There are more people out there today competing for scarce jobs; the competition for careers is more educated and the pressure to be successful is huge with severe economic circumstances facing everyone.

To win in this type of environment requires that you be the best at what you choose to do, that you be the topic of conversation. That you and only you deliver unique results that matter.

These 8 proven and practical actions will enable you to be unmatched in the crowd of people hungry for success in their career.

8. Be seen

If you’re not noticed, how can you be judged among your peers? Recognition for achieving results can only come when the career decision makers are aware of what you are doing and the value you are creating.

Manage your activity with this in mind. Don’t force it — like “Hey! Look at me!” — but ensure that people know you and are are able to compare you to your colleagues.

This will also get you top of the list of high potential people who should be given greater opportunities to prove their worth.

7. Look for niche opportunities

Try and be a player in a strategic area where the need is greatest as opposed to trying to be a generalist who aspires to be all things to all people.

For example if your organization is suffering from the lack of marketing skills to differentiate itself from competitors (and you are a competent marketer), focus your brand building efforts there.

The best are recognized as individuals who provide the unique leadership required to achieve strategic success. They focus their energy and use their competencies in the specific areas that will deliver superlative performance for their organization.

6. Be different than everyone else

It always amazes me that everyone wants to copy what works for others. When confronted with a problem to solve, it seems a natural tendency to consult best practices and employ the tactics and game plan that others have successfully implemented.

Whereas benchmarking what others do may result in improvements, it will never give you a strategic advantage over your competitors.

The best don’t copy. They set the standard that others aspire to achieve. And they do it by being different in some meaningful way that resonates with their audiences.

5. Keep your promises

A simple thing really, but one that so often is missing in action when it comes to peoples’ integrity.

It shouldn’t be an advantage to someone but it is. Many are great with the words and rhetoric but fall short on the action and results.

Someone who has a strong brand around doing what they say will surpass those who rely on words alone to set them apart.

Successful people don’t just aspire, they do.

4. Keep your education a secret

The truth is that the best doesn’t come from being the most well-educated.

There are too many people who are likely to have degrees and marks better than yours. Furthermore academic credentials are not a reliable predictor of success.

In the real world success comes from achieving results faster than others — from being more nimble than the crowd.

Being the best is achieved by getting stuff done better than anyone else, not by out-thinking them.

You DO need a good knowledge foundation to even play the career game, but it’s the actions you take that make a difference.

3. Do more than what is asked for

Most of my competitors did the minimum amount to meet the given objective.

My view was always to meet the minimum expectation and look for an opportunity to go beyond it, to create work that was more original and insightful than what others did.

Sure, it took extra time to do it, but it was worth it in the long run.

Look for opportunities to:

• Make your work broader and richer than expected by engaging more experts and opinion leaders in your analysis.
• Provide a greater level of detail in your reports. Don’t just skim the surface; do a “deep dive” into your material and provide the granularity your readers don’t expect.
• Package your work differently than what others do; make your work compelling for your audience to study.

The required minimum satisfies expectations; going beyond attracts attention and feeds best opinions.

2. Surprise ‘em

Most people approach a problem they have been asked to solve in the same way.

They do a SWOT analysis, set a goal and then develop a list of objectives to achieve. The pedantic way that your competitors use.

Being the best requires breaking away from the way everyone else approaches a challenge and doing it in a way that surprises people.

Some simple ways of coming at this:

• Ask someone who is affected by the problem how THEY would solve it. People closest to the problem often don’t get invited to help solve it; those looking in are surprised when they are.
• Abbreviate the formal analysis; get to a solution fast, implement it and tweak it on the run. Spending most of your time to figure out how to implement a solution is almost never done; when you do you just might attract a “WOW!”.
• Go in the opposite direction implied by the traditional problem solving approach. Doing a 180 on how a problem is typically addressed is often a great inertia breaker and will attract attention.

1. Change the terms of engagement

It’s all about context — the “bigger picture” — and most people don’t think this way. Push the narrative to a higher level than the issue on the table.

For example, rather give an opinion on civic leadership ethics raise the level of the conversation to discuss civic leadership accountability — a broader topic which includes ethics.

I am constantly asked my opinion, for example, on specific advertising campaigns, and I refuse to comment until I clearly understand the strategy the ad intends to fulfill. Unless you have strategic context your views are merely personal biases and add little value.

