Tasked with a goal to improve your online presence and increase website traffic, your small marketing team and limited budget may initially discourage you. The truth is -- growth strategies do not have to be complicated to be successful.

Inbound Wisconsin is a conference that will give sales and marketing professionals the opportunity to learn strategies with highly actionable instruction that is guaranteed to help businesses grow. The event is in collaboration with HubSpot, Google, Relevance.com and other leading technology companies.

If you want to capitalize on search engine marketing and optimization and develop your brand or business as a thought leader, you need to harness the power of online communities. Regular engagement with online communities is a great marketing and sales strategy, leveraging your existing expertise to build your brand reputation and expand your online reach.

The Stream Creative office is a magical place every spring as the team gears up for March Madness festivities. We complete our brackets and post them for all to see, the kegerator is filled with the beer of choice, Jason brings in his projector and screen, and some family members even join us to “work remotely” by setting up shop in our conference room. While many of our team members root for Wisconsin to go far, this year the majority have the Badgers going all the way. Not surprising considering the talent, heart and impressive stats the roster had coming into the tournament.

Scouring marketing conferences both near and far, we have compiled a list of the top 10 Midwest marketing conferences taking place during the remainder of the year. Finding marketing conferences that don’t blow your budget is important, so we’ve focused on conference destinations that are road-trip friendly.

Has your marketing and communication team identified the role content marketing plays in your public relations strategy? Producing relevant content that positions your business and its leaders and industry experts, along with collaborating with influential partners, can have a profound effect on your ability to expand reach, expand relationships and strengthen your brand. Part one ofNotable Ways Content Marketing is Making an Impression on PR focused on collaborative content – specifically guest blogs, influencer outreach and establishing partnerships. In part two, the focus shifts to four additional key areas that can improve your brand’s PR evolution and content marketing integration.

By now you’ve likely seen all of the data touting the importance and value of business blogs, statistics like: blogs on company websites result in 55 percent more visitors and blogs result in 434 percent more indexed pages. But if you find yourself struggling to find the time and resources to create exceptional blog content, you are certainly not alone.

Content creation has been cited as one of the most relevant digital marketing trends for 2015 with one third of marketers citing this strategy as a key focus in the year ahead. Widely known as the foundation of a strong inbound marketing campaign, it’s not surprising that even B2B companies are producing more content today than they were a year ago. Strong content producers understand the value this tactic brings to improving customer relationships and loyalty, boosting engagement and raising brand awareness.

In August 2014, our good friend, Paul Roetzer, CEO of PR 20/20, released his latest book, The Marketing Performance Blueprint: Strategies and Technologies to Build and Measure Business Success. Paul’s book focuses on processes, technologies, and strategies needed to fill marketing gaps and build performance-driven organizations. Written to be an essential and accessible guide for marketers, executives, and entrepreneurs, The Marketing Performance Blueprint includes key principles focusing on performance goals, digital transformation, creating a modern team and more. As a deeper-dive into the core concepts discussed in his book, Paul is offering a live online event: The Marketing Blueprint Webinar Series beginning February 10 at 1pm.

We recently chatted with Paul about some of the key takeaways participants will obtain through this series:

While some marketers may have not yet recognized the profound effect content marketing is having on public relations, others are noticing the natural extension both functions form in relationship with one another. Acontent marketing strategy should be representative of your brand and voice, convey your business’ main principles, all while being entertaining, useful and relevant. If you are a PR professional, do these objectives sound much different from the work you are doing to communicate how your business is making an impact on your industry? The bottom line is, both functions of content creation and PR are built on the foundation of establishing relationships and motivating others to become ambassadors for your brand. Check out these key impressions that content marketing has made, and will continue to make on PR: