Know the Several Benefits That You Can Have With Blogging

Blogging was earlier known as online journals. When it started never did the people of then had the thought that it would become a medium of earning money. It was a passion for the people. Bur now blogs have got several dimensions. You can get blogs of different types online like food, fashion, business, entertainment, lifestyle and others.

Blogging is only a decade old but then again it has successfully established itself. Thus, the benefits are numerous with it. If you have a blog yourself or are planning to have one then check out the ways by which it can be helpful to you.

Refine Your Writing Skills

Well, the more you write the better you will grow as a writer. All the professional bloggers that you find online writes regularly. So, the more they write the more they have to proofread and analyze their own writing. Also, feedback from the readers helps in bringing improvement in the writing. If you think that only a good writer can be a successful blogger then you are wrong. Many of the successful bloggers have claimed themselves to be terrible writers. If you fear to start, don't worry, take the first step. If they have been successful so you can also be.

Sharing Knowledge and Passions

If you like to teach then sharing a blog can be a good way to teach others who are interested in learning your field of expertise. You can also share your own thoughts and feelings and can get connected to the like-minded people.

Making a Difference

Blogs can be a great way to publish one's own opinions. Be it their own thoughts or something about the social and political structure they can do it without any failure. Their words can become an inspiration for the people. They are able to connect with different kinds of people and raise awareness and garner support. You can also get the opportunity to monetize your blogs by creating services online or offering educational products.

Market Your Business

If you are an entrepreneur and have a business then blogging can help you grow the numbers of subscribers. Thus, it leads to revenue generation in the end. Blogs are more influential than a corporate website. Creating good blogs that are helpful, valuable and entertaining can be an effective way to grow the online rankings, website authority and traffic.

Learn To Make Money Online

With more professional network at your hand from the initial blogs, you would learn what are the dos and don'ts, the marketing strategies and how they can make money online. Thus, it can accelerate the growth of the future ventures.

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Heron looking for breakfast

Out walking this morning and got quite close 

to a heron checking out breakfast

must have made Meg hungry

Know How to Be Successful With Digital Marketing

Digital space is full of data and contents that are target oriented. Creating contents and sharing is now possible easily owing to the digital boom. The content marketing is important for readers to know about many things and thus the jobs for content creators are growing. The digital world or digital marketing has today become a business that is highly profitable for the entrepreneurs. The positive side can be seen of the digital marketing on the way it is put to use and before doing anything, maximize your potential. It is time to breathe through digital channels, get online and consider the following, to get attention.

Reorganize your presence

If you are not getting traffic, set to reorganize your online presence. Ensure you are on all the social media platforms. Check if you did not miss any information on the profiles of Facebook or Instagram. Assess your strategy is strong or does it need some overhauling.

Cleanup the weeds

Check what pops up in the Google. Review auto generated pages and flag impersonators. Use this time also to see your pages performing better and also the bounce rates. Ascertain the pages receive visitors and notice the social channels that are bringing most and least business. Use your efforts and make the non-performing networks to work well. Try to sort out the reason and ensure cleaning up unwanted weeds.

Give a new look

The simplest way of breathing new life is by freshening up the visuals. Of course, you can put new photos of your business in the social media accounts. It will serve the purpose.

Get a fresh tool

After reorganizing and giving a new look to your digital presence, take your marketing up using the right tools online. Invest in right tools and ensure to benefit from automation.

Digital marketing is the reach for most businesses and social sites have done an excellent job by promoting business. Digital marketing is now affordable and integrating it into your business is time-consuming and complex task, but to have an impactful digital marketing operation, you can get started with these steps below:

Elucidate Objectives

Having clear objectives helps digital marketing as it reveals a strategy. Outline the goals and determine the direction so that you align purposeful objectives that are realistic, specific and measurable. Identify your audience, comprehend your market and ensure your objectives meet strategy as an informed decision.

Develop Brand Consistency

Consistency is a term that has its own expectations, be it a social media platform or your website and of course this includes the strategy of digital marketing operation as well. Developing brand consistency is a must and use same taglines, colors, fonts, features and images. Ensure consistency so that it shows authority and increases your credibility.

Buildup Your Digital Marketplace

A digital marketing campaign focuses your virtual home that is your website. This makes it important to build up your digital marketplace such that it is engaging, responsive and mobile-friendly. Make it obvious for call to action and ascertain you keep it simple.

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Importance of Customer Insights in Today's Marketing Strategies

Customer insights should be part and parcel of any marketing strategy. However, when it comes to developing new services and products or marketing these products and services not many businesses really try to understand their consumers.

A basic understanding of how a product would appeal to a specific demographic group is not enough. Businesses need to understand why consumers act a certain way, what is shaping their understandings and perceptions, and how they share information with each other.

In media discussions, this marketing strategy is grossly under-represented.

In how they choose to work with the brands and companies they support, today's consumers have changed radically. They process and receive information in new ways, have different cultural foundations and backgrounds, and want to network on a more personal level. Marketers and businesses won't be able to motivate leads to become customers or connect or engage with prospects if they do not search for consumer insights, or succeed to understand their past and present backgrounds.

To understand consumer's culture, businesses need to take an anthropological approach to marketing. Marketers can learn how to play into them, instead of trying to change behaviors and utilize the information to their advantage. Establishing an emotional and intellectual relationship is essential for brand building. Product developers, business planners, and marketers must take the cultural context into consideration to enable this. Culture is a combination of tribal, historical and mythological characterizations. It is more than just language. The marketer's ability to inspire action and achieve behavioral change will be more if there is a greater understanding of anthropological factors and cultural insights.

