Marketing • Business
8 Top Marketing and Business Blogs Every Ecommerce Retailer Should Be Reading
18 May 2017 • 11 min read
There’s no disputing that successful marketing strategies are critical for a successful business. So it’s essential to understand how marketing works to generate sales, and whether certain strategies are right for your business. Even just one decade ago, the only real way to learn about marketing your business was to spend several years at university. But as the internet continues to grow with organisations and individuals publishing new knowledge on a daily basis, you can now learn just about anything online.
From formal training courses to blogs and forums, the options are literally overwhelming. It’s no longer a question of where to learn more—the challenge now lies in churning through the huge volume of free information sources to find the gems that really speak to your needs. And who’s got time for that, when you’re trying to grow your ecommerce business?
So we’ve done the hard work for you! Today, the Neto marketing team is going to share a list of our very favourite blogs and resources for you to check out. Marketing is our bread and butter, and we turn to these resources to stay ahead of the curve and to address any specific questions we’ve got. Let us know in the comments below if we’ve missed any of your go-to resources!
I’m a lifelong learner who is passionate about marketing, so one of my favourite blogs is The Insider, by Digital Marketing Institute. It’s an industry insights blog aimed specifically at businesses and educators. As a company that provides certification for digital marketing and sales professionals, they really know what they’re talking about.
The Insider gives a great general overview of what’s happening in digital marketing and digital transformation, so I can make more informed decisions about where to lead my team next. I highly recommend subscribing to their email updates, so you won’t miss a thing.
Also check out: Marketo’s CMOnation, which gives senior marketers a global view of strategic marketing insights and the latest research recommendations. I’m also a big fan of the “Growth Guy” articles by Verne Hamish at Gazelles, which contain everything you need to know about strategic planning for scaling up your business.
Kissmetrics makes behavioural analytics software that gives ecommerce store owners a deep understanding of customer behaviour, and their blog is my go-to destination for keeping on top of the latest trends in data-driven digital marketing. While some posts are about how to get more out of the Kissmetrics software, the vast majority are aimed at improving readers’ general knowledge and providing evidence-based solutions to
With a selection of marketing guides and webinars, they’ve even accounted for different learning styles, so you should definitely be able to find the advice you’re looking for.
Also check out: Heap’s blog, if you’re into the nitty gritty of analysing data to tailor every aspect of your sales and marketing strategy.
Content marketing plays a critical role in customer acquisition and retention, but it can be difficult to get started in the right direction. It’s not just a simple case of writing about your products; you need to really provide a useful information service for potential customers. And, even if you nail that, a lot of businesses struggle to maintain it. MyCopyblogger is a free educational site by Rainmaker Digital. They offer courses, webinars and articles focused on writing “words that work”—the sort of content that draws people’s attention, keeps them on your website for longer, and ultimately boosts conversion.
I honestly think you can’t go past HubSpot if you’re looking for free marketing resources. They’ve got templates for everything you could imagine, including customer personas and social media planning, and over 250 resources neatly categorised by functionality.
Don’t miss their massive bundle of free content creation templates, which includes everything from blogs and social media posts through to infographics and ebooks. And, while you’re there, why not sign up to get their latest blog articles delivered directly to your inbox?
Also check out: the free marketing templates available from Bluewire Media, a digital marketing training provider. They build their advice around the results of their own experiments, and it’s tailored for Australian businesses. And if you’re just getting started with digital marketing, you’ll find a lot of useful information on state government websites, such as Business Queensland and Business Victoria.
Neto is active on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and we maintain a presence on other platforms, too, in case customers try to reach us there.
In addition to their super useful dashboard software for monitoring and scheduling social media posts, Hootsuite publishes the HootSuite Social Blog. It’s got everything you could want to know about the social media world, like new features and how to use them, which content is working best on each platform, and how to measure your social media success.
Also check out: Pixabay, Pexels, and Unsplash for free, high-resolution images licensed under Creative Commons CC0. That means they’re royalty free and you don’t need to attribute the creator, even for commercial use. I like to “donate a coffee” if I’m using several photos from one source, though.
I’m really interested in the bigger picture of how ideas grow into successful businesses, and what that means for the work that I do. So I like to regularly check Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is an author, speaker, entrepreneur, and marketing guru. He’s also a really interesting guy who knows about a lot of diverse topics, which is probably why his blog now has over 5000 posts. If you visit his main website, you can score some of his ebooks for free.
Also check out: Gary Vaynerchuk’s blog for the latest in digital media, entrepreneurship, leadership. He even runs a vlog and a podcast for those who don’t have time to sit and read.
Zapier is a market leader in software integrations to boost your productivity. They’ve built a highly acclaimed blog that almost feels like an add-on to their core service, featuring a daily post that highlights apps, tools, and techniques to simplify your workflows.
Also check out: Several People Are Typing, a productivity blog from the team at Slack; Product Hunt, where you’ll be one of the first to hear about the newest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations; and Mind The Product for marketing ideas from a product manager’s perspective.
I can’t go past Smashing Magazine for news and reviews of what’s happening in graphic design. Working for a software company, I spend a lot of time thinking about usability, so it’s great to have a whole section of the online magazine dedicated to user experience (UX) design, too.
Also check out: the free inspiration available on Behance or, if you’re interested in building a broader design perspective, The Verge. And if you’re a solo designer or a really small team, consider setting up some basic templates and branding in Canva, so your social media copywriters can whip up an image in a hurry when you’re not available. They’ve even got a design school to help you get non-designers up to speed.
Well, that’s a pretty big list we’ve come up with. It’s unlikely you’ll have time to check them all out, but if you subscribe to the ones that seem most relevant to your business problems and interest areas, you should have no problem finding the time to keep up with the latest news and research while managing your growing ecommerce store.
And don’t forget to subscribe to Neto’s blog, too—our sign-up box is at the top of the page.
Neto is a leading ecommerce platform designed to help your business grow across multiple channels. With inbuilt analytics, mobile-responsive themes, fully flexible navigation, customisable shopping carts, and a wide range of add-on integrations, Neto lets you create a perfectly tailored customer experience.
