If you’re serious about your marketing career and your continuing professional development (CPD) you should always be on the lookout for resources and materials to help you. The problem is, there’s such an overwhelming amount of information out there it’s difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. 
 
Here are 7 sites we think are worth your time (in no particular order) 
(nb - do always check you are using only the free resources on offer if that’s what you’re after….).
 
1 - The Hubspot Marketing Blog - blog.hubspot.com/marketing
The guys who have perhaps the greatest claim to have invented the Inbound Marketing, also produce a prolific and practical series of blogs, tools, templates and materials. Hubspot have a refreshingly scientific approach to inbound marketing and an impressive series of benchmark measures. If you can forgive the occasionally evangelical tone, the only danger here is you could spend all day reading rather than doing. 
 
You don’t have to be a Hubspot customer to read the blog. 
 
2 - Smart Insights -  www.smartinsights.com
Dave Chaffey, the UK academic who literally wrote the textbook on digital marketing runs this tremendous resource bank of guides, checklists and instruments. A little academic in parts, there’s some useful stuff here, some of which is free and some of which requires an “expert membership” fee. 
 
3 - The Chartered Institute of Marketing - www.cim.co.uk
Whatever you think of the CIM, it’s website, and in particular the Expert Zone, is an invaluable repository of best practice guidance that takes you step by step through a marketing strategy with tools and webinars to help you through the process. Free access comes with CIM membership. 
 
4 - LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com
You really should spend time on LinkedIn as it is not only the best way to build your network of contacts and extend your influence by commenting on others articles and updates. It is also one of the premier sites for posting and finding job opportunities. 
 
Demonstrate your expertise by writing LinkedIn articles, respond to others posts and build a network that will support you throughout your career. 
 
5 - MarketingProfs - www.marketingprofs.com
600,000 marketers can’t be wrong! Another apparently limitless supply of blogs, materials, events and training presented in a very accessible way. You’ll struggle to find a subject that isn’t covered and you can even study for a qualification.
 
While there are paid for options the free subscription option will give you access to tons of materials so we suggest starting with that. 
 
6 -  Udemy - www.udemy.com
Undemy specialises in online courses, delivered by video and covering a whole range of subjects, not just marketing. Unfortunately there are no free options at the time of writing. A course will comprise a number of video sections sometimes resulting in several hours of training often for less than £20. 
 
A word of caution - always check learners’ feedback before buying a course (there are some duff ones) and avoid paying £85 or £149 for a course - there’s almost always some sort of promotion on if you search for it. 
 
Please note: These recommendations have come from our own personal experience and from our own network. We have no affiliation with the sites listed above and you should make sure you are happy with any terms and conditions on the sites before signing up. 
 
And last but not least! ….
 
7 - Regan & Dean - www.regananddean.co.uk
There are lots of marketing job sites around, and many more general sites, each promising hundreds or thousands of opportunities each day. It’s all too easy to spend hours wading through dozens of sites, before losing focus and motivation. American psychologist Barry Schwartz called this The Paradox of Choice.

This is one of those areas where less is more, so we recommend focusing on a small number of specialist sites that will highlight the opportunities that are of specific interest to you. 
 
We may be biased on this one, but even if we can’t compete with some sites in terms of volume, we do pride ourselves in listing carefully selected, career-enhancing opportunities. And you can be sure you can talk to your consultant in detail about the role that interests you. 
 
You don’t have to keep checking the site. Sign up for our job alerts here www.regananddean.com/register and we’ll send opportunities that match your search criteria as soon as we get them.
 
You can be sure that every role on our site is a genuine role, that has been checked and verified by a member of the Regan & Dean team in direct communication with our clients - so sign up now if you haven’t already so you can keep updated with what’s happening in the market - and for our blogs too for more information and handy hints for your career!