Tag: crowdfunding

Feeling pulled this way and that by the latest and greatest social site? While you don’t want to miss out on the action, don’t waste time with the “next big thing” unless it’s right for you. With that in mind, below are some guidelines for making the most of your social media forays.

Ignore the chatter about how much web traffic a certain site is receiving each month, and take a look at what your competition is really doing. Read more…

Recommended: Essential Tips for Successful Crowdfunding

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. Businesses are finding it more and more difficult to get their message heard. Read more…

Recommended: When To Start Outsourcing Some Of Your Busy Work

Small business marketers who use content marketing are able to reduce the cost of leads, increase awareness and position themselves as leaders.

In recent years, marketers have been forced to think differently about how they engage with potential customers, particularly small business marketers.

Every year, customers have increasing control over what marketing messages they wish to consume. Read more…

Recommended: Avoid These Four Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Business owners often struggle with a perpetual to-do list for running their companies, and it seems to be getting longer all the time. Digital marketing, in all its varied forms, is becoming increasingly important as more and more of your target audience is searching for and finding products and services on the internet. Read more…

Recommended: Does Your Marketer Pass These 6 Traits?

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…

Prior to Crowdfunding, starting a business was nearly a mission impossible.

Entrepreneurs had only three choices of raising capital: (1) Friends & Family (2) Bank and (3) Angel or Venture Capital.

Then in 2007, all that changed when Prosper.com launched the first peer-to-peer lending service in the US. Read more…

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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: 6 Tips To Achieve Marketing Goals

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…

Recommended: Cheap Ways To Get Exposure, Stay Profitable.

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…

Recommended: How to Create Influence on Twitter

Feeling pulled this way and that by the latest and greatest social site? While you don’t want to miss out on the action, don’t waste time with the “next big thing” unless it’s right for you. With that in mind, below are some guidelines for making the most of your social media forays.

Ignore the chatter about how much web traffic a certain site is receiving each month, and take a look at what your competition is really doing. Read more…

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

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: 3 Ways To Prevent A Mistake From Destroying Your 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…

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: Using Social Media Influencers as a Marketing Strategy for Better ROI

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…

Recommended: The 7 Crowdfunding Tips That Are Most Important

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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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…

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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…

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

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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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…

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: Viral Video Marketing 101

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…

Recommended: 3 Absurd Myths About Using Technology in Small Business

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: Keeping Up with the Changing Face of Advertising

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: 8 Social Marketing Fails to Avoid

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: The 7 Crowdfunding Tips That Are Most Important

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…

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: How to Manage Your Digital Marketing Without Falling Behind

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: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Indiegogo

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…

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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…

Recommended: Mobile Strategies To Win Over Purchasing Preferences Of Women

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: How to Brainstorm Breakthrough Ideas for Your Business

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: The Unexpected Benefits of Crowdfunding

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…

Recommended: 3 Steps for Marketers to Get More Out of Social Media Posts

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: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Indiegogo

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…

Recommended: 9 Ways of Making Content More Effective

Take a look at all of the marketing you’ve done over the last several months. Chances are, most – if not all – was effectively limited to product or service promotion. While offers and advertisements are important, promotions are really at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to building a strong brand. Read more…

Recommended: Does Your Marketing Strategy Work For You?

It’s easy to lose precious hours playing games and goofing around on your smartphone or tablet. Such distractions can kill your focus and productivity.

But you don’t need to turn off your phone or chuck it out a window to get more work done. From scaling back your notifications to timing your tasks, try these 4 tips for using a smartphone to boost your productivity by up to 30% and reach your business goals:

1) Turn off your notifications.

Your smartphone and many of its apps are designed to grab your attention with various types of notifications, including icons that appear in your phone’s status bar, sounds, flashing lights and vibrations.

Whenever your phone notifies you of something, you might not need to immediately respond. Read more…

Recommended: Content Marketing Made Easier With These 5 Tricks

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…

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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…

Many people accept that a slowdown in sales is a fact of business life during the summer. Well, nothing could be further from the truth, and as a business owner you need to get out of that frame of mind.

