6 Free Tools To Improve Your Marketing

Marketing tools can be expensive, so when you find a good one that works and it’s free you’ve really hit the jackpot. These are some favorite tools that will help you to improve your marketing without breaking the bank!

Buffer

If you use social media as part of your marketing strategy, take control of all of your pages in one place. Schedule posts, post to all of your pages from one central dashboard, and use all of Buffer’s other tools to create and share beautiful and effective content.

Hootsuite

If Buffer isn’t for you, Hootsuite is a great alternative. Free for your first three profiles, you can schedule, share, create ad campaigns and find insights and analytics all together on the Hootsuite control panel.

Canva

Without design experience it can be difficult to create imagery that really shines. With Canva’s features you can edit, add text, and add fun elements to your photos, as well as create framework for websites, create badges or nametags, and handle tons of other design needs.

Google Analytics

The internet giant does just about everything, and when it comes to analytics, Google is the standard. See the whole picture of how your brand is doing. Gain an overall understanding of your audience and how they access what you do. APIs, data importing and new data collection,  complete with many more customizable features give you the tools you need to understand the results you are getting.

Medium

If you are looking for a place to publish blogs and don’t want to build out an entire website, head over to Medium. With tons of writers and topics, it’s not only a great place to read and learn, but an excellent way to get more attention on your posts and start gathering up an even bigger audience. The interface is easy to use, which means that your pieces don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Piktochart

Infographics are one of the best ways to boost your engagement is to make infographics that your audience cares about. In fact, infographics are liked and shared three times more than any other content. But if you aren’t a designer, it can be difficult to create an infographic that looks great and holds all of your information. Piktochart’s user friendly interface helps you organize, design and make your infographics look as professional as possible.

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Things To Consider Before Rebranding

Don’t let shiny new logos distract you, rebranding can be a long and tedious journey. Rebranding is a process that recreates a business or organization’s identity from the inside out. It changes who you are to the world, so foresight and creativity have to go hand in hand. If your business or organization is thinking of or in the process of rebranding, here are some things to consider in no particular order.

Why Rebrand

There is no one size fits all rebranding. There are many reasons that organizations decide to rebrand, and those diverse reasons will dictate approach. Whether you are changing customer landscape, adding competitive edge, or cleaning up bad PR, it’s important to choose a plan of action that fits the reasoning. Get specific, make tangible plans and consider recruiting the help of a branding agency if need be.

What Is Success  

No one can get to where they need to be if they don’t have a clear definition of what and where that is. Success can have many different faces and facets. What is your organizations looking to achieve with rebranding? What are you willing to invest in terms of time, money and resources? What kind of return is the organization expecting from that investment? Once you have a clear and defined end goal, try to set a few benchmarks along the way ensuring you stay on track.

Present

Do an inventory and find out where the current brand stands. There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater! Find out what is working and how to extract the value and protect it. Make explicit lists of what’s staying, what’s going, as well as what’s changing and how. This will give the rebranding team clarity and guide strategy.

Strategy

Communication is the key of execution, great execution will excite your base and entice your new audience. Execution of new branding is a total balancing act. While promoting the shiny new brand it’s important to take time to re-educate the existing customer base about the new changes and ensure they aren’t being left behind, while still garnering excitement from those who are new to the brand.

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8 Options for Free Online Courses

Smart people and great entrepreneurs know that knowledge is key. Key to life and especially key to business. Here is a list of online and FREE education sites where you can hone skills in marketing, business practice and nearly anything else under the sun.

1. Hubspot

Hubspot is a company that creates software technologies that revolve around inbound marketing. Their inbound certification is a well known and respected industry standard and can be a great jumping off point for those just starting off.

2. edX

edX is a massive open online course provider. It hosts online university level courses from some of the best known and reputable schools in the world, in a wide range of disciplines, including some courses at no charge.

3. Coursera

Coursera is often a fan favorite; courses are taught by top instructors from the world’s best educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums. When you complete a course, you receive a sharable electronic Course Certificate.

