After these messages…we’ll be right back

After these messages…we’ll be right back

There’s something about the summer that is kind of ingrained in our DNA. It’s a time for rest, reflection, and to get re-energized. That’s why we’ve decided to take the rest of the summer off from blogging and promotion. We’ve got some cool projects that we want to work on, and we’d like to really focus on a big push for the first week of September. You’ll still see us on social media, and we’re still around for client work (both new and old), but we’re not going to put a huge push on putting out a new piece of content every week.

It’s important when you run your own business to look back at what you’ve done recently, we take regular stock of what we’re doing, and we posted some annual goals.

Way back in January, we posted our “Start, Stop, and Continue” post, where we figured out what we would focus on for 2018. We’ve been doing a ton of work on this stuff recently, and we will be making some major announcements in September with some new focuses. We’re also working with our friends at Code Elves on a major product launch that will be ready for some beta testing later this fall.

In the meantime, we’re going to take some vacation time, spend some quiet time reflecting things, and come back on September 5th with a brand new blog post, and a very cool download that we can’t wait to show you.

See you back here September 5th!

In the meantime, we want to hear how you refresh and refocus your own efforts? What do you do to make things better?

Why we left Medium, a cautionary tale

Why we left Medium, a cautionary tale

Our Manage Comics blog was recently suspended by Medium for no justifiable reason. To date the only explanation we have been given is that we were accidentally caught in their spam filter.

This caused a huge impact on our business, saw our page rankings plummet, created dozens of orphaned links from sites that had referenced us, and left us scrambling to solve a problem that our vendor has not been able to give us a reasonable explanation behind.

Because of the negative effects on our business, and Medium’s lack of a reasonable explanation for what happened, we have removed all content from Medium, and we are firmly advising our clients against using Medium as a blogging platform. (more…)

The 5 Basics of a Successful Digital Content Strategy

The 5 Basics of a Successful Digital Content Strategy

There has never been a more exciting time for small business owners to capitalize on marketing tools and increase their customer touch.

Only a few years ago marketing professionals had to depend on expensive mass media or unreliable methods to get their message across.

But having a clear digital strategy allows small business owners to make a big impact to their customer base with low costs. Further, you can be precise and focused on message and audience, ensuring you are getting the best return on your investment.

One of the keys to that digital approach needs to be a digital content strategy.
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How hustling for Manage Comics got us more leads

How hustling for Manage Comics got us more leads

This is a story about how following our own advice that we preach week in and week out led to some awesome successes for us. It’s a reminder that when we do the things that we tell others to do, we benefit from it as much as they do!

We should know this advice by heart by now. We’ve seen it improve our own results at NorthIQ, and we’ve watched it in action as we started content marketing on Manage Comics and saw our market share grow.

Last week the comic book retailers group ComicsPRO got together and did three days of meetings about comics retailing.  During those meetings, Diamond Comics, the main distributor for about 90% of the comics market who has exclusive distribution rights with Marvel, DC Comics, Image Comics, and many others, made an announcement that they would be releasing their own version of a comics pull list application called Pull Box. (more…)

The NorthIQ 3i Formula

The NorthIQ 3i Formula

Leads are the currency that all marketing campaigns can be measured on. A campaign that delivers qualified leads who become customers is worth its weight in whatever precious metal you covet. The NorthIQ 3i Formula is all about delivering leads.

In our previous post we wrote about SEO, and how most SEO companies try to sell you the wrong thing. We believe that You Don’t Need an SEO Company, traffic to your website will not change your business by itself, and SEO just delivers you traffic. SEO experts not only don’t do the right things, they don’t even know the right questions to ask!

“All right Mr. Smarty Pants”, we hear you saying, “These Hand Crafted Platypus homes aren’t gonna sell themselves! If you’re saying I don’t need to rank #1 for Artisanal Platyplode Abodes and my other keywords, then just exactly what is it that you think you and your fancy pants marketing agency can do for me?” (more…)