Tag: marketing

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Six Ways to Use Video Marketing as A Solo Entrepreneur

Video marketing is a great way to reach your target audience. Video marketing is another powerful tool that can be used for business growth. Video marketing helps you build trust with your audience, increase conversion rates, and generate leads. However, a strategic understanding of using your online video for marketing is needed. You need to use the right tools and a targeted strategy to reach the right audiences at the right time. This allows you to generate leads, increase conversion rates and build trust while driving traffic back to your website.

 

Here are six ways to use video marketing as a solo entrepreneur:

 

Make Reels on Instagram

With Instagram Reels, you can create a video collage on your phone and post it to the platform for all of your followers to see. It’s a great way to show off all of the best moments from your day – from getting ready in the morning to conquering that epic hike or other entrepreneurial goals.

 

Start a TikTok and YouTube Channel

TikTok and YouTube are both social media platforms with millions of monthly users. TikTok is a micro-video app that allows users to post short clips with music in the background. On the other hand, YouTube’s streaming service enables people to upload and share long-form videos easily.

 

Tell a Story

Storytelling is an attractive way to create a message your audience will love and stay interested in. It is always the best way to persuade your audience or make them feel a certain way. So, if you want to make the best impact with video marketing, tell a story.

 

Educate and Engage

Informative and engaging videos are what keep your audience interested. It also helps them to share your content so you can reach more people. The more engaging and informative your video, the more likely your audience will consume it and share it with others.

 

Showcase Your Products or Services

Video is a powerful marketing tool in the modern-day business world. It’s also one of the most powerful ways to highlight your products and services. Statistics show that businesses who use video as part of their marketing efforts are more likely to generate leads, convert leads into prospects, and close sales faster.

 

Go Live

The benefits of performing live events on social media are endless. Live videos don’t get lost in the feed, and you can reach a wider audience. You can also interact with your viewers, which builds relationships.

 

As demonstrated, there are many different ways to use video marketing to engage and interact with your target audience. Using videos is a powerful source of content that is attractive to many online users. This makes it easier to read and highly shareable –further increasing your reach and helping you to build a loyal audience.

 

 

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Five Ways to Build Your Email Lists as A Solo Entrepreneur

Email marketing is a form of digital marketing used to promote business and build customer relationships. Email marketing offers a very direct form of communication with your customers. It enables you to send messages at intervals, which will result in increased engagement and customer retention. It helps you create an emotional connection with your customers by delivering personalized content based on their preferences and needs. Building an email list is not just about gathering emails and adding them to a database. It’s collecting email addresses, nurturing relationships with those subscribers, and providing value to those people, so they want to hear from you again.

 

Here are five ways to build your email list quickly as a solo entrepreneur:

 

Start With Your Website

Your website needs to be the first point of contact between you and your potential customer. It is where you can tell them about what you do and why they should buy from you. Adding pop-up forms or freebies to your blog with the option to download is the most common way to build your email list.

 

Develop a Valuable Newsletter

Newsletters offer a way for you to stay in touch with your online customers and prospects, share the latest updates from your business, and provide them with the information they want. Your newsletter can include updates on new products or services, upcoming events, and industry trends. If they like what you offer, your audience will freely provide their email address for updates and more information. Not only that, but newsletters will keep your audience engaged and grow to trust you more.

 

Ask For Email with Purchases

If you sell products, the easiest way to build your list is to require an email at purchase. This way, you can send information about the product they are using and update them on other important details.

 

Start a Giveaway or Competition

Giveaways offer a fun and effective way to build your mailing list. They typically have a desirable prize but are not so hot that people don’t want to take the risk of entering. Prizes should be something digital, so you can easily give them away.

 

Use Facebook Ads

Facebook ads let you grow your email list and generate more leads by creating a “lead ad.” They allow for a highly targeted approach, which helps you reach the exact audience you’re looking for.

 

Growing an email list is the best way to build revenue and retain an audience as a solo entrepreneur. You don’t need to use all of these tips right away to see more results with your email marketing campaign. Instead, start with the one that looks the most rewarding and the easiest for you to get started. The more you optimize and build your email lists, the more success you will have in the long run.