For a business to grow marketers should give options or a wide variety of services, products, styles and colours to their consumers who are fickle.

Have you ever wondered why certain products sell more while others languish in the shelves? To make any product or service desirable marketers should have consumer insights as well as do in-depth market research.

In the past decade or two, the make-up of the buying public has changed dramatically. Consumers now represent a complex mixture of Gen Xers, Baby Boomers, and Gen Yers. Each group has its own wants, specific needs, and desires. Businesses will never be able to promote them in a way that gains attention or develop products they want without gaining insights into these groups. There can be a wide diversity of characteristics even within these groups.

Why each group is different is something businesses need to understand culturally. While growing up what shaped their morals and values?

The new global economy is adding to the complex demographic puzzle. Now, consumers are spread all over the world and they can shop from anywhere if they have an Internet connection. An understanding of the consumer insights can shape buying patterns in various countries. An American and European consumer's desires and needs may vary. Within Europe, there will be variations. Businesses need to understand the differences within the various regions of each country. Before setting marketing plans in place marketers need to understand how each population relates to the products and services it uses.

Without studying the consumer response if products or services are brought to the market then those businesses might fail.

Consumer-centric marketing is the need of the hour. The world continues to evolve rapidly. Consumers' likes and dislikes are fast changing, and businesses need to understand this fact and act fast. This will be possible only if they perk up their consumer behaviour insights.

Analytics is powerful tools that can help organizations find eye-opening opportunities to improve sales, marketing, and customer service. Scalend is business intelligence software for big data to analyse business analytics easily. Explore 360 Customer Journey Insights to track and analyse data and helps to promote the business sales widely.

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Stay Ahead in Digital Marketing With These Tips

Digital marketing is in various forms and you can keep learning about the networking and its apps continuously. The marketing is all about sites and apps. the digitized traditional media versions allows you to stay ahead in the business, but for that you have to get going with new inventions online and stay update. If you even wish to find a suitable job making a career in digital marketing, you need to have a lot of connections, a complete slate of skills and plenty of interesting ideas to offer that will appeal your future employer.

Join a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn is a best place for any aspiring candidate to make connections. Here you get to know the real stuff required for a position. here you can find the profiles of more than a quarter of fortune seekers and accomplishers that you joining this group in LinkedIn is sure to offer a fast pick and you can also follow the role models and virtual mentors of this industry.

Attend Marketing Conference

A digital conference is available to meet every skill and forte, so pick that meets your goals and creativity. Check out and acquire more exposure to cutting-edge technology, social media marketing, new internet marketing strategies and more. On attending digital conference, you will find online marketing experts in many numbers and you can talk to them and learn who covers topics such as traffic, design and conversion. Getting to know about marketing gurus helps a lot as you get to make connections, stay linked and to share ideas.

Track Successes

Being something is important, but that should be apparent. For instance, you may be a pioneer digital marketer, but if you fail to prove anything, you will be no different from any of your enthusiast co-workers. Whether, you are handling an exceptional job as a challenging task or you are trying to sell your own product, it is important you save the feedback, stats, other documentation and email correspondence. This will bring a difference one fine day, when you get an opportunity to show. In fact, you can also show this in a job interview and increase your leverage proving you know what it means to stay connected with audiences and growing a brand to success using digital marketing strategies. Thus, tracking successes is essential so that you know and prove you are ahead of others.

Brush Your Skills

Everyone at some point or the other lags behind. Identify the skills you need to work, and whet them. Digital marketing is the need of the hour to do any business or even to get hired. Learning to integrate marketing helps develop a strategy and improve the brands strategy overall. Embrace the business strategies that are data-driven as it is an evolutionary step in businesses. Only with proper understanding of the data you acquire or get that you desire helps in organizing business objectives and it revolutionizes marketing. Thus, staying ahead in digital marketing demands you to work on data-driven strategy.

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Solve These 4 Marketing Challenges With Social Media Automation

If you want your business to take advantage of everything social media has to offer but worry that you simply don't have the resources to do so, we want to share four different ways social media automation can help you out:

Efficiently Handling a Large Number of Responses

As you build more momentum for your business through social network, the number of people who interact with your profiles will increase. While this is a good problem to have, it's still a problem. The last thing you want to do is make potential customers feel ignored or miss a very important message. Since trying to manually go through a large number of responses across multiple platforms can take a lot of time, the ability to aggregate all responses into a single dashboard through social media automation is a huge help.

Identifying the Best Content to Share

There's an incredible amount of content on the Internet. However, that doesn't make it any easier to know what you should share through your social profiles. The good news is social media automation can make this decision easier. By automatically collecting analytics about how every post performs, you'll be able to gain a better understanding of what you should be posting. You can also use an integration like RSS to keep your feed interesting. And to top things off, automation gives you the ability to schedule as many posts as you want to share in advance.

Using Social Media for Customer Service

Many of the features that you'll find on any of the major social networking platforms make them ideal for providing customer service. The only downside is if you start getting too many customer service requests, it can overwhelm your current resources and cause your business to drop the ball. The good news is social media automation can solve this dilemma. By bringing all customer service issues into a single location and making it very easy to reply, your business will be able to keep up with this task regardless of the volume you receive.

