Time to Fix Your Digital Business Development Path

The internet has a big role and impact in the customers’ engagement with brands and services review. It is transforming the economics of marketing and making obsolete many of the function’s traditional strategies and structures. For marketers, the old way of doing business is unsustainable, nowadays the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of enterprises – is becoming a hot topic for companies across the globe. Executives in all industries are using digital advances such as analytics, mobility, social media and smart embedded devices, and improving their use of traditional technologies such as ERP – to change customer relationships, internal processes, and value propositions

Consider this example: Not long ago, a car buyer would methodically go through several processes pare down the available choices until he arrived at the one that best met his criteria. 

In old school process which I name it "Analog Business" a dealer would reel him in and try to make the sale. The buyer’s relationship with both the dealer and the manufacturer would typically dissipate after the purchase. But today in all the digital process and technology, customers are promiscuous in their brand relationships: They connect with myriad brands—through new media channels beyond the manufacturer’s and the retailer’s control or even knowledge—and evaluate a shifting array of them, often expanding the pool before narrowing it
For instance, booking an appointment for your car maintenance entails calling the dealership and speaking with a person who uses scheduling software and checks a database for the necessary parts. 

In the Digital Business era, your car acts as a semi-autonomous agent on your behalf; alerting you and the dealer to the need for maintenance, scheduling the appointment, and ordering the necessary parts. It may even drive itself to the shop. 

So back in the good old days before the internet and social media there weren’t that many places you could complain, certainly not that publicly anyway
All complaints would largely be in the form of a phone call, a letter or maybe even an ad hoc visit, but your complaint was very much between you and them.  There was no public hanging for providing a bad service unless it got to the press. There was an element of being able to keep things quiet. 

Then along came the internet, review sites, forums, blogging and of course social media! Now there is no hiding place.  Forums and review sites gave people the chance to share their opinions and experiences but this still meant that your thoughts were largely hidden away.  

Social Media nowadays, such as Twitter or Facebook has allowed people to rant to an even bigger audience, example below shows how the technology has facilitate the communication channel with the services supplier to raise the complaint and get responds faster.

The use of digital business techniques, such as experience design, mobile and social media leverage, and information and systems integration across the enterprise can produce unified business and customer relationship views. There are several valuable initiatives underway in the industry today. These include product bundling and innovative stickiness-generating features, as well as advanced analytics for granular segmentation –

The Digital Business Development Path (see Figure 1) examines six different business era models from before the Web to after the Nexus of Forces (social, mobile, cloud, information) to help organizations understand their current state and assist CIOs in making the case for digital business.  Figure 1. Gartner’s Digital Business Development Path

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 75% of business will be transforming to digital businesses or preparing to become one. Based on Gartner digital business survey we deduce that only 22% of respondents defined themselves as already being a digital business. Most organizations, or 41%, see themselves as a digital marketing business, and 22% of companies remain Web businesses.  

Where is your organization today and where do you want it to be before your competitors?

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6 Things to Know About Choosing a New IT Vendor

Some times we love to share every information we read, like or dislike about articles we came across, and today I would like to share attached information about the process we should know when we are choosing a new IT vendor from separate article!

No one should sign a contract with an IT vendor without fully evaluating who they are and what they do. We tend to approach new vendors based on the products they sell and choose vendors largely based on what we believe the products do. Unfortunately, this leads us to buy solutions that we often never fully deploy or that often fail to meet our expectations. What's more, we rarely conduct a causal analysis of the problems.

I've covered enough failed projects over the years to be able to group most problems into several areas that you can (and should) explore before taking in a new vendor or even continuing with an old one. I've identified 6 things you likely aren't asking vendors before you make your selection. Read More..

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Why Brand Personality is the Best Thing To Improve Your Content Marketing

As I mentioned in my previous articles, the great content is always your key to better engagement, and in turn, more conversions. What's the key to great content? Make what you produce more personal.

To begin with, I would like to start the article by small introduction about content and say content is the driver of many brand experiences - and even if you sell a product, often your marketing and thought leadership content is the filler that keeps the relationship strong and healthy. 

