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Business and Money

How to Start a Business or Career in Digital Marketing?

by Jonathan Valencia July 21, 2019

Maybe you don’t like your job, or you’re planning to start taking on a side hustle with the end goal of freelancing or hiring a few people and run a digital marketing agency. Or maybe you’re already making money on the side as a freelancer, but you’re on the lookout for guides and strategies that will help you take your business to the next level.

Either way, we’ve got you covered with this blog post. Let’s jump right in!

Find a mentor and implement everything that you’ve learned.

Reach out or follow your favorite marketing blogger and read as many articles as you can. Be specific as possible so you can truly learn from their experience. A mentor is also very helpful when you get stuck or hit a wall with digital marketing.

After several weeks of doing this, you’ll have gotten a few wins (and losses) under your belt. Now you’re ready to apply your new-found digital marketing skill to practice. Here are 2 options:

1. Help startups/non-profits for free. I recommend helping nonprofits and startups out for free as they usually can use all the help they can get. In doing this you’ll learn even more about the real-world application of everything you read about (theory).

2. Get a part-time digital marketing assistant job. Be proactive and apply to all entry-level digital marketing jobs you feel will be worthwhile, even if you might not be the perfect fit. Remember, your goal here is to get the first-hand experience on how digital marketing works in real life.

3. Go online and find companies you can help. If you find 1st. and 2nd. option boring, this is for you. Go to crunchbase.com and look for venture-funded companies, go through each company’s website, breakdown everything they’re doing wrong and list suggestions on how to fix them. Eliminate all the companies on your list that you can’t give feedback for. Email your report to the founder or head of marketing and don’t forget to follow up.

That’s how you build a digital marketing business from scratch and get your first few clients.

Suggested further reading: How to Structure a Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy?

July 21, 2019 0 comment

How to Structure a Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy

by Jonathan Valencia July 19, 2019

written by Jonathan Valencia

What is a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Digital marketing strategy is a sequence of actions that help you achieve your business goals through selected online marketing channels. These channels include paid, earned, and owned media, and can all support a common campaign around a particular line of business.

A digital marketing strategy is a plan to achieve a single or multiple desired results. For example, your goal is to generate 30% more buyers through your website this month than you made last month.

Depending on the size of your company or the company you’re selling your services to, your digital marketing strategy might involve multiple strategies — each with different goals — and a lot of different functions. But coming back to this simple way of thinking about digital marketing strategy can help you stay focused on meeting those objectives.

What Are It’s Benefits?

In a world where more than 30% of us are online regularly, did you know that over half of small businesses don’t have a website? What an opportunity to consider digital marketing in your business!

Having a strong online presence will support you in several ways.
It will help your customers to find you.
It will help you reach more people
It will make it easier to create awareness and engagement with your existing and potential customers.
It will help you build a stronger brand
It will kickstart word-of-mouth and social signals
It will increase your credibility
It will help you convert cold website visitors into raving fans who will want to buy your products or services.
It helps shorten the buyer’s journey by presenting the right offers at the right time
It’s cost-efficient marketing.

Steps to Creating your Digital Marketing Strategy

Identify your goals.

Every professional marketer knows how important this stage is. Without goals, the strategy simply will not work, so defining them is your main task. To make sure that the goals you developed are suitable, and make them measurable.

Define your customers.

Here are some tips to help you find your business’s ideal customers: A) Define your product or service from the customer’s point of view. B) Define the ideal customer for what you sell. C) Determine the specific benefits your customer is seeking in buying your product. D)Determine exactly when your ideal customer buys your product or service. E)Determine your customer’s buying strategy.

Create a buyer persona.

The most effective marketing strategies are incomplete without them. A buyer persona is a profile that represents your ideal customer. By creating your own buyer personas, you’ll gain the ability to tailor your marketing efforts and connect with your target audience to meet their needs and solve their problems.“When you combine the Buyer Profile with Buying Insights, you will have clear guidance for the decisions you need to make to win their business.”

Create your website.

Your customers expect it, It provides social proof, you’ll show up in Google search results, you can create an easy-access resource center for your staff, you can showcase your products and services, and the list goes on.

Websites work. No matter what your business or profession, a website can generate business, promote goodwill among customers and prospects, and deliver strong marketing messages – whether your business is small, large or in-between, well-established or brand-new.

