The Definitive

Growth Guide
The Growth, Marketing & Sales Strategies,
Tactics & Tools Used by World Class
Organizations
Compiled by

Michael Haupt

V0.96 Draft
December 2015
Check for latest version here.

FAQ's
Feedback & Corrections
Additional Services

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Special Thanks and Acknowledgements

Any reference material worth using is a collaborative effort, this one more than most.
The list of contributors to this guide is a long one, but the names listed below stand out
from all the rest. Special thanks go to each of these companies and individuals who have
consistently (many over a period of 10 years or more) produced content that informs,
educates, inspires and delights. Long may it continue.
Jay Abraham
Drayton Bird
Buffer
Content Marketing Institute
Convince and Convert
Jeffrey Gitomer
Michael Hyatt
Dan Kennedy
Leadpages
Clayton Makepeace
Marketo
Ken McCarthy
Tom Peters
Sandler Training
Euan Semple
Brian Tracy
Wordstream

Auth0
Chris Brogan
Andrew Chen
Conversion Rate Experts
Duct Tape Marketing
Seth Godin
Avinash Kaushik
Kraig Kleeman
Jay Conrad Levinson
Marketing Donut
Perry Marshall
Optimizely
PwC
Rich Schefren
Smart Bear
Wishpond

Table of Contents
How to Use This Guide ................................................................................................................ 5
Part 1 Strategies & Tactics ......................................................................................................... 7
Advanced ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Intermediary ..............................................................................................................................10
Basic ...........................................................................................................................................17
Part 2 90-Day Marketing Plan .................................................................................................21
Part 3 Marketing Legends Hall of Fame................................................................................23
Part 4 Noteworthy Blogs .........................................................................................................28
Growth Hacking Blogs ...........................................................................................................28
Marketing Blogs .......................................................................................................................29
Sales Blogs .................................................................................................................................36
Appendix Tools .........................................................................................................................38

How to Use This Guide

Welcome fellow marketers, sales professionals, founders and dreamers!
This guide was originally compiled for my own purposes, because I was sick and tired of
the noise about social media for business whenever I searched for marketing and sales
best practices online. The reality is that even the self-proclaimed gurus are starting to
admit that after a 5-year investment in social media for sales, the ROI is dismal. So, I
wanted to cut through the noise and create a collection of strategies, tactics and tools
used (and proven) by world-class organizations. Over a period of more than 20 years I've
gathered together these gems I hope you find them helpful.
If you prefer a spreadsheet format (which allows you to sort and filter to your specific
requirements), please download from Brain Dumps. As with this guide, you wont even
require an email address to download the Excel spreadsheet.
Business growth strategy is a vastly complex topic because of all the variables involved:
the team, the product, the market, the economy, the buyers mindset and thousands of
other nuances. Naturally I know nothing about your specific circumstances, which is why
I intentionally designed the guide as being like an onion. One of the layers will have just
the right solution for your specific situation, some of the layers might be less useful and
yet other layers will be completely irrelevant to you.
The challenge was finding a way of quickly getting to the layer thats just right for you,
and I think weve succeeded. You can quickly scan through summaries of the growth
strategies relevant to the current level of your business that should take no more than
ten minutes. One of the strategies will pique your interest, at which point youll click the
link. This will take you to a blog post that explains the strategy in more detail, and then
importantly provides further links to current best practices and case studies.
This approach provides two benefits to you: you can quickly drill down to the level of
detail you need and I can ensure that best practices and case studies always stay updated
and relevant, because we dont need to revise the book edition.
Despite the onion approach, the guide can still become overwhelming, particularly if
youre new to business growth strategies. This is why I offer a complimentary consulting
session, during which I can quickly guide you to the most important areas to focus on for
your business. You can find details here: Services.
Here's what you can expect in each section of the guide.

Part 1 Strategies & Tactics

The first important step is to identify what (high level) stage your business is at: Startup,
Established, or Leader. This is not an exact science, so a quick definition might be:
Startup: Pre-revenue, a founding team in place, product is achieving some
traction, all business activities operate under significant budget constraints. The
Basic Strategies section on page 17 would be most applicable.
Established: In business for 5 plus years, revenue is strong, marketing and sales
processes in place, sufficient customers and you satisfy them sufficiently to keep
them. The Intermediary Strategies section on page 10 would be most applicable.

Leader: One of the dominant players in the industry, has the advantages of size,
financial resources, and managerial talent, wishes to grow even further. The
Advanced Strategies section on page 7 would be most applicable.

Part 2 90-Day Marketing Plan

Senior Marketing hires are expected to hit the ground running and create key wins in
their first few months on the job. Use this high level plan to prioritize your activities
during this crucial time: page 21.

Part 3 Marketing Legends Hall of Fame

Ive studied marketing for over 20 years, by going directly to the marketing greats. This
list represents my mentors. Follow them if you want to be an exceptional marketer or
sales professional. There are plenty of self-proclaimed "guru's" who aren't on this list generally they're part of the online cacophony and can be safely ignored: page 23.

Appendix Tools

There's a ton of junk out there, so how do you know which tool is worth considering
(and how do you even know what tools are available)? This collection represents those
that have impressed me. For a tool to make it onto this list, they usually need to have
closed at least a seed-funding round. If they're able to do so it means they've made it
through the first round of investor scrutiny. That's no guarantee of success, but it's better
than having no inclusion criteria at all. You can find the tools on page 28.

More Questions?
http://michaelhaupt.com/faq/

Feedback?
I intend to keep both the Growth Guide and Toolkit as up to date as possible and theres
no way this can happen without your help. If you have any corrections, suggestions or
additions please leave a comment here:
http://michaelhaupt.com/feedback/

Part 1 Strategies & Tactics

Advanced

The following strategies and tactics are usually only considered by companies who are leaders in their industry,
have well-defined marketing and sales processes in place and now want to consider additional growth strategies.
On a scale of implementation complexity from 0 to 10, these strategies are typically 7-10. If you need slightly
simpler and quicker wins, skip ahead to Intermediary Strategies on page 10.
Tactic

Test

Account Based
Marketing

Case Studies

Cause Marketing

Circular Viralocity

Competitor Analysis

Content Discovery

Influencer Marketing

Notes
Account Based Marketing, in which marketers target
Is your website able to
key accounts with customized content, has become
present different content more sophisticated as B2B marketers gain access to
to different types of
more data and new personalization tools. This tactic
audiences?
is usually only considered on high value purchases or
long sales cycles.
Do you make past case
One of the best ways to prove your worth is through
studies readily available
the creation of compelling case studies that chronicle
to boost buyer
the positive impact your product or service has had
confidence?
on one of your existing customers.
Do you promote a cause
that both you and your
Cause marketing is a partnership between a non-
customers are
profit and a for-profit for mutual benefit
emotionally attached to?
Do you intelligently reuse
Keep your content fresh and ever-circulating across
and circulate content
all your social media networks, without wearing
created across all social
yourself out in the process.
platforms?
Do you keep track of
With the right tools, and a few best practices,
competitor information
marketers and SEO departments can create a
and use the results to
manageable workflow to track competitors, discover
improve your own
new or niche competitors as they enter your space,
marketing?
and improve your own findability against them.
Is your content
sponsored and
distributed using content If you've ever read or scrolled through a blog post,
discovery platforms so
and at the bottom were Recommended Posts or
that it appears on sites
Suggested Content, you've seen Content Discovery
like CNN, NBC, The
platforms at work. They give advertisers the
Atlantic, Business Insider, opportunity to fill these inventory slots with their
Mail Online, Fortune,
own content on other high traffic (often news) sites.
Hearst, Sky News and
more?
Do you engage with,
incentivize or otherwise
Consumers trust recommendations from a third party
encourage those with
more often than a brand itself. An influencer is the
large followings in your
mutual friend connecting your brand with your target
industry to help you with consumers.
your marketing?
7

Tactic

Test
Does the company's
product suite include a
low-cost entry product
which leads naturally to
the purchase of higher
end products? Are there
numerous up-sell, down-
sell and cross-sell
options?
Does the company focus
on vanity metrics or are
their KPI's directly related
to revenue?
Does the company have
an automated email
sequence that adapts to
each subscriber's
progress through the
sales cycle? i.e. inquisitive
through to ready to buy
Does the company
engage with, incentivize
or otherwise encourage
their best customers to
help them with their
marketing?
Can the company identify
more than demographics
and psychographics to
target prospects through
mobile moments?

