Marketing - Page 4

From digital marketing strategies to ideas for increasing brand awareness. Here we share powerful marketing tips for entrepreneurs, startups, & small businesses.

Why Creativity is So Important for Startup Founders

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creativity for startup founders

Creativity breeds original ideas of developing products and carrying out various tasks. Creative people make new things or find new ways of doing things. A startup founder should possess several skills, and creativity is key among them.

The creative process begins with fragments of ideas. With time and research, the idea is solidified and expanded. Writing is encouraged at this stage. Express your mind on paper; then finally take the steps to bring your idea to fruition.

Bring Something New to the Market

As a startup founder, your main goal should be to bring something different to the market. Can every other new business be referred to as a startup? Hardly. A startup refers to a new business that has put together a definite structure for its operations. With such a structure, the expectation is that you should come up with something that is out of the ordinary. Your startup success will be determined largely by your creativity.

Elevate Your Brand

Have you noticed that some brands take years if not decades to make their mark on the market, if at all, while others are established and shoot into prominence within no time? If you settle for the usual products, and the usual way of carrying out procedures, your brand is likely to fall in the first category.

Once you inject some creativity, your product instantly creates a buzz in the market. People will be falling over themselves to check out this revolutionary product. With social media, word travels fast. Your brand will be on the lips of consumers within no time; held in high regard. Who wants to purchase and use products associated with a high-ranking brand? Everyone! With such a first impression, you already have yourself loyal clients even for future products.

Learn to Take Risks

New products are not always a success. The market may not be excited about your invention as you are. Every time you choose to do things differently, you must be cognizant of the possibility of failure. That’s what taking risk is all about; proceeding even when you’re uncertain about the outcome.

What’s the worst that can happen really? If the market does not resonate with your invention, you can improve on it. Or scrap it entirely and start afresh. Take the feedback and let it guide you along. Startup success is hardly ever instants. The disappointments and rejections are part of the process. This process will teach you to view failure as a stepping stone, and this will anchor you throughout your entrepreneurship journey.

Inspire Others

As a creative startup founder, you inspire those who work for and with you to do the same. They know that they’re not confined to the rigid, conventional techniques of doing things. They can also try out new ideas, whether they work instantly or not. Such a team will be motivated to get to work. A creative environment boosts productivity and enhances teamwork. Remember their ideas ultimately offer creative marketing for your startup, and you stand to benefit in the long run.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

5 Effective Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

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Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Content marketing is one of those budget-friendly small business marketing avenues. Unlike traditional advertising where you just put your information out there and hope that it gets to your target audience, here you can track the reach of your advert and receive instant feedback from those who have interacted with it.

Content marketing gives you an opportunity to offer in-depth information about your brand. Your interaction with the consumer goes beyond the sales, and this gradually establishes brand loyalty. Here are some content marketing ideas to start you off:

  1. Create Informative Articles

With article writing, you have an opportunity to not only inform your audience but also boost your search engine visibility through SEO articles. Here you utilize the keywords that are most likely to be used in your niche. For instance, if you deal with skincare products, find out the most prominent topics here. They could include acne, wrinkles, sunburns, blackheads, pimples, and so on.

Create factual, enlightening articles on these topics. Once the search engines lead the readers to your site, they can then view the full range of your products. With time your site will be considered an authority in this niche, and clients will readily trust your products.

  1. Use Audio and Visual Clips

People are sometimes too occupied or tired to read. Podcasts and videos provide an easier alternative of passing the information. One can listen when driving, walking, attending to house chores, or just resting. If you need a step-by-step demonstration, such as a skincare routine, consider uploading a series of photos or a well-edited video that users can watch. Remember to bookmark all your images and videos. Even when they’re shared on other platforms, they should clearly showcase your brand.

  1. Capitalize on Social Media

Facebook and Instagram remain the most visited sites on the interwebs. Visitors may not come to your website, but you can meet them where they spend the most time. Have active pages on Facebook and Instagram at the very least. Interact with your audience often. Provide as much information as they need. Product details, location, prices, delivery terms, and all. Don’t be one of those ‘inbox for price’ marketers. Displaying the full details in plain sight builds trust and is more likely to earn conversions.

