How to Write Great Blog Articles People Want to Read
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
If you publish a blog post or article and no one reads it, it’s still a post. Anyone can write one, although not everyone knows how to write great blog posts/articles people want to read.
Obviously, you first have to choose a topic.
How do you choose a topic?
If you’re familiar with a particular niche, you probably already have plenty of ideas you want to use. If not, then write about things people are searching for. If there are lots of searches, month after month on certain topics, that’s probably what people want to read about.
Here are some free tools for keyword research and SEO content optimization:
Moz.com
Google Keyword Planner
AHREFS
Semrush
Once you’ve chosen a topic, you need an angle or a viewpoint for your post or a direction. Choose an objective for your post/article.
That may be:
Sharing a solution to a tough problem
Refining an overwhelming topic into something understandable
Telling a suspenseful and emotional story that teaches a lesson
Identifying key trends on a topic, and using them to predict the future
Contributing original information about a field through your research and investigation
Now that you have a topic, select your format. Will it be a listicle or a how-to article?
1. A listicle format, also known as a list-post, are articles structured around lists. For example:
15 Blogging Tips For Beginners
10 Best Online Marketing Tools
10 Quick SEO Tips To Increase Organic Traffic
25 Tips For Content Marketing
50 Best Travel Tips: Advice From A Professional Traveler
2. A how-to article is self-explanatory, in that it shows how to perform a certain task. For example:
How To Start A Blog
How To Promote Your Business
How To Grow Your Business
How To Use Social Media To Grow Your Business
How To Write Great Blog Articles
Now that you have a topic and format, how do you write an article or a post that will rank on Google?
To write an article or a blog post that will rank on Google, you need to know about SEO (search engine optimization), the process of optimizing your site and content for search engines such as Google.
If your article or post is well optimized for a search engine, the higher you’ll rank on Google and it will have more visibility within the search results.
If SEO is well done, the ROI on your time and the money you’ve spent can be exceptionally high. When you’ve achieved a high rank for keywords that are directing traffic and sales to your site, you’re essentially getting “free” leads.
Of course, these organic leads are not totally free, since you’ve invested time and probably some money into your SEO efforts. But, unlike paid ads, organic traffic is a free source that keeps on giving.
Of the couple hundred plus Google ranking factors, there are three key areas you’ll need to familiarize yourself with:
On-page ranking factors—which relate to the content on your pages like keywords, title tags, and images that give Google a good understanding of your page.
Off-page ranking factors—that relate to indicators outside of your site like backlinks and social signals.
Technical ranking factors—which relate to your site’s performance such as accessibility, mobile compatibility, load speed, and more.
Now it’s time to write, but it’s really difficult to sit down and write from scratch – staring at a blank sheet of paper or a blank screen on your computer is daunting.
Since you’ve done research for keywords and decided on a topic, create an outline. With an outline, you just fill in the gaps. You don’t have to write an outline from scratch either. Use a template or make your own.
You’ll need to include:
1. The key takeaways for your readers
2. A smart headline
3. Arrange the major themes and section of the blog article outline
4. Insert relevant sources and any additional data and studies
5. Trim and clean up the outline
6. Write your article
Write a first draft using Google Docs or whatever program you prefer. Put down everything you think you’ll use pertaining to the article subject.
Now pick out a few key points as topics to discuss and use those for headings. Know that people like to skim before committing to reading an entire article. This gets you into formatting. Use each major key point as a heading for the different sections in the article. Be sure these headings are clear for easy skimming.
Break up the paragraphs into short paragraphs of no more than four sentences. You should vary the sentence length to make for easier reading.
Use bolding for emphasis, bullets, and numbered lists.
For complex points (or just for fun) you can add images, tables, charts, and infographics.
Be sure your article shows up well on mobile. Otherwise, your content – no matter how incredible – will not rank.
When you start writing you’ll need to come up with a great headline and introduction. So, state the problem you’ll write about, go into the details of solving it, then offer a solution.
Use the following points as a guideline.
1. Make your introduction catchy but authoritative.
2. The length of the article should be about 1,000 words minimum, depending on the subject matter. Content length varies by industry.
3. Sprinkle target keywords and similar ones throughout the article without going overboard and include important keywords early and frequently, of course, without overdoing them.
4. Use appropriate verbiage so as not to alienate your audience. Write in the first person and conversationally.
Links are very important because they keep viewers on your site and they build trust in Google’s eyes.
