In today's fast-paced, tight-budget, not-enough-hours-in-the-day world, we all could use ways to do more with less. And fundraisers aren't the only ones. In fact, that's what makes this next fundraising tip so important.

Today the business environment is ever-changing, and the use of digital marketing is leaving traditional marketing in its wake, for good reason.  Business operations today are more complex. Companies are challenged to understand and utilize a myriad of channels while attempting to retain existing customers and also connect with potential new customers every single day. 

I had a conversation with a recent college graduate last week and I asked him if he used LinkedIn to prep for a meeting. His response surprised me. “I already have a job. I don’t need LinkedIn.” Really? In this time of big-data, constant networking and social media driven everything, LinkedIn still is thought of as just a place to find a job?

LinkedIn is so much more. And if you’re not using it as part of your organizations digital marketing strategy you are missing out.

Lead generation is at the heart of most marketing teams’ goals. And it’s a challenge for nearly everyone. We regularly assist our clients with building effective lead generation strategies, and we regularly hear the same challenges presented.

Here are the top three lead gen challenges we see and suggestions on how to solve them.

Content marketing and inbound marketing are modern approaches to marketing that are often confused, even by experienced marketers.

It’s easy to see why confusion might arise between the two. Both content marketing and inbound marketing are both:

• Strategic approaches to marketing
• Targeted to a specifically defined audience
• Executed according to a content marketing strategy
• Designed to provide helpful, unique and relevant content to the user

Despite the similarities, there are important distinctions as well. Understanding the differences between content marketing and inbound marketing is important when making decisions about what is best for your brand.

Marketing automation software is a category of powerful technology that enables organizations to increase efficiency and get better results from their marketing departments in order to fuel revenue growth.

Many organizations today are familiar with the existence of marketing automation software; however, many marketers don’t have a great handle on how to best leverage marketing automation within their specific business.

The potential advantages of marketing automation are tremendous. Here are four of the top-cited reasons to start using marketing automation software in your organization.

Plus 5 Free Tools to Get You Started

A marketing technology (or “martech”) stack is no longer optional for mid-sized companies. In fact, for most companies, it’s not a matter of choosing if it’s a good idea to use technology to market your brand. Instead, it’s a matter of choosing which pieces of marketing technology to incorporate in order to get you the best lead generation and business results.

The marketing technology landscape is complicated, period. From ecommerce tools to A/B testing to social media to live chat to heat mapping to ABM software, martech solutions exist today for nearly every facet of marketing that you can imagine.

So, let’s start with the basics and simplify the landscape a bit. Below are five essential elements that make up a basic marketing tech stack, plus five free tools to help you get started leveraging technology for better marketing results.

If you want to generate more leads from your marketing and sales efforts, your website is the perfect place to start. A website is a brand’s most valuable sales and marketing asset, yet so few marketers truly leverage its lead generation potential.

Many marketers find themselves overwhelmed and unsure where to start. The good news is that transforming your website into a lead generation powerhouse usually doesn’t require a total overhaul or rebuild, which can drain substantial time and resources. Rather, most websites really only need a series of strategic tweaks in order to successfully transition from a stale online brochure to a repeatable and scalable lead generation machine.

Here are seven secrets to get started transforming your website into a lead generation machine.

If you’re a marketer looking to improve lead generation, adding a blog to your website is one of the best investments you can make.

But blogging only produces lead generation results when it’s planned and executed properly. Here are ten blogging best practices sure to improve lead generation for B2B companies.