Small business social media advertising tips, subconscious signaling, and more

Here are some of our most popular articles from the past two decades. Since we’ve used total traffic as a proxy for popularity, the list skews to older articles, giving us a chance to take a look back through email’s history. What’s most surprising is how much hasn’t changed. There is still very good advice in all of these articles.

Large enterprises have expert in-house marketers and teams of consultants with big budgets to discover and codify a powerful value proposition. But it's easy for the small business owner to overlook this vital element of marketing and business.

In this case study, we show how a shoe repair shop tested its value proposition using Facebook advertising with a tiny budget.

When contractors (web designers, marketers, branding specialists, etc.) wants to know how to find clients, the answer is generally 'referral,' but that only provides so much to the pipeline.

People either identify with a brand or they don’t. Potential customers feel that “people like me” are served by a brand, or they feel that people or characteristics they don’t want to be associated with are represented by that brand. Marketers can appeal to this subconscious signaling in subtle yet powerful ways.