Some important ones are:
External links to amazing resources such as marketing tools
Internal links on your site – each blog article should include at least 2-3 links to other pages on your blog or main site
Make sure your anchor text actually links to something relevant. Don’t link the phrase “how to build a list” to an article about affiliate marketing.
In summary choosing your topic, angle, and format and putting effort into your content is a recipe for organic success.
Using this information on how to write great blog articles people want to read will enable you to get started writing great blog posts that people want to read.
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Artificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing
By Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Going forward, marketers may face unique challenges that will change how we approach digital marketing.
The top content marketing strategies are still personalized marketing, extended use of multimedia, and exploring new digital channels.
What is AI?
We all basically know what AI is, as we see and use it daily. However, this is the definition from Wikipedia:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by humans or by other animals. Example tasks in which this is done include speech recognition, computer vision, translation between (natural) languages, as well as other mappings of inputs.
We must reconsider the use of MI (marketing intelligence) and AI (artificial intelligence). MI typically focuses on interpreting worldwide consumer trends while market research focuses on customer preferences for a specific company.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are changing the way businesses operate and revolutionizing the approach to digital marketing.
By controlling these technologies, businesses can operate more efficiently. They can give their customers personalized experiences and automate tasks, thus freeing up time to focus on more strategic endeavors.
AI has the potential to help with lead qualification, customer engagement, and product demonstrations for sales. The use of AI-generated salespeople can help companies provide high-level customer service and save time and resources. However, it’s important to strike a balance between AI and human interaction, as there are still consumers who prefer the personal touch of a real human.
Smartphones now have privacy controls to prevent too much sharing of certain data on sites like Google and Facebook, so marketers now have less data to use for understanding customers and personalizing marketing efforts. We’re also moving toward a cookie-less future, as Google will phase out cookies by the end of 2024.
Do not ignore the use of artificial intelligence in digital marketing.
What can we do to stay relevant?
HERE ARE FOUR STRATEGIES TO EXCEL AT MARKETING
1. First-Party Data
As third-party data continues to be phased out, first-party data will probably be the most valuable source of information. Rely on your own resources to get customer data instead of purchasing information from outside companies. Respecting customers’ privacy will benefit you.
You can source first-party data from:
Social media interactions
Website visitor tracking
Digital forms and surveys
Customer service interactions
Marketing email and text message responses
2. Run Pay-Per-Click Ads
Run pay-per-click ads with first-party data. If customers visit your website and look at a particular item and leave, you can retarget ads on other sites to entice them back. This is, however, becoming harder to do since Apple’s privacy updates are making that more difficult, and cookie-less browsing is taking its toll.
Many marketers are turning to Facebook’s Custom Audiences or services like Google’s Customer Match. These use a custom audience list that businesses create with first-party data, then match the list to users on the ad platform. Now, an ad funnel can be created to deliver personalized ads to customers based on first-party data.
3. Email And Text Message Marketing
Focus on email and text message marketing. Two of the most valuable first-party data sources are email and text message marketing. You can target specific customers and segments through these marketing channels. You can divide your email list by location and send out location-specific promotions to customers. Consumers like personalized emails based on behaviors like purchasing history.
This gives you a way to track which customers open emails and text messages and how they respond to the content. Using this data, you can customize your marketing to current customers based on how they respond to certain promotions.
4. BRAND AMBASSADORS
Work with brand ambassadors and influencers. They promote businesses more personally than a pop-up ad on someone’s social media feed. Brand ambassadors are familiar and friendly faces offering product recommendations, and that boosts your brand’s authenticity.
Don’t put all your marketing budget into one or two strategies, which will put your business at risk. Instead, use a diversified approach. Your ads are still relevant. So, keep running them, even without cookies. But, also, invest in email marketing and text message marketing. To reach the most customers, use the most effective content marketing strategies together to fill the gaps where some strategies are weak or where you’re not reaching customers. By using diverse strategies in tandem, you reach the most customers and aren’t significantly impacted by changes.
This information on artificial intelligence in digital marketing will help with your marketing.
Affiliate Marketing Is More Than Just Posting Links
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy with partners promoting and selling other companies’ products for commissions. When customers click on an affiliate link they are taken directly to a brand’s product or service website. Ideally, this leads to a sale, signup, or just clicks. The partner earns a commission according to how many users are redirected to the brand via that affiliate link.