Engaging with Followers in a Meaningful Way

Engagement is a huge part of social network. So how can you take your interactions with followers beyond quick comments? A great option that's possible with the help of social media automation is group messaging and/or email marketing. These approaches will allow you to communicate in more depth with your followers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9690000

Benefits of Using an Email Obtainer Service

One of the most challenging aspects of opening a new business, or growing your existing company, is figuring out how you are going to target new consumers. Whether you are searching for consumers, prospective employees or clients, finding individuals online is not an easy task. Even though all the information is out there, figuring out what service to use to obtain said information is the challenge. One service businesses may want to consider using is an email obtainer service, where you can find any email without much effort. The service is efficient and easy to use.

With such a service, you can find any email and reach out to anyone you may have encountered in the past. For instance, let us say that you met someone at a recent business conference. You may have caught their name, but you forgot to exchange contact information with them. How would you go about finding such a person? Unless you know where they worked, and the employee's email address is listed on the company website, you would be out of luck. Yes, you can fish around among your contacts to see if anyone knows the person, but that endeavor could take a while.

The most productive way to approach the situation is to use an email obtainer service. It is free, and it only takes you a few seconds to find the person you are searching for. Whether you are searching for an individual based on their company name, LinkedIn profile, first name, last name or some other identifiable information, the email obtainer service will help you figure out their email address. There are hundreds of millions of email addresses included in these databases, with more being added daily. There is no email address that you cannot track down eventually!

The great thing about such a service is that it has a wide variety of applications. Say you are working in human resources, and you are hoping to check up on some potential hires. Maybe they wrote down their names when you conducted a few spot interviews during a conference on an expo. However, you did not get a chance to jot down their email addresses or phone numbers. Now you want to get in touch with these individuals, to let them know they can go ahead with a second interview for the job. Thanks to the email obtainer service, finding them should not take more than a few minutes.

The service is not even limited to businesses. Maybe you have a long-lost friend that you went to high school with, and it has now been 15 or 20 years since you last made contact. Even though a lot of people now use Facebook or other social media sites, maybe your friend is not on Facebook. Finding them through the email finder service is a great idea, as you only need to enter their full name to come up with a list of potential email addresses. Finding people takes on a whole new meaning with such a service!

Whether you have started your business recently or you want to bump up your existing one, please check this method to find any email for you.

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New Trendsetter - Social Media

The human race has consistently evolved from being a race with extraordinary social abilities to technological driven species which have developed numerous ways to communicate and spread ideas among large population within limited time period. The idea of communication has fallen from verbal communication to development of numerous languages to scripts and from writing paper notes to printing of books and newspaper.

The communication medium always plays an essential organ of the whole broadcast communication system. The printed newspaper, lighted advertisement boards, telegraph, televisions and internet are the keys to it. The invention of the internet is a sudden blow of technology that has biased the whole idea of communication and has created a new way through web pages based social interaction space known to be as social media.

Onset

Social media was started with an idea of connecting people from different parts of world together through a complex interconnected network of computer that are connected to bigger network i.e. internet. It has further expanded via intervention of generation of smart portable devices such as smartphones, laptops etc. Social media has given access to each and every individual to interact and share their views, any issues and share their experience over an exceptionally user friendly environment based on a webpage.

Being one of the most popular sources of amusement and social interaction - this platform has its own power of audience manipulation similar to traditional newspaper and televisions which make it a great market to invest on for advertisement. Most of the popular players in this arena namely Facebook, Google etc. have provided a space to these advertisement businesses. According to a research conducted over the people of different age groups ranging from 12-18, 18-21, 21-35, and 35-60 about their general usage of social media in a day comes out to be as 10-13 hours in a day.

The online platform at this time has become much big and better option either for advertising and creating awareness about anything from societal issues to new products which are about to hit market in next few days. Few lines of advertisement and marketing has come up with services that aim at using this domain for advertisement and creating awareness about their client's business or product which is known as a social media agency. These agencies are sound and target the top interest groups for their client and advertise their product/services to them through various social media platforms. For instance they utilize the help of these online platforms to advertise their client's services to interested groups via videos, banners and other textual or pictorial material to draw the users' attention about the product.

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The MOST DANGEROUS and EXTREME RAILWAYS in the World!! Compilation of In...

Eat your heart out Michael Portillo. Train rides for the adventurous (or Mad) traveller

6 Simple Tips For Better Facebook Marketing

Facebook has over 1.7 billion active monthly members so it makes sense to use Facebook for marketing. It can help you build awareness, create a community, stimulate a purchase and launch a new product or service.

But is doesn't have to be complicated. Use these 6 simple tips below to leverage the power of Facebook marketing for your business.

1. Build A Following

The first step for using Facebook for marketing is to build a good following. Invite people to like you page or to join your Facebook group. Provide as much value as you can with your posts and links to encourage your followers to like, click, share or comment on your posts.

2. Set Up A Facebook Page For Your Business

Don't use your personal Facebook account for your business. Your family and friends may not have any interest in your business activities. Likewise, your potential customers probably don't want to see your personal holiday photos. As your business grows and you have more people "friending" you, you'll run out of room. Facebook only allows 5,000 friends per personal Facebook account. That sounds like a big number but many online marketers have reached that limit and then had to delete people and move them over to a fan page.

3. Engage And Interact

Facebook marketing is only effective if your followers feel they can trust you. They'll learn to like you and trust your brand if you deliver useful information on a regular basis. For example, post a daily tip or motivational message onto your page. Post offers and promotions they can benefit from or create a one-time promotion for your Facebook followers only.