 

 

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Four Ways to Take Advantage of Social Media as a Solo Entrepreneur

Social media is a great way to promote your business and get your message out. Free social platforms offer a cost-effective way to reach a broad audience. Many social media platforms exist to choose from, but three are most popular among solo entrepreneurs: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Social media offers a level of engagement unlike any other form of marketing today. It allows you to connect with your customers and build your brand in ways never possible before.

 

Try these four advantageous ways to use social media as an entrepreneur:

 

Engage with Quality Content

Social media marketing starts with quality content. First, you need to create exciting and engaging content to get people interested in what you offer. Without quality content, using social media won’t benefit you. Next, you need to have a social media marketing strategy. You’ll also need to know who you’re targeting and what they want. Without a strategy, everything you post will be done in vain. The key to social media marketing is making sure the content is presented so that people want it: quick, interesting, and easy to digest.

 

Be Generous

The growing number of social media platforms and the increasing usage means that there is a lot of competition. So how can you cut through and make sure that your posts are noticed? First, be generous with the content you share. In other words, use social media to share as much as possible. The more you communicate and share information freely, the more trust you build. Eventually, this will lead to higher returns.

 

Start With the Right Platforms

Most people are unaware that various social media platforms exist for different purposes. For example, Facebook is for personal connections, LinkedIn is for professional connections, and Twitter broadcasts information to a wider audience. Therefore, it’s important to use the right platform to get the most out of social media. If you don’t take the time to study and find the right platform, you’ll just waste your time.

 

Use it To Drive Traffic to Products Directly in Your Store

Finally, but certainly not least, the best way to take advantage of social media marketing is to drive them to other places, such as your blog or online store. You can add links to your social media profiles, posts, blog, or website. Make it easy for them. And follow their trajectory from social media marketing to where you want them.

 

Taking advantage of social media starts with sharing valuable and free content on the platforms you know your target audience uses. This helps get your business more exposure and increases your chances of success. In addition, social media can help you to engage your audience better and make their experience worth it.

 

 

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Four Marketing Facts to Know as an Entrepreneur

Understanding marketing as an entrepreneur is the key to your success. Marketing helps you understand your target audience better and improves your communication to benefit them or increase your value as an entrepreneur. This exchange will eventually lead to a loyal audience that can be monetized to reach your entrepreneurial dreams and desires.

 

Here are four marketing facts that every entrepreneur should know.

 

Marketing is Key to Success for Any Entrepreneur

Marketing is the key to success for any entrepreneur. It is a necessary component of business, and without it, an entrepreneur will likely fail. Marketing is about positioning your product in the market so that your potential customers can notice it. Marketing can take many forms, such as paid advertising, videos, blog posts, or infographics. Nearly eighty-two percent of marketers online say they actively use content marketing to find their target audience.

 

Marketing is All About How You Sell, Not What You Sell

Marketing is not what you sell but how you sell it. Consumers are bombarded daily with brand messages, so marketers have to get creative with their marketing strategies to stay relevant and distinctive. Marketing campaigns should be built around the consumer’s needs and address their pain points with your products or services.

 

Marketing Starts with Your Customer, Not Your or Your Product or Service

Marketing starts with the customer. Creating a product or service for your customer is essential for business success. The key to a successful marketing plan is to understand what customers want and to deliver that. When marketing any product or service, you have to know who your customers are, what they want, and how they think.

 

Who is your customer? What does your customer want? This can be answered by asking the following questions: What are their demographics? What do they buy and why? What’s their favorite type of product/service? Where do they spend their time online, on social media, and generally?

 

The Best way to Market Your Business is Through Word of Mouth and Satisfied Customers

Word-of-mouth marketing is a very powerful marketing method and is one of the reasons digital marketing and social media marketing is so successful. Satisfied customers will naturally tell other people about their experience and share your company’s information. However, if you’re unable to find or maintain enough satisfied customers, you may resort to other marketing methods. Making highly shareable content such as videos, fun infographics, how-to guides, and eBooks is a great way to increase word-of-mouth marketing.

 

Understanding these basic facts will help you understand the value of marketing better. This way, you can be sure the marketing you implement achieves your goals and satisfies your target audience.

 

 

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The Technology You Should be Taking Advantage of as an Entrepreneur

Using technology can help you reach your customers easier and more efficiently as an entrepreneur or small business. It can also help create more valuable products or services and improve customer service and communication. In other words, technology is a business partner or tool you can’t or don’t want to refuse.

