This is a guest post by Joseph.

With the new year coming, it’s time to start planning your marketing.

A large percentage of your audience and customer base will be making important decisions and resolutions to get started in the New Year and your business can only thrive if you get to them.

Marketing has changed and the power no longer belongs to those with the big budgets but to those who are patient and smart.

Advertising to drive-by visitors is becoming more expensive and less effective.
Here are the 3 most powerful marketing strategies you should try in the New Year; each strategy is backed up with case studies to prove its effectiveness.

1. Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Whether you’re a startup, an individual blogger selling products and services or a freelance consultant, creating a content marketing strategy is the best form of marketing you can get right now.

“Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers” – Copyblogger

Contrary to interruption marketing, the idea behind content marketing is to consistently offer quality content closely related to what you’re selling, with the aim of educating people so that they get to know, like and trust you.

Essentially, you’re giving away free content through various mediums in other to attract a legitimate customer base; these customers already know, like and trust you so they have more long-term value compared to customers from other forms of marketing.

You can leverage content marketing by creating whitepapers, special reports, building an email list, starting a podcast, using video marketing and other mediums that help you deliver great content for free, but one of the most effective ways to use content marketing is by starting a blog.

If you’re only going to leverage one form of content marketing, let it be blogging.
Don’t just create any blog. Instead, create a blog that regularly publishes articles relevant to what you’re selling so as to educate people in your field and get them to check out what you have to offer.

You then work on getting exposure for this content via various means, including through search engines and social media.

This is a guest post by Leon Harris.

Working as a freelancer sounds pretty great in the beginning: you get to set your own hours, choose clients, and virtually be the boss. And while this is definitely awesome, there are some potential drawbacks, as well, like hustling for work, juggling multiple clients, and having to pay for your own health insurance. Like any type of work, there are both challenges and rewards.

But when it comes to the legal aspects of running your business you may not know where to begin. Do you need legal services? What laws pertain specifically to independent contractors? And what kinds of legal issues could you face in the course of your work?

These are all valid questions and there are plenty of resources to help you find the answers (and services) you seek. Here are a few that every freelancer should check out.

1. SBA

The Small Business Administration is a great place to begin your search for legal advice because the site provides you with information on laws pertaining to small businesses, which technically includes the army of self-employed citizens and LLCs operating out of a home or shared office. If you’re seeking facts about licenses, permits, registering a business name, estimated taxes, W-9 forms, legal documents (contracts for work, NDAs, etc.), and more, this is like one-stop shopping that will help you to develop a base of knowledge and point you in the right direction.

This is a guest post by Craig Robinson.

When creating marketplace ads to promote your brand and products on Facebook, the list of ways to obtain success is exceedingly long. Most tips you read touch on different ways to engage, different calls of action, different audiences to target for likes and overall fans, and a thousand other dos of the marketplace system.

That’s all approaching things from a marketer’s standpoint. But what about from a psychological standpoint?

Take the colors you’re using in your ads as a great example. Colors used can actually make or break your entire campaign. Although you may not realize it, people have a strong physiological response to different colors, and using the wrong combination of colors in your graphic-based ads can be a death sentence in Facebook marketing.

This is a guest post by Jessica Velasco.

Isn’t it delightful when we can learn from the mistakes of other people?! Here is a list of common blogging blunders. Check to see if you are making any of these mistakes. If so, correct them now before your readers become disenchanted, turning your blog into a ghost town.

Photo Credit: Kristi Hines on Photostry

1. Being Ignorant of Your Real Readers’ Needs

Who are your blog readers? You’re probably not getting a ton of traffic from the upper-level execs, sitting in the corner office 10 stories above you. So, why are you writing to please your bosses? Write for the real readers of your blog. Meet their needs. The majority of your readers are your current and prospective clients – write for them!