Successful organisations like Apple aren't just doing things ad hoc. Everything is planned strategically for the long game.

A key part to successful branding is, of course, getting your customers on board. Apple is well-known for the brand loyalty of its customers. So how do they do it?

Jack of all trades, master of none. We cannot be all things to all people, so identifying your niche is a key move for every brand. But that itself isn't sufficient – the most successful brands in the world go to great lengths to own their niches.

Simplicity may be a key part of Apple's success, but don't mistake this for minimal effort. A lot of hard work goes into distilling brands, concepts and products into their more effective simplicity.

How do the most innovative organisations in the world ensure that they are consistently cultivating innovation? Step one is to engage the team.

You've embraced content marketing to increase traffic to your website and keep visitors there longer. Your content is landing high SERP rankings, thanks to your improved SEO strategies, and you've even allocated more money in your marketing budget to creating a strong social media presence.

So why has your lead generation only gone up by half a percent? Read on to find out why your content needs a powerful inbound marketing strategy to really start generating quality leads. 

It's all well and good to talk about the benefits of aligning sales and marketing, but it takes more than just a few statistics — however compelling they may be — to really create change in your company.

And even with actionable techniques, like data-sharing and SMART goal setting, getting these two teams to work together effectively often feels like an uphill climb. 

The missing element is company culture.

The success of your marketing campaign is directly measurable by your sales. At least, so it would seem. But when your marketing and sales teams aren't closely aligned, it can be difficult to get a clear picture of the success of either team.

When they work together, however, you could see as much as 20% revenue growth. Now that's measurable progress. 

Despite the clear correlation between sales/marketing alignment and measurable progress, however, many CEOs actually encourage competition between the teams as a way to spur productivity. Read on to find out how to avoid this common mistake.

Marketing Managers are already beginning to take note of how 2016’s social media data will shape their strategy for 2017. Social media challenges faced in 2016 were more extrinsic, with things like reaching out to influencers (cold) and hosting live Q&A sessions, ranking high for many marketers.

Quality content is the driving force behind any lead-generating campaign. But if nobody ever sees your content, it doesn't matter how outstanding it is—consumers and businesses can't respond to content they can't find.

That's why you need to boost the marketing signal your company is putting out, by building a strong online presence through content marketing. Keep reading to learn more about the three key ways you can build that presence: blogging, social, and SEO.