The best avoid getting drawn in to a debate on a narrow topic; they create a more holistic frame of reference and go their to present their views.

The best don’t conform; they don’t comply; they don’t rely on their schooling and they don’t copy what others do.

They look for niche opportunities and rely on “doing it” to achieve results that others are incapable of delivering.

The post These 8 simple things will make you the best appeared first on AlphaGamma.

Deadline: March 31, 2019 00:00 (CET)| Apply here
Eligibility: The Global Startup Competition invites innovators from around the world to pitch their solutions to gain global exposure and access deals.

Global Startup Competition 2019

It is one of the activities from Get in the Ring, the startup platform of Unknown Group.

Founded in 2012, Unknown Group are a global innovation agency specializing in internal and external venturing.

The group’s mission is to unlock the potential of those that will shape the world of tomorrow and embodies the Get in the Ring label.

The world’s coolest startup pitching competition is back!

The Global Startup Competition invites innovators from around the world to pitch their solutions to gain global exposure and access deals.

Apply to a selection event in your region to gain global exposure and secure deals for your startup. The most promising innovators around the globe will battle in the ring, pitch for glory and become our next startup hero.

Why apply?

Every year the most promising companies are selected to join the portfolio of heroes. Global Startup Competition promotes and supports its heroes with global exposure and connects them to dealmaking opportunities.

• Exposure: Pitch for exposure and get a global podium for presenting your company
• Deals: Unlock opportunities and connect with our network of investors and corporate partners
• Investment: Gain access to €10mln of committed capital from Get in the Ring and VenturesOne

Global winners will receive:

• 1-year business development support and covering expenses to meet top investors and potential customers
• Investment offer of up to €500,000 from €10mln committed capital from Get in the Ring and VenturesOne.

Selection event winners will receive:

• Sponsored ticket to the 3-day Global Meetup of Get in the Ring
• Become part of global heroes network, receiving access ongoing support and promotion options
• Optional prizes offered by local partners (ecosystem awards)

All participants will receive:

• Improve pitch via training
• Connect with- and learn from leading investors, entrepreneurs and peers

Selection process

During every selection, event startups are reviewed by expert mentors and investors. The most promising startups win the chance to battle in the global final, at the Global Meetup 2019.

Interested in applying for the Global Startup Competition 2019? Register your participation by following the registration link and taking the suggested steps.

For more opportunities, check our opportunities section and subscribe to our weekly newsletters.

The post Global Startup Competition 2019: The world’s coolest startup pitching competition appeared first on AlphaGamma.

2019 is here, and if you’re still running the same old ad campaigns from a year or two ago, it’s time to turn off cruise control.

As much as we would all love PPC tactics (and SEO for that matter) to stay the same, they don’t. Platforms change, provide new features and updates, and even dictate the new direction of advertising.

PPC is changing dramatically. In the last year alone, Google dramatically shifted AdWords into Google Ads, bringing countless new updates and features along with it. To meet these new changes, complacency isn’t viable anymore. We can’t cruise to the finish line.

Here are three ways that PPC is going to change in the coming year and three ways to prepare for it for a first movers advantage.

1. Less self-serving, more customer-serving

PPC advertising is a pretty self-serving venture when comparing the outcome for advertisers vs. consumers: you put out some ads with lead magnets in attempts to either convert traffic, build brand awareness, or generate some direct sales on your products or services.

While the customer does benefit in some cases, it’s usually not the main focus.

The main focus is on landing the sale. The lead. Generating another customer for your funnel. Putting together that lead magnet or landing page ASAP to get the customer to sign up for your eBook, webinar, or online course. Using XX conversion hacks to psychologically trick them into converting.

These tactics don’t just give the general “marketing” world a bad name, they also annoy people. A lot.

And I have bad news for advertisers: users aren’t susceptible to this anymore. Searchers and internet browsers alike crave value, not a snatch and grab of your information for further annoying marketing messages.

They want content and information that is valuable, not just a clickbait post designed to get their email. And your only hope in 2019 is to create better content and value. Don’t believe me?

Codeless tested multiple content services and surveyed marketing experts, all of which said the content didn’t provide enough value and that consumers wouldn’t resonate with it to purchase.

We get bombarded with enough of that junk in our daily lives via email:

We simply don’t need more of it with PPC ads and subsequent content.