Integrated Product
Suite

KPI's

Lifecycle Marketing

Loyalty Program

On-Demand
Marketing

Notes

You cant have the #1 brand in any genre, in any

business, without an integrated product suite. An
integrated product suite is a compilation of products
that work together in a product offering to solve the
higher needs of your clients.

The end goal isnt publishing precise reports, its

continuously working to improve the results of the
business.
Prospects seldom buy the first time they come into
contact with you. Some estimates refer to 5-9 touch
points before a buyer buys. When put into action,
Lifecycle Marketing will help you grow sales and give
you more time to focus on the things you love.
Its time to expand the focus of B2B engagement to
the entire customer relationship, including loyalty
and retention, which are not traditional priorities for
B2B marketers.
Rather than broadcast advertising to consumers who
are aggressively filtering advertising, technology is
rapidly allowing advertisers to only send a message at
the precise instant a consumer needs it.

Partner Marketing

Does the company reach

out to companies offering
complementary products
& services for reciprocal
promotion?

While one brand adds value to existing customers the

other builds new customer relationships. Examples
are co-branded credit cards e.g. in the 1990s when
credit card companies partnered with charities and
sports teams to provide consumers with a branded
credit cards.

Predictive Marketing

Does the company use

tools to analyze their Big
Data to understand
how/why their best
customers buy and then
identify matching
prospects to prioritize?

Early adopters are realizing demonstrable ROI as they

use statistical modeling, machine learning, and
scoring technologies to identify and prioritize
customer data at specific points in the marketing and
sales funnel.

Tactic

Test

Preeminence

Product/Market Fit

Prospect Research

Social Media
Platforms

User Generated
Content

Video Marketing

Notes
Jay Abraham's Strategy of Preeminence is a powerful,
yet simple strategy that can transform your business
Is the company
or career. it draws people to work with you instead of
positioned as the go-to
your competitors. it gives you uncanny insight into
solution provider in their
what people want and why they act and react the
industry or are they
way they do. it turns clients into friends for life. it
merely another provider?
strengthens your passion and connection with
everyone in your life, inside and outside of business.
Is it immediately obvious If prospects dont already know they have pain, the
(within the first 5
sales process is going to be excruciating. Theres a
seconds) what significant word for that evangelism which conjures other
pain or problem the
words: expensive, difficult, time-consuming. Avoid
company solves? (the
these challenges by helping the prospect understand
most often missing
how their life will be significantly better with your
criteria in B2B)
solution.
Does the company lead
People are much more inclined to discuss topics near
with fact-based prospect
and dear to their hearts than they are to discuss
research and appeal to
sterile, innocuously boring topics. Avoid becoming
their target buyers
infatuated with your products abilities and instead
professional mandates
focus on the passions of the prospects in your list.
when reaching out?
Is the company active on Should your business be on every social media
social media platforms
platform? After five solid years of investment, many
simply because someone companies are realising that the emperor has no
has told them to be or
clothes and that social media has delivered little
are they achieving
return. Even the people who powered your
demonstrable business
investment in Social Media, the Gurus, have,
results?
reluctantly, accepted this reality.
Can the company identify
when users of their
product create something Many big brands collect and curate user generated
unique with their
content and redistribute it as their own - a fabulous
product? Are
way to create visibility without having to create
photographs taken by
content. Consumer-taken photographs are often a
users of their product
brands most valuable asset.
incorporated in their
marketing?
Does the company make Todays empowered buyer does not talk to a Sales
use of brief videos to
Rep until as late as 75% of the way through her
engage with prospects
purchase decision. Obviously, its a critical
who otherwise would not disadvantage for sales reps that they cant connect
make contact but are
earlier and inform how the buyer sees her choices.
interested?
Video could be the answer.

Intermediary
The following strategies and tactics are usually only considered by companies who have been established for 5
years or more, have well-defined marketing and sales processes in place and now want to consider additional
growth strategies. On a scale of implementation complexity from 0 to 10, these strategies are typically 4-8. If you
need slightly simpler and quicker wins, skip ahead to Basic Strategies on page 17.
Tactic

Test

A/B Split Testing

Advanced Web
Visibility

Advocate Marketing

Answer Questions
Externally

App Marketing

App Store
Optimization

Autoresponder

Book Marketing

Notes
Run simple, yet powerful A/B tests to determine
Does the company split
whether your pages messaging resonates with
test their PPC campaigns,
potential customers. Each test will help you find out
landing pages, offers and
what your audience responds to, and will help
CTA's to determine the
optimize your conversion rates for more effective
most favorable results?
marketing spend.
Has the company
implemented rich
Become an expert at pulling data from different
snippets and is there
sources to find influencers, link opportunities and
evidence of longtail
guest blogging sites.
keyword usage?
Does the company make
use of endorsements
Buyers increasingly say recommendations from
from reputable
people they know and trust are the most influential
people/companies in
factor during the decision-making process.
their industry?
Does the company
As you spread knowledge, you gain expertise and
actively engage in
influence. Perhaps Quoras most immediate benefit
relevant questions and
for marketers is being seen as an authority on a
discussions on sites like
certain topic.
quora.com?
Has the company built a
basic app that solves a
One of the cheapest, most powerful forms of
common business
customer acquisition are B2B app marketplaces.
problem?
Has the company's app
With over 2 million mobile apps in the major app
been optimized for
stores, getting your app discovered is one of the
discovery in the App
biggest issues facing mobile app publishers today.
Store?
Does the company have
Not all email is created equal. Customers and
an automated email
prospects have learned to filter out noise, so your
sequence that drip feeds
email needs to be more trusted, more relevant, and
useful information to
more conversational.
subscribers over time?
Have one of the
Books are powerful for building additional credibility
company's execs written for an already established expert. If you know your
a book and is it given
subject matter, speak on it, blog about it or teach it
away as a lead generator regularly, a book might be a powerful tool for
and credibility builder?
elevating your expert status to the next stage.

10

Tactic

Buyer Personas

Calls to Action

Test
Has the company created
avatars or ideal customer
profiles and are they used
internally when creating
new collateral?
Do all content pieces
(online and offline,
company website and
external sites) include
intelligent, meaningful
Calls to Action?

Does the company

engage in quality
prospecting and cold
outreach?

Cold Prospecting

Competitor Analysis

Content Promotion

Content Syndication

Conversion
Optimization

Notes
Personas help us all -- in marketing, sales, product,
and services -- internalize the ideal customer we're
trying to attract, and relate to our customers as real
humans.
A common mistake is B2B companies launching a
content marketing campaign and not including CTA's.
Every production should include a CTA.
Despite the allure of online activities and the
promises conveyed, when coupled with good
technique, a raw list of good data and a generic
telephone is still quite the effective tool for gaining
access to target buyers.

How does the company

compare to the
competition? Is an
analysis conducted at
Claiming you have no competition is a problem when
least annually? Does the defining who your customers are, what they want
anlysis include purchasing and your role in the marketplace.
competitor products and
documenting their sales
process?
Great content is a big part of achieving great visibility,
Is the company's content but the other, often overlooked area of content
mentioned by other
marketing is content promotion. Appeal to
thought leaders?
influencers' egos and you'll achieve significant
additional exposure.
Does the company's
voice/thought leadership
pieces appear on other
Content syndication is a mutually beneficial
popular sites like
relationship between writer and publication. The
Medium, Entrepreneur,
writer gets their name out as a thought leader and
Harvard Business Review, industry expert while the media outlet gets additional
NY Times, Inc., Business
content at no cost to them.
Insider, Fast Company,
etc.?
Any conversion practitioner should be able to quickly
Does the company
recognize each conversion killer when they see signs
regularly test new
of it in research data. Some of the killers are subtle; if
conversion processes
you miss them, you will waste your time working on
against a proven control?
the wrong aspect of your business.

11

Tactic

Test
Does the company's sales
material, both online and
offline, appeal to the
head and the heart? Is
the material
professionally written?

Copywriting

Does the company have

an engaging corporate
blogging strategy which
engages prospects and
buyers?

Corporate Blogging

Customer Retention

Demand Generation

Emotional Connection

Event Marketing

Facebook Advertising

Does the company

consistently measure and
track user retention and
engagement and
constantly improve?
Does the company run
campaigns that focus on
changing or shaping their
audiences perspective in
order to create demand
for their category or
specific products or
services?
Does the company
include a memorable
story of why they do
what they do?

