Some professions require little to no explanation.Think of that section on a form: Occupation __________. If the blank space is filled in with waitress, you know that person serves people their food. If it’s filled in with firefighter, you know they put out fires. If it’s filled in with preschool teacher, you know they’re teaching kiddos their ABCs. But if you read the fill in the blank this way:

Occupation: Content Marketer

Place of Employment: Content Marketing Agency

Then people look at you with raised eyebrows. If you’re a small business owner, you may have heard about content marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing, etc., and you’re wondering if you should in fact be hiring the services of an agency for your business. Content marketing isn’t just a buzzword:

Every once in a while I get a hankering for Taco Bell. My craving usually hits when I’m stressed, pressed for time, don’t have much in the fridge, or conveniently forgot the healthy salad I made the night before. Not long ago, my content marketing plan was kind of like my desire for Taco Bell – unhealthy.

Although sometimes a necessarily evil, I know that Taco Bell isn’t the best thing for me – so why do I give in? Because it’s become a habit of sorts. It’s an easy grab and go alternative to a healthier choice. My writing used to be like that too. I got into the habit of a grab and go style of writing until I took the time for the healthier alternative – making a plan.

I was recently in a meeting where our client brought up the idea of adding a short video to her blog posts. With a slight – possibly reluctant – smirk on her face she asked us what we thought of this idea. Like each of our clients, she wants her business to get found online by potential customers. We’ve been helping with this process by creating a holistic inbound marketing strategy, part of which includes blogging, organic SEO services, downloadable eBooks, and email campaigns. I smiled at our client and said I thought it was a great idea, something worth trying at least, for many good reasons that I just happen to come across in the recent article below.

Did you know that 122,500,453,020 emails are sent every hour? (MarketingProfs 2014). This number alone should tell you that email is not dead; it’s in fact very much alive. There are actual people or an email marketing agency behind these emails – whether it’s your competitor creating and sending them or your potential and current customers opening and reading them. With so much content flooding inboxes these days you need all the help you can get in order for the emails from your small business to get noticed. Here are a few tips you can start doing today.

What is the vision for your online marketing strategy? Do you even have one for your business? Or do you just know that you should have one if you want to reach your target audience online? One key component of an online marketing strategy is search engine optimization (SEO). If you’re thinking that it sounds expensive, hold that thought. You have affordable SEO opportunities to help your business get found online, but you must also have the right expectations.

You’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into implementing your online SEO strategy. You’ve redesigned your website, done your keyword research, wrote really helpful eBooks, brainstormed some killer blog topics, and created social media pages. You’ve cast your net out into the open online sea and now you have some bites. You’re so excited to get some interest that you failed to plan what you were going to do with the SEO leads once you captured them. If you want to keep reeling in the leads, there are 3 things you absolutely should not do.

Hot or cold. Bitter or sweet. Day or night. Happy or sad. Friend or foe. Sometimes we tend to see our world in absolutes – black or white. But we know there is plenty of gray area to make us question it all. In the marketing world, inbound and outbound marketing is one of those areas. While neither is absolutely good or evil, it’s how you use it that makes all the difference.

Remember the good ‘ole days when companies used to only send snail mail to get your attention? Catalogs, coupons, and company newsletters galore would fill your mailbox, along with the daily bills, mountains of junk mail, and maybe a personal card or letter if you were special.

Meet social media Sarah. When it comes to her personal social media pages she never misses an opportunity for a stellar status update. She’s a great Facebook friend. She’s terrific at Twitter. Her LinkedIn profile is professional. Her Instagram is incredible. She manages all of her personal social media accounts flawlessly. It’s fun for her and she’s good at it, which is why she thinks she could do it as a career, no problem.

Poor Sarah. She doesn’t know that there are some big differences between social media for personal and business use. She needs social media consulting if she’s going to even think about doing it professionally.

As a small business owner you want to get the best bang for your buck. You’re willing to spend money on marketing, but you want to know that what you’re investing in will get you results – and not just the illusion of results in the form of fancy charts and graphs – but a real, legit return on investment in the form of leads and customers. Utilizing content marketing services is the surefire way to give your ROI a boost.