go viral, and sometimes they just go unnoticed because they were plain crappy.
Businesses are trying to navigate a very noisy world, and getting their marketing messages heard has become increasingly difficult. But there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and while most businesses navigate this line effectively, there are certain ones that seem to ignore it completely.
In fact, they went so far past the line they can’t even see the line!
The line is just a dot to them! (And yes, I just stole that line from Friends).
Anyways, here are 15 of the absolute worst marketing campaigns from 2014. Read about them, learn from them, and above all – don’t copy them!