Now, study after study after study confirms that people are doing more research than ever before buying a product or paying for a service.

These studies conclude that nearly 90% of people research before buying. It’s no wonder that the DMA found that the average lead takes 7-13+ touches to generate a single viable lead.

So, what am I getting at here? The overall trend of PPC becoming less self-serving and more customer-serving to meet changing consumer actions. After all, customer satisfaction and solving customer problems is the lifeblood of continued sales and lifetime value.

I’ve already seen this trend come to fruition in 2018, too. The example I saw was nothing short of perfect, either. Let me show you.

Recently I conducted the following search on Google’s search network. Here were the top four ads ranking for my keyword search. Make a mental note if you notice anything:

The first three ads ranking for this search at basically the same: my CRM is the best, click here and buy! But take a look at the fourth-ranking ad:

Top 40 CRM software ranked. Discover the leaders in CRM.

If that isn’t customer-serving value, I don’t know what is.

This ad perfectly matches searcher intent with a customer-centric ad that focuses on providing real, valuable, insightful research material. Instead of cramming their product down customer’s throats as “the best” (which we all know is BS), they provide instant value.

While I don’t have the PPC data to back it up, I’d be willing to bet $500 on red to say they got the majority of clicks. The lesson here is: provide value. While you’ve probably heard it before, it’s another thing to see it in practice, especially on PPC ads that cost money.

Another amazing PPC strategy for customer-centric value I saw was driving visits to a knowledge portal via remarketing to middle-of-the-funnel leads:

Instead of trying to push sales messages, they sought to help the user understand their tool better, producing more value and success for each client.

On top of that, writing better PPC ads is a surefire way to be less self-serving.

Take a hard look at your current ads. Are they good? Are they asking for too much? What’s the tone? Are you measuring intent?

All of this can seem overwhelming, but it’s actually easy. How? By combining a few cool PPC tools.

First, I like to plug my ad copy ideas into a grammar tool like Grammarly, because you can have the tool assess for goals, like specific tones, intent, audience, and more:

(Image source)

Pretty amazing right? You can create potentially hundreds of ad variations by changing the style, emotion, audience, and intent.

Then, use Google’s new ad strength tool to measure how unique and impactful your ad will be:

This is a surefire way to create new, better ads that are less self-serving.

So, how else can you prepare for a customer-focused landscape with PPC? Here are a few ways:

• Assess keyword intent: are you matching what the customer is expecting? Or are you just pushing product?
• Value: are you trying to get them to convert on a dime? Or are you building up their trust in your brand by providing the right research tools at the right time?
• Start focusing the content you offer users on PPC towards valuable information they want. According to State of Lead Gen 2018, these are the most valuable forms of content users are looking for:

(Image Source)

So, give it to ‘em!

• Relationships: are you developing relationships with your PPC campaigns? As in, are you genuinely helping, connecting, and symbiotically growing with your potential customers?
• Personality: are you putting your brand personality into your PPC campaigns and landing pages? Customers love to connect with genuine brands that solve pain points while sharing a unique voice and authentic personality. More interactive content like podcasts, videos, webinars, and long-form blog posts will entertain and inform users capture users in the middle of the funnel.

2. Omnichannel strategies will win big

Multichannel has been around for a long time. But omnichannel is the new kid on the block with promising performance:

• 73% of people use multiple channels to shop and browse products/services online
• According to the Harvard Business Review, omnichannel buyers produce higher order values and lifetime value.
• 78% of businesses aren’t providing a smooth experience from channel to channel

What’s the difference between the two?

Multichannel is simply advertising on multiple channels, like Facebook and Google Ads. This is a very common tactic that is a great step for anyone using a single platform. Not only can you reach more people, but you can reach your target market in different formats.

The problem with multichannel is that by switching channels, your experience “resets.” This makes you prone to receiving marketing messages that you already have gotten before and aren’t matching your buying stage.

For instance, this is an ad for a brand on Facebook:

And look at how the ad experience doesn’t relate when searching on Google, despite me engaging heavily with the brand previously:

My experience turns into a first-time click, even though I am deep in the funnel.

That’s not good.

Omnichannel, on the other hand, takes multichannel to a new level. Omnichannel is a continued experience that happens on multiple platforms, picking up where the user left off.

For example, engaging with a lead magnet on Facebook and then showcasing an ad for a second, accompanying lead magnet on Google.

