Tag: strategy

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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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Why Influencer Marketing Works

In 2020, Influencer marketing was worth more than nine billion dollars. It is now expected to grow beyond thirteen billion dollars. Showing you that it is here to stay and only growing stronger. Influencer marketing is a form of worth-of-mouth or online marketing using social media platforms and influencers who share content to promote products or services for companies with similar target audiences.

 

The goal is to influence their audience to increase their conversions, usually in increased sales, traffic, or engagement. Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are currently the top three social media platforms used by many influencers and companies worldwide to market their products, services, or ideas.

 

Here are the main reasons why influencer marketing works and why it is so beneficial to your brand:

 

Influencers Build Trust and Establish Creditability

 

Not only can influencers help you find your target audience more easily, but they can also help you connect and engage with them. An influencer has an audience because they have similar interests to them and appreciates their opinion.

 

Meaning the influencer already has established trust and credibility. When they partner with a company, that trust and credibility often transfer over. Without these two factors, you can’t expect to make a sale or increase your conversions. Customers need validity in exchange for their time and revenue.

 

Influencers Create Engagement and Long-Lasting Relationships

 

Along with trust comes needed engagement. What kind of engagement you need is up to you and your business goals? For many, that includes more likes, comments, shares, and clicks to their websites to make a sale and increase their revenue or exposure hopefully. Not only do they increase your engagement rate, the relationship is more personal too. Meaning they can form deeper and stronger relationships, further increasing the trust and loyalty to your brand.

 

Influencers Expose You to Larger and More Loyal Audiences

 

Establishing a relationship with several different influencers allows you to get in front of more people with the same target audience as yours, especially when comparing it to traditional online ads. In addition, your target audience is less likely to skip over it when an influencer is involved as it humanizes your brand.

 

As you can see, if you haven’t added influencers to your marketing strategy yet, then you are likely missing out. In fact, according to a Mediakix survey conducted in 2019, nearly 17% of companies use or will use half of their marketing budget on influencers alone. While that is a small percentage, many companies reported in the same year that they want to significantly increase their influencer budgets to keep up with the current demand for social media content. They believe influencer marketing is paramount to their success now and in the future.

 

 

 

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These Niches Benefit the Most from Influencer Marketing

Any product or service can benefit from influencer marketing. However, some certain niches or genres perform better and see far more success than others. This is likely because the content is easily shareable, visual, consumable, and in high demand.

 

The following are the most popular industries for influencer marketing:

 

Beauty and Fashion

 

This is probably the most obvious niche within influencer marketing as it makes up the bulk of it. Products and services within this niche are built on their ability to make bold, beautiful, and colorful works of art. They are highly shareable and consumable, making them a powerful product to influence. The Instagram platform is a visual social media that is one of the most used for this niche as the niche creates amazing visuals.

 

Gaming

 

Another niche that probably won’t come to you as a surprise. This industry is worth over 130 billion dollars. Those who love gaming thrive for information to learn how to complete their game or compete at the highest level against their rivals. Sharing reviews on the most anticipated game of the year or console or walkthroughs and guides on how to achieve the highest level in competitive play are just a few things audiences crave. You can often find gaming influencers on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and even Twitter.

 

Health and Fitness

 

Most people want to learn how to be healthy, improve their apparencies or maintain their weight. It is vital to your survival, meaning there is high demand for needed information. Weight loss how-to videos, advertising sportswear, or selling weightless programs are a few great things in this niche that influencers can promote.

 

Food and Travel

 

Mouthwatering dishes, videos on how to bake the perfect cake, how-to guides on traveling the world on a small budget, or simply sharing the meals you’ve tried while traveling to exotic places are just a few examples of content audiences crave within these niches. Many young adults have reported using Instagram as their source of information before they book their travels or YouTube to learn how to cook a new meal.

 

While these are the most common and successful industries in influencer marketing, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a try if your niche didn’t make this list. You can be an innovator and start something new within your industry as long as you use the right tools and resources.

 

Find the right social media platform and influencer, and create the best content with your target audience and business goals in mind. This extensive list shows that influencer marketing will likely benefit your company as long as you can provide visual content that solves a high-demand problem. Influencer marketing thrives on high-quality visuals and in-demand content.