But, affiliate marketing is more than just posting links and it involves much more than just joining an affiliate marketing program, promoting a link, and hoping people buy what you’re advertising….
Read
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Some Things You Need To Know Before You Start Blogging
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Blogging is NOT dead, although it has changed from what it used to be and is still changing. Some previously used blogging tactics no longer work. In order to remain relevant, bloggers must also continue to evolve.
Today there are over 600 million blogs on the internet. (source: blogging.org). To be successful now and in the future, the best thing you can do is position yourself as an authority figure in your niche.
Note: For more interesting blog data see.
Here are five blogging tactics – in no particular order – that no longer work:
1. Clickbait headlines
Clickbait headlines are the outrageous ones to get your attention and have no user-satisfactory content. They are misleading, sensational, or spammy. This also applies to YouTube videos. It makes your channel less and less effective for driving traffic.
You should focus on writing headlines that are based on the real value that you are delivering in your content.
2. Blogging about everything
If you blog about everything, you’ll confuse people. They won’t know what your area of expertise is. Stick to one or two topics.
People don’t want generic information but specific information from people they can trust and believe in and with whom they can actually have a personal connection.
3. Blogging about your personal life
People used to blog about their children, what they ate that day, or just share bizarre personal details that people connected with. That is simply entertainment content that belongs on social media (in particular Instagram) where that kind of content is more accessible and easier to consume.
Although you can still blog about your personal life, you’ll need a fantastic Instagram and/or YouTube channel to go with it.
When people want entertainment they look to social media. However, when they want answers to their problems, they choose Google, namely websites.
But, there are always exceptions. Just remember to entertain on social and use your website for education.
4. Posting all the time
Now that content is more prolific on the internet, the tactic of posting more content to try to get more traffic is also outdated. Your focus should be on the quality of content, not quantity. Create content that stands out.
Generally, it’s better to create one (1) high-quality blog post per month than publish 5-6 average or mediocre posts that are short-lived.
To help establish yourself as an authority figure, use longer, more detailed posts.
If you really know your material, you’ll be able to talk about it for a long time (or hundreds of pages…).
The exception to this rule is if you’re a brand-new blogger, starting a blog from scratch, you’re probably better off publishing more posts because publishing more content can help you get some initial traction on social platforms like Pinterest and YouTube. Writing different kinds of content more frequently can help you learn more about what your audience is most interested in.
5. Blogging with no supplemental video or audio content
If you wish it to survive in the future, your blog needs to evolve into a multi-media site.
The more options people have to consume your content, the better. Using the following mediums will help:
Your blog
YouTube
Pinterest
Google
Email List
Your blog is now a multi-media website. It’s no longer just a blog.
For long-term blogging success, you need to dedicate your time and energy to becoming an expert in your niche.
What are some other things you should know before you start blogging?
1. Building habits is essential especially when your time is limited. You need consistent blocks of time you can spend on your blog. That may be:
a) Early morning – get everything ready the night before
b) During lunch break at your day job – get away from your desk and grab a bite to eat while working on your blog
c) In the evenings – you can just outline your post if you find it hard to focus after a long day
d) On the weekends – block out half a day on Saturday or Sunday
Finding a time that you can consistently use for blogging, week after week, will make it easier to form the habit.
2. WordPress
WordPress is usually the best option. Within WordPress are two more options so be careful. Also, there are plugins for anything you want to do in WordPress. Read
3. It’s easier to write quality blog posts by using a great template.
4. End all blog posts with a call to action.
5. The most important part of your blog is the headline. Read.
6. Keyword research is vital for SEO which brings in traffic.
7. You should build an email list as soon as possible (from day one).
8. When used correctly, social media is an effective traffic source.
9. Making money from a new blog will take UP to 12 months minimum.
10. Digital courses and eBooks are a great way to monetize your blog.
11. Use affiliate marketing to grow your blog income.
12. Link building from other websites is crucial.
This is by no means a complete list. More things can be added but this will get you off to a great start.
What are the best blogging platforms?
When choosing a blogging platform you must take into consideration what is best for your needs.
If you’re just starting, use a platform that’s easy to set up and use. If you have no coding experience choose a platform that needs no code. Developing a blog isn’t simple and you don’t want to add new skills to your to-do list.
You’ll need to think about the layout and features you want and the blog tools you may need as your blog grows.
Some things to think about are:
Monetizing your blog with a newsletter now or in the future
A multi-media experience with lots of images and videos
Using it to build SEO for your small business site
Using it to build your reputation as a thought leader
Skills you need to learn to build your blog
Can a blogging platform help with these skills
When you have a clear plan for your blog, you’re ready to choose a platform.
Many who choose a platform start with cost. Some of the best blog software is free. Check each provider’s plan and how many tiers there are. Then check their primary and unique features. Pay special attention to the out-of-the-box features compared to add-ons.
Here’s a list:
WordPress: Best for customization
Wix: Best for drag and drop
Weebly: Best for e-commerce blogging
Drupal: Best for developers
Squarespace: Best all-in-one platform
CMS Hub: Best for marketers
Medium: Best for its built-in audience
Blogging is not dead. But you have to keep your strategies alive to be successful on the internet. These are just some things you need to know before you start blogging that will be helpful.
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Generate Brand Awareness With Content Marketing
By Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
You can generate brand awareness, persuade customers to take action, and drive revenue with an engaging content marketing strategy.
There are many types of platforms, channels, and media encompassed in content marketing. This is a review of what you need for content marketing success, moving forward, and some of the best content marketing tools.
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5 Blogging Trends You Should Not Ignore
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Blogging has been around for a long time and while its basic foundation remains the same (write and publish), some changes do occur that may be passing trends or they may become permanent. You need to be on top of the latest blogging trends and keep up to date with content marketing strategies in order to remain competitive.
To keep you up to date on what’s going on now, this post will look into five of the trends you can expect moving forward. This will help you stay current with the latest practices and may inspire you to do something different on your blog.
1) Visuals
Visuals have always been a large part of blog content and are on the rise. And that’s a plus for your brand’s visibility and retention.
Although using visuals is good, you’ll need to use custom graphics as opposed to generic images. People tend to ignore stock photos these days.
With tailored graphics, you have the advantage of branding. When you use custom-made visuals, you can choose color palettes and fonts that resonate with your blog’s design and viewpoint. This makes your blog posts and pages look consistent and not patched together. You can also design visuals like charts, infographics, and graphs that directly reference the content they are part of.
If you’re not a designer, you can still take advantage of this blogging trend with tools like Canva, Visme, and Prezi. They’re perfect for beginners who are not knowledgeable about design. These tools come with pre-built templates, fonts, and color palettes that make designing custom graphics easier. They also have an option for creating/importing your own color palettes and fonts.
Since blogs are becoming longer and more detailed, design and interactivity become more important. Visual content offers readers a way to scan your content without reading the entire post.
2) Interactivity
Since people’s attention span has increasingly dropped over the years, interactivity has become a more important way to keep them engaged. You can embed interactive videos and also interactivity to those videos like hotspots and time triggers such as popups and CTAs to move viewers to certain areas of the video in order to reach a particular time stamp. You can use the Vimeo platform that can do this right out of the box.
By using a website such as Giphy, you can use animated images called GIFs to add some color and humor to your content in order to make it less boring. Once you’ve decided on a GIF, it can be inserted into your content by using either autoembeds or add it via an image block.
3) Originality
In an environment where websites tend to repackage the same information over and over, being original adds freshness to your blog, establishes your commitment to your readers, shows your thought leadership, and can immediately make you stand out.
There are several ways to make your content original. You can talk about a distinctive topic, provide a unique perspective, or conduct your own research. Conducting your own authentic research is the easiest way to level up your blog. However, not everyone has the bandwidth to do original research. So, you can reach out to others in your industry and conduct your own surveys using Google Forms and Typeform.
You can also tweet about your queries using the hashtag #JournoRequest on Twitter.
4) Content Experience
A shift from consuming content to experiencing it is a bigger blogger trend to focus on going forward. You can no longer simply deliver accurate information to your readers. You’ll have to consider other factors to make your content more appealing. You can do this by focusing on core web vitals and improving your overall content environment. Core web vitals are measurements of key aspects of page speed and user experience that also influence search ranking.
Some examples of a bad content ecosystem (environment) are:
Lots of popups or other interruptions and distractions like multi-step cookie notices
Autoplaying audio and videos
Web design problems such as low contrast among others
Bad website or information structure that leaves visitors not knowing what to do
Your goal is to make sure that each section of content is part of a bigger puzzle that makes sense.