4. Integrate Effectively

When you integrate your Facebook marketing strategies with your other marketing tactics, you'll receive the better results. For instance, you can add a Facebook feed to your website or blog. You can add a "post this on Facebook" feature. Insert a "find me on Facebook" button or call to action to your email signature.

5. Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are inexpensive and they do work. Facebook allows you to target your individual audience down to their interests and gender. However, Facebook ads will only work if you plan them out and spend the time ensuring that you run relevant ads. They must be of value to your audience, grab the attention of the viewer and include a powerful call to action.

6. Start A Facebook Group

Facebook groups are a popular tool for business owners to reach an online audience for free. Facebook groups are much more visible in News Feeds. You have total control of the flow of information and communication. Facebook groups are great to generate leads, build your email list and eventually sell your products and services.

Creating and managing your own Facebook Group can do wonders for your business. It can generate leads, build your email list and eventually sell your products and services. Download this free checklist and report and harness the positive power of Facebook groups for business success, http://jonallo.com/facebookgroups

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5 Ideas to Build a Profitable B2C Campaign

Marketing to consumers is big business and when done right, can be very profitable for your company. The Internet is where most consumers spend their time, so it makes sense to focus your B2C marketing efforts there. This is common knowledge today, but many businesses still fail in this arena. This is why a lot of companies hire SEO professionals for help.

According to one study done by WordStream in 2013, small and medium businesses were wasting away 25 percent of their PPC budgets. So a small business that's dishing out $2,000 monthly on AdWords would end up wasting $6,000 per year on under-performing campaigns.

The loss is even bigger for medium-sized businesses that spend about $20,000 monthly on PPC, which equates to $60,000 wasted dollars annually. This is a lot of money that could be saved by improving their B2C marketing campaigns. If this is something that's plaguing your business, then keep the following tips in mind.

Host Unique Contests

This is an excellent way to get attention on social media and get people engaged. There was a great example of this last year, when Lay's announced their third annual 'Do Us a Flavor' contest. They crowd-sourced ideas from consumers for their next best-selling flavor. This naturally attracted people on a global level, so you can say this was a success. In 2014, Lay's revealed they received over 14 million submissions, which was up from 3.8 million back in 2013.

Offer Something for Free

The only thing consumers love more than a deal is freebies. This was proven in a study done by Harris Interactive in 2013, which showed a drastic increase in repeat purchases and word-of-mouth referrals when there were free add-ons. The results also showed that 90 percent of consumers were somewhat more likely to purchase frequently from a retailer that gave away a free gift, and 65 percent were more likely to share their experience after receiving a free gift.

Make Intent-Driven SEO a Priority

It's not surprising that global brands top Google's search results for electronics, toys and apparel. It would be insanely expensive and exhaustive to even try and attempt to rank highly for such keywords, let alone maintain those positions. Instead, it's recommended that you focus on long-tail keywords that are relevant to your product, and that drive purchase intent.

In another 2013 study done by Adchemy's Thi Thumasathit, it showed that long-tail keywords were 66 percent more profitable than head keywords. This is an opportunity for small and medium businesses to build a profitable B2C campaign.

Build a Network of Micro-Influencers

You don't have to know A-listers to get a great endorsement. If you play your cards right, all you need is a handful of micro-influencers. Together, these micro-influencers can provide enough publicity for your brand. An example of this was seen a few years ago when Shoes of Prey decided to allow a 16-year-old beauty vlogger endorse their custom shoe company. In just a few days, traffic to the company tripled and the sales soared. You can find micro-influencers just about everywhere - on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. Look for them in places where you know your audience hangs out. Otherwise, you won't be reaching the right prospects.

Take a Mobile-First Aproach

If your marketing doesn't think of mobile users first, then you're in trouble. According to Shopify, 50.3 percent of ecommerce traffic is performed on mobile devices. Make sure your online shopping experience is designed with mobile users in mind.

All of these tips can improve your sales, user engagement and help with online reputation management. If you need help figuring out a strategy for your B2C marketing campaign, consult with SEO companies and hire one that is reputable and offers Web design services.


http://www.ithinkanidea.com/ is a leading, full service internet marketing agency. I Think an Idea works with serious business owners small to large alike. Based out of Los Angeles, CA providing great results for services such as SEO, social media marketing, Online reputation management and PPC management. I Think an Idea can maximize your search engine presence and amplify your brand across social media channels, and help safeguard your reputation.

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In the world today, small businesses suffer from the lack of marketing their customers and sometimes its due to the insufficient amount of money they have to brand and advertise their business. Just to have a billboard of your company on a building you would need close to a million dollars for advertisement. I had the privilege of catching up with Ed Buss, a CEO of fresh filtered air Inc in the small town of Shawnee Oklahoma. Ed Buss and his wife started his company by the idea of his wife seeing an ad in the local newspaper about 21 years ago and thought it was a good idea so they decided to create Fresh Filtered air inc.

Ed Buss has and runs a small filter service business, he serves his business on a 2-week service plan, 2-4,6-8-10-12-week plan for his customers. His business isn't a popular company but it does well for how small it is. Some of the challenges he faces with his filter company is in the social media marketing area. He doesn't have a true website, his company isn't on any social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. he doesn't have a strong way to connect with current or future customers, his business has been stringing simply from word to mouth over 21 years' span. He also struggles with a company logo which I personally believe will help him establish a bigger customer base. By allowing his company to partake in the social media world it could improve his customer base drastically and help bring in more potential clients rather than going from door to door selling his service price by word to mouth.