 

Here are the different technologies you should be taking advantage of as an entrepreneur:

 

Chatbots and Other Customer Service Tools

Improving customer service is important for retention. However, all the best marketers know that keeping a customer is more manageable than finding new ones. This can simply be done by using chatbots and other automated tools that help to answer questions or even schedule meetings instantly should they need more help.

 

Project Management Software

Keeping a project organized is essential to making the most impact and benefiting your target audience. Project management systems like Trello and Asana ensure you meet deadlines and get the work required to produce and complete a successful product.

 

Marketing and Finance Tools

Tracking your finances is important to the overall success of your business. It helps to be sure you pay the right amount of taxes and have enough income to continue. Wave accounting and QuickBooks online are just two examples to try.

 

Cloud Technology

Today, most businesses generate a lot of content that requires storage and processing power. This can take up a lot of space, be expensive, and be hard to manage without a proper IT department. Dropbox and Salesforce are two examples of cloud services that allow you to store important data such as client information and more.

 

Automation Tools

Automation is key to saving time as well as money. So many tasks are essential to how your company runs, but they really don’t need human interaction to get it done. This is why tools such as Zapier can be so beneficial. They help automate tasks, so you don’t have to do it yourself.

 

Data Tracking

Data tracking is important to help keep track of your marketing and overall results as a business. For example, compare sales numbers per quarter to see which marketing strategies impacted. In addition, using data can easily save you time and frustration as you learn how to communicate with your target audience.

 

Each of these tools or technology helps you better communicate with your target audience, improve your products, reach a wider audience, and increase your overall success as an entrepreneur. While technology can be beneficial, it is important to note that it is only as valuable as the user. In other words, don’t expect the technology to work for you without learning how to use it first. Take your time implementing each of these different tools to see which ones provide the most value or are worth your time implementing.

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Five Highly Profitable Digital Products to Sell

Selling digital products is a profitable business model to follow because digital products typically have lower overhead and startup costs than other business models. In addition, the internet offers nearly endless possibilities to market and share your products, ultimately making it easier to get your digital product in front of the right people or customers. Not only that, but digital products are also easier to get started, especially if you have specific knowledge, strength, or skills in a certain topic or subject.

 

The following are five highly profitable digital products to sell to create a sustainable business:

 

eBooks or Courses

Turn your expertise into an interactive course or eBook. Many people online are looking for ways to solve their problems and often in a more fun or easy way to digest the information. Hands-on courses with videos, quizzes, and certificates can be priced high as many consumers want to invest in education. Allowing you to create a highly profitable and engaging digital product.

 

Nutrition and Exercise Plans

Adopting a healthy lifestyle is by far one of the most searched topics on the internet. Most people claim that they want to eat a more nutritious diet and adopt a better exercise routine. Shopping lists, written food, and goal trackers are a few more ideas to add to this niche.

 

Pintables

Anything printable can be turned into a saleable digital product. Templates like cutting patterns, fun checklists, and even coloring sheets are a few ideas to get started. Profitable pintables usually make someone’s job or career easier.

 

PLR Content

A more efficient way to start a content writing business is to package it into private label rights. Using pre-created keyword-rich content to sell to customers at an affordable price to more than one party is a fantastic way to enter content marketing. The people who purchase this content have permission to use it how they wish and know others will likely access it. Creating content packages for health coaches is a profitable idea for this niche.

 

Graphics and Infographic Bundles

With graphic design experience or know-how to use Canva like a pro, making graphics and infographics is a highly profitable option for you. The idea is to create as many as you can with different themes or keywords. For example, create a group of graphics related to physical exercise or infographics on how to complete a certain recipe. Then you let your customers have the right to use them in their own business to turn a profit further.

 

The many digital products you can sell on the internet to become a highly profitable and sustainable business showcase how simple it is to make money online. In addition, understand that if there is demand, you can likely create a digital product to sell for a large profit any time you want to.

 

 

 

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How to Start a Home Bakery Business

With state cottage laws owning your own home bakery is now possible. It is far easier to get started and more affordable than a store-front bakery. Not only that, but it also gives you more freedom and control over your business.

 

The top ten percent of home bakers make roughly forty-three thousand a year or more. Due to laws, your income potential is capped but can provide a nice work-life balance and provide enough income to live the lifestyle you desire. Eventually, your home bakery business can be expanded to a storefront or online bakery if you wish.

