A3 Self Employment

Irrespective of the industry you are in, competition has increased in the past years. This calls for the need to devise newer strategies that will help your business to stand out. A reliable strategy that entrepreneurs need to embrace is digital marketing. However, do not make the mistake of taking up digital marketing blindly. You have to make sure that you have a clear strategy set out such that you will be able to survive in the competitive business environment.
Not every digital marketing strategy will work automatically. Moreover, some digital marketing strategies cost more to implement and so are not ideal for startups. To identify the best digital marketing strategy for your startup, check out the following factors.
1. Define the goal or the reason why you want to launch a digital marketing campaign
Entrepreneurs will want to carry out digital marketing in order to achieve various objectives. Good examples of the objectives for a digital marketing campaign include the following:
• Achieve brand awareness: This is where an entrepreneur will want to achieve a wider business familiarity, create brand awareness or let the target audience know about the products they produce and sell.
• Generate more sales: it is obvious that an entrepreneur will want to sell more products in order to achieve revenue increase. As more people become comfortable with the e-commerce notion, you can run targeted digital campaigns to drive sales.
• Generate leads: Lead generation is one of the important objectives when it comes to running a profitable business. To increase sales, you will definitely want to look for more leads.
• Educate the target audience: other entrepreneurs will want to tell customers the benefits of using their products or hiring their services. This is done through educative blog post or a social media explainer video.
Upon determination of the objective of the digital campaign, consider the other factors outlined below.
2. What is your budget allocation?
Identifying budget allocation also helps an entrepreneur to determine the right digital marketing channel. The budget allocations will cover the content creation cost, amount to pay the advert to run, payment to digital marketing agencies and various other payments.
3. Who is the target audience?
The unique difference in digital marketing from traditional marketing is the ability to target. For instance, if running a social media advertisement, you can effectively target people from certain location. If you wanted to do this with traditional marketing approaches, you shall have to pay more. However, note that the particular audience will influence the media to use if you want to target appropriately. You can target Facebook users aged 20-30 years, or residing in Toronto.
4. Run a trial campaign
With digital marketing platforms, marketers are allowed to run a trial campaign before launching the paid advertisement. Therefore, when vetting the digital marketing strategy for your business, run a trial campaign first. This also allows you to strategize on how to improve the campaign.
5. Talk to a digital marketing agency
Talking to an expert is the easiest approach when it comes to choosing an appropriate digital marketing platform. The experts will advise you out of previous experience, letting the entrepreneur run an effective campaign.
6. Evaluate the performance before reinvesting
The advantage of digital marketing is that you are able to measure the results. Therefore, it becomes easy to tell whether a certain strategy is yielding results or not. Avoid reinvesting on digital campaigns if you are not achieving the expected results after tweaking the strategies a number of times.
Talking to an expert is the best approach for a beginner who wants to achieve success with digital marketing. Therefore, find digital marketing experts near you and explain to them your objectives. Based on the recommendations, you will be able to direct funds on a more hopeful digital marketing campaign as opposed to starting out blindly.

Starting your own business from scratch comes with the fear that you may not get it right in the first time. However, as a new entrepreneur avoiding the fear of the unknown should be top-secret. Therefore, how do you find people who are willing to purchase your products and services? Marketing is truly an essential function in every organization, small or large established corporation. An article published in the entrepreneur points out that lack of marketing strategies right from the start is considered a liability. In the modern digital world, digital marketing is the way to go. In this article, I enlighten upcoming entrepreneurs on different digital marketing platforms to consider. Keep reading to find out.
1. SEO
For a business to enjoy increased sales, you need an online presence. Therefore, organizations cannot afford not to use search engine optimization in order to stand out on the search results page. You have to let your customers know what your website is about for them to start buying from you. To achieve this, you need to make sure that search engine crawlers will find you easily. By showing up on search engine results organically, you are already enjoying one of the cheapest marketing strategies ever. However, you have to work for the top position on SERPs. There are several aspects to incorporate in your SEO strategy. These include off-page optimization, site architecture, technical SEO and several others.
2. Content marketing strategy
Another approach to digital marketing today is coming up with resourceful content. B2B and B2C entrepreneurs should factor this content marketing strategy. Creating relevant content and posting on your websites blog section creates credibility and helps to promote SEO score. The strategy will help in supporting social media efforts while positioning you as a thought industry leader. Therefore, come up with an effective content marketing strategy for your business.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the digital advertising strategies known to have a great return on investments. Although there have been predictions that email marketing rate of success is on the decline, this is far from becoming a reality. Organizations are already enjoying great returns thanks to the proper email marketing approach they have deployed. Therefore, you can begin collecting emails from prospects and asking the web visitors to subscribe to newsletters. Another strategy used to create resourceful customer email database is lead magnets. Ask web visitors who want to read attractive content for an email address in exchange for the information.
4. Social media marketing
Statistics show that by 2021, over 3 billion people will be using social media. Social media marketers have reported increased revenue thanks to proper social media marketing strategies they have deployed. Social media marketing enables organizations to enjoy greater exposure and is a leading strategy when it comes to driving traffic to your website. Therefore, create a social media strategy for your business and start sharing links to your website to drive traffic.
5. Influencer marketing
Use of influencers to market products and services is another great digital marketing strategy used by organizations. You can agree on a suitable payment strategy with your potential candidates in order to ensure you pay for what you are earning from the campaigns.
6. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the strategies that has earned organizations like Amazon great success. In some instances, organizations integrate affiliate marketing with influencer marketing. With affiliate marketing, you pay website owners to draw converting leads to your website. Pay track of the sales before releasing payments to your affiliates.
Building a successful business requires proper strategizing. With well thought digital marketing strategies for small businesses, one can grow a successful empire. Try out the strategies outlined above to enjoy great success.

According to statistics, an estimate on the annual affiliate marketing spending is at about $12 billion. For marketers and professional bloggers, affiliate marketing is one of the best approaches if you would want to start earning passive income. However, for the dream to come true you need to put in some work first. You should take various important steps before you start earning huge profits from affiliate marketing. In this post, I will share some important steps that affiliate-marketing newbies need to consider in order to start earning money through affiliate marketing programs.
Step1. Choose a Niche
A critical mistake that many people make when getting started with affiliate marketing is setting up a website even before they decide the particular niche to target. Do not jump the gun by creating a website you have not decided what to market. In order to set up yourself for success with affiliate marketing, it is important that you build a website around a specific niche. To be able to choose a perfect niche, here are some considerations to take in place.
• What topics are you passionate about?
• Is there a potential of earning money if you choose a particular niche
• Will you love writing content around that niche?
• Is there a demand for products in that niche?
• Do affiliate programs support the niche?
Step2. Research the different affiliate programs
Now that you have settled on the niche that seems to work, it is important you find out the programs and the products to promote. Choosing an affiliate program is likely to take some more time. The affiliate program plays an important role determining the amount of money you will earn. Therefore, it is important you choose a program that shall work. Consider the following factors when settling on the affiliate program to join.
• What type of merchants are using that particular affiliate network
• How much commission will you make from the products?
• Will you want to be associated with products or services?
Step3. Build a website
The first two steps revolve around researching what is profitable, and the affiliate programs that will pay you more money. After that has been done effectively, a website is where your actions will be required to open up the door. Building a moneymaking website is not a complicated process as it was in the past. You can use free tools available online or hire a freelancer to set up a website.
Step4. Affiliate marketing content
With the website ready and having joined an affiliate program, producing content is the next big step. Remember that in affiliate marketing, content is king. You want to establish your affiliate-marketing website as an authority site. This can be achieved by ensuring that you come up with great content for the readers. Always ensure unique and high-quality content.
Step5. Focus on building an audience
Once you have content on your website, it is important you look for great ways to increase the web traffic. Coming up with great content is a great approach. However, you can try these strategies when it comes to building the website audience:
• Use social media to promote your content
• Leverage on guest posts on authority websites
• Build an email list
• Leverage on the SEO tactics for affiliate websites
• Try paid advertising
Step6. Promoting affiliate offers
Promoting affiliate offers is where things kick into high gear. To be successful in affiliate marketing, it is important that you continue adding value through promotion of products that are useful and helpful to your audience. This includes creating great banner ads, product reviews, in-text content links, email promotions, giveaways or discounts, and various other strategies for promoting your business.

