Do you remember the landline phone? Yes, the one that hung on the wall that only allowed you to move away a few feet. I was recently watching a movie made in the 90s, and they showed a scene where the mom was talking on a landline phone. My five year old was watching with me, and he looked back at me and asked what the thing that she was using was. Technology has advanced drastically from the time when we could mostly only use landline phones. And even from the time when we

The way you reach your consumers is important. Sometimes you only have a few seconds to get it right. Your goal is likely that you want to reach as many people as possible, and as quickly as possible in the most effective, attractive way possible. And marketing can sometimes be tricky but more often than that it is overdone. Doing what everyone else is doing leaves you drowning somewhere in the middle, never really rising to the surface to be seen or heard. How do you set you

It doesn’t matter if your brand is an international success or a small-to-medium enterprise; you can no longer ignore social media marketing. Quickly being recognized as one of the most popular forms of marketing, social media engagement is a wonderful way to speak your brands’ message with minimal cost. How do you get started? Let us break it down by starting with the big three: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Social Media Marketing Through Facebook Facebook is constantly

Many factors are involved in the success or failure of a business, such as product quality, cost-effective manufacturability, product demand, cash flow management, staff competence, inventory management, etc.  With all these factors in place, however, it can all turn to dust without a good marketing plan.  You can have the best and most efficiently made product in the world produced by the most competent staff, but if you can’t get it in the hands of the public (with the mone

Link baiting may have gotten a bum wrap lately due to the false picture and title advertising on social media. We’ve all seen the links with a picture of our favorite celebrity and a headline that peaks our curiosity. We click on the link only to find that we are forced to click through a never-ending and often ad-filled slideshow and never find that celebrity even mentioned throughout the article. It’s frustrating and unfortunately, the first thing that many think about when

Many small business owners are unaware of the impact social media has on today’s consumers. Even SBOs who are aware can be too busy to research what, when, and how often to post, as well as how to consistently manage these social media platforms. An SBO’s priorities tend to be focused on meeting the demands of existing customers, and less on generating new business. However, to achieve long-term business success, generating new business and creating brand awareness is vital.

Social media marketing has one simple goal: to sell stuff. However, it’s really not that simple and there are many marketing blunders that occur all the time. We could certainly spend all day spelling out the many ways in which you could improve your business’s social strategy but let’s start by focusing on these 3 common marketing blunders for now. Marketing Blunder #1: Only focusing on you. The use of social media is all about creating a relationship with your target custom

There are several ways that you, as a small business owner, can cut down on costs. Digital marketing is a great place to start. You do not want to eliminate your advertising and marketing budget altogether, however, you need to be careful which marketing efforts you invest your time and money. I’ve outlined four proven, cost-efficient, small business digital marketing strategies below to start. However, there are dozens more out there.  It will truly depend on your business a

Advertising can be expensive, especially for a small business just starting out. The overhead is just not there to allow for expensive advertisements. Before the internet and social media platforms, this could be a huge problem for a small business. Luckily that is no longer the case. With myriad social media platforms out there for businesses to be on, advertisement seems all too easy and more cost effective. What’s the harm in going out and trying this cheap form of adverti

So, how important is it really for you to be blogging daily? A lot of people will tell you that you should post every day if you want to gain subscribers. Or, if you want to get more traffic to your website, or just be a successful blogger, in general, they will tell you that daily blogging is where it is at. That may not be something you want to hear or something that you think you can keep up with, though. So let’s talk pros and cons. Blogging Daily Pros Choices: Posting ev

Deciding on and keeping up with any type of blogging schedule can be difficult. However, it can be even more difficult planning your blog if it isn’t your bread and butter. There are a lot of different ways that you can plan your blogging to reach success and a lot of that depends on your personal style and what your ultimate goal is. 1. Process We all know that you don’t just sit down at the keyboard and start typing away only to finish 30 minutes later and then post within

Your phone just chimed and you see the email banner across the top of your screen.  You’re not sure who sent the email and you don’t find that the subject line peaks your interest enough to click it open so you send it to the trash. Sound familiar? You go back to what you were doing and you begin to draft an email to a potential customer.  Once you have everything worded perfectly and have added the attachments you are ready to send the email.  Then you remember the email tha

Getting advertisers to your blog is a great way to start accomplishing the goals you set out for your blog! Maybe you have personal goals for your blog that you want to turn into financial goals, company specific expectations that you want to reach or exceed, or you may just want to finally start turning a profit. No matter what the goals, these tips will help you attract the advertisers you seek! Be Attractive to Advertisers To attract, you must first be attractive. No, I’m

There is nothing worse for a blogger than staring at a blank screen, fingers poised over the keys, eyes glazed over, and nothing to blog about.  It may be writer’s block or just the need to bring in more subscribers with something fresh.  It doesn’t matter why you’re drawing a blank it only matters that you get past it.  There are 4 questions that you can ask yourself to help choose a topic and get those fingers moving. 1: What do you know? The most important part about the t

So often people use the word advertising interchangeably with marketing.  Let’s start off first by distinguishing these two words.  Advertising is only a small part of marketing. Although it can sometimes feel like a more productive form of marketing. It doesn’t nullify or make the other components of marketing any less important.  For a marketing strategy to be effective, each component should be considered equally to determine its role in your marketing plan and overall goa