In terms of PPC, we can omnichannel to reach the same audience on multiple channels, pushing them down the funnel in an organized sequence.

Instead of solely relying on one channel to do one tactic, we can combine multiple for a smoother buying process. There are tons of ways to run omnichannel and cross-device advertisements now.

For instance, here are a few that you could establish in just a few minutes of extra effort compared to a standard campaign:

1. Use Google Ads as the starting point. Using the Search Network, target middle of the funnel keywords to bring in relevant, qualified traffic. Next, with a Facebook Pixel installed, remarket those visitors with content related to the landing page they interacted with from the search network ad.
2. Use Facebook as your starting point and craft brand awareness ads to a new audience (or a lookalike). Build trust and authority, and then target them in Google’s search network using remarketing lists for search ads (RLSAs).
3. Or, use Facebook to capture emails for dirt cheap and then continue the same experience on an email campaign. This is a strategy that kids shoe brand Wee Squeak used, generating 600 emails with $90 on Facebook and then delivering drip campaigns to drive sales online.

These are just great options in an almost infinite list of possibilities.

But, you get the point: don’t just use one channel.

Don’t feel limited to one or the other. We often see comparisons like “Which is Better: Google Ads or Facebook.”

Instead, we should be combining them for big wins.

3. Mobile is everything now

For years we have been told about the incoming mobile takeover.

Even so, most mobile PPC campaigns aren’t mobile-optimized.

Ever search for something on Google, click the first ad on mobile and find a landing page that has one of the following issues:

• Takes too long to load (past three seconds and you will suffer major traffic loss)
• The user experience isn’t optimized for mobile
• Converting is a pain due to long forms

The issues go on and on. PPC optimization goes way beyond just writing mobile ad types on Google Ads now.

It’s full-scale optimization for the mobile-index and more. If that means building a new mobile site, it means you have to build one. 51% of people use WordPress, and it’s free. You can’t wait any longer to be mobile ready and you have no excuse.

Whether you just started a blog, are running an ecommerce site with WordPress, or are a SaaS company, mobile experience must be front of mind.

To keep up with the trends, focus first on mobile speed. If your site isn’t loading within the first three seconds of a click, you will be wasting time on anything else you do:

(Image source)

No amount of A/B testing and tweaking can outrun a slow site.

Use tools like Test My Site to see what elements you can eliminate or manage for a faster site.

Once you’ve improved speed, you can start to optimize campaigns to bit on mobile traffic. To do this, increase bids on mobile devices and decrease bids on desktop in your Google Ads campaign settings:

This will ensure your traffic is only mobile device searchers even on search network campaigns.

Also, this will have a two-fold benefit:

1. Bringing in more mobile traffic
2. Ability to test for mobile as you will have a significant amount of traffic to test against! People often test too early with too little of traffic, leading to statistically insignificant tests.

Mobile experiences for ads don’t have to be generic either. If your site isn’t well optimized for mobile, try something new.

Don’t be afraid to test new strategies. For instance, one of the most creative mobile PPC strategies I’ve ever seen was using a chatbot as the landing page in a PPC campaign:

This campaign by Fran at Landbot generated a 100% increase in his conversion rates. That’s right, he set up a landing page on his website so that every PPC click on Google search directed people into a chatbot conversation.

Amazing!

Mobile is everything now. And it’s time for all digital marketing entrepreneurs to improve our mobile PPC.

Conclusion

It’s tempting to sit back and let your 2018 campaigns go on autopilot in 2019. Especially if they are working.

And if they are working, there is no need to pause them.

But, PPC is changing right before our eyes. Google is constantly updating their platform and optimizing for the consumer, not the advertiser.

Google cares about pleasing consumers, and advertisers will need to adopt this strategy ASAP to remain relevant.

Omnichannel experiences are starting to crop up from Google Ads to Facebook Ads.

Google is continually putting stock into mobile development, too. No longer are the days of sub-par mobile ads for a quick call.

Now, mobile should be the center of your PPC strategy.

It’s time to get moving on your 2019 strategy and plan for these trends in advance.

Author:

Adam Enfroy is a writer and manages strategic partnerships for BigCommerce. With 10+ years of digital marketing experience, he’s passionate about leveraging the right strategic partnerships, content, and software to scale digital growth. Adam lives in Austin, TX and writes about selling online courses and scaling your online influence on his blog, adamenfroy.com.