 

The following are five essential steps to follow to start a home bakery business that is profitable and sustainable:

 

Step One: Pick Your Baking Niche

The first step is to develop your menu and decide who your target audience is. A home bakery business means you have to do all the work and won’t have the space to offer as many items as a traditional bakery.

 

Step Two: Don’t Forget About Marketing

All home bakeries must have a website and one social media page to advertise their work. Without it, you would need to rely on word-of-mouth marketing which can be a slow process solely. A website allows you to get your information and treats in front of people quickly, no matter where you are.

 

Step Three: Price Correctly and Value Your Time

Start pricing your products correctly from the start and don’t allow haggling of any kind. Being a home bakery business means all costs and time go through you. If you lower your prices, you will have to pay for it in the end. Figure out how much time it takes to complete each product, the full costs of each recipe down to each ingredient, and the amount required to get it done. Please put this information together in excel files to keep them organized and create pricing estimates within minutes. This means you should be able to price one cookie or one-hundred cookies using a simple formula easily.

 

Step Four: Remember Your Legal Requirements

Be sure to register your business correctly with your local, state, and federal government. Beyond a business license, you also need to get familiar with cottage laws in your state. Each state has different rules and limitations to what you can sell and regulations on how to sell them. For example, each product you sell typically needs a label of the ingredients and that it was made in a cottage food kitchen. This way, those purchasing your items understand exactly where the products are coming from and ensure their safety.

 

Step Five: Develop Proper Contracts

Before you finish or start a baking job, always create a contract, and get it signed or agreed upon. This way, there is no confusion while you create the product or when turning it in. The more information you get upfront with confirmation, the more you can protect yourself and your profits.

 

If starting a home bakery is something you believe you want to do, be sure to follow each of these steps. Understanding your local cottage laws and legal requirements is essential to running a profitable home bakery. From there, you will need to market and continue to perfect your craft. Word of mouth marketing and providing superior cakes and other sweet treats are necessary to succeed and profit within this industry.

 

 

 

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How to Track Your Influencer Marketing ROI

When you engage an influencer to help you market your product and services, you must track the metrics just like anything else you do in your business. The only way you can be sure that action A causes result C is that you tracked and measured it.

 

Determine Your Campaign Goals

 

Before setting a realistic budget, you need to understand your goals for each campaign clearly. You will have different requirements for every goal, which means the costs associated and return on investment for each product will vary. Working with a micro-influencer will fees significantly less than working with a macro influencer, for example.

 

For example, you may have the goal of getting more subscribers to your e-mail list. If so, what exactly will that require? It’ll require giving the audience a reason to click through and sign up, for one thing. What else? Make sure you know and match all goals with the requirements.

 

Identify Key Performance Metrics

6 WAYS YOU CAN TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Your goal needs to be clear and direct for each campaign to determine what key performance metrics to keep track of. This way, you have a more accurate representation of your return on investment. Tracking the wrong indicators like sales volumes when your main goal is brand exposure will provide inconsistent results.

 

While exposure can translate into more sales, it is better to keep track of your audience growth, engagement rate, or new versus return visitors before, during, and after the campaign. The point is to make sure you are watching the specific metrics that reflect your goal. For sales, keep tracking affiliate links, promotion codes.

 

Highlight Individual Campaign Expenses

 

What supporting details or materials do you need to run the campaign? Product costs, travel costs, influencer fees, agency fees, and more. You must first determine the influencer strategy or content you want to create to know what you need to budget for the campaign.

 

Track, Compare and Evaluate

 

You should keep track of all data before any campaign starts. If you don’t pull key performance metrics first, you won’t know if the results are really translating into a positive return. The only way to be certain of effectiveness is to check the metrics before, during, and after.

 

Your return on investment will be as good as your due diligence. Do your research and find the right influencers who offer the best services for the budget you have. The more you work with others in this regard, the more effective you’ll become over time. You’ll be able to use the numbers to figure out what is working and do more of that.

 

 

 

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Six Steps to the Influencer Outreach Process

In order to find the perfect influencers for your campaigns, it’s important to go through an outreach process that ensures you find just the right people. After all, if you do this with a plan in mind and seriously check your information and data for accuracy, you can practically guarantee that you’ll be successful. Truly, you’re not even taking that much of a risk when you do this work to get it right.