  1. Simplify the Numbers

If including the numbers does help your cause, use vibrant infographics to make the information easier to grasp. There are several templates online; all you have to do is insert the numbers and the rest is done for you. A colorful pie chart, for instance, is easier to digest than a cluster of numbers. Bookmark these as well; let them represent your brand wherever they’re shared.

  1. Call to Action

Engage your audience in a way. You can request them to provide their details, fill a form, subscribe, share, and so on. It should not be compulsory though. Just urge them. Some websites do not allow you to proceed before you provide your details. Such blackmail is just uncouth. Should they choose not to take the proposed action, they should still be in a position to navigate the site.

We hope that you can utilize these content marketing ideas to showcase your brand to a larger audience. What other forms of small business marketing have you tried out? Did they work? Do let us know.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

5 Freelance Tech Tips – Help Grow your Success as a Solopreneur

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Being a solopreneur means being a true boss. But it doesn’t have to mean going it alone one hundred percent of the time. After all, even bosses need help every once in a while. Wondering what type of tech or help could boost your business?  Then check out these tips from Keetria.

Accounting and Taxes 

Your money is one area where DIY savings just aren’t worth the risk. If you’re a first-time entrepreneur, having accounting help is even more imperative. You may need to set up estimated tax payments. A freelance bookkeeper can also help you figure out whether setting up an LLC will benefit your business. Then you can proceed with the next steps. 

Virtual LLC Formation 

Thinking about forming an LLC for your small business? That’s a wise move since you will be afforded more protection for your finances. You’ll also be setting yourself up for more savings come tax time. On top of all of these perks, you can use an online service to fill out the paperwork, which will save you money, time, and hassle. Each state has its own regulations around LLC’s and formation steps, so check yours before you proceed. 

Online Meetups and Events 

Another way savvy entrepreneurs can use tech to grow their business is by putting together virtual meetups. This can be oh so helpful if you plan on launching a new business, product or service in the coming months since live events are still on hold. Drum up excitement around your virtual event by sharing details with your social networks. Then be sure to really listen and engage with participants to help them form a deeper connection with your business. 

PR and Marketing Services 

You can certainly create your own publicity to get people interested in whatever you’re selling. As already mentioned, you can use your social media accounts to attract new connections and cultivate an image that will have people begging for more. This can take some time and savvy though, so if your career begins to blossom, you may also want to consider reaching out for help. Check out freelance sites to find PR and marketing consultants or ask for recs from friends. 

Web Design Help 

DIY publicity is one thing, but a DIY website? Using free and discounted tools to build your own website will work in a pinch, but if you truly want to grow your image and become an authority in your industry, you need professional help. That help should come from a web designer who has the expertise and experience to create a custom website that is sleek and easy to use. It’s just too easy to make small mistakes that can cause your followers to run the other way. 

You’re a boss but that shouldn’t mean feeling burned out and busy every single day. Use this guide to get the help you need with tech and other projects. That way you can focus your time and energy on growing your reputation and small business. 

Author Bio: Courtney started gigspark.biz to be a resource and the first step for people who are looking to join the gig economy, either to supplement their income or as a way to fulfill their dreams of becoming an entrepreneur.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Epi 73: Content Marketing with Madeleine Lambert from Content Refined

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Summary:

Today on SOB, Madeleine Lambert, the Co-founder and CEO of Content Refined, a content marketing agency located in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada shares her path to building Content Refined with her partner. Get a better understanding of how Madeleine was able to scale the business, build a team, provide marketing value to clients, and add flexibility into her lifestyle.

 

Show Notes:

  • Madeleine Lambert introduces herself
  • What makes a great content marketer
  • How did Madeleine gain her experience in content marketing
  • How does Content Refined’s process work for clients
  • How does the Google algorithm affect her content marketing service
  • When did Madeleine know it was time to scale Content Refined
  • What did it take to work up to $50,000 in reoccurring revenue
  • Why does Madeleine define success as freedom
  • What lessons has Madeleine learned from Content Refined
  • Don’t be afraid to hire people smarter than you in vital areas
  • What does Madeleine love about entrepreneurship
  • What keeps Madeleine going in order to overcome adversity
  • Are their current promotions that Content Refined has to offer
  • What advice would Madeleine Lambert give to up-and-coming entrepreneurs

3 Key Points:

  1. Business and finding niches to expand in are Madeleine’s passion.  
  2. Madeleine was able to make her first hire in the first 10 months.
  3. Madeleine’s definition of success is freedom to do what she loves and to explore other avenues of life.

