Every business needs marketing support. Whether the help comes from one in-house marketer, a large marketing team, or an outsourced agency -- marketing support is essential for brands that are actively growing their business and seeking new customers.

Although an appearance on Shark Tank certainly helped skyrocket Honeyfund’s success, and each entrepreneur’s journey is unique, the challenges faced while growing the tech company aren’t unlike many others. Here are some common challenges entrepreneurs face and how Honeyfund has overcome them to achieve success and continue to grow 12 years later.

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. 

Before beginning any marketing tactics, audience segmentation and persona creation are crucial steps when you are building your foundational marketing strategy. It’s important to take the time to know your current customers and research how to directly reach and further engage them with relevant content.

Business owners have been struggling with the decision to outsource marketing for years. When you are running a business, with a little more than your bottom line on your mind, it may feel more comfortable to hire an in-house marketer to handle everything versus outsourcing to an agency or a random freelancer.

How much should I be spending? Should I be doing email marketing? Does social media have a high ROI? As business owners, there is a lot to consider when it comes to positioning and marketing your business along with what it means for your bottom line.

As Entrepreneur in Residence, our very own Robyn Spoto shares how the Tampa Bay WaVE is supporting the thriving startup community in Tampa. 

While Mother's Day is a great time to remind us of all the inspiring women in our lives who run successful businesses while simultaneously running a successful household, their stories, tools, and advice on time management and work-life balance can translate to any great leader any time of year.

There's really only one thing I struggled with while reading Growth Hacker Marketing.  In fact, I loved reading this book and the examples he used along with the description of the mindset. My problem has nothing to do with the principals of practice. But, let me ask you this . . . is your first impression of the book based on the title alone, positive or negative?

Much of my continuing education often comes from podcasts. One recent morning, my attention was captured by Kevin Hale. Kevin created Wufoo originally out of Tampa, his hometown before heading to the west coast after acceptance to Y Combinator.  I was already a natural supporter of any growing technology from Tampa, I had already seen him speak and the topic was intriguing . . . “How to build products users love.”

And then I heard this:   
“When it comes to long-term relationships, or marriages, the only research that we ended up having to read was the stuff done by John Gottman.”