How to Structure a Powerful Digital Marketing Strategy — Increasing visibility is one major factor that makes having a website important. Even if people have heard about your company, they may want to carry out research online first, before entertaining the idea of leaving the comfort of their own home.

Perform keyword research for search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

If you are planning on running pay-per-click ads or optimizing your website for search engines you will need to do some keyword research. Keywords are words that users type into search engines in order to find a product or service or answer a question.

Tip to finding keywords for your business: Anticipate what ideal customers are looking for. Mind map a list of keywords that you think your customers will be searching and then test them! You can type words into Google and let your search bar autofill. This will help you get an idea of what customers are searching for.

Set up your social media handles.

Wherever you decide to share your website’s content or to advertise your products and services (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter) you will need to create engaging advertisements that resonate with your audience.

Make sure that you manage and post regularly on social media and interact with your customers on all your social media accounts as well as reply to dissatisfied customers who give you bad reviews. Reaching out to people who have had a bad experience (although it may be scary at first) builds trust and rapport with your customers.

Start growing your email list and implement an email marketing strategy.

Email marketing is a vibrant and powerful way to connect with people. Bringing it home, think about your own experiences. Do you even know anyone who doesn’t have an email address? You probably receive a number of HTML emails each week (I sure do). You read them, get inspired by them and even look forward to the next one. Email is a big part of our lives. A very big part.

You can use social media to collect emails which you can then use to build a lookalike audience for your campaign. Now, you have a list of people who have opted to receive news and special offers from you! You can also use emails to encourage follower growth on your social media platforms.

Setup email automation or hire somebody online to do it for you. Automation can be created to welcome users, nurture your relationship with your email subscribers, remind them of the product or service they were interested in, update them with what’s new in your business and more. You set up the email once, and as people meet the trigger you defined, the email will send without any additional effort on your part. It essentially “automates” your email marketing for you. Score!

Set up remarketing campaigns.

Remarketing campaigns are used to show ads to people who have visited your website or used your app. These campaigns provide you with extra settings and reports specifically for reaching previous visitors and users.

Remarketing is a tool that you should be using throughout your digital marketing campaign. It allows you to capture sales that you might have otherwise lost. If someone browses your products but does not make a purchase you can target them with social media ads, Google Ads or emails.

Implement a content creation strategy.

A good starting point for your content strategy plan is to set out a content marketing mission statement. This is a brief statement that makes it easier to focus on what’s important – and what’s not – in creating your content so your content marketing strategy stays on track.

Content marketing increase customer engagement, and help to answer questions that your customers have. Moreover, if someone clicks on one of your blog posts and spends time reading your article, Google thinks that your content is important which can ultimately help you move up in search.

Last but not least: Create a Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel describes your customer’s journey with you. From the initial stages when someone learns about your business, to the purchasing stage, marketing funnels map routes to conversion and beyond.

With careful analysis, a marketing funnel lets you know what your company must do to influence consumers at certain stages. By evaluating your funnels, you can potentially drive greater sales, more loyalty, and stronger brand awareness.

Because we know that funnels are the backbone of your digital marketing efforts, we have created a category for that.

July 19, 2019 0 comment

Business and Money Digital Marketing

9 Types of Digital Marketing. Which are the Best for your Business, and How to use them?

by Jonathan Valencia July 18, 2019

written by Jonathan Valencia

Digital marketing is not just a buzzword thrown around at networking events. You need to understand the types of digital marketing at your disposal. You need to use these methods to stay afloat in a sea of digital competition and stand out from the crowd.

In this article, we’ll discuss the ins and outs of digital marketing. We’ll go over the term’s definition of each business model. By the end, you’ll feel confident in your ability to employ digital marketing as an effective part of your overall marketing strategy.

Social Media Marketing (SMM).

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a type of internet marketing which uses the benefits of social networking sites as a tool of promoting websites, thus increasing traffic towards them and learning from users’ direct reactions.

SMM is based on the principle of organic search, which basically means that when the website or its connected social network page is more active, the website’s position on search engines rises, i.e. it will be in seen the first few results.

Considering the fact that 90% of users searching the internet do not look any further than the first page of the search engine, and that 70% clicks on the first three results only, it is obvious that the position on the first page of the search engine is the only goal to strive for when optimizing a website.

For context, as of May 2019, total worldwide population is 7.7 billion. The internet has 4.4 billion users.
There are 3.499 billion active social media users

Email Marketing.