Tools and Tips to Help You Automate Social Media Marketing

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Learn to Laugh More Often

Sometimes you can make yourself feel happier and more successful by simply seeking out more laughter. A daily habit that will pay off big time is simply not taking life or yourself too seriously while finding ways to laugh about funny things even if they’re hard.

 

Developing the habit of laughter simply requires that you give yourself permission to laugh and let go and seek out more humor. Let’s look at several ways you can bring more laughter into your life.

 

  • Spend Time with Funny People – When you really want to feel light, there are likely people in your life that you can make sure you spend time with. When you hang out with funny people, it will rub off on you.

 

  • Try New Experiences Often – One way to bring laughter back into your life is to keep trying new things. When you open your life and mind to new experiences, you also open yourself up to funny things happening to you that are out of the norm of what might happen if you just do the same thing day in and day out.

Tips to Help You Practice Positive Thinking

  • Watch Your Favorite Funny Go to Sitcom or Movie – Sometimes, you have to pull out the big guns and watch a rerun of something that made you laugh when times were good. Bringing laughter back into your life in any way you can is a healthy habit that pays off for years to come.

 

  • See The Situation from a New Perspective – Everyone sees things from their own perspective and information bubble when you realize that you can become more like a child or a baby or a first-time parent by opening up your world to new ideas and perspectives.

 

  • Go to a Comedy Club Show – Choose the type of humor you like but burst through your comfort zone and go to a comedy show near you. You may not even realize that people still do comedy shows at clubs, and you don’t even have to put up with smoking nowadays if you don’t want to.

 

  • Understand Human Nature – When you know how humans really behave, on average, it’s a lot easier to see what is happening to you through the eyes of experience. When you understand that this is just how things are, it is way funnier than when you think it’s only happening to you.

 

The great thing about bringing more laughter into your life is that it pays off in numerous ways. It will lower the stress you’re experiencing, which will lessen your chances of experiencing stress-related diseases like obesity that lead to serious cardiovascular disease. Not only that, but it’s like you’re also doing a ton of sit-ups to your stomach muscles. It’s a way to get in shape that doesn’t feel like work at all.

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Schedule Your Daily Activities Based on Your Goals

Developing daily habits that drive success sounds complicated, but the truth is, when you break down your actions based on what you want to achieve and then distribute that action realistically into your daily to-do list, success will start to feel almost automatic.

 

Turn Daily Planning into a Habit

 

Every morning first thing, it’s important to take a look at the to-do list that has been created based on the goals you’ve set at other times. Putting the actions, you need to do in order of importance and based on today’s reality is important to help avoid any roadblocks to achieving the goals you’ve set.

 

This type of planning should only take about five minutes and consist of simply opening your scheduling method, whether it’s paper or digital, and double-checking the schedule for any bottlenecks or issues. You can then rearrange things on the fly to ensure ease of success.

 

All To-Do Lists Need to Be Goal-Based

 

If something made it to your to-do list, it needs to be based on the goals you’ve set for yourself. For instance, if you have the goal of losing 50 pounds by a certain date today in your calendar, you might include your daily calorie limit, your daily moving goals, and your hydration goals.

 

If it’s related to a deliverable for work such as getting 10,000 edited words to your book editor by a certain date, then you know simply by looking at the schedule because you’ve set aside the time to devote to the future goal. It’s all on the to-do list.

 

Break It All Down into Small Micro Tasks

 

When you have the deliverable or result that you want described in great detail as part of your SMART goal-setting process, and it is easier to break down each goal into smaller micro-tasks resulting in your to-do list for today.

 

Consider Your Week, Months, and Years as a Whole

 

When you do your daily planning, you’ll also want to schedule weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning to help you get a big picture look at all the balls you have in the air. These longer times for planning should be scheduled to ensure that you don’t have bottlenecks and are taking control of the things you have control over.

 

Schedule Everything

 

Remember, you want to automatically schedule the work and actions you need to develop your goals and objectives. But don’t just focus on one aspect of your life.

 

Instead, you want to schedule everything in regarding everything to do with your life, whether it’s time with friends, which will be part of your long-term goals of building strong relationships, or 45 minutes of fast walking because that’s part of your long-term goal to stay healthy – taking the time to schedule every action you will take will assist in building daily habits that lead to success.

