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Showing posts from December, 2016

3 Emotions That Go Along with Operating Your Own Business

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Many emotions go along with owning your own company. From the excitement of opening your doors the first time to dealing with chaos in the office, running your business will be enjoyable sometimes and cause much frustration other times. The Main Three It seems that you can boil business emotions down to three that most business owners share or have experienced at one time in their business journey. They are: 1. Fear Do you ever find yourself being scared that you might actually succeed? Fear is one of the most common emotions that successful business owners feel when first starting out. Being afraid of success can hold you back if you don't properly deal with it. Operating any company requires risk, and it is because you are human that risk likely scares you. By talking with people who have taken a risk before, you will gain a better perspective on how to balance risk with common sense. Overcome fear and risk by having an open mind, and be willing to be a lifelo

A Creative Life Improves Creative Buying Processes

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There are more than a few steps involved in the buying process. When you integrate creativity into this process, this can lead to amazing business opportunities. Incorporating creativity into the buying process means human experience should play a core role. Businesses prefer to partner with businesses they can relate to; ones they have a common goal with. This is why the human experience should always be shared when creating or redefining a company's brand. The more relation a company can share with a distributor or manufacturer, the stronger the business-to-business and business-to-customer relationships will be. So, how does a business owner go about integrating creativity into his or her lifestyle to improve the creative buying process? Fortunately, there are many ways company owners can embody creativity into their everyday life. Here is a close look at three of them. 1: Go on vacations When a business owner does not have time to go on a vacation, this probably

The Power of A/B Testing: The Difference Small Changes Can Make for Your Marketing

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Marketing is a decision-based world. At any given moment, you've got a variety of options floating in front of you. Which of those two headlines should you use in your next e-mail? Which of those three font choices looks the best on your print flyer? Which of the three graphics will ultimately reflect your brand in the best way? If you're wondering how small changes will affect the greater success of your marketing campaign in the eyes of your users, why don't you just ask them? That, in a nutshell, is what A/B testing is all about. What Is A/B Testing? Sometimes referred to as split testing, A/B testing involves comparing two or more versions of something to see which one is more effective. In marketing terms, it's easy to see the value of this approach almost immediately. Do you have two similar, yet different, versions of an e-mail subject line and are wondering which one might be the most effective? Get an e-mail list of 100 of your average customers tog

Business Lessons from a Dog

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Business lessons can be found everywhere we look in life. One of the best ways to learn is by simply looking at the world in a new way. Dogs look at the world differently than we do and often have a very simple outlook. If you want to learn more about business, these are some of the lessons your dog is trying to teach you. Don't Take Everything So Seriously To dogs, everything is great. They do not get down about being out of treats. They definitely want one still but they move on very quickly and it isn't that serious. Sometimes you have to approach business the same way. Yes, there are serious situations you will run into, but there are also some that you take too seriously. Things are usually not as bad as you make them out to be, so focus on the good and do not freak out so much over the bad. Take a Chance on Something New and Trust Your People Dogs are mostly happy-go-lucky and are always ready to go on a ride. They do not need to know where they are going,

Using the Holiday Season to Your Advantage in Your Marketing

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When it comes to marketing success, the importance of a timely, relevant campaign cannot be overstated enough. You see this all the time with major brands - some big event is going on somewhere in the world like the Super Bowl and marketers rush to be the first to integrate it into their campaigns. As the cheery holiday season rolls around yet again, you're presented with the perfect opportunity to do exactly that - at least until the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. But, if you really want to integrate the holidays into your marketing campaign and generate the type of success you deserve, you'll want to keep a few very important things in mind. Use Holiday Visuals Whenever Possible Visuals are always an important part of your marketing collateral, but they become especially so during the holiday season. From roughly November until the Christmas holiday season passes, people are already in a receptive mood for this type of imagery - so filling your marketin

Content Marketing Is More Powerful Than Ever

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At its core, content marketing is the idea that by creating and distributing high-quality content that is relevant to your products, your services or your brand, you can more easily attract and even retain people who are interested in what you're selling. If you sell stereo equipment and write a quality blog post about what to look for in a new home theater, you're more likely to attract new customers by combining that blog with the sales flyer you sent them in the mail. Put Information in a Format That People Want To Embrace When people think of content marketing, they usually think of text. While this is true, it's important not to neglect the visual element. Case in point: pairing your marketing message up with the right visual image can increase the amount of information a reader will retain dramatically. According to one study, people are only 10% likely to remember information they hear 72 hours after they hear it. If that same information is conveyed in a pie