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Marketing Articles: Page 3

Climate Change In Photos

Grab a coffee and take a few minutes to flick through this PDF photo book.

We are facing an earth crisis. I think that art is a way to engage people. Art can initiate conversations when other media fails.

Graphic artist Shepard Fairey

PS remember to share it with others, it’s important but it’s not too late.

What marketing is

Seth offers a little clarity

Marketing isn’t paying for ads, changing the logo or building a social media presence.

Marketing is product design, customer service, pricing, customer delight and creating and living a remarkable story. Marketing is creating the conditions for the network effect.

Understanding is half the battle.

IMC63: Google SEO Case Study

To watch the full video and get access to all previous videos and resources join my Marketing Club - Get free access for 30 days

We are joined by Abi Unwin (Abigail Jane Coaching) who will shared her journey into SEO. Earlier this year she attended one of Ben’s introductory SEO workshop and managed to boost her website Google Ranking ‘from page 15 to page 1 in under a month!’ and gained more sales.

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Boost your SEO and get more website traffic

Extract from my post published on Start and Grow. You should read all of the tips in the article but I like this one the best.

2. Find out who you’re up against

Search optimisation is all about competition and ranking. By knowing who you are up against, and what they are doing to boost their SEO you can gain the upper hand.

Know your enemy…

IMC62: The Second Phase of Our SEO Audit

To watch the full video and get access to all previous videos and resources join my Marketing Club - Get free access for 30 days

SEO expert Chris Richards (Utterly Digital) returns to guide us through phase two of our SEO audit. After completing the suggestions he recommended earlier this year we will see how these improvements have impacted the site and look at the next steps to help us build more traffic and gain more sales.

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How to create a Bulletproof Marketing Strategy – Workshop Series

If you aren’t getting the website traffic you want; join us on our Bulletproof Marketing Strategy workshop series. Across six, thirty minute sessions you’ll learn how online marketing impacts your business’s growth, gain tactics for attracting more of your ideal customers, learn how to create powerful marketing messages and understand how to find out what’s working.

Please register your interest on the form below to receive more information.

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5 tips to improve your productivity as a freelancer

Productivity tips from me published over on Start and Grow Enterprise.

This is one of my favourites.

To-do lists work because they help you stay on the path to getting your most important work done – but they work even better when you write them as an action! So instead of ‘get more paper’, write ‘buy A4 laser paper from Amazon’ and add a due date. If the to-do is to call someone, write their contact details, that’ll save you from having to hunt later.

The aim is not to have to think about a task when you come to do it. Also, don’t pack numerous tasks inside one to-do item. Instead of ‘finish project’ break it down into many smaller actions and you’re more likely to get them done.

The ideas originaly came from webinar IMC13 Productivity at work and are a distillation of ideas from the book Getting Things Done by David Allen – well worth a read – among other books I’ve read over the years. Having a background in programming I’m often like to take the lazy path and am always looking for a simpler way to do work.

IMC57: A World Without Email

To watch the full video and get access to all previous videos and resources join my Marketing Club - Get free access for 30 days

Ben was joined by Alex Coppock (Communion Architects) to discuss the path back to sanity in which Cal Newport’s book: A world Without Email offers a variety of road-tested practices to help us escape the tyranny of our inboxes in order to achieve a calmer, more intentional, and productive working life.

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Recommended Marketing Tools, Apps and Resources

Everything listed is free unless otherwise specified. If you find an app, tool or website that you cannot live without share it with us.

Image, video and audio sourcing

  • Pexels – Free commercial images
  • Pixabay – Free commercial images, illustrations and video
  • Flickr – Free images, commercially available, check the license!
  • Envato Elements – Photos, graphics, video and audio assets for under £12 a month
  • Giphy – Animated graphic images, may not be able to use commercially
  • Inventive People – Photos sourcing for a website or social post (£20 for three images)
  • YouTube Thumbnail Grabber – Paste in a YouTube link, get the video thumbnail images!

Graphic and image creation and processing

  • Pixlr X – Online image editor
  • Canva.com – Online image editor and layout. Great for making social graphics
  • Pixelmator – Very useful and fast image editor, macOS only
  • Imageoptim – Image compressor, macOS only
  • Imagify – Online image compressor and WordPress plugin
  • Retrobatch – £49, multi-image processor
  • Digital Colour Meter – Handy colour picker, macOS only

Document editing

  • PDF Candy – Online PDF metadata editor, compression and a number of PDF tools
  • ExSqueeze it – Drag and drop desktop PDF compression tool, macOS only (£3 apx)
  • tableconvert.com – Website to convert tabular data or an uploaded CSV to HTML, JSON or other text formats
  • typosaur.us – Website spelling checker

Video creation

  • Promo.com (£39/mo)
  • Any Video Converter – Youtube video downloader
  • Simon Says – Video transcription 10p/min
  • Shotcut – Video editing software, macOS/Windows
  • Inventive People – Video production and editing resources (from £50)
  • Be.Live – Live video streaming to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (free and paid plans)
  • Loom – Send video in your emails. I use this to send video alongside my proposals (free and paid plans)

Copywriting

Marketing support

  • Ticked off – Marketing resources, advice and guidelines in a simple, step by step process.
  • Inventive People – Workshops and support calls (from £50)
  • Mail-tester.com – Email and newsletter deliverability tester

Tracking

Business listings and reviews

  • Google My Business (GMB) – Free business profile is usually shown at the top of a local search result
  • SayHola – A simple way to collect and manage customer reviews
  • Inventive People – Local SEO optimisation (£349)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) keyword research

  • Text Optimizer – Find additional related words to add to your content
  • Textrazer – Check how ‘on topic’ your web content is. Use the demo to copy on your own text
  • Google Trends – Simple keyword volume and trend tool
  • Soovle – Keyword research tool with relevant keywords from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Youtube, Wikipedia, Amazon, and Answers.com. Just place the keyword you wish to check on the search bar and it will show the results of relevant keywords.
  • Ubersuggest – This keyword suggestion tool helps you get a lot of keyword ideas which covers your keyword + terms from A to Z
  • Word tracker – Display a list of 100 keywords. You may need to create an account though.
  • Google Keyword Planner – Extensive keyword volume and trend tool. You may need a Google Ad account
  • Inventive People – Optimisation reports, keyword analysis support calls (from £35)

Hacking prevention and cure

Hosting

Ecommerce

  • World Postal code – Postcode lists for each country and county. Handy to create custom shipping zones

IMC54: Data Marketing Dashboard