Marketing

How to Make your Website Standout
With the continual evolution of the internet, technological tools are advancing, and you don’t want to fall behind when creating a website for your business. Have an interactive websiteWebsites that are interactive with clickers are shown to have more clicks than...

How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
Developing a social media marketing plan can take up a lot of time especially if you are new to it. Here is a list of steps to help you create the best social media marketing plan. Step 1: Consider your audience, time, and resources. Learn more about your target...

Transform Your Social Media Page to Look More Aesthetically Pleasing
Everyone has a social media page, but not every page catches your eye. Your business needs a social media page that optimizes viewing and traffic on your website. So, what pulls the audience in? What type of aesthetic do they look for in a business website? How do you...

Boost SEO for Your Business
No matter where you are in the entrepreneurial journey, whether it’s the planning stages or after being well-established in the community, search engine optimization (or SEO) should be a priority to implement into your website. SEO is the method of better positioning...

Tips For Engaging with Followers
According to Hootsuite, 54% of the world’s population has a social media account. That is 4.2 billion users across the globe. That being said, any audience can be reached through social media. Social media is the reason many businesses have seen rapid growth since...

Running Promotions as A New Business – How to Make Sure You Are Still Making Profit
After you have started your business - you are going to need customers. A great way to promote your business is to run promotions, but it can sometimes get tricky. Here are some helpful tips to ensure that your company is still making profit! Sales: Putting your...

5 Ways To Boost Seo For Your Business
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a marketing technique used to improve organic audience traffic for a business’ online presence. SEO is a cost-efficient way to grab attention from a demographically wide audience. This strategy is trackable through analytics as...

Navigating In-Person Events This Holiday Season
In 2021, there has been a steady increase in the return of in person events. As an entrepreneur/small business owner, you should be taking advantage of events where you can connect with the community and promote your product/service. Here are five steps to navigate...

Struggling With SEO Anxiety?
It’s challenging to navigate your company’s website and content SEO. Maybe you’ve had a few late nights putting together SEO content or a content plan — or maybe you’re struggling with SEO anxiety. It’s challenging to navigate your company’s website and content SEO....

5 Tips for Keeping Customer Loyalty
Consumers have the market in their hands; take control by gaining their loyalty. Align your brand with your customer’s goalsThe most genuine tip for keeping customer loyalty is to portray your brand honestly. Be relatable. Pro-tip: use your marketing strategies to...

5 Ways To Build Relationships (And Loyalty) With Your Customers
People buy from people they trust. That’s the not-so-secret secret. If your customers trust you and your business, they will buy from you. As simple as that is to understand, getting customers to a point where they trust you is a little less intuitive. The bottom line...

Looking To Generate Quality Leads? Make Sure To Use The Right Bait!
It’s the goal of any business, no matter what size or what products or services they sell, to generate revenue. To do that, businesses need to generate leads. More than that, though, if you’re hoping to turn leads into customers, you can’t just expect any old lead...

Why You Should Diversify Your Marketing Channels
Just because your customers are engaging with your business on one platform right now doesn’t mean that will always be the case. People change, and the way you market your business should change with them. Otherwise, you’ll lose out on revenue and valuable...

Inspire Customer Loyalty With These Seasonal And Holiday Promotions!
If the success of businesses like Starbucks and Panera through the pandemic proves anything, it’s that loyalty programs work. Loyalty programs, in short, make customers feel as though a business is intentionally offering them products and services that they are...

Stuck in Your Career? To Whom Do You Turn?
We all get stuck once in a while, and being “stuck” never looks the same for two people. Maybe you’ve gotten further in your career and business than you ever thought possible — where could you possibly go next? Or maybe you feel bored but lack the proper inspiration...

Increase Your Retention, Quick!
After getting new customers, many business owners assume they’ll stick around — but why should they? That’s the question a great retention strategy will help answer for you. Over 70% of customers will leave a business due to unsatisfactory customer service. A big part...

How Relationship Marketing Could Change Your Business
Some of the greatest joys in life come from the relationships we create. When we find a person we connect with, we rarely forget or let them go. That’s why you — yes, you, the business owner — need to be on the front page of your company’s story. In print. Why print?...

3 Networking Tricks for Introverts
Making new friends in business is challenging when interacting with people naturally drains you. You might actually enjoy meeting new people, but it wears you down faster than most. What do you do? No. 1: Set yourself up for success. Your introversion is likely a key...

