We know the importance of building a strong marketing foundation for our clients. When you are in the early stages of building a business, you are putting all of your energy into your product or service offering and are eager to get it in the hands of your prospective customers and clients. But even before setting your digital foundation, there are foundational business elements that every savvy business owner should have in place before investing too many dollars in marketing, and especially before adding advertising dollars into the mix.

Synapse FL recently hosted their Innovation Summit in Tampa. The two-day event brought together innovators from all industries and stages of development to connect technology, regionally-based innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystems throughout Florida. While there were some amazing technologies showcased, there were also practical learnings in growing your business.

When it comes to marketing and public relations, there are common misconceptions that one can accomplish the goals of both, or that one needs to be chosen or is better than the other. In our experience, there are key differences in audience, tactics and goals, but also great opportunities when the two can work together, especially digitally.

When Marketing and Sales resort to a blame game, the customer stops being the priority and results suffer. So how do you address the disconnects and achieve alignment for success?

This past month we attended Internet Summit to get the latest and greatest about digital marketing tools, ideas, and practical solutions that can be applied as we move into 2018. Below are the top 3 themes from dozens of speakers that resonated as we grow with our clients in 2018.

As marketers, we often review the customer journey, and how to bring leads into the top of the funnel through awareness campaigns as well as close and nurture customers towards the bottom of the funnel. Mailchimp, our favorite email automation tool, outlines some creative ways your business should be using email marketing to close leads or convert customers and boost sales.

SpotOn is located in Tampa with the majority of our clients in Florida. We’ve spent much of the last couple of weeks helping prepare and communicate through the threats and consequences of Hurricane Irma. We feel thankful today that our business and client companies are safe and working toward getting their operations back to “business as usual.” Here are insights into questions asked, discussions had and ways to plan your marketing and communications for natural disasters.

Investing in a website for your business is a no brainer. It’s a necessary marketing tool that helps you gain visibility and credibility for the billions of search queries for products and services online each day. One mistake you don’t want to make is setting it and forgetting it. Your website brings great opportunity to not only boost brand recognition and expand market potential but also allows you to be where your audience is on their timing.

With the growth of the eCommerce market, clients come to us not just looking for digital marketing services, but for a complete eCommerce solution to help launch a new business or grow their current business. In our collective experience, there are quite a few platforms and payment gateways to choose from, however, over the past few years, we have fallen in love with Shopify.

Many of the clients we work with are entrepreneurs and small business owners who just aren’t marketing managers, but the founders and CEOs of their business. Being in this position means the priorities are business development relationships, operations and hiring good people, marketing isn’t always at the top of the list. This is why we have put together this ultimate checklist for setting your digital marketing foundation from the start.