What Makes The Best Business Cards?

13 October,2019 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Entrepreneurs must always have their own business cards as they are extremely important for networking purposes and public relations. If you come across someone who is interested in your work, you can simply hand them your business card and ask them to contact you. Given below are some tips by four entrepreneurs on how to get the best business cards.

Source: https://fitsmallbusiness.com

Katie White, founder of re:lax

Katie White is a holistic therapist and she helps her patients deal with stress, anxiety, digestive problems and hormonal imbalances using natural remedies and proper nutrition. She wanted her business cards to reflect her approach to therapy and healing methods. She wanted the “logo and name to be the most eye-catching feature and the reason a potential client picks it up – because they want to relax and feel good.”

This is extremely important because the design of the cards should not only be appropriate for the type of business you are in but should also be appealing to your target audience.

Michael, founder of WeCompareCasinos.com

This website allows people to find licensed online casinos that will suit their specific needs. Now, Michael had some really creative business cards (which looked like casino playing cards) printed. According to him, “in most industries there are a lot of expos and events where literally 1000s of traditional, basic business cards are handed out and just end up sitting in someone’s wallet, never to be seen again.”

A creative touch to your business cards will immediately interest potential clients. You can add embossing, foil accents or even go for something like metallic ink or spot UV.

Charlie Spokes, founder of My Friend Charlie

Charlie’s company organises dating events for middle aged London residents. Londoners in their 30s and 40s can meet and get to know each other at various fun events like paddle boarding and gin tasting! For their business cards, Charlie wanted a good quality card that had “a classic logo and colour scheme which had to be easy to read but also eye catching”.

Now, if you want a simple, basic business card then you need to make sure to follow some basic rules of designing. These include keeping the key copy about 5mm away from the trim edge, properly sized font and good quality images (for your logo).

Tom Bourlet, search and paid media manager for the Spaghetti Traveller

This is a fun blog that combines travelling and marketing. Now, Tom wanted his business cards to represent the vibe that his blog creates. But while the cards are quite quirky and creative, the designs do not overshadow the information provided and as Tom explains it, “the key information is highlighted first, with the email being my main point of contact, followed by my Twitter account.” Therefore, as this suggests, when you have your business cards printed, you will have to prioritize and decide which details are necessary and will be of use to potential clients.

What do you think makes the best business cards?

Sources: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Best PPC Practices in 2019

6 July,2019 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

PPC or pay-per- click has emerged to be one of the most popular advertising models in the recent years. It draws traffic to your website and whenever an ad is clicked by any user, the advertiser has to pay the person who published the ad.

PPC practice was opted by many website owners last year so that they could improve the performance of their website. Well, with a new year you need to upgrade your game.

Following are some of the latest and the best PPC practices which will rule 2019 and can help you to excel on the performance bar-

There will be more focus on audience rather than the keywords

Digital marketing has been a champion of keywords since forever. But, in the 2019 this is supposed to take a back seat, and strategies targeting audience will be adopted. This will enable you to get your ads in front of the right audience and while they are actively searching a product which you are selling.

Incorporation of new features in ads

All the PPC marketers from around the world will be establishing some extra-ordinary advertisements. These ads will definitely attract more clients and audience. So, take clue from these ads and apply same concept for your website.

Automation rate will increase

In 2018, Google already started to display ads suitable for all kinds of audience, thanks to automation. This phenomena will take a hike in 2019 as well. Be smart, and adopt some great automation strategies for your website. For this, you can start with implementing the accurate conversion tracking, identifying your loyal audience, figure your keywords, and write great ads as well.

Try to know your whole funnel of marketing

Invest time in building a meaningful attribution model for your website. This will help you to focus on the marketing strategy on the channels which really matter for you. Once you have a good multi-touch attribution model, only low-funnel based marketing channels will deliver the result.