A summer slowdown may be something many people want because they expect this to be a season for vacations when the living is easy. Read more…

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It seems like everyone is using crowdfunding to kick off their new business venture, be it a new coffee shop, or electronic gadget. But the usefulness of crowdfunding is still debatable. Is crowdfunding even right for your business?

Here’s some information and and a few tips that will help explain crowdfunding concepts and how you can take advantage of them to fund your business.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money for a new venture by soliciting small donations or investments from many people online. Read more…

Recommended: Improve Profitability With These 10 Steps Marketing Plan

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 Create Influence on Twitter

It seems like everyone is using crowdfunding to kick off their new business venture, be it a new coffee shop, or electronic gadget. But the usefulness of crowdfunding is still debatable. Is crowdfunding even right for your business?

Here’s some information and and a few tips that will help explain crowdfunding concepts and how you can take advantage of them to fund your business.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money for a new venture by soliciting small donations or investments from many people online. Read more…

Recommended: How to Empower Entrepreneurs With Crowdfunding

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…

Recommended: SEC And Crowdfunding: Things You Need To Know.

Small business marketers who use content marketing are able to reduce the cost of leads, increase awareness and position themselves as leaders.

In recent years, marketers have been forced to think differently about how they engage with potential customers, particularly small business marketers.

Every year, customers have increasing control over what marketing messages they wish to consume. Read more…

Recommended: Traditional Marketing And Content Marketing: Can They Co-Exist?

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…

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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You’ve heard it many times: reuse, reduce, recycle. Did you know that this piece of advice doesn’t just apply to aluminum cans and plastic water bottles?

You can repurpose your influencer marketing content to increase its value to your campaign. Think of it like a neighborhood recycling program: You’re preventing waste while putting resources back into the community – or, in this case, your company.

1. Read more…

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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: Targeting B2B Customers Effectively When Your Targets Keep Moving

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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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 Startup Entrepreneurs Need To Be More Like Reporters

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: 9 Content Marketing Steps to Follow When You Have a Low Budget

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…

Starting a blog is just the beginning. Publishing a blog post? You need to let the world know that your awesome blog exists!

So how do you do that? That department is called “marketing”. Blog marketing could sound like too much of a technical word and many small business bloggers don’t even want to hear about it.
Of course, there are advanced marketing techniques that you need to learn, and master someday. Read more…

Recommended: Great Digital Marketing For Bootstrapped Entrepreneur

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

Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) has always been a powerful way to influence business results.

Why should Marketers care about WOMM?

If you could master what has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing-the one that consumers trust above all others and the one that is most likely to drive sales for your company – would you instead choose to ignore it or leave it to chance?

Why would you simply choose to sit back and hope conversations will just happen organically about your brand? If you want to win the marketing race in 2017, you need to unleash the power of word of mouth. 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…

Recommended: Make Your Small Business Email Marketing Successful – Follow These Steps

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…

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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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…

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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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The science of content marketing is much bigger than publishing an occasional blog. Custom content has grown into a 43.0billion dollar industry, and even skeptics have to admit that it’s serious business. The best content marketers are wizards who are able to blend writing, multi-media content, PR, social media, and networking into a comprehensive online presence. Read more…

Recommended: How to Brainstorm Breakthrough Ideas for Your Business

A variety of internal and external forces can affect the longevity of products and services your business offers. Understanding how your business excels where your competition does not is a crucial element in dominating your market. Incorporating these strategies into your marketing plan can push your organization into becoming an industry leader. Read more…

Recommended: How To Promote Your Business Between Thanksgiving And Christmas

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: 6 Tips To Achieve Marketing Goals

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…

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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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: How To Avoid Summer Slowdowns, And Keep Growing Your Business

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: Crowdfunding Made Easier With These 4 Tips

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: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on Kickstarter

Content marketing has become one of the most popular digital marketing strategies, with 88% of B2B marketers now using it in some form.

But it costs significant time and/or money. What if you don’t have those dollars to invest? What if you’re just starting out, or what if you’re already investing the bulk of your marketing budget in other strategies?

Though not ideal, it’s actually possible to start a content marketing campaign with no money whatsoever. Read more…

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

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: Benefits of Ad Retargeting (Remarketing)

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…

Starting a blog is just the beginning. Publishing a blog post? You need to let the world know that your awesome blog exists!