Another challenge Ed Buss faces with his small business is field expenses, he has to make sure that when someone calls in for a service order that they are for sure going to go through with it due to gas and mileage on the trucks. Ed Buss's filter service has two employee trucks and he does a great job making sure that all the services are around and done on the same route. Ed Buss says that his employees have a lot of window time and drive a little over 90,000 miles a year. As a small company that means that your customer base isn't very big, so you want to make sure you have enough funds in your business to keep the trucks that carry out your business's service orders in good shape.

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Ten Ways to Get People to Subscribe to Your Twitter Page

When it comes to Twitter, subscribers or "followers" are your key to building popularity. And popularity is a fundamental and a very important concept to grab hold of. The idea is that by following someone, they'll agree to follow you back.

The following are other ideas which can help with subscriptions:

1) Connect your blog or social network site to your profile. By adding a link to each of your social media profiles to your Twitter profile, and vice versa, you are making sure everyone you know is able to reach you in all the places they have accounts as well.

2) Ask others to recommend your profile. A blog reader could recommend your social networking page, or other members of your social network could recommend your blog. Word of mouth can go a long way, especially in the world of social networking. Although you may not get every person who hears of you on your Twitter page, you can easily raise the number with a few referrals from friends.

3) Purchase banner ads which in turn can be linked to your profile. This way, when your website banner ads are clicked on, the link is automatically established to your Twitter page. This will prevent anyone having to search far and wide in order to find you.

4) Use usernames and avatars which match either your business or other social networking sites. When you sign up for your Twitter account, use the same name you have on other social network sites. If this name isn't available, try to use something as similar as possible. You can use the same avatar as well. Anyone who is familiar with you from another site will notice when you send out a tweet.

5) Avoid spamming your Twitter. If you constantly drop in silly and unproductive comments several times a day, people won't take you seriously for long. Make sure you are adding something of value when you post. While it's fine to post your own URL, joining into conversations will show people you are approachable.

6) Asking questions will show people you are not only looking for input, but you don't consider yourself a guru either. Who knows - this may result in not only receiving an answer to your question, but with reciprocal following as well.

7) Be careful when posting URLs in Twitter. If the link is too long, it will be shortened with tinyurl. If this happens, it becomes impossible to see the source link to figure out what the page is before clicking through. Before you post any links, it's recommended you write a short description or the title of the page.

8) Follow people from within your personal niche. Not only will you be able to understand what they are talking about, but you may be able to bounce some ideas off them when you get stuck. Having similar concerns and experiences means they are more likely to follow you as well.

9) The difference between bios and backgrounds is easy. Bios on Twitter are short and to the point, unlike an About Me page found on most blogs. People will get to know you from how and what you tweet, not from a novel written in your bio section.

10) If at first you don't succeed, try again. The most experienced in the internet world make mistakes sometimes. It's part of life. If you find you have made a mistake in one of your tweets, fix it. If you find you have chosen the wrong person to follow, stop following them.

Take the time to work out the kinks on your Twitter page, and you will see how quickly everything else will fall into place.

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We're gonna have a Revolution,,,

'The French Trudeau': Social media goes mad for Macron

Are Your Newsletters Cursed?

You've made the decision to not only draw in customers but to also retain them through regular communications.

How are you going to do that?

By sending a monthly newsletter to your customers.

Keeping in touch with them (without bombarding them), sending them great information and offers appeals to you because you know it means they are more likely to come back to you when they're in the market for your products or services.

You start off brilliantly, and the first two issues practically write themselves, but then something happens.

Every month you're left scratching your head as your ideas dry up.

Every newsletter starts to morph into the previous one. Your open and click-through rate is dropping. Hell, you're even boring yourself when you write them.

What's gone wrong? More to the point, what are you going to do about it?

You could give up - it was a stupid idea anyway.

Or, you could have the courage of your convictions, carry on, but start thinking strategically.

Where do newsletter ideas come from?

This is how I do it.

I have a particular client I write a regular newsletter for.

It's a bi-monthly production, and usually, I contact him with an idea for the lead story, and then we work together to add in the rest of the information, such as offers, etc.

So where do I get my ideas from?

My first stop is his website and blog. What have they been talking about? Once I find a suitable topic I do a bit more research to expand it and make it directly relevant to his audience.

What if there are no ideas?

Then I get on the phone, and we have a chat about what's been happening in the business over the past month. You'd be amazed how many content ideas that can generate.

You see, your newsletter themes don't have to be about what's happening right now in your business, they can be about wider issues. Perhaps a customer asked you a question? If they were interested in that topic, perhaps other customers are too.

Look at what's happening in your industry - new technologies that can be commented on, news stories that you can elaborate on, or events.

There are ideas everywhere; you just have to know where to look.

Read around. Listen to your customers. Talk to other staff members. All of these will generate ideas for future newsletters.

Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting, is a professional copywriter, with extensive experience in both B2B and B2C markets.

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5 Tips To Turn Website Visitors Into Customers

There are millions of websites. This is both an opportunity and a challenge. Think about the websites you buy from. You buy from businesses you know. You buy from businesses that you like because that have created a good impression. You buy from businesses that you trust and represent credibility and authority.

Your customers buy for the same reasons. They buy from buy from websites that they know, like and can trust.