5) Cross-Channel Promotion
One of the trends that will be dominant is cross-channel promotion, a marketing strategy that integrates all your marketing channels and unifies their plans, data, and goals across the board.
Just churning out blog posts is no longer enough to be successful on the internet. You now need to invest your efforts in other marketing channels like social media, SEO, and email marketing.
Unlike multi-channel marketing, which also uses several channels to attract customers with each channel working independently, this cross-channel promotion uses all channels to push out the same message at the same time.
The first thing you need to accomplish this is a Customer Data Platform (CDP). CDPs can help consolidate and organize consumer data from all your channels in one place. Three good sources are Bloomreach, Insider, and Segment.
Then you can use micro-segmentation to group your audience by different demographic details, characteristics, and buying behaviors so you can hyper-personalize your content and marketing channels to suit prospects where they are in their journey.
Some examples are starting an email with the reader’s name, writing content to target readers’ needs, adjusting mailing frequency to suit their needs, and otherwise catering to whatever else your audience is looking for. This is a great way to stand out while blogging.
Even though blogging is a well-established medium, there are trends that come and go. Staying on top of these developments allows you to decide which ones you want to use and when. Most of these 5 blogging trends you should not ignore heavily focus on user experience. The best trend to follow is figuring out how to better serve your readers with the content you write and how you present it. In doing so, you’ll end up with a better blog than when you started.
Affiliate Marketing Moving Forward
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Affiliate marketing could be your opportunity to make money online. You don’t need any special skills and you can sign up for free. You can connect with brands and promote their products to earn commissions.
Over the past few years affiliate marketing has been steadily growing. With the rapid changes in digital marketing and e-commerce, there are certain trends that you should be aware of.
Affiliate marketing is a low-cost business growth plan strategy that is ideal for small businesses as it increases income with less expense and work.
Giant corporations and single-item shops have an affiliate program or are part of an affiliate network. The world of affiliate marketing can be fierce and it’s growing daily so, to be successful in it, you have to keep up with market trends.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way of getting customers and an alternative to advertising. It allows you to work with partners known as affiliates or publishers to reach a wider audience and generate more profits. Affiliates are paid when they have accomplished what they set out to do which may be increasing leads, driving sales, or getting new clients. In affiliate marketing commissions are paid for actual results.
In affiliate marketing, there are networks that allow websites and bloggers to share links to a specific page or product for ad revenue. Affiliate marketing depends on a huge network where the marketing can take place. When visitors click on an ad or a link they will be taken directly to that site or e-commerce site.
If a customer purchases a product through that e-commerce link you must pay your partner the agreed-upon fee, typically 5% to 10% of the contract value. Through this system, you (as the retailer) and your affiliate (as your partner) gain from increased sales.
If you run a product-focused website or blog, you can do affiliate marketing. But do keep in mind that affiliate marketing is not ideal for direct sales.
What are the benefits of an affiliate marketing program?
If you’re in retail, an affiliate marketing program can be added to your overall marketing plan. Whether your product is already well-liked or you’re just starting to build your brand, the product can help you reach your goals.
An affiliate program for your business can provide you with the following benefits:
Wide-Reaching Impact
Your affiliate partners have websites, email lists, social media accounts, and a sizeable number of followers so, potentially, they can reach a larger audience than you can on your own. They can help you promote your product through one or all of their networks. Since there’s a reward coming, they’ll work hard to grow sales or drive traffic for your brand.
Result-Based Commission
Since you only pay for completed actions, setting up an affiliate program is a cost-effective marketing strategy. You can work with as many affiliates as you choose. Their commission will rise as your sales rise. This is advantageous for both parties.
Increased SERP Ranking
As the links from your affiliates are widely shared, the SERPs (search engine rank pages) rank of your website will substantially improve and you’ll get more organic traffic which will save money on marketing.
Unique Content
You may not need to run countless ads on Google or social media platforms, because your affiliate marketers can write articles about your brand, produce reviews for your product, and create video ads about your business. Each affiliate presents a unique perspective.
Marketers are feeling more and more confident about investing in social media so affiliate networking is becoming very competitive. Here are some trends you should be watching to help you see the direction the industry is taking. Understanding them can increase affiliate traffic for your brand.
1) Influencer marketing continues to grow.
2) More websites are embracing alternative ad technologies such as contextual targeting to reach a broader audience in more meaningful and relevant ways.