4. Alison

Alison is an e-learning provider created by a serial entrepreneur focusing on basic education and workplace skills.

5. Youtube

Youtube, the world’s biggest video sharing website isn’t just for watching dancing cat videos, it also happens to have how-to’s and DIYs on anything you could possibly think of, most notably in tech and business management.

6. Lynda

Lynda, now under the umbrella of Linkedin, is a video based online education provider that leans very heavily towards software, creative, and business skills.  

7. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a non-profit used by students all over the world from elementary through graduate programs. Courses are taught by educator Salman Khan in a very simple, hands on and personalized approach.

8. Udemy

Udemy, is an online learning platform created for professional adults that want to hone career skills, spruce up their resume, or discover/rediscover their passions.

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PR Tips for 2017

How important to your business or personal image is public relations? In the digitally focused world we live in, PR and and reputation management are more important than ever when it comes to growing your business and staying relevant to your audience. These are some insider tips on how to both improve upon and understand your PR strategy this year.

Know the Value: Earned Media versus Paid Media

Build up your reputation and your content by building up relationships with other influencers. The more influence you have the less you have to pay to get your name or brand noticed as a thought leader. This is especially important this year as the fake news conundrum continues and reputation management grows in importance.  By connecting with others and networking your worth as a credible authority on the topics you know about you are a much more reliable source of information which will allow for you to pay less to gain more publicity.

Not Just For Marketing Anymore: Native Advertising

An extremely valuable tool to your marketing strategy, Native Advertising is useful for PR as well. By paying to place an advertisement within a publication you can increase readership and  engagement. Match a publication’s content with the information that you would put out in a typical release for truly effective and subtle promotional content. There are rules set forth for disclosure, but this is sure to be a highly effective means of PR this year.

Being the Best: Executive Thought Leadership

Everyone knows that thought leadership is one of the first things that companies, individuals and publications try to promote, but it isn’t always easy to execute this. Combine knowledge from bosses or clients’ industries with trending topics to  become relevant and knowledgeable to others in your field and beyond.  In 2017 this could be as important to your image as influencer marketing.

The Standard: Influencer Marketing

A recent Nielsen survey reported that 92% of the population would trust a recommendation from someone perceived as an influencer on social media or otherwise over what a brand itself may say. With that being said, without strong relationships with influencers that can further your brand, you are going to be starting from further behind than you may have in previous years.  Pitch to influencers often, with useful and relevant content and make sure to customize your search to those who are important in your specific vertical. This Forbes article is a great jumping off point for those who are unfamiliar with this tactic.

Numbers Game: Data Driven Reports

Data collection is becoming easier and easier, and with internet processes and online PR tactics more data is available to really shape your public image. You can learn more about your audience and shape your strategies around demographics, types of popular content you have posted in the past and trends of online activity within your audience to find when you should be posting most effectively.

Traditional PR may not be the standard anymore, but the benefits of using public relations and reputation management strategies are far too important to simply cut PR efforts completely.  Implementing these strategies into your marketing plan is just the beginning!

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Marketing Trends To Notice In 2017

Every year it is important to take an inventory of your marketing strategy and see what you can be doing more of, doing better at, or even try out some new trends that may surprise you. This list is a compilation of strategies that may be familiar and some that may be new additions to your marketing toolbelt, but each will prove its importance in the coming year.

Mobile Marketing 

The major transition to mobile continues this year with an estimated amount of 4.77 billion mobile phone users in 2017; a number that increases substantially every year.  Mobile video, mobile optimized content, and complete mobile lifestyle integration is going to be the key to being on the top of your customers minds. With an increasing amount of abilities in every new wave of mobile releases, the opportunities to personalize, get immersive and expand your reach are there and waiting to be utilized.