You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The post 3 Ways PPC Will Change in 2019 and 3 Ways You Can Prepare For It appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.

Promoting an event is never easy. Especially, if you are doing it for the first time.

It’s not only about creating an insightful and engaging event, but also the way you promote it.

With the right event promotion strategy in place, you’ll reach your target audience faster and at a fraction of a cost.

To help you on your task to market an event, we prepared a list of tools which will ease the event promotion part.

18 best tools to promote an event

1. EventMarketer

EventMarketer is essential for you to market your events effectively.

Even if you’re not actively promoting an event at the moment, you should check their page to learn the ultimate strategies for content promotion.

2. Twitter

No need to say that social media is the best source for content promotion. But, among other social networks, Twitter is the perfect tool for researching how people interact at certain events.

Keep an eye on similar events in other locations and check the hashtags used by other to get ideas to improve your promotion strategy.

3. Facebook

If your event doesn’t have a Facebook page, go create one now! Facebook shows users suggested events that he thinks might be of interest to them, so your event will promote itself. Moreover, it is free and easy to invite people.

4. Mention

Mention offers a media monitoring app for brands to obtain filtered, organized, and prioritized information from the web and social networks.

The application creates alerts for clients’ brand, industry, company, name, or competitors as well as inform in real-time about any mentions on the web and social web.

Its application features include media and social monitoring, anti-noise technology, and statistics and data expert tools.

5. PurpleTrail

PurpleTrail allows you to create, order and print beautiful custom invitations and stationery for nearly any event. Don’t forget that business cards are still an incredibly effective way of keeping your company in the minds of your customers.

It’s also has a mobile app and desktop version. There also a section full of ideas for an efficient content promotion.

6. Eventbrite

Eventbrite is the world’s leading event technology platform.  Hundreds of thousands of organizers use Eventbrite to boost ticket sales, promote and manage events, handle onsite operations, and analyze results across multiple sales channels.

Eventbrite’s capabilities are enhanced by Eventbrite Spectrum, the company’s open API platform, which provides seamless access to more than 170 industry-leading technologies like Salesforce and Mailchimp.

Additionally, over 60 million consumers use Eventbrite every year to discover a variety of live experiences and get tickets on a secure, easy-to-use platform.

7. Squarespace

Squarespace is a SaaS-based content management system (CMS) offering a website builder, blogging platform, and hosting service. It provides a hosted and managed environment with DIY tools for creating and maintaining websites, blogs, and portfolios.

8. Buffer

Buffer helps users share social media content by scheduling online posts throughout the day. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and other social media platforms.

The free version of the application allows a maximum limit of 10 posts to be scheduled at any given time, and only allows the management of one social media account per social media website.

Buffer also contains features that give post suggestions to users and gives information on the number of clicks, retweets, likes, favorites, mentions, and potential views each post has.

9. Canva

Canva makes graphic design amazingly simple for everyone, by bringing together a drag-and-drop design tool with a library of more than 1 million stock photographs, graphic elements, and fonts.

Give your event an outstanding appearance!

10. MailChimp

MailChimp is the world’s most powerful email marketing platform for small business. As the backbone for customer relationships, they provide sophisticated tools anyone can use to grow their business and be successful.

MailChimp is used to send marketing emails and automated messages, create targeted campaigns, facilitate reporting and analytics, and sell online.

Over 12 million businesses and individuals – from community organizations to Fortune 100 companies – trust MailChimp to connect the right people with the right message, at the right time.

11. Evvnt

A multi channel local event distribution service – evvnt broadcasts and publishes an event to 50+ event listing sites including Facebook to save time, access thousands of unique event consumers, clearly visible in organic search, mobile with and tracked results. Cost effective local event marketing

12. Lanyrd

Lanyrd is a directory of conferences, events and speakers. Visitors can sign in with Twitter to see events their friends are attending or speaking at, submit new events, add talks that they have given and build up their speaker profile.

13. Zvents

Zvents is a leading producer of local entertainment guides online, helping more than 12 million monthly users find fun and interesting things to do in their local area, and helping thousands of event advertisers increase attendance at their events.

More than 15,000 event advertisers work with Zvents every month to promote a wide range of local events and activities, including live music, performing arts, sporting events, and community activities.

