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For the past five years or so, I’ve been really into Podcasts. For me they were an alternative medium for consuming media of all types, from entertainment to business. What I enjoyed the most was being able to listen or watch my content wherever I wanted regardless if I was connected to the internet. It took me back to when I got my first walkman. Anyway, below is a list of Podcasts I listen to that I wanted to share for your enjoyment and inspiration.
StartUp
This podcast has setup their series into seasons, much like a television show. I would highly suggest you start listening from the beginning and binge your way to the most current episode. StartUp profiles their own business behind the scenes on a weekly basis from team meetings, proof of concept, investor meetings, and a whole lot of other transparent takes on their “startup” business. The second seasons profiled an online dating startup.
Online Marketing Made Easy
Amy Porterfield has been inspiring I’d say hundreds of thousands of people with her smart and easy to consume marketing tips. She occasionally will interview marketing gurus that we all have heard of and probably follow to pick their brains on current trends, how they got started, hurdles they’ve overcome, and then tips and freebies for listeners.
The EntreLeadership Podcast
This one is brought to you by the folks at studios of the Dave Ramsey show. Each week they provide great business tips mainly from a leader or business owner perspective. Team building, corporate environment, and topics all in between. Occasionally they’ll interview well known industry leaders to talk about their experiences as well. This podcast usually is about 45 or so minutes each week, but is really worth your time, especially in a long commute.
The $100 MBA Show
I really look forward to starting my day with the energy that Omar Zenhom has for his shows. This guy actually produces a 10min podcast for every day of the week. That’s right, 7 days a week he’s got a show for you to listen to. Each day he offers great tips on marketing, small business advice, good habits, and more. Once you’ve listened to a few of his shows, you can see why he has an award winning show, but also a great business behind it due to the wealth of knowledge he puts out in bites for free each day.
Career Tipper
Michele Badie is a friend of mine, and is here in Orlando. She is the author of this weekly “Confidence Conversation” with local movers and shakers of various industries around Central Florida. What I admire about her most is that she interviews people that’s she’s never met. Typically when you hear interviews they’re by people who have a good enough connection to approach the ability to have someone sit down and open up about their history and experiences. Be sure to check out her casual podcast to learn more about some influential local leaders around Orlando, FL.
These podcasts above are really just a few that I listen to. If you have some that you listen to, let me know in the comments below. I’m seeing Podcasting really pick up over the last two years and there are plenty of great content creators out there publishing information that we can all benefit from.
Product Reviews
This morning at
Ideas Orlando, the WordPress Orlando Meetup held a talk and called it “WordPress in Business”. In this talk there were a few talking points that were mentioned that I notated below. I was unable to post all of these on the
MeetUp page as the text exceeded the comment limits so I created this post for the notes. Please feel free to share where needed.
Hosting Provider Suggestions
- Host Gator
- Digital Ocean (cloud based)
- SiteCore
- SiteGround (inexpensive shared hosting for starter users)
- Pagely (high volume of traffic)
- GoDaddy (WordPress specific hosting)
Food for Thought:
A good idea to note is that hosting providers do not make changes or updates to your website. When you get to a point of making money with your business/website consider hiring an agency that will monitor and maintain your hosting services for your websites.
Plugin Suggestions
- Pretty Links
Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look how you want using your own domain name!
https://wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/
- Gravity Forms
Advanced Forms for WordPress Websites Just Don’t Get Any Easier than Gravity Forms
http://www.gravityforms.com/
- Member Mouse
MemberMouse is an easy to use WordPress membership plugin that allows you to sell products, subscriptions and memberships, setup a password protected member’s area, offer 1-click upsells and downsells, manage customers, automate customer service, track critical retention metrics and more. No matter where you’re starting from, MemberMouse has the power you need to maximize revenue and get your business running like a well-oiled machine.
http://membermouse.com/
- WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a free, powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. With the extendability of a huge catalog of commercial themes and extensions we have all the tools you might need to get your shop running.