Great Content means build Great Engagement! But it also defines a brand or author and helps people stay focused on the core message or value. Be it games or whitepapers or tweets or micro-sites, content is both integral and inextricable to the relationship. I'm also convinced that it needs to be more personal.

I believe everybody here knows that content marketing works and has a good impact. If it didn’t then the whole idea of using the internet for marketing purposes would be in dispute! Do you know why?

Well, the internet is an information machine full of content! videos, ebooks, whitepapers, press releases, Facebook, forums, blog posts, podcast, tweets, articles, etc. It’s all content isn’t it? 

However, the problem lies with whether or not the content marketing strategy you use will fit in with your personality or not. I would therefore say the automation of personality can have a big impact on content marketing success. As in any brand personality, the characteristics must be authentic and sustainable. Unlike "human interactions" where we use lots of clues - behavior, physical characteristics, attitudes, beliefs, and demographics - to form opinions and likability, a brand personality is built through every direct or indirect interaction with the brand. Introducing appropriate emotion into your message is another recipe for personality. Personality comes out naturally when you tell a story. Everything has a story behind it. The trick is in the telling. So content is a common interaction - usually indirect but often direct, too. 

Marketers have long given brands a "personality." The brand personality enables a consumer to express his or her own self - or ideal self - by participating with the brand. It is not your logo it is not your photo, it is your voice, design and reputation combined into one impression. Unlike product attributes, which tend to serve a utilitarian function for consumers, brand personalities tend to serve a symbolic or self-expressive function. 

If you’re not building any impact, you aren’t encouraging repeat business, and you aren’t creating curious new customers, meaning they won’t be there to convert later on. The key to brand impact, both online and offline is a content marketing strategy that focuses on shareable, valuable content. Having a large group of followers is meaningless if those people are not engaged. So the challenge is to how to allow the "real people" behind the brand to build a personal and enduring relationship that supports and doesn't usurp or dilute the brand.

As you create your content, consider how it impacts your brand and how people perceive you. Always keep an eye on the bigger picture. Personality is one thing—over-sharing is quite another.

The social nature of our digital lifestyles has led to a new level of "sharing" of personal information. While I don't think sharing private information in a business context is appropriate, sharing some level of personal information makes perfect sense. Yet, talking about the kids or your dog or morning commute via a brand account can extend the level of the brand relationship.

No one pretends that the brand is an actual human being, but it does have characteristics and a voice that speak through social channels. We all know and value that there are people behind that Twitter or Google + account and that those people have lives and interests and experiences. Exposing some of that personal information as part of the content strategy is certainly appropriate and builds on the perception of the brand level persona.

For example, you're sure to have amazing moments at your company that are awesome to share - like a promotion for someone on the team, or the launch of a new product feature, or the project that you implemented. Your reaction to those events is personal - but not private information - and thus makes the brand more real and connected to the humans that customers want to have a relationship with.

Relationships with your clients and prospects are what bring the buying life cycle to a natural close, resulting in a sale. Establishing a personality within your communications will help you develop that relationship and grow your business.

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Did You Apply 3Es Before and Get a Good Reputation for Your Business?

Having a good reputation can benefit a business in a multitude of ways including the future value of an organization in the marketplace. A company achieves its competitive advantage when it succeeds to implement the strategy of value creation which is not possessed by its competitors on the market or in the industry, this in turn will lead to build a solid and notable reputation in marketplace. Think for a moment about the organization to which you belong or the department you are working with. Does your organization or company have a good reputation? Do you think your organization created or built right fundamentals of reputation's concept? Do you believe your company or organization should apply or adopt 3E’s elements in order to improve and protect its reputation? I would say good reputation is impossible to maintain without internal organization support.

I know you could ask a question; what is 3E’s means? The answer is 3Es are a set of recognized reputation tactics I sketched out to be examined at any organization, which leaders and managers can use it or apply it to differentiate their company’s service or products in highly competitive markets.

