Thursday, June 27, 2019

Alaska First-Time Home Buyer Programs of 2019

Fast-Track Your Way to Hilton Status Through March 2021

How to Get Free Baby Stuff: Diapers, Clothes and More

Dodge Dealership Dread With Online Used Car Sellers

TransferWise Launches Traveler- and Immigrant-Friendly Debit Card

Flagstar Bank Review: Checking, Saving and CDs

The Choice Renovation Loan From Freddie Mac

Instagram Therapists Are the New Instagram Poets

Mental health professionals are speaking to the “therapy generation” online, at no cost. And it’s bringing in business.

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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Instagram Therapists Are the New Instagram Poets

Mental health professionals are speaking to the “therapy generation” online, at no cost. And it’s bringing in business.

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Beyond Airbnb: Your Guide to Peer-to-Peer Travel Platforms

5 Reasons to Get the Orbitz Rewards Visa Credit Card

5 Cheaper Alternatives to Popular Summer Vacation Spots

Instagram Therapists Are the New Instagram Poets

Mental health professionals are speaking to the “therapy generation” online, at no cost. And it’s bringing in business.

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How to Successfully Market a Startup With a Team of One

By Jennifer Rogina

Your business is still in its infancy, but it’s doing well. You believe it can do even better, and you want to start marketing your company online. The problem? It’s only you.

You don’t have a marketing background. You don’t have a team. You don’t have budget to hire a team or agency. So what do you do? How can you start a digital marketing campaign for your small business?

1. Create a routine

Having a set routine is essential for your marketing efforts to succeed. As an entrepreneur, you already have more job duties than a standard full-time position; marketing is just one of the many hats you need to wear.

Figure out how to add some dedicated marketing time—even if it’s only an hour a week—into your existing schedule. It’s better to create a routine you know you can commit to, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re putting in very much time at first. If you can be consistent with this routine, you’ll see more positive results for your efforts, rather than if you put in bursts of time here and there.

2. Prioritize wisely

Time is money. Marketing your business online is important. But, so are all of the other jobs you do for your business. That’s why you need to focus on the marketing channels that make the most sense for you and your company.

To start a digital marketing campaign with no budget, focus on organic search and content marketing. Spend your limited time on content creation. Write content for your website and content to share on other websites.

If you have a budget but no time to invest, start with PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. This will give you results fast. Be prepared, though—this is a short-term plan. Once you stop paying for the ads you’ll lose the traffic.

3. Use a marketing task list tool

Now you have a routine in place and know which marketing channels you want to prioritize. That’s a great start, but what do you do now? Make the best use of your limited marketing time by using a marketing task list tool.

A marketing task list tool will give you the actionable tasks you need to complete at optimal intervals. Make sure the tool you choose also provides step-by-step directions for each of those tasks. Using a marketing task list tool eliminates the need for you to research digital marketing tactics and strategies, and instead lets you get straight to work.

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4. Track your results

You want to make sure the effort you’re putting toward digital marketing is effective. To do this, set goals and track your results.

Know what you want to get out of your campaigns. Is your goal to drive traffic to your website, gain social followers, or increase transactions? Once you understand your goal, figure out a way to track it.

Google Analytics is a great solution to track goals related to your website. You can use it to view how many people are on your website and the number of transactions you’ve had. To track social goals, you can look into the analytics tools provided by the network such as Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics.

Goals are useless if they can’t be measured. So, choose your goal and confirm you can track the results.

5. Make data-driven decisions

Your time is precious, so make sure you’re focusing on digital marketing strategies that will bring you the biggest return.

Set up Google Analytics on your website so you have visibility into what types of content resonates with your audience. Look at pages with the most sessions and pages with a higher than average time on the page, and then produce more content like that. Is it a particular topic people enjoy? Or is it a type of content such as a video or infographic?

Promote the articles that are popular on your website across your social channels as well. In addition, look at the social posts that have the highest engagement. Can you learn from that data? Are those topics you can add to your website?

Make a plan to review the data you have. Then take notes with actionable items you can implement based on your findings.

6. Build your marketing muscle

You may find you enjoy marketing. If so, great, then you can stick with it; if not, it will still be a valuable skill for you to have. Taking on marketing tasks will help you build your marketing muscle. You’ll be able to create the voice for your brand, identify who your audience is, and have an understanding of what is the most effective way to market your product.

As your company grows and you’re able to hire a digital marketer, this knowledge will help you to better communicate with the marketer and hold them accountable. Even if you end up hiring an agency, it will be important for you to be able to communicate effectively about marketing tactics.

Marketing takes time

Digital marketing success doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t get discouraged. Dedicate the time you can towards marketing on a weekly basis. Even if it’s only an hour a week, that’s a great place to start.

The more time you spend on marketing, the faster you’ll be at writing and promoting your content. Remember to be patient with yourself and stick with it.

Growing your online presence is an exciting experience. Be consistent and you will see results.

RELATED: The No. 1 Marketing Tool Every Business Needs

About the Author

Post by: Jennifer Rogina

Jennifer Rogina is the co-founder and lead marketer of ClearPath Online, a marketing task list software company. ClearPath Online enables small business leaders to make more money with their websites by providing personalized actionable tasks that focus on growing their online presence.

Company: ClearPath Online

Website: www.clearpath.online
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Is the Orbitz Rewards Credit Card Right for Me?

3 Simple Ways to Use 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points

4 Student Loan Refinancing Myths Debunked

These Colleges Will Pay Tuition, but You’ll Work for It

How a ‘Micro Trip’ Can Unlock Summer Travel Possibilities

10 Great Resources for Keeping Up to Date With Industry News and Trends

Staying up to date on industry trends is imperative for a thriving business. Knowing which topics are top of mind, or what developments or issues people are facing, can make it much easier to figure out where you need to focus your attention—and resources.