If possible, invest as much as you can in video marketing

Videos are supposed to take the center stage in PPC advertising model in 2019. Video is a very powerful tool which you can use to draw a massive traffic for your website. Creating ads using video takes up a lot more time and creativity than in putting up a text-based ad or depending on Google to auto-create ads, for you to display. But, all the hard work is worth it. It will be worth because, if you look at the statistics, the rate of video ad completion reached to 60-70% last year. So, investing in video advertising is must and this feature will rule the PPC practices in 2019.

Lastly, one of the latest PPC practices, whose usage started last year only is re-running similar ads, content again and again. This helps to convert the visitors of your website to potential customers. So, 2019 will be about revamping the re-marketing tactic.

Thus, you can be sure on one thing that above mentioned 6 practices are going to rule the PPC field in digital world this year

Best Digital Marketing Practices in 2019

21 June,2019 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Source: Cibirix.com

Adopting the right digital marketing practices and digital marketing strategies are very important in order to get visible results. As there is evolution in technology, there needs to be some changes in the marketing strategy as well to keep up with the flow and be successful as a marketer.

There are some important trends to utilize in your digital marketing to make it work. They include:

Data-supported marketing

This kind of marketing is evolving almost every single day as the different tools are also evolving. The use of the right tools and collating the right kind of data and utilizing it in the right form might be a very useful method to know more about the audience and make improvements and provide tactics for future campaigns. It can be used to improve the customer experience and personalize the services.

Video

Videos are supposedly an age-old method of digital marketing which sees no downfall. Video contents are very engaging for the audience. However, you need to figure out the best types of videos that can help to keep the audience intrigued to the website of the content.

Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality

Both AI and AR are very useful which has created an upsurge in the marketing tactics. A lot of marketers have already incorporated these in their marketing tactics. You will be amazed to realize that there is quite a huge number of customers who are ready to share their personalized data in turn of a better experience. Augmented reality can be included to bring about a drastic change in the customer experience.

Conversational content with voice technology

Conversational content is a hyped technology these days among the customers. Here it is not enough to make use of jargons and keywords. There has to be some really strong content to keep the customers glued to the website.

Omni-channel marketing

This is a strategy to communicate with the different businesses via many channels at a time. This can include Facebook, twitter and other kinds of ads.

Social media ads

These are similar to the Omni-channel marketing where different businesses make use of the different platforms to reach out to the maximum number of customers at a time.

Real events and experiences

The real events where a number of people can come together and share their views, clubbed with the digital marketing can prove to do wonders. This is the place where people can share their views and in order influence each-other’s choices in order to aid in the digital marketing for those particular businesses.
As the whole world is getting digitalized these days, digital marketing needs to be improved in every single step so as to meet the increasing demands of the customers and make the most out of the whole thing. SEO content might be of very useful in pushing through the digital marketing strategies and making it a great success in today’s scenario and make businesses flourish.

10 Essential Digital Marketer Skills

18 April,2019 Business Advice, E-Commerce No Comment Author: Marie

The world of digital marketing is huge and highly competitive in today’s time. It is difficult for all the naive faces who set their foot in this industry, to find their niche. Don’t you guys worry as the following content will help you to understand the essential digital marketer skills!

Should be able to multitask

If we talk about the digital marketing world, then you all must be aware that there are numerous things going on at once. To be able to keep an eye on each one of them, you need to be attentive and should be able to multitask. You may have to read the latest content, see the relevant texts on the social media platforms, do reports, all at the same time.

Curiosity is the key to learn, specifically if you are a beginner

As mentioned before- the span of this field is really wide. If you are keen and curious to learn more then you will really find this field alluring. Craving for knowledge and learning new things on a daily basis will give you your edge among others.

Must have good work ethic

There will be times when you will find yourself in difficult situations like market crashing, unsatisfied clients etc. In such situations, you have to handle the pressure calmly and like a professional.

Must be cordial with colleagues and others in the same field

This field is known for cutthroat competition and people can be difficult to work with, at times. Also, you have to always meet clients, build good relationships with potential customers, etc. For all this, you need to be street smart and good with your communication.