 

Have No More Than 3 Daily Priorities

 

While you will schedule everything, even if it’s a nap break, you want to only put up to three things as your daily priority. Setting daily priorities should only happen the week that you’re looking at the schedule and perfecting it. The main reason is you cannot know what a priority will be for next Monday if you don’t know that your spouse will be sick.

 

Try Different Productivity Methods

Free and Low-Cost Automation Tools You Can Implement Today

Part of creating a schedule and making it work is learning how to be more productive and get things done. Everyone has a sworn-by method. The best thing is to experiment with other methods. Try a new one each 30 days until something sticks with you.

 

Some methods to try include the Pomodoro Technique, Block Scheduling, and the Eisenhower Matrix.

 

Use The Right Planning Tools

 

It doesn’t matter if your chosen planning tools are paper or digital as long as you use the tool and work for you. Try different tools. Some people swear by Google Calendar, and others hate it.

 

Finally, eliminate distractions so that you stick to the schedule you have ended up with each day. Technically if your daily activities are organized first based on your long-term and short-term goals, then each day, the actions you take will be impactful, trackable, and 100 percent within your own control to do or not do.

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Your Lack of Realism Is Stalling Your Success

Realism allows you to manage your time better to plan more efficiently with improved confidence, clarity, and focus on tackling your goals. Realism ensures positivity and actions that result in creating attainable and relevant pursuits. Realistic people are said to be more independent and practical with their time.

Managing Your Mental State (When Times Are Tough) or (Through Adversity)

They use education, knowledge, and mindfulness to their advantage to make the right decisions. You will rarely see them go with the flow or not take a moment to recognize it for what it truly is. Without realism, you are likely down a rocky path of confusion and low self-confidence as you continue to accomplish goals that don’t lead to happiness or try to go after ones that don’t make sense and are out of reach.

This is a Great Jim Rohn Video that highlights the Steps to setting Realistic Goals. Pure Gold!

 

The following are a few tips to help you be more realistic to improve your business and life:

 

Always Stop to Think and Evaluate

Your parents might have told you this already, but it’s important to reiterate and harder than one might think. However, it’s the first step you should take to being more realistic. If you don’t stop and thoroughly analyze the situation, it could lead to more problems down the road. Miscommunication often stems from reacting right away rather than fully listening and being aware in that moment. It only takes a few minutes to evaluate your situation to be sure the information you are receiving and dissecting is accurate or not.

 

Develop More Awareness

Realism develops through experiences and education. Taking the time to learn about other people and the challenges or different things they go through in life allows you to see a different perspective and really see things for what they are. When you know all sides of the equation, you won’t be shocked at the result.  Join local events, industry conferences and surround yourself with more people that have similar interests and goals.

Ask for Feedback and Advice

Don’t shy away from constructive feedback, advice, or different point of view. The purpose is to provide you more insight and information you can’t see for yourself. Even if their opinions may not be true in the end, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t value you in some way. Now you know what not to do, for example.

 

Take Responsibility

Commit to being more mindful and responsible for your actions and inactions. This means being proactive with your life and gaining the knowledge required to form the success you want. Recognize your mistakes and find ways to improve, and always strive to be and do better.

 

Remember, the key to realism is to slow down, experience more, take in as much information as possible to create the right action steps to achieve your dreams and aspirations.

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Why Your To-Do Lists Are Failing You

Did you make a to-do list for the day? If so, how far have you gone, or did you completely forget about it already? Well, don’t worry too much. As roughly 41% of items on most people’s to-do lists never get done, you are not alone.

Get Your Goals into Your Calendar

Most people are not making the right to-do lists either.  The best way to fix it and have it work for you and not against you is first to understand the common reasons why they fail in the first place.

Here are five common reasons to-do lists fail and how you can do better:

 

Way too Many Things to Do

To-do lists should never be pages long or used for the long term. Instead, they should focus on daily tasks within a certain period of time you plan to get to work. Meaning you should have multiple to-do lists, not one overwhelming one that will surely get you lost.

 

Unclear Deadlines

You must set hard deadlines and have the discipline to follow through. A to-do list without them only gives you the permission to take your time or not do it at all. Understand how long it really takes to do each activity, including prep, and clean up – and never assume you can do double the amount of work you can do overnight.