To find out more, we asked members from the Young Entrepreneurs Council (YEC) the following:

Q. What resource do you most often use to keep up with industry trends and why is it so valuable?

1. Quora

Quora is a website that shows you the most popular pieces of content based on the keywords you type in. We research our major niche keywords and look at what our customers are responding to and adjust our content accordingly. We like using Quora because it is regularly updated with trending content, so we can constantly evolve our strategy based on emerging trends. —Syed BalkhiWPBeginner

2. 2PML

For direct to consumer brands the best resource by far is 2PML.com. The founder, Web Smith, shares deep insights a few times every week about the industry, trends, and how shifts in the broader world impact our clients. Aside from his writing, he’s a master curator of content, so I’m able to uncover articles from other great publications, too. —Aaron Schwartz, Passport

3. Google Alerts

While Google Alerts has been well known for a while, I still find it to be the best way for me to actively stay on top of trends. I use keywords I’m interested in tracking to keep me abreast of the latest news and information. You can use smart qualifiers to refine a search to ensure you only get the specific keywords for the trend you are interested in. —Michael AvertoChannelApe

4. Clients

As a branding expert, keeping up with industry trends is critical, so we try to always keep our ear to the ground. Social media, word of mouth, and LinkedIn all help, but nothing can replace the expertise of your clients—make sure you listen to them! —Beth DoaneMain & Rose

 

5. Podcasts

Podcasts are an easy and enjoyable way to keep up with industry trends. There’s a podcast for pretty much any industry and topic: WordPress, entrepreneurship, online marketing, tech, and so on. Plus, you can keep up to date with trends while you’re working on something else, like during your commute or pretty much anywhere. —Stephanie WellsFormidable Forms

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6. LinkedIn posts

Every morning I log in to LinkedIn and go through all of the posts in my feed. It gives me a very good idea about what new things are going on in the industry, what events are happening, and what my competitors are doing. Sometimes it even gives me an idea about my potential clients. People also share thought leadership articles on LinkedIn, which provide more good information. —Piyush JainSimpalm

7. Customized analytics

Metrics help you identify the latest trends in your industry. Google Trends is a good place to start, but to get more specific ideas, we use Social Mention. It provides great insight, including the number of times specific keywords are mentioned online and in social media posts, and the top hashtags that are used with the keywords. —Blair ThomaseMerchantBroker

8. Trade journals

Trade journals are a great way to gain insight on industry trends. Journals will often feature case studies of other companies in your industry and highlight industry innovations. Many times the journals will identify trends early on and allow you an opportunity to adapt before it’s too late. Additionally, they usually advise of networking events and trade shows you may want to attend. —Matthew PodolskyFlorida Law Advisers, P.A.

9. RSS feeds

RSS feeds are perfect for staying up to date on a wide variety of topics and industries. They’re free, easy to follow, and compatible with a huge number of smart devices. I recommend getting an app like Feedly on your smartphone and looking for the most popular feeds relating to your specific industry or niche. This way, you can receive instant updates on new stories and events. —Bryce WelkerCrush The CPA Exam

10. Niche-specific Slack groups

Slack has exploded in every direction, and while it’s most often used internally at various organizations, niche Slack groups have also sprung up. When you find the right ones (usually hyper-focused on a specific set of topics or capabilities) these can provide amazing insights and resources for keeping up with a particular skill set. Traffic Think Tank is my go to, but there are many more. —Nick EubanksFrom The Future

RELATED: What’s New? How to Use Social Media for Trend Research

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How to Be a Better Writer: Why You Should Include ‘Fluff’ in Your Business Writing

By Andrew Syrios

Back in business school, I was subjected to several long lectures on the dreaded evils of fluff. Boil down your corporate memos to the raw essentials. Get rid of all those filler words and colloquial phrases. Write as if an automaton was generating TPS reports that were intended to put to sleep even those suffering from the worst forms of insomnia.

Don’t get me wrong, the “war on fluff” gets some things right. For example, this article “How to Remove Unnecessary Filler and Fluff From Your Writing” has some generally helpful recommendations like “avoid redundancy” and “nix common knowledge.” Those kinds of things are usually unnecessary in business writing. But overall, while a substantial amount of fluff may be extraneous, it is still absolutely necessary.

The reason fluff can be necessary is that nonverbal communication lacks an enormous amount of nuance. Psychologists have argued that most communication is nonverbal (possibly as much as 93%). Yet emails, memos, and letters contain only words. Body language is left out and tone is relegated to the inadequate tool of punctuation. In written communication, jokes can become insults, irony can become prejudice, sarcasm can become matter-of-fact statements, and miscommunication can become the norm.

I’ve seen this play out in my professional life multiple times. Recently, one staff member sent another an odd, but rather innocuous joke that came off as a sarcastic put down. All of a sudden, a rift formed between key employees that took a substantial amount of time and energy to unwind.

When extraneous words are important

Explaining oneself clearly, especially in written communication, can often require extraneous words—i.e., fluff. The great Dale Carnegie noted in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People just how important these little fluff phrases are:

If, for example, the waitress brings us mashed potatoes when we have ordered French fried, let’s say: ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I prefer French fried.’ She’ll probably reply, ‘No trouble at all’ and will be glad to change the potatoes, because we have shown respect for her.

Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to—?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’—little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life.” 

It is nowhere written that such “little courtesies” are not allowed in business communication.

In his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Malcolm Goldsmith further points out that “killing the messenger” is one of the biggest mistakes successful people make. Killing the messenger doesn’t just involve attacking the person who told you some bad news—it can involve getting angry about that news in front of the person who told it to you. For the messenger, this feels like a personal attack, even if the anger is directed only at the problem.

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In written communication, this type of anger or disappointment can come through even more easily and often unintentionally. For example, you may intend to say the company missed its projected revenue because the economy went into a recession by writing, “We missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%.” However, that could very easily come off as telling your employees you think they’re terrible. Just a little change, even one that includes “common knowledge” such as “Because of the recent recession, we missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%” will nip that potential problem right in the bud.