You must know how to search well

The more you try to search for a topic, the better your work turns out to be. So, try to research well while working on a project. You can use the Internet, books, question the client, and know the client’s views and opinions, read other relevant articles.

You should be good with SEO and SEM techniques

Having a thorough knowledge of search engine optimization and search engine marketing are the key tools of this field. So, make sure you have at least the basic idea of these two before you go into this field.

Data Analysis is for your own good

Data analytics is the central strategy of all digital marketing companies. You should try to find and develop good solutions, ideas to judge the needs of your clients and then work towards building the traffic for your website or company.

Be a tech-lover

Digital marketing is all about information technology. So, it is good to have a nice grip on the new technologies. Be a quick learner, so that you can adapt well to the changing world of technology.

Create an audience engaging content

A smart content writer or a person working in this field is the one who knows its audience and their needs. You should be able to produce contents which are top-notch, SEO- friendly. Try to incorporate videos, pictures, flowcharts, etc. to make it .ore sensible and engaging.

Do as much as marketing and ads as possible to promote your work

With digital marketing, it is very easy to promote your work or your company. Right from posting on various social media platforms to paid channels and display of ads, you can do it all. To be popular among the masses, you should be good at selling your work through these tools.

What do you think are the best digital marketer skills to possess?

Are You Still Missing Out on Google Search Console?

3 April,2019 Business Advice, E-Commerce, SEO Tips No Comment Author: Marie

Google Search Console

In today’s time, almost every business has its own online portal. Infect some companies run their entire empire via a website only. Well, if you own a website or maintain a company’s website then you must be aware that it is extremely important to assess the website’s performance from time to time.

The performance of any website is measured by the amount of traffic it withdraws. But, how to get this measurement and analysis in the first place. Don’t you guys worry, as Google has provided tools for this work, that too absolutely free of cost- called the Google Search Console.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free service provided by Google. It helps the owners of the various websites to easily keep record of their work, and track the performance at the same time.

It assists you to monitor your website and get valuable insights about the same. Though it is not compulsory to sign up for this service, in order to get a position in Google’s Search engine, but if you do so; it will help you to get a thorough idea of how Google views your site and how it optimizes it’s performance as well.

Source: Searchenginejournal.com

Why using Google Search Console is a good idea?

It helps Google to access your content and helps your website to get better ranking on the search engine.
It filters those contents from your website which you don’t want to be shown in search result.
It keeps a track of those content which are capable of delivering visually engaging results.
Google Search Console also solves all the problems related to malware and spam which create unwanted hindrance to your website’s performance.

Features of Google Search Console

Performance tab

This tab enables you to analyse the pages and keywords which need more optimization and attention. This helps to improve the ranking of your website on Google Search.

Index Coverage

This is a technical tab within GSC, which updates you about-

The number of pages in the index of Google search, since the last update;
Errors and warning which led to issues in indexing of the pages from your website.
AMP

AMP tab stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It warns you about the errors which may occur in your URL from time to time. You can fix the issue and then request for a validation as well. The GSC will validate the fixed issue, so that there is no scope of error.

Job Postings

This tab will enable you to list all the job openings you want to post on your website. It also provides states about the responses coming on the job openings and the traffic it is attracting.

Events

This feature provides you a feedback on all your mark-up events.

Links

This section within GSC helps you to keep a track on the number of links from other websites, which points to your website.

Manual Actions

This tab prompts you whenever your website get penalized by Google.

So, if you are concerned with performance of your website, then Google Search Console is your cup of tea.

The 5 Best Team Messaging Apps

6 July,2018 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Source: Handshake.com

You would wonder why team-messaging apps are required when you have so many of instant messaging apps to communicate. Well, these apps help organize team conversations about different topics at the same time as well as give you the freedom to search for the question’s already answered.

In addition, you do not need to search for the email addresses or contact information of your company’s employee. These apps also offer conference video calls, screen sharing, private messaging and discussion groups. It helps to keep all communications in one place, which makes it easy for everyone to communicate.

