When it comes to keeping up with the hottest trends, latest best practices, and most insightful opinions, few resources are better than following industry news sites and blogs.
Marketing is developing at a terrific rate. It’s difficult for even the most talented and experienced marketers to keep up with what’s going on in their own field, let alone the entire industry.
But keep up you must; you can’t afford to fall behind in this environment.
Luckily, there is no shortage of excellent publishers and content aggregators out there. And many of them are really, really good.
For most marketers of any discipline or level of experience, it’s important to keep an eye on a lot of blogs and similar publications. Start by finding sites that relate most closely to your everyday work, and spread out from there. Make use of tools that make consuming that information easier, like email subscriptions or RSS readers. And turn first to popular, reputable blogs with a broad reader and author base.
To get you started, here are some of the blogs we as content marketing recruiters recommend most heavily to help you keep a finger on marketing’s pulse (other than our own blog, of course), in no particular order. We broke them up into rough categories, but remember that as interconnected as marketing is now, many of these blogs by necessity will heavily overlap in theme, intent and audience. Still, we did our best to segment them into verticals for your convenience.
TWEET THIS: Follow these 18 Exceptional marketing blogs to stay up to date and keep your skills sharpFinally, we selected blogs and sites you could access for free, with no subscription or membership required for access. And we added convenient links to their RSS feeds for easy following. Enjoy!
General Marketing News
We recommend following some broad sites that offer a general roundup of big trends and great advice from smart writers. These general sites cover a wide spread of marketing content. Many are divided into finer categories, but their main sites are dedicated to any and all kind of marketing news and educational material. These make great first stops to review quickly with your morning coffee to see what’s hot and trendy.
Marketing Land
Featuring “Internet Marketing News, Strategies & Tips,” Marketing Land is a popular hub for a variety of digital marketing disciplines with a strong editorial team. The site features a robust contributor network of well-known thought leaders and is a sister site to the popular SEO portal Search Engine Land.
ClickZ
ClickZ is a large, frequently-updated resource for a wide variety of original reporting, expert analysis, and analytical research. Plenty of reports on marketing of all kinds, with a focus on interactive and web marketing.
MarketingProfs
MarketingProfs provides educational resources and how-to guides for marketers in all disciples and at all levels. Their content is especially image-rich and is often supported by elaborate infographics–not to mention formal training and events offered by the MarketingProfs organization.
Web Marketing Today
This is one of the veterans of the marketing blog space, having been first established in 1995. With 4-6 posts per week, Web Marketing Today isn’t the busiest of blogs. But it makes up for it in quality of content.
Econsultancy
Econsultancy is one of our go-to hubs for all things digital, from emerging tech to strategy to advice and educational content. The publisher also offers subscribing members access to events and training around the world.
Leadership and Executive Insight
Some of the best marketing-related publishers out there cater to CMOs and other high-ranking marketing heads. They cover not only big marketing trends, but also opinions on matters of high-level management and strategy. Though much of their content is aimed specifically at executives, in many cases anyone with at least intermediate marketing experience will find them valuable.
CMO.com Insider
Run and edited by Adobe, CMO.com is the first place marketing executives look for daily editorials, announcements, and reporting on top-level marketing and leadership issues. It features experienced executive contributors and regular interviews with innovative CMOs.
Forbes CMO Network
This is the famous business publication’s outlet for advanced marketers. Lots of daily content submitted by a large stable of proven writers.
Read our post on content marketing mistakes featuring insights from Forbes contributor Steve Olenski
CMO Essentials
This site, hosted by Aberdeen Group, offers a slightly more general content selection appropriate both for executives and marketers of all levels.
CIO.com
Though obviously targeted at high-level IT professionals, this site is a goldmine for marketing executives keeping up with digital trends. It regularly features content directly related to digital marketing and marketing tech.
Marketing Verticals
There are innumerable blogs that focus specifically on just one of the many aspects of the marketing industry. Here are some of our favorites involved in some of the hottest digital marketing fields now.
Analytics
KISSmetrics
When it comes to topics concerning marketing data, analytics, testing and the like, few do it better than Kissmetrics. The company provides marketing optimization tools and software both free and paid. But beyond their products, they also host one of the web’s most advanced and comprehensive blogs covering all things marketing analytics.
Direct Response
Direct Marketing News
A general marketing site with a specialization in direct marketing, DMN provides “the comprehensive coverage of the hottest trends, success strategies, and core technologies that marketers need to get from raw data to profitable insight.”
MailChimp Email Marketing Blog
Who better to get email marketing advice from than the kings of email distribution? With access to staggering amounts of data and a company full of technical and marketing experts, Mailchimp is able to publish some of the most insightful, analytics-backed email marketing content out there.
Social Marketing and Community Management
Social Media Today
Social Media Today produces a staggering amount of news, how-to guides, trend reports, and data on social media trends and related marketing information. If you like regular daily updates of high-quality marketing content, this is your site.
Writing and Content
Quick Sprout
As content marketing recruiters, this is by far one of our favorites. Written and edited primarily by content marketing legend Neil Patel, Quick Sprout is an industry standard for content strategy and execution. As a primarily 1-man show, it’s not the most frequently updated blog. But what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality.
Copyblogger
This is a copywriter’s paradise, with practical advice and commentary about improving your marketing messaging both from a technical and strategic point of view. Dedicated writers and marketers in general can benefit from the blog posts, infographics and podcasts shared here.
SEO/SEM
Moz is an SEO agency, but they freely hand out some of the best insights, news, guides and reports in the industry. They offer high quality content around SEO and SEM. If you’re at all involved with digital marketing, then you should probably follow at least one SEO blog to stay abreast of big changes and best practices.
Industry News and Commentary
Some publications are focused more on commenting on the major players in the industry itself than marketing trends, tips, and news. They make note of what major brands are doing, report what’s happening at big marketing agencies, and share when big names are making career moves.
AgencySpy
Run by Adweek, AgencySpy reports news and gossip about what’s happening “behind the scenes” of the country’s major agencies and brands.
Digiday
While it also provides some general digital marketing news and opinions, Digiday is heavy on news concerning agencies, publishers, and platforms.