HubSpot is a powerful platform that helps you accomplish many different tasks. With all of its
capabilities, it is essential to keep the platform organized so you can get the best use out of it. We’re
going to share best practices on how to keep your HubSpot Portal organized and how to audit the
information in the software to narrow any gaps or opportunities you may be missing out on utilizing.

Being a small business owner is a tough job. Staying up to date on ways to help make your job simpler and your business more successful can go a long way. One consideration is understanding the importance and benefits of using a CRM, also known as customer relationship management software. At its core, HubSpot is a CRM platform, but it is so much more. With the ability to add additional hubs for marketing, sales, service, & operations, it is a platform to grow with your business. 

Although many may think third-party cookies are simply an upgraded version of first-party cookies, it is not necessarily the case. The main differences between first and third-party cookies are:

• Setting the cookie: A first-party cookie is set by your web server or any JavaScript you have loaded onto this website. Third-party cookies can come from an advertising vendor, as well as code that has been put on our site directly and henceforth recognized with these technologies called "third parties."
• Cookie availability: Cookies are a way to remember what you have chosen on one website so that they can be restored when visiting another site. First-party cookies will only show up if the domain which created them is also being used as an entry point, while third-party ones should work cross-domain without any issues whatsoever!
• Browser support/blocking: The user can delete third-party cookies from their browser, but many browsers block this action by default. First-party cookie support is universal across all browsers and deleted ones will not be stored on your computer unless you enable them first!

There are so many differences that third-party cookies are now being phased out from many web browsers. This is a big change for advertisers and knowing what to expect ahead of time can help you use this change to your advantage.

A cookie is a delicious treat that comes in a variety of flavors, but it also is a file that remembers website configurations, such as left items in your online shopping cart or other personal data. There are two different types of these cookies, first-party and third-party. Website owners use these cookies in a variety of ways for their advertising and marketing strategies. Third-party cookies have been used for many years to track website visitors. Using the information provided by these cookies, we can improve the user experience, learn what our visitors are viewing when they are not on our own website, and help us target ads based on this data collection. Unfortunately, the way we use these cookies is being phased out in an effort to protect website users asking for more privacy.

As a small business owner, it is so important to understand the power of analytics and what it can do for your business. While many business owners are familiar with Google Analytics, the next generation of the platform is finally here, and it’s designed with the future of measurement in mind. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a new and improved platform that will help you better understand your customer journey, provide more predictive capabilities, directly integrate with media platforms, and drive more actions to be taken on your website. Learn more about the benefits of GA4 and how you can get started with GA4 below.

What if you had all your business performance data in one place so you could track your progress, measure your goals, and more, all on the same platform? Think of the time this could save you and how much more streamlined your business can be. This is where Databox comes in. Databox allows you to build custom dashboards and track your performance by connecting your data from any tool and tracking it from any device.

Creating a steady stream of leads is vital for any small business. Having a consistent flow of leads allows business owners to year-over-year grow their contact/email list, sales opportunities, customer base and revenue.  Leads help your business grow but how do you generate them and what do you do with them? Following these six steps will help you gather leads and grow your business.

A key part of any marketing strategy is tracking metrics. Without tracking metrics, you will never know what works (or doesn’t work) and how you need to pivot your strategy to achieve the most success for your business. Tracking metrics can be overwhelming due to the amount of data available to track but figuring out what is most important can help simplify the process. Here are four steps to help you develop and track your key marketing metrics.

As a marketer, we know how important it is for you to attract and retain your clients. Although you may be technically dedicated to the company’s marketing efforts, it is common for those working at a small business to wear many hats. Because of this, you may not always be able to solely focus on creating or following through with an annual strategic plan. 

If you’re not using an AI-powered chatbot on your website, you’re missing out on potential leads. 

When it comes to video marketing, there are a host of options to consider. Video can be a very effective  strategy to engage and delight your audience — and move them along their buyer journey. And video production is more cost-effective than ever — you can shoot in high-quality, 4K video with your smartphone.

Blogging — when done right — can increase your lead generation by a whopping 67%. It’s common knowledge that blogging is an excellent way to increase sales, so why do many businesses struggle to see results?

According to HubSpot, lead generation continues to be the number one challenge for marketers at B2B businesses of all sizes.  It's understandable that B2B marketing teams are so focused on generating new leads—leads are, after all, as necessary to your business as gasoline is to your car—said differently, without enough leads at the top of your sales funnel, your business could stall.

Why a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform Is a Necessity for Small Business (SMB) Growth

As a marketing veteran, I sometimes shudder at the jargon and buzzwords that permeate our industry. As technology advances and marketing evolves, new “types” of marketing appear. (Here’s forty that are current considerations).