 

You Don’t Account for The Unexpected

No ones’ schedule is perfect, so don’t plan it that way. Account for flexibility and always include an extra fifteen minutes each day for the unexpected. You may end up in the bathroom or traffic a little longer than you realized, for example. So, don’t schedule important meetings or errands to accomplish back-to-back with the idea that everything will go smoothly.

 

It Was Created with A Long-Term Mindset

In other words, you are giving yourself too much time to complete tasks or are creating to-do lists for more than one day. Your to-do lists will guide and maintain your 90-day action plan. They are not meant to replace it. Be sure the lists are to the point and a direct path for achieving your primary objective for that day or even a 90-minute period.

 

Unorganized and Unclear Main Objectives

Taking the time to dissect and pinpoint what you want to achieve is crucial to accomplishing them. If you can’t have a firm grip on what you want, you can’t be sure you will have the right plan either. Unclear objectives lead to unorganized plans, ideas, and actions. Learn to understand what you need and want and prioritize to get things done in a timely and orderly fashion.

 

Don’t let your to-do lists fail you anymore. To-do lists are great to utilize and guide your day to ensure you are on the right trajectory to long-term success, as long as they are done correctly.

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Monetizing Your Email Messages

You have created an extraordinary and compelling lead magnet that is persuasive and solves one problem in a hurry for your ideal customer, depending on who you’re targeting in their buying journey, but just getting people on the list is not the end. You have to find ways to make money too. You only make money by making paid offers.

Lead Magnet Ideas You Can Use

  • Promote a Product You Use – If you’re part of your own audience, the products and services you use to solve those problems are of utmost interest to your audience. Tell them what you think about each resource you use and invite them to use it, too, with your affiliate link.

 

  • Promote Your Own Products and Services – Every three to four emails, send information about the products and services you have created for them. Anytime you bring up one of these problems, you can promote the solution.

 

  • Promote a Service You Love – Did you use a service you like recently that will be useful for your audience too? Let them know about it. Just like you’d tell your best friend about the yummy restaurant you went to last night, you should tell your audience about the services you get results from.

 

  • Tell Your Audience About a Product They Need – Even if you don’t use the products because you’re not part of your own audience, you should tell your audience about the products you need. Just like a doctor tells their patients what they need.

 

  • Create a New Product or Service – As you learn more about your customers, create products that fit into your niche that solve their problems.

 

  • Promote Memberships and Subscriptions – Continuity programs are awesome to promote whether you own them or not. Subscriptions and memberships usually require a monthly payment, which can really add up over time.

 

  • Sell Another Product on Your Download Pages – Anytime you create a thank you or download page, add the next product or service based on what they’re getting now, whether a freebie or not, as a suggestion.

 

  • Maximize Error Pages – Edit your error pages to take advantage of the space by recommending products, freebies, or whatever your current promotion is at the time.

 

  • Host Flash Sales – Keep your audience open and ready for more email messages by surprising them with list member-only sales periodically that thanks them for being VIPs.

 

  • Segment Your Audience Based on Their Behavior – Remember that you can keep segmenting your audience even after getting on your list by telling them about your newest offers, freebies, and so forth and using the automation inside the autoresponder to segment and tag them based on their actions.

 

  • Set Up Low-Cost Tripwires – A tripwire is a low-cost product that tests your audience’s interest. Usually, the cost is less than $27 dollars and is also a great way to build your list with your ideal audience.

Value Ladder

  • Up-Sell, Cross-Sell, and Down-Sell as Needed – Send the right offers to the right people. Based on their behavior, you may need to send information for up-sells, cross-sells, or even a down-sell if needed to keep their interest.

 

  • Remarket to Your List Members Via Paid Ads – One effective way to keep your list active is to use technology such as remarketing ads via social media. You simply upload your email list, and only those who are on that list will get your ads. You can use this to remind them to check their email.

 

  • Email Regarding Abandoned Carts – If you have a shopping cart, set up automation that automatically sends reminds to them if they abandon their shopping cart. You can do this via email, but you can also use remarketing ads to bring them back too.

 

  • Offer Coaching and Consulting Services – Personal one-on-one services and consulting is a very lucrative way to earn more money. Make these offers to those who have purchased most of your products and services.