Step7. Keep measuring success rate and improving where necessary
The secret of how to keep earning through affiliate programs is ensuring that you keep rinsing out what you already have. In some instances, you find that particular strategy in step6 works better compared to the others. Therefore, keep reviewing what seems to work and repeat it. If a strategy is not working, consider improving on the approach.
Now you know how to start a successful affiliate-marketing venture. Each of these steps is inevitable, especially for beginners. It can feel overwhelming at the start, but as you gain the experience, you will surely succeed. Get started today and start your journey to start with affiliate marketing.

When Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommate developed Facebook, little did they know that it would become a leading advertisement platform. State of Social Report by Buffer indicates that 94% of global businesses have invested in Facebook Ads. An incredible strength of Facebook Ads is how much you can achieve using it. With Facebook Ads, one can target different types of the audience using an assortment of Facebook placements. In this article, we look at some of the best practices when using Facebook as an advertisement platform.
1. Make appropriate use of Facebook Targeting
Although you can reach as many people using Facebook Ads, targeting tends to be more effective when it comes to increasing Facebook Ads conversion rate. Make sure that with every advertisement you are launching on Facebook there is a clearly defined purpose. This way, you can determine who your target audience will be. Remember that when you target anyone and every Facebook users, the purpose of the advertisement will most likely suffer defeat.
2. Double-check the landing page
Whenever a Facebook user clicks on your Facebook advert, the expectation is that they will be redirected to the relevant content. In fact, you just have a few seconds to prove the content provides the right deal. To achieve this, you will be required to get the landing page right. Note that Facebook Ads can become expensive if the conversion is not right.
3. Take advantage of images to make the advert stand out
When you are running Facebook Ads, you should focus on using the right image. If you are using the wrong image, there is a huge potential that the audience will be turned off, or the advert shall not be noticed by the target audience. To ensure the success of Facebook Ads, test and keep tweaking the image to ensure accuracy.
4. Leverage video adverts
Recently, Facebook has shown the growing importance of video adverts. In fact, this is expected to continue, and so if you are not leveraging video, you might not have realized the full potential of Facebook Ads. Video has a special place on Facebook newsfeed. Thus, if you embrace video content for your Facebook advert, you will realize a higher engagement rate.
5. Retargeting is the best strategy
With Facebook Ads, retargeting campaigns yield a higher conversion rate and a low Cost per Click. Therefore, start retargeting web visitors or showing ads to those who liked your previous comment. The familiarity they have with your brand increases the potential to click on the advertisement.
6. Focus on mobile-first content
The use of the Facebook mobile app has increased significantly. Therefore, it is important you create content that mobile users can easily interact with. Note that users will expect your advertisement to load fast. Otherwise, they will jump to the next post.
7. Leverage on high-value customers to create a lookalike audience
Most businesses will have clients they regard to as high-value customers. The high-value customers could be more engaged clients, big spenders, or loyal customers who always come back. Use such individuals to grow the audience, or what we like to call custom audience.
Facebook advertising can seem more overwhelming. However, done right, there is a huge potential to earn an increased number of sales. Therefore, note that your approach matters, and consider the tips shared above.