3) As more people are using their phones to shop online, cross-device tracking will be prioritized.
4) Consumers worldwide are increasing their usage of mobile applications so affiliate marketers will need to use In-App monitoring for improved consumer insights.
5) Voice search SEO will continue to rise. As voice search SEO isn’t standard SEO, affiliates will have to refine websites for voice requests.
6) Blog link building will be diversified, so blogging still works although there will be new challenges.
Keeping this information in mind will help you with your affiliate marketing moving forward.
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11 Steps to Start Your Own Business (Part 2)
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
In the last article 11 Steps to Start Your Own Business Part 1, we covered the first five steps of starting your own business. We’ll now cover the remaining six steps.
Now that the business is set up, what’s next?
6. Get Your Finances in Order
Open a business bank account and keep your business and personal finances separate. Your business account can be used for business transactions such as invoicing customers or paying suppliers. Usually, a bank will insist you have a separate business bank account in case you want a business loan or line of credit. You’ll have to provide your business name and business tax identification number (EIN) when opening a business bank account.
You’ll need to hire a bookkeeper or get accounting software. There are some software programs that double as bookkeeping tools and often include features such as check writing and managing receivables and payables. The software can also be used to generate invoices, track your income and expenses, run reports and calculate taxes. These services can be accessed online from any computer or mobile device.
You must get an idea of your startup costs before funding your business. To do this list all physical supplies you need, estimate the cost of any professional services you’ll need, add the cost of any licenses or permits required to operate, and calculate office space cost or other real estate. If applicable, add payroll and benefits costs.
Since businesses can take years to make a profit, it’s better to overestimate startup costs and have too much cash on hand rather than too little. Some experts recommend having enough cash to cover six months of operating expenses. You should also know your break-even point; the point at which your business makes money.
7. Fund Your Business
There are many ways to fund your business. Some require more effort than others. There are two categories of funding: internal and external.
Internal funding includes credit cards, personal savings, and family and friends. This option has the inherent risks of lost wealth due to not paying debts or hard feelings because of strained relationships if the company goes under.
External funding includes:
Small business loans and grants
Angel investors
Venture capital
Crowdfunding
Whatever the source plan for profit. It’s much better to take home all your money rather than lose part of it.
To choose the right funding source consider the amount of money you need, the time frame for repayment, and risk tolerance.
8. Apply for Business Insurance
Even if you don’t have employees or you have a home-based business, you need to have insurance. The type depends on your business model and your risks. You might need more than one kind of policy and, as your business grows, you might need additional coverage. In most states, if you have employees, workers’ compensation insurance is required by law.
The basic types of business insurance coverage are:
Liability insurance which protects your business against third-party claims of bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury such as defamation or false advertising.
Property insurance for covering the physical assets of your business, including your office space, equipment, and inventory.
Business interruption insurance to pay for the loss of income if your business is forced to close temporarily due to a covered event such as a natural disaster.
Product liability insurance for protection against claims that your products caused bodily injury or property damage.
Employee practices liability insurance that covers claims from employees alleging discrimination, sexual harassment, or other wrongful termination.
Workers’ compensation insurance for medical expenses and income replacement for employees who are injured on the job.
9. Have the Right Business Tools
The right business tools can help make your life easier and your business run a lot smoother. They can also help save time, automate tasks, and aid you in making better decisions.
Following are some tools to consider:
Accounting software
Customer relationship management software (CRM)
Project management software
Credit card processor
Point of sale (POS)
Virtual private network (VPN)
Merchant services
Email Hosting
10. Market Your Business
Don’t spend so much time creating the products that you have no marketing budget by launch time.
A web presence is essential even if you’re a brick-and-mortar business. Here are tips for establishing a web presence. You can have a standard informational site or an e-commerce site where you sell products online.
After getting a website or e-commerce site you need to optimize it for search engines so that when a potential customer searches for specific keywords for your products, search engines can direct them to your site.
As SEO is a long-term strategy, don’t expect a lot of traffic from search engines initially—even when you’re using all the correct keywords.
Provide quality, relevant digital content on your site. Content marketing should be one of the most critical tasks on your daily to-do list and should be used in conjunction with social media.
Get listed in online directories like Yelp, Google My Business, and Facebook to find local businesses. Include your business in as many relevant directories as possible and create listings for your business in specific directories that focus on your subject matter.
