Lately I've been receiving spam emails from companies offering to sell me their email marketing lists. I can choose from dozens of lists all targeted to my industry. I can buy thousands of names for cheap and save myself months, maybe years, of time and effort trying to build my own list. Sounds great doesn't it?  Sure it sounds great, but it's actually the devil in disguise.

I know better than to buy a list from anyone. I won't rent a list from anyone. I think it's better to send email to my own list, one that I've built up slowly over time. I realize that not everyone thinks like me nor do they know that buying an email marketing list is wrong and can get you into a whole heap of trouble. So for the benefit of those who may not realize that list buying is a big no-no I'll share my thoughts on why slowly building your own list is the only way to go. Sorry, no quick fixes here.

Some marketers might argue that renting a list is an accepted and recognized practise but I disagree and it's not a practise that suits me. My reason? Trust. I simply don't trust anyone who wants to sell me a list or wants me to rent one. How do I know where it came from? Just because someone says the list is legitmate there's really now way for me to know for certain that the names on a list actually gave their permission to be on the list. So I'd rather build my own list and I offer the same advice to my clients. List building takes time and effort but the end result is a more captivated audience who wants to hear what I have to say. My audience chose to receive email from me. I can't say the same for a third party list I could get from someone else.

I don't know of any email service provider that I work with (Constant Contact, aWeber, iContact, 1ShoppingCart and now HubSpot offers their own service) that would allow me to send commercial emails to anyone on a list which I purchased or otherwise comes from a third party. In fact, every time I send an email to anyone using any email service provider I need to sign off on it first by promising that my list didn't come from a third party. Failure to comply with their rules means they'll cancel my subscription to their service. I can also face some stiff penalities for violating the Can-Spam Act which sets the guidlines for commercial email marketing. So, it's best to build your list the honest way. For more about Can-Spam laws please click here

How do I build my list the honest way, you ask? By creating great relevant content and information that your customers want to know about and find valuable. You start off by writing a blog and writing about the things you know and are expert in. You can create a monthly newsletter for subscribers to learn more than you might care to share in a blog post. Newsletters are a great way for you to discuss a variety of topics in one mailing. You can create a series of articles or a series of tutorials that can be emailed on a weekly basis to your readers. Whatever you decide to do just make sure you get the permission of your subscribers before you start emailing them. And more importantly, you must make sure that you provide a way for your subscribers to remove themselves from your list.

Lately I've been learning about Mobile Marketing and the rules for it are very specific. In mobile marketing, the onus is on the sender to prove that the recipient wants to receive communications from you. This is particulary true for SMS messaging but I'm not going to cover that topic in this post. I'll save it for a future post because I'm still learning about it and I wouldn't want to give anyone false information. However, if you'd like to do some of your own research I think you should visit Andy Lustigman's website. He is a lawyer who specializes in advertising law. Take some time to read his articles and his blog. He shares some great information.

Stay on the right side of the law by building your own list and by saying No to anyone who approaches you to buy or rent a list from them. In fact, run away. Run, run, as fast you can. You'll be much safer.

Small business owners with limited budgets should take advantage of the HubSpot service network to grow their business. The service network comprises a number of marketing agencies that specialize in using HubSpot to help companies get found online, generate more leads and increase revenue.

Small business owners, and particularly those do-it-yourselfers, most often lack the time it takes to do inbound marketing. That's why the HubSpot service network exists. It's to help you get the work done by having a Partner do it for you.  This gives you more time to work on other aspects of growing your business while still reaping the benefits that inbound marketing can bring.

Business owners with small budgets can hire a partner to help them do the heavy lifting by taking on the time consuming yet important tasks that are part of a successful inbound marketing campaign.  Link Building, landing page creation, CMS assistance, blog writing, article marketing, keyword research, social media and more are all services that you can find in the HubSpot Service Network.

Don't let lack of time or a limited budget stop you from reaping the benefits of inbound marketing. You can hire a Partner to do as much or as little as you want. 