So how do you do that? That department is called “marketing”. Blog marketing could sound like too much of a technical word and many small business bloggers don’t even want to hear about it.
Of course, there are advanced marketing techniques that you need to learn, and master someday. Read more…

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Crowdfunding is a way of raising money for a new venture by soliciting small donations from many people online. The biggest platforms in the industry are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. In the last five years, crowdfunding has grown from a tool for off-beat bands to raise money from fans for an album they can’t afford to produce to a way for some really high tech inventors to get access to capital for their new, innovative startups.

Following is the checklist of 8 steps to prepare for your campaign.

1. Read more…

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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…

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Need more leads? Of course, you do!

A well-optimized landing page is one of the most effective methods of generating authentic leads for your business. It drives traffic to your website, develops familiarity with your visitors and can gain you warm leads.

But what marketing campaigns increase traffic to your page and drive conversions? What value exchange does your business need to increase leads?

And for year around affordable marketing, don’t forget online marketing sites. Read more…

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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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Keeping your employees motivated, inspired and productive should be a top goal for any organization. Here are 5 ways to leave your staff inspired and productive:

1) Create a list of employee rights.

To amp up your work environment, this list should include the right to a comfortable work environment, managers who behave professionally, and an immediate and fair response to any grievances. 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…

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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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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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…

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What is content marketing? Content marketing is a method of providing information of value that convinces an audience you are a trusted expert on your topic of mutual interest, and puts you top-of-mind when it is time they make a purchase decision. The model fits every industry you can think of, including yours.

Content marketing helps in generating more leads, sales, and business. 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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Every day we are bombarded by brands fighting for our attention; how can you possibly make your startup stand out? Marketing your startup in today’s competitive business economy is undoubtedly difficult and expensive, but there are steps you can take to make sure your startup gets a good chance at success.

Before you start, make sure you have a firm grasp on two key things. 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…

Keeping your employees motivated, inspired and productive should be a top goal for any organization. Here are 5 ways to leave your staff inspired and productive:

1) Create a list of employee rights.

To amp up your work environment, this list should include the right to a comfortable work environment, managers who behave professionally, and an immediate and fair response to any grievances. 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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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…

Recommended: 5 Crowdfunding Steps Proven To Raise Money on GoFundMe

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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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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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: The Unexpected Benefits of Crowdfunding

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 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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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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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…

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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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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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As business leaders and athletic coaches know, you need more than exceptional talent to succeed. To create a winning team, entrepreneurs can learn from great athletes who came together to reach their full potential.

Dominique Moceanu won the Olympic gold medal in 1996, as part of the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team known as the Magnificent Seven. Read more…

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

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…

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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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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You’ve got your ideas about what you want to promote in your video content. You’ve probably even already got a video marketing strategy. But have you given real thought to what your audience wants to see in your videos?

Sure, you’ve thought about how to make your videos more successful, and that requires thinking about audience reception to a degree. 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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Imagine you’re leading a brainstorming session at your company. You want to come up with growth strategies for your startup, so you gather your team in a meeting room, generate lots of ideas, and choose the most promising one. Many small business owners use that approach, but unfortunately, it often doesn’t work. 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…

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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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…

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Content marketing has become one of the most popular digital marketing strategies, with 88% of B2B marketers now using it in some form.

But it costs significant time and/or money. What if you don’t have those dollars to invest? What if you’re just starting out, or what if you’re already investing the bulk of your marketing budget in other strategies?

Though not ideal, it’s actually possible to start a content marketing campaign with no money whatsoever. Read more…

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A variety of internal and external forces can affect the longevity of products and services your business offers. Understanding how your business excels where your competition does not is a crucial element in dominating your market. Incorporating these strategies into your marketing plan can push your organization into becoming an industry leader. 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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Wouldn’t you like to have a celebrity recommend your product or service? This type of endorsement has been known to boost businesses and sales. But dealing with influencers, such as celebrities, can be tricky because they tend to get thousands of free sample products in the mail from businesses hoping to get their attention. Read more…

Recommended: One Man Marketing Department !!!

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…