Are You Tracking Your Marketing ROI?
Marketing is arguably one of the most creative aspects of running a business — and it’s the most important to track and collect data on. Understanding your customers begins with understanding their feedback; knowing which marketing tactics are working for them (and...

Make Your Brand Tell Your Story
The pandemic has forced many companies not only to restructure their business, but also shift their focus and brand image going forward into 2021. Rebranding is a great time to catch your customers’ attention, but it’s most important for you to leverage your external...

Can Postcards Help You Attract Customers — Better Than Email?
Postcard marketing, as a form of direct-mail marketing, might seem a little odd in today’s age of email and social media. As it turns out, a little “oddness” is exactly the secret ingredient your marketing campaign may need. Whether you’re mailing promotional coupons,...

Introducing the New Way to Network During Social Distancing
As a business owner, you might have some concerns about the future. Over 80% of small businesses fail within the first 18 months, and 93% of businesses fail after 10 years. We can only imagine how much worse those statistics are now during the pandemic. There are,...

How Your Packaging Can Sell Itself
Can the right packaging sell your product for you? Yes, it can. It is especially impactful in a time when appearances mean a lot. People love posting unboxings on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, and sharing the new, helpful products they’ve bought. This is why...

Using Memes in Marketing — Good Idea, or Bad?
Research shows that using memes, GIFs, and/or images on your Twitter social media page will increase engagement — but that’s not the only reason many big corporations are embracing memes in their advertising. Research shows that using memes, GIFs, and/or images on...

Do You Need a ‘Brand’ if You’re the Only Employee?
When your small business is really small — and we mean just you — then it can seem redundant to try and encapsulate your business identity through social media and marketing. It’s just your own identity, right? When your small business is really small — and we mean...

Looking to Jump Ahead Before 2021? Top 3 Ways for Any Entrepreneur to Grow Hot Leads
2020 has — in almost every respect — been a complete mess, and many of us are looking forward to a brand-new year. But you don’t need to wait for 2021 for your business to get a fresh start and thrive in new ways. Here are just a few ways you can jump ahead and grow...

What’s the Secret Behind a Great Cold Email? It Has to Do With Your Branding
There are many philosophies about branding — but when’s the last time you heard someone philosophize over a great cold email? Luckily, they’re more related than you think. Mastering the art of a cold email is important. Much of our social and business communication is...

Struggling to Keep Customers? Build Loyalty by Staying in Touch
During a pandemic, it’s easy to see lots of reasons why many businesses are losing customers right now. But that doesn’t mean you’re completely helpless — in fact, this might be the best time to impress consumers by reaching out to them through a beautiful, mailed...

2 Tips to Make Your Packaging Current and Unforgettable
If you could improve your first impression on a first date, you probably would. The same mentality should apply to product packaging. Nearly 72% of American consumers say packaging influenced their purchasing decision. Whether you’re thinking about shipping products...

Show You Can Adapt Through Visual Rebranding
Has your company had the same look and logo for the past 10 years? Have you considered the impact you’d have if you changed it — showing your customers that you still care about appearances and adapting to new times? Although we know not to judge a book by its cover,...

The Perks of Going ‘Paper’ in a Digital Age
Recently, it seems more and more that print marketing — or print anything, really — is becoming a thing of the past. Don’t buy in to it. Even though digital marketing is important and will remain so for the foreseeable future, there are a few key reasons that a print...

The Phases of Success
Due to the pandemic, many businesses are reevaluating their business plans, including pivoting their entire business model. If you find yourself in a similar situation with your company, you need to think outside the box, viewing clients, family, and friend's common...

Make Your Gig Work Happen
What to Do in the Gig Economy During COVID-19 The pandemic has critically hurt the gig economy. If you're a freelancer or subcontractor, you know this all too well. However, as more industries reopen, the demand for these various gig services is resurfacing. But to...

Stand Out With Your Twitter Presence
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are continually expanding their advertising tools, and properly utilizing them is a full-time job. To ensure you're making the most out of your Twitter presence, here is what you need to know. Stay positive...

Marketing Trends in 2020
It’s an exciting time for every aspect of business, including marketing. In light of recent events, some companies have to completely overhaul their advertising strategies to meet the shifting demands of their clients. However, by addressing these trends now, you...

