Exceptional Authors Recommended by Gail @GrowMap: @MECLABS @MktgExperiments @MarketingSherpa @GeneMarks @cfishman #smallbusiness

January 31, 2013 · 25 comments

Books Make Great Gifts written on a blue book cover with a gold bow on top

Increase Sales by Learning from Authors with SMB Experience

We all get so busy it can be hard to keep up with the firehose of content being published today. The more exceptional bloggers you meet, the harder that becomes.

I am sharing these specific authors with my readers because they are too important for you to miss. Learning from those who have real world experience increasing small business sales is the fastest way to increase your own revenue.

Please make the time to check them out and consider subscribing or buying their books.

MECLabs, MarketingSherpa, Marketing Experiments

Daniel Burstein, David Kirkpatrick, and the and the rest of the researchers and writers at MECLabs who publish MarketingSherpa and Marketing Experiments provide invaluable case studies and research applicable to small businesses.

They recently published MarketingSherpa blog posts prompted by research from AWeber, which found 68% of small businesses plan on increasing the marketing budget in 2013.

That prompted them to reach out to experts in the SMB sector for tips and tactics specific for SMB marketers which are found in these two posts:

2013 Small Business Marketing, Part 1: Rick Jensen, Senior Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Constant Contact, provided his thoughts on where SMB marketers should focus their efforts in 2013.
2013 SMB Mktg, Pt 2: Insights from AWeber Research and Hunter Boyle, Senior Business Development Manager and myself (Gail Gardner, GrowMap.com).

Email Marketing is Critical for Small Businesses

As Hunter Boyle of AWeber wrote and I strongly agree:

“Email is the Small Business marketing foundation”

In 2013, we must all learn more effective email marketing. Many of us are currently learning to use FeedBlitz as an RSS replacement for FeedBurner integrated with both social media marketing and email marketing.

FeedBlitz provides many resources for learning their powerful solutions, and as we learn more from FeedBlitz Expert Rebecca Caroe and FeedBlitz Community Manager Heather Solos we will be sharing how-to tips and mentoring others in how to use it. Visit her Creative Agency Secrets blog for FeedBlitz tips.

Other bloggers already use AWeber as they are the #1 recommended email marketing solution for small businesses. I encourage all bloggers to read Kristi Hines’ post Why Your Blog Needs a Mailing List.

If you have a business of any kind, email marketing is too important to ignore.
Those who struggle to do it themselves must hire someone to assist them!

Gene Marks, columnist, author, and small business owner

Click Image for more on Gene Marks

Gene Marks writes about “what’s affecting him, his clients and small business” for The NY Times. His weekly roundups called “This Week in Small Business” are an excellent way for busy people to get a full recap of the best content that affects them.

They’re so good I offer here some of his more recent posts so you can easily find them:

Marks also writes for The Huffington Post; Forbes, Fox Business and appears on FOX Business, FOX News, Bloomberg, CNBC, MSNBC’s “Your Business” program, speaks live, and is the author of five books on Small Business Management.

Charles Fishman, award-winning investigative and magazine journalist, book author

Click image for his latest book

An entire course in investigative journalism could be given around the post The Insourcing Boom published in The Atlantic. Journalists and bloggers wishing to hone their skills and anyone interested in how manufacturing has changed in the U.S. – which often applies around the world as well – should read this post.

As all insightful writing that offers new ideas does, that post inspired a rebuttal Alan Tonelson: ‘The Insourcing Boom That Isn’t’. Those who understand how multi-national corporations pit one country’s work force against another (or even within a country) know, they are both correct because that goal can be achieved in many ways.

Fishman’s post is replete with connections worth pursuing. Besides this great debate he started, he is know as the author of the book The Big Thurst; The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water.

He also wrote the New York Times bestseller The Wal-Mart Effect, named by the Economist “book of the year”. My regular readers know I have published similar research in Kaufman, Texas; Still Thriving Because Wal-Mart Did NOT Come to Town – Yet.

(Yes, this is the same small town Kaufman (outside Dallas) where the Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney was shot and killed by two Kevlar wearing gunman early this morning. )

TWITTER ACCOUNTS

Image Credit: In Good Company

To make it easier to connect with those recommended in this post, here are their Twitter usernames. (If there are others let me know and I’ll add them.)

MECLABS TWITTER ACCOUNTS:

Daniel Burstein @DanielBurstein
David Kirkpatrick @davidkonline
MECLABS @MECLABS
MarketingSherpa @MarketingSherpa
Marketing Experiments @MktgExperiments

EMAIL MARKETING TWITTER ACCOUNTS:

FeedBlitz @FeedBlitz
FeedBlitz Founder Phil Hollows @phollows
FeedBlitz Consultant Rebecca Caroe @rebeccacaroe
FeedBlitz Community Manager Heather Solos @heathersolos
Aweber @aweber
Constant Contact @ConstantContact
Rick Jensen, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Contstant Contact @jensenrickw

SMALL BUSINESS AUTHOR’S TWITTER ACCOUNTS:

Gene Marks @GeneMarks
Charles Fishman @cfishman

I encourage my readers to at least consider subscribing to these writers – especially if you are in small business or are a blogger who understand the importance of small businesses to our economies worldwide.

Tomorrow I will share the most important posts I’ve written lately about how bloggers need to step up and assist small businesses with their marketing and social media.