The 3Es are: (Emotions, Employees and Efficiency)

Emotions Factor
Emotion in organization presents original work from leading scholars in the field, they engage with emotion as a qualitative phenomenon which shapes and is shaped by organizational life.

Emotions in any workplace play an essential role in how an entire organization communicates within itself and to the outside world. Events at work have real emotional impact on participants. The consequences of emotional states in the workplace, both behavioral and attitudinal, have substantial significance for individuals, groups, and society. Positive emotions in the workplace help employees obtain favorable outcomes including achievement, job enrichment and higher quality social context. Whereas negative emotions such as fear, anger, stress and guilt, however increase the predictability of workplace deviance and how the outside world views the organization.

Employee Factor
Building reputation through your employees is always the first step.  It is even more important to encourage behaviors and demonstrate values which enhance your company reputation. Furthermore, best businesses invariably have the strongest employees. A company, as they say, is only as good as the company it keeps. 

That's precisely why supporting your employees and it should be available in a business leader's top priority. From my perspective keeping communication lines open, motivating, job satisfaction and listening to your employees' suggestions all crucial to your company's success. "Happy employees equal happy customers," and as Rick Galbreath said, "The final recipient of any misunderstanding between employee and boss is always the customer."

If you would like to pick one of these things we can talk about job satisfaction as the promotions provide opportunities for employee growth, more responsibilities and increased social status (Robbins 1993). More satisfied workers are less likely to leave their employer. Job satisfaction is influenced by a lot of variables. Promotions are an important aspect of employee’s life. Considerable increase in pay or wage of an employee also constitutes major effect on work. Different organizations or institutions use promotion as a reward for high productivity of their workers which accelerate their efforts. It can be only useful way of compensation where employee gives significant value to promotion, if not then pay or wage increment is best reward for more exertion, whereas employee dissatisfaction may result if an employee perceives that their efforts are not recognized or that their rewards are not equitable tied to their performance or tailored to their needs. 

Employees are fulfilled when they feel there is environment to learn, grow, take on additional responsibility and move up the ladder. Employee appreciation is the priceless impact on workplace reputation. Your employees are one of your biggest advertisements.  What they think say and do is totally representative of your organization.  Your business is the sum total of all of your employees, like it or not. What do you think?

Efficiency Factor
Efficiency in organization is the ability for organization to implement its plans using the smallest possible expenditure of resources. It is considered as an important factor in the firm's organizational effectiveness, this being the ease and degree of success with which the organization is able to accomplish its aims.

For example, if one business is able to produce 100 units of its products by spending $30 per unit, it is more efficient in production than a similar business that produces 100 units of the same product spending $40 per unit. Organizational efficiency is gauged using a number of quantitative figures such as production costs and production times because it is too broad of a concept to be encapsulated in a single figure. Increased the efficiency in your business make implementation both cheaper and smoother, but it is less useful if the plan being implemented was a bad plan. For instance, when your organization decided to change the unsupported physical servers which are drained your IT budget, and your services start growing, so do power and cooling costs. The organization bring to IT VMware virtualization that can help your organization to reduce energy costs and meet your business demands so that business is efficient, but the decision was almost certainly foolish and misguided when then did not do backup the data or enables to seamlessly extend datacenter, and increase availability! Despite this, organizational efficiency is still important to planning because it enables plans that are otherwise impossible.

To sum up, applying 3Es I believe can help organization or company to  differentiate its product/services in highly competitive markets, allow it to have premium quality , and can become the ultimate factor in whether a customer decides to patronize one business over another.

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How Green IT Changed How We Think About Organization Sustainability

Over the last few years, the term of “Green IT” has begun to be used to describe a form that pour into two trends. The first trend involves the growing concern about environmental issues across our life in communities. The second trend involves Information Technology the use of digital tools and techniques for manipulating information, and the social phenomena that surround these systems.

As we know the Information Technology industry (hardware, software and services) has provided many tools to help generate and process data, communicate globally, and improve productivity.

