• The Planning Process: Is Your Business Marketing-Ready

    The Planning Process: Is Your Business Marketing-Ready?

    It’s 12:00 AM–you haven’t slept for days. Under your nose is a worn-out legal pad covered in pencil shavings–casualties from the rigorous outlining of your STELLAR business concept.  Before you give into instinct and create a WordPress site, or hand over fistfuls of cash for a personalized logo, ask yourself these three questions:  Everyone who…

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  • How to Hire A Digital Marketing Agency or Marketing Consultant

    If you’re reading this, you likely have so much work you’re ready to consider outsourcing. Since your business’s inception, you–the small business owner–taught yourself marketing DIY, watched webinars, scoured the internet for definitions, and read all you could about the field. All on your own, you took your business from unknown to recognizable among those…

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  • TikTok digital model graphic

    JAN 2025 UPDATE: What’s Happening with TikTok and Is a Business Account Still Worthwhile?

    Update on JANUARY 19, 2025: After a brief shutdown on Saturday, Jan 18th, the app is back online under the promise by President-elect Donald Trump to sign an executive to delay the TikTok ban. Full-time content creators and small business owners with monetized accounts should back up their videos and other marketing material only found…

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  • [VIDEO] Stop Selling, Start Connecting: The Power of Empathy in Marketing 🙋‍♀️

    Are you tired of pushy marketing tactics that leave a bad taste in your mouth? In this video, we dive into the power of empathetic marketing—an approach for small business owners to earn the trust of their audiences. I share personal experiences of bad marketing, define empathetic marketing, and demonstrate from personal experience how to…

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  • Digital Marketing Jargon: A Glossary of Terms

    Digital Marketing Jargon: A Glossary of Terms

    Terms to know before hiring a digital marketing agency. A/B Test – A research tactic to test two versions of something (i.e. copy, design, asset, theory, or process) by examining the performance of each to optimize the asset moving forward. It’s ideal to test only one element at a time to effectively test a hypothesis.…

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  • People speaking on the street

    LinkedIn Strategy: How Small Businesses Get in Front of Prospective Clients

    Since its launch in 2003, LinkedIn has grown into the go-to networking social media site that it is today. The site boasts over 1 billion users and represents 67 million businesses. With two decades of honing its open-source machine-learning library and expanding its user base, LinkedIn has become a powerful source of employment and market…

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  • Apple vs pear on smartphones

    Instagram’s Algorithms: How Instagram Delivers Ranked Content & Its Impact on Small Business Social Media Marketing

    Contrary to popular belief, Instagram doesn’t have a single algorithm, but a series of ranking systems that incorporate multiple algorithms and classifiers in each section of the app. Understanding how the app and its ranking systems work together to elevate relevant content to its viewers is vital to taking advantage of the social media platform’s…

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About Me

Laura Bailey-Wickins | GrowthSpurt Strategies

Laura

Marketing professional with 8+ years of digital marketing experience in financial services, higher education, technology, and nonprofit industries. Professional expertise in content development, copywriting, search engine optimization, lead generation, social media marketing, and email marketing for small and medium-sized businesses. Member of the American Marketing Association.