Page 20 - Blog

August has arrived and the first day of school is right around the corner. For kids all across the country, that means it’s time to bust out the backpacks, notebooks, and rulers. However, just because it’s back to school time for kids doesn’t mean you can’t school your business this season and take your company to the next level. So fire up your calculators, sharpen your pencils, and join us for our back to school series.

For today’s lesson, we’re going to take a look at some marketing math. There are tons of little changes you can start today that add up to big differences in web traffic and brand awareness. Whether it’s the number of times you blog in a month or the content  for your social media posts, little tweaks in marketing can add up to big traffic changes. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

Blogging

The tried and true method of inbound marketing is blogging. By providing interesting and relevant content for your visitors, your business can attract a wide range of customers

Short on blog post topics? Need a quick post for social media? Even the most creative people will eventually hit a wall. Sometimes you can get around it easily, other times it just sits in front of you no matter what you do. In times like those, it’s usually productive to take a short break, look at other things, and then get back to brainstorming.

To get you started, here are a few content ideas for August and a ton of off-the-wall holidays to help your creativity get “off the wall” and start generating some ideas:

Updated June 1, 2017

One of the greatest lessons in life and business has been playing out for six seasons on Game of Thrones: denying reality can cost you the throne. In other words, there are some basic realities that one must accept in order to succeed. Using some of my favorite quotes from the last few seasons of Game of Thrones, here are some lessons from the show about how to keep it real on your way to the top!

“Every flight begins with a fall.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

No matter what we do, our actions hold the potential to cause unintended results. Every day, people come up with brilliant ideas. Some people develop a plan, consider all the possible outcomes, and jump in head first. However, just as that person thinks nothing could go wrong; something usually does.

Many people would give up when they see their idea falling apart. But, just like many of the characters have learned in Game of Thrones, those mistakes and unintended consequences provide access to the

Social media is all about sharing, interaction, and building relationships. That part is simple. If you’re not super savvy on social, the confusion usually comes in trying to figure out how best to start sharing, getting interaction, and building relationships.

Social media can be a very powerful tool for your brand, especially with the popularity of social commerce continuing to grow With retailers getting in on the action and so many different platforms, it can be hard to know whether or not a social network is right for your brand. After all, you have limited resources and social media won’t work for you if you just throw up profiles everywhere and never spend time interacting.

To help cut down on the confusion, here are a few questions to ask in order to qualify whether or not a social network could be worth it:

1. Is the social network brand-friendly?

This is perhaps the most important question you can ask for your brand. If a network is not brand-friendly, you’re going to spend a lot of time listening and building relationships there for very little return, and potentially even a backlash from the community.

A good indication a social network is brand-friendly is simply whether or not other brands are using it. Aside from that, check for

Updated June 1, 2017

As I have already pointed out in previous posts, there are multiple reasons to love Game of Thrones. However, I have found that it is the characters that keep me coming back each week. We all want someone or something to believe in, and the characters of Game of Thrones provide just that. Every episode, I cheer on my favorite characters in hopes that they will survive another week in Westeros. Looking back over the past seasons, I have realized that many of the traits that draw me to characters are also the traits your eCommerce site should utilize to secure and inspire loyal customers.

In the world of eCommerce, it is easy to get caught up focusing on making new sales or chasing bigger accounts. However, in doing so you may be missing something essential to keeping your business running smoothly and successfully- paying attention to your current customers that are loyal to your brand.

To help you gain some focus and build your loyal customer base, take a look at what

It’s finally happened. You have a deadline for a blog post, a press release needs to go out ASAP, you have an email newsletter that should have gone out yesterday, and you have nothing. A dreaded bout of writer’s block has struck.

When 70% of the world is covered in water and a seemingly endless stream of water is coming from our taps, we have a tendency to take it for granted.  However, water has some incredible properties and is used in some really interesting ways. It grows our crops, produces power, and humans are mostly made of it! For today’s post here are 15 amazing things about water that you probably didn’t know. Let’s dive in:

Launching sites can lead to several sticky situations. There are a lot of moving pieces and things to check off before it’s ready to go, a lot of which doesn’t even include testing! It can be hard to keep track of what has been done and what still needs to be done – that’s where checklists come in handy!

This 15-point checklist will keep you on track for a smooth launch of your Magento site.

Updated June 5, 2017

As we all know, running an advertising campaign can be costly and time consuming, especially for a small business. And if that small business is new to the market, owners are faced with the challenge of trying to build brand awareness and creating a positive business reputation while also trying to engage and excite customers about their products.

With that said, it often amazes me to find that so many small businesses either overlook social media or fail to execute a successful social media campaign. According to Sarah Lockard, AroundMainLine.com CEO & Publisher, “small business owners MUST put time and effort into social media.” There are endless possibilities in the social media arena, but businesses must create a strategic plan to ensure they use these outlets in a way that will support their business goals and not just suck up time and resources. With millions of active users on Twitter and Instagram and over 1.2 billion Facebook members, it is safe to say that