With data consumption rising more than 10% every year and with most companies still hitched to dirty energy sources, we see there many companies found a full-fledged green transition in the IT sector is urgently needed and becoming sustainable!

Information in general, and IS and IT systems in particular can play an important control role through support of environmental management systems, life cycle analysis, and design for the environment practices. What do you think?

From my perspective, information technology is positioned to play a key role in facilitating the shift toward sustainability - oriented business. As the use of IT in business grows and both public and private demand for environmental and social responsibility increases, the need for effective sustainability - oriented IT systems will similarly expand.

In the same time and before applying sustainable technique or sustainable technologies, do you know what are the steps should followed to adopt this strategy? Do we understand what it takes to finance the energy improvements we require? Do companies have good information regarding the results of their sustainability initiatives? Can they report with confidence measures of tangible and intangible benefits? Do companies work to propel business applications while ensuring the server maintains a small carbon footprint? Do buildings with more natural light really improve productivity and morale?

For instance, laptops and mobile devices – information technology (IT) is not only a booming economic sector but also an energy-intensive one. There is a research says it accounts for 2% of human greenhouse gas emissions worldwide! Did you hear about that?

I would therefore say Green IT is the latest buzzword being promoted and become one of the best strategy that delivering incremental benefits to the organization by improving end-user working practices, creating energy efficient office environments and reducing data center energy consumption.

For Instance, the City of Calgary really does have to think about going “Green” and introduce new innovative technologies. Calgary this year has different projects in Green Technologies such as, Waste-heat capture program and Imagine Calgary

Going green is not only relate with the reduce the amount of paper we use or carbon footprint , it is the way to think of using information technology tools — from sensors to databases and websites to integrate sustainability factors into business operations.

Another Example I have in American University of Sharjah, in June 2011 AUS has lunched higher standard for academic buildings to sustain the campus environment. The building incorporates the most advanced technological facilities of academic infrastructure in the UAE and region. 

From IT aspect many of the clever ideas connected with Green IT and sustainability involve the joint use of purely virtual space, most servers used today utilize between 5 and 15% of their total capacity while consuming 60 to 90% of their maximum energy consumption at idle. To overcome all these energy consumptions AUS has adopted a visualization (VMs) which allows the number of physical servers to be drastically reduced for large power savings and has contributed to add more space (Increase Data Center Capacity) in the data center once visualization is implemented due to the decreasing amount of physical hardware needed. 

Clearly underlining that several organizations take Green IT seriously can boost that organization’s image and brand. Today, image and brand are significant aspects of competing for sales of products and services and for attracting and holding onto staff.

So it the time to integrating your Green IT strategy into business objectives.

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How Web Marketing is Your Approach For Digital Strategy

Today, there are many forms of promotional media. Some marketers also refer to them as "touchpoints," since they are every place where people encounter your brand. I will  describe a one of these tools (which I know best) Web Marketing. Effectiveness and popularity of these media  and even how they are used vary from country to country, even neighborhood by neighborhood.

In addition, what works for one industry or brand may not work for other industries and brands. This is simply to provide you with an idea of the  options; it's imperative that you adapt the medium to what works best for your brand, your stakeholders, and your goals!

One of these Promotional Media known as “Traditional Media” and other one has been named “New Media”

To begin with, do you know the first websites are nearly 20 years old, it's odd to refer to many of these media as "new." Some marketers prefer to call these options "digital  media." There's a lot of excitement about new media, since consumers are spending a lot of time online, and the media are relatively inexpensive to produce. However, doing new  media properly often requires a large investment of time, talent, even money. I'll introduce the most popular form here, and will discuss what is the impacting of mentioned tool  in your Digital Strategy

Websites: A website can serve what you would like to tell customers and people about YOUR brand, yourself and niche and even product. (Consider sait.ca website we have used  before) Creating a website is easier and more affordable than ever, though some complex websites can still require millions of dollars and several months of high-skilled labor.  The challenge with websites is that, even though they serve as a promotion, they usually need to be promoted themselves. You can't just build it and expect customers to find it.

