Jason Friend pushing back on the axiom that you need to love what you do in order to succeed.

‘Back in the mid-’90s, I was looking for a simple tool to keep track of my music collection, and all of the available programs seemed bloated and unnecessarily complex. Those are two things I despise, so I set out to make my own tool and eventually released it under the name Audiofile. I didn’t love music collecting. I didn’t even love software development. (I was just learning it at the time.) And I didn’t have any aspirations to run a software business – I just saw a need, couldn’t find anything I thought was great, and I built something better.’

Succeeding is not about how much you love something, it’s about how much motivation you have.

More on persistence.

The Guardian reporting on Josh Nalley who played dead in hundreds of TikTok videos just to get on TV.

‘With nearly 125,000 followers and 4.3m total likes, the 41-year-old restaurant owner poses for a few seconds at a time in various settings – on river banks, roads, bridges and in forests.

“I figured that was the easiest way that I could actually get on to a TV show or movie, you know, without actually having to audition or move out of Kentucky,” he told the Washington Post. “Laziness is part of it.”’

This is a masterclass in marketing. Have a goal, know your niche and be persistent.

From the Daily Difference Email at The Carbon Almanac

‘The certified B-Corp continues to lead in the fight against climate change.

The company’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, recently announced that the earth is its sole shareholder. “Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source. We’re making Earth our only shareholder. I am dead serious about saving this planet.”’

Ben is joined by Ash Gibbons, IT Software Developer who has a passion for online security. Together they discuss the importance of ensuring your online security, how best to avoid being breached and what to do if this happens.

Ben and Clare go through the grab bag questions from customers focused around planning looking at where you should start with your marketing, how to work out your marketing budget and different ways to track your return on investment.

Ben takes us on a tour of GA4 the new version of Google analytics. You’ll get to see how to transition to GA4, tracking visitors and logging conversions.

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.

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 Flying Lizard designer Charlotte Smirthwaite Walker to discuss how she develops a brand and the rationale process she works through with a client.

Ben shares the benefits of using video in your email marketing with Loom. Loom is a video messaging tool that helps you get your message across through instantly shareable videos.

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.

During this weeks session we open the club and invite guest members Frank Szucs (Bauxit Painting & Decorating) and Holly Foskett-Barnes (Bristol Illustrator) to have a website review where we share SEO tips, content ideas and different ways to draw more traffic to their websites.

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.

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…

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.

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.

This grab bag episode focused on marketing questions around blogging and content writing. We were joined by Catherine Every (Pippin Copywriting) who helped us tackle some of the questions we received.

Ben is joined by Helen Davies (Citrus Web), to revisit a book they wrote back in 2014. Be Sociable brought together marketing strategy and social media concepts based on their own unique experience. In this episode they’ll be looking at what’s still relevant and where marketing has moved on to.

Join Ben and WooCommerce expert Ronald Gijsel (Automattic) as they chat about the benefits of WooCommerce, product development, community, and social commerce and omnichannel.

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.

We were joined by Jack McCaughtrie (Core Tree) to discuss why case studies are an effective way to capture the attention of buyers in your industry, help build brand awareness and let your customers sell your products for you.

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.

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

Google Ads Expert, Libby Windle (Creative Ads) takes us through how to set up your Google Ads Campaign, plus some top tips on how to make it work effectively!

During this weeks session we open the club and invite guest member; Italian Interior Designer Marta Rossarta to have a website review where we will share SEO tips, content ideas and different ways she can draw more traffic to her website.

This is a fantastic session where you can sit in the wings and glean ideas for your own website!

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

• Answer The Public – What help topics people are searching for
• Content ideas – Get ideas for article from  Search Console data
• Hubspot blog topic generator
• Grammarly – Spelling and grammars checking. Paid version 
• Typosaur – Website spelling checker
• Inventive People – Proofreading and copywriting (from £35)
• Fakexy – Fake UK addresses, useful for wire framing content

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

• QR Code Generator – Create QR code. Make sure to select Static option to prevent too many redirects
• Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder – Add more details campaign tracking to the website links you share on social media or banner advertising
• Google Analytics – Extensive website 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

• Sucuri Security – WP plugin for auditing and security hardening
• Sucuri – External website malware scanner
• VirusTotal – Scans malware directors to see if URL has been flagged
• Rescan – Extensive malware scanner
• Fetch as user agent – Testing if Google sees different content
• Site Guarding – WP Plugin, internal scanner
• Inventive People – Fix a hacked WordPress website service (from £380)

Hosting

• Uptime Robot – Uptime tracking for up to 15 sites for free
• MX Toolbox – Domain and MX tests

Ecommerce

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

Are you fed up wading through Analytics to find the most popular pages on your site or Search Console to see your ranking in Google?

Ben share’s his method for consolidating your data into one place to enable you to easily track progress and follow how successfully your marketing goals are going.