Develop a social media strategy and use social media to drive traffic back to your website where customers can learn more about what you do and buy your products or services.
You don’t have to use all the social media platforms. But you should have a presence on Facebook and Instagram as they offer e-commerce features that allow you to sell directly from your social media accounts. Both platforms have free ad training to help you market your business.
11. Scale Your Business
In order to scale your business, you’ll need to grow your customer base and revenue. You can do this by increasing your marketing efforts, collaborating with other creators, improving your product or service, or adding new products or services that complement what you already offer.
Consider ways you can automate or outsource particular tasks so that you can focus on scaling your business. For example, if social media marketing is occupying too much of your time, you can use a platform such as Hootsuite to help you manage your accounts more efficiently. You can also completely outsource the time-consumer.
You can use technology to automate certain business processes including accounting, lead generation, and email marketing. By doing this you will have more time to focus on other parts of your business.
It’s important to watch your finances and make sure you’re still profitable when scaling your business. Make sure you have enough money to cover your costs. You may need to either reduce your expenses or find ways to increase your revenue.
As your business grows, you will eventually need a team of people who can help you run the day-to-day operations. This might include hiring additional staff, contractors, or freelancers.
Now, with these 11 steps to start your own business, you can get started today.
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11 Steps to Start Your Own Business (Part 1)
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
Where do you start?
Starting a business can be very exciting and rewarding. But where do you start? There are many ways to approach creating a business as well as many important considerations.
What is often touted as overnight success requires years of dreaming, building, and positioning before a big public launch. So, remember to focus on your business journey and not measure your success against anyone else’s.
Before beginning these 11 steps to start your own business you need to get in the right mindset. You should know that it takes consistency, creating habits and follow-up routines, and writing out every possible step it takes to achieve your goal. Then order those steps by what needs to be done first. Some steps may take a few minutes to accomplish while others will take a long time. The point is to always take the next step and keep moving forward.
1. Determine Your Business Concept
How do you determine your business concept?
Before deciding what type of business to start, there are several things to consider:
What kind of financing do you have?
How much time do you have to devote to your business?
Do you prefer to work from home, at a workshop, or from an office?
What passions or interests do you have?
Can you sell information (a course) rather than a product?
What expertise or skills do you have?
How fast do you need to scale your business?
What kind of support do you have to start your business?
Will you be partnering with someone else?
Does the franchise model make more sense to you?
If you’re not sure of what kind of business to start, consider one of the following:
Start a blog
Start an online store
Start a franchise
Start a cleaning business
Start a bookkeeping business
Start a drop shipping business
Start a clothing business
Start a landscaping business
Start a consulting business
Start a vending machine business
Start a photography business
2. Research Your Market and Your Competitors
As an entrepreneur, you should spend more time on getting to know the competition rather than on products. If you ever apply for outside funding, your potential lender or partner will want to know what makes you (or your business idea) different from the rest.
If market analysis shows that your product or service is saturated in your area, see if you can come up with something different. For example – housekeeping. Rather than general cleaning services, you can specialize in homes with pets or focus on garage cleanups.
Primary research is the first stage of any competition study. This means getting data directly from potential customers and not basing your conclusions on past data. For this, you can use surveys, questionnaires, and interviews to learn what consumers want and would actually buy.
Secondary research uses existing sources of information, such as census data, to gather information. The current data may be studied, compiled, and analyzed in various ways that are appropriate for your needs but it probably won’t be as detailed as your primary research.
Thirdly, you can do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis which will allow you to get the facts about how your product or idea might perform if taken to market. It can also help you make decisions about the objective of your idea. Your business idea might have some weaknesses that you hadn’t considered or there may be opportunities to improve on a competitor’s product.
3. Create A Business Plan
A business plan is a document that serves as a roadmap for establishing your new business. It outlines your company’s objectives and how you plan to meet them.
Even if you intend to self-finance, a business plan can help you bring to life your idea and spot potential problems. When you write your well-rounded business plan, include the following sections:
Executive summary
Company description
Market analysis
Organization and structure
Mission and goals
Products and/or services
Background summary
Marketing plan
Financial plan
Come up with an exit strategy. The most common ones include:
Selling the business to another party
Passing the business down to family members
Liquidating the business assets
Closing the doors and walking away
The best option for you will depend on your goals and circumstances.
It’s important to have a scalable business model that can be replicated easily to serve more customers without acquiring a significant increase in expenses.
Some standard scalable business models are:
Subscription-based businesses
Businesses that sell digital products
Franchise businesses
Network marketing businesses
One of the most important things to do when starting a small business is to plan for taxes which can be very complex. There are several different types of taxes you may be liable for, including income tax, self-employment tax, sales tax, and property tax. Depending on the type of business you’re operating, you may also be required to pay other taxes, such as payroll tax or unemployment tax.
4. Choose Your Business Structure
When structuring your business, it’s essential to consider how each structure impacts the amount of taxes you owe, daily operations, and whether your personal assets are at risk.
The most common business structures in the US are LLC, LLP, Sole proprietorship, and corporation.
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5. Register Your Business and get Licenses
After choosing a business structure, you have several legal issues to address. Following is a good checklist of items to consider when establishing your business:
Choose a business name
Register your business and get an EIN
Get appropriate licenses and permits
You’ll officially create your business entity by filing forms with your state’s business agency. As part of this process, you’ll need to choose a registered agent to accept legal documents on behalf of your business. You’ll also pay a filing fee. The state will send you a certificate that you can use to apply for licenses, a tax identification number (TIN), and business bank accounts.
All businesses, other than sole proprietorships with no employees, must have a federal employer identification number. You can submit your application to the IRS and you’ll usually receive your number in minutes.
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Make Your Marketing Easier With an Autoresponder
by Rahimah Sultan
Advertising Disclosure: Marketing Success Review may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website. There is no expense to you.
If you’re a serious marketer using email marketing, you know you need to use an autoresponder. But, if you’re just starting your business, you may not be familiar with certain email marketing tools and how to use them to effectively and efficiently email people. This article is intended to show you how to make your marketing easier with an autoresponder.
What is an autoresponder?
An autoresponder is an automated system that sends a reply to a customer using certain rules. It can contain one email or a series of emails that go to subscribers’ inboxes after a trigger event occurs, such as signing up for something of yours they’ve seen online. The goal of the email is to engage your audience, as soon as they take an action, through a series of follow-up messages.
They are the simplest form of email automation. They can include a welcome email, a thank-you email, or an abandoned cart reminder as well as more complex uses for lead-nurturing and other campaigns.
An autoresponder series of emails will:
1. Help you bond with your email list so they get to know, like, and trust you. Thus, boosting your traffic and sales
2. Lend a sense of continuity to your email marketing
3. Allow constant communication between you and your audience
What are some examples of when to use autoresponder emails?1. Follow-ups
This email is used for visitors to your site who have just given you their email addresses. This is mainly those who’ve signed up for your newsletter or whatever you promised when they filled in the form on your site. It’s a one-time email that goes out immediately after they’ve entered their contact information.
This is usually a welcome email saying hello and thank you for your interest. Then you can set up a series of emails to go out at particular intervals to keep engaged with this list.
2. Sales leads
These emails are for people who have expressed an interest in your product or service. They may have watched a video, so this email encourages them to start a free trial of some sort.
3. Customer service
The goal of customer-service emails is to establish clear expectations for response time, specify self-service resources, and communicate known issues.
4. Onboarding
Onboarding is the process of introducing a new user to a product or service and guiding them through the early steps of using it. The reason for this is to help them understand the product or service’s value and encourage them to engage with it more deeply which leads to increased user retention, satisfaction, and user lifetime value (LTV).
You can use tutorials, welcome messages, guided tours, and other resources designed to make the user’s first experience with the product as smooth and intuitive as possible.
5. Upselling
This email is used after your customers have been using your product or service for a set amount of time. It offers your customer an upgrade to a long-term plan.
Autoresponder emails are an essential part of your email marketing strategy because they allow you to send your subscribers the right message at the best time. Whether you are a blogger or an eCommerce store owner, they can help you maintain a healthy email list (through double opt-in), welcome and onboard your subscribers, and save valuable time.
An autoresponder is a must-have tool if you have an online business and want to successfully and efficiently email people. It saves precious time.
Although you gain quick results with an autoresponder, remember the human element. Things change quickly these days, so “set it and forget it” no longer exists. You have to continue to test copy, see how your customers react to different types of autoresponders, and add new touch points.
Autoresponders will exponentially expand your reach without adding more time or effort to your workflow, once you figure out what works. So, make your marketing easier with an autoresponder.
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