As 2012 comes to a close, we’re ecstatic to share our “Top 20 Marketing Blog Posts of the Year” list. We strive to produce informative, valuable and actionable content for our readers, and over the past year, we’ve produced more than 300 posts of original content. Our blog posts cover marketing topics ranging from SEO to Pinterest, Google Analytics to public relations, blogging to email unsubscribes and even a little Ryan Gosling. Let’s take a look at the top 20 most popular marketing blog posts of 2012 that you, our readers enjoyed most:

#20. Great Scott! 5 Email & Social Marketing Tips from the Future
At this year’s Marketing Sherpa Email Summit, a panel of email & social marketing experts presented Email Marketing Technologies & Tactics of the Near Future.  The panel discussed the ‘future buyer’ and how his or her buying habits will affect your future email & social marketing campaigns. Here are the top 5 takeaways you can start implementing now to bring your own email & social marketing campaigns back to the future: Read more

#19. How Much Time, Money Do Small Businesses Spend on Social? [infographic]
We recently wrapped up a survey asking almost 500 of our small business customers how much time and money they spend on social media. We asked how many hours small business owners or employees dedicate to various social media activities, from finding and sharing content to blogging. Here’s a fun and informative infographic that we created (as seen on Forbes, VentureBeat, Technorati and more) illustrating some of the key data that led to these four conclusions. Read More

#18. 10 Awesome Events Every Entrepreneur Should Know
If you’re feeling uninspired, in need of some education, hungry to pick up some knowledge on the latest products, technologies and trends or in the mood to network amongst peers and other entrepreneurs, attending an event may just be what you need! Here are ten awesome events every entrepreneur and business owner should know. Read More

#17. 5 Cs Every Startup Needs to Succeed
There’s nothing more exhilarating than having a great idea for a business and running with it. But before you start sprinting, there are a few essential things that need to be in place. Here are five – coincidentally, they all start with the letter “c” – that every start-up needs in order to succeed, whether you’re in software or skincare. Read More

#16. Give Your Dashboard a Makeover – 8 Email Metrics that Count
There are so many metrics available when it comes to measuring the success of our email marketing campaigns, yet a select few are most useful. At the end of the day, you want to know whether customers are engaging with your content and taking action upon it, not just looking at it, saying it’s pretty (or not), and moving on. The 8 tips below will allow you to take these numbers and give you more insight into your readers’ engagement.  Read More

#15. Get Snappy, Gain Engagement – 8 Instagram Tips for Your Biz
With the rapid and rising success of picture-centric sites like Instagram and Pinterest, it’s clear that compelling imagery is crucial to our social and content marketing success. Telling a story with a picture can be just as effective as a blog post, tweet, status update, or email. Having a presence on Instagram and following these tips for your biz could build your engagement faster than you can say “cheese.” Read More

#14. 5 Golden Rules to Creating a Significant Email Newsletter
In the world of email marketing, guess who your customers’ pal and confidant is? Ding, ding! Your newsletter… and there’s research to prove it! According to the Nielsen Norman Group, readers feel an emotional attachment to their email newsletters. So how do we ensure we remain the Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia of newsletters to our readers? Follow these five steps and you’ll be golden: Read More

#13. What Motivates People to “Like” or “Unlike” Brands on Facebook
Baby pictures, overly pushy political or religious posts, and TMI (Too Much Information) status updates from friends are just screaming for a ‘delete,’ but as a business or brand on Facebook, what causes followers to flee? According to Lab42’s latest research, 73% of social media users “unliked” a brand because of the following reasons: Read More

#12. Symbols in Subject Lines… ♥ Them or ☹ Them?
Lately, I’ve been surprised by how many emails I’ve received with symbols in the subject lines. Which begs the question: Does cute ✈ when it comes to email subject lines or should marketers ✂ them out of the mix? Here are a few things to consider before you try adding symbols to your email subject lines. Read More