Notes
Copywriting is critical for success online in the current
digital age. Design, content marketing, SEO, and
growth hacking are all parts of a complete digital
marketing plan, but copywriting is the glue that ties it
all together.
Blogging is a critical part of todays marketing
strategy. According to a Blogging.Org survey, 60% of
companies have a business blog; however, 65%
havent blogged in a year, essentially rendering their
effort useless. Despite the rate at which business
blogs go dark, the evidence that publishing a
company blog prolifically bolsters marketing results is
irrefutable.
The single most telling metric for a great product is
how many of the early users become dedicated,
repeat users. This angle of thinking naturally leads to
a number of metrics around user retention.

Demand generation is focused on shaping the

audiences perspective, while lead generation is
focused on capturing their information.

Consumers want a more personal connection in the

way they gather information, so tell a story rather
than listing cold, hard facts.

In todays buyer-empowered world, marketers need

to seize every opportunity to start a relationship,
Does the company create generate goodwill, and earn the trust of prospective
and host regular in-
buyers. Its tempting to want to stick with marketing
person or online events
tactics that take the least amount of time and money
to build authority and
to execute. But its often not in your companys best
drive sales?
interests to do so. A solid marketing mix that
incorporates event marketing is critical to connecting
with as many potential customers as possible.
Does the company take
advantage of the detailed With over 1 billion active users, Facebook is one of
profiling available in
the most important social networks for advertisers,
Facebook advertising
and whether you like it or not, its something every
(even to find B2B
small business should attempt to master.
buyers)?

12

Tactic
Facebook Contests

Google AdWords

Inbound Content Plan

Income Targeting

Notes
Running a contest on Facebook is a great way to
nurture existing relationships and get awareness of
your business to spread like wildfire.

When set up and managed properly, AdWords is one

of the best sources for new customers.

Content marketing provides significant advantages

over traditional, interruptive advertising.

This tactic helps you track and understand how

income in different regions relates to conversion.

Proper lead generation or lead guiding goes more

like this 1) Hey, heres the real problem you need to
address, 2) hey, here are a couple ways you might
start to think about that problem, 3) hey, heres one
specific way to solve that problem and maybe, just
maybe, 4) hey, heres why we might be the right one
to help you fix that problem.
Lead scoring is a shared sales and marketing
Does the company rank
methodology for ranking leads in order to determine
leads by those most likely their sales-readiness. You score leads based on the
to close, or highest value interest they show in your business, their current
lead?
place in the buying cycle and their fit in regards to
your business.
Does the company make
regular use of LinkedIn's If your business works with business professionals,
Advertising solutions to
you need to take advantage of LinkedIns advanced
reach business
targeting and display features.
audiences?
It's an old adage, and like many clichs, it is very true:
Does the company have a
if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Managers, at some
written marketing plan
point their career, will need to either write or agree a
that is updated
marketing plan. Plans which will form the basis of
frequently and adhered
how a company relates to their market place and how
to?
they intend to reach their strategic goals.
Does the company's lead
nurturing process move
prospects closer to the
outcome they desired,
whether they purchase or
not?

Lead Nurturing

Lead Scoring

LinkedIn Advertising

Marketing Plan

Test
Has the company taken a
less corporate approach
and run a contest on
Facebook?
Has the company
implemented an effective
Google AdWords
campaign to drive
targeted search traffic,
and is the ROI constantly
measured and improved?
Does the company have
an in-bound lead plan
and monitoring program
that engages executives,
subject experts, customer
service and the sales
team?
If appropriate, does the
company consider
household income
targeting in their Google
AdWords campaigns?

13

Tactic

Test

Media Kit

Medium

Millennial Marketing

New User Onboarding

Newsletter Marketing

Online Community

Press Releases

Product/Market Fit

Notes
An online media kit is a resource page designed to
equip strategic partners, media producers, product
Does the company have a
reviewers, event planners and super fans with all the
media kit? How is it used?
tools they will need to do their job and help you get
the word out.
Does the company use
Medium.com to establish
One of the exciting value-adds of Medium is the ease
a thought leadership
of access it gives you to stats. You can not only see
position, encourage
how well something is received but also what tweaks
debate and provide
might make your post more widely shared.
commentary on their
industry?
Has the company
In the course of the next 10 years, a new generation
addressed the changing
Generation C will emerge. Born after 1990,
way younger users might these digital natives, just now beginning to attend
be engaging with their
university and enter the workforce, will transform the
products and services?
world as we know it.
Does the company split
Craft an onboarding sequence that will engage new
test and constantly refine customers and keep them coming back to use your
the onboarding process? product again and again.
Are the company's
The Motley Fool has been sharing its investment
newsletters informative
insights with its community for years and enjoyed
and engaging? Do
considerable growth by creating newsletters that
subscribers look forward
readers anticipate and open with eagerness.
to receiving them?
Does the company have
Differentiate your company from your competitors by
an engaged and lively
providing your customers with an active online
place for customers and
community where they can share best practices, get
supporters to come
support, and build connections.
together?
Do the company's press
releases generate
Before you write and issue a press release, ask Is
newsworthy stories, or
there news value in this story? And, Does it warrant
are they typical chest-
a release? Too often organizations feel obliged to
beating announcements
write press releases using material that is not
about the company's
newsworthy.
achievements which no-
one is interested in?
Is it immediately obvious
(within the first 5
If prospects dont already know they have pain, the
seconds) what significant sales process is going to be excruciating. Theres a
pain or problem the
word for that evangelism which conjures other
company solves? (the
words: expensive, difficult, time-consuming. This is
most often missing
the most common mistake/omission I see constantly.
criteria in B2B)

14

Tactic

Proximity Marketing

Remarketing

Risk Reversal

RLSA's

Sales Gamification

Test
Does the company
leverage the technology
available in mobile
devices to make their
events and exhibitions
more effective?
Has the company
implemented
remarketing and
retargeting campaigns to
remind one-time visitors
about their product as
they surf other sites?
Does the company go
beyond typical refund
policies and guarantees
by offering a powerful
risk reversal option?
Does the company use
Remarketing Lists for
Search Advertising
(RLSA's), or do their ads
continue to appear to
one-time visitors to their
website?
Has the company
implemented a sales
incentive program and a
contest platform to
gamify positions on the
sales leaderboard?
Has the company ever
investigated selling
unconverted or "dead"
leads to a competitor?

Sell Unconverted
Leads

Social Customer
Acquisition

Social Engagement

Does the company mine

the vast amount of data
publicly available and use
social media specifically
for lead generation?
Does the company
measure social media
engagement rather than
vanity metrics like Likes
and Followers?

Notes
Proximity marketing works by automatically detecting
customers in (or close to) a retail presence who have
active cell phones, then sending them suitable
content an initial query, which if answered in the
affirmative (an opt-in) leads to a more complex and
sustained interaction.
Remind visitors who didn't buy about your
business/brand as they visit other sites around the
web.
Ultimately it comes down to this, your task, as a
business owner is to reduce the risk that burdens
your customer during a sales transaction. And if you
can reduce customer risk by offering a guarantee
then you could also see your sales double.
Allows advertisers to tailor their search campaigns
based on whether a user has previously visited their
website (or app), and the pages that user viewed.

Using enterprise gamification together with CRM can

have surprising results, creating lasting changes in
employee behavior.
The deal is that the competitor will pay you a referral
fee for the referral. And you agree to do the same
with him. Additionally, your competitor and you
agree to help each other with each others sales
presentations, overcoming objections and closing
techniques.
Social customer acquisition is essentially the art of
mining publicly available social data to find ideal
prospects and then nurture them into customers.

Theres a difference between knowing what the stats

mean and knowing which stats are meaningful.

15

Tactic

Social Logins

Social Proof

Social Selling

Social Video

Telesummits

Twitter and Reddit

AMA's

Twitter Cards

Urchin Tracking
Module

Test
Does the company allow
subscribers to join their
lists using social login
forms as well as
traditional email
subscriber forms?
Does the company make
extensive use of
testimonials, press
commentary and other
methods of building
trust?
Does the company use
social media to effectively
source and reach out to
prospects?
Does the company
produce fun, quirky,
thought provoking videos
and are they shared on
less corporate social
sites?
Has the company ever
planned and hosted a
telesummit to build
credibility, establish
thought-leadership and
gain leads?
Does the company use
Twitter and Reddit to run
Q&A or Ask Me Anything
sessions to establish
thought leadership and
gather market
intelligence?
Has the company set up
Twitter cards so that
when their site is tweeted
additional information is
appended to each tweet?
Does the company use
UTM's extensively to
track advertising
campaigns and externally
referred traffic?

