Category: Commentary

With the tough economic climate, crowdfunding has become a popular and alternative method of raising finance for a business, projects or ideas. Crowdfunding platforms are convenient, simple to use and reach a wide audience of investors at a low cost.

Crowdfunding can be defined as a collective cooperation of people who network and pool their money and resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other organizations. Read more…

Recommended: Cheap Ways To Get Exposure, Stay Profitable.

Lack of funding often causes young entrepreneurs to give up on their ventures before ever getting off the ground. The many rejections, ignored emails and missed calls thrown your way from potential investors can be quite demoralizing, to say the least. Sometimes it seems like searching for a needle in a haystack, but entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.

It’s imperative for young entrepreneurs to look beyond what is considered the normal route in business, especially as they seek that crucial first investment. Read more…

Recommended: What Entrepreneurs Need to Know About Equity Crowdfunding to Raise Money

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

Read more…

Recommended: 5 Tips To Create A Winning Team For Your Business

Do you want to learn how to present yourself and your business on LinkedIn?

Are you looking for a resource to guide your LinkedIn marketing efforts?

Whether you’re using LinkedIn as an individual or as a brand, the following tips will help you develop a LinkedIn marketing plan and find prospects and leads.

Create a Presence for Yourself

Make sure your LinkedIn account is secure. Read more…

Recommended: 3 SEO Tips For Small Business Success

Even the most perceptive business owners can make a bad hire when they don’t pay attention to the right signs. Here are 3 personality types that can bring down your business and how you can spot them in an interview.

1) The Narcissist.

It’s easy to make the mistake of hiring a narcissist. They are often charismatic and radiate self-confidence. Read more…

Recommended: 3 Reasons Why You May Not Need To Write A Business Plan After All

Triggered or targeted emails can be a great way to deliver the right content at the right time to the right people. A sincere thank you, a courteous confirmation, or a concerned abandoned cart message that automatically follows a specific behavior someone took on your website can be the difference between a very happy customer and losing a contact altogether.

As long as the automated email is relevant, timely, and provides value to the recipient, triggered emails can be used to save marketers a tremendous amount of time and, more importantly, better engage your contact database. Read more…

Recommended: Smart Entrepreneurs Do These 4 Accounting Steps

Even the most perceptive business owners can make a bad hire when they don’t pay attention to the right signs. Here are 3 personality types that can bring down your business and how you can spot them in an interview.

1) The Narcissist.

It’s easy to make the mistake of hiring a narcissist. They are often charismatic and radiate self-confidence. Read more…

Recommended: 9 Ways of Making Content More Effective

Is your business on Facebook?

Do you need to convince your boss-or a client-that Facebook is a worthy marketing investment?

And speaking of social media advertising, don’t forget online marketing sites. You can visit 40billion.com which is a fastest-growing network of entrepreneurs and crowdfunders. Read more…

Recommended: 3 Winning Social Marketing Strategies From Top Brands

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

Black Friday might hold first position, but there are eight other special holiday shopping days that can help you build business before Christmas this year.

In addition to below mentioned 9 holiday shopping days, don’t forget to use online marketing sites for your year-round promotion. You can visit 40billion.com which is the fastest-growing network of entrepreneurs and crowdfunders. Read more…

Recommended: How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert Quickly

Advertising is changing at lightning speed with the internet. When businesses started flocking online, they found amazing opportunities to reach consumers outside of traditional media like print and television. But even in the last few years, those advertising options have shifted tremendously.

Gone are the days of the pop up – well, mostly. Read more…

Recommended: 8 Things to Consider When Launching an App on a Meager Budget

The benefits of email

Customers like email. According to research, 77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications via email. So, don’t overlook the potential email can bring to your business. If done well it offers some great benefits.

. It’s cost-effective – implementing successful email campaigns doesn’t cost the earth and ROI is generally good. Read more…

Recommended: 11 Steps To Communicate Better As An Entrepreneur

Are you a small business owner who feels just wasting your dollars to advertise?

Do you want to know where actually the best places to advertise your small business online?

So, let’s get started.

In addition to sites mentioned blow, don’t forget other online marketing sites. You can visit 40billion.com which is a fastest-growing network of entrepreneurs and crowdfunders. Read more…

Recommended: How To Make A Case for Facebook Marketing

The challenge of capturing the ROI of social media is almost as old as the Internet itself. The reason boils down to basic consumer behavior. For one, shoppers engage with brands at multiple touch points, across a range of devices. And new digital technologies are lowering the barrier for startups to enter the market. Read more…

Recommended: How to Create Influence on Twitter

It’s a fact that women are now responsible for 85 percent of all purchasing decisions in the United States and recent research shows that they overwhelmingly prefer to shop in physical retail stores.