From my perspective, every business has main goal which is establishing a customer centric environment/strategy, by providing customized and one to one experiences to the  various business or company stakeholders, across the multichannel communication platforms (offline, website, social media, mobile, blog, etc.)

So to achieve this, we should have an in depth understanding of the needs of our business stakeholders via establishing genuine and interactive communications with them.

In this article I will be highlighting the road map for planning a web effort. Along with suggestions for prioritizing objectives so it reflect organizational needs and strive  towards a web presence of the highest possible standards in terms of content, delivery and integration with other communications channels, therefore the benefits of improving  Web site/church to activate data integration, and the pros and cons of custom and template-based development strategies.

Website for your Web Marketing
Web presence can enhance the bottom line of any business, large or small, anywhere in the world. I would say communicating your company's message has never been easier, cheaper  or more necessary. As your Web presence matures and begins to grow in unforeseen directions, surpassing the competition becomes not only viable, but plausible. Here are just  most important benefits that come along with creating a usable website for your business:-

1. The website is the official digital image of the business therefore the website’s branding and content style should be a reflection of that image. 
2. You stop being invisible
3. You create another sales tool 
4. Growth Opportunity
5. Generate leads  
6. Helping to find and connect with new clients

To really get the benefits of a website for your business, your site will need to serve as a professional online presence that conveys your credibility, showcases your  solutions, and makes it easy for people to contact you.

On the other hand, no matter what kind of online business you have, it is essential that customers are able to find your company. Once they locate you, it is necessary to engage  them in the browsing or buying process, depending on your site objectives, using various promotional tools and techniques to enhance the online experience. As I mentioned in  previous articles; the challenge in getting customers to visit your site and return in the future is a reflection of the competitive nature of the online environment.

I would therefore say, if you want to stand out from the endless stream of online businesses and gain the attention of customers, you need to promote your site, and you need to  do it well.

Digital Marketing Funnel
There are many reasons as to why effective digital marketing has become a necessity for small businesses these days. According to Business Zone, digital marketing is the  marketing of the future. While the traditional methods used for advertising and promotion can still be successful in this day and age, the fact is that the world is more  connected online than ever before.

One of the main purposes of Digital Marketing is to generate customers, most perspective customers or consumers will do their research about some product or service online,  either by searching in Google or discussing their inspirations in the various Social Media platforms, therefore it is very essential to be found in the first page of search  results, placing Ads related to our business, and most importantly having strong engaging presence in the various Social Media platforms.

One of the most important aspects of digital marketing is the website. While small businesses and merchants work hard to maintain their brick - and - mortar locations, it is  also vital that they have updated, informative websites. Researchers and Marketers assured  that the website should be the start of any digital marketing initiative.

Since that website acts as the hub that all other avenues will drive traffic to - from social media to search engines and even traditional marketing campaigns - the website  needs to be the best that it can be. This means it should be easy to use and attractive, with relevant, timely content. It also needs to be unique to companies' individual goals  and the needs of their audiences - something an off - the - shelf template - based website will rarely deliver

The ultimate goal should be engaging and delighting the various stakeholders to be your number one promoters, it is no secret that happy customers are the best sales people for  any institution, and we should make use of that.

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Why Do People Think Content Marketing is a Good Idea for Boosting Business

Nowadays, content marketing is considered THE Hot Topic of any business which is looking to ensure it continues to meet its needs and helps you set the course for your business. In fact, it’s smoking hot. Though many would have said “don’t waste your time” a few years ago, it is now the main focus for a majority of marketing professionals today.

In 2014 I have seen there are several trends from different aspect to apply content marketing as strategy to boost and growth business. For instance, leading experts and analysts in the digital marketing industry have continued to include content marketing in the conversation of “Top Marketing Trends” to watch in 2014. So, for business owners it’s definitely time to take notice and develop an effective strategy to leverage content marketing as a lead generation tool.