Live Streaming

If you’re on Facebook or Instagram you have probably seen the notification that someone you know, or a brand you follow is doing a live video. The growth in popularity of live video is a great thing to take advantage of especially if you have the ability to use live content to showcase products, services, or even just to organically connect to your followers.

Virtual Reality/ Immersive Marketing

Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, 360 campaigns. These are all becoming more and more synonymous with marketing. Companies are showcasing their abilities in ways that were never before possible. Movie advertisements are allowing audiences to become one with the film, and gaming is on a new level of interaction. If you feel this could be useful and you haven’t yet tried to see the payoff, 2017 could be the year to do so.

Content Marketing

Once again this year, content is key. Find the most relevant and useful information for your followers and run with it. The face of your content will be ever changing however, so don’t mistake this for a one and done strategy. Plan to come back and evaluate your strategies, plan new content and customize it to the platform you are using, whether it is social media, VR, live content or content on your site, email blasts or print marketing.

Chatbots

Customer service question? Try implementing a chatbot right on your site to answer any questions that your customers may have when visiting your site. Increase engagement with what ends up being a 24/7 customer service representative. Chatbots are still in the very beginnings of their development, so don’t expect them to be the most knowledgeable resources or even have the ability to answer everything thrown their way.

Native Ads

Using native ads is a great way to integrate content and advertising. An organic approach to marketing,  generally ads look exactly like your content, are extremely targeted and exist to be informative, useful and bring attention to your business without breaking up what the user is seeing with obvious ads spread out within your content. This is sure to become one of the major ways to market this year.

Are you looking to update your marketing strategy? Share what changes you are making or how these trends have worked for you in the comments below.

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Smart Home Accessory Review

Perhaps our first real familiarity with the idea of smarthomes originated in pop culture, The Jetsons, Tony Stark (Iron Man), Disney Channel’s “Smart House” (1999). But now our perception has changed to a more realistic view.

Automated home security, lights, audio systems and more are all possibilities of the present.

So you have a smart home hub like the Amazon Echo or Google Home, but how do you use it to control all of these things? If you are looking to venture into the world of automation within the home these are some good places to start.

The Apple Home Kit

If you are an Apple product fan you may want to try out the Apple Home Kit. This hub allows you to control all compatible smart home products (lights, shades, thermostat, locks, outlets, garage doors, security systems and more) remotely from your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple TV. Unfortunately if you are more of an Android fan, this isn’t for you.

Phillips Hue Wireless Dimming Kit

This white light dimming kit itself cannot pair with the Echo or and other larger set-up without the purchase of the Phillips Hue Bridge, but if you are looking for an easy way to control up to 10 lights per remote without setting up or using a hub, this is the way to go. This easy to install and customizable kit is a great first step into home automation.

Lutron Serena Remote Controlled Shades

These smart shades are pricey, but they are easy to use and to install. However, as far as smart capabilities go these shades are lacking in a few key areas. They can be programmed to open and close at certain times, but if you would like them to conserve heat and open and close based on temperature you have to use a third party app. These shades are compatible with Siri, and use the Apple Home Kit and the Caseta Bridge plug, but as anyone knows Siri is very particular and doesn’t always work to it’s full potential. While the shades have cons, they are also compatible with a longer list of other smart home products than many other smart shades.

Nest Home Accessories: Learning Thermostat, Smoke and CO Alarm, Indoor and Outdoor Cameras

All of these accessories are able to be set up in a larger hub using Google Home and Amazon Echo. The thermostat works with your schedules and learns your patterns to save you energy and money. With it’s smart eco-friendly temperature alerts and sleek design, Nest’s thermostat is both effective and attractive. In the same regard, the smoke and CO alarm is able to send notifications to your phone, identify fast and slow burning fires and locate where CO leaks are in your home. And perhaps the most impressive, the indoor and outdoor cameras are able to record, use intercom, and, with a subscription fee for Nest Aware you can access your video history up to 30 days later. You will also get alerts on your phone when the camera sees a person, and never lose power, as the cameras plug in rather than use battery power.

