Time to kick back and catch up on the latest great reading from Sigma and around the web!

How to Write a Blog Post in an Hour

Over the last year or so, I’ve read quite a few blog posts about how long people spend writing blog posts. Some of the numbers are mind blowing. Some people spend an average of 7-9 hours per post, and sometimes that’s even before the they take time to decide on a title.

9 Business Success Tips We Can Learn from Brian Halligan

Brian Halligan is the founder and CEO of HubSpot, a marketing software company that helps businesses reinvent the way they do marketing. He is well known in the online and marketing communities for his ideas, philosophies, and unique habits that have lead him to success. One question we all ask is, “What can I do be more successful?” The answer is here, with 9 tips that have helped Halligan and can also help you.

Get Ready for 2014: Review and Update Your Buyer Personas

In today’s economy, markets change fast, and your customers’ behaviors and motivations change along with the markets. What you knew last year isn’t necessarily what’s happening this year. To keep up, you need to periodically review and update your buyer personas. This is a perfect time to do some behind the scenes work on your personas and adjust your 2014 marketing in to changing conditions.

3 Steps to Calculating Inbound Marketing ROI

Marketers often balk at calculating return-on-investment (ROI). .. maybe because it has been so difficult to do in the past. Maybe because they simply don’t want to be accountable to their clients for an ROI.

…and Some of our Favorites from Around the Web!

Time Management for Startups: Quantify, Prioritize, and Automate

I have a confession… Sixteen Ventures – the best little SaaS Growth consulting shop in all the land – is just me… and I have a time management problem! I do everything… from writing blog posts to writing proposals and from interacting on Social Networks to Networking at Industry Events.

New Gmail Feature Allows Anyone On Google+ To Email You & Vice Versa, But Opt Out Is Provided

Google is making a change to Gmail that will further bake in Google+ to its webmail product in a way that’s actually somewhat practical, though also potentially invasive. Going forward, you’ll now be able to directly email your Google+ contacts from Gmail, even if you don’t know their email address.

Socially Stephanie: Content Curation

Dear Socially Stephanie, I work for a small company that focuses on bartending and waitress hiring. I’ve previously interned with them before, and now I am a content creator and curator for the company. I’m having a hard time finding good material that is trending, especially pertaining only to bartenders and waitresses.

#LifeHacks: Get Anyone’s Email Address

I hate all those impersonal, corporate mailboxes, like “office@”, “contact@” or “kissmyass@”, so I used to try lots of different ways of finding direct emails to people I wanted to connect with. At first I’d try to google phrases like “name” + “email”, but, as you can imagine, that did not prove to be very effective.