Effective writing is an integral part of marketing success and excellent writers are necessary in producing valuable content. While sometimes you’re helping your marketing content, other times (without noticing) you could be hurting it. If you’re not writing with a purpose, you’ve chosen the latter. Since this is my first time working in a marketing firm, it was no surprise that I needed to sharpen my writing skills and fine-tune my technique. If you’re in need of some improvement (let’s be honest, everyone has room to improve), there are a number of resources available online to help hone your skills.

Why you need to integrate challenger marketing into your content marketing strategy to inspire action

“Thought leader” is a phrase that’s beginning to spark more ew than awe.

7 lessons I learned in my first four years of business (and a few extra tips)

Last week, Reputation Ink celebrated its fourth year in business. I founded the agency in June 2011 working out of my home with one large client (who we still work with), and in the last four years, we’ve grown to include over 20 clients (including many large, global corporations), six full-time employees, several freelance writers we have established relationships with, and a group of specialist agency partners we collaborate with for technical and creative support.

We have more growth ahead of us, but I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished so far. I thought I would mark our anniversary by sharing what I’ve learned about marketing and growing a professional services business over the past four years.

As inbound marketing gains in popularity, some companies are playing catch up, while others are reaping the rewards of their efforts and refining their strategies. The cardinal rule in content marketing hasn’t changed along with the calendar year: it will forever be to focus on helpful, useful content that is well written and produced. As more and more companies see the ROI of inbound and shift more marketing dollars to content marketing, it’s important to know where to focus your attention:

Do NOT buy that marketing automation software (just yet). Before you pull the trigger, please read this blog post first.

Marketing automation is an incredibly valuable tool that is transforming the marketing industry. In the space of one year, the number of marketing technology companies has nearly doubled, rising to nearly 2,000 in 2015 according to Marketing Land.

However, it still faces an embarrassingly high failure rate of 60 percent. According to the Sales Benchmark Index, three out of five marketing automation installations fail, meaning they are under-utilized, not used at all, or eventually canceled.