Here are 5 tips that will help to turn your website visitors into customers.

1. Create Easy Navigation

It sounds simple, but a lot of websites are a navigational nightmare. When a visitor can't find what they need quickly and easily, they leave. You have to make prospects feel comfortable when they visit your website. Remember who your target audience are and what they're looking for. You can't create a website to suit everyone, so don't confuse visitors by trying to sell everything to everybody.

2. Do Your Keyword Research

Your visitors discover your site with keywords. That means those same keywords need to be present on your site and easy to find. When you know what your prospects are looking for, you can provide it. Providing top quality content will set you apart from the majority of your competition.

3. Check Analytics

Analytics help you track where your visitors go on your website. They tell you how long people stay on a single web page, what keywords they use to find your website and how many visitors return to your website.This information is invaluable. Get into the habit of checking your website analytics regularly. Create content and navigation systems that support your findings.

4. Have Impulse Buys

Your website visitors can behave in the same way just like when you put items into your grocery basket when you are near the checkout in a store. These impulse buys help turn website visitors into buyers. Put bonus products at the end of your web page articles or blog posts. These are the online version of the impulse buy. They might resist your major product only to be hooked by your extra offers.

5. Be Consistent And Be Yourself

Consistency establishes a strong brand. If you keep changing your style, tone and delivery from communication to communication, your prospects and customers can become confused. However, if you're consistently thoughtful, funny, controversial, or serious then your brand will get stronger. This includes social networking interactions, email, articles and content, video and interviews.

If you have a product or service that you're selling online then you'll want to take every opportunity to get more website traffic. An online business thrives and survives based on their traffic. The more traffic you have, the more potential customers you have. To learn how you can boost your website traffic without spending a fortune go to http://jonallo.com/how-to-boost-website-traffic/

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Insight

Insight

The post below is a trifle long but it is so full of useful info that I decided to keep it in. There are many tips that I resonate with that are straight out of the bible of many a top level marketer, on mindset, time management and personal 'bad' habits. Well worth persisting with right to the end.
Ray

How To Start and Run a Successful Lifestyle Business Online

A Personal Insight

Congratulations! You have chosen a really rewarding option into how your business and life will coexist happily ever after." That was a little note to myself when I chose the lifestyle business option, quite a far cry from a traditional start-up that I was running in the entertainment and events industry after quitting my 9-5 job. The latter required me to be in a specific physical location of course so as to reach and serve my clients.

Today, I run a digital business model and all I need is a laptop handy and an Internet connection. I then choose when I want to do some work and where I want to get that work done. And that my friend is what I call a perfect match! My life meets my business everywhere I go, anywhere I am. The general business rules remain pretty similar and herein I will share my own golden rules that new entrepreneurs will particularly find informative... But first... if you are about to quit your job, you are probably wondering

Can Starting A Lifestyle Business Change Your Life?

No more dreadful Monday morning train commutes to work and staring into a stranger's face seated across from me wearing sunnies on a cold morning, perhaps a subtle attempt to numb the pain of the lifeless surrounding. They are having the same thoughts as me. "Friday cannot come quick enough". Then I start thinking about my email box and that Monday morning meeting that I have not prepared for. I have to fill in my boss on the current project status before he can go into another meeting with more important people than me to tell them what I just told him!

I remember having those thoughts and it just makes me queasy as I write this. I know you get the drift. I remember suffering temporary amnesia as I walked out of the house, holding car keys and looking for them all over the kitchen and lounge. I had spent a whole hour pre-occupied in thought on how I will handle the stress that was about to unfold for the next 5 days of my life.

The Road Ahead

As exciting as this new journey is about to be you want to get a few things in order straight away in your new 'house' to make this transition process as smooth as you possibly can. That business idea is looking great, you have done lots of research, consulted a few souls preferably smarter than you. You have also been making some new friends. I really hope none of them is still working where you just quit! I soon found out that these friendships only flourished over the years because of shared interests such as office politics that tended to specially thrive on Friday night at the bar when we didn't have to whisper about overwhelming love for senior management.

The reality now is, you are in an elevated consciousness phase of your life, one that these friendships cannot exist. Your mindset needs to be fed with new insights and nurtured with refreshing thoughts about living a fulfilled life. You have some money saved up in the bank and probably have an actionable step-by-step business plan. There is something of value that you have to share and a strategy to get customers lined up ready to give your 'something' a warm welcome into this new world order.

But that is the easy part. I shall be completely honest here; apart from some money that I had saved up at the point of quitting, I really didn't have much more than a rough idea of what I was going to do. I was risking it all. When I left my day job some years ago, I was at a point where it was either that or I lose my mind.

7 Golden Rules

A New MIND-set:

As with all things new, your mind is the first guy you want to put in check. Let him know there is a new sheriff in town. If you are like me, you have been spending the better part of the last 6 - 12 months buried deep in business books and ripping them apart in your spare time. At some point, you found personal development material captivating. Eventually, you started finding out why that constant nagging feeling of life and lack of fulfilment was. As an example, I had read books like Richdad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and listened to the audio version of the same in case something was lost in translation! I had also read Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People among others.

This is an activity that you will not want to let slip into the overflowing 'good habits to continue when I get time bucket'. I had one like that and needed no motivation adding more stock completely in autopilot. Mind food is paramount in this journey. You want to stay inspired a good chunk of the time because this is where the sowing is happening. The thing is as abstract as some of the ideas in this material may seem at this point; I found that with time, it all starts to fall into place as the journey progresses. So do not sweat any concepts that are not clear yet. Keeping the reading habit going is all you need. These books are not really designed for reading cover to cover. Think of them like the SAT NAV system your car or as you own version of a personal SIRI.