They like to touch and feel the products they’re considering buying and they enjoy the social interactions that come from shopping with friends and family. Read more…

Recommended: 13 Marketing Tips When Using Social Networks

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

What type of entrepreneur or business leader are you? Knowing the answer could help you become more successful in your business. Being aware of what makes you tick can help you make better decisions as an entrepreneur.

These 3 character traits define a business leaders’ decision-making process:

1. Read more…

Recommended: 11 Steps To Communicate Better As An Entrepreneur

When you are looking for funding, the dilemma use face is crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending? This is the question many business owners are asking now that these alternative forms of business finance have become mainstream on the back of ineffective lending from the banks. So, the ultimate question then is, which method of finance would work best for you and your business?

Crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending are two innovative ways to get money into your business. Read more…

Recommended: Why Entrepreneurs Need to Create Their Own Brands

Crowdsourcing is a hot topic as an interesting social media phenomenon. Sometimes it starts accidentally when an injustice is exposed or a good deed is done. Other times, it is started intentionally to garner support for a cause or operate as a focus group for an idea or product.

Whether accidental or intentional, there is no better platform to crowdsource influence than Twitter. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Ideas for Marketing Your Business Brand Effectively

Here’s a list of buzzwords for you: social, video, and marketing. But if you put them together, they create something that can powerfully engage customers and greatly improve their online experience.

It’s a combination that works very well for online marketing: the grassroots, viral environment of social media; video’s ability to engage; and a strong marketing strategy.

You’re likely well aware of video’s value in bringing your brand and messages to life. Read more…

Recommended: Marketing Tips That Even Savvy Businesses Overlook

With the tough economic climate, crowdfunding has become a popular and alternative method of raising finance for a business, projects or ideas. Crowdfunding platforms are convenient, simple to use and reach a wide audience of investors at a low cost.

Crowdfunding can be defined as a collective cooperation of people who network and pool their money and resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other organizations. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Ways To Come Up With A Memorable Business Name

Why isn’t anyone buying your products and services? It doesn’t matter how great your products and services are or how nice your offices look if no one has heard of you. That’s where good marketing comes into play. Unfortunately, many small businesses make the mistake of focusing all of their efforts on other aspects of their company and forget to make marketing a top priority. Read more…

Recommended:

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

It’s the entrepreneurial spirit that shapes the economy, but it’s difficult to shape anything if no one knows about your products or services. Here are 3 nuggets of marketing advice to small-business owners who need to get the word out…

1) Target your customer.

According to one of Bill Cosby’s famous quotes, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” Now, he doesn’t mean saying “Please” is the key to failure. Read more…

Recommended: 3 Ways To Get Your Employees To Share Their Honest Opinions

The challenge of capturing the ROI of social media is almost as old as the Internet itself. The reason boils down to basic consumer behavior. For one, shoppers engage with brands at multiple touch points, across a range of devices. And new digital technologies are lowering the barrier for startups to enter the market. Read more…

Recommended: Best Online Sites For Small Businesses To Advertise

With Twitter having more than 300 million user accounts, it has become an important network for companies to reach out to their customers. There are well-established and successful brands that have come up with best practices companies could emulate to attract a loyal following and transform customers into brand advocates.

Here are ten marketing lessons for successful utilization of Twitter:

1. Read more…

Recommended: Great Digital Marketing For Bootstrapped Entrepreneur

Content marketing is becoming increasingly popular with each passing year. Businesses see the benefits that competitors are enjoying from publishing highly valuable content, and are looking for ways to do the same themselves. Churning out great ideas is often more difficult than anticipated, and companies that enter content marketing for the first time often have some unrealistic expectations for the type of results it will provide as well as how quickly those results will come.

There is a lot of information out there that can help businesses to set realistic expectations for themselves when they first start content marketing. Read more…

Recommended: How To Turn Your Exit Page Into A Sales Opportunity

Is your B2B content marketing strategy successful? Or do you at times feel like your strategy needs a facelift? How can you boost your content strategy to generate a greater level of success? Here are seven definitive ways that you can fire up your content strategy, and generate palpable results.