The experts in Digital Marketing industry have discovered there is a magic relationship between your business and content marketing – Why? Because it’s an effective method of advertising at a time when old marketing models aren’t as effective as they once were. Rather than buying a full-page newspaper ad and hoping your customers see it, now you can create brand-specific content to help customers find you.

Consumer trust in advertising is certainly not what it once was and because of this, a strong, focused content marketing strategy is needed. Internet users do not want to be bombarded with pop-up or banner ads and for many businesses, pay-per-click advertising does not provide an acceptable ROI.
However, a content marketing strategy can boost your business’ bottom line and provide the advertising and marketing results you need.

In the same time, we need to know how to prepare for this content as make quality content the key to your business success. There is a book for Sharon Tanton “The Valuable Content Marketing book” explains the role of content marketing in the business growth by creating and sharing valuable content. Get your message across in the right way, and the clients and customers you want will come to you. No hard sell required!

Here are three reasons to develop a targeted content marketing strategy.

1. Search Content Words
Creating good content is good keyword research. You content should have real value that allows you to discover the specific ways that people may be searching for your content. Content marketing provides consumers information they want. This is essential today, as more potential customers will search out information about your business before asking a friend or looking at various other media. Your content must educate, inspire, inform and engage the readers.

2. Trafalgar Communications
Consumers prefer content marketing over advertising. Consumers prefer want to hear what they like, so they have the ability to pick and choose what they like! Customers need a reason to visit and interact with a company's to learn about your business through articles instead of advertisements. A study by Roper Public Affairs found that 60 percent of decision makers felt they made better purchasing decisions with the help of content marketing. Equally important, the study found that 70 percent felt closer to the business brand.

3. Generate more Leads
If you want to generate more leads and sales for your business, I would say Content Marketing is one of the best ways to make this happen. It also lasts longer. Paid advertising may only benefit your business for a few weeks or days. Your content can end up shared through users or others, effectively increasing the reach and longevity of your message.

So every time you can provide value to your reader when you have a solid and educated content, you have an opportunity to ask for something in return. The challenge is for companies to rethink their content marketing strategy and incorporate Social Media and SEO in order to fulfill customer expectations for ease of discovery, consumption and sharing. On top of that, content must educate and make it easy to follow a logical conclusion to buy.  The companies that do those things best, will win the incredibly competitive online marketing race we’re in.

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The B2B Marketing Budget: When to Invest in Digital Marketing

A marketing budget can be tricky to define in the B2B environment. While all items in your budget should contribute to your Return on Investment and overall marketing success, you should know how your budget is broken down and how much of your budget goes towards digital marketing expenses. For example, I know that every year between 50-60% of my budget goes towards event marketing expenses. About 30% of my budget goes towards digital marketing, so I need to be sure every penny counts. Therefore, how do B2B companies know.
 
What marketing tools to be investing in?

Before considering the options below, make sure you know:

What your overall budget number is:

1. How many people are responsible for implementing marketing activities?  
2. Timelines for executing marketing activities (you don’t want to invest and then not have time to carry out your plans)
3. What are my main marketing goals (strategy, branding, lead generation) and which are the priorities?

The Freebies

If your budget is tight, and like most companies in the past decade it probably is, take advantage of all the “freebies” you can. This includes free versions of LinkedIn, Hootsuite, Twitter, Slideshare and YouTube. There is no reason your company shouldn’t at least have LinkedIn and Twitter. Implement Hootsuite, which lets you manage up to 5 social media accounts for free, to manage your social media platforms from one website.


The only investment you need to make here is time. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean you don’t need to dedicate time. Make sure your marketing people are maintaining your social media accounts with quality content.