It is a known fact that our minds don't like disruption. Whether that disruption is good for us or not, it is not very welcome without some whip cracking. The mind has got everything figured out. It is a very well trained machine with thoughts and habits that shape your life and works even when you are sleeping, doing the 'regular chores around the house'.

The 9-5 routine mindset is still at this point deeply wired into your system. It's advisable to start setting up ground rules so that YOU and the MIND are both on the same page. This takes a while and certainly took me the better part of 2 years. Don't stress just know there are changes you will need to work on consistently in this area. Oh, remember when I mentioned who your new friends cannot be a little earlier?

Breaking The Bad:

I made the mistake of trying to keep a regular 9-5-like routine when I first started my entrepreneurial journey. Big mistake. What tends to happen as a result is, the mind in these early days of business life, is still largely unaware of the 'new life in construction progress'. It actively runs the old familiar version of 'code' from its 9-5 days in the background in stealth mode. You might know what happens when you try to run a new version of Microsoft Windows on old PC hardware? Yes, exactly right!

All sorts of weird compatibility issues are not unheard of.

I did not understand this myself. The mindset driving my routine was still stuck in the old version. The correct term for this is the subconscious mind. So your poor conscious mind, which is pretty much what we operate on until new ways are 'learned' runs into a constant battle. It really wants to change the world for you, it's ready to work hard, promising to cut the Friday night binge that serves no purpose other than a regular headache which eats away the Saturday morning and pinky swears to cut down on addictive TV shows.

Someone, please explain why my favourite big screen stars are also hanging out in these TV shows... like really?

The Deal With Time Management:

As a new entrepreneur what quickly comes into awareness I would say is the time management beast and what seems to be like an endless stream of unmanageable distractions. In a lifestyle business that is run from home, the park, at the beach, the airport lounge or while on safari at The Mara, this can be a constant battle. Don't get too hung up on being perfect day one with this one. The more I tried to fight it the more I stressed about it. Stress did not improve my time management skills and only added to unfinished tasks that needed more worrying about... I thought! The time drama continued until I put measures to progressively learn how to improve time management.

Keep educating yourself on what works for your schedule and what sorts of distractions are overpowering you. I can tell you now it's going to be technology related!

It didn't matter that I was an early riser who wouldn't go to bed until my eyeballs were literally unlocking themselves from my sockets in protest. Occasionally I got the odd finger in this scuffle! And sometimes I still wouldn't give up. Now, this does not necessarily equate to being productive. The actual real result was a constant feeling of exhaustion, elevated stress levels, and anxiety.

Why You Need To Design A Routine That Works Around Your Lifestyle Business

I hadn't changed my routine so my mind would expect the usual treatment, 9 am we are active at work and then at 5 pm it expects that we are on the 'winding up for the day phase'. I, on the other hand, had with all good intent, added extra hours in front of the 9 and after the 5. Now you can see where the problem was once I kept this up for a while. Insane!!! Create a new routine and optimise around what works for you.

Decide When You Want To Work... Create A Routine... Then Follow It With Military Discipline

Perfecting this phase when you start a lifestyle business, which means your physical surroundings change constantly, it can feel daunting. However, with a well mapped out daily, and weekly routine that you have the discipline to stick with, you will start to see results. In no time, this will end up running on autopilot.

There's going to be a lot of 10 to 12 hour days, maybe longer but they don't and shouldn't be in your constant daily routine. After all, it's business around your lifestyle. I have 3-hour blocks and generally leave my 'heavy lifting work' for when I get into a state of flow, usually after midnight.

Understanding Your Personal Power and Peak Performance State:

This state starts becoming more regular with practice and awareness. Understand your highs (i.e. peak energy state), lows (this is no time to do the books and usually a good time to choose pizza toppings and make big decisions like thin or thick crust?) and my personal favourite flow state (this is creation mode and a good time to change the World). Pick a block of hours that works for you. Once new habits in your routine become solid you will have an easier time telling these states apart.

It's not unusual for me to get into flow while at the shops looking at apples and kiwi fruit fresh deals of the day. This state for me comes through an insightful thought or sometimes as a series of thoughts back to back, so please keep a hardcover notebook at all times for these moments. You might just stumble on your best business idea yet!

Time management and productivity is a continuous optimisation process. All you have to do is decide how many hours you want to work. Pay attention to your body clock and maximise for times when you are at peak energy states. Then learn to induce these states through rewarding practices like meditation.

Schedule Fun Times on Tuesdays:

Although it's not how I started off, I am lucky thus far to be working on businesses that allow me lots of flexibility as to when and where I actually work. If this tickles your fancy you are on the right track here. In my case, all I need is my mac book pro and decent wifi. Tip: When I am in a location where the menu has an under $10 dollar price tag frenzy going on, I move on swiftly.

About Tuesdays

Move all the things you used to do for fun on Saturday to this day. The Keyword here is FUN guys so if mowing the lawn is fun! Okay, you get my point. It doesn't matter what the activity is but I recommend you do it in the early days of your journey. The feeling is absolutely incredible. For me, it was reading the paper and a coffee down the road.

Do you guys wonder why we still print newspapers today?