 

Helpful/Tweetable Quotes:

  • “We have access to a bunch of really, really powerful official marketing tools that allow us access to the big data around keyword research.” – Madeleine Lambert
  • “We have 6 team pods that handle their own sub-set of clients. That’s how we have organized the business.” – Madeleine Lambert

 

Resources Mentioned:

Conquer the New Year with These 4 Top-notch Marketing Tools

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Marketing Tools

Digital Marketing is always evolving and there are always new and exciting tools being introduced in the market to make digital marketing more effective. If you have a business, you need to know which of these tools can help you be the best that you can be. The right tools can help you stay updated with the latest trends, help you get organized, and can optimize your efficiency. Here are some tools you need check out this 2018:

Flock

Flock is a communication app for teams. Flock allows you to bring your team together to chat, share information, meet via video conferencing and push efficiency by using its productivity features. You can even integrate all your apps in a single platform. Once you sign up, you can create one big team and hubs for smaller teams. Flock is also faster, slicker and has a more intuitive interface compared to other team communication tools.

Sendy

Sendy is one of the hottest tools in email marketing today. It’s a self-hosted email newsletter application backed by Amazon’s Simple Email Service. Sendy allows you to send attractive emails easily to your email audience and receive a detailed performance report afterward. And the best part is, it’s a lot cheaper than other email marketing apps in the market. You can send 20,000 emails for only $2! If you have less than that, let’s say you only have 10,000 subscribers, the cost can go down to $1. Now, that’s a deal you won’t find anywhere else.

Ptengine

Do you get frustrated when your website visitors suddenly leave and don’t convert? When you have a business website you want to find out why people are leaving your site. Ptengine is a heat map application that records every visit, click, scroll on your site and turns the data into a heat map to help you visualize at what point your customers are abandoning your site. Are they leaving because of usability problems? Pricing problems? Do they find the copy confusing? Once you’ve identified the issue, you can now make adjustments on your site and convert customers better.

Google Trends

Google Trends is a unique tool because it lets you know what people are searching for every day on Google Search. According to statistics, there are 3.5 billion users on Google Search daily and over 50,000 searches every second. Among the 50,000 searches, as much as 20% are from new users, which means that there’s always something new to discover. Google Trends can sift through all the searches and show you, by using keywords, what’s trending worldwide. It will give you an insight on what consumers are really looking for and predict market trends. To see the data, all you need to do is type a keyword or the industry name and press “Enter.” It’s that easy.

Now that you know some of the best tools you can use this year, give one of them a spin and let us know what you think.

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3 Easy to Implement Advertising Ideas for Small Businesses

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Small Business Advertising Ideas

Most small businesses attract customers the old-fashioned way—via “word of mouth.” While word of mouth marketing works, it’s a painfully slow process to build a business. If you have a business, no matter how small it is, the best way to grow your customer base quickly is to advertise.

Here are some easy-to-implement advertising ideas you can do so you can effectively reach your target market:

  1. Make your Business Newsworthy

If you want newspapers and magazines to write about your business, you need to make your business newsworthy in the eyes of the press. A write-up in a publication won’t cost you anything and can help get the word out about your business. So how do you go about it? You need to think of interesting stories that can create a buzz for your business. Examples of these are:

  • If you have a salon, you can devout a weekend giving free haircuts to orphans or the homeless.
  • If you have a small pharmacy, you can start offering delivery service to your customers.
  • If you have a store, you can have a Kids are the Boss Day and let children of your employees handle the day’s business.
  • If you have a restaurant, you can make a conscious effort to make your business eco-friendly

The key is to come up with stories that hit home emotionally. The story may not be directly about your product offerings but it’s a great PR tool for you.