Now perhaps it wasn’t the recession or wasn’t just the recession that caused you to miss those revenue projections. Perhaps those employees do need to shape up. But those types of discussions should be done in a private setting and with a good deal of care and nuance. Impersonal communication leaves all sorts of room for people to read between the lines when all that’s really there is blank space.

Don’t fear the fluff

So even if my business professors would consider it despicable fluff, make sure that not only the facts are presented, but your interpretations of those facts are also clear. Keep your interpersonal communication upbeat and positive, even if it requires fluff. For example, I end virtually every email with “thank you” even if doesn’t really make much sense to do so.

This also means there are some things that should be left out. Jokes, for example, in business communication should be left on the cutting room floor unless they’re 1) innocuous and not at anyone or any group’s expense; 2) everyone is highly likely to get the joke. Furthermore, communications shouldn’t be overly long nor contain irrelevant information. Stream-of-consciousness may be a good literary device, but it doesn’t belong in the workplace.

However, with those guidelines in mind, don’t fear the fluff. Embrace it. Just as timely decisions and responses alleviate many problems, a little fluff allows you to ensure your communications remain positive and reduce the likelihood of miscommunications and creating unnecessary friction between coworkers. And that is easily worth a few extra words here and there.

RELATED: 14 Overused Business Phrases We Must Retire (And Better Ways to Communicate)

About the Author

Post by: Andrew Syrios

Andrew Syrios is a partner in the real estate investment firm Stewardship Properties. He graduated from the University of Oregon in business administration and received his Masters from the University of Missouri in Kansas City in entrepreneurial real estate. He also blogs at AndrewSyrios.com.

Company: Stewardship Investments, LLC
Website: www.stewardshipproperties.com
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Smart Strategies for Pricing Products in Your E-Commerce Store

By Graeme Caldwell

Retail is easy to describe. A company buys a product. They sell it for more than they paid. The difference is their profit.

In reality, retail is complicated because everyone involved seeks to maximize the difference between a product’s value and what they pay for it. Manufacturers want to sell for as much as possible. Customers want to buy for as little as possible, or, more accurately, they want to feel as good as possible about their purchase—that doesn’t always mean paying the least. The retailer is in the middle, competing with other retailers playing the same zero-sum game.

Pricing is a critical factor in deciding the winner of that game, especially in the e-commerce world where customers can easily compare prices. Every e-commerce retailer has to answer the same question: How much should I charge for this product?

Let’s look at some of the strategies retailers use to decide. We’ll consider a widget bought from a wholesaler for $10 per item—how much should an e-commerce retailer charge a customer who wants to buy our $10 widget?

Basic pricing strategies

Keystone pricing is the most straightforward strategy. The retailer doubles what they paid for the product, and that’s the price they charge customers. Expressed differently, the retailer puts a 100% markup on their products. Our widget costs $10, so we sell it for $20.

This gives us a gross profit margin of 50%. The net profit is lower because we haven’t accounted for marketing costs and other overheads, but for many retail businesses, the net profit from keystone pricing is acceptable. Keystone pricing has the advantage of being simple. It’s easy to decide how much to charge.

But there are obvious problems with this pricing model. As I’ve mentioned, it doesn’t account for marketing costs or overheads. It also ignores competitor pricing. Blanket keystone pricing is a bad idea because some products won’t sell at double the amount a retailer paid, especially when alternatives are readily available. Keystone pricing is, however, an effective way to establish a baseline, a reasonable price point that can move up or down depending on other factors.

Many retailers use a more complex method that accounts for cost, overheads, and an acceptable profit margin. If we’re happy with a 20% net profit, and we spend an average of $5 on marketing and customer acquisition for every sale, and our overheads are $2 per sale, we’d charge the following:

($10 + $5 + $2) * 1.2 = $20.40

It’s easy when we’re making up figures, but it can be challenging for a business to itemize its costs and overheads. And, once again, this pricing model fails to account for the competitive landscape. It’s a viable model for stores that sell unique goods that aren’t available elsewhere, but if you’re in a competitive market, both of these models might leave you trailing the competition.

Competitive pricing strategies

No retailer is an island, and it’s a rare e-commerce merchant who can ignore their competitors. In the offline world, retailers have a little more flexibility with competitor prices. Customers remember prices for a small number of products and few are diligent comparison shoppers. But, on the web, it’s easy to compare prices, and price comparison sites make it even easier.

The naive approach is to build a list of competitors, track what they charge for the products you also sell, and make sure your prices are always the same or lower. Some sectors act this way, but the result is almost always a race to the bottom and razor-thin margins. Businesses that depend entirely on price competition are in a precarious position.

A better approach is to identify key value items (KVIs) and key value categories (KVCs), the products and groups of products that have the biggest impact on the metrics we care about: sales, profit, customer loyalty, and so on. As McKinsey says in an article on pricing strategy, “To optimize value perception, a retailer will price KVCs and KVIs most sharply relative to the relevant competition … retailers have been able to effectively shape shoppers’ value perceptions by pricing competitively on the items that matter most.”

A store’s best-selling products will typically be on their list of KVIs if they are part of a competitive market. But there are other factors to consider:

  • Some products are more likely to figure in customer value calculations because they are more memorable or essential. A convenience store must track the price of milk, even if it makes more money on jars of pesto. Shoppers know the value of milk, but pesto is more difficult to price intuitively.
  • Products that attract traffic should be closely monitored. Again, these may not be your most profitable products. Our widget store may make more money from widget accessories than from the widgets themselves, but it’s the widgets that drive traffic. Once they have bought a widget, customers are far more likely to buy the accessories, whether or not they are priced to undercut the competition.

After having identified the most important products in their market, retailers track the prices of those items on specific competitor’s sites and adjust their prices to match or undercut the competition. In some cases, it is worth reducing the price of KVIs beneath the level at which they generate a profit. Loss-leader pricing is common and works, but it should be approached with care. A store that becomes identified with “low, low prices” is locked into a pricing strategy that can cause profitability problems.