Today is the day that the book "Inbound Marketing - Get found using Google, Social Media and Blogs" hits bookstores for sale. 

I have been waiting for this book to become available since I first heard about it several weeks ago. I've already purchased my copy and am eagerly waiting for it to arrive.

According to the book's description on Amazon, "The rules of marketing have changed, and your business can benefit from this change. Inbound Marketing shows you how to get found by more prospects already looking for what you have to sell".

It's a book whose time has come. Indeed, as each day passes more businesses take to the internet to grow their businesses. The winners will be those who embrace Inbound Marketing.  

If you haven't already, I'd suggest you consider picking up your own copy of the book and start implementing the strategies of inbound marketing into your own online marketing plan. Your customers are looking for you.

Every business with an online presence faces the same problem -  How do I get my website found online by my prospects and customers? Simple. Create content. Lots and lots of content. Then, disperse that content to as many places as possible. Here are 7 ways to create content and help you get found online.

1.Create and maintain a Blog

"I'm not doing the SEO thing yet" was a comment from a small business owner on Twitter. He has a website, participates in social media, creates videos but he's not doing the "SEO thing" yet.

As a marketer, his comment baffled me. Isn't it common knowledge that any business online MUST be doing SEO? I guess not.

And this got me thinking: why isn't he doing the SEO thing yet? Is it because he doesn't have the time? Is it because he doesn't know he should? Is it because he thinks he needs an expensive SEO firm to help him?

I concluded it must be at least one of the three if not all of them.

Oh, if only he knew it doesn't have to be that way. If it's because he doesn't have the time to devote to SEO, well, he can hire me to implement the strategies for him. (shameless self-promotion, I know!)

If it's because he doesn't know he should then I understand that too. SEO is a mystery to many people, especially those who aren't marketers. But, here's the thing: if you're a small business owner with little to no employees then you are a marketer. You just don't know it. Or you don't want to admit it, in which case, that's a problem.

Small business owners like me need to do their own marketing because they don't have the budget to hire a marketing team to do it for them. (unless they hire me. More shameless self-promotion) Even then, they must at least know their own marketing strategy if they're going to outsource the implementation. Otherwise, they need an Inbound Marketing Consultant to help them figure it out.

But I digress. SEO is all about getting your website found by your prospects and customers. It's about keywords and links to your website. It's about creating content on your site that your customers want. Yes, it takes time. But, isn't the success of your business worth it? Isn't it about time you started doing the SEO thing? 

You don't need an expensive SEO firm to do it for you. (unless you're a huge fortune 500 conglomerate, which I'm sure you're not if you're reading my blog) You can do SEO all by yourself. It's not hard, but it is time consuming. There's no way around that.

Eventually, the end justifies the means. The hours spent on keyword research, optimizing page content, writing articles and blog posts, rinse and do it again, will result in lead generation and customer acquisition. (if you do it right)

In these early days of internet marketing few business owners really know what's involved. It's a great time to learn how to do it correctly because it will give you the competitive edge. If you don't do it, your competiton will. In fact, they already are. Where does that leave you and your business?

Photo by Danard Vincente 

As an internet marketing virtual assistant who specializes in assisting HubSpot customers I have created this tutorial to help my clients learn how to make simple changes to their HubSpot websites. This is the second in a planned series of "how to" videos.

Transcript:

This is Shari Sultana from Modern Marketing Support. Today we're going inside the HubSpot dashboard to learn how to change our website's color scheme using advanced options.

As an internet marketing virtual assistant who specializes in assisting HubSpot customers I thought it might be helpful to produce a series of video tutorials to help my clients learn how to make simple changes to their HubSpot websites. This is the first in a planned series of "how to" videos.

Transcript:

Hi everyone,

This is Shari Sultana from Modern Marketing Support. Today we're going inside the HubSpot dashboard to learn how to change our website's color scheme.