Team messaging apps help save time and make your company an exciting place to work. Here are the five best team messaging apps for your company:

Slack
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web
Pricing: $8/month/user

“Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge” or Slack is an easy to use platform wherein you can join chat rooms based on the topic, and can also join private groups and enjoy direct messaging.

All the content inside slack is searchable including files, people and conversations. It offers a feature known as Teams, which allows groups, communities, or teams to join using a particular URL or invite sent by the team admin.

Stride (formerly HipChat)
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web
Pricing: $2/month/user

HipChat is a web service for the internal private online chat and instant messaging. Hipchat offers one-on-one and group/topic chat. Other features include cloud-based file storage, inline-image viewing, video calling and searchable message-history, 5 GB of file storage and SMS messaging. Custom emoticons and inline GIF playback are also noticeable features.

Workplace by Facebook
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web
Pricing: It offers a free 3-month trial account
$3/month/user for 1000 active users
$2/month/user for 1001-10000 active users
$1/month/user for more than 10000 active users

Workplace by Facebook allows you to communicate via different groups, to chat with employees and offers the features of the social network for your company. Walmart, Spotify, Air Asia, and Starbucks are noticeable clients of Workplace by Facebook.

It is also free for registered nonprofit organizations and staff of educational institutions.

Flock
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Web
Pricing: $3/month/user

It allows users to configure different apps and integrations from their App Store, and receive notifications and updates directly into Flock app. The app supports multiple languages, including English, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. You can create multiple teams for the entire company, a department or selected members of the organization.

Microsoft Teams
Platforms: Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web
Pricing: $6 /month for a normal subscription
$15/month/user for a premium subscription

Microsoft Teams is a wonderful platform that helps you organize meetings, make notes, join chats and send attachments. You can easily integrate Microsoft Teams with the Office 365 subscription including Microsoft Office and Skype.

It has channels that are topics of conversation that allow your employees to communicate without the use of email’s or SMS (texting). Users can also reply to posts using different images, GIF or custom-made memes.

How To Calculate The Right PPC Budget For Your Business

1 September,2017 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

image source: Inramstechnology.com

Pay Per Click or PPC budget is a tricky one for a business as it requires planning and calculations just like any other advertising strategies yet it is something that may be considered to pull up the sales to a desirable platform where other means may be failing.

First, planning is required to determine the aim you wish to achieve with this budget. The main aim is acquiring a desired or estimated number of customers while paying not beyond a specific limit within a set time period. Therefore, the objective is something that is specific, can be measured and achieved, relevant and also time bound.

To determine the budget, certain formulae can be used to determine possible conversions of prospective customers and accordingly a budget can be set. But it’s not that easy. You will also be required to determine competitor’s activities with regard to paid advertising strategies, researching on appropriate keywords and also cost per customer.

How to determine lead generation?

Let’s first consider the formulae available to decide upon lead generation.

(Revenue / Sales Period) / Average Sale = Number of Customers
Number of customers / Conversion Rate = Number of leads
Number of leads / Conversion Rate on Traffic = Amount of Traffic

If we fill the equations with some real numbers, we will arrive at a possible lead generation value through which we can determine if the PPC budget is worth considering or not. If it’s worth it then, we go to the next step that is to analyze competitor activities.

Analyzing competitor activities

Analyzing the Google AdWords of competitors is the next step which can be achieved using software like SpyFu and Moz Pro. These can give you lot of details about expenditure, keywords that are targeted and advertisements. Accordingly, a rough estimate can be drawn to guess the budget of competitors. However, that’s not enough as it’s the keywords that determine the volume of traffic and also the cost effectiveness.

Understanding Keywords Research

In order to determine which keywords will fetch more bulk of traffic with less expenditure, a sound keyword research is required. Google AdWords is a free tool which will help to determine the most used keywords. Using the following formula we can determine a rough estimate of annual traffic:-

Monthly keyword searches X Click-Through Rate = Estimated Monthly Traffic X 12 =Estimated Annual Traffic

Based on results, you can determine the budget either by increasing keywords to achieve the business objective or whether the leads which pour in through other advertising means like social media, SEO and email should be increased.