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Premium pricing strategy

Finally, some retailers may choose to price products higher than their competitors. Apple is a prominent example of premium pricing. Their laptops cost more than their competitors’ for equivalent specifications, and their high price is a signal of quality. That signal is backed by Apple’s manufacturing perfectionism, but the company has margins that are higher than any other phone or computer manufacturer.

Premium pricing establishes a product as high-value in the minds of customers. It’s useful when used in concert with branding and marketing strategies that emphasize quality and luxury over cost. It can also be useful when customers struggle to attribute a real value to a product: Diamonds are worth whatever people will pay for them, regardless of whether they are intrinsically valuable.

RELATED: 5 Ways to Raise Your Prices Without Losing Customers

About the Author

Post by: Graeme Caldwell

Graeme Caldwell is a writer and content marketer at Nexcess, a global provider of hosting services; he has a knack for making tech-heavy topics interesting and engaging to all readers. His articles have been featured on top publications across the net, from TechCrunch to TemplateMonster. For more content, visit the Nexcess blog and give them a follow at @nexcess.

Company: Nexcess
Website: www.nexcess.net
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Monday, June 24, 2019

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6 Customer Service Blind Spots Your Company May Be Missing

By Aaron Agius

Providing excellent customer service is fundamental to business success. Fifty-five percent of consumers say they’d spend more money with a company that guarantees them good customer service. And it’s also predicted that by 2020, the customer experience will be more important to consumers than price or product.

However, not all companies get their customer service right, with U.S. companies losing more than $75 billion annually due to poor customer service.

Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to develop blind spots that become barriers between you and your customers. The good news is they can be easily fixed. Here are six blind spots that might be holding you back and how best to rectify them:

1. Focusing on first impressions at the expense of the last

It’s natural for businesses to focus their energies on getting new customers through the door. Making a good first impression is what starts the relationship with a customer and determines whether they’ll get on board with your brand. Hopefully, they’ll even make a purchase.

There’s nothing wrong with making an excellent first impression. But it’s also important to leave your customers with a great memory of you once they’ve made a conversion.

To fix this, map out the whole buyer journey, from your customers’ first contact with your brand, through to when they make a purchase and beyond. Next, identify all the opportunities for both reactive and proactive customer service—on- and offline—within that journey. If you notice that your customer support is heavily weighted to the start of the buyer journey, then look at what you can do to balance that towards the end.

  • Do send out automated emails to thank customers for their purchases and to keep in touch with recommendations and promotions?
  • Have you made it easy for your customers to reach you with problems after a purchase? (e.g., chatbots, social media, email, telephone)
  • Have you provided content to help people use their product or purchase? (e.g., video tutorials, written manuals, blog posts)

2. Not sweating the small stuff

Good customer service isn’t about the grand gestures. It’s the little things that count. Too many brands try too hard to offer incentives and promotions to improve their customers’ experience, but miss the subtler, textual impressions.

Try to focus the minutiae of your customer service. Look in particular at:

  • Your tone of voice—Are you friendly, helpful and empathetic?
  • Consistency—Are you providing a seamless experience on- and offline, and throughout your website, social media, ads, and emails?
  • Support offered—Have you clearly signposted ways to find support?

3. Making your customers work for what they need

Central to offering excellent customer service is ensuring your customers achieve their goals in the quickest time possible. Not only does this keep the revenue flowing, but it makes for happy customers, too.

A cardinal sin is overcomplicating the customer journey. If a customer can’t find what they’re looking for in just a few clicks, they’re likely to get frustrated and go to your competitor.

To avoid this, think about your target customers and define their online goals. Go through your ads, social media, and website and ask yourself a few questions:

  • How easy is it to reach your goal?
  • Are there clear CTAs to click through the customer journey?
  • What roadblocks are preventing you from achieving your goal?
  • Is there enough information about the product/brand to assist the decision-making process?
  • Is it easy to find the right support on your site?

4. Being company first—not customer first

It’s easy for companies to slip into a company-focused mindset. When your product or service is central to your world, and you’re running a business on limited time and resources and not yet turning a profit, it can be tough to step outside of yourself and put your customers first. But companies that don’t put their customers at the center of the business will see poor customer satisfaction and, in turn, low sales.

To ensure your customers are at the front and center of your business, spend some time doing customer persona “workshopping.” Working on personas helps you to identify the goals and obstacles of your customers, and then how your business can help meet those needs. HubSpot offers a Make My Persona tool.

5. Creating too many, or not enough, channels

Whilst you want the help desk to be a last option for your customers, it’s critical your customers can get in touch with you when they need to. However, you can severely damage your customer service by either providing too many options for support or, conversely, not enough.

If you have endless options for customer support you’ll need to be able to keep on top of all of it, or else some queries might slip through the gaps. On the other hand, if you don’t provide enough modes of contact, then you might alienate some segments of your audience.

My tip is to get a good balance, using a mix of traditional and modern lines of communication, sticking to four or five contact options, such as:

  • An email address and phone number
  • Social media (Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram)
  • Live chat or chat bot on your website
  • SMS or WhatsApp

6. Lacking accountability

The ability to say sorry is the mark of a good customer service team. Even if it’s unclear who is to blame, a simple apology and swift resolution go a long way.

It’s estimated that even when a customer experiences a problem, they are willing to repurchase from a brand once a sincere apology is received. Taking accountability for a problem is therefore the difference between retaining or losing a disgruntled customer.

A top tip for taking accountability is to make sure you start your communication—whether it be email, a response to a review, or a reply to a social media comment—with a short, sincere apology for the issue. Follow this with a resolution if it’s simple fix, or refer people to an email address or phone number to get in touch.

For more on writing an excellent apology, here’s a guide from HubSpot.

In summary

The way you treat your customers has a direct impact on the success—or failure—of your business. It makes the difference between whether consumers stick with you long enough to convert or, if they do make a purchase, whether they make repeat purchases in the future.