Blink Home Security System

If the idea of wired in home security sounds like too much for you, the Blink system is small but effective. These tiny battery powered cameras have a guaranteed battery life of two years, and replacing the batteries is easy, as they are powered by replaceable AA Lithium batteries. Motion detection, temperature sensors, Echo compatibility and tons of other features have put this home security system on the radar of CNN, Business Insider, Forbes and tons of other publications.

With the addition of these products into your home the smarthome once only referenced in pop culture is closer than you think.

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New Year Resolutions For Your Business

The holiday season is officially over, and it’s back to business as usual. But does it have to be? New Year’s is just another day on the calendar and away from the office, but it can also be a great reason to reevaluate if all the habits of the past year have really been working for you and your small business. Here are some hacks to try to give you an edge in the coming year.

Learn Something

It’s really a new age for education, from podcasts, online tutorials, to infographics, education is literally at the fingertips of anyone interested in learning, and often times free! Taking a little time to hone a skill, or learning new aspects of your market will prove invaluable.

Do Inventory

Survey, ask questions, do what you need to too know where you and your business stand with your customers, your associates and your employees. The new year is the perfect time reevaluate what needs your meeting and missing with the people that matter most.

Set Goals

The internet is full of statistics on the importance of goal setting. Having a clear and concise finish line with incremental benchmarks along the way make even the longest races seem manageable, it’s the same in business.

Automate

Do yourself and your employees a favor and automate all the services you can. There are businesses who have the sole purpose of automating processes and freeing up time for your employees to do more meaningful work. Try them.

Mix It Up

Make an effort to try something new once a month. Be it a new marketing strategy, company policy or otherwise. Take small calculated risks and see how they pan out. Often times even if they aren’t the “right” kind of change the bring a new and fresh perspective you otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Self Care

Last but definitely not least make sure to fit in employee appreciation whenever you can. My company does a monthly birthday party, others do happy hours ect. Boosting employee morale and workplace satisfaction does wonders for productivity, innovation and company loyalty. The internet is full of statistics on it, check them out.

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Taking One Last Glance Into The Past Before Moving Into 2017

The beginning of a new year inevitably brings up reminiscent feelings in most people. One looks over the past year noting all the things that have gone well, the things that could have gone better and things that probably shouldn’t have happened at all. For most entrepreneurs this glance back is done from the lens of the business, and I am no different. This last year in business for me personally  has been one of discipline, rebuilding, and growth.

Discipline

The years preceding 2016 had been difficult. Sales weren’t as high as we had once enjoyed and taken for granted. The market climate itself changed. And as a business leader I was left with the difficult decision of having to change with it. So the business evolved, and all us along with it. In the beginning of 2016 we felt the impacts of tightening our belts, budgets were smaller, and teams downsized. Discipline went a long way, sprinkled in with some patience.

Rebuilding

Learning to run your business in a completely new market was a giant feat. Especially when prior to that, we had been running it (rather successfully) for a number of years. Starting was over was difficult, and sometimes plain annoying. Learning new ways to reach our same audience was time consuming and taxing, but ended up becoming a blessing in disguise. We were able to reintroduce ourselves to our customers, and get an intimate inside look on how we could serve them better… And we needed the wakeup call.

Growth

With all new change comes growth. Learning all the facts in the world can prove to be useless if not applied correctly. And what is business, if some risks (albeit calculated) aren’t taken. After taking inventory of our customers needs we worked to improve existing product lines, and took some risks to create new ones. With the new and improved customer insights those changes and growth paid off. We were able to end off the year with great sales projections for the future, diversified fields for new products and best of all higher customer satisfaction and engagement.

Final Glancing Back

Overall 2016 was one of learning and growth, and as an entrepreneur that’s as good as it gets. It was exactly the year our business needed to prepare for the kind of success that is bound to happen after hard working and dedication. And like any entrepreneur, or business owner will tell you nothing, absolutely nothing is possible without an amazing team. I am especially grateful for mine, they have brought in fresh and innovative ideas, and worked hard to implement them. I am equally grateful and excited for what we can accomplish together in 2017.