For upcoming entrepreneurs, thriving in an environment where we have self-driving cars, automated payment solutions at the grocery stores, and other innovative technologies, will not be a simple task. Artificial intelligence has transformed how businesses operate today. In this article, we feature some creative ways through which small businesses can take advantage of Artificial Intelligence.
1. Use of AI in data collection and analysis
A study has shown that within the next few years, AI will most likely handle repetitive research tasks. One of the areas where AI will play a huge role is in the statistical analysis. These changes have already been felt in the market place, and small businesses would better follow suit. Consider that AI-powered data analysis will help organizations to draw to meaningful decisions. These are important in manufacturing, marketing and other critical areas including budgeting. With sophisticated statistical tools, small business owners shall be able to collect a significant amount of data.
2. Utilize AI to facilitate the hiring of top talent
In the hiring battle, AI is a great enabler, and small businesses stand to benefit. HR officials no longer have to go through piles of resumes to identify talented human resources. Instead, they can utilize AI-enabled systems to discover leads and find out details of potential candidates even before they are called for interviews. Therefore, Artificial Intelligence will enable small organizations to compete with larger companies in terms of attracting talented individuals.
3. Use Artificial Intelligence to automate backend operations
If you are reading recent news, you know that the greatest fear among workers today is the potential of AI in taking up their jobs. We have witnessed the leading car manufacturers leading in the trend where automation of certain roles resulted in the loss of jobs. however, the positive side for small business owners is the cost of hiring and retaining persons who just seat in the office for eight hours and earn hefty amounts for doing repetitive jobs like accounting. With AI, organizations can be able to automate these roles and minimize the need to employ hundreds of accountants. This, will not only reduce amount spent on labor but also help organizations channel resources to correct use. Transfer those time-consuming tasks to AI and have an opportunity to concentrate on activities that matter like customers engagement.
4. Deploy AI for customer service
Machine learning is the game changer when it comes to customer service. With the emergence of web chat and automated messaging programs, the customer care desk is becoming automated. To ensure real-time answers to customer inquiries, take advantage of chatbots. The chatbots are available for social media messaging and can be deployed on your websites. Therefore, small business owners will no longer have to pay thousands of dollars monthly to run customer service. With one-off AI-powered system deployment, it is possible to deliver best solutions on real-time basis and available 24/7.
5. AI-driven marketing platforms
With AI, small business owners will have the ability to deliver targeted marketing. This will not only eliminate the need for traditional marketing but also ensure measurable marketing efforts. This means that organizations can strategize their marketing in a better approach while eliminating the need to employ dozens of marketing staff.
6. AI for competitive intelligence
Small businesses require improved applications that enable them to analyze every bit of digital information. This is from written information to video content relating to customers and competitors. Artificial Intelligence creates such possibilities through various tools. Therefore, using AI, an organization can be able to analyze what their competitors are up to and understand what their customers are searching for.
Artificial intelligence enablement is not something that can be achieved overnight. Therefore, small business owners should not feel in a rush to implement AI, as this will only result in detrimental approach.

Seven Killer SEO Tips for Entrepreneurs 

For entrepreneurs, running a successful online business means knowing the SEO strategies to implement in order to achieve results. No matter how superior your products or services might seem to be, without proper SEO tactic for online entrepreneurs, your business will not be found on the top of search results. Therefore, the best approach for an entrepreneur who hopes to run a successful online business is creating a website with both search engine and user experience in mind. In this article, we are going to learn the different SEO tips for any business. Keep reading to find out. 

1. Focus on technical SEO Strategies 

Technical SEO refers to the process of optimizing the WebPages. The objective is to ensure the crawlers will be able to read and index your website on the search engine results page (SERP). Therefore, consider technical SEO as an approach to ensure that Google Crawler can check out the site pages and rate the pages as fast loading, and with links that work. The importance of technical SEO is giving the search engine algorithms a reason to trust your website, hence rank higher on SERPs. In most cases, technical SEO is best left to your web designer and web development experts. This is because it has nothing to do with actual web content or promotion of the website. Some aspects to look out for when evaluating the technical SEO include:

• Fix broken links
• Create a sitemap
• Optimize images
• Optimize the URL structure
• Redesign website structure and navigation

1. Focus on Local SEO Strategies 

Research findings show that a good number of mobile searches are location-based queries. For instance, while searching for a local restaurant, a search query will be “best restaurant Toronto”. Thus, if you own a restaurant around Toronto, the search engine algorithm will automatically prioritize the local options. Therefore, it is paramount that entrepreneurs capitalize on the local SEO strategy. This is through the use of listing services like Google My Business and local directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Yellow Pages. 

 

1. Capitalize on the keywords customers are using on the online searches

When it comes to content marketing, the best strategy for finding what to write on is knowing what the customers are searching for. Strategize on answering the search queries and to attract their attention to your website. There are different online tools that can be used for effective keyword research. The process is fast and easy, listing dozens of keywords to use when developing the web content. 

1. On-page SEO Strategies 

Optimizing the on-page SEO speaks to all the words on the web page. The objective is coming up with interesting content that naturally incorporates the keywords. In addition, you need to structure the content such that it is easy to read. Therefore, consider adding titles and subheadings to your content. In addition, clean up the Meta tags. The Meta tags help the search engine crawlers to understand the web page content. Therefore, if perfectly optimized, the Meta tags will help in ranking the web page on search engine results page. 

