4 Simple Hacks for Your SME to ‘Go Digital’

Having a digital presence in 2018 is essential for any company that wants a lucrative slice of the global online marketplace.

But for smaller firms with limited budgets, marketing effectively can be challenging — and owners who aren’t ‘digital natives’ completely at ease with the latest technology can find the process bamboozling.

Business owner going digital

So if you’re a small business owner taking your first tentative steps into the sphere, here are four simple hacks for your SME to ‘go digital’.

Google My business

Google is gargantuan, but you don’t need to spend big bucks to have a presence there.

Google My Business is probably the world’s most powerful local directory — and you can grab your own page for free, and a spot in Google’s influential local three-pack results, after a brief verification process.…

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Bad Internet Leads are a Myth. Here’s Why.

The bad lead: It’s like a big piece of gunk gumming up the works in your sales funnel. Not only does it stop the flow of better prospects, but it does so seemingly out of nowhere. So would it surprise anyone to learn that these leads are completely in the company’s control?

Businesswoman managing online leads

It’s a hard truth to swallow, but no one can produce a “bad” lead except you. The internet doesn’t make a lead bad. Nor do social media platforms. The problem lies squarely in what you’re saying and how you’re saying it.

In other words, the funnel disruptor would go away if you stopped feeding it with wasted information.

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What is the Best Email Marketing Strategy for 2018?

You’ve finally done it. Made a list, checked it twice, and now you want to start sending emails to your (hopefully) loyal subscribers. Ah, life is great and your business is surely set to explode with increased sales. As they say “It’s all in the list!”

Email marketing

But, do you really know what you’re doing? Are you armed with the knowledge needed to successfully send out useful emails to your list without getting spam-boxed and/or unsubscribed? This is perhaps the biggest hurdle you’ll always have to overcome throughout all the mailings you send.

Then there’s the marketing side of things — getting the sale, convincing them to buy again, all the while building a bulletproof brand.…

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Assertiveness is Key for a Successful Sales Representative

Picture in your mind a highly effective sales candidate; it could be one presently working with you at your company who is finding consistent success, or one you imagine could fill an open position. Chances are that assertiveness is among their top qualities.

Sales representative

A good amount of assertiveness implies a secure sense of self while in the role or position; the candidate recognizes which prospects to give energy to, has an understanding of urgency on a call, but also knows when to pull back and when to give potential clients some breathing room.

To know when and how to put just the right amount of pressure also requires employees to have a highly developed sense of awareness.…

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3 Tips – Based on Research – to Skyrocket Form Conversions

You’ve done everything correctly: built a beautiful website, added contact forms and marketed your business. Leads are pouring in, but for some reason, they never convert. Your business is suffering, and the problem may be a simple one.

Your contact form isn’t optimized for success.

Form conversion rate optimization

I have seen long contact forms spanning 30 fields before, and the first thing I thought was: “no one is going to take the time to fill out this form.”

And this leads to our first tip:

1. Limit Your Fields

If no one is going to fill out a long form, what is the ideal number of fields then?…

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3 Lesser-Known Link Building Opportunities for Businesses

Businesses, especially new businesses with a small budget, have a hard time justifying link building. You might, and I say might very lightly, be able to start generating leads affordably with pay-per-click advertising.

Every business is different, with some having very affordable pay-per-click rates.

But over time, a business will start to realize that organic traffic that they don’t have to pay for is much more economical. Enter link building. Indeed, link building remains the cornerstone of any search engine optimization strategy.

Link building strategies

To get started, QuickSprout has a great, advanced link building resource to help you get started.

So, what are the lesser-known link opportunities for businesses?

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How to Create a Small Business Video Marketing Strategy

Video marketing has been hugely successful in 2017 and all signs point towards similar success in 2018. Videos attract peoples’ attention, they generate leads, and they get people to convert. But, how do you get in the video marketing game as a small business with a limited marketing budget?

Video marketing strategy

In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to create a small business video marketing strategy.

Define your goals

One of the first things that you should do as part of any digital marketing and growth strategy, is to set your goals.

This will help you focus on delivering results and making sure that every piece of content you create will serve a clear purpose – aka, to help you achieve your set goals.…

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3 Lead Generation Tactics That Can Give Startups a Big Boost

Lead generation is key when starting up a business. The rule is simple: More leads equal more sales (given you can convert those leads well, though…) However, to make lead generation work, you need some tactics.

There are plenty of lead generation tactics you can adopt, but I’d suggest you to focus on just three tactics: Ringless voicemail, Facebook ads and online referral program.  Here’s a brief explanation on each.

Business smartphone

1. Ringless voicemail

Ringless voicemail is a technology that delivers voicemail messages to cellular phones without actually calling them. Ringless voicemail contacts a provider of a cellular service via a business landline and delivers voicemails thought the landline.…

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Dazzling Displays – 3 Tips For Boosting Your Sales Through Visual Merchandising

When it comes to taking in and making sense of information, we focus more on visuals than anything else. In fact, educational researchers suggest that about 83% of human learning occurs visually. For marketers, statistics like this can have a big impact on how you decide to present your product to consumers and they place huge importance on using visual merchandising in your marketing efforts.

Within your store is a finite amount of space. It’s up to you to make each and every square metre of space available to you counts and this is exactly where visual merchandising comes into play.…

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Building The Essentials: 5 Tips for a Successful Business Website

Beginners beware! Building a website is much easier than it seems. Once you nail down the basic elements which make up a successful, working site, you will have no problem building from there.

Business website

Your website is a digital store location for your organization, and it should reflect the same brand-centered themes as you would use for a brick and mortar address. It must be built to inform and project and urgency to take action.

Get started now with a few helpful tips towards building a functional and successful business website.

Spread your content wide

The internet is an endless pool of content.…

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