Notes
Social login gives users the option to sign-up and login
on app using their account on a social network like
Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

A lot of things go into a persons decision to purchase

a product, and social proof is certainly one of those
important factors.
Sandler Training is the world's leader in innovative
sales, leadership and management training. This book
is the definitive guide to Social Selling using LinkedIn.
What differentiates social video marketing from
traditional video marketing is that it takes places
within social media sites.
With a telesummit, all you have to do is bring
together other speakers to give presentations on
topics your market is interested in. They do all the
work for you, like putting together a value-loaded,
clear presentation and informing their lists.

Q & A sessions are a great way for businesses to

connect with customers, investors, and prospective
clients.

Twitter cards offer significantly more functionality

than the traditional 140 characters. Use them to
super-charge your tweets with everything prospects
should know about your company.
When a UTM tag is appended, it allows you to track
referral traffic much more accurately. Without
appending UTMs to your links, youll only track the
general source of your traffic (such as AdWords or
Facebook) instead of the specific campaign or post.

16

Tactic

Video Marketing

Test
Does the company have a
video marketing strategy
and are their videos easily
discoverable when
searching for the
problems their prospects
want to solve?

Notes
Customers are hungry for video. There are more than
7 billion videos watched each and every day on
Facebook and YouTube as people turn to watching
rather than reading. A great initial tactic is to answer
all of your FAQ's as individual videos and upload to
YouTube. Don't forget to end with a Call to Action.

Basic
The following strategies and tactics are usually considered by startups or relatively new businesses. On a scale of
implementation complexity from 0 to 10, these strategies are typically 1-5. If you need more advanced strategies,
go back to Intermediary Strategies on page 10.
Tactic

Test

A/B Split Testing

Does the company make

rigorous use of split
testing to determine the
best performing offers
and CTA's?

App Store
Optimization

Blogging

Blogging

Blogging

Content Plan

If the company has an

app in any of the major
app stores, has visibility
in the app store been
optimized?
Does the company's
blogging frequency,
length and images follow
best practice? Are the
articles thought-
leadership quality or are
they simply regurgitated
content?
Does the website include
a link from the home
page with "blog" as the
anchor text?
Does the company need
assistance with starting a
blog?
Does the company
maintain an annual
content marketing plan
with contributions from
all C-level individuals?

Notes
Run simple, yet powerful A/B tests to determine
whether your pages messaging resonates with
potential customers. Each test will help you find out
what your audience responds to, and will help
optimize your conversion rates for more effective
marketing spend.
With over 2 million mobile apps in the major app
stores, getting your app discovered is one of the
biggest issues facing mobile app publishers today.
Blogging also helps you get discovered via social
media. Every time you write a blog post, you're
creating content that people can share on social
networks -- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest --
which helps expose your business to a new audience
that may not know you yet.
Blogging is the best way there is to reach your target
audience with the useful, educational information
they're out there looking for. Not to mention how
much it helps your search rankings.
Here are 12 blogging questions you must answer
before you start blogging.
Content marketing provides significant advantages
over traditional, interruptive advertising.

17

Tactic

Test

Crowdfunding

Has the company (if

appropriate) turned to
the crowd to assist in
raising early funds?

Does the website have a

Moz.com domain
authority of at least 20?

Domain Authority

Do all blog posts have

links to Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn and
Google+ sharing?
Does the website include
a prominent email
subscription option and is
the email capture
function intriguing?
Does the company have
an active and appropriate
for the audience
Facebook Business Page?

Easy Social Sharing

Email Capture

Facebook Business
Page

Has the company

identified any out-of-the-
ordinary ways of
attracting attention?

Growth Hacking

Implied Endorsement

Inbound Links

Inbound Tweets

Landing Pages

Has the company's

product/service been
announced on reputable
and authoritative sites
like Product Hunt and
Crunchbase?
Does the website have at
least 30 authoritative
sites that link back to it?
Does the website have at
least 30 tweets that link
back to it?
Does the company make
use of targeted landing
pages with specific CTA's
rather than a generic
corporate website?

Notes
Crowdfunding is the crowd coming together, through
individual contributions, to collectively fund
something (a business, a film, an art project, a
students tuition, disaster relief, Olympic dreams,
etc.).
This score (on a 100-point scale) predicts how well a
website will rank on search engines.
Make it simple for readers to share your content on
their social networks. Blog posts shared on Twitter
and Facebook get 149% more inbound links than
those not shared on social media at all.
Make it easy for people who prefer email to stay in
touch with your company.

The average company saw a 185% increase in traffic

after crossing 1,000 Facebook likes.
The startup world is crowded and getting noticed
requires doing something no-one else is doing.
Fortunately there are many founders who share what
worked for them. The trick is to become familiar with
as many methods as possible and then hack together
your own strategy.
Product Hunt surfaces the best new products, every
day. It's a place for product-loving enthusiasts to
share and geek out about the latest mobile apps,
websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.
Links to your site are a vote of confidence, and if
authoritative sites link to you it pushes your ranking
up in the Search Engine Results Pages.
While a debate still rages about whether social
mentions improve SEO, being found on social
platforms improves visibility.
Conversion rates and profits can soar thanks to a
properly created landing page. Businesses with more
than 40 landing pages get 12X more leads than those
with only a few landing pages.

18

Tactic

Test
Does the website include
location schema to
enhance local search
visibility?
Is there evidence on the
website of backend
marketing automation to
nurture leads? How
effective are the
nurturing messages?
What is the open rate?

Location Schema

Marketing
Automation

Notes
Google says searches with a location qualifier as such
seo company near me or closest seo company
have more than doubled in the last year.

Intelligent lead nurturing reminds your prospects

about your solutions, without annoying them.

You need a mobile CSS if you want people to access

Does the website's
your site on their smartphones. And since 43% of all
homepage include mobile
Mobile Responsive
phones are smartphones, and 87% of them use it to
CSS or a redirect to a
access the internet, it probably makes sense to get
mobile website?
this in place sooner rather than later.
The meta viewport tag tells a mobile device how to
Does the website's
orient a page when it's loaded. It also determines if a
Mobile Responsive
homepage include the
page can be scaled larger or smaller and if it should
viewport metatag?
rotate as the user rotates their mobile device.
Is it immediately obvious
(within the first 5
If prospects dont already know they have pain, the
seconds) what significant sales process is going to be excruciating. Theres a
Product/Market Fit
pain or problem the
word for that evangelism which conjures other
company solves? (the
words: expensive, difficult, time-consuming. This is
most often missing
the most common mistake/omission I see constantly.
criteria in B2B)
Are all of the company's Internet users spend 3X more time on blogs and
social media accounts
social networks than on email. Make it easy for
Prominent Social Links
linked from the website's people to follow you however they want by letting
home page?
them know where you can be found right up front.
Has the company planned
a Public Relations
Startups that have a great product their customers
campaign and have they love can benefit from public relations in more ways
Public Relations
established a favorable
than one. Aside from the obvious benefit of publicity,
relationship with the
entrepreneurs gain credibility.
press?
Does an auto-
discoverable RSS feed
Adding an auto-discoverable RSS feed makes it super
exist on the website? Is
RSS Feed
easy for power users to get your latest blog posts and
an excerpt included with
news stories as soon as you publish them.
a link back to the article
for each RSS summary?
Do social subscription
options exist as well as
Make it easy for people to stay in touch with your
Social Logins
email subscriptions from company however it is easiest for them.
the website?

19

Tactic
Social Proof

Startup Marketing

Syndication

Twitter Account

Unique Page Titles

Website Analytics

Website Analytics

Website Images

Test
Does the company make
extensive use of LinkedIn
recommendations to
boost social proof?
If the company is a
startup, have they
educated themselves on
everything required to
achieve visibility or are
they being nave and
relying on word of
mouth?
Has the company
implemented a content
distribution strategy to
share their best content?
On how many different
authority domains can
the company's content be
found?
Does the company have
an active and relevant
Twitter account? How
many followers?
Do all of the website
pages have unique (and
relevant) SEO-optimized
descriptions?
Does the JavaScript of at
least one of the major
analytics tools exist on
website and are the
results regularly
analyzed?
Does the company
maintain an historical
record of analytics
improvements and learn
from the tweaks? Is there
a focus on constant
improvement?
Are all of the website
images compelling and do
they all have relevant alt
tags?

Notes
Ensure that all senior staff have at least 10 LinkedIn
recommendations
Startup marketing is a whole dierent science. "Build
it and they will come" doesn't work. Those overnight
success stories are often the result of years of hard
work. Startup marketing is challenging because of
limited resources (Time, money, or talent). Here's
how to do it.