1. Build authority through the use of links

Having other sites linking back to your website helps in improving the position of your website on the search engine results. Google and other major search engines understand backlinks quality as an indication that your website contains resourceful information. Find out where your competitors are getting links from and target similar authority websites. 

1. Focus on user experience

SEO is not complete without ensuring that users have a great experience when using your website. For example, ensure page loads faster on mobile and desktop. To ensure web page speed optimization, compress the images and go for a reliable hosting service provider. 

 

1. Website promotion

Share the website on your social media news feed to increase traffic. This lets the search engine algorithm view the website as resourceful, hence better ranking. Encourage your customers to share links to your website. This could be sharing blog content or even products page. 

SEO is an important aspect when it comes to successful online marketing. Businesses that incorporate SEO as part of their marketing strategy shall be able to achieve increased popularity that transforms into better revenue numbers. 

 

In-house or third party online payment solution? Find out here

The modern consumer is shifting towards shopping options that allow convenience. This is in terms of availability, affordability and most importantly, ease of paying. Based on the changing demands, entrepreneurs have no option but allow the customers what they expect. Online shopping has gained widespread adoption globally. If you are targeting business expansion, it is inevitable that you have to offer online shopping. This requires an online platform where your customers will shop, a fast and secure delivery strategy, and most importantly a secure payment platform. 

When it comes to the payment platform, business people can consider third party solutions or an in house payment solution. Either of the two comes with pros and cons. You will want to consider the right solution that meets your expectations and delivers convenience to the customers. In this post, we evaluate the advantages and disadvantages associated with developing an in-house online payment solution and integration to a third-party payment solution.   

In-House online payment solution

As the name suggests, this is a payment solution developed by the business owner and it is exclusive to the particular business and their customers. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with in-house online payment solutions. 

The advantages of online payments solution

1. Allows business owner control: 

With an in-house solution, the business owner has controls on the system. Therefore, the solution is tailored to meet the functionalities that the business wants the system to have. When building the online payments form, you can easily customize the solution to reflect your kind of business, and the goods or the services that you sell. 

1. Readily Accessible payments

The in-house payment solution does not involve a third party collecting your payments. Therefore, you can be able to access the payments conveniently, as at and when you want. The third-party powered solution requires you wait for the payments to be channeled to your account at certain days of the week or month. 

1. In-house support team

In the case of technical glitch, you have the support team to address the issue as soon as possible. Therefore, you will minimize the downtime since you have dedicated resources looking at the system performance throughout. 

Disadvantages of an in-house payments solution

1. It is expensive to develop

You are expected to hire expensive programmers to develop a custom solution. The development process involves carrying out back-to-back research, which eats on the business profitability. 

1. Not suitable for small-scale businesses

Based on the amount of money needed to develop an in-house solution, it is often suitable for established businesses. Therefore, small-scale entrepreneurs might not want to go for this option. 

1. Time-consuming

Consider that you have to put in working hours rather than concentrate on customer service. Therefore, this is not a very suitable solution, if you do not have dedicated programmers. 

Advantages of Third-Party payment solutions

1. Simplicity

With a third-party payment solution, you simply have to integrate your web platform to the existing payment solution. The providers of third-party payment solutions have the API ready, and so you just need to apply and pay to be allowed to receive payments through the platforms.

1. Secure

These already trusted platforms have been used for a long time. Therefore, you will find that customers consider them more secure as opposed to in-house solutions. 

1. Dedicated support

The providers of a third party payments solution will provide their client has dedicated support when needed. However, in some cases based on demand, you may be forced to wait

1. Low upfront and operating costs

You will not be required to carry out a major development; therefore, there is cost control. Most third-party solutions will be able to set up custom forms to suit your customer’s preferences. This saves you on the cost of online app design and development. 

Disadvantages of third-party payment solutions 

1. Delayed payments

Some providers of third-party payment solutions restrict the amount of time required for the user to withdraw the money. 

1. Finding the right partner is difficult

Finding the right partner takes time and efforts. This is because some online payment solution providers will not be willing to change the current forms to reflect exactly what the buyer needs. 

Are you planning to roll out an online payments solution? Take into consideration the above pros and cons of third party and in-house online payments solution when deciding one that is best for your business.