#11. Scary Social Media Faux Pas – Don’t Be That Guy
According to a survey by Symantec and Applied Research, the cost of public relations disasters, lawsuits, security breaches and other risks associated with social media blunders averages $4.3 million. The survey also reports that after a social media mishap, 28% of companies have reported damage to their brand, or a loss of customer trust averaging a cost of over $638,000. So to avoid putting our businesses and ourselves on the virtual chopping block, let’s get our social media etiquette on and learn from the missteps of others. Read More

#10. Subject Line Length – Is Longer Better?
A few things have evolved in the wild world of email marketing, including devices we use to read email, like mobile phones and tablets, and the emails we receive, like flash sales (which have the longest subject lines known to man). So, does your subject line length need to evolve too? Let’s examine some facts first. Read More

#9. Calling All NonResponders – Don’t Give up on Them Yet!
Who and what exactly are nonresponders? These are subscribers who continue to get your emails, but haven’t opened, clicked or responded in a long time, if ever. We’ve all read the advice to clean up our email lists and get rid of the “dead weight,” the unengaged, the nonresponders. But wait! Have you tried to reengage them before you cut them loose? Read More

#8. 5 Must Knows for SEO
Search algorithms seem to change more frequently than the latest fashion trends. Every time Google makes another update there’s a mini-panic from webmasters and small business owners – “oh no, now what?!?” Take a deep breath and stay calm because there are some things in SEO that stay consistent. Here are five SEO constant concepts to consider and build upon: Read More

#7. It’s Not You, It’s Outlook – The Complete Guide for Email Marketers
If you’re an email marketer, email designer, or find yourself in the B2B client space, you’ve probably encountered some form of Outlook error. Your email looks pristine on your shiny iPhone, Android device, or web-based email client, but suddenly blows up when you open it up in Outlook. We’ve been there. We’re here to help. Read More

#6. The Customer is Not Always Right
We once had a customer who we worked diligently with to make sure he was going about his email marketing campaigns in the proper way. Repeatedly, this customer disrespected our requests and kept attempting to send questionable email to questionable recipients. (I’m sure you’ve all gotten emails in your inbox like this.) So inevitably, we had to ask him to leave our services. That’s right, we “fired” a customer. Read More

#5. DIY: 5 Tools for Creating Killer Infographics
With the recent rise of infographics (information graphics), what used to require an avalanche of stats or analyses to dissect, can now be interpreted and relayed into an easy-to-read, fun, and visually appealing schematic – an excellent content marketing concept! You can use infographics to spruce up your different online assets such as your website, blog, email/newsletter, or your social network pages. Here are 5 free (!) apps that allow you to start easily infographic-ing: Read More

#4. 12 Steps to Becoming a Natural at SEO pt. 1
This is the first of two posts that will each contain 6 SEO take-aways. Fret not, they’re no Labors of Hercules, but they should be more than enough to give you a proper foundation to start optimizing your website. Read More

#3. 9 Mistakes We Make with Our Email Marketing
At the end of the day, we’re all using email marketing to accomplish business goals. From growing our subscriber list to generating more sales, email marketing is the workhorse of our marketing plans. So, why is it that we keep making the same mistakes over and over? Perhaps it’s because we don’t even know we’re making them. I’ve compiled a list of 9 mistakes we make with our email marketing and quick tips to fix them. Read More

#2. 5 Lessons from the Chick-fil-a PR Kerfuffle
The chicken sandwich chain, Chick-fil-A, found itself in the hot seat. While you might not be as well-known or have as many customers as AirBnB (remember the customer whose apartment was destroyed?) or Blackberry (remember the days-long email outage?), your company still has a public face. Here are five things to help avoid a public relations firestorm: Read More

#1. Like it, Pin it, Sell it. Why Pinterest Matters for Your Business
Businesses have started to use Pinterest to showcase not only their products, but other items related to what they do or sell. Here are ideas to help get your business off to a great start on Pinterest!

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