Overcoming an SEO Emergency
It’s not uncommon for a business to drop down in the search engine results. It may have happened to you. One day, your business is one of the top results for a branded or prominent keyword, then the next day, your business is at the bottom of page one, or worse, on...

Make the Most Out of SEO Marketing
While we’re all adjusting to how the business landscape is changing, it’s a great time to evaluate opportunities for improvement in your business plan. One area many small-business owners are exploring is their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing strategy. A...

3 Tips for Marketing to Millennials in 2020
Millennials are the largest living generation, making them either the biggest threat or the biggest opportunity your business will see in 2020. If you haven’t been doing your research, you may find that marketing to millennials requires some additional work on your...

3 Tips for Naming a New Product
All too often, companies agonize over the best possible brand name, and then rush through the naming process for products. Don’t fall into that trap. Things like choosing an unflattering product name or even just having the wrong product packaging can be costly. If...

Choosing the Right Product KPIs
Without strong KPIs in place, you’ll be left guessing about your product’s performance. Choosing the right KPIs starts with making sure you’ve optimized the goals you have set for your product. The best KPIs are tied to a goal that is measurable, and keeping track of...

Essentials When Creating Buyer Personas
Creating a buyer persona is foundational to your business strategy. From product design to content creation, if you don’t know who you’re selling to and why they want to buy your product, the battle is lost before it has begun. Here are a few key considerations when...

Three Customer Engagement Strategies
According to a report by the Harvard Business School, on average, increasing your customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by as much as 25%–95%. Engaging your customers frequently and effectively has never been more essential than it is now. Here are three...

Three Marketing Trends That Won’t Budge in 2020
In the digital age, the marketing landscape can shift in an instant. As we move forward into 2020, here are three trends that aren’t going anywhere... Social Media Shopping Social media shopping is exploding right now. If your business features an e-commerce...

Three Keys to Identifying Your Ideal Customer
The greater the clarity you have about who your ideal customer is, the better you’ll be able to serve them — and if you don’t already know who these customers are, the new year is the perfect time to start developing that understanding. Here are three tips for...

Rock Your Referral Campaign
As the holidays slow the pace of business, this week is an excellent time to take a deep breath and re-evaluate the effectiveness of your referral campaign. Referrals are one of the most cost-efficient and exponentially effective ways to grow your business, and...

3 Key Ingredients to A Successful Vendor Relationship
Your business is only as good as the vendors you partner with. But what considerations should small business owners keep in mind when evaluating vendors as potential business partners? Transparency If you don’t trust your vendor, you won’t benefit from hiring them....

How Mystery Shopping Increases Revenue
The number one problem most businesses face isn’t getting customers to come to their business, it’s retaining those customers once they do come. By providing a constant assessment of how your business is interacting with customers, mystery shopping can increase...

Developing a Sales Funnel That Works
Sales is not a science, but there are ways to improve your results through modern methods. One such technique has been developed to make closing clients easy: the sales funnel. A sales funnel is a marketing strategy that outlines a customer’s journey from potential...

How to Create Your Iconic Logo
Your company logo is crucial to your brand identity. It’s a representation of the company values, that should inspire action and foster brand loyalty with your target audience. Whether you’re rebranding or just starting, you need to put a lot of thought and effort...

Inbound Marketing Misconceptions
Inbound marketing strategies have led many companies toward success. Unfortunately, misconceptions about this advertising technique have also pushed just has many companies to fail. To make the most of this marketing style, there are three common misconceptions you...

How To Make the Sale
Everyone who works in sales has that one lead they just can’t close. Every lead has their own personality and needs, so it can be hard to meet those on the spot. These precise sales steps will ensure you have the means to tailor your approach to the personality of any...

How to Avoid Holiday Shipping Nightmares
With everyone sending gifts and cards to loved ones, shipping during the holiday season can be a nightmare. Receiving materials late or having your consumers receive their products late puts strain on everyone. To ensure your business doesn’t falter during the...

Make The Most of Your Holiday Marketing
As we’ve approached the holiday season, we’ve talked a lot about how to handle holiday marketing and if it’s right for your company. If you do decide to take part, there are a few unique ways to stand out amongst your peers. Live Video Event There is a growing...

Improve Employee Engagement With These 3 Tips
Employee engagement is one of the most important facets of a successful business, and there are stats to show for it: Highly engaged teams are 21% more profitable than their less engaged counterparts. And the best way to encourage employee engagement is through a...