http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
- Shopify
Online shopping cart software
http://www.shopify.com/
- Sharesale
ShareASale has been in business for 15 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. Our technology receives accolades for speed, efficiency, and accuracy – and our reputation as a fair and honest business is well known within the industry. We encourage you to browse around our website and learn more, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
http://www.shareasale.com/
- Commission Junction
Affiliate Marketing
http://www.cj.com/
- Click Bank
Entrepreneurs everywhere use our powerful online and mobile e-commerce platform to build a vibrant business across popular lifestyle categories. We believe in cultivating a new generation of digital entrepreneurs and helping them transform their passion and expertise into top-selling digital products and affiliate marketing programs to achieve financial happiness. Our solutions, combined with top-rated client support, help you grow and maintain every part of your business. Making money online has never been easier.
http://www.clickbank.com/
Tips and Ideas
- Amazon has tips and reports about website speed and why it is important to your website conversion rate and more.
- Look into CDN options like CloudFlare or JetPack. (Content Delivery Network) This will make your website load much faster by utilizing distributed content processing.
- For video hosting you can use Amazon S3 hosting, YouTube, or Amazon. http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
- To check your web page load times check http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or try
- Google Page Speed Test https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
- Set up email filters (Gmail)
- Hire a virtual assistant for your repetitive tasks and saving more time each day to dedicate more to yourself or to the core parts of your business
- Advertising on Facebook is really the most effective once you start paying for ads. Even at a small daily rate.
Suggested Reads:
Great source for asking questions or finding answers about WordPress:
All Posts, Social Media
I recently came across this Slideshare post from Linked In and thought it would be great to share it with all of you (our readers).
If you’re like us, trying to keep up with all the latest trends and social media enhancements can be a bit tough. Running a business and keeping clients happy while increasing your bottom line is the common goal, though you can’t ignore your social status and presence. Check out the slide below and I challenge you to see what tips you can take to update your own business Linked In pages in the next few days or week.
All Posts, Branding, Events, Marketing, Social Media
There are over one billion people on Facebook.
Just about everyone on the planet knows that Facebook has become the go-to media strategy for business promotion. Using Facebook provides businesses one of the best opportunities on the Internet for targeted advertising. This is key because Facebook users provide pertinent information such as their age, gender, location and interests, which allows you direct access to target your audience. These Facebook ads can be used for lead generation, traditional brand advertising, and more all to promote your business – FOR FREE! Here are just a few ways to leverage Facebook advertisements for your business.
1st – Know How It Works – When you run your ad or sponsored posts/stories you are charged for the number of impressions (CPM) or clicks it receives. The amount that you pay can be restricted by your daily or lifetime budget and there are no additional fees associated with running ads or sponsored stories on Facebook. Facebook suggests you name your campaign, select your budget and set the time schedule for running your ad. When multiple ads are running in a campaign, Facebook automatically allocates more of your daily budget to higher performing ads. You can use the Ads Manager feature to monitor your campaigns performance, to measure its success and ultimately determine if you are spending your Facebook advertising $’s in the best way possible.
2nd – Consider Psychographics vs. Demographics in the Setup – Psychographics study and measure attitudes, values, lifestyles, and opinions versus demographics, which provide quantitative data based on geography, age, gender and the like. Psychographics give a true, life-like portrait of the targeted audience and consumer base for your individualized marketing purposes. Facebook gathering this key information allows advertisers to target & pinpoint their audience in a very precise and henceforth successful way.
3rd – Always Use Effective, Eye-Catching Tools & Creative Options – We know that we “eat” with our eyes first. What catches our attention through imagery certainly opens the door leading us to the relevant information. So smart use of imagery in your Facebook ad will make a significant impact on the success of the advertising and marketing campaign. And there are various forms of these eye-catching options to consider.
- Infographics are a great way to grab the reader’s attention especially when you add imbedded links to your page to promote key information about a product or service being provided.
- Video Ads – For those who prefer to watch than read, video ads are a great way to convey pertinent healthcare information or solicitations to the masses. For example, there are sports companies like Nike that use ads like Nike’s Football: The Vapor Trail to create amazing & captivating video ads to entice their target audience and promote their products.
- Job Opportunities – In need of more sales associates or another CPA for your growing accounting firm? With over 1 billions people on Facebook, it is no brainer to use ad space to market career opportunities within your business.
- Free Services & Apps – Nothing attracts new customers like the words FREE and even more so when they can actually obtain something. What better way to entice a consumer than offering a limited service for free? What about creating engagement via a free app offer as you lead consumers to your own website. Use Facebook the way Facebook uses you – to get new subscribers i.e. new consumers.
- Emotional Response Ads – Emotions are one of the most powerful influences we have. Emotional Response Marketing & Advertising works wonders in the various forums such as healthcare because there are emotional attachments to health concerns, issues and supportive causes such as Shriner’s Hospital Love to the Rescue.
- Hosted Event Ads – Events promoted on Facebook have a greater chance of success than any traditional marketing method. Business exhibitions and conferences, trainings, and career events can have a much higher participatory turnout when advertised through Facebook.
So are Facebook advertisements worthwhile for your business and particular industry? Only you know who your general audience is comprised of. But if there are more than 50% that you believe are online and use Social Media – than the answer is YES. Especially if you look at the IMMENSE EXPOSURE opportunity versus the amount of money spent on the campaign. Using Facebook creates unlimited opportunities to attain new customers, host successful events and bring global awareness to your company’s product or service. 
All Posts, Content & Copywriting, Marketing
The keys to persuasive, effective marketing materials are great design and informative, persuasive content. Content is both words and supporting imagery that conveys what benefits a consumer will derive from the product/service you are offering. Think of brochures as either the initial “handshake” of your business with a client or the last impression. Your business cards and brochures are essential parts of your brand and can certainly impact the marketability of your business and attracting potential clientele. This week I’d like to highlight the key components to a stand out & effective brochure.
Content can include charts, images, diagrams, listings and other graphic elements that highlight key benefits of your business services/products. Also use of calls to action can be critical to persuasion and getting the consumer to act on your solicitation. Also know that the caliber of writing of your brochure will certainly determine the effectiveness of your message and brand. If you aren’t the greatest writer, farm it out to a business or colleague that can.
White space is an essential part of every single marketing piece, namely brochures. The lines between text and imagery are white space; which allows your readers’ eyes relax and gives them a momentary break from the content. You never want intake overload but also don’t want your content to look too sparse. White space can also be used to separate important points. For example, the brochure below is an example of too much white space & too little content.
Colors evoke feelings and emotions, and can certainly help to build a customers’ first or last impression of your business. The colors you select for your brochure design should definitely compliment or match the colors in your logo or company name. Use of vibrant colors should be done in selective areas and in moderation.
Font selection be stylistic but be easily readable and the size should be chosen based on the volume of information you are trying to convey. It should not be too large (over 14 pt.) or too small (less than 10 pt.) The font should reflect your brand style and set the tone of your organization – elegant for a bridal shop, powerful for an auto body shop. Lastly, the body copy font should differ from your headlines, but you should not exceed the use of 3 different fonts within your brochure design.
Paper selected should be reflective of the quality of your business…Yeah, I said it. Using flimsy paper or a cheap card stock may give a flimsy impression of your business. Choosing glossy or matte finish is purely subjective.
Imagery plays a critical role just like your written content. Take your time when selecting the right imagery and the placement of them. Also, do not forget to check your resolution on the images you select. The higher the resolution the better your picture will come across in print. The lower the resolution, the more blurry and unprofessional your brochure will look when printed. FYI -300 dpi or higher is best for clear, color printing.
The Design of your brochure should be simple but effective. Feel free to break away from the normal trifold and display your brand & company character. 
Among the sea of typical trifolds, how do you make your brochure stand out?