Create content around a predetermined purpose

What is your company’s purpose? This is the first and most important question you need to ask yourself before any content is created. Read more…

Recommended: Networking Events Are A Waste Of Time If You Don’t Do This

At some point in your career, someone has probably talked to you about how to brand yourself, how personal branding is this incredibly important thing that everyone is doing these days, how, if you’ve built a business and are trying to grow, it’s not something you can ignore.

Or is it? Personal branding, just like regular branding, is something that’s often completely out of your control. Read more…

Recommended: Crowdfunding or P2P Lending – Which is Better for My Small Business?

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

Are you flushing your time – and money – down the toilet? Not long after you start a business on your own, you soon realize that you need to get smarter about managing time. If you feel overwhelmed, you may need to rethink how you use your time, which is an entrepreneur’s most valuable – and scarce – resource. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Easy Financial Accounting Tips for Small Business Startups

Ever experienced fear or doubt about your abilities? To the degree you can overcome your insecurities, you will experience freedom to be yourself and reach your full potential as an entrepreneur. The most important thing to understand is that everyone experiences these scary emotions to some degree, regardless of how confident and self-assured people may seem.

Follow these 4 tips to overcome fear and get to that next level in your business goals:

1) Don’t forget that it’s normal. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on GoFundMe

Coming up with ways to interact with your audience daily can start to make you feel as though you’re stretching your creative capacity a little thin. Yet developing strategies to engage with your audience and keep them coming back for more is critical to long-term social success. Connect with customers for the long haul with these content strategies that will spur conversation and tell a story over time.

1. Read more…

Recommended: How to Manage Your Digital Marketing Without Falling Behind

It’s a fact that women are now responsible for 85 percent of all purchasing decisions in the United States and recent research shows that they overwhelmingly prefer to shop in physical retail stores.

They like to touch and feel the products they’re considering buying and they enjoy the social interactions that come from shopping with friends and family. Read more…

Recommended: What To Look For When Selecting A Good B2B Digital Marketing Agency

With the popularity and success of crowdfunding as a new way to fund new projects, it’s easy for other aspiring entrepreneurs to believe that sites like Kickstarter are their golden ticket to launching a business. But the reality is, crowdfunding isn’t always as simple as it seems.

Whether you’re looking to raise a small amount of startup cash or acquire a larger sum through equity crowdfunding, there are a few challenges you might face during the process that you may not have expected.

Choosing the right platform

The first step is to choose the right platform. Read more…

Recommended: How To Deal With Setbacks

Every firm has something that it calls a market strategy. Unfortunately, many market strategies are ineffective and almost guarantee failure.

Market strategies that really work always have the following characteristics:

1. They are strategic rather than tactical.

This sounds simple, but it’s a point that many people find confusing. Read more…

Recommended: How to Maximize the Marketing Potential of YouTube – 9 Tips

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

Google+ is a nice social network that is quite different from Facebook in many ways but it was all the rage when it came out and people were waiting for e-mail invites to join the network. The initial buzz has been over for quite a while, and now it is time to really see if Google+ can overtake Facebook at some point and become a more popular and larger social network.

Are the Numbers Important?

At some point in the future the numbers may take Google+ over Facebook, but numbers are only one part of the equation. Read more…

Recommended: Social Media Marketing – 6 Myths

Target marketing is about attracting customers who will buy what you’re selling.

In order to target market effectively, you’ll need to know exactly who purchases your products and exactly how to reach them. And acquiring that kind of knowledge requires some research and planning on your end.

The evolution of target marketing
Target marketing is the most current method of marketing to consumers based on research into their interests, hobbies, and needs, and it didn’t spring from nothing. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Signs That You Should Quit Your Failing Startup Business

After you’ve surrounded yourself with the best talent you can find, creating an environment that stifles open communication can render that investment useless.

Perhaps your employees are afraid to give you honest answers about your business or feel like they need to agree with every idea you have, even the obviously bad ideas. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Surprising Reasons To Raise The Price Of Your Product

Retargeting Ads. You’ve seen them. But, do you know what they are and how they benefit your business?

Unfamiliar with the difference between retargeting and remarketing? They’re the same thing. Google uses the term “remarketing” while Facebook tends to use the term “retargeting”.

Smart marketers and business owners use Ad Retargeting to:

. Bring back landing page visitors who don’t convert

. Re-engage with abandoned shopping cart prospects

. Upsell products to highly targeted, interested customers

. Increase brand awareness.

A highly optimized, targeted, conversion-centric landing page averages an 8-10% conversion rate. Read more…

Recommended: Crowdfunding or P2P Lending – Which is Better for My Small Business?

