Business Beginner

Digital marketing is here to stay and it's getting more competitive each year. Creating a comprehensive and effective digital marketing strategy is not a walk in the park. It's a complex and never-ending balancing act of maximizing user experience, growing brand awareness, following new trends, standing out from the competition, generating revenue, and staying on budget. For anyone looking to build or revamp their digital game plan, I've outlined these 12 Pillars Of Digital Marketing Strategy (in no particular order) to help your business create a strong foundation. 1) Compelling Company Website Having a high quality business website is pretty obvious but you certainly need to make your company's site a cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy . It needs to be descriptive, dependable, secure, quick to load, responsive, mobile-friendly, and with a clear Call To Action. There's nothing more pointless than an expensive trendy website that doesn't explain wh...

You don't want to just get by in business, you want to get ahead. You don't want to settle for career mediocrity, you want to strive for greatness. You don't want to get lost in the crowd, you want to stand out and lead the charge in the market. Pushing the limits of your professional potential isn't easy, but it will be worth it. Here are some of my suggestions for achieving greater success in business :  1) Work Smarter, Not Harder While work ethic is crucial to your success, you need to make sure that you are also making intelligent decisions that improve your efficiency. Continue to educate yourself, follow industry trends, and see what works (and doesn't work) for your peers. Utilize the strategies that have been proven to work and avoid the tactics of failed enterprises. Prioritize your duties and get organized. Automate or delegate if needed. If it is in your best interest or will help your bottom line, outsource certain business functions. 2) Be The Best At...

The internet and mobile technology has forever changed the way customers make purchases and how we need to market to them. Digital marketing over the last decade has been proven to be one of the most effective, if not the most effective, way to reach potential and existing customers at a reasonable price. If you aren't maximizing your digital marketing efforts then you'll need to implement some changes immediately to get back on track. Check to see if your digital marketing strategy is failing and falling into any of these mistake categories:   1. Failing To Update Your Blog  If your last blog post is a month ago, Google isn’t going to include it in a lot of searches, because there are a lot of other sites that are constantly updating their content and such sites have higher priority in Google’s eyes. No matter how well-made your blog is, if it isn’t up to date it isn’t going to appear on Google, which means that you aren’t going to draw a lot of new customers in. You might ...

YouTube is an incredibly powerful and still often underestimated platform for versatile digital marketing. Video marketing is getting better and more common every month and it's obviously here to stay. Look at the success of the almost purely visual platforms such as Instagram , Snapchat, Pinterest , Tumblr, and even the recently deceased Vine. Even Facebook and Twitter have been growing much more visual each year, with video becoming more prevalent each day. YouTube may be "old news" to some,  not as shiny and new as Snapchat or Instagram, but it can still be a game-changer. I happen to also strongly believe it has much greater monetization potential, when in the hands of the right marketer. It's a staple for comprehensive digital marketing strategies, but it can also be a primary platform for many successful businesses. Unique and high quality video content is also growing and in further demand. We are all aware that there are many "YouTube Celebrities"...

Digital marketing is constantly evolving and it's another big year of expansion and maturation. You need to be on top of your game if you want break away from your competitors or take your business to the next level . Evolve or dissolve! As you read this post keep in mind that my professional experiences in digital marketing are primarily in the retail, food, health, fitness, automotive, and publishing industries... so my perspectives and priorities might be different than yours. These are 5 areas I'm focusing on this year: 1. Digital Marketing Expansion & Integration Businesses of all kinds have been shifting to digital marketing in droves because it's affordable, flexible, and measurable. Overall advertising budgets will continue to shift towards digital marketing from traditional television, radio, and printed publications. The smarter traditional media should already be integrating their advertising efforts with their digital campaigns. Every print ad should inclu...

While the majority of business leaders and marketers are well versed by now in social media marketing , not everyone is on board yet. There are still a lot of companies, C-Suite level executives, and "old school" workers that aren't aware of what social media marketing platforms really offer. Or their knowledge and experience may be stuck 5-10 years in the past when Facebook, Twitter, YouTube , and LinkedIn were the only real players and things were much different! Most business professionals know the benefits of social media marketing, but below I've written a simplified outline on the various social media platforms that are reshaping the world of business today. You'll also find many links to more detailed and advanced articles I've written on individual platforms, strategies, and case studies. Facebook: Facebook, founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and publicly held, is the largest social network with about 2 Billion users worldwide. Over the past 5 years Fa...