But it’s not easy to stay customer focused 100% of the time, and every company is guilty of developing blind spots. The key is to identify your own set of blind spots and to work towards rectifying them before you lose the all-important trust of your customers.

RELATED: 5 Ways to Turn Your Customer Service Team Into a Secondary Sales Force

About the Author

Post by: Aaron Agius

Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world’s leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer—a fusion between search, content, social, and PR.

Company: Louder Online
Website: www.louder.online
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Sunday, June 23, 2019

How to Successfully Market a Startup With a Team of One

By Jennifer Rogina

Your business is still in its infancy, but it’s doing well. You believe it can do even better, and you want to start marketing your company online. The problem? It’s only you.

You don’t have a marketing background. You don’t have a team. You don’t have budget to hire a team or agency. So what do you do? How can you start a digital marketing campaign for your small business?

1. Create a routine

Having a set routine is essential for your marketing efforts to succeed. As an entrepreneur, you already have more job duties than a standard full-time position; marketing is just one of the many hats you need to wear.

Figure out how to add some dedicated marketing time—even if it’s only an hour a week—into your existing schedule. It’s better to create a routine you know you can commit to, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re putting in very much time at first. If you can be consistent with this routine, you’ll see more positive results for your efforts, rather than if you put in bursts of time here and there.

2. Prioritize wisely

Time is money. Marketing your business online is important. But, so are all of the other jobs you do for your business. That’s why you need to focus on the marketing channels that make the most sense for you and your company.

To start a digital marketing campaign with no budget, focus on organic search and content marketing. Spend your limited time on content creation. Write content for your website and content to share on other websites.

If you have a budget but no time to invest, start with PPC (pay-per-click) advertising. This will give you results fast. Be prepared, though—this is a short-term plan. Once you stop paying for the ads you’ll lose the traffic.

3. Use a marketing task list tool

Now you have a routine in place and know which marketing channels you want to prioritize. That’s a great start, but what do you do now? Make the best use of your limited marketing time by using a marketing task list tool.

A marketing task list tool will give you the actionable tasks you need to complete at optimal intervals. Make sure the tool you choose also provides step-by-step directions for each of those tasks. Using a marketing task list tool eliminates the need for you to research digital marketing tactics and strategies, and instead lets you get straight to work.

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4. Track your results

You want to make sure the effort you’re putting toward digital marketing is effective. To do this, set goals and track your results.

Know what you want to get out of your campaigns. Is your goal to drive traffic to your website, gain social followers, or increase transactions? Once you understand your goal, figure out a way to track it.

Google Analytics is a great solution to track goals related to your website. You can use it to view how many people are on your website and the number of transactions you’ve had. To track social goals, you can look into the analytics tools provided by the network such as Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics.

Goals are useless if they can’t be measured. So, choose your goal and confirm you can track the results.

5. Make data-driven decisions

Your time is precious, so make sure you’re focusing on digital marketing strategies that will bring you the biggest return.

Set up Google Analytics on your website so you have visibility into what types of content resonates with your audience. Look at pages with the most sessions and pages with a higher than average time on the page, and then produce more content like that. Is it a particular topic people enjoy? Or is it a type of content such as a video or infographic?

Promote the articles that are popular on your website across your social channels as well. In addition, look at the social posts that have the highest engagement. Can you learn from that data? Are those topics you can add to your website?

Make a plan to review the data you have. Then take notes with actionable items you can implement based on your findings.

6. Build your marketing muscle

You may find you enjoy marketing. If so, great, then you can stick with it; if not, it will still be a valuable skill for you to have. Taking on marketing tasks will help you build your marketing muscle. You’ll be able to create the voice for your brand, identify who your audience is, and have an understanding of what is the most effective way to market your product.

As your company grows and you’re able to hire a digital marketer, this knowledge will help you to better communicate with the marketer and hold them accountable. Even if you end up hiring an agency, it will be important for you to be able to communicate effectively about marketing tactics.

Marketing takes time

Digital marketing success doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t get discouraged. Dedicate the time you can towards marketing on a weekly basis. Even if it’s only an hour a week, that’s a great place to start.

The more time you spend on marketing, the faster you’ll be at writing and promoting your content. Remember to be patient with yourself and stick with it.

Growing your online presence is an exciting experience. Be consistent and you will see results.

RELATED: The No. 1 Marketing Tool Every Business Needs

About the Author

Post by: Jennifer Rogina

Jennifer Rogina is the co-founder and lead marketer of ClearPath Online, a marketing task list software company. ClearPath Online enables small business leaders to make more money with their websites by providing personalized actionable tasks that focus on growing their online presence.

Company: ClearPath Online

Website: www.clearpath.online
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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Smart Strategies for Pricing Products in Your E-Commerce Store

By Graeme Caldwell

Retail is easy to describe. A company buys a product. They sell it for more than they paid. The difference is their profit.

In reality, retail is complicated because everyone involved seeks to maximize the difference between a product’s value and what they pay for it. Manufacturers want to sell for as much as possible. Customers want to buy for as little as possible, or, more accurately, they want to feel as good as possible about their purchase—that doesn’t always mean paying the least. The retailer is in the middle, competing with other retailers playing the same zero-sum game.

Pricing is a critical factor in deciding the winner of that game, especially in the e-commerce world where customers can easily compare prices. Every e-commerce retailer has to answer the same question: How much should I charge for this product?

Let’s look at some of the strategies retailers use to decide. We’ll consider a widget bought from a wholesaler for $10 per item—how much should an e-commerce retailer charge a customer who wants to buy our $10 widget?

Basic pricing strategies

Keystone pricing is the most straightforward strategy. The retailer doubles what they paid for the product, and that’s the price they charge customers. Expressed differently, the retailer puts a 100% markup on their products. Our widget costs $10, so we sell it for $20.

This gives us a gross profit margin of 50%. The net profit is lower because we haven’t accounted for marketing costs and other overheads, but for many retail businesses, the net profit from keystone pricing is acceptable. Keystone pricing has the advantage of being simple. It’s easy to decide how much to charge.