What is Instagram? Instagram is a social networking application based on photo & video sharing. More than 20 billion photos have been shared on Instagram and 60 million are shared every day.

Brands no longer create social media websites just for the heck of it. Read more…

Recommended: How To Hire Great Employees As A New Manager

Crowdfunding opens up a new world of opportunity to startups. Crowdfunding campaign is convenient and has the potential to reach a wider range of investors, but it’s not easy. It requires much thought and effort. Most of the crowdfunding projects fail due to inadequate planning.

Following are nine reasons as to why crowdfunding campaign fails:

1. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Ways to Create Content that Attracts Audiences and Customers

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

Do you speak English or do you speak “marketing” jargon? Online attention spans are short and competition intense, so clear language is essential to make your social media marketing perform and incite interest in your business.

As in all relationships, people connect with straightforward and honest communications. Read more…

Recommended: Promote Your Business on a Tight Budget

The old saying that we “treasure what we measure” — and vice versa — turns out to be highly relevant in networking.

In a world where the news media regularly reports the latest sports scores, stock market numbers and the weekend’s top-grossing films, wouldn’t you think business networkers would just naturally track how much they’re getting from their efforts?

While systems for following up, staying in touch and tracking results are key to networking success for both men and women, they’re especially vital for women. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Simple Ways to Improve Your Marketing Language

Lack of funding often causes young entrepreneurs to give up on their ventures before ever getting off the ground. The many rejections, ignored emails and missed calls thrown your way from potential investors can be quite demoralizing, to say the least. Sometimes it seems like searching for a needle in a haystack, but entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.

It’s imperative for young entrepreneurs to look beyond what is considered the normal route in business, especially as they seek that crucial first investment. Read more…

Recommended: Tumblr – 7 Things To Know About

With Twitter having more than 300 million user accounts, it has become an important network for companies to reach out to their customers. There are well-established and successful brands that have come up with best practices companies could emulate to attract a loyal following and transform customers into brand advocates.

Here are ten marketing lessons for successful utilization of Twitter:

1. Read more…

Recommended: 3 Reasons To Work For A Startup First

Dreaming about leaving that “day job” and starting your own business? Doing that is easier said than done. As anyone who has ever contemplated starting a business knows, the risks of the venture loom large.

How does one leave the security of a job and paycheck and benefits for the uncertainty of a new business? The potential perils seem too big, but risk is part of the game. Read more…

Recommended: How to Create Buzzworthy Content That Users Share

If you want to reach local customers and keep them coming back to your business, text-message marketing is one of the most effective strategies for doing so. While email marketing messages are opened by a small percentage of recipients, text message ads are typically viewed by almost all recipients.

SMS messaging is also an ideal way for sending coupons that will get noticed and used, at a much lower cost than printing physical coupons. Read more…

Recommended: How To Gain Clients Trust – 5 Tips

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

Simple mistakes are easily made when running a small business, but they can also be easily avoided or remedied if attention is paid to the proper problem areas. A few common mistakes that all small business owners can easily avoid.

1. Strong web presence is a must.
The internet provides access to a resource that works for you 24/7 virtually for free – use it to your advantage. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Ideas for Marketing Your Business Brand Effectively

Social media has become more important than ever for businesses. Social media is only getting bigger, and if you don’t embrace it now, you’re going to miss out on a lot of amazing opportunities to connect with your customers.

You have to utilize social media more this year. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Ways To Turn Your Customers Into Brand Ambassadors

While some say that email isn’t an effective marketing tool anymore, research shows that it still has the highest ROI of any online marketing tactic.

One reason is that email is still a dominant avenue of communication in business. In fact, 91% check their email daily.
Email subscriptions to websites for updates and information is growing at the fastest rate ever, with 74% of consumers actually preferring to receive commercial communications by email.

Review Your Email Lists For Segmentation Opportunities

A common opportunity we uncover is email list segmentation. Read more…

Recommended: Step-By-Step Guide For Social Video Marketing

Google loves big brand names, and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean smaller companies don’t stand a chance when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).

In regard to natural search results, the better the results Google can deliver, the more people will use its service. Read more…

Recommended: Can Social Media Marketing Be Outsourced?

The more you know about repurposing content, the more you realize you have a lot to work with. At the same time, the more you know about anything, the more you realize you have a lot to learn.

Dipping into your archive and giving a fresh take on quality pieces is a great way to extend your ROI, but it’s not effective to take the existing newsletter content and paste it into a blog post – it’s lazy. Read more…

Recommended:

Google loves big brand names, and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean smaller companies don’t stand a chance when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).

In regard to natural search results, the better the results Google can deliver, the more people will use its service. Read more…

Recommended: Are You a Micro-Manager? Here Are 3 Ways to Change

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

This ‘P’ is for Promotion and Publicity. Not to be confused with Marketing. Marketing deals with how you express your essence, your identity. Promotion deals with how you convey your marketing message to your target audience, and Publicity is what you get when people notice your offer and talk about it. Read more…

Recommended: 12 Proven Content Marketing Tricks to Maximize Traffic

1. Little or no social media or blogging activity.

Why start a blog and never publish? Why start a Twitter account and never tweet? In social marketing, you have to show up and be active. Yes, starting that Facebook page was a good idea, but unless you are going to be consistent in posting and using it, just forget about it.

You can save time by using sites like 40Billion.com, which specializes in broadcasting and promoting posts to its large network of several million users across the most popular social networking sites for small businesses – including Twitter, LinkedIn, 40Billion, and even Facebook. Read more…

Recommended: 10 Content Marketing Trends You Need To Know For Success

When you were a kid, how often would you ride your bike fast down a steep street while letting go of the handlebars, or take your sled to the top of the highest hill in town, not even considering that one false move could end in a tumble? Back then, you knew that the ride was worth the risk.

Now, with your own business, are you questioning every decision and avoiding the high hills of opportunity because of a fear of falling? It’s a natural reaction, but it can kill your aspirations and cost you the thrill of that amazing ride to success. Read more…

Recommended: Think Twice Before Posting on These Social Media Sites

While some say that email isn’t an effective marketing tool anymore, research shows that it still has the highest ROI of any online marketing tactic.

One reason is that email is still a dominant avenue of communication in business. In fact, 91% check their email daily.
Email subscriptions to websites for updates and information is growing at the fastest rate ever, with 74% of consumers actually preferring to receive commercial communications by email.

Review Your Email Lists For Segmentation Opportunities

A common opportunity we uncover is email list segmentation. Read more…

Recommended: How to Brainstorm Breakthrough Ideas for Your Business

Telling your brand story is more than just slapping dates together on an About Us page and throwing it up on the website with a stock image. Your brand story should be a major differentiator, something that sets you apart from your competition and compels your prospects to partner with you. It’s an opportunity to not talk about your products and services, but to talk about the real value of partnering with your firm.

When it comes to B2B branding and storytelling, there are a variety of ways to tell your brand story in a way that engages your target audience. Read more…

Recommended: The 7 Crowdfunding Tips That Are Most Important

Small businesses are especially vulnerable to hacking because they usually lack the technology expertise and site security that larger companies have. They also suffer more if their lack of expertise slows repairs and their ability to get back to work. Read more…

Recommended: Viral Video Marketing 101

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

Risk taking is second nature to most entrepreneurs, but technology issues can make them turn cautious. Too often, business owners believe they don’t have the expertise or financial resources to take full advantage of technology. But, by limiting their use of tech, they also limit their growth opportunities in our always-on, always-connected world.

Turns out, many of these myths about tech may be based on misconceptions. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Steps To Close Up Shop When It’s Time To Call It Quits

Content marketing online is continually changing and evolving. If you’re behind the content marketing curve, now’s the time to get caught up – here are 10 content marketing trends that are relevant today.

1. Social Media Content is King

Social media marketing is the most popular content promotion tactic by a mile. Read more…

Recommended: Does Your Marketer Pass These 6 Traits?

Social media has become more important than ever for businesses. Social media is only getting bigger, and if you don’t embrace it now, you’re going to miss out on a lot of amazing opportunities to connect with your customers.

You have to utilize social media more this year. Read more…

Recommended: How To Do More With Less – Smarter Content Marketing Strategies

If you operate a website, you’re no doubt familiar with search engine optimization. Now, add “social” optimization to your to-do list.

A website that’s optimized for social media sharing typically attracts more traffic and sparks more engagement with customers. Read more…

Recommended: Is Twitter A Good Marketing Tool For You?

The challenge of capturing the ROI of social media is almost as old as the Internet itself. The reason boils down to basic consumer behavior. For one, shoppers engage with brands at multiple touch points, across a range of devices. And new digital technologies are lowering the barrier for startups to enter the market. Read more…

Recommended: 2 Ways To Generate Quick Buzz For Your Business

Coming up with ways to interact with your audience daily can start to make you feel as though you’re stretching your creative capacity a little thin. Yet developing strategies to engage with your audience and keep them coming back for more is critical to long-term social success. Connect with customers for the long haul with these content strategies that will spur conversation and tell a story over time.

1. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Affordable Ways to Market Your Business Around Town

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

Dreaming about leaving that “day job” and starting your own business? Doing that is easier said than done. As anyone who has ever contemplated starting a business knows, the risks of the venture loom large.

How does one leave the security of a job and paycheck and benefits for the uncertainty of a new business? The potential perils seem too big, but risk is part of the game. Read more…

Recommended: How To Hire Great Employees As A New Manager

There are a ton of benefits to having videos on your landing pages. For starters, videos are an easy type of content for your potential leads to consume (and retain), plus most people actually want a video to explain the product or service to them.

It’s important to note that videos are not the only thing you need to focus on when it comes to creating an optimized landing page that converts. Read more…

Recommended: Top 3 Crowdfunding Tips to Get Funded

One of the best channels for bootstrapped entrepreneurs is digital marketing. Here’s how to do it right.

I personally believe that one of the hardest roads traveled is that of the bootstrapped entrepreneur. When you’re starting out, you need to figure out a way to market your company on a shoestring budget. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Fundraising Tips Most Startup Entrepreneurs Don’t Know

In the competitive and increasingly saturated B2B market, it’s never been more important for you to have outstanding marketing strategies. Finding a digital marketing agency that specializes in B2B is a great way to boost results, as long as they are right for your company and sector.

How not to do it…and what to do instead

The most dangerous move you can make is choosing the first digital marketing agency that you come across. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Lies of Content Marketing That Businesses Must Avoid

When you are looking for funding, the dilemma use face is crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending? This is the question many business owners are asking now that these alternative forms of business finance have become mainstream on the back of ineffective lending from the banks. So, the ultimate question then is, which method of finance would work best for you and your business?

Crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending are two innovative ways to get money into your business. Read more…

Recommended: 22 Things Advertising People Learn to live with

Are you debating whether your small business should invest time on Twitter?

Do you wonder how Twitter can help your business?

By being an active part of the Twitter community and sharing the right mix of content, you can reach a larger audience, generate more leads and become the go-to source when customers are ready to buy.

Twitter has evolved a lot since 2007. Read more…

Recommended: Keeping Up with the Changing Face of Advertising

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

Everyone is busy in creating his own content marketing strategies. Companies have sensed the importance of this form of digital marketing and have been trying their best to create high quality content.

Here are 7 important steps in content marketing that every blog should include. It is a true assumption that the content promotion strategies very much depend on the nature of the business, but the following points can be applied to any kind of content.

1. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Ways to Boost Your Inbound Marketing with Evergreen Content

As the 32nd most popular website in the world, Tumblr is a big opportunity. But you can’t approach it as you would other marketing strategies.

With 105 million blogs and 49 billion posts, Tumblr, the free blog hosting and social networking site, is the 32nd most popular site in the world. So, if you’re not using Tumblr as part of your marketing efforts, you’re missing a very large boat.

Tumblr isn’t a blog platform like WordPress; it’s a social network that has a blogging platform. Read more…

Recommended: How To Be More Creative In Business

PRO: Free money to get your business started.

If you win, you could be awarded up to $100,000 in cash and/or prizes that you can use to build, hire, and get your startup off the ground. In most cases, there are no strings attached and you don’t have to give up a percentage share of your business equity. Read more…

Recommended: Tumblr – 7 Things To Know About

Don’t you love when brands interact with you in a human, authentic way that leads to a satisfactory experience? That is, your problem is solved, and your needs are met.

What do we do when we have such an experience? Well, we talk about it. That is word-of-mouth buzz from social interaction that’s authentic and customer-service focused.

Here are 2 ways to generate this type of buzz for your business’ brand:

1) Communicate in a contextual way.

If a customer posts a negative message about your product or sends you a direct message on social media sites to request support, that immediately provides you with context for response. Read more…

Recommended: Improve Your E-Mail Marketing – Follow These 10 Steps

It’s a fact that women are now responsible for 85 percent of all purchasing decisions in the United States and recent research shows that they overwhelmingly prefer to shop in physical retail stores.

They like to touch and feel the products they’re considering buying and they enjoy the social interactions that come from shopping with friends and family. Read more…

Recommended: 12 Proven Content Marketing Tricks to Maximize Traffic

Black Friday might hold first position, but there are eight other special holiday shopping days that can help you build business before Christmas this year.