Determining a PPC budget is challenging in the sense that lot of assumptions and pre-conditions have to be decided based on various factors like previous experience and research of variables and doing the calculations to reach a plausible amount of expenditure. The main aim is to fill up possible gaps present in rest of the advertising strategies while remaining within expenditure limit.

Reasons Your PPC Programs Can Fail

26 July,2017 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Image Source: Kaigi.Biz

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign is used by various companies. According to marketers, PPC is associated with an incredible value in order to create the business awareness among the mass. Some companies find it a very successful means to grow their business, but some of them can’t succeed with this.

Using PPC, many companies grow their business from small customers to a large number of customers. But, because of some silly mistakes, some companies end up the story by wasting a huge amount of money. Actually, the problem of failure can be the result of some most common mistakes. The companies that properly monitor, test, and execute the campaign, hardly face any depressive situation with PPC.

So, in this article, we will talk about some most common reasons behind the PPC failure. Let’s catch them one by one.

Impatience

The fact is that most of the companies don’t spend much amount of money to test the combinations of the keyword, to get sufficient leads for improving quality score, to get the correct strategies of keywords and so on.

But, to taste the joy of success, the first investment should be larger than the monthly PPC expenditure in order to test, improve, measure and build expectations on the quality of leads, CPL (Cost per Lead), and the value of the conversion. PPC is not about a single project, but it’s a continuous process that requires a significant amount of time for improvement and should be managed by an efficient marketing team.

No idea about customer interests

Most of the customers don’t want to purchase from the PPC click campaigns. At first, they want to perform a thorough research before taking their decision. The companies generally provide a number of options to convert the search visitors into the engaging customers. Some of these options are subscription, demonstration sign up, white paper download and so on.

If the visitors are not signing up, it doesn’t necessarily mean the company will not get the traffic to its program. But, the companies have to keep their eyes on all the conversion options and the visitor activities that may convert into conversion. Some of the customers can start showing their interest through white paper downloading or e-mail subscription, so you should always alert with your customers’ options of interest. This way, these interests can be included in the PPC campaigns.

Incorrect campaign tracking

Many companies have only one landing page that serves for both of the organic purpose as well as paid traffic purpose and most of the time, they are not associated with any campaign tracker to differentiate these two purposes in the analytics. PPC can be a superb strategy in this regard. But, a professional analytics team is required in order to distinguish between those two purposes as well as measure the PPC campaign success.

The design of the landing page should be eye-catching so that the customers can feel the enthusiasm engaging with the site as well as the content of the landing page should be interesting and simple enough to attract the mass. The goal related to PPC should be clear enough in order to achieve the success. With the crystal clear strategy, you don’t have to end up the story by only wasting the money that is you can get your desired success.

Strategies to Boost Your Digital Marketing Campaign

8 July,2017 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Image: tech.co

When it comes to selling your products and getting the maximum profit from your business, it is important that you make the most of your digital marketing campaign. Even though direct emails still remain as one of the most effective and reliable modes of reaching potential buyers, digital marketing can help you in achieving this goal at a cheaper cost, considering the high cost of link generation in certain sectors. There are many things that you can do to improve and boost your digital marketing campaign so that you get the maximum reach and profit from your business.

We have made a list of some of the most reliable and effective methods to achieve this goal and help you improve your business.

Social media strategy

Even though social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and others might be more popular among the younger generation, up to 35 percent of the seniors above the age of 65 have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and the likes. The amount of reach and target audience that you can reach with the help of social media is virtually infinite. Therefore, it is important to take the maximum advantage of social media to improve your business.

Start a content marketing campaign

The fact still remains that most people prefer to use articles and other sources of information when compared to advertisements and other promotional materials to get information about a new product or service. Therefore, it is a good idea to start a content marketing campaign. The aim of the campaign should be to educate the user. Therefore, fill your blogs with articles and other contents that are related to your target market. You can also optimize your content in such a way that it is easily visible to the search engine and gets you more traffic.