 

Step #1: Create an Influencer List

Define Your Influencer Marketing Goals

Form a list of the influencers you would like to work with the most. The bigger the list at this point, the better. Shoot for locating at least 20 to 30 potential influencers per platform. Focus on one platform at a time to streamline this process.

 

Step #2: Review Their Profiles

 

Find the information required to make decisions before reaching out to the influencer. Find their social media handles and business credentials. Many influencers include links and special e-mails for business inquiries. Avoid using their personal e-mail or profile when contacting them. Instead, follow their accounts and actually view their profiles and content for a period of time before reaching out.

 

Step #3: Develop a Brief Project Goal

 

Determine why you want to work with an influencer at all. What is your goal? Do you want to boost traffic? If so, how is working with them going to do that? Do you want to make sales? How will this influencer help you make more sales? Figure out the mechanism to reach the goal you’ve set by setting SMART goals to ensure that you have a plan going forward.

 

Step #4: Pick Your Medium

 

You may need to be flexible and communicate with each influencer in the way that they desire to. For example, they may choose to use e-mail, direct message, management contact, video chat, phone call, mail merge apps, sponsored product packages, or something else. Typically, the influencer will have guidelines on their business page about what they need from you. If not, choose what you want to present to them and how.

 

Step #5: Create and Personalize Your Message

 

Be specific, clear, and direct about your goals, what your products or services are and how you’re going to work with them on this project if they choose to work with you. Always make sure that you include follow-up information and server times that will work for you to get the collaboration started faster. Be flexible but only within the guidelines you’ve already set for yourself and your campaign’s time limit and deadlines.

 

Step #6: Edit and Review

 

Always edit and review everything before sending it on to a potential influencer. The clearer you are, the easier it’s going to be to work together. You want to be professional as possible when you reach out to them. The higher quality your reach out is, the higher quality they’re going to expect from themselves as they create your campaign.

 

Once you reach out, make sure you record how and when you reached out to them so that you can follow up quickly when needed. The more records you keep, the easier it’s going to be each time you set up a campaign.

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Quit These Bad Time Management Habits Now

Adopting the right time management habits and routine for your business is essential for maximum productivity. Obviously, if you don’t have the time or can’t manage it appropriately, you will always be behind.

 

Here are five common bad time management habits you must quit now for better business success:

 

Creating Variable Deadlines

If your deadlines are not strict or hard, then you are only doing yourself a disservice and further using up and wasting time. More so than if you didn’t set one in the first place. Every time you move that deadline, you use adequate time to focus on action instead. Set firm ones to keep you on track and find the discipline you need to be a business owner.

 

Utilizing the Wrong Tools or Too Many

Tools are great until they are not. With any technology or resources, even if they work great for others, it doesn’t mean it will automatically be right for you. Each person and business is unique and needs to be studied, tried, and tested.

 

Doing Easy Tasks First

Don’t use your most productive time on easy or brainless tasks. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean you should get it out of the way. Use these tasks at the end of your day, or when you don’t need to focus on a bigger or better project that brings you closer to your main objectives.

How To Manage Your Energy

Just imagine you start your workday full of energy, ready to tackle your most demanding project but then fall into the never-ending rabbit hole of emails. Your energy is drained before you know it, and now you have to slug through your work to reach your deadlines. Affecting the quality of your work and likely decreasing your willpower. Making you create excuses to give you permission to change your deadlines and delaying any results that truly make you productive.

 

Zero Time Tracking Tools

If you are not tracking the time it takes you to complete each task, you are not planning appropriately. Effective time management and planning include understanding precisely the time you need to get it done and then applying fifteen to twenty extra minutes to account for the unexpected.

 

Being Someone That You Are Not

Trying to go after all the latest trends or following the advice of everyone around you constantly without taking a break, being dishonest with yourself, and not being true to yourself is a recipe for disaster.

 

Their habits may work for them, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the most valuable or comfortable for you too. If you keep doing things just because everyone else is but unhappy and uncomfortable about the process, your business and customers will see it too. Always be honest with yourself and keep the journey more personal for more success.

 

Don’t let these bad habits control your life. You have what it takes to do and be better as long as you put in the work and take a moment to reflect.