 

The more ways you can offer opportunities for your audience to buy something you recommend, the more money you’re going to make. That’s just math. Make more offers, make more money.

 

 

 

 

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5 Ways Mentors Can Keep You on Track and Lead You to Success

Do you ever wish someone else could just tell you what to do, give you a little nudge when you feel demotivated, or tell you to knock off those bad habits before you get too far? Thankfully, you are not alone, and many people use these very questions as part of their mission statement. Mentors and coaches can provide exactly what you need to lead a more successful life.

 

The following are five ways mentors or business coaches can help you be more productive in life and business:

 

They Provide Knowledge from Hands-on Experience

Mentors can provide experiences, knowledge, and expertise from hands-on experiences. They can warn you or prevent you from making the same mistakes they did, providing you industry education and a way to save your time and frustration.

 

They Provide Networking

Mentors and coaches know a lot of people. They have to in order to be successful. If they don’t know anyone, who are they coaching? Mentors love to find others to share similar interests to discuss ideas or different concepts to grow their knowledge and gain different perspectives. Opening doors to people or opportunities you wouldn’t get to meet or have the chance to do in the first place.

 

They Build Up Your Resilience

They show you that even with failure or mistakes, success can happen without you going through the trouble yourself. If anything, they show you that your industry is a viable income source and can provide for you if you stay consistent and provide value somehow.

 

They Increase Your Self-Esteem and Courage

Mentors are great at providing motivation and inspiration to tackle your goals. Their job is to get your true goals out of yours and help you create an actionable plan to get there. They show you that just with a bit of push, you have exactly what it takes to continue as long as you keep taking action.

 

They Are Your Accountability Partner

Most importantly, mentors keep you accountable without really doing much work on their part. When you know you will have to go over your activities with someone else and not just yourself, you will want to do better. Impressing people and feelings of validation is normal to feel accepted and can motivate and inspire you to keep going.

 

If you keep struggling to get where you want in life, whether to achieve personal or business goals, give mentorship or a career coach a try. As you can see, they are a wealth of information, knowledge, and motivation. If anything, it’s another opportunity to continue your education and get to know yourself a little better. It’s easy to get productive when someone else besides you is counting on it.

Business Plan Resources You Can Use

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Be More Accountable and Consistent, Share Your Goals

If your goals are a secret, are you really making much of a commitment? Keeping your goals from others is a direct path to failure. You are essentially living a lie by not sharing.

This doesn’t mean it should be the only thing you talk about, but if you don’t share them, you likely are not doing the right actions to achieve them. You are allowing other people to get in your way of success. You need to share your goals so you can be more accountable, consistent, and successful.

 

The following are five ways that will help you be more accountable and how it leads to a more prosperous life:

 

Blog or Vlog About It

Share your goals or progress by developing and editing videos and posting them to YouTube or other social media platforms.

 

Tell Your Friends, Family, and Co-Workers

Pretty much let everyone know about your goals and aspirations. However, don’t let this be your only focus. Just let them know when the time is right so you can be sure to stay on track.

 

For example, don’t be afraid to let your co-workers know you started a new diet. Not only will they want to encourage you to do better, but they might also even join in. Making the process even easier for you. If you keep it to yourself, though, you could set yourself up to fail and join in on take-out during lunch.

 

Surround Yourself with Like-Minded People  

Not only is this a great way to keep you consistent and accountable, it can also be a great source of motivation to do and be better at sticking to your goals. Different people can also provide new information and perspectives that give you more knowledge to perform better or think more positively.

 

Find an Accountability Partner

If you don’t like the idea of telling everything, then an accountability partner is your next best option. Pick a person who is fully willing to say to you how it is – even if it hurts. Accountability partners only work if they want to help and don’t enable you instead.

 

Get A Coach or Mentor

A coach or mentor is like a glorified accountability partner. They are packed full of knowledge, education, and experiences to help you be a better person. They won’t be afraid to tell you how it takes to get where you want to be.

 Are You Being Realistic About Your Goals?

To live the life you desire, by becoming a goal crusher through productivity, you need to commit to it. Letting others know is the first step towards a successful commitment to achieve the life you want. Otherwise, you will only permit yourself to stay on the wrong path.