14. Yelp

Yelp operates an online platform that connects people with local businesses. Its platform covers various local business categories, including restaurants, shopping, beauty and fitness, arts, entertainment and events, home and local services, health, nightlife, travel and hotel, auto, and others categories.

15. Eventful

Eventful, the leading digital media company, powers the online ecosystem of local events and entertainment. Over 20 million people rely on Eventful to find out what’s happening and decide what to do.

Eventful’s unique, social media platform, “Demand it!” empowers fans to influence content and location of entertainment and live events. Music promoters, film studios, ticketing companies and other industry providers use Demand it! to engage with fans and determine their routing schedules or theatrical distribution.

National marketers rely on Eventful to drive local awareness, commerce, attendance and tune-in. Thousands of digital publishers also rely on Eventful to power their local events and entertainment content.

18. StartApp

StartApp is an insight-driven mobile technologies company that enables partners to turn data into truly fulfilling mobile moments.

By creating innovative ways of exploring mobile users’ intents and behaviors, and of being smarter about responding to these factors, they help their partners optimize and better execute their strategies.

StartApp partners with over 300,000 applications, working with a database of over 1.85 billion mobile users worldwide. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in New York with offices around the world.

Now you know where to get started. Don’t forget to leave your opinion in the comments below and let us know what you think about the article, or if you know any other useful tools to promote an event.

For more business tips, check our entrepreneurship section, subscribe to our weekly newsletters.

The post 18 best tools to promote an event appeared first on AlphaGamma.

Sometimes, it’s hard to control our money. Especially if we don’t know how to. But these budget tips will help you out with your financial problems.

The lack of a budget

We all know that we should be saving and investing but a frightening seven out of ten Americans have less than $1000 in savings.

That means that most people don’t have the resources to cover a $500 emergency, like new brake pads or a dental emergency. And while the reasons why we fail to save may vary, at the heart of most of them is poor money management.

In 2013 researchers found that nearly 60% of Americans did not have a budget. That number has reversed itself in recent years with nearly the same number (60%) reporting that they DO budget.

That still leaves more than a third of all Americans making financial decisions without a financial road map.

And the reasons for not budgeting usually fall into two categories.

The first group is those who can’t be bothered, either because they find it boring or because they are busy people with limited time to devote to such things.

The second are those that are scared away from budgeting because they lack the knowledge or the confidence to do it well. For either group, there is a simple solution.

The 50/30/20 rule

This formula is the ideal budget. Ideally, 50% of your post-tax income should go towards necessities. This includes things such as rent, food, and transportation.

The following 30% should be devoted to the things you want. This includes entertainment and non-essential shopping. The remaining 20% goes into your savings account.

Chances are, your spending habits are far from ideal. Many Americans pay too much in housing costs or devote too little to savings.

Others have a hard time prioritizing. Regardless of your current financial situation, there are a few easy steps to get your budget back on track.

5 Budget tips for the busy entrepreneur

1. Track everything

Right now you probably have no idea where your money goes.

Take a week, or a month and simply track your spending. There are several apps that you can download for free that will do just that. They will track and categorize your spending habits so that it is one easy to read the chart.

This is one of the most important budget tips of this list. You need to know where your money goes.

2. Trim the fat

Now that we know where your money is going, it’s time to decide what you can live without.

Clearing up credit card debts should be your first order of business. Bring your coffee instead of buying it. Plan your week’s meals.

Switch to a cheaper cable plan, or get rid of cable altogether. Go online and shop around for cheap insurance quotes for your car and home. Chances are you can bring down your utility bills as well with a few minor changes to your lifestyle.

3. Increase your bottom line

There is a good chance that even after reducing your outgoing expenses, you still need a few extra dollars.

This is especially true if you have debts that need repayment.

Take your boss up on that over time offer. Get a part-time job. Or, take this as an opportunity to freelance. Many great entrepreneurs began as freelancers, doing what they loved in their spare time.

4. Automate everything

Lower the barriers of resistance by automating as many of your expenditures as possible.

Don’t forget to pay yourself as well. Make your monthly transfers to your saving account an automated deposit. Treat it like a bill.

This way you don’t hesitate to save. Start with an amount you know you can easily afford, and slowly increase it as your situation improves.

One trick is to have your spending money deposited into a separate account so that you don’t blow your budget by accident.

