Your eyes open with a start. Drenched in cold sweat, you shudder, as you try to piece together the images swirling through your mind. They’re hazy, taunting you with the threat of vanishing forever. But slowly, they coalesce. You know this feeling. You were having a nightmare. Your mind frantically examines the fragments as they reassemble, looking for clues. Did something really happen? Or was it all just a horrifying dream? As it all comes …
Sometimes the hardest things are surprisingly simple. Not easy, but simple. We set goals, and we strive to achieve them. We work, we reach, and we stretch in the direction we’re trying to grow. Sometimes, we find greater success than we ever expected. Sometimes the goal posts move and, without realizing what happened, we just keep on chasing. And sometimes we find that, in pursuit of those goals, we’ve veered off-course, to a very different …
If you’re reading this blog post, you can probably relate to how I felt when I launched one of my first online businesses. I was excited, optimistic, and scared all at the same time. The business we started was BootstrapBay, a marketplace for Bootstrap themes and templates (i.e., web design templates). As the initial wave of excitement wore off, we needed to figure out the answer to that one key question… “How are we going …
Is your new business more like a money pit than a money printing machine? Perhaps you have a great business idea, a slick logo, a catchy name, and—as far as you know—a winning strategy. Maybe you’ve got your advertising campaign, operations, and even supply chains and logistics figured out. But you’re short on capital and haven’t a clue as to how to get started. Finding enough capital and investment to start up a business can …
Email marketing is enjoying a resurgence. With a lot of focus on SEO and social media, the humble email was in danger of being overlooked as a major marketing tool, but now marketers are realizing the significance of this medium. There are 4 billion—yes, 4 billion—email accounts around the world, and counting. It’s little wonder marketers and businesses are looking at ways to utilize the potential of email. There are pitfalls like bounces, problems with …
Consider these four stories: A young woman buys the only pair of boots that will go with the new dress she plans on wearing to the club on Friday night. The boots are two sizes too small and painful to wear. But, damn, they look good. An angry man sends a letter bomb to the wrong address. When it’s returned to him, he opens it. In a competitive seller’s market, a married couple, who are expecting …
Ever been in a crowded place where a voice sounded familiar and you turned around to find it was someone you know? Among the cacophony and the rumble of hundreds of voices, your brain picked up on the one you recognized. Our brains are good at recognizing patterns and so it’s no surprise it keeps a record of voices it encounters repeatedly. But what about “voices” you come across through text or messages? It appears …
Running a business is a bold adventure. It’s like setting sail on the high seas. Like a ship, businesses have a lot of moving parts, need skilled labor to run well, and are always on the lookout for other pirates competitors. All Captains (founders, managers, etc.) desire to keep a tight ship, outrun or properly engage their foes, and keep their destination clearly ahead on the horizon. With a good set of core values and …
Who does content marketing? Nowadays, depending on how big your team is, content marketing can be a DIY task, outsourced to freelancers, passed on to an agency on retainer—or a little of each! All of those players are part of the content marketing ecosystem. The infographic below shows the results of surveys among those who carry out content marketing: agencies, employees, and freelancers. It reveals: the most popular types of content that agencies create for their …