Small Investments with Big Impacts

Sometimes making a small investment in a digital marketing tool can make a big impact – either for strategy purposes, branding or lead generation.  Here are some smaller digital marketing purchases that are worth the investment:

• LinkedIn Premium Account (Lead Generation): LinkedIn is a fantastic tool for B2B marketing. For $30/month you can upgrade to the premium account and access features like InMail and sales lead generation lists. It is a great way to get marketing and sales on the same team.
• SurveyMonkey Select Monthly Account (Market Research & Branding): For $25-30/month, SurveyMonkey is a great marketing tool for both strategic market research and branding. I’ve used SurveyMonkey to build customer and industry surveys for market research as well as registration forms. SurveyMonkey is also free, but the added benefit of a paid account is for branding such as personalized themes and the ability to send more surveys. It also has some added features to make your surveys very professional.
• Email Marketing tools (Branding & Lead Generation): if your company focuses heavily on email marketing, consider upgrading from a free plan to a monthly subscription. This will generally allow you to send more email campaigns per month to more subscribers. With companies like MailChimp, it allows to remove the logo from the email footer, therefore avoiding emails that look too “spammy”

Bigger, Riskier Investments with Bigger Potential Rewards

Finally, there are those digital marketing tools that will make an imprint on your budget. These are the tools that require a strategy before investment, and if you choose to invest, require time. However, these tools have the potential for big pay-offs if used strategically.

• Google AdWords (Lead Generation): the great thing about AdWords is that you decide how much you want to invest. Obviously the smaller the investment, the less Google runs your ads. But this is a perfect tool to invest small and then grow your investment as you strategically monitor your campaign. If you’re starting out it’s recommended to go with a budget of $4/day. This is the max you can spend, and Google makes it easy to monitor the progress of your ads so you know whether to increase, decrease or stop your investment
• Website Development and/or Hubspot (Branding & Lead Generation): website development is not cheap, but it should be part of your annual budget. Websites need to be continuously updated to refresh content and move at the pace of your customers. Hubspot is a great tool for lead generation by implementing landing pages, doing keyword analysis and optimizing your website for search engines. But, it can cost you – from $200/month to $2,400/month. Here’s a tip: if you want to save money on website development, ask your developer to implement an administrative panel that’s editable by your marketing person. Invest in Hubspot only when you have a firm grip on your digital marketing strategy and you know you are ready for your website to take off.
• SalesForce (Lead Generation): yes, this is a CRM tool but it’s a great tool to connect Sales and Marketing. Marketing can keep a database of contacts, build fields useful to them to generate email marketing lists, run reports, log and track campaigns and much more. Again, it’s costly but it’s a worthwhile investment for those who have a handle on their sales and marketing process

Not sure where to start? Most marketing budgets will need some sort of financial investment in digital tools. Start by checking the freebies off your list. Then decide if your marketing goals are strategic, branding or lead generation and base your decisions on your end goal. The most important step is to monitor your investment and make the necessary changes. If you made a bad investment, get rid of it! Keep investing in what has paid off for you in the past

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Article source: Mary Wieder-Bottaro

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Why Your Promotion Never Works Out? 4 Ways You Will Ever Need

Everyone thinks they deserve a promotion. But how do you truly know if you deserve one? In the same time you get great reviews from your boss and your coworkers, so when a senior-level opening promotion in your group, you surprise that your boss has chosen a person for that promotion, and he picked someone else!! Not you

In my career I witnessed what I deemed to be travesties of employment equity laws when promoted colleague ahead of other employee. It's okay to be angry and upset, especially if you know you deserved that promotion or merit. Hang your ego on the hook with your coat and go back to work like normal. There's nothing for you to gain by moping around the office or being snarky or short with your colleagues—or the boss who passed you over. BUT focused on how seemingly unfair these outcomes were, never once did you consider your own contribution to your lack of success.

I have different perspective might be help to understand how to stand in the level to get on your management’s radar fast, to get identified as one of the key assets in your company, and get promoted and compensated accordingly

You may not agree with my advice below, but I believe it will work

1. Look outside, not in

It is really important to spend time observing external environments that ultimately will affect your organization’s future. Study trends, commentaries, and any other information that sends relevant signals about what is occurring in your sector. Begin to socialize these topics with operational and senior colleagues. Become known as the person who is wired in to what is going on in the market place.