  1. Make a YouTube video

As focus shift from television to computer screens, YouTube has become one of the most important platforms online. With over 30 million visitors every single day, and five billion videos viewed daily, YouTube is an essential tool for any business looking to reach a large audience. You can create a video demonstrating your product and post it on YouTube. Or you can even create a series of videos that revolve around your product and its benefits and place them all on a YouTube channel. Here are some of the types of videos you create for your business:

  • A how-to video demonstrating how to use your product.
  • A Q&A about your product or service
  • A series of video testimonials from your customers
  • A video how your product is made in the factory
  1. Maximize your Facebook Business Page

The Facebook for Business Page has easy-to-use and affordable advertising tools for small businesses, use it to your advantage. You can boost a post and make it appear on your target market’s New Feed or promote your business page by clicking the Promote button. Here are other ways to advertise on Facebook:

  • Facebook Events – get the word out about your business by creating an event on Facebook. You can invite your friends and prospective customers and watch your guest list grow.
  • Content syndication – if you already have a website or a blog, you can use Facebook’s Social Plugins to enable them to be shared quickly.

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4 Free Online Tools to Help with Small Business Marketing

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small business marketing tools

Marketing is easier now than ever before, but that doesn’t mean it’s a walk in the park. You need to know a little bit about psychology, analytics and best practices in order to be a great marketer, but you also need great tools to accomplish your goals and visions.

Luckily it’s possible to achieve your marketing dreams while on a budget. There are tons of free online marketing tools out there, and here’s four I’ve really come to love.

Pablo by Buffer

Visual content is winning these days. It’s not enough to tweet — you also need an image attached. Posts with just text don’t get the same kind of engagement statistics that posts with images or videos do. Explainer videos are more popular than text-based how-to guides — and the same goes for infographics.

Don’t worry if you aren’t exactly inclined when it comes to photography or graphics. Sites like Pablo by Buffer let you choose an image, edit and crop it to fit your social media and business theme. Quickly add text to any image, as well as your logo.

Answer The Public

Your audience has burning questions, and they want answers. What are these questions? Some you can reason out with analytics data, interviews and some research, but that still doesn’t paint a total picture of what information your audience is really looking for.

If you want to know how to truly give your audience content they can find valuable, use Answer the Public. This tool allows business owners to search through keywords and questions posed by Internet users based on keywords related to their business. This makes it easier to produce content that your audience can actually find useful, promoting your brand image and garnering more organic hits.

Moz Local: Check Listing

What is your business NAP? This acronym stands for the most important contact methods you have available: your business Name, Address and Phone number. Get it now?

Your NAP is essential to marketing online, but how this information shows up can vary depending on the particular search engine you’re using. Moz Local: Check Listing allows business owners to enter their business link into the generator and receive information about how their business shows up across popular search engines like Bing, Yahoo! and (of course) Google. This gives you a good picture of how your customers view you online.

Portent’s Title Generator

Finally, Portent’s Title Generator is perfect for those who want to work on their content marketing strategies. A catchy title is the easiest way to get someone to click on a blog or article you have hosted on your website, but not everyone is great at coming up with a valuable yet intriguing blog title.

The way this generator works is that you come up with a subject and type it into the field provided — that’s all the work you need to do. If your business is focused on cosmetics, type in “cosmetics” or “makeup.” If you’re an entrepreneur interested in public speaking, type in “motivation” or “positivity.” From there, all it takes is the click of a button and you’ve got tons of creative titles to choose from.

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Ways to Grow Your Small Business with Your Friends

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Ways to Grow Your Small Business

Growing a business is hard work on your own, and that’s why you hire employees to help. It’s often, though, that businesses in their early stages are generated from a lot of pro bono help and nourishment. Entrepreneurs often get their friends and family to help volunteer for advertising, product making and other tasks that need to be handled when there’s not enough money to pay yourself, let alone an actual workforce.

Your family might be an easier sell, but your friends could use some warming up to. Some friends will jump at the chance to help, but you can’t blame someone for wanting something a little more. There’s an art to convincing your friends to go in with you on a business venture, even if it’s just in the capacity of handing out fliers.