But there are obvious problems with this pricing model. As I’ve mentioned, it doesn’t account for marketing costs or overheads. It also ignores competitor pricing. Blanket keystone pricing is a bad idea because some products won’t sell at double the amount a retailer paid, especially when alternatives are readily available. Keystone pricing is, however, an effective way to establish a baseline, a reasonable price point that can move up or down depending on other factors.

Many retailers use a more complex method that accounts for cost, overheads, and an acceptable profit margin. If we’re happy with a 20% net profit, and we spend an average of $5 on marketing and customer acquisition for every sale, and our overheads are $2 per sale, we’d charge the following:

($10 + $5 + $2) * 1.2 = $20.40

It’s easy when we’re making up figures, but it can be challenging for a business to itemize its costs and overheads. And, once again, this pricing model fails to account for the competitive landscape. It’s a viable model for stores that sell unique goods that aren’t available elsewhere, but if you’re in a competitive market, both of these models might leave you trailing the competition.

Competitive pricing strategies

No retailer is an island, and it’s a rare e-commerce merchant who can ignore their competitors. In the offline world, retailers have a little more flexibility with competitor prices. Customers remember prices for a small number of products and few are diligent comparison shoppers. But, on the web, it’s easy to compare prices, and price comparison sites make it even easier.

The naive approach is to build a list of competitors, track what they charge for the products you also sell, and make sure your prices are always the same or lower. Some sectors act this way, but the result is almost always a race to the bottom and razor-thin margins. Businesses that depend entirely on price competition are in a precarious position.

A better approach is to identify key value items (KVIs) and key value categories (KVCs), the products and groups of products that have the biggest impact on the metrics we care about: sales, profit, customer loyalty, and so on. As McKinsey says in an article on pricing strategy, “To optimize value perception, a retailer will price KVCs and KVIs most sharply relative to the relevant competition … retailers have been able to effectively shape shoppers’ value perceptions by pricing competitively on the items that matter most.”

A store’s best-selling products will typically be on their list of KVIs if they are part of a competitive market. But there are other factors to consider:

  • Some products are more likely to figure in customer value calculations because they are more memorable or essential. A convenience store must track the price of milk, even if it makes more money on jars of pesto. Shoppers know the value of milk, but pesto is more difficult to price intuitively.
  • Products that attract traffic should be closely monitored. Again, these may not be your most profitable products. Our widget store may make more money from widget accessories than from the widgets themselves, but it’s the widgets that drive traffic. Once they have bought a widget, customers are far more likely to buy the accessories, whether or not they are priced to undercut the competition.

After having identified the most important products in their market, retailers track the prices of those items on specific competitor’s sites and adjust their prices to match or undercut the competition. In some cases, it is worth reducing the price of KVIs beneath the level at which they generate a profit. Loss-leader pricing is common and works, but it should be approached with care. A store that becomes identified with “low, low prices” is locked into a pricing strategy that can cause profitability problems.

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Premium pricing strategy

Finally, some retailers may choose to price products higher than their competitors. Apple is a prominent example of premium pricing. Their laptops cost more than their competitors’ for equivalent specifications, and their high price is a signal of quality. That signal is backed by Apple’s manufacturing perfectionism, but the company has margins that are higher than any other phone or computer manufacturer.

Premium pricing establishes a product as high-value in the minds of customers. It’s useful when used in concert with branding and marketing strategies that emphasize quality and luxury over cost. It can also be useful when customers struggle to attribute a real value to a product: Diamonds are worth whatever people will pay for them, regardless of whether they are intrinsically valuable.

RELATED: 5 Ways to Raise Your Prices Without Losing Customers

About the Author

Post by: Graeme Caldwell

Graeme Caldwell is a writer and content marketer at Nexcess, a global provider of hosting services; he has a knack for making tech-heavy topics interesting and engaging to all readers. His articles have been featured on top publications across the net, from TechCrunch to TemplateMonster. For more content, visit the Nexcess blog and give them a follow at @nexcess.

Company: Nexcess
Website: www.nexcess.net
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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How to Be a Better Writer: Why You Should Include ‘Fluff’ in Your Business Writing

By Andrew Syrios

Back in business school, I was subjected to several long lectures on the dreaded evils of fluff. Boil down your corporate memos to the raw essentials. Get rid of all those filler words and colloquial phrases. Write as if an automaton was generating TPS reports that were intended to put to sleep even those suffering from the worst forms of insomnia.

Don’t get me wrong, the “war on fluff” gets some things right. For example, this article “How to Remove Unnecessary Filler and Fluff From Your Writing” has some generally helpful recommendations like “avoid redundancy” and “nix common knowledge.” Those kinds of things are usually unnecessary in business writing. But overall, while a substantial amount of fluff may be extraneous, it is still absolutely necessary.

The reason fluff can be necessary is that nonverbal communication lacks an enormous amount of nuance. Psychologists have argued that most communication is nonverbal (possibly as much as 93%). Yet emails, memos, and letters contain only words. Body language is left out and tone is relegated to the inadequate tool of punctuation. In written communication, jokes can become insults, irony can become prejudice, sarcasm can become matter-of-fact statements, and miscommunication can become the norm.

I’ve seen this play out in my professional life multiple times. Recently, one staff member sent another an odd, but rather innocuous joke that came off as a sarcastic put down. All of a sudden, a rift formed between key employees that took a substantial amount of time and energy to unwind.

When extraneous words are important

Explaining oneself clearly, especially in written communication, can often require extraneous words—i.e., fluff. The great Dale Carnegie noted in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People just how important these little fluff phrases are:

If, for example, the waitress brings us mashed potatoes when we have ordered French fried, let’s say: ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I prefer French fried.’ She’ll probably reply, ‘No trouble at all’ and will be glad to change the potatoes, because we have shown respect for her.

Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to—?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’—little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life.” 

It is nowhere written that such “little courtesies” are not allowed in business communication.