So, usually, one or two local Moms will swing by the coffee shop and that is all the action there is. The rest of the 'real' world folks are at work. This is my opinion but what I found with being Mr Tuesday is that it gives me a boost of confidence and that sense of freedom where I feel, "yeah that's right, I can do what I want when I want".

I will point out here that this has nothing to do with money. I have done this even when the reality at that time was 'cash-flow challenges!'. I am not advocating that you should smile and be happy when you are broke, no no no. When you think about it, this is when you need your mind at a 100% and if all it takes is a series of 3-dollar coffees down the road, so be it. While on this topic, my ideal Tuesday day is on a yacht surrounded by endless views of blue seas at exactly 11 am and a safety vest in close proximity! Unwanted swimming lessons are not part of this plan.

What does your ideal Tuesday day look like?

Your Inner Circle... Your Players CLUB:

This is an interesting one because if you think about your ideal Tuesday above, how many people do you know today can do that? Initially, you will probably be alone or maybe with someone close to you like a partner, wife, girlfriend or somebody else who probably does what you do, or benefits directly from what you do. I found out that the friends I used to hang out with on Saturdays and Sundays in my previous life no longer fitted in the new life I was creating. It's a delicate balance but I had to make some changes. For the same reason, of course, the folks at your old job will probably not take Tuesday off to hang out at your newly found happy place to share happy coffee with you.

I could go on and on about this inner circle area of the new life but what I realised and accepted was, I needed to decide as part of the journey, to be alone for a little while as more new quality friendships developed. This is still an ongoing process. As an example, a couple of months ago I was in HongKong for a week just by myself. I had a blast but would it have been nicer to share that escapade with someone familiar?

I met new people on that trip and did things I had never done before. I love travelling and it is one of the reasons why starting a lifestyle business was a brilliant model. The thing is, if I can make friends who also have time to be lazy on Tuesdays for happy coffee and random sun baking escapades, that is probably a good 'new friend barometer' check right there! Oh and hopefully of course what they do for money is generally not frowned upon by law!

On the real, though, I personally don't have many of these friends but I found that this is a good time for me to reflect inwards and to focus on my personal growth. If you are new into this game, this could be a good time to spend with a business mentor, perhaps meet other like-minded people in your local community, go deep into nature or maybe just hang out on social media platforms and engage and find out the latest buzz like who got a cat! Seriously the point here is, have a lot of choices in your back pocket that you can go crazy with and if you have bucket list ideas all figured out, check them off weekly without fail.

Family:

Family is very dear to me and I would imagine it's the same for you too. Perhaps, much so that you are making this decision to escape the 9-5 and really start learning new ways to make money outside the voluntary solitary confinement space (also known as office cubicle). One of my reasons for choosing this journey was my family. To be more available to them and to enhance my own life experiences. To fill those experiences with what I really want anytime I wanted it. The one thing I encountered and you probably might as well, those we love and care for dearly may not understand the new you. These moments may not be as dramatic such as waving placards in protest but you will see it vividly.

Remember how our minds don't like change?

It's not their fault and they are probably coming from a place of love for you. Embrace the response you get with love and remember your bigger mission. I had lots of strange conversations with people I love and would have like to be speaking a foreign language at the time. That way being misunderstood would have been spot on. Then one day I realised, they weren't really saying they disliked my new outlook on life and crazy ideas like giving up a six-figure income.

They were just saying, "We don't understand how to process this new information". Please show us how. You might also take consolation in the fact that how well you manage this close relationship is a reflection of how you will do 'out there' where the World is short of people like you and me, people who are lost in self-indulgence and totally unconscious of their daily actions will not understand you either!

Remember, training takes time. That's what it took for me until they somewhat understood. If you are lucky enough to get the all in response from them, great, if not, give them time and if need be, add the space element to it as well. Be kind to yourself.

At the time, I was on a roller coaster going through a myriad of changes both personal and business that required me to be very present. My first business was in an industry I did not know at all, the physical surroundings were not very familiar (I will discuss this in a later post) and a pending divorce as a result of a strained long-distance relationship. Now, this was a lot of action in one headspace!

In Summary

Your circumstances may be a little different from mine for wanting to come this way and choosing this journey. As you go along, it's reasonable to expect moments where you will be tried and tested by fate. Things will happen that will be out of your comfort zone or out of your control and sometimes both.

In the end, I find that clarity on my why I do what I do sails me through choppy waters. I embrace whatever comes my way with love. Answers to what I don't know come in the right time. I keep the bigger mission clear in my mind. Creating a life where I can live on my own terms is not free, there's a price to be paid.

Another really important thing to have a solid business system. I found my answer with the six-figure mentors. They have a step-by-step business system that shows you how to leverage the Internet and start your very own online business. What's, even more, is that if your goal is to start your own business say around your passion, the business skills you will learn are second to none. From experience with my first 2 ventures as a newbie without a mentor, I would recommend every new entrepreneur make getting a mentor, their number one priority. Looking at how I started my entrepreneurial journey, this was my single most expensive mistake up until today as I write this.

Final Thought

Along the way somewhere, I realised that I needed to give up the idea of perfection and get cosy with uncertainty about what will be tomorrow and experience some discomfort today because of the things that I don't know yet. I experience more growth as I continue to operate in that mental space. All I have to do TODAY is take to take the next best action. This post is unusually long so if you are still reading, I sincerely thank you. I hope you found some value in there. Feel free to share this post with someone else who will enjoy reading through the ideas and insights I have shared.

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