How Do Facebook’s Privacy Policies Affect Your Marketing?
Facebook has recently experienced backlash regarding its privacy policies, and, as a result, their advertising tools will likely change soon to calm the tides. In a recent blog post, Mark Zuckerberg outlined his vision for the social media empire as a "privacy-focused...

Marketing To Millennials
When developing your marketing plan, it’s easy to rely on traditional strategies that have worked in the past. But with millennials making up more of the market, those traditional tactics may not work. As the marketing landscape shifts toward millennials, there are a...

The Pros and Cons of Fiverr
Fiverr.com has generated a following recently as the place for a plethora of freelance marketing materials and services. However, in this gig economy, there are 100’s of freelancers and platforms competing for your marketing dollar. So, is Fiverr worth the hype?...

What Face-To-Face Marketing Can Do for You
Whether your business relies on eCommerce or thrives in its brick-and-mortar setting, face-to-face marketing can make an impact on brand loyalty. Here is a quick breakdown of what face-to-face marketing is and how it can positively impact your business. What Is...

The Importance of SEO Marketing
The internet and social media apps can be very confusing. They are continually changing to meet the needs of consumers. One of the vaguest concepts in this realm of marketing is Search Engine Optimization. SEO is essential to any online marketing strategy. Here is a...

Do’s & Don’ts of Facebook Live
Facebook Live can be a fantastic tool for connecting with your audience. It's great for major company announcements, product launches, rebranding, etc. While it can be a tremendous tool, it can also be a hindrance if done incorrectly. Here are some basic do's and...

The Basics of Email Marketing
Email marketing is a fascinating and booming field. Many believe this form of marketing to be outdated, but it’s not. An email list is worth its weight in gold. Here are some of the email marketing basics to get you headed in the right direction. Know Where to Target...

Add Some Surprise and Delight to Your Marketing
Surprise and delight marketing has become a focal point to some marketing campaigns. It could be a vehicle in a rebranding strategy for some, while others may use it as an incentive for their current customers to purchase more and foster more brand loyalty. What IS a...

Emerging Marketing Channels
You really have to be creative about communicating your message to your audience. It’s important to make the most out of any method you invest in. Here is a quick breakdown of the top two channels other marketers are diving into. YouTube YouTube is one of the top...

Is SEO Worth the Hassle?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is both hard to conceptualize and hard to keep up with. Making those most of it can be an uphill battle. A lot of people have a basic understanding of what it is, but haven’t had the chance to fully understand what it stands for. With...

Is Holiday Marketing Worth the Time?
Critics of holiday marketing often ask, “How can you really raise sales in the span of 30 days?” And while it may seem unrealistic, there is definitely a reason companies big and small boost their marketing budget to target a specific holiday or season. If you want to...

Marketing During the Slow Season
No matter what industry you’re in, you’re likely to have a slow season. Whether it’s a few days or a few months, you should always be prepared to combat these highs and lows. When the dreaded slow season does begin, the best reaction is to kick your marketing into...

Safe and Sound Marketing Delivery
As we’ve touched on before, marketing is one of the most important parts of any successful business venture. No matter how you choose to do it, you should always be looking at better ways of communicating. That starts with finding the best way to transport your...

Solutions to Your Marketing Woes
Just like virtually every other field in business, marketing is constantly changing. Marketing managers have to be constantly adapting to new problems in order to keep things running smoothly. With so many moving factors, this can seem like an insurmountable task....

Understanding Marketing
Marketing: Everybody who made it through high school has heard the term a thousand times, but sometimes its true meaning gets lost. We use the word so often in business that it can serve as a catchall for just about every one of our processes. And while that’s true,...

Making a Plan for Your Social Media Marketing
You can’t deny the importance of social media marketing. There are very few industries in which you can see real growth that don’t have a social media presence, and that aren’t actively using that presence to market to their customers. This is especially true of a...

Using Referral Partners to Conquer Referral Marketing
The power of referral marketing cannot be understated. Not only does it make it easier to scale, but it leads to strong relationships that revolve around long-term business transactions. The connection you form with your partners should be your ultimate focus. After...

Why You Need a Digital Marketing Plan
At face value, implementing a digital marketing plan seems like a momentous task, especially if you’re not very tech-savvy. However, this process is not only beneficial to modern business but also necessary. It’s not as much of an uphill battle as you’d think. Putting...