In his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Malcolm Goldsmith further points out that “killing the messenger” is one of the biggest mistakes successful people make. Killing the messenger doesn’t just involve attacking the person who told you some bad news—it can involve getting angry about that news in front of the person who told it to you. For the messenger, this feels like a personal attack, even if the anger is directed only at the problem.

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In written communication, this type of anger or disappointment can come through even more easily and often unintentionally. For example, you may intend to say the company missed its projected revenue because the economy went into a recession by writing, “We missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%.” However, that could very easily come off as telling your employees you think they’re terrible. Just a little change, even one that includes “common knowledge” such as “Because of the recent recession, we missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%” will nip that potential problem right in the bud.

Now perhaps it wasn’t the recession or wasn’t just the recession that caused you to miss those revenue projections. Perhaps those employees do need to shape up. But those types of discussions should be done in a private setting and with a good deal of care and nuance. Impersonal communication leaves all sorts of room for people to read between the lines when all that’s really there is blank space.

Don’t fear the fluff

So even if my business professors would consider it despicable fluff, make sure that not only the facts are presented, but your interpretations of those facts are also clear. Keep your interpersonal communication upbeat and positive, even if it requires fluff. For example, I end virtually every email with “thank you” even if doesn’t really make much sense to do so.

This also means there are some things that should be left out. Jokes, for example, in business communication should be left on the cutting room floor unless they’re 1) innocuous and not at anyone or any group’s expense; 2) everyone is highly likely to get the joke. Furthermore, communications shouldn’t be overly long nor contain irrelevant information. Stream-of-consciousness may be a good literary device, but it doesn’t belong in the workplace.

However, with those guidelines in mind, don’t fear the fluff. Embrace it. Just as timely decisions and responses alleviate many problems, a little fluff allows you to ensure your communications remain positive and reduce the likelihood of miscommunications and creating unnecessary friction between coworkers. And that is easily worth a few extra words here and there.

RELATED: 14 Overused Business Phrases We Must Retire (And Better Ways to Communicate)

About the Author

Post by: Andrew Syrios

Andrew Syrios is a partner in the real estate investment firm Stewardship Properties. He graduated from the University of Oregon in business administration and received his Masters from the University of Missouri in Kansas City in entrepreneurial real estate. He also blogs at AndrewSyrios.com.

Company: Stewardship Investments, LLC
Website: www.stewardshipproperties.com
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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3 Steps to Protecting a High-Risk Startup

The next great form of transportation was announced in a June 4, 2019, article from the Los Angeles Times. No, it’s not another rideshare service or a variation on the Bird scooter. Nor is it a more futuristic means of travel like the Jetsons-esque flying cars.

Give up? It’s a pogo stick!

This summer, Swedish startup Cangoroo plans to launch an app-based pogo-stick sharing system. Several cities will be part of the Cangoroo launch, including Malmö and Stockholm in Sweden, and San Francisco, California.

Described as “an effort to support car-free, sustainable and health options for urban commuting,” Cangoroo’s pogo-stick startup is unlike anything on the market. Renters can literally hop their way to and from work, making it possible for 10,000 jumps to become the new 10,000 steps needed for daily exercise.

As a business owner who works with entrepreneurs, I’m mindful of the many “what ifs?” that startups face, good and bad alike. If your business model was based around a pogo stick, you would definitely take the proper precautions to protect your business.

Want to start a business just as creative as Cangoroo, but ensure your safety from the risks involved? Protect your startup from day one by crossing these items off your legal to-do list:

1. Incorporate the startup or form an LLC

Let’s imagine that Cangoroo isn’t already an incorporated business. If I had to recommend an entity to incorporate a pogo-stick startup, I would advise choosing either a limited liability company (LLC) or corporation structure.

These are not the only two legal entities available to startups. Some startups initially incorporate as sole proprietorships. This affordable entity allows entrepreneurs to be the boss where they are in charge and are able to exercise complete control over the company.

However, if a pogo-stick startup was incorporated as a sole proprietorship, the business would not be considered a separate entity. The sole proprietor (AKA the boss) would be liable for anything that happened to the startup. That could be any kind of unforeseen circumstance, from a customer falling off the pogo stick and injuring themselves to part of the pogo stick breaking after a jump. A sole proprietor would be held fully responsible for the injuries and the broken equipment. They may even face a lawsuit.

Incorporating as an LLC or corporation formation, however, provides entrepreneurs with liability protection. This ensures your personal assets remain separate from the business. In the event you were faced with a lawsuit, it would not impact your personal assets like houses or cars, and you would not be held personally responsible.

As a quick side note, do not forget to prepare the appropriate documents for your entity. If you incorporated as an LLC, you’ll need to draft an operating agreement. A written operating agreement establishes how the LLC is conducted and helps protect your limited liability status. Corporations will need bylaws. These are the corporation’s rules and regulations and include information about how each corporate office functions, how meetings are conducted, and the voting formalities of shareholders.

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2. File for trademark protection

Most, if not all, startups have a unique word, phrase, symbol, design, and/or logo associated with the company. This is called a trademark. The mark helps differentiate the startup from other businesses and emphasizes how unique the startup is to the world.

When these creative marks are not registered as trademarks, they risk being plagiarized by outside sources. This is why entrepreneurs must claim their mark as soon as possible by filing a trademark application. Once a trademark has been registered, startups may debut their federally-filed marks publicly. They now claim exclusive rights to the trademark and are considered to be its rightful owner.

How do you file a trademark? First, you need to conduct a search through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and its trademark database. This allows you to see whether or not your desired mark has already been taken or is pending registration. If it’s available, you may begin filing an application and paying an application fee to register the it.

3. Obtain necessary business licenses

The type of business license any startup needs is ultimately determined by a few factors:

  • Location (including the city and state)
  • Industry
  • Entity type

There are a few common pieces of documentation startups need before they can fully operate. It is advised that startups apply for a basic business operation license. This is the most simplified form of a business license. It enables the government to identify and track you for tax purposes and allows you to operate within the city, county, or state you’d like to do business in.