One of the biggest quality of life improvements to come to content marketing has to be the pillar page. In many ways, it’s the natural evolution of inbound marketing, where information availability and content organization pay dividends. Let’s discuss the concept in more detail and how to put it into practice.

There’s a reason that 71 percent of global marketers use inbound marketing as their primary strategy. It’s because it works.

For many small business owners, marketing is all about getting the word out as much as possible through social media, paid advertisements, and being found in organic search using SEO. But hidden inside all those routine marketing efforts is a treasure trove of data. Business owners can use this data to find out what’s working in their marketing strategy and what’s not. Yet, so many business owners simply ignore these powerful analytics instead of letting them inform their business decisions. As overwhelming as data analytics can seem, it’s just about assembling the right tools and data points and making sense of all the facts and figures. According to Harvard Business Review, marketers spend around 11% of their overall budget on analytics.

It is estimated that 89% of customers begin their buying journey with a search engine. Think about that. Think how consumer behavior has changed over the years. And more specifically, think about how consumers in your industry/category/niche (your prospects) have changed their buying habits over time. Have you adjusted accordingly?

Google rankings can make or break your online presence. While not necessary to be the number one result for each and every keyword, it is necessary to show up on the first page of results that are typed into that search bar. Defined as organic traffic, Google ranks your page's "worthiness" based on a number of different factors including quality of content, traffic, domain authority, and freshness.

Consumers are being constantly bombarded by sales advertisements every day on TV, radio, billboards and the Internet. Marketing companies are finding, however, that their hoped-for audience has basically turned off to these traditional forms of advertising – using DVR units that skip over TV commercials and surfing online to gather information while mostly oblivious to the banners, pop-ups and other "in your face" promos plaguing that environment. Some even employ the use of ad blockers to filter out all of the irrelevant garbage inundating the Internet.

Finally. Something about marketing finally adds up to your left-brain way of thinking.

It's called inbound marketing, and while it's been sharing the stage with other marketing strategies for about 10 years, it has assumed center stage for only about the last two. As it continues to draw new devotees, understand that it can launch your professional services firm head and shoulders above your competitors – if, that is, your tactics are guided by a comprehensive marketing strategy.

It's the start of Q4, and that means it's time to take stock of where you're at compared with where you planned to be. This inevitably leads to some strategizing on the inbound marketing front so you can get in prime position in 2017.

If you're beginning to think of creating a content marketing strategy as akin to a dating strategy, you've got the right idea. Yes, it can be a beguiling and perplexing process, but when you extend the metaphor, you can demystify the process and set it on the right track – with mutually beneficial results.

While we don’t necessarily recommend the 1976 psychological thriller Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro unless you enjoy films about scary, messed-up, violent psychopaths, it’s interesting to note that there’s a one-minute and 20-second scene in the movie that nearly everyone old enough to remember will remember. It’s the oft-repeated line, “You talkin’ to me?” According to IGN, a leading movie review site, this scene is the 4th top moment in movie history. In fact, even those unfamiliar with the film are likely familiar with this small bit of dialogue.

As a young child, you likely played the drawing game connect the dots, or dot-to-dot, which probably helped you learn about counting, practice drawing straight lines and improve your hand/eye coordination. In the world of inbound marketing, we find that left-brain thinkers who excelled at connecting the dots as children and later grew up to be engineers or architects have an affinity for understanding the detailed processes required for developing great inbound marketing programs.

If you’re a small business owner and don’t have a strong online presence, you are not keeping up with the times. Whether you are a professional like a doctor or lawyer, run a swanky downtown spa or sell used car parts from a dusty garage, people are online looking for what you sell. If you aren’t there at the right time to meet them, you’re losing sales to the competition.

You've got your website up and now the world can come flooding in your doors, right? Everyone told you to get it on the internet so people could find you, so why aren't people finding you?

Think about it. The internet and digital media are changing marketing today like television did back in the 50's . As homes added TVs to their living rooms, businesses had to figure out how to deal with this new media where customers could actually see the products.

Among marketing and sales management, the analogy of a funnel has been around for a long time. Essentially, it tracks the progression of a prospect as they move through each phase of the buying process, from awareness to satisfied customer. Each company will have its own variation, depending on its unique situation, target audience, product/service offerings, buying process, etc. And with today's digital marketing strategies, the analogy has never been more accurate. With digital marketing efforts, there's no shortage of data. In fact, the difficulty can be too much information. Using a simple, three-part structure like a funnel helps you target specific areas of your strategies to determine what is working and what needs to be improved.