Marketers often forget the importance of promoting

their content people dont find content by mistake,
or by accident. Every content plan needs a
complementary promotion plan that combines paid,
owned, and earned media.

Companies with 51 to 100 Twitter followers generate

106% more traffic than those with 25 or fewer.
75% of users never go further than the first page of
search results. You've got to do what you can to stand
out in the pack of results, and compelling page
descriptions is a good place to start.
You can't be sure you're improving something if
you're not measuring it. Set up marketing analytics on
your website so you can track your improvements
over time.

Without metrics, it would be next to impossible to set

goals and measure our progress towards them.
Theyre what allow us to be constantly improving,
constantly pushing forward.
70% of the links search users click on are organic - not
paid. Using keyword-rich alt text can help you rank
higher so that you can capture some of that delicious
organic traffic for yourself.

20

Part 2 90-Day Marketing Plan

Senior Marketing hires are expected to hit the ground running and create key wins in their first few months on
the job. Use this high level plan to prioritize your activities during this crucial time.
The overall objective is to create B2B sales ready leads for the sales team. Naturally all of these activities should
only be addressed if appropriate. They are presented in no particular order, except for the phase in which they
typically occur, grouped by category.

Stages:
0. Pre-plan: do everything you can to hit the ground running as quickly as possible
1. Baseline & Benchmarking: understand the product, the market, the product/market fit, the company
culture and what's expected of you
2. Building the Foundation: take everything you've learned in the first 30 days and build your Strategic
Marketing Plan
3. Implementation: have a process to measure and report on progress; use feedback to adjust priorities
Stage Category

Action
Meet colleagues-to-be socially to guage their level of passion - WHY do they
0 Culture
work for the company?
Check the reputational health of the company from recent press releases -
0 Market Fit
what opportunities are there?
0 Market Fit
Do your own mystery shopping
0 Market Fit
Learn everything possible about the brand and its customers
0 Strategy
Assimilate historic research
1 Culture
Clarify boss's expectations, style, feedback
1 Culture
Get a grip on the organisational culture
Meet the team, identify persona's, roles, skills, structures - build relationships
1 Culture
& internal network
1 Inbound
Choose the social media channels to use and theme for each (if appropriate)
Commit to a social media stragey and inbound monitoring to be implemented
1 Inbound
within 90 days
Learn the conversion rates at every stage of the marketing and sales process
1 Lead Generation
and identify the stages that need improvement.
1 Market Fit
If appropriate, prepare competitor analysis and differentiators
1 Market Fit
If appropriate, prepare SWOT analysis
Interview user/customers and write up detailed summaries - circulate
1 Market Fit
internally
1 Online
Analyse competitors' social presence
1 Online
Analyse website traffic & ranking
1 Online
Benchmark competitors' online presence
1 Online
Compare to competitors' digital presence
Decide the marketing automation tool to be implmented on the website and
1 Online
commit to launch within 90 days
1 Online
Develop a longtail keyword list
1 Online
Generate wordclouds from main sites to validate predominate themes
Analyse existing pipeline to identify where leads come from (and which sources
1 Sales
work)
Identify the most promising unexploited opportunities and establish what
1 Sales
would need to happen before the opportunities can be pursued
21

Stage Category

Action
Review exisitng pipeline and review marketing qualified leads - is there room
1 Sales
for improvement?
Review lost opportunities to understand objections raised - document
1 Sales
objections and prioritise
Ask every leader "If you were me, what would you focus on?" Sales, Finance,
1 Strategy
Manufacturing, Personnel, Supply, Logistics
1 Strategy
Grok the mission and vision of the company (or create if it doesn't exist)
1 Strategy
Identify & document opportunities for early wins
1 Strategy
Identify influencers who may be able to assist in promotion/word of mouth
1 Strategy
Identify partners/distributors - existing and potential
1 Strategy
Identify the biggest challenges facing the company (now or future)
Identify the problem being solved & validate that people search for your
1 Strategy
solution
1 Strategy
Identify the reasons for the biggest challenges
2 Lead Generation Build a prospect database (or identify accounts) in conjunction with sales
2 Lead Generation Kick off LinkedIn lead generation
Implement early wins (processes or systems which can be changed rapidly for
2 Sales
outright improvement)
2 Strategy
Develop client personas or Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs)
Match strategy to situation: Startup, Turnaround, Accelerated Growth,
2 Strategy
Realignment, Sustaining Success (STARS)
Produce the marketing strategy, including KPI's - identify goals, build
2 Strategy
messaging, pinpoint target audiences
Your first few hires will define your culture and become future leaders, so
3 Hiring
make sure theyre the right individuals to replicate.
3 Inbound
Launch the inbound marketing strategy (social media)
Make sure we have the technology and processes in place to score and nurture
3 Inbound
those leads that engage with our content until they are sales ready
Start creating plenty of strong content that is easy for prospects to locate, read
3 Inbound
and share.
3 Online
Commit to launching a Sales 2.0 website within the next 30 days
3 Online
Launch the marketing automation platform
3 Strategy
Agree measurements and success criteria
3 Strategy
Start delivering on the strategy

22

Part 3 Marketing Legends Hall of Fame

Ive studied marketing for over 20 years, by going directly to the marketing greats. This list represents my
mentors. Follow them if you want to be an exceptional marketer or sales professional. There are plenty of selfproclaimed "guru's" who aren't on this list - generally they're part of the online cacophony and can be safely
ignored.
Category
Branding
Branding
Branding
Branding
Copywriting

Name
Dan Schawbel
David A. Aaker
Donald Trump
John Moore
Ben Settle

Copywriting

Dan Ferrari

Copywriting
Copywriting

Dan Gallapoo
David Garfinkel
Eugene
Schwartz
Gary
Bencivenga
Gary Halbert
John Caples
John Carlton
Lester
Wunderman
Michel Fortin
Ray Edwards
Robert W. Bly
Ted Nicholas

Copywriting

About
Personal Branding Guru
Brand Strategist
Business Branding
Marketingologist
Author of The Copywriting Grab Bag
Self-taught copywriter who beat the new-customer acquisition
control of a major publisher by 700%
Direct response and online conversion expert
Direct Marketing for Entrepreneurial Businesses
Author of Breakthrough Advertising

Copywriting

One of the world's most respected copywriters

Copywriting
Copywriting
Copywriting
Copywriting

Copywriting Guru and creator of The Gary Halbert Letter

One of advertising's most effective copywriters
Copywriter and Trainer
Creator of Modern Day Direct Marketing

Copywriting
Copywriting
Copywriting
Copywriting
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing

Andr Citron
Brian Kurtz

Direct Response Copywriter and Marketing Consultant

Direct Response Copywriter
Copywriter and Trainer
Master Copywriter
Inventor of the Electric Billboard for Citron in Paris.
Multi-channel marketing expert. Achieved well over $100m in sales
in three different channels - direct mail, TV and online

Brian Tracy

Business Motivational Speaker

Claude C.
Hopkins
Clayton
Makepeace
Conrad
Gessner

Advertising Pioneer and author of Scientific Advertising

World's Highest-Paid Marketing Coach and Copywriter

Inventor of Viral Marketing by starting Tulipmania in 1634

David Ogilvy

Often called 'The Father of Advertising'

Drayton Bird
Greg Renker

Direct Response Marketing Legend

The $2 billion a year infomercial king

23

Category
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Direct Response
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing
Guerrilla
Marketing

Name
Henry Jamison
(Jam) Handy

About
Inventor of the Marketing Video

The world's highest paid marketing consultant and founder of The

Abraham Group

Jay Abraham

Jeffrey Gitomer

Founder of a sales training empire

John R.
Brinkley

Inventor of Broadcast Advertising

Ken McCarthy

Internet Marketing Pioneer

Lillie Langtry

Inventor of the Celebrity Endorsement

Mary Kay Ash

Inventor of Network Marketing

N.W. Ayer

Inventor of the Advertising Agency

Philip Kotler

The world's leading strategic marketer

Robert B.
Cialdini

Influence and Persuasion

Robert Collier

Author of The Robert Collier Letter Book: Collier Publications

Ron Popeil

Inventor of the Infomercial

Rosser Reeves

Pioneer of Television Advertising, author of Reality in Advertising

Theodore
Levitt

Former Editor of Harvard Business Review

Tom Peters

Business Management Practices

William (Bill)
Bernbach

Advertising Creative Director of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB)