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How To Use Gifted Gadgets

This year was a big year for advances in technology, so you may have gotten the gift of a brand new gadget that you have no idea how to use or how to get the full potential out of. Here are some of this year’s biggest gifts and how you can use them.

Google Home

These home assistant speakers can be the first step into turning your home into a smart home. Google Assistant speaks to all of your internet enabled devices, plays music, uses Google’s wealth of information to help you answer almost any question, as well as give you updates for the things that you care about including weather, traffic reports and upcoming events. When combined with other smart devices (Nest, Chromecast, Hue by Phillips) you can have your google assistant turn off or turn down lights, change the temperature of your home or even change what is showing on your TV.

Amazon Echo/Echo Dot

Amazon’s home assistant speakers utilize Amazon’s Alexa to control your home. The Echo is a dedicated speaker, with top of the line audio quality, whereas the Echo Dot has all of the functionality, just with a smaller speaker, for those that may own a great sound system already. With these you can connect via bluetooth and play your music from any source.

Fully integrated with Amazon, you can order from Prime as well as track those orders, use other smart devices to control almost anything in your home, and even order an Uber or a pizza from Dominos.

Smart Watches

Every watch has different specs, but one thing is true for all of the newest smartwatches: the designs are becoming much more attractive. Let smartwatches control your phone, send messages and emails, play music, answer phone calls, report the weather, give you reports on the elements and even track your fitness.

Fitness Trackers

The ever popular FitBit and it’s many competitors are absolutely one of the more popular gifts over the last few years, so it may not be a surprise if you found one of these in your hands this year. With tons of different features and specs, different models fit different people based on the type of athletics pursued and how fashionable one wants to look while tracking steps, heart rate, sleep patterns and a multitude of other statistics.

Drones

Drone technology will continue to grow and change, but the current models do live up to the hype surrounding them. Take videos, photos, practice just flying around. Just make sure you know if there are FAA regulations surrounding the model of drone you have, as this can cause you to need to register your drone, or limit the areas where you are permitted to fly.

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Staying Focused at Work During the Holidays

It’s the holiday season and for many, this time of year can lead to burnout or just a general lack of motivation. Expectations can be high in both professional and personal lives, so it’s important to stay balanced. I have a few tricks that I use to stay focused this time of year, that help keep morale high and keep me working hard. Try some out and see what works for you.

Make A Checklist

Keeping track of what you need to accomplish is important at anytime, but at the holidays when your thoughts can be in a million places it’s helpful to have a way to look at the big picture and be able to cross things off of it to feel like you’re moving forward in your responsibilities.

Take Time Off

If you are able, take some days off that you can use just for yourself to clear your head, not just days off to celebrate the holidays. It’s easy to get caught up with parties, and events and family obligations, but the constant commitments can make it feel like your schedule is more full than it is. Take a day or two to feel a little less weighted down.

Plan Events With Your Co-Workers

Teams can often feel disconnected during the holidays when people are gone or distracted. Plan a gift exchange, an outing or a whole office party to ramp up the community feeling and reconnect with those around you. My team just celebrated at our office holiday event last week!

Don’t Multitask

Work on one project at a time. Having multiple projects going on at once makes your workload feel triple the amount it is, and you do better work when you are only focused on one aspect. When you need a break from one thing, move to your next project and so on, but commit to only having one thing going at a time. You get more done and your work seems less daunting.

Commit To The Holiday Spirit

Being positive during the holidays isn’t easy for everyone, but by having a good attitude and positive outlook you not only make yourself positive, but also those around you. Keep the mood light and help others that may be having a hard time as well.

The days leading up to the holidays can either fly by or take forever to get through, but you can make them productive regardless. Let me know how you stay motivated in the comment section below.

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