Being a one-person marketing department forces you to master many complex trades. First, you must be a marketing strategist and business analyst who comes up with the big picture goals, campaigns, and calendars. Next, oftentimes you must also be a graphic designer, SEO expert, copywriter, event planner, media buyer, vendor, staff trainer, and overall customer service savant in order to tackle the day-to-day activities.

Looking for a few tips from copywriting experts or ways to help prove ROI for your content marketing efforts? Are you someone who is tasked with generating social media content for your business, but struggle with finding or creating quality images? My favorite posts this week touch on these topics as well as a few others that I found incredibly useful, and I hope you do too.

Over the years, one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen marketers make is not building their email list from the very start of a campaign or project. Building your email list is an incredibly important component to lead nurturing and customer acquisition. Using landing pages with an option for visitors to access information by sharing their email or subscribing to your list will increase your chances of capturing important information that can help convert prospects to customers.

My favorite posts this week touch on everything from optimizing Facebook ads to writing “sexy” blog titles. Articles about SEO always catch my attention as well, and I’ve included one that provides some great tips on how linking marketing and SEO can produce stellar results. Check out these posts along with a few other good ones I’ve collected this week:

In part one of our must-have elements for an effective website, I focused on content. In part two, I’ll touch how we’ve come a long way from old school website design; although, some elements of modern sites give a nod to features from back in the day in regard to simplicity. While a lot of creative inspiration and functionality factors go in to good design, here are some current trends that have broad acceptance and appeal.

One of the most popular uses of online surveys is for businesses to conduct research. By sharing surveys, companies have the opportunity to perform valuable market research that will aid in buyer persona development, journey mapping, lead nurturing, and to obtain valuable feedback. Additionally, Survey Monkey notes, “Surveying your customers to test branding and naming concepts will help you understand the attitudes motivations, and preferences of your customers, especially in relation to your competitors.” Regardless of your motivation for incorporating surveys into your inbound marketing strategies, utilizing the Survey Monkey Integration in HubSpot allows you to take your data and turn it into something actionable.

I get really excited each week when I find great posts to pass along to our inbound and digital marketing followers. My favorite one this week talks about applying the 80/20 rule to marketing. I’ve actually never thought about this concept in a way that so closely relates to my work – but when I took a deeper dive into the methodology, it really made sense. Check out this post along with a few other good ones I’ve collected this week:

Over the last decade, the purpose and functionality of an organization’s website has changed drastically. Websites are now storefronts, sales representatives, customer service personnel and ultimately, an extension of your team. If your website doesn’t tell your company’s story and go above and beyond to address a visitor’s needs, you’re most likely missing out on opportunities to convert a prospect into a customer.

Facebook Audience Insights is an incredible analytical tool that when used to the fullest, will provide you with a large amount of demographic and behavioral data about your audience and competitors. Facebook Audience Insights is my go-to tool for researching personas and identifying the right audience for Facebook ads. Insights can be accessed through Facebook Ads Manager and is free to use.

I love to nerd-out reading as many great articles as I possibly have time for throughout the week. I also enjoy passing them along to our team and others who I think could benefit from some of the great information I come across. This week’s posts feature everything from the 7 minute morning routine you absolutely have to try to simple sales mistakes that could be costing you customers. These articles include inbound strategies, digital marketing, social advertising, content production and promotion, web design, public relations, events and much more. Here’s this week’s flashback: