Category: How To

Google is putting out its Wildfire. The seemingly harmonious relationship between the search engine giant and the social software platform is has come to an end after a partnership that lasted about 20 months.

As a part of Google, Wildfire’s aim was to help businesses improve their social media marketing efforts. Read more…

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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…

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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…

The Holy Grail of social media outreach is engagement, which goes beyond broadcasting to interacting with your fans. While some businesses might use 40Billion, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networks to drive traffic to their own websites, the more that people are engaging with your posts and sharing your content with their own networks, the more brand loyalty you can build.

While there’s no tried-and-true formula for everyone to maximize engagement all the time, outreach on social media doesn’t have to be like blindly throwing darts at a board. Read more…

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You can attract new customers, increase sales and grow your pipeline instantly by partnering strategically with other businesses. There are many mutual benefits that make the work required to build a strong marketing partnership worthwhile. There is the implied endorsement that goes along with it as well.

Strategy is a key to a success. Read more…

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It’s also a time to reflect on your business and find the spark for your next breakthrough idea.

No clue what that is? To ignite new light bulb moments, start with these idea-generating tactics:

Embrace fear.

Ask yourself: “What scares me?” Then, explore that dark space. What if you overhauled your product and reintroduced it – what features would it have? Where would you invest money if you replaced a major conference or trade show with other lead-generating activities? Even if something is working for you, is there a way to make it better? As for your competition, instead of studying what they’re doing, contemplate what they’re afraid of, too.

Pull the trigger. Read more…

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Sure, you can lay out a proposed path to success in a business plan presentation template, but the road will be full of surprises. More important than attempting to forecast is knowing how to adapt and be flexible.

For exactly that reason, many top investors and incubators are shifting their views on written business plans. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Kickstarter

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…

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If you are the owner of a small business looking to increase your clientele, here are some tips on how to build a trusting relationship with your client.

Tip # 1: Be Upfront

How do you put your client at ease when he first comes to your home as a total stranger? It all starts with communication. Read more…

Recommended: 12 Proven Content Marketing Tricks to Maximize Traffic

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…

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…

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In case you hadn’t noticed, the hashtag has pretty much taken over social media.

With sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram all using this format to organize content, it should be clear that this once forgotten character on the keyboard has finally made the big time.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who just don’t seem to understand the new trend. Read more…

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Are you sick and tired of the same old content marketing tricks that just don’t seem to increase your traffic?

Today’s audiences are tired of the “same old, same old”, so the time is right to be innovative, take a few risks, and implement some all-new tactics into your strategy.

If you’re risk averse, never fear – while these tips may be unusual, they’ve been proven:

1. Read more…

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9 Ways the New SEC Crowdfunding Rules Will Affect Your Business

The SEC adopted new crowdfunding rules in late 2015. Following information will help learn all about the important changes, and what it means to you.

The new SEC crowdfunding rules could be a game-changer for your business, but there’s a lot work to be done on your end before you can reap the benefits.

Following 9 tips will help you understand new regulations little better.

1. Read more…

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Most entrepreneurs spend too much time and money on promotions that don’t generate new business. Whether it is local sports sponsorships, newspaper-ad buys or social media, they waste money on marketing strategies that may boost their egos by making them local celebrities, but don’t actually translate into sales.

Entrepreneurs, especially those relying on customers in their local areas, should first focus on networking with other area businesses, major employers, schools, churches and other organizations. Read more…

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Should you charge a premium price for providing an extraordinary experience and value? Why bang your head against the wall trying to undercut competitors’ prices?

Selling premium products and services at premium prices leads to greater profits. If you want to make a million this year, you’d have to sell 40,000 copies of your product at $25. 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…

One of the most important aspects of your crowdfunding campaign is the story you tell, as it has a direct impact on the overall impression that your project conveys. In the end, this is what will get someone to become your supporter. Your choice of words can actually make a huge difference in your campaign’s results.
Before getting started, you have to decide if you or your team are the most suitable to do the work. Read more…

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What should you include in an introductory email to a potential VC investor if your goal is to actually get them to open it and read it? Although every investor pitch and every investor is different, these 4 blunders are common to most of the unsuccessful ones:

1) The email has a worthless subject line.

Too often, entrepreneurs use boring, worthless subject lines in their investor pitches. Read more…

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Unless you’re an accountant, the word accounting probably strikes fear in your heart, or a little bit of nervousness, at least. For aspiring entrepreneurs, the feeling is probably amplified. After all, poor bookkeeping out of the gate not only can set a project back in the short term, it can really come back to bite you over the long haul. Read more…

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This post on how to raise money successfully using simple crowdfunding steps answers common questions for startup entrepreneurs and small businesses thinking about using crowdfunding to raise funding.

I have been in the crowdfunding space since 2008, after experiencing first-hand one of the biggest problems plaguing new businesses: There was a $40 billion gap in funding every year! That year, I founded one of the first crowdfunding platforms for U.S. Read more…

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You’ve poured your heart and soul, your time, your money and more into your business, so it simply must succeed… Right? While that’s nice to say, it’s not always true. The more you’re able to realize that success can come and go, the better positioned you’ll be to take advantage of other, more promising opportunities.

Here’s how to know when to give up:

1) Are you the only one who still believes in your business?

Sometimes the smartest people can have a blind spot when it comes to their own vision. Read more…

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Have you ever heard the expression, “Content is king?” While content comes in many forms, engaging content is scarce these days. The fact is, you have only a few seconds to capture the interest of your website visitors or potential customers. There is simply too much competition for attention to expect that people will invest too much of their time in trying to decipher bad content. Read more…

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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…

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…

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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…

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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…

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Remember to listen:

Proactive listening is by far the most underused online marketing tactic. Too many companies have lulled themselves into believing that social-media monitoring is just waiting for someone to say something bad or ask a customer-service question. Read more…

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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…

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Social media-a requirement for inbound marketing success-holds real influence that continues to rise. A captivating social media presence is essential in the current business environment. Neglect social media, and your business will suffer. You will not be able to optimize your content marketing, website traffic, or lead generation and conversion without social media best practices.

Provide Real Value

Winning social media marketing requires active listening and genuine participation. Read more…

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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…

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…

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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…

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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…

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Face it… The topic of shutting down your business isn’t something most entrepreneurs want to contemplate, but something most will have to deal with inevitably.

There’s just no skating around the issue that for whatever reasons, sometimes companies must close up shop. Read more…

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Here’s something that you should immediately put into action on your website. This concept is so simple, yet most of the time extremely overlooked: With every single transaction, you should be controlling where your customer goes next.

So many people miss out on this golden opportunity for additional profit. Read more…

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Most experts agree: 2017 is the year for influencer marketing. Most marketers plan to launch at least one influencer marketing campaign in 2017. The reasons that this particular marketing strategy is surging right now are many. The first, and probably the largest reason is social proof.

According to research firm Yankelovich, Americans are exposed to 5,000 advertisements a day. Read more…

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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…

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…

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Auto parts is one of the fastest growing ecommerce sectors.

Clearly, there’s demand for aftermarket car parts and accessories. But how can an auto parts store increase their sales to reach more customers who want what they’ve got?

Here’s 6 steps to increase your online auto store revenue.

1. Read more…

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Are you the owner of a small business looking to increase your customers? How do you build a trusting relationship with your customers? Here is a proven strategy to build and maintain trust in your business, and in turn attract both customers and profits.

There are many different sources of trust, and sometimes people trust for the wrong reasons. Read more…

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Read more…

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Word-of-mouth advertising is 10 times more effective than a traditional ad. Contrary to popular belief, less than 10 percent of those sought-after personal recommendations happen online.

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

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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…

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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…

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Read more…

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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…

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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…

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Do you follow a brand in social media? Are you glad you did? If that’s the case, they are doing either one of three things:

. Connecting with one of your passions and/or interests.
. Entertaining you with their engaging personality.
. Providing interesting and/or important information to you. Read more…

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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…

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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…

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If you are the owner of a small business looking to increase your clientele, here are some tips on how to build a trusting relationship with your client.

Tip # 1: Be Upfront

How do you put your client at ease when he first comes to your home as a total stranger? It all starts with communication. Read more…

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Crowdfunding is 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. Unlike angel investments, in which an investor takes a large stake in a small business, with crowdfunding, you can literally attract a “crowd” of people – each of whom takes a small stake (if any) in a business idea by contributing towards an online funding target. Read more…

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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…

Trust, attraction, and engagement… sounds like the recipe for a deep and lasting relationship, right?

Not surprisingly, consumers can experience and feel these same attributes for a product, and as a result, they form lasting, loyal relationships with the brands that serve them.

Unfortunately for brands, connecting to a potential customer at this level is difficult and time-consuming. Read more…

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It’s also a time to reflect on your business and find the spark for your next breakthrough idea.

No clue what that is? To ignite new light bulb moments, start with these idea-generating tactics:

Embrace fear.

Ask yourself: “What scares me?” Then, explore that dark space. What if you overhauled your product and reintroduced it – what features would it have? Where would you invest money if you replaced a major conference or trade show with other lead-generating activities? Even if something is working for you, is there a way to make it better? As for your competition, instead of studying what they’re doing, contemplate what they’re afraid of, too.

Pull the trigger. Read more…

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Does your name matter? It might, in the case of your new business, if you want people to remember it. Judging from the long list of businesses a simple Google search yields when you query “naming your company,” it matters a lot.

While there are several technical strategies that can be used when choosing a name for your new venture, you can just as easily flip through the business section of any newspaper to get an idea of how other entrepreneurs are doing it.

However, don’t take this decision lightly. Read more…

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Are you stressed out at work? Do you feel like you’re reaching a breaking point? Are you having a hard time juggling business and family demands? It happens to many of us. The anxiety, negative thoughts, perspiration, and despair caused by stress are normal, but you should not let them prevent you from succeeding and being your best you.

To cope with the stress and stay focused, you’ll need to incorporate a stress relief routine in your workday. Read more…

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Sure, you can lay out a proposed path to success in a business plan presentation template, but the road will be full of surprises. More important than attempting to forecast is knowing how to adapt and be flexible.

For exactly that reason, many top investors and incubators are shifting their views on written business plans. Read more…

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

Social media-a requirement for inbound marketing success-holds real influence that continues to rise. A captivating social media presence is essential in the current business environment. Neglect social media, and your business will suffer. You will not be able to optimize your content marketing, website traffic, or lead generation and conversion without social media best practices.

Provide Real Value

Winning social media marketing requires active listening and genuine participation. Read more…

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

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…

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…

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Influencer marketing has become a prime choice for brands that want to increase exposure and get connected with a larger pool of potential customers.

There’s no question that influencer marketing is a worthwhile pursuit for growing brands. But, what comes into question is the way brands tackle their campaigns. Read more…

Recommended: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Indiegogo

It’s easy for new entrepreneurs and even seasoned business owners to be frazzled and to panic when mistakes happen. As your business grows and employees and partners are stretched thin, the risk of mistakes, errors and accidents increases. Mistakes happen, but they can destroy your brand’s reputation – whether your company has made a billing error, sent an embarrassing email with leaked confidential information, or recalled a bad product.

When mistakes happen, what should you do? Here are 3 suggestions for how to deal with unexpected disasters and keep them from destroying your company:

1) Act quickly and fix it. Read more…

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Many of us dream of leaving the workplace while in our 40’s or 50’s instead of sticking it out until age 65. Early retirement is a tempting goal, but it can be tough to achieve.

There are four major obstacles to early retirement:

1) You have less time to earn money. If you start working at age 20 and retire at 65, you have 45 years to produce income. Read more…

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Social media can be a slippery slope. Stretching yourself too thin by trying to be on every site can result in disengaged users. Failing to engage users on the right platforms will only amount to yet another lost marketing opportunity.

Here are 13 best practice tips when using popular social networking sites.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is by far the biggest and most popular social media platform. Read more…

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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…

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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…

Marketing is the lifeblood of any startup – without it, the company will be sure to sink.

Here is a list of the top ten marketing tricks:

Social Media
1. Boost your posts.Give your social media content a boost. Read more…

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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…

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For best results in marketing it is crucial to develop a system, test that system, measure its results and when you find the combination that works best for what you are selling, repeat it over and over again without fail and sustain it with persistence. The results will come if this method is followed.

Follow these 10 steps and hopefully they will help you obtain good results.

1. Read more…

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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…

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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…

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The marketing manager is a critical component to any company’s success. They’re the ones responsible for using creative, cunning, and savvy interpersonal skills to make the company’s product or service known. A company might sell a groundbreaking, innovating product, but it won’t matter much if no one knows about it.

Marketing directors can take a business struggling to make ends meet and jump-start its growth. Read more…

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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…

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…

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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…

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As a business owner or startup entrepreneur, you are responsible for building an effective team and enabling your employees to do their best work. To do that well, you need to have perspective, which is the ability to create a point-of-view based on imagining yourself in another’s shoes.

Awareness about ourselves and others is difficult to gain. Read more…

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Have you ever heard the expression, “Content is king?” While content comes in many forms, engaging content is scarce these days. The fact is, you have only a few seconds to capture the interest of your website visitors or potential customers. There is simply too much competition for attention to expect that people will invest too much of their time in trying to decipher bad content. Read more…

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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…

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When should you start thinking about outsourcing some of your tasks? As a small business entrepreneur, time is always scarce, and you find that you just can’t do everything yourself the way you would like to. Maybe you’ve thought about outsourcing, but it’s not a simple decision because you need to compare the cost and quality of the person or company that will be working for you.

A simple search for companies using the terms “virtual assistant” and “outsourcing” will reveal a plethora of firms and virtual assistants that offer outsourcing services for everyday business tasks – such as customer service, tech support, bookkeeping, accounts payable, accounting, and even social media marketing. Read more…

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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…

Hopefully you’ve already created your annual customer and client holiday gift list. Whether they’ve been naughty or nice, all clients should get recognized in this holiday ritual. But how can you make your holiday gifts do double duty-not only as a “thank you” for the past year’s business, but also as a marketing tool to encourage more business in the new year? Here are some ideas.

Remind them of you:

The simplest way to make your holiday gift a marketing tool is to choose a promotional product with your company’s name and/or logo on it. Read more…

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As a smart entrepreneur, you probably have a business plan that states what you intend to accomplish, what competitive threats are out there, your financial projections, how much money it will take to get to profitability, and how your company is going to succeed. Wait… Did you forget to include that last part?

At 40Billion.com, we help many entrepreneurs and startup businesses every day. Read more…

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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…

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Are you finding that your website bounce rate is higher than you expected? Are you struggling to put your finger on what could be causing it? There are many factors which may make your bounce rate high or low but the main factor to work on is your website itself.

And speaking of improving your bounce rate and get more from your marketing budget, don’t forget online marketing sites. Read more…

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When was the last time you took a vacation? For many young entrepreneurs, the answer is probably “I can’t remember,” or “I don’t have time for vacation.” But you just might want to rethink your aversion to time off. To run a successful company, you’ll need to be there, of course. But you’ll often need to also take time to clear your head or even distance yourself from the business in order to think about how to grow more effectively. Read more…

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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…

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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 the owner of a small business looking to increase your customers? How do you build a trusting relationship with your customers? Here is a proven strategy to build and maintain trust in your business, and in turn attract both customers and profits.

There are many different sources of trust, and sometimes people trust for the wrong reasons. Read more…

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You can attract new customers, increase sales and grow your pipeline instantly by partnering strategically with other businesses. There are many mutual benefits that make the work required to build a strong marketing partnership worthwhile. There is the implied endorsement that goes along with it as well.

Strategy is a key to a success. Read more…

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Do you follow a brand in social media? Are you glad you did? If that’s the case, they are doing either one of three things:

. Connecting with one of your passions and/or interests.
. Entertaining you with their engaging personality.
. Providing interesting and/or important information to you. Read more…

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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…

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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…

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Do you have a mobile-friendly version of your small business website yet? If you don’t, you could be missing tons of potential customers who use their smartphones to do the majority of their shopping because it’s more convenient.

Would you believe that more than half of all adults in the United States use a smartphone? Chances are, you’re one of them. Read more…

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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…

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…

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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…

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There are endless ways to finance your ideas, but there’s nothing like marketing a startup with a modest budget. Limited funds give you an excuse to flex your creative muscle and truly share your vision with the world.

Don’t rely on the same old banner ads and Google reviews. Read more…

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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…

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All marketing managers struggle with one thing. How to set goals for marketing department. It sounds like a simple-enough task, but over time I came to see goal-setting as something of an art; it requires practice, constant refinement, focus and a little bit of playfulness (unless you want to drive yourself crazy).

How do you set goals that are challenging yet still achievable (is there an exact formula for this, like always shoot for x% more than last month)? How many goals should you set–one, three, six? Should you focus on a new goal every week, month, semester, quarter or year? If you’re a small company and you need to achieve quick growth, how do you pick which goal is most important when there are a billion urgent things that need to happen? How do you stay focused on your goals (once you’ve finally decided on them) and not let other stuff get in the way, like tempting partnership opportunities or new tactics you want to try out?

Following six tips will help achieve marketing goals:

1. Read more…

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Are you willing to pay so your posts reach more eyes? Perhaps you should be.

One of the newest 40Billion features, called Promoted Posts, allows businesses to pay from $20 to $300 so that more visitors and contacts see their posts on computers and mobile devices.

Using a regular whiteboard post on 40Billion.com can be effective for ramping up engagement, but with Promoted Posts, 40Billion is taking the idea one step further.

The problem is that many regular posts go unseen, and only a small percentage of a user’s contacts see a given post; though it varies depending on how engaged your contacts are. Read more…

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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…

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…

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Hiring staff can be difficult as a new manager, and making bad choices can be disastrous. These 5 easy steps will help you find the right fit for your company:

1) Determine what you need.

Many people make the mistake of not clearly defining the skills needed before starting to interview. This can lead to hiring people because you like them or they’re impressive in an interview. Read more…

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PRO: Free money to get your business started.

If you win, you could be awarded over $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…

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Marketing is simple. It can seem mysterious and highly technical: Experts talk at length about the techniques they use. People scream from the rooftops about how you’re doing it wrong. Books upon books and blogs upon blogs make it seem like an immense subject.

It’s not that difficult. You market to people and you get leads in. Read more…

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To be an innovative entrepreneur, you want to foster creativity in your daily life so that your mind is ready when opportunity arises.

Unusual combinations, sometimes called “remote associations,” are related ideas that may seem unrelated at first glance. They are the essence of creative thinking.

To cultivate creativity, you want to increase your chances of stumbling on an unexpected link. Read more…

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Crowdfunding is 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. Unlike angel investments, in which an investor takes a large stake in a small business, with crowdfunding, you can literally attract a “crowd” of people – each of whom takes a small stake (if any) in a business idea by contributing towards an online funding target. Read more…

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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 may have heard the term “relationship marketing” being tossed around recently. Relationship marketing refers to everything you do to develop strong, lifelong relationships with your customers. From influencer programs to referral campaigns to affiliate marketing, relationship marketing builds brand awareness and positions your brand as your customers best option. Read more…

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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…

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Wondering whether or not to write a business plan? Do you really need one? Well, unless you have a spectacular track record as an entrepreneur or an exceptionally great new business idea, you cannot raise money to fund your startup without a business plan. Read more…

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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…

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