Work the Tit for Tat Angle

Not many people are willing to give something away for free. In this exchange model, your friends are giving away their time for you. What are you going to offer them in return?

Whenever your friends help you out, give them something in exchange. It can be free product, a future cut, or even something more creative, like naming a future product or service after them. When you give someone an incentive to help, they’re more likely to do so.

Make it Fun

Sometimes all you need to do to entice someone to help you with your business is give the activity a competitive edge. Get your friends to all try and refer people to your business. Whoever gets the largest number of referrals wins free product, and everyone gets to have a night of drinks to celebrate the success.

Word of Mouth

One area of marketing that people don’t focus enough on in this digital age is the power of the word of mouth advertisement. Your friends have friends, and that’s something you can use.

Tell your closest friends about your business venture, and all you ask of them is to tell their friends. This kind of pyramid, trickle down advertising is how early grassroots movements got started, and the same can be said for your new small business.

Capitalize On Togetherness

Being with your friends is a fun experience in and of itself. When you want to do something for your business, involve your friends not only to help you work, but also to have something to do together. People are often happy to organize fundraisers, make product and commit to other business activities if that’s what they think of it as – an activity.

Ask for Advice and Opinions

When you have friends, you have the perfect opportunity for case studies and beta testing free of charge. For instance, say you have an ad campaign you want to start running. Shoot it by real people you know first before taking it out of the family to market to others. Ask for their real opinions. They may be more likely to be frank with you than a stranger.

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How to Break this Year’s Business Goals into Small Pieces

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Business Planning Tips

Every marketer or entrepreneur knows the feeling of having several large projects that need immediate attention and completion, the ones that are vital to the survival of your commerce.

A new business plan, doing taxes, maintaining your creative content, and going over invoices are part of the vital stream of tasks to stay afloat daily. Then you will have others like business-to-business phone calls, reading articles and other content to stay up on important trends, and looking for applications and software to streamline your process down the road.

At the beginning of the year is when you are always going to plan what you really want to make happen, and it can feel daunting. But there are a few ways to at least break all of these large goals into smaller pieces.

Initial Brainstorming: plugging in early

When you know you are going to have enough tasks to keep you busy for a while, one thing that will help off the bat is utilizing time increments or sessions to narrow down the work it will take for the finished product. One very good rule of thumb during this process is to take the list of things that need to be done and write just a short sentence about it, such as: “This is such an important part of my marketing process because it involves learning code like Java.”

Then, you have the very important tree of information written down that involves what you have to do, even if it’s broken down into 20 steps. These little “micro tasks” can be as quick as jotting down important updates, to going back over things you have already completed to see if there are any comments or additional updates on them. This type of brainstorming really helps because it can take place over a long period of time and does not threaten your fixed regimen.

The Periodic Process Review

When you have different things to do that seem to be the mountain too hard to climb, there’s one great thing you can do that at least may keep you in perspective and have you re-evaluate how hard you need to work. Whether it’s over your micro tasks or the entire final product, it’s more than just checking things off that are done. You really can stand back, take a look at how your overall progress is going, and make room for more growth.

It’s almost like having one tab open, opening another and zooming out a bit, but can be done. Beyond just what tasks did you accomplish, you are really sizing up what the next week or so may have in store. And most importantly, don’t get discouraged over the things that you didn’t complete; you’ll be motivated to get an extra strong cappuccino and knock it all out soon.

Truly Envisioning your Success: The Finish Line

One of the hardest parts about breaking your large-scale projects down to size is the sense that you’ll never get everything done. You absolutely WILL, and it can all come down to one beautiful, discerning moment on the finish line. Completing the hard tasks always seems like it may not be worthwhile while you’re doing them, but they will be. While doing extensive market research, you can come across a lot of dead ends.

Many stories and facts just link back to each other with no real worth, and everyone’s trying to replicate the same success. The new year is the absolute best time to line up your priorities and size up the items that will make you the most successful. The projects and finished goal of perhaps being featured by someone you admire or emulating their success will keep you permanently fixated; 2015 would be stellar to really knock it out of the park in terms of goals.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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