by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice, Inbound Marketing, Social Media
December brings with it a host of holidays across the world–and with those holidays, a host of online orders and extra shopping that doesn't take place at any other time of the year. Children are spoiled rotten, adults get items on their wish lists that they've put off all year, and sales go up for many businesses. To help draw some of that spending to your business, December holiday online marketing is critical. However, you have to design your marketing to reach your audience in order to make them as effective as possible. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice
Thanksgiving is around the corner and with it comes the busiest retail selling day of the year; Black Friday. Big businesses are quickly throwing out all their Black Friday ads in the hopes of snagging the majority of the sales for the Christmas season.
It's difficult for small businesses to compete with this level of competition on Black Friday, so a second day has been set aside for them instead; Small Business Saturday, which is November 28th this year. This day is specially designed to support local small businesses, which have been instrumental in building the economy of the United States. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice
Digital marketing and banking sometimes don't correlate when a bank is looking for a personal connection the customer. That's happened only because more businesslike institutions like banks have a long history of being more formal with customers in their marketing. They don't always take the time to act like they're a good friend or a member of the customer's family. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice, Social Media
Instagram gives you a “blank canvas” to tell your story and create a community of buyers.
With thousands of social networks available to marketers, the usual suspects: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn get mentioned first for B2B social media marketing. Instagram doesn't always get mentioned in the same breath for B2B companies. And, Instagram is not always thought of as a place where B2C companies should focus their marketing efforts. But, since Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, it's popularity has grown exponentially. (more…)
by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice, Social Media |
Given that marketing has traditionally been outbound, one might wonder at the term inbound marketing and its current popularity. John Hall writes in this article from Forbes that “75 percent of marketers are allocating the same or an increased budget for inbound this year.” Although inbound marketing hasn’t surpassed traditional marketing initiatives in terms of popularity, it is definitely catching up in a very short period. One reason for this, was described back in 2013 by @bhalligan, HubSpot CEO, in a Huffington Post article, is that “people are sick of being marketed to and are quite clever at blocking it out.” (more…)
by Brad Friedman | General Business Advice, Social Media
An inbound marketing strategy sometimes gets overlooked by smaller businesses that think they need to do more outbound marketing to capture their demographics. Yet, outbound marketing still uses too much of the cheerleader sales approach for promotion purposes. Nowadays, the overly adamant sales approach reminds most people of something resembling spam. Consumers prefer a more natural approach to marketing, including more personalization. (more…)
Given that marketing has traditionally been outbound, one might wonder at the term inbound marketing and its current popularity. John Hall writes in this 
An inbound marketing strategy sometimes gets overlooked by smaller businesses that think they need to do more outbound marketing to capture their demographics. Yet, outbound marketing still uses too much of the cheerleader sales approach for promotion purposes. Nowadays, the overly adamant sales approach reminds most people of something resembling spam. Consumers prefer a more natural approach to marketing, including more personalization. 
