This week three members of our team are preparing for travel to Inbound 2014 in Boston, the fastest growing conference for Inbound Marketers.  It’s way cool.  We’ll “sharpen our saws” in hundreds of sessions with thousands of marketers of like mind.

These are professionals who create measurable business marketing strategies.

At lots of companies, the marketing crafts, old school or inbound, are barely connected to business strategy, and often tactical. So where do all the elements of digital e-marketing or inbound marketing fit?

Are they strategic?  Or a “bag o' tactics?”

I’ll cut to the chase:  At many SMB's online marketing efforts ARE disconnected tactics.  But today, it’s essential that marketing becomes strategic to provide sales.

You should go. We are.

Today the smart money in marketing is on internet marketing, marketing automation, inbound marketing and HubSpot.  This is especially true for small and medium sized business.

The summer is soon ending and the time is coming to get back to work. My definition of "getting back to work" is work without the thought or preparedness for vacation!   I live in the South, and the kids start school this week. Having grown up in Rochester, NY, it's odd to me, to see school buses before Labor Day, but it's normal here in Charlotte, NC.

What should be "normal" for you is making sure your web efforts do all the basic blocking and tackling, (there's a fall analogy!) that should gain you leads and sales.

So turning my thoughts toward work and building business, it seemed useful to put together a checklist of ways to attract business.  Here goes...