How Your Business Can Get a Mobile Marketing Edge

With everything from photo editing to bill pay in the palm of their hands, it’s no wonder most Millennials would rather give up their car than their smartphone.

Mobile marketing trends among teens

Millennials’ tech obsession runs so deep that a staggering 83 percent of them actually sleep with their mobile devices. Since mobile phones rarely leave users’ sides, it naturally makes them the most efficient point of contact for marketers.

Having a strong mobile presence is becoming essential to businesses’ success, with 15 percent of online retail taking place on mobile devices in 2013. That number is estimated to reach 25 percent by 2017, which means that if your business hasn’t yet developed a mobile presence, you’re missing out on a huge stream of potential revenue.…

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How to Plan a Successful Office Party

Although a smoothly run office party won’t make or break your career, there are many benefits to having a nice bash. It’ll show that you have a versatile range of skills including your ability to understand social dynamics. That’s the kind of transferable skill that’s useful in almost all industries. Consider the following tips in the days leading up to the event.

Office party planning

The Nature of the Event

Not all events will be the same. A member of senior management’s birthday might be handled differently than a someone who was hired to fill in someone’s shoes while on maternity leave. Think about the following questions:

  • What is the history of the event?
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Contracting a Profitable Web Copywriter

Whether hiring or contracting a specialist web copywriter to work on your company website, you may be in for frustrating times ahead. With the rules of SEO changing, more brands are looking to content optimisation and careful keyword research to stay ahead of competitors, and that’s where web copywriting becomes an essential part of the web development process. A good web copywriter will charge you a one off fee that will deliver a staggering return on your investment over time.

Copywriting

So, what do you need to know before hiring a web copywriter?

1. They may not know what you’re talking about

Just like in any other aspect of business, there are the pure professionals who know enough about their own trade to know a bit about your trade.…

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How Text Message Marketing Can Spike Traffic During Slow Times

Sometimes business is booming, and other times things are a little dead and it seems that attracting a crowd is something beyond impossible. Seasons change, and with them maybe your business traffic takes a dip. From landscaping companies and snow plowers to restaurants and movie theaters, there are just times of the year, month, and day that your business slows down considerably.

Text marketing

These slow time periods are definitely not desired and can put a major crunch on your cash flow. But, there are ways that you can help combat those slow times. One great way is through the use of text marketing.…

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Can’t Afford Mobile? 5 Tips to Help You Survive Without It

Customers expect to have information about your business – and your competitors – at their fingertips. If you’re not on mobile, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to gain customers.

Online store

Four out of five consumers use smartphones to shop, and 70 percent of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour.

Despite these staggering statistics, many CEOs are still hesitant to jump on the mobile bandwagon. But mobile is the future of business, and it won’t wait for you to catch up before it sweeps your competition right past you on a digital wave of connected clients.

Mobile Boosts Business

In nearly every area of commerce, a mobile presence can boost your business by providing:

  • More leads.
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Creating a Productive Office Environment

How furniture and design choices can impact your bottom line

As a CEO or small business owner, it’s up to you to decide what kind of office environment you create – and the choices that you make matter. Office design impacts happiness in the workplace and overall productivity – no matter how seasoned your are or the size of your business.

office desk

So as if business owners didn’t have enough to consider when buying new office furniture and configuring the office space, they now have to consider how those choices will impact the company bottom line.

It doesn’t have to be as daunting as it sounds.…

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Tackling the 20 Percent of Revenue You are Losing to Inefficiency

You already know that inefficiencies are bad for business, but do you understand how bad? Every year, many organizations lose 20 to 30 percent in revenue due to inefficiencies. That’s some serious cash that could be going back into developing your business.

Catching money

If that’s news to you, you probably haven’t prioritized the best strategy for increasing efficiency: Documenting your processes. The thought of getting your processes in writing may sound tedious, but once you start doing it, the thrill of saving so much time and money will make you want to keep improving.

The Far-Reaching Impact of Efficiency

When given the same task, 12 different people will do it 12 different ways.…

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Your User’s Mouse is Trying to Tell You What’s Wrong With Your Site

Your website is a work of art. The design is clean and beautiful, the visuals fit perfectly with your brand, and the entire site is structured to quietly guide users where they need to go.

But there’s a problem: Users aren’t cooperating.

Browsing

Most of them seem to insist on using your site incorrectly. They’re not navigating to the right pages, no one is contacting you or filling out the forms, and most importantly, the number of people buying what you have to offer is much lower than it should be.

This is a trap many companies fall into: They put great effort in designing a website based on how the user is “supposed” to use it.…

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How LinkedIn Can Expand Your Small Business’ Reach

Social media can help small businesses expand their reach exponentially, but it’s not intrinsically effective. To get the full benefit of social, you have to use it like a pro.

You probably set up a Facebook page within days of launching your business — maybe even beforehand to build hype. You might have a Twitter account for your company, but did you create a LinkedIn profile?

LinkedIn

Many small businesses overlook LinkedIn when developing a social media presence, but it can be an effective tool that impacts every area of your business, from recruitment to sales.

What Makes LinkedIn Different?

Believe it or not, LinkedIn is the third most popular social network with 238 million active users.…

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Four Ways of Taking The Loneliness Out of Working at Home

If you are a ‘mompreneur’, or entrepreneur mom, working from home is likely to be the best option for you. The allure and advantages of working remotely are evident: it provides all the flexibility you need, and also entails a huge saving of time and energy. Working from home means no more hours of commuting, and this is time that can be better spent with the kids.

Mompreneur

While this lifestyle sounds ideal, the other side of the coin is the lack of socialization, the overwhelming sense of solitude that anyone who works from home should be familiar with.

So how do you overcome the loneliness of being a mompreneur?…

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