Every morning, we recommend starting your day by centering yourself in your industry. Go ahead, grab a cup of coffee, skim your inbox to make sure there are no emergencies, and then set aside 30-45 minutes to read a few posts from the best industry blogs and content marketing influencers. Like watching the news or staying informed of current events, reading up on the latest trends in content marketing will help you stay fresh, inform you of upcoming trends, and provide inspiration for your next marketing campaign. To help get you started, we’ve curated seven (sometimes surprising) blogs from content marketing influencers that you shouldn’t miss.
1. For the Content Marketing Influencers: Marketo
Marketo’s blog is filled with industry-leading experts providing insight into everything from the most savvy landing page trends, to inbound marketing tips, to thought leadership, and everything in between. In addition to Marketo’s own marketing automation software, their posts highlight tips, tricks, and tools to power and streamline your marketing department.
Why we love this blog: Each post has actionable, tested insights into the marketing world that provide tangible ideas and suggestions on how to improve your bottom line.
2. For Growth Hackers: Conversion XL
We had the pleasure of listening to Peep Laja speak at the BeHave Online Conversion conference in Austin, Texas and have been fans ever since. Peep’s no-frills, down-and-dirty framing of what makes digital marketing work is as entertaining as it is useful. He cuts through the marketing jargon and helps you prioritize which growth levels to push on your site without getting overwhelmed in what can feel like a never-ending optimization list.
Why we love this blog: Peep has a proven track record of success and translates his knowledge into heavy-hitting “must-do’s” while delighting and entertaining his audience.
URL: http://conversionxl.com/blog
3. Aspiring Marketing Influencers: Kim Garst
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, which is why we love reading (and trying to imitate) Kim Garst’s blog. As one of Forbes most recognized content marketing influencers, we hope to harness a fraction of her experience into insights and ideas of our own. Kim’s posts focus on the evolution of social media and how to take advantage of upcoming trends in this space.
Why we love this blog: Kim’s blog keeps you informed of critical social marketing changes in everything from Google’s ad words campaigns to Facebook’s newest acquisitions and what to do about it. You’ll never miss a beat again.
URL: http://kimgarst.com/blog/
4. For Social Media Junkies: HootSuite
One part marketing blog, one part BuzzFeed post, HootSuite’s content marketing site is filled with fun facts and tips on transforming your social marketing campaigns. This is a great, lighthearted site to start your day and inspire ideas about how you can start thinking outside the box. Although HootSuite tends to focus on social media trends, there is a ton of great information about other marketing disciplines and digital insights.
Why we love this blog: It’s fun! And useful. It’s a great way to ease into your day and spark a little humor and curiosity before getting down to business.
URL: https://blog.hootsuite.com
5. For Inbound Marketing Fanatics: HubSpot
Whether you’ve heard of HubSpot thanks to their longstanding reputation as inbound marketing leaders, or Dan Lyon’s recent satire Disrupted, a tell-all novel about his time working at the organization, the bottom line is: you’ve probably heard of them. Love them or hate them, HubSpot knows their stuff. They understand what engages audiences, how to peak users’ interest, and drive traffic. Trust us on this one.
Why we love this blog: HubSpot consistently provides content that can have a profound impact on your success as a marketer. The clean, easy-to-read, educational material is always on point and timely no matter what your functional role is.
URL: https://blog.hubspot.com/
6. For Surprising Big Data Insights: OKTrends
Although it isn’t a traditional marketing blog, we love OKTrends (brought to you by none other than the OKCupid online dating site). The reason we include this blog in our daily lineup is because almost every post discusses how big data and analysis fuel the site’s success. It inspires us to think about where we can look for data trends, how we can creatively tackle segmentation problems, and pose new questions about what our customers say and what they actually do.
Why we love this blog: It keeps us thinking about data in a non-traditional way and reminds us to continuously ask “why” no matter what our customers are doing. We include this as a compliment to more traditional analytics and industry blogs so we don’t get stuck inside the marketing box.
URL: http://oktrends.okcupid.com
7. For a Little Inspiration: BizWomen
In addition to our local Business Journal branch, we recently discovered the BizWomen arm of this renowned news and community site. Subscribe to your local Business Journal and stay plugged into your local community to understand how competition is evolving and how industry trends are impacting your local market, while keeping up with upcoming partnership opportunities. For a little extra inspiration, tack on the BizWomen blog. You’ll see posts about national entrepreneurs, start-ups, and innovative projects from women all over the nation. It might just inspire you to work on your freelancing or start that Kickstarter campaign you’ve been talking about for years.
Why we love this blog: Every once in a while it helps to see someone else succeeding to know your dreams can become a reality. Draw inspiration from these high powered women and industry experts to fuel your own passions.
URL: http://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen
Knowledge is power, which is why we love starting our day with this ritual. Aside from keeping your content marketing process sharp, it’ll give you a wealth of information to power brainstorming sessions, spark networking conversations, and make informed decisions about your brand and business. Even if you don’t have time to do this every morning, making reading content marketing influencers part of your regular routine frees up time outside your day-to-day work to think critically about your business and generate new ideas.
For more industry related topics and content marketing influencers, view more of our blog posts here.