5. Reward yourself

Keep tracking your spending. Set monthly and quarterly goals, and then reward yourself for meeting them.

Perhaps you splurge on shoes after paying off your credit card.

This simple plan doesn’t require you to be a mathematician to figure out and doesn’t require hours of balancing checkbooks and detailed spreadsheets.

But, if you follow the budget tips and bravely face your financial reality, you’ll surely have a better control over you money

Leave your opinion in the comments below and let me know if you have more budget tips I’ve missed.

For more finance and investing tips, check our finance section and entrepreneurship sections and subscribe to our weekly newsletters.

The post 5 budget tips for the busy entrepreneur appeared first on AlphaGamma.

Being an essential aspect of any company, marketing plays a vital role to increase profitability. In the same way, content marketing is the prerequisite in practicing any of the SEO techniques for a website.

As we all know SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about creating amazing content, optimizing and promoting it. And now, SEO is inextricably linked to content marketing and other new methods of internet marketing.

The majority of search queries drive traffic websites, hunting quality information for that query. So, content displayed on the website should be relevant and quite informative. This is the main reason why content is said to be king.

Creating powerful and informative content doesn’t end your task. Rather, the main task begins to interlink content marketing and your goals. But, the most common mistake businesses tend to make is not considering goals from the beginning, and run behind boosting traffic to the website.

This is the main phase in digital marketing, where people face an issue. If content marketing is not done in coordination with the mission, then how is it possible to rank well on search engine results pages (SERPs)?

Let me break down a method to align your content marketing strategy with mission through these insanely amazing ways.

Before you start creating useful content for your website, look at how you can plan a content marketing strategy while coordinating it with the company’s mission. Here are few amazing ways to plan a mission-friendly content marketing strategy:

1. Consistency

Maintaining consistency doesn’t start simply by managing a good flow of content. Instead, the foremost thing you need to do is understanding the importance of brand consistency on all the platforms. This is one of the best ways to maintain coherence with customers.

The average person has an attention span of 8 seconds, so retaining interest to your content is essential.

When customers get engaged with your content, they would mainly look for the same identity, same feel and similar experience across all platforms. This identity can be demonstrated through the brand name, and logo to mark your presence among all users.

Apart from brand consistency, it is a prerequisite to manage your timeframe in content marketing. Set a schedule of when, how and which kind of articles or blogs you will display on your website. When you maintain this consistency of regular posting, viewers easily encounter all your content and look forward more information on the website.

This way you can build a strong relationship with your customer and execute the strategies of marketing based on your mission.

2. Keep your target audience in mind

While setting goals, it is obvious that target audience is predetermined. But, many marketers neglect them while creating content and end up with detached customers. This failure negatively affects website search engine rankings.

The demographics, choices, and interest of your audience are a part of your goals. If you consider all these points during the content campaign, then it will work wonders on the website’s performance.

3. Incorporate Photos, Videos and GIFs

Gone are the days when people use to read long texts. New techniques bring in various tricks to grab the users’ attention and hold their interest until the end.

A study shows that 81% of people only scan the content they read online. Visual information can pull user’s attention to the content. So, it would be a good idea to fuse in various infographics, or photos, or GIFs. This way you can easily connect to the consumers as per your goals.

4. Promote it on correct platform

Assume that the content created with great efforts is not able to reach your potential audience. Do you think this is justice to those massive efforts? This is the reason why it becomes necessary to share your content on the correct platforms.

The majority of people are active on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and much more. So, use social media as a weapon to shoot the content to a large number of people and engage them with it.

The main task starts by recognizing which platform would be the accurate one according to goals of the website and to check which site would lead you towards potential customers.

As compared to traditional marketing, content marketing costs 62% less. So, it becomes a necessary to optimize all platforms correctly for the best outcome.

Takeaway message

SEO is not an arduous task, it’s a crucial one which requires special attention. It is possible to succeed in it with the correct aim, strategy and its implementation to augment website’s traffic which apparently leads to the productivity of the company.

Since we’ve learnt about these modifications, tweak your content strategy in such a way that it goes hand in hand with your company’s pre-decided goals and missions. This would greatly impact visibility, branding and effectively manage your online reputation management.

How have you aligned your content marketing strategy with your company’s mission? Tell your story in the comments below.

The post 4 Ways to Align Your Content Marketing Strategy With Your Mission appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.