The Spoils of Content Marketing
Traditional marketing schemes are becoming more obsolete by the day, so it’s about time you were let in on marketing’s best-known secret: Content marketing is king. With the advent of fiber optic internet access and a renaissance in direct mail — if it ever really...

Direct Mail Marketing for the Modern Age
When you think of marketing today, the last thing you probably think of is mailing content. Between social media, television, and online marketing campaigns, it may seem counterintuitive to seemingly take a step back into the 90s with your marketing plans. The fact of...

5 Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business
The start of the new year gets everybody motivated to set new goals for their everyday life. Your business goals ought to be included as well. The early months of the year is the right time to take the next step forward in your professional life. If you are an...

Marketing for One, Marketing for All
Marketing starts with connections and ends with interactions. The sooner and more efficiently you’re able to reach your clientele, the better results and more patronage you will experience as a result. By looking to those who have been through exactly what you’re...

3 Tactics Every Entrepreneur Should Master
Being a business owner is the ultimate juggling act. You need to know how to run a business, hire new employees, tackle taxes, market your product, the list goes on and on. When learning how to handle all of this at once, it’s understandable when some things get swept...

Uncommon Marketing for the Common Man
In today’s business climate, your best bet in marketing doesn’t have to involve renting the biggest billboard in town. Although the garden-variety methods of marketing all still hold true to some extent — TV commercials, handbills, punch cards — we no longer need to...

Taking Advantage of Social Media
Social media can warrant all sorts of well-deserved reactions, and personal perceptions. Social media seemed to show up overnight and before anyone realized, it was ruling the world. Only recently have colleges and universities begin to offer Social Media majors, as...

Mastering the Domain of Content Marketing
The Know-How to Pull in an Audience with Creative Content Why You Should be Creating and Publishing Content for Your Audience The umbrella of content marketing encompasses many aspects of creative advertising, all of which you should utilize to better reach...

Hitting the Social Media Marketplace for all it’s Worth
Social Media, Marketing Lore, and You Learning What Social Media Can do for You In the digital age, you’d be hard-pressed to find a logical reason to ignore the potential of social media. Its influence is everywhere we turn; its scope stretching out from third-world...

Why Every Entrepreneur Should Be Blogging
Picture this: You have a great idea for a product and you build up a business around it. It takes off for a while - you’ve got a great team with a common vision and great marketing ideas. Maybe your business does well...for a while. Then sales start to suffer....

Boosting Your Sales This Cyber Monday
Ever since I can remember, my mom and I have made it a tradition to get up early on Black Friday and get our Christmas shopping done. Every year, my mom asks me if I “still want to get up early” to go shopping, and every year, I say, “duh.” Of course, Black Friday has...

3 Ways To Improve Customer Service
Most adults have experience with some sort of customer service jobs. I spent a long time working as a customer service representative to get myself through my undergrad. Later on, working as a content manager in a newsroom, I realized that all that time I...

Acing A Freelance Pitch
In my perfect world, all my freelancing clients reach out to me and ask me to write pieces for them. Editors from around the world beg for the opportunity to ready my work. Unfortunately, most of the time, I have to be the one reaching out to potential...

Questions Freelancers Should Ask Prospects
Working as a freelancer can be a tricky business. Sometimes, getting hired by a company means you’re in it for the long run. Other times, you might just be hired for a seasonal project. Whatever the case may be, sometimes freelancers can get a little eager to start a...

Finding Your Target Audience
As a writer, you’ll hear all about the importance of keeping up with a blog. During my undergrad, practically every professor in the communication department drilled in into my skull. I must have had half a dozen blogs I was creating daily content for by my senior...

Which Social Media Is Best For My Business
When my dad published a novel, "Sons of Jupiter," by Scott Michael Brady, his publisher told him he would need to get on social media. He was already on Facebook, but his incredibly private settings made it impossible to share anything with the public. He adjusted his...

Instagram Continues Its Mind-Blowing Rise
Image credit: Lucia Lambriex | Getty Images Instagram now boasts 700 million users, and what is more impressive is that its growth rate is only speeding up. For reference, it took the platform just four months to add the latest 100 million compared to six months...

Leveraging Micro-Moments in Your Content Campaign
When was the last time you checked your smartphone? If you're like most people, it's probably sitting next to you right now. Or it may even already be in your hand. Mobile use has exploded in the last few years, with more people than ever relying on their smartphones...