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{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }

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bnat misr February 6, 2013 at 12:11 am

Wow Gail. Thanks it really helping you the best bro
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Robert Koening Twitter: AAttorneysGroup February 5, 2013 at 8:44 am

I look forward to reading about Charles Fishman’s investigative reporting. Journalism and marketing go hand in hand a lot of the time. Great list!

Pranesh who writes about Blogging February 5, 2013 at 8:30 am

Thanks for sharing top author and blog writers who are influential in their domain. It’s not only important to learn and be up to date by having a twitter or G+ relation, but also some level of interaction. With authorship getting so much attention nowadays, being recognized by domain giants is great. Thank you!
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Johah Wolfson who writes about accident lawyer Fort Lauderdale February 5, 2013 at 5:00 am

This site always provides a lot of useful information and this article just shows why. If small businesses like myself just utilize some of the tools you present here about marketing, it would help many of them be much more successful.

Rajkumar Jonnala February 5, 2013 at 2:54 am

Yup definetly, books give us lot of knowledge about how to market a product and how to deal with clients. Twitter and E-mail marketing are good strategies that will raise our customer no.
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Julian February 5, 2013 at 2:43 am

Any business, no matter its size, needs to find a way to promote its products and to be ahead of competition. I’m sure there are lots of create examples and strategies in these books.
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Anne Quotesworth Twitter: wolstonl February 4, 2013 at 6:19 pm

This is a list worth looking up. I especially like the second recommendation. Thanks for this list and this is a good article from start to finish.
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Abhishek February 4, 2013 at 5:39 am

Thanks a ton for providing this list and appreciate the fact that you worked so hard on it… I am gonna use email marketing list for sure. You rock and keep providing such articles to us.
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myles Technology Blog February 4, 2013 at 5:27 am

Great post helped a lot.!! Great work @autho
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Web developer February 3, 2013 at 3:00 pm

Thank you for providing such a comprehensive list of where to get more information about small business. Make sure you check out some of these resources.
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Jet Johnson February 3, 2013 at 2:16 am

Charles Fishman is a god!!!! Great list of authors, thanks for sharing =)

Purnima who writes about used firearms for sale February 3, 2013 at 2:14 am

Salutary share .
It is a guide card for small business marketing. Email marketing worked really well for me . To reap more benefits from marketing I would surely use resources mentioned by you.

James M. February 2, 2013 at 7:53 pm

I’ve been a long time lurker at Kristi Hine’s kikolani.com and she’s one blogger who’d really prod anyone to start building a list for one’s blog.

As to the other writers whose websites you’ve suggested here, I’m bookmarking their sites as I know I’ve got a lot of interesting reading and exploring henceforth.
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ipsol cisco February 1, 2013 at 7:59 pm

i am really agree with Mark Simowitz here he say like that Wow Gail. Thanks for providing such an in depth list of where to get some great information about small business marketing. Sure to check out some of these resources.
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Lori February 1, 2013 at 6:36 pm

I recently read about Gail Smith. Is he and this writer the same? I even read about Seth Godin in the field of writing. Every field has it’s people and experts. I think that the quality of your writing is really amazing and small business writers should be learning a lot from it just like i did right now.
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Christian February 1, 2013 at 2:50 pm

I always seen email marketing as spam, don’t really know why but I never actually tried such a campaign. In the following weeks I’ll open a website related to a small local business and email marketing seems like a really good idea.
The only problem is, how do I get the right email list?
Christian would love you to read ..In with the new

GrowMap Twitter: GrowMap February 4, 2013 at 6:07 am

Hi Christian,

Done badly, email marketing IS spam. But done wisely it provides great benefits to your customers. The best email list is one you grow yourself on your own site. Usually you offer an incentive – ideally a series of emails that shares something your readers or small business customers want to know – or less effective, but more common – a one time download – again, something they want enough to share their email address with you.

You have to be very clear about your goals and tell subscribers what you plan to send them. For many small businesses this could be new product announcements, discounts, sales or if a service business it could be useful tips.

Email marketing can be continually improved and learning from others with experience is key to getting benefits quickly. Many know through testing how frequency, types of titles, and what kind of offers you send can increase open rates and conversions.

Even though it can be complicated, it is important to learn the basics and then just jump in with both feet because if you don’t years later you will be wishing you had. Businesses that can afford it should hire quality assistance. Those that can’t need to understand what not to do and get started.
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android monitoring software February 5, 2013 at 4:22 am: Gail, you rock! They way you make thing understandable is really appreciable. I am really impressed and will follow your blog for the upcoming notes.

Cheers and wish you good luck !
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Reply

Shellie Ann Grace who writes about vacation rental kona February 1, 2013 at 8:47 am

I have been following your articles now for several months and you never disappoint. For my business, email marketing has worked very well yet I still always look for ways to get higher conversions for the amount of emails that are sent out.

Mark Simowitz February 1, 2013 at 5:33 am

Wow Gail. Thanks for providing such an in depth list of where to get some great information about small business marketing. Sure to check out some of these resources.
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george February 1, 2013 at 4:37 am

Whatever business it may be e mail marketing is something you can’t live without

Evan January 31, 2013 at 10:40 pm

I’m following Charles Fishman and found him very contemporary author, fresh. Thanks for the list, I haven’t heard about other writers but will have a closer look now!
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