Gerry Faloona
Guy Kawasaki

Motivational Speaker and Guerrilla Marketing Presenter

Marketed the Apple Macintosh in 1984

Jay Conrad
Levinson

The Father of Guerrilla Marketing

Joe Sugarman

Mark Victor
Hansen

Mail Order Maverick

Co-author of the Chicken Soup series

Jack Canfield

Phineas Taylor
Barnum
Richard
Branson

Co-author of the Chicken Soup series

Showman, Entrepreneur and Creator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus

Founder of Virgin Group

24

Category
Guerrilla
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Online/Digital
Marketing
Other
Noteworthy
Additions

Name

About

Seth Godin

Father of Permission Marketing

Ben Hunt

Direct response web designer

Corey Rudl

Early Internet Marketer

Dan Kennedy

Small Business Marketing Ideas

David
Meerman Scott

Online Marketing Strategist

Declan Dunn

New Media Publisher & Business Development

Don Crowther

Online Marketing and Social Media Expert

Dr. Glenn
Livingston

PhD in Psychology and understands how to enter a niche market

Frank Kern

Internet Marketer and consultant to small businesses

Gauher
Chaudhry

Traffic generation and conversion

Greg Davis

Spends and tracks millions of dollars in online advertising

Jay Berkowitz

Internet Marketing Consultant

Jeff Walker

Creator of Product Launch Formula

Jim Kukral

Internet Marketing for Business

Joe Vitale

Author of Cyber Writing, the first print book about online copywriting

Ken Evoy

Founder of SiteSell, an all-in-one digital publishing platform

Lloyd Irvin

World champion in Brazilian Ju-Jistu and online marketing coach

Mark Joyner

The Father of Internet Marketing

Marlon
Sanders

Step by Step Internet Marketing

Mike Enlow

Retired Internet Marketing Expert

Mitch Joel

Rock Star of Digital Marketing

Perry Marshall
Anders
Gronstedt

Wizard of Adwords and now Facebook advertising

Integrated Marketing Communications and Branding

25

Category
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions

Name

About

Chet Holmes

Business Coaching

Daniel H. Pink

Business and Technology

David Frey

Small Business Marketing Best Practices

David T. Fagan

Icon Builder and Rainmaker

Don E. Schultz

Father of Integrated Marketing

Donny Deutsch
Doug
Firebaugh

Chairman of Deutsch Inc., an advertising agency

Expert in MLM and Network Marketing

Eben Pagan

Online Educator

Gary
Vaynerchuk

Author on the subjects of social media, brand building and e-

commerce

Harvey MacKay

Business Motivational Speaker

Isaac Burton
Tigrett

Founder of Hard Rock Caf

Jagdish Sheth
Jerry
Weintraub

Entertainment Promoter

Keith Ferrazzi
Michael
Masterson

Professor of Marketing and Business Consultant

Sales and Marketing Consultant, Relationships of Business

Author and Entrepreneur

Nancy Duarte

Business Presentations Using Cognition and Persuasion

26

Category
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Other
Noteworthy
Additions
Social
Marketing
Social
Marketing
Social
Marketing
Social
Marketing
Social
Marketing
Social
Marketing

Name

About

Paul Lemberg

Small Business Coaching

Rich Schefren

Entrepreneur and Small Business Coach

Richard G.
Rosen

Convergence Marketing

Sally Hogshead

Advertising and Personal Branding

Scott Bedbury

Advertising Executive formerly associated with Nike and Starbucks

Social Media
Examiner

Collective of Experts on Social Media

Steven K. Scott

Maverick Entrepreneur

Tony Rubleski

President of Mind Capture Group

CEO and Founder of Maverick MBA.com. Bootstrapped 8 $1M+

products. Digital Marketing Pioneer

Yanik Silver

Chris Brogan

Beyond Social Media

Euan Semple

Social Media for Business

Jay Baer

Social Media Strategy

Mari Smith
Mark W.
Schaefer
Nathan
Kievman

Facebook Marketing Expert

Author, professor and teacher of social media

Corporate Social Media Solutions

27

Part 4 Noteworthy Blogs

Growth Hacking Blogs
http://andrewchen.co/

Andrews blog features a range of posts and essays related to start-

ups, growth hacking, and innovation.
This blog is written by marketers at the worlds fastest growing
companies and also contains a range of case studies and eCourses on
analytics, mobile marketing, and user onboarding.

http://www.growhack.com/

http://blog.growthgeeks.com

Marketing tips and tactics from the freelance marketing service.

http://growthhacker.am/

https://www.growthhacker.tv/
http://www.ranky.co/

This blog is written by the team behind leading analytics tool, Colibri. It
covers a mix of relevant news, trends, and interviews with subject
matter experts.
Here you will find an awesome collection of 100+ videos there to help
you learn growth hacking techniques from those who already applied
them.
In this post Tel Aviv based startup expert Yoav Vilner shares a
comprehensive history of growth hacking and offers up a step-by-step
guide to implement best practices at businesses of any size.
This great blog, run by inbound marketer Jacek Blaut, has something
for businesses at every stage of the startup lifecycle, from ground zero
to mergers and acquisitions.
GrowthHackers.com is probably the best known and biggest
community site for sharing, learning and discussing successful growth
hacking techniques.
In this article author and productivity expert Tim Ferriss tells us how he
applied innovative growth hacking tactics to a book launch. Well worth
a read.
This is the blog of Sean Ellis, the chap who first coined the growth
hacking phrase. Here you will find his views and findings on a range of
topics from customer acquisition to scalability and optimisation.
This blog is run by successful growth hacker Lincoln Murphy and is full
of useful tips about marketing your software business.

http://growthhackingpro.com/
http://growthhackers.com/

http://www.fastcompany.com/

startup-marketing.com

http://sixteenventures.com/

http://blog.vytmn.com

Marketing advice from world class marketers.

Though one-on-one advice will always be crucial, Y Combinator has

http://playbook.samaltman.com distilled the most generalizable parts of their advice into an excellent
playbook.

28

Marketing Blogs
URL

http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/

http://www.aimclearblog.com/

http://b2bleadblog.com/

http://www.b2bmarketing.net/blog

http://www.b2bmarketinginsider.com/

http://www.btobonline.com/

http://www.bizible.com/blog

About
Todays digital marketers are faced with endless optionsfor
tools as well as tactics. Articles on the Adobe Digital
Marketing Blog help digital marketers research tactics and
tools to unlock the right combination of strategies for their
brands. Adobes blog is organized into ten neatly-labeled
categories that make it easy for readers to access a large
cache of specific insights and to find a high volume of
content about a specific digital marketing topic.
Like most aspects of marketing, online advertising requires a
specific skillset from those that administer it, but the rules of
online advertising change constantly and drastically. The
team at Aimclear specializes in online advertising, and they
not only follow the changing rules, but understand and
develop best practices almost instantly.
Comprised by thought leaders at Meclabs, the B2B Lead
Roundtable blog offers strategies that can help sales and
marketing professions thrive in the ever-changing B2B
landscape. This blog is quite forward-thinking, covering
topics like sales and marketing alignment, CRM integration
and lead generation.
B2B Marketing is a great one-stop site for B2B marketing
news as well as blogs on a variety of subjects including direct
marketing, business development, CRM marketing, mobile
marketing and more. For example, check out this post for
some awesome stats about video marketing.
Michael Brenner truly is a B2B marketing insider and a top
thought leader. Hes currently the VP of Global Marketing at
SAP. Prior to that, he worked with top brands at Nielsen. His
blog focuses on global strategies and emerging trends across
a cross-section of marketing topics including content
marketing, alignment with sales, social media, mobile
marketing and more. We especially encourage content
marketers to read Mr. Brenners blog, as he really gets B2B
content like few others.
More than just a blog, BtoB is packed full of engaging articles
on a variety of marketing topics. You could spend days
digesting all of the rich content here and still be only skin-
deep. In addition to an ongoing stream of B2B news articles,
BtoB Online also offers whitepapers on topics like email
marketing and lead generation, webcasts, and a blog that
features insights from various top marketers.
Bizibles blog is packed with B2B marketing tips on lead
generation, sales enablement, content marketing and
demand gen. Definitely a must-read for marketers looking
for new strategic ways to power pipeline growth.

