Marketing can be a challenge at the best of times, but particularly so during a worldwide pandemic.
Something we are observing at The Marketing Project right now is a rise in ‘DIY Marketing’ – businesses are trying their best to market themselves with limited resources, as we await ‘back to normal’.
So if you’re thinking about getting into marketing, or finding that this crisis is giving you back the luxury of time you always wished you had, we thought we’d provide some accessible resources to help get you started.
Here’s a list of marketing resources we swear by, all designed to help build your marketing knowledge.
We’ll update this every so often. If you’re already a marketing ace, let us know what we’re missing!
Podcasts are perhaps the best way to start increasing your exposure to the world of marketing because they’re accessible, free, and you can listen to them on the go.
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield features expert interviews, mini execution plans and behind-the-scenes secrets. Porterfield is bubbly and engaging, and designs her podcasts to “make everything you listen to as actionable and profitable as possible”.
Marketing Your Business is the podcast of Stu McLaren, a Canadian marketing entrepreneur who has worked with tens of thousands of professionals to “transform what they know, love and do into recurring revenue”. Each episode unpacks a new theme.
B2B Growth explores what it says on the box: B2B businesses and how to grow them. Well-regarded by those in the B2B space, it is hosted by “a braintrust of people who never use the word braintrust”, it is laconic and focuses in on what B2Bs can do to attract and keep customers.
Like with podcasts, there are a tonne of books professing to give you a crash course in marketing. Here are some of the best.
“For Dummies” – you’ve seen hundreds of these books, with their yellow covers and cartoon logo. The “For Dummies” series is iconic, and with good reason – if you are really new to the idea of marketing, these books will help you get a foot in the door. There are several different editions specific to small business and B2B marketing.
Blue Ocean Strategy, written by W Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, was written in 2004 and is a favourite of marketing executives. If you’re looking for something a little more complex and in-depth, then this book is a must-have.
Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind is a book by a couple of advertising gurus who’ve seen it all. It’s all about how to be seen in an overcrowded marketplace by creating a unique “position” for yourself in a prospective customer’s mind.
Several websites offer fantastic online upskill courses which will not only leave you with improved marketing expertise, but also a range of skills to put into practice immediately.
Udemy, which we wrote about in our recent blog post exploring Australia’s most-searched quarantine digital marketing tools, is a useful online learning platform aimed at professional adults and students. Pump Search ‘marketing’ and you’ll find a heap of well-priced courses offering comprehensive guides on marketing.
Hubspot has an academy section which has a huge range of free and priced courses offering professionals the opportunity to not only upskill themselves, but also certify themselves in various topics.
For experts you can rely on for consistently good marketing advice and content, look no further than some of our favourites.
The Groove Blog is a content treasure trove published by Groove, which provides software designed to help customer support teams. Not only does that software have a huge 120-day free trial period, its blog content is available for free and offers a range of advice on customer engagement for B2Bs.
Neil Patel is an English entrepreneur whose blog has a series of videos designed to supercharge your online marketing. He has thousands of episodes to work back through that cover every, and we mean every, aspect of online marketing.
Finally, for something a little more thought-provoking and challenging, we recommend checking out Tea With GaryVee, a YouTube series with Gary Vaynerchuk, a Belarussian-American entrepreneur. Viewers send in deep questions, dealing with everything from marketing to motivation, which Gary explores in detail.
Analytics is the secret behind good marketing. There is a seemingly endless array of software and digital marketing tools available that can do everything from email automation to time tracking to entire business workflow management. We explored some of these tools here, but here are a few that will help you start tracking your marketing straight away.
Google Analytics – a tool you likely know about, the internet behemoth is currently offering free online courses, a great way to upskill yourself in these times.
HotJar lets you see how people are using your website, what they click on, where they scroll, how they interact with forms and even put a poll on the site to collect more data. This helps discover sticking points in the sales process and how you can improve your online presence. You can try it for free!
SEMrush will let you see exactly how you are ranking on Google, give you tips on improvement, and even let you spy on your competitors! It also has a big range of in-depth advice articles.
Whilst all of the above can seem very overwhelming, marketing is an essential part of business, and mastering it – or at the least, learning how to get started with it – will supercharge your B2B business.
We recommend dedicating a little time each day to the some of the above resources if you are new.
And if you reach a point where you feel you could benefit from more assistance, book in a 20min Zoom call with me and let’s run through it.
Let's talk!