Basically the use of email to promote products and/or services. But a better email marketing definition is the use of email to develop relationships with potential customers and/or clients. Email marketing is one segment of internet marketing, which encompasses online marketing via websites, social media, blogs, etc. It is essentially the same as direct mail except that instead of sending mail through the postal service, messages are sent electronically via email.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine. SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results (known as “natural” or “organic” results) and excludes the purchase of paid placement.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, adding content, modifying HTML, and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links is another SEO tactic. By May 2015, mobile search had surpassed desktop search.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programmed algorithms which dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. SEO is performed because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine the higher the website ranks in the search engine results page (SERP). These visitors can then be converted into customers.

Recommended reading: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Search engine marketing involves tasks that help search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, find and rank a website. In other words, it’s the things you can do to make sure your website appears in search engine results when someone searches for information related to your business.

SEM encompasses the steps taken to increase relevant traffic to your website, through higher rankings on search engines. Traditional SEM is made up of two processes: “organic” search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) (or cost-per-click (CPC)).

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.

Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if we bid on the keyword “PPC software,” our ad might show up in the very top spot on the Google results page.

Mobile Marketing.

Mobile marketing is the interactive multichannel promotion of products or services for mobile phones and devices, smartphones and networks. Mobile marketing channels are diverse and include technology, trade shows or billboards. Mobile marketing is similar to electronic advertising and uses text, graphics and voice messages. The terms mobile marketing and wireless marketing are sometimes used interchangeably.

Video Marketing.

On the surface, the how of video marketing is pretty simple: Your brand creates videos that, in some way or another, promote your company, drive sales, raise awareness of your products or services, or engage your customers. In practice, it’s a little more complicated.

Like many of your marketing efforts, video marketing is data-driven, so you’ll want to monitor various metrics and track customer engagement. Video marketing is all over the Internet. Look no further than your favorite brands, your Facebook, your YouTube homepage, and there it is: successful video marketing that has found its way to your eyes.

Affiliate Marketing.

The idea behind affiliate marketing is that you promote other people’s products, often through an affiliate network, earning a commission if people actually end up buying thanks to your marketing.

It’s based on revenue sharing. If you have a product and want to sell more, you can offer promoters a financial incentive through an affiliate program. If you have no product and want to make money, then you can promote a product that you feel has value and earn an income from it as an affiliate marketer.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing uses top content creators, specialized in their respective niches, to help you improve brand awareness, increase traffic, and drive your brand’s message to your target audience. These content creators already market to your ideal audience across different channels which you can take advantage of for your influencer strategy.

Landing Page Marketing

Sometimes known as a “lead capture page”, “static page”, or a “destination page”, is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, marketing promotion, marketing email, or an online advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement, search result or link. Landing pages are used for lead generation. The actions that a visitor takes on a landing page is what determines an advertiser’s conversion rate.[2]

Landing pages are often linked to social media, e-mail campaigns or search engine marketing campaigns in order to enhance the effectiveness of the advertisements. The general goal of a landing page is to convert site visitors into sales or leads. If the goal is to obtain a lead, the landing page will include some method for the visitor to get into contact with the company, usually a phone number, or an inquiry form. If a sale is required, the landing page will usually have a link for the visitor to click, which will then send them to a shopping cart or a checkout area. By analyzing activity generated by the linked URL, marketers can use click-through rates and conversion rate to determine the success of an advertisement

To sum up:

To get the best business results, you need to decide which types of digital marketing you want to use. There are some types you should use anyway, while others depend on your niche. When you plan the type of digital marketing strategy you will use don’t only think about software but also hardware. Also, keep in mind the devices your target audience is using and consider having a presence on all kinds of devices.

And finally, gather as much feedback from existing customers as you can. Top performing companies understand an important role that customer feedback plays in business. They consistently listen to the voice of their clients. Not only they search for opinions they clients publish on social media and reviews they provide on websites designed for gathering feedback (e.g. TripAdvisor), but they also deliberately ask for feedback using distinct kinds of surveys. If you want to stay ahead of the competition you should never stop listening to customer feedback whether it is positive or negative, prompted or unprompted.