We've recently changed our logo header and the color scheme we currently have doesn't match our new look. So, we want to change that. 

HubSpot has a couple of different website templates available within their content management system. We're using the Brighton template.

As you can see, right now now our website has purple side panels and a green navigation bar. To make our website coordinate with our new header we need to go into the Settings tab. The Settings tab is over here in the right top corner. Click on that.

Inside the Settings tab you'll find the inner sanctum of your HubSpot website. It's divided into sections and we want the section called Content Management System. We're going to click on Template Configuration. You'll see it says "adjust the colors of your website". Let's click on it.

Inside here there are 2 areas. Once is basic and the other is for more advanced customization. Today we'll just look at the Basic customization and in a second tutorial we'll look at Advanced customization.

Now, there's also a logo/color wizard up at the top here but let's ignore that this time. We'll check that out in another tutorial.

You'll notice that we can adjust the Primary, Secondary and Background colors. Let's go ahead and adjust the background color first. When we do that we'll actually be changing the colors of the side panels. 

Click on color picker and you'll see this color palette appear. We can change our color one of 2 ways. If we don't know the exact color we want we can move this T around and you'll see the color changing in the box.

Or, if you know the hexadecimal number of the color you want then you can add it in this box here. I know the color I want is DAF1F7 so I'm going to enter it here in the box. You'll see it change to the color I want and then we'll click Save.

See how it says "changes saved. view website"? That's great. Let's go see how it looks. Wow. That looks much better. Now, let's go change the navigation bar.

If we want to change the navigation bar we click on Primary color. We'll add the hexadecimal number BFE5EE and click Save. Now, let's go view our changes and see how it looks.

Much better. Now if we wanted to we could also change the color of the font within the navigation bar and we can also change the hover color as well. But those are advanced options and I'll show you how to do that in the next tutorial.

We're so fortunate to have Miguel join us as our internet marketing Intern. Miguel is a marketing student at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario. He'll graduate in December and then he's planning to eventually start his own marketing business for Professional Athletes.

Until then we're happy to have him assisting our team of inbound marketing virtual assistants. Miguel's first task was to set up the Facebook business page for Modern Marketing Support. He did a fantastic job. Check it out and, if you're so inclined, become a fan. Thanks Miguel!

Last month someone hacked into the account of a Twitter employee and mayhem ensued. For small business owners, it's a great reminder for all of us to periodically change our passwords, use a different password for every account, and use a variety of characters in our passwords. Strong passwords are a great defense.

I know many small business owners who use the same password for all of their online accounts. Even those who do use different passwords aren't using passwords that are easily hack proof. 

Excellent passwords contain at least 8 characters and use a combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and signs.

Now is the time to change your passwords and ensure they are strong and as hack proof as they can possibly be. It doesn't need to be difficult. You can download Roboform to help you. It's a password manager program that allows you to save up to ten passwords for free. 

As a virtual marketing assistant I have dozens of passwords to remember. I keep them written down and locked away offline and I keep them password protected in Roboform for online use. Roboform makes changing and remembering passwords easy and secure.

The question came up in the HubSpot customer forums today about choosing a blog topic. A fellow HubSpot customer wanted to know how to choose topics to write about. That's a struggle I know all too well.

The fabulous Erin Colbert suggested we look at our keywords in the HubSpot keyword grader and choose the low-hanging fruit to build a blog post around. Thanks for the great idea Erin! 

Here are 5 ways you can increase website traffic:

1. Focus your website content on keywords related to your target market. For better SEO make sure you place your keywords in the relevant places on your page.

2. Put a freebie on your site for visitors to download and give away to others if they wish. Write an ebook or have your virtual assistant help you prepare one if your time is limited.

3. Start a blog and be sure to add to it regularly. Stale blogs bring no traffic.

4. Comment on the blogs of people in your target market. If you leave an intelligent comment with a link to your website then people might follow it to find out more about you. Try to be one of the first commenters.

5.  Promote your website through your participation in social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and forums.