Create a geotagged PPC advertising campaign

The most effective way of reaching out to your potential customers is to display your ads next to their search results. By geotagging your PPC (pay-per-click) campaign, it becomes easier for you to meet the local prospects.

Optimize your SEO

I cannot stress the importance of optimizing SEO enough. But even then, people tend to leave out the fact that optimizing your website is one of the most effective methods of improving your traffic. By optimizing your SEO, your search engine ranking can be increased and you become more prominent in the search list. Your blog is no good to anyone if they cannot find it.

Providing downloadable content

In this digital era, the take-home information and resources are substituted by downloadable content. These can be in the form of case studies, eBooks, and FAQ which help the audience to get to know the product without cluttering their rooms. You can also create presentations as they can help save time. It is also a more eco-friendly means of sharing your information, which means you are doing your bit for saving the planet.

Keep these things in mind to strengthen your digital marketing campaign and boost your ROI.

Do Search Ads Really Work?

4 July,2017 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

An integral part of any company’s success and profit is based on its advertisements and how these advertisements attract more customers and traffic towards your business. Advertisements are a common thing today. You can see advertisements no matter where you look, from billboards and walls to our televisions and mobiles. Even the internet has become a big gathering spot for all kinds of advertisements and marketing campaigns.

Image: Opentopic

Like we know, there are many different types of advertisements that you can choose to tell the world about your products or services. One of the types of advertising in internet marketing that has grown considerably in the past few years. Search advertising is the process of showcasing online advertisements on the web page along with the results. It is highly recommended to focus on your advertisements along with other published content to reach a larger audience.

But unlike the yesteryears, when it was not possible to keep track of your advertisements and if or not it got more sales and traffic, it is possible to make sure that you get the maximum from your advertisements. With the help of companies like Facebook and Google, which enable you to track the online activities and spending of a user, it is possible to make sure that your ads reach the right person who is most likely to buy the product.

Image from: MDG Advertising

There are various studies being conducted on the topic of whether or not search ads are effective in boosting sales. But in theory, you have a higher chance of getting sales and profit from displaying ads to people who are looking for the item rather than to create static banner ads. But in certain cases, it has been found that investing in search ads might not have that much of a visible effect. For example, eBay noted no considerable change in their traffic or sales when they took down their search ads from a search engine giant.

But there are a lot of success stories related to search engine ads. A research on the Yelp ads has shown that the use of search ads can make a considerable difference in the number of sales and traffic to your website. Even though the two results might seem contradicting, the change in the results can be easily explained by the fact that eBay is a well-known and renowned brand. To advertise something that people already know yields lesser result. But whereas in the case of local businesses in Yelp, they were lesser known and got more publicity.

This isn’t to say that bigger and more renowned companies shouldn’t use search advertisement. Search advertisement is still one of the best ways of getting sales and publicizing promotions. It can also be used to alert the customers something that they are not aware of.

Using ads and your marketing campaign is one of the easiest ways of getting more sales and maximizing your profit. With the correct information and tools at your disposal, it is possible to make the most out of your website.

BlogSimplio Labs Blog

Katie White, founder of re:lax

Michael, founder of WeCompareCasinos.com

Charlie Spokes, founder of My Friend Charlie

Tom Bourlet, search and paid media manager for the Spaghetti Traveller

Data-supported marketing

Video

Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality

Conversational content with voice technology

Omni-channel marketing

Social media ads

Real events and experiences

Should be able to multitask

Curiosity is the key to learn, specifically if you are a beginner

Must have good work ethic

Must be cordial with colleagues and others in the same field

You must know how to search well

You should be good with SEO and SEM techniques

Data Analysis is for your own good

Be a tech-lover

Create an audience engaging content

Do as much as marketing and ads as possible to promote your work

Impatience

No idea about customer interests

Incorrect campaign tracking

Social media strategy

Start a content marketing campaign

Create a geotagged PPC advertising campaign

Optimize your SEO

Providing downloadable content

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