29

URL
http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com

http://www.briansolis.com/

http://www.bryaneisenberg.com/

http://blog.bufferapp.com/

http://www.copyblogger.com/blog/

http://dannybrown.me/blog/

About
Time Magazine calls Bob "fabulously irreverent" and WSJ
calls him "caustic yet truthful". If you want marketing and
sales advice (albeit with an advertising slant) that bucks the
trend, this is one blog you want to subscribe to and read
regularly.
Solis asks deep questions about the directions towards which
technology pulls the forces that command our lives, and he
answers them with thoughtful and informed blog articles. His
blog offers a place to contemplate the future and think
critically about how modern events impact societal shifts. He
references leading marketing and cultural moments, such as
Redbulls content domination and the rise of the selfie,
reviews books, conducts interviews, and encourages all
marketers to think critically about the impacts of their
campaigns.
Bryan Eisenbergs blog articles use lots of concrete examples,
screenshots, and crowd-sourced quotes to deliver well-
researched content that paints more than just a single
opinion on a variety of topics. They also focus on modern
marketing tactics and offer helpful resources for marketers
looking to refresh any aspects of their practices with modern
tactics.
Buffer prizes quality over quantity, so when you land on the
Buffer blog, you know youre reading content that was
created as more than just linkbait. A lot of their posts delve
beyond simple how-tos and into the psychology of buyer
behaviorand how it impacts marketing. Almost every post is
longform and features unique graphs, images, and quotes,
and if you really want to dig into the nuances of a marketing
topic, check out the Buffer blog.
The Internet has turned all marketers into writers, and its
not as simple a craft as it seems. Copyblogger offers a huge
volume of resources designed to help marketers create
content that sells to online audiences. Anyone tasked with
brand storytelling and content marketing should bookmark
the Copyblogger blog as a go-to resource.
Hubspot ranked Danny Browns blog the #1 marketing blog
in the world. Not only is the blog optimized for content
consumption, the content is written to encourage readers to
get to the bottom of every article. Brown isnt just another
marketing influencer recycling content about which every
other marketer is talking; he offers truly modern perspective
on the most modern marketing trends in social and
influence.

30

URL

About
Forrester is one of the most trusted analyst firms in the
business and technology space. Their B2B marketing blog is
http://blogs.forrester.com/b2b_marketing packed with insights into how B2B marketers can engage
customers effectively, improve customer experience and
enable sales to be more successful.
The Hootsuite blog consistently churns out digestible
content to help marketers build savvy social media
http://blog.hootsuite.com/
strategies. The Hootsuite team stays on top of all the latest
developments in social media by curating bite-sized videos
that wrap up industry news and product updates.
Stop by the Hubspot blog when youre stuck for ideas, need
answers to specific marketing questions, and to find content
http://blog.hubspot.com/
you can share with your team to help them understand new
concepts or practices.
As the analytics revolution goes into full swing, the
InsightSquared blog is one of the best sources on the web for
http://www.insightsquared.com/blog/
all things analytics. Looking for some inspiration on how to
crunch sales data more effectively? Youll probably find it
here.
Though Kaposts blog doesnt strictly serve a B2B audience,
there is much to be gained by reading their posts on content
marketing. The blog regularly features posts from a variety of
http://marketeer.kapost.com/
worthy professionals, including top executives and visionary
creatives. Check out these essential content marketing
lessons.
You can tell Kissmetrics takes conversion seriously just from
the experience you get when you visit their blog; its
designed to convert traffic without turning readers awaya
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/
sign that Kissmetrics actually practices what they preach. The
Kissmetrics blog is the best place to go for inspiration about
tests to run on your website, blog, and mobile apps.
Knowledge Trees blog focuses on the point that sales and
marketing intersect. Get ready for a deluge of insight on
https://www.knowledgetree.com/blog/
sales enablement, predictive analytics, content marketing,
sales training and lots more. If youre a full funnel marketer,
KnowledgeTrees blog is a must.
Mailchimps blog serves as a sort of online community for
the brand where they discuss how to build effective email
marketing strategies with Mailchimp at their center. If you
use Mailchimp, reading their blog is a requirement. If you
http://blog.mailchimp.com/
dont, reading their blog is still a great way to learn
marketing best practices; Mailchimp runs a lot of innovative
marketing campaigns, and they always dedicate blog posts to
these campaigns as post-mortems.

http://www.businessesgrow.com/blog/

The acclaimed blog whose author has advanced degrees in

marketing and organizational development and holds seven
patents.
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URL

http://www.marketingprofs.com/

http://blog.marketo.com/

heinzmarketing.com

http://moz.com/blog

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

http://www.pardot.com/blog/

salesforce.com/marketing

http://chiefmartec.com/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

About
The authors of the articles published on Marketing Profs are
all pre-screened influencers, so you know youre not just
getting another opinion, youre getting an expert opinion.
Marketers looking for industry-leading advice should check
out Marketing Profs for anything and everything that comes
up in their day to day requirements.
Marketo understands content. Anyone looking to learn a
new marketing practice, train a new team member, and stay
up to speed on the latest marketing trends should absolutely
stop by the marketo blog first. If youre ever looking for
content about marketing, chances are high youll find it on
Marketos blog.
Matt Heinz, of Heinz Marketing, has more than 15 years of
marketing experience, and has delivered measurable results
for companies like Microsoft and The Seattle Mariners. On
his blog Matt on Marketing he reveals strategies that can
help virtually any B2B marketer improve their game.
SEO can often seem like a losing game for marketers who
dont have the luxury of dedicated search engine
contractors, team members, or agencies. The ins and outs of
SEO ranking are usually something marketers have to teach
themselves, and if you want to learn about SEO, the Moz
blog is a great resource. SEO is also a marketing topic that
impacts most functions of the marketing team indirectly;
content writers and social media managers should read the
Moz blog to brush up on a topic that underlies many of their
day to day responsibilities.
There arent very many marketing veterans that have built
their careers on the technological side of marketing, and
from that pool, there are even fewer that write blogs about
it. Occams Razor is a gem of insight about how to create,
lead, and maintain data-driven marketing strategies.
The Pardot team encourages marketers to be hands on by
providing them with a series of how-to articles around lead
generation, marketing automation, and brand strategy.
Salesforce is the biggest CRM in the world. Many of the
worlds leading brands avidly use the Salesforce platform.
And many of the worlds top sales leaders share their
insights on the Salesforce blog.
Few marketers understand the intersection of marketing and
technology better than Chief Martecs Scott Brinker. For
actionable insights into how technology is shaping marketing
strategy, management and engagement, we highly
recommend Scotts blog. As an example, read Scotts
thoughts on agile marketing.
Godin writes with conviction, documenting the twists and
turns of the modern buyer. His blog is the best place to find
inspiration and sharpen your marketing skills.
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URL

https://signalvnoise.com/

About
Signal vs. Noise offers valuable wisdom about product
strategy thats all too rare in the technology industry. Rather
than offering lists or how-to advice, articles on Signal vs.
Noise tell stories. Theres no other blog like it, and marketers
should reference it for advice on product strategy, team
building, and corporate direction.
Marketers dont like to talk about their own mistakes, so
Shevlin does it for them. As this list attests, theres no
shortage of helpful marketing content online, but
sometimes, its just as helpful to learn what not to do as it is
to learn what to do. Snarketing 2.0 is a great place to learn
from the mistakes of othersa practice marketers can almost
always afford to adopt.
An innovative social media strategy is now a must for just
about any B2B marketer. Social Media B2B, a collaboration
between high-level marketing strategists Kipp Bodnar
(Hubspot) and Jeffrey L. Cohen (Salesforce Marketing Cloud),
offers tips to help improve social media ROI. In articles like
10 Ideas to Make Boring B2B Social Media Posts
Captivating and Integration, Content and Analytics Drive
B2B Digital Marketing Success, Social Media B2B expounds
on social media strategies that B2B marketers can use
enliven engagement with leads and customers across a wide
range of social media platforms.

http://snarketing2dot0.com/

http://socialmediab2b.com/

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/

Social media examiner features articles from a wide array of

writers so their readers can access broad perspectives on
social media. Not every post is as good as the next, but you
can always find a fresh take on anything social media related
on Social Media Examiner.
If you want to learn about social media, go straight to the
source. Thousands of brands publish their social content
through Sprout Socials platform every day, and the brand
knows a thing or two about social media expertise. Social
media is an excitable area of the marketing department;
theres always a new tip or trick, a new tool, a discontinued
tool, etc. The Sprout Social team stays on top of all the latest
developments in social media, and anyone with a hand in the
corporate social profiles should keep an eye on the Sprout
Social blog for updates on new features and tricks in the
social media space.