Startups should also file an employer identification number (EIN) application. EINs, while often associated as necessary for hiring employees, offer startups several benefits as a federal tax ID. If you have an EIN, you may also open a business bank account and establish a credit profile.

It would be impossible for me to state exactly which types of business licenses every startup needs to conduct business. Not sure which licenses you still need? Check in with your local Secretary of State to determine which business licenses you need to apply for and are required by the state to run your startup smoothly.

RELATED: How Much Protection Does a Trademark Really Give Your Business?

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6 Customer Service Blind Spots Your Company May Be Missing

By Aaron Agius

Providing excellent customer service is fundamental to business success. Fifty-five percent of consumers say they’d spend more money with a company that guarantees them good customer service. And it’s also predicted that by 2020, the customer experience will be more important to consumers than price or product.

However, not all companies get their customer service right, with U.S. companies losing more than $75 billion annually due to poor customer service.

Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to develop blind spots that become barriers between you and your customers. The good news is they can be easily fixed. Here are six blind spots that might be holding you back and how best to rectify them:

1. Focusing on first impressions at the expense of the last

It’s natural for businesses to focus their energies on getting new customers through the door. Making a good first impression is what starts the relationship with a customer and determines whether they’ll get on board with your brand. Hopefully, they’ll even make a purchase.

There’s nothing wrong with making an excellent first impression. But it’s also important to leave your customers with a great memory of you once they’ve made a conversion.

To fix this, map out the whole buyer journey, from your customers’ first contact with your brand, through to when they make a purchase and beyond. Next, identify all the opportunities for both reactive and proactive customer service—on- and offline—within that journey. If you notice that your customer support is heavily weighted to the start of the buyer journey, then look at what you can do to balance that towards the end.

  • Do send out automated emails to thank customers for their purchases and to keep in touch with recommendations and promotions?
  • Have you made it easy for your customers to reach you with problems after a purchase? (e.g., chatbots, social media, email, telephone)
  • Have you provided content to help people use their product or purchase? (e.g., video tutorials, written manuals, blog posts)

2. Not sweating the small stuff

Good customer service isn’t about the grand gestures. It’s the little things that count. Too many brands try too hard to offer incentives and promotions to improve their customers’ experience, but miss the subtler, textual impressions.

Try to focus the minutiae of your customer service. Look in particular at:

  • Your tone of voice—Are you friendly, helpful and empathetic?
  • Consistency—Are you providing a seamless experience on- and offline, and throughout your website, social media, ads, and emails?
  • Support offered—Have you clearly signposted ways to find support?

3. Making your customers work for what they need

Central to offering excellent customer service is ensuring your customers achieve their goals in the quickest time possible. Not only does this keep the revenue flowing, but it makes for happy customers, too.

A cardinal sin is overcomplicating the customer journey. If a customer can’t find what they’re looking for in just a few clicks, they’re likely to get frustrated and go to your competitor.

To avoid this, think about your target customers and define their online goals. Go through your ads, social media, and website and ask yourself a few questions:

  • How easy is it to reach your goal?
  • Are there clear CTAs to click through the customer journey?
  • What roadblocks are preventing you from achieving your goal?
  • Is there enough information about the product/brand to assist the decision-making process?
  • Is it easy to find the right support on your site?

4. Being company first—not customer first

It’s easy for companies to slip into a company-focused mindset. When your product or service is central to your world, and you’re running a business on limited time and resources and not yet turning a profit, it can be tough to step outside of yourself and put your customers first. But companies that don’t put their customers at the center of the business will see poor customer satisfaction and, in turn, low sales.

To ensure your customers are at the front and center of your business, spend some time doing customer persona “workshopping.” Working on personas helps you to identify the goals and obstacles of your customers, and then how your business can help meet those needs. HubSpot offers a Make My Persona tool.

5. Creating too many, or not enough, channels

Whilst you want the help desk to be a last option for your customers, it’s critical your customers can get in touch with you when they need to. However, you can severely damage your customer service by either providing too many options for support or, conversely, not enough.

If you have endless options for customer support you’ll need to be able to keep on top of all of it, or else some queries might slip through the gaps. On the other hand, if you don’t provide enough modes of contact, then you might alienate some segments of your audience.

My tip is to get a good balance, using a mix of traditional and modern lines of communication, sticking to four or five contact options, such as:

  • An email address and phone number
  • Social media (Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram)
  • Live chat or chat bot on your website
  • SMS or WhatsApp

6. Lacking accountability

The ability to say sorry is the mark of a good customer service team. Even if it’s unclear who is to blame, a simple apology and swift resolution go a long way.

It’s estimated that even when a customer experiences a problem, they are willing to repurchase from a brand once a sincere apology is received. Taking accountability for a problem is therefore the difference between retaining or losing a disgruntled customer.

A top tip for taking accountability is to make sure you start your communication—whether it be email, a response to a review, or a reply to a social media comment—with a short, sincere apology for the issue. Follow this with a resolution if it’s simple fix, or refer people to an email address or phone number to get in touch.

For more on writing an excellent apology, here’s a guide from HubSpot.

In summary

The way you treat your customers has a direct impact on the success—or failure—of your business. It makes the difference between whether consumers stick with you long enough to convert or, if they do make a purchase, whether they make repeat purchases in the future.

But it’s not easy to stay customer focused 100% of the time, and every company is guilty of developing blind spots. The key is to identify your own set of blind spots and to work towards rectifying them before you lose the all-important trust of your customers.

RELATED: 5 Ways to Turn Your Customer Service Team Into a Secondary Sales Force

About the Author

Post by: Aaron Agius

Aaron Agius, CEO of worldwide digital agency Louder Online is, according to Forbes, among the world’s leading digital marketers. Working with clients such as Salesforce, Coca-Cola, IBM, Intel, and scores of stellar brands, Aaron is a Growth Marketer—a fusion between search, content, social, and PR.

Company: Louder Online
Website: www.louder.online
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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