As a business owner, you can’t afford to waste time or money trying various marketing tactics to see what might work. Instead, plan a cohesive inbound marketing strategy to ensure the best use of resources. An effective plan includes these primary areas of focus that you can build upon by asking yourself, "How will my company...":

Coming up with new content to post is the number one challenge for content marketers today. However, have you heard the expressions "mind the store" and "use what you’ve got?" Developing fresh content in your traditional and online content marketing strategy is important, but so is freshening up valuable, existing, evergreen content.

As you may have found, having your head in the clouds can be good. It can decrease stress and enable some of your best brainstorming. Using the cloud for marketing works well for some of the same reasons. Marketing via the cloud is device independent, so you can engage with colleagues and audiences and reference data and assets from anywhere, anytime. 

The Internet is flooded with new content daily, and you don’t want to be just another fish in the online sea. You need to make an impact and create a wave of interest in your professional services brand by implementing a content strategy. Your strategy must include content that reflects and represents your firm’s mission and image. Content must also be authentic and worthwhile.

With so many traditional and online channels for your business to reach out to clients, it’s more critical and challenging than ever to manage your brand. And we’re not just talking about your brand identity across all these channels. Brand consistency also includes the delivered message and client experience.

How do you achieve brand consistency without spending hours on dull daily tasks? The answer is automated marketing. Just what is this solution capable of?

Take a look.

As a business, you can’t be all things to all people. With market segmentation, you can divide and conquer (so to speak) to own your specific share of the market. To do this, you divide the market into subsets of people with particular characteristics, interests, and needs in common. You can complete your segmentation by selecting your target market segment from these groups of people. If you’re considering an acting business, segmentation can help determine your target market size and whether your services will be desirable.

Modern marketers must keep many practical techniques in their marketing toolbox. Changes in technology, popular culture, and the online environment will demand adaptations for firms that must stay current. Here are three marketing trends that are going to make an impact on your business in 2014 and beyond.

To generate, manage and convert leads, you must triangulate your client relationship management (CRM) tool, social media, and email marketing. Here’s how to complete each leg of the triangle.

Defining marketing objectives and goals will help you organize and prioritize activities. Without setting objectives and plans that are clear and meaningful, you’ll only do well accidentally. Dreams and goals provide direction and structure for success, around which you optimize your marketing and business development activities. Being purposeful and heading towards defined plans will keep your company moving forward.