In addition to below mentioned 9 holiday shopping days, don’t forget to use online marketing sites for your year-round promotion. You can visit 40billion.com which is the fastest-growing network of entrepreneurs and crowdfunders. Read more…

Recommended: 4 More Ways to Create a Brand That Customers Remember

You have a great business idea, and you’re lining up the resources to make it a reality. But if you don’t establish solid corporate and accounting strategies from the start, you could be putting your business in peril before you ever get off the ground.

Follow these four steps to get off on the proper financial foot…

1. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Indiegogo

Want to get the word out? Did you know you can broadcast your crowdfunding project or campaign to over 2,500,000 active users on 40Billion, Twitter, Facebook, and Google for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to promote your message, brand, product, service, fundraising campaign, crowdfunding project, or small business to the world.

Are you trying to raise money on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or GoFundme? For over 4 years, aspiring crowdfunders and startup entrepreneurs have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers and investors. Read more…

In addition to the money provided by backers, crowdfunding can generate other, unanticipated benefits for small businesses. Two such benefits are 1) new customers and supporters, and 2) access to additional financing and specialized services.

New Customers and Supporters:

Everyone who contributes to a crowdfunding campaign is a potential new customer and loyal advocate for your brand. Read more…

Recommended: 8 Key Steps to a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

As content marketing continues to grow in popularity, a question being asked more and more is “should I replace my traditional marketing with content marketing?” The short answer is no.

It’s easy to pile onto the idea that print, radio, and even TV are on their way out as marketing platforms – but if they are effective, you shouldn’t give them up. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Networking Tips That Entrepreneurs Need to Know

What is Instagram? Instagram is a social networking application based on photo & video sharing. More than 20 billion photos have been shared on Instagram and 60 million are shared every day.

Brands no longer create social media websites just for the heck of it. Read more…

Recommended: How to Create an Inbound Marketing Plan for Success

So, you’ve created the perfect app. Bravo!

It may come off as a surprise to you that, in reality, this actually means only half of the work is done. The remaining half is to let the world know that it exists.

There is a workable method to increase the reach and visibility of your app. Follow this step-by-step process.

8 Things to Consider When Launching an App on a Shoestring Budget

1. Read more…

Recommended: Maximize Profit From Lean Advertising

Virgin Atlantic is a small airline with a big personality. This is how it lures customers from the big guys.

You may think Virgin Atlantic is a huge airline worldwide, but they’re not. Maybe they’re the No. 2 airline in the UK, but they don’t even hold a candle to United, American or Delta here in the U.S. Read more…

Recommended: How To Develop A LinkedIn Marketing Plan

The footwear industry has traditionally been a hotbed of memorable advertising, with brands such as Nike and Reebok spending millions to sign athlete-endorsers and hire ad agencies that create spectacular TV campaigns. Eye-tracking technology, facial-expression analysis, and lab experiments help better understand why people choose to view online videos, what narrative techniques keep them watching, and what features prompt them to share videos with friends. Read more…

Recommended: Does Your Marketer Pass These 6 Traits?

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

Video is rapidly growing and quickly becoming a staple of marketing strategies. If you have not yet incorporated video marketing then you are simply behind the curve. Not only that, but you are losing out on the various benefits that having a video strategy provides.

Importance of Video:

The reason video is such a powerful medium lies within its ability to engage, educate, and influence potential and existing customers. Read more…

Recommended: 3 steps to triple engagement by adding a Twitter image to your ad

Here’s why your company’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social media campaigns aren’t performing as well as they could be.

Over the past five years, social media has become an increasingly important part of many companies‘ marketing strategies. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Tips To Achieve Marketing Goals

So, you’ve created the perfect app. Bravo!

It may come off as a surprise to you that, in reality, this actually means only half of the work is done. The remaining half is to let the world know that it exists.

There is a workable method to increase the reach and visibility of your app. Follow this step-by-step process.

8 Things to Consider When Launching an App on a Shoestring Budget

1. Read more…

Recommended: Best Online Sites For Small Businesses To Advertise

When you are looking for funding, the dilemma use face is crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending? This is the question many business owners are asking now that these alternative forms of business finance have become mainstream on the back of ineffective lending from the banks. So, the ultimate question then is, which method of finance would work best for you and your business?

Crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending are two innovative ways to get money into your business. Read more…

Recommended: Keeping Up with the Changing Face of Advertising

As a small business, or a one man (or woman) show, marketing can be downright difficult to tackle. Where do you start? What would a realistic marketing plan be? How can you get the most out of your time? These are all questions that small businesses face. Here’s how to rock it out as a one-person marketing department.

Set Realistic Goals:

We’ll just throw this out there – you’re not going to have the capabilities of Proctor & Gamble when it comes to your marketing efforts. Read more…

Recommended: How To Challenge And Beat The Big Boys In Local Sales

When you’re getting ready for a website redesign, you need to make sure that you partner with a certain kind of online marketing agency. Anyone can say they design websites nowadays; but not everyone can say they produce websites that look great, are easy to use, and have a real, measurable impact on your revenue stream.

Your website is your most valuable marketing asset. Read more…

Recommended: How to Create an Inbound Marketing Plan for Success

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

You’re an aspiring entrepreneur, so why are you working for an entrepreneur? Is working at another startup a route to nowhere or a good career move? It just might pay to work at someone else’s startup before starting your own. Here are 3 reasons why:

1) Startups can take a chance on talent.

Getting a first job is key to launching your career as an entrepreneur. Read more…

Recommended: How To Turn Your Exit Page Into A Sales Opportunity

Let’s face it. Facebook and Marketing works very well. I am getting so tired of reading article after article of people writing about how marketing on Facebook is a waste of time. Whether you are a B2C or B2B company it doesn’t matter. If you are not getting results from Facebook you need to change your strategy plain and simple. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Lies of Content Marketing That Businesses Must Avoid

Virgin Atlantic is a small airline with a big personality. This is how it lures customers from the big guys.

You may think Virgin Atlantic is a huge airline worldwide, but they’re not. Maybe they’re the No. 2 airline in the UK, but they don’t even hold a candle to United, American or Delta here in the U.S. Read more…

Recommended: 6 Creative Ways of Marketing Your Startup on a Budget

It seems like a catchy idea is all an aspiring entrepreneur needs these days in order to raise money on crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and GoFundMe. Do crowds gravitate toward funding bad ideas? Or can crowds make rational funding decisions and, better yet, exceed venture capital investors and banks in identifying promising projects?

The crowd is often thought of as being a group of fools, but it turns out the crowd does consider the quality of projects and outcomes pretty well. Read more…

Recommended: How to Create Influence on Twitter

What do smart entrepreneurs do different to ensure their business stays profitable? They do the simple things right. Simple things really, like finding cheap ways to get exposure, or hearing their customers out, or networking in the right places. Number one marketing tip is don’t just think outside the box, get rid of the box! Be creative. Read more…

Recommended: Word of Mouth Marketing and Social Media

How can you maximize the benefits of attending professional networking events as an entrepreneur or business owner?

1. Have an agenda.

Not all networking events are created equal. It behooves you to research the best of the bunch in your area and decide which might be best for your overall start-up goals. Read more…

Recommended: 3 Reasons To Work For A Startup First

Want to spread the word about your business? Did you know you can broadcast your product or service to our large audience across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and 40Billion for only $20, or as little as $5 a day? Buy a promo ad to broadcast your small business, startup company, product, or service to 2,500,000+ social users on 4 social networks – including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and 40Billion – at once.

For over 4 years, aspiring entrepreneurs and startup companies have used 40Billion for affordable promotion across popular social networks in order to reach more potential customers. Read more…

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to marketing your small business. The good news is that as a small business owner, you are the perfect person to promote your product or service. You’re knowledgeable and passionate, which are two of the main ingredients in an effective marketer. The bad news is that marketing can take up a lot of time and money. Read more…

Recommended: Are You a Micro-Manager? Here Are 3 Ways to Change

Online business owners have two primary choices for building a customer base. You can invest your time and money in attracting new customers one-by-one, using techniques such as cold calling, pay-per-click advertising and media buys. These techniques are referred to as “outbound marketing” because you must push out your message and hope it falls on receptive ears and generates new customers.

But outbound marketing is becoming less effective due to the growing number of sales messages prospects are exposed to every day. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Ways To Keep Your Website From Getting Hacked

Some define a business plan as a formal document that takes a long time to create and isn’t flexible, doesn’t get reviewed and doesn’t get revised. Then they say a business plan isn’t useful.

That’s sort of like saying getting regular exercise isn’t good for you because some people overdo it and end up with joint damage.

It would be better to advocate a type of business planning that could be called lean business planning. Read more…

Recommended: 4 Steps To Close Up Shop When It’s Time To Call It Quits