33

URL

http://thecopybot.com/

http://blog.topohq.com/

http://unbounce.com/blog/

http://www.unmarketing.com/

velocitypartners.co.uk

http://www.vidyard.com/blog/

About
CMOs often write taglines. Lead Generation Managers write
email and landing page copy. Social Media Directors write
updates all day long, Content Marketers write blog posts and
ebooks, Search Engine Marketers write ad copy, Interactive
Marketing Managers write site copy. No matter how you
slice a marketing department, every member gets called
upon to do a little writing time and time again. Writing can
be a scary and confusing task because its so visible, so
marketers looking to improve their writing skills should take
advantage of the wealth of knowledge Farnworth shares on
his blog.
The Topo blog regularly features guest posts, interviews, and
article round-ups from industry-leading influencers on a
number of relevant marketing topics. The Topo blog is the
best place to go to find the best insights on everything
modern B2B marketers need to know about their craft.
The Unbounce team writes content for engagement, not
visits, and they take lengths to put forth content thats based
on examples and scientific evidence. Their content is more
than just linkbait; its genuinely helpful.
Connecting with customers through a trusted brand is an
undeniably important aspect of marketing. As the Web
becomes home to most brands, marketers have less control
than customers over how their brands are perceived. To
maintain positive brand images these days, marketers have
to replace old practices with customer-centric ones. Stratten
helps teach marketers how to build trusted brands through
truly helping customers.
The best marketers understand when a trend is right for
their brand and when its not, but we all have to face those
moments when the CMO or CEO says, I keep hearing about
brands on Pinterest. Why arent we on Pinterest? Please
build a presence on Pinterest. We could all build a presence
on Pinterest, and its important to experiment with new
marketing trends, but its even more important to
understand how each aspect of the marketing strategy fits
into our brand goals. The Velocity Partners blog encourages
marketers to think about marketing strategies, not just
implement them to appease the higher-ups.
Theres a lot more to video marketing than creating TV ads,
but few marketing departments hire team members to focus
exclusively on video campaigns. Because video content is
different from text content, it requires different marketing
strategies. The Vidyard blog helps marketers understand
how to create successful campaigns using video content.

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URL
http://www.wordstream.com/

About
The Wordstream Blog is one of the best places to read
thought leadership around search marketing. This blog
reveals how to target the right keywords, build better
landing pages, drive inbound leads with content and more.
They even feature a variety of posts on call tracking.

35

Sales Blogs
URL

About
Simply put, Jim Keenan is one of the top sales and marketing
influencers on the web. He is also one of the foremost thought
leaders when it comes to leveraging the power of social media to
http://asalesguy.com/
sell more. And with posts with titles like Why This Sleazy Pitch Is
Actually Good Selling", his blog is actually as fun to read as it is
informative.
Looking for a social sales guru? Craig Jamieson is one of the top
authorities on social CRM and social sales. Check out his blog for
http://adaptive-business.com/blog/
insight into using social to increase sales productivity and
revenue.
The Center for Sales Strategy blog is full of highly readable blog
posts that are packed with actionable insights. And while the
centerforsalesstrategy.com
content isnt 100% B2B-focused, theres a lot of content here that
can help B2B sales leaders improve their overall selling strategy.
Steve W. Martins Heavy Hitter Sales Blog offers advanced insight
to senior B2B salespeople. Building on his series of books as well
heavyhittersales.com
as more than 20 years of experience selling enterprise solutions in
Silicon Valley, Martins blog is a great resource for top sales
professionals (or sales professionals eager to reach the top).
Top sales author Jill Konraths blog is full of prescriptive sales
advice that can help B2B (or B2C) sales reps quickly raise the roof
jillkonrath.com
on their sales game.Check out her blog to find out how to quickly
become a trusted advisor, how to onboard sales people
effectively and how to deal with crazy-busy sales prospects.
John Barrows is a sales trainer to some of the worlds leading tech
companies. On his blog he reveals thought leadership that can
http://www.jbarrows.com/blog/
help sales reps (especially software sales reps) take their game to
the next level.
Jonathan Farrington is an internationally recognized business
coach and sales consultant. His blog features eloquent
http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk/
meditations on sales strategy. His blog posts are popping with
kernels of wisdom, waiting to be digested by B2B sales
professionals with an appetite for success.
Learn the best practices of social selling. Leveraging social media
http://www.kokasexton.com
like LinkedIn and Twitter has proven results for sales
professionals.
When it comes to sales, David Brock is one of the top authorities
around. Luckily for us, in addition to being an in-demand speaker
http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/
and sales coach, he regularly shares his insights on his Partners in
EXCELLENCE blog.
Includes compelling topics such as 3 Ways to Engage Sales
http://www.quotafactory.com/blog/ Development to Increase Retention and Its Time B2B Sales
Teams Return to the 40-Hour Work Week.
Sales Engine was founded by expert sales consultant Craig
http://www.salesengine.com/blog/
Wortmann. On his blog, Craig shares winning sales strategies that
can appeal to salespeople with all levels of experience.

36

URL
http://www.saleshacker.com/blog/

salesproinsider.com

http://salesfolk.com/blog/

http://www.savogroup.com/blog/

http://scoremoresales.com/

http://sellingpower.typepad.com/

http://blog.tamaraschenk.com/

http://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/

http://thesalesblog.com/

About
Sales Hacker is one of the growing forces in B2B sales leadership.
In addition to hosting awesome events, Sales Hacker also rolls out
must-read blog posts on the reg. Look for guest posts by a
veritable whos who of rising stars in the B2B sales world!
Sales Pro Insider, a consultancy founded by Nancy Bleeke,
regularly helps companies ignite their sales efforts. On the Sales
Pro Insider Blog, Nancy regularly shares insights that can help
sales managers do a better job of coaching their teams to success.
Heather R Morgan is one of the best sales copywriters in the
business, and her engaging blog is both helpful and entertaining.
Both marketing copywriters and salespeople looking to up their
cold email game can greatly benefit from reading the SalesFolk
blog.
Sales enablement company SAVO has a fantastic blog that focuses
on using content to enable sales. Articles cover improving content
marketing ROI, how to use content to drive sales and empowering
buyers on their journey. Overall, the blog is a great read for B2B
marketers looking for new ways to use content to enable sales.
In naming her blog Score More Sales, Lori Richardson is doing
nothing less than calling sales reps to action. Indeed, Richardsons
blog is highly action-oriented. With blog headlines like Get Your
Feet Wet with Social Selling and Lets All Champion Sales
Resources! Sellers, See This, the blog posits itself as a beacon to
inspire enthusiasm, activity andof courserevenue generation
among sales teams.
Gerhard Gschwandtners name might be difficult for some of us
to pronounce, but his Selling Power blog is full of easy-to-digest
sales strategies that can help B2B professionals take their game to
the next level. The blog features tiered content. Some articles like
Will You Set Smart Goals for 2013, are geared toward a general
sales audience while others like Five New Years Resolutions for
the Data-Driven Sales Leader are aimed at transforming sales
managers into masters.
Tamara Schenk, research director for CSO insights, is one of the
foremost thought leaders on B2B sales enablement. Her blog
covers a diverse range of topics including lead management, sales
enablement technology, as well as overall sales and marketing
alignment.
The Bridge Group focuses on building, expanding and optimizing
inside sales strategies for tech companies. Their Inside Sales
Experts Blog offers resources aimed at helping inside sales reps
close more deals. The blog covers topics such as lead generation,
inside sales productivity, and sales coaching.
On The Sales Blog, B2B sales coach S. Anthony Iannarino dishes
out high-level insights learned from years in the front lines of B2B
sales. One of the perks of his blog is that he doesnt just give
advice, he asks questions that can inspire sales reps to focus on
past experiences and how they might learn from them.
37

Appendix Tools
The list of more than 400 tools in almost 50 categories is constantly being updated download the latest version
from the Downloads Page.
Category
Analytics - App
Analytics - Web
Automation
Chat for Sales
Coaching & Incentives
Collateral Management
Comms
Competitors
Conferencing
Content Creation
Content Recommendations
Content Sharing
Contracts & Proposals
CRM
Customer Success
Customer/Partner Engagement
Data Entry/Management
Education
Email Intelligence
Growth Resources
Landing Pages
Lead Generation
Lead Intelligence
Marketing Plan
Marketing-Sales Alignment
Mobile First
Outreach Management
Partnerships
Predictive
Pricing Optimization
Productivity
Publicity
Referral/Influencer Marketing
Remarketing
Sales Calling
Sales Ops
SEO
Social Media Management
Social Media Monitoring
Social Sales Enablement
38

Category
Split Testing
Surveys
Video Marketing
Website Review

39