July 18, 2019 0 comment

Affiliate Marketing Business and Money Content Marketing Digital Marketing

The Age Old Question Do You Need A Website

by Jonathan Valencia July 14, 2019

written by Jonathan Valencia

The most important and indispensable thing to assure your success in affiliate marketing is your own website. The first step in any successful affiliate marketing business is building a good, credible and professional looking website. Your website is the jump-off point of all your marketing efforts.

Therefore, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will attract your prospects and motivate them to click on the links to the products and services you are promoting and make a purchase. You must first focus your efforts on building a website that will cater to what your prospects need.

Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. The most important thing you should consider is that almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. People will love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, on the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking.

By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more dependable endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good name is a good step in building up a dedicated consumer base. Dedicated customer bases are the lifeblood of affiliate marketers.

You must use every possible means on your website to motivate prospects not only to visit your site but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting.

When you are creating your website, the possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, originality, resourcefulness and resolve. You can always explore other ideas and adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become a high rolling affiliate marketer but not until you have a great website.

July 14, 2019 0 comment

Business and Money Productivity Scale Back Uncategorized

Are You Paying Attention to Your NOT TO DO LIST?

by Jonathan Valencia May 1, 2016

written by Jonathan Valencia

We exist in a time pressured generation where it’s not unusual to have multiple overlapping commitments that all call for immediate attention. As people climb the corporate ladder, they attract more and more tasks to do and to delegate now. So how can one manage the overwhelming flow of responsibilities, maintain an excellent work and a sound frame of mind?

The best way to increase productivity without getting drained is to create a not-to-do list. To stimulate your own thinking, here is a Not To-Do list made up of common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to get rid of.

Start or end your day with emails. Email after you have done or figured out a way to accomplish at least one of your most crucial tasks for the day. The latter will just hinder your sleep – nobody would email you a task that has to be accomplished now.

Checking e-mails constantly and touching them more than once. Check emails 2 – 3 times a day and check at set times only. Send an email to everyone or set an auto-reply letting them know what time you respond to emails. When you open a new message you could scan it and decide to read it or act on it now or later. Decide right away. The idea is to only hold each email once as if you were reading letters piling up your desk.

Making quick decisions and pursuing immediate action will help keep your email inbox under control. The idea is to not delay until tomorrow what can be accomplished right away.

Meetings without an agenda. Know the purpose in advance so you “can best prepare and make the best use of your time. Meetings are meant to initiate actions. When you’re ready to meet, think about the goals you planned to achieve.

Tasks you can delegate to somebody else. If something can be handed off to somebody else you can trust, keep for yourself the most crucial ones.

Spend time with people you can’t rely on. If you assign a task to someone, but can’t be sure if they’ll follow through, you might be wasting your time.

Answering calls from unrecognized phone numbers. It will just result in unnecessary distraction hindering your focus. No one is going to call with an emergency and not leave a message. Since it is your phone and it is for your convenience, you can chose when you answer it and when you don’t.

Letting people speak to without getting to the point. Some people like to talk a lot, some people have hard time getting straightforward, some people like to switch from topic to topic forgetting where was the point in the first place. When someone calls you, instead of saying “how are you?” ask “what can I do for you?” or tell them you are in middle of something so if they can keep it short, you don’t mind taking the call right now.

Multitasking. It’s not really multitasking but rather task-switching. Whatever you’re working on is takes up the majority of your attention and there’s almost not a lot left over for other things. Moving back and forth between several tasks actually wastes productivity because your attention is expended on the act of switching gears—plus, you never get fully “in the zone” for either activity

Stephen Covey’s time management grid in the book “7 Habbits of Highly Effective People” can help you to manage your available time more efficiently. The grid below shows organized by urgency and importance.

Time management matrix

To sum up: Do Important things First. How and where you choose to spend your time is the lifeline or your productivity. Knowing what not to do is often times more important than knowing what to do.

May 1, 2016 0 comment

Business and Money Enterpreneurship Uncategorized

PASSIVE INCOME EXPLAINED

by Jonathan Valencia April 25, 2016

written by Jonathan Valencia

Passive income is an income received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it. Some examples of passive income are: Rent from property; Royalties from publishing a book or from licensing a patent or other form of intellectual property, such as computer software product; Earnings from internet advertisements on websites; Dividend and interest income from owning securities, such as stocks and bonds, is usually referred to as portfolio income, which may or may not be considered a form of passive income; Pensions. Other forms of passive income streams include Selling Online eBooks or Software Products and commissions earned through affiliate programs

April 25, 2016 0 comment