2. Build up your image and Effective Relationships

Relationships between people can exist in many form, those that are most productive, effective and rewarding operate in a state of inter – dependence, such as involving yourself with voluntary and other groups relevant to your business. Identify individuals who may add value to your colleagues’ or your bosses’ business objectives. Self-awareness is considered as key role in building your image and relationship among your coworkers and group. With this awareness, you are able to approach new situations – those that excite you, those that daunt you and those that challenge you – with more confidence in yourself to deal with the issues you may encounter – known and unknown. This will no doubt enhance your relevance, relationships and opportunities.

3. Work to respect not to show off 

In the short term, promotions come and go – in the long game, respect builds a positive career trajectory. Also respect for others sets the work environment that allows the parties to interact with each other in a dignified way. To build sustainable respect with your leaders, exhibit the capacity to look for solutions when others may have given up. Being the positive voice when difficult issues arise will set you apart in the minds of your colleagues, and leave the clear impression that you can be relied upon in difficult or complex circumstances. Consistent and positive body language, along with a constructive attitude, will always provide long-term rewards.

4. Always be open minded

There are many benefits to be enjoyed from being open-minded, particularly in the workplace, I would say it helps us to experience new ideas and thoughts and we challenge the beliefs our currently have. It can be very liberating to look at the world through an open mind. No matter how important your role is to you, it is not who you are. This is a simple reality that took me a long time to learn and see how other think. 

The business that we are working in or with is not always fair; your reaction to defeat is often the best test of character known to your boss or manger. Being open-minded puts you above others who refuse to look beyond horizons they’ve set for themselves and explore possibilities.

By applying these four principles of the long game and sooner or later that promotion will likely come, within or outside your work environment.  I would therefore say business like life, is all about learning from it and more about yourself “You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you" - Barbara Sher .  In so doing, you will identify how you can make a valued contribution to your environment and stand out in the process.

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Promote Your Niche Will Change Your Image In The Market Place and Community

I believe people who plan to sell their image or promote their product or service need to find the sweet spot for their blog sometimes feel like tuning an old radio to new FM Channel. Am I right?

So by working to find out the proper way to get that perfect connection with your readers, it considered a main axis to build up the network with your customers, clients and other social networks

I would say that you know you’re close. You know some of the signal is getting through. But it’s not loud and clear.

And no matter which direction you turn the dial, you can’t find the perfect position. Sure, a few people share your posts. You get the occasional comment. And a handful of people have joined your email list for updates.

But it’s taken weeks, months or even years to get this far. How much longer must you wait to break through?

Luckily for you, a small adjustment is often all you need – a subtle shift in direction that allows your blog to finally resonate strongly with your readers.


Great Content, Design, and Other Blogging Myths.

As I mentioned before in my previous blog the quantity of your content isn’t enough to make your blog a success.In the same time you’ve probably found plenty of great content that you haven’t done anything about. You didn’t share it, you didn’t comment on it, and you didn’t subscribe to get more of it.

Let’s face it and talk frankly, what we need else to enhance and promote the content that we publish?
It’s the same with great design.

Based on how often blogging and marketing sites talk about design, you could think it makes a huge difference. But it doesn’t.

Of course your site should look good. If it looks like it hasn’t been updated since the ’90s, people won’t expect much from your content either. But be honest – when was the last time you subscribed to a blog simply because it had good design? Exactly. Good design is simply a given – an expectation you have to meet. But it doesn’t give you an advantage.

Objection: People Don’t Care If You’re an Expert.

When you search about some content or find a site run by a recognized expert on the topic, it doesn’t mean you automatically subscribe. Even if you think the topics might help you, too many “experts” are sharing their ideas for that to make a difference anymore.

The same thing causes many businesses to struggle with sales.

For example, Online English Language Institute always claim to have solid-experience and reliable background. So, it’s just an expectation, which doesn’t have much weight in the qualification’s body to hold the process.

You need more to get excited enough to take action. And so do the people who find your blog.

So What Makes You Different?

Think what sets your content has to be differentiate and apart from the competition.

For example, do you provide more in-depth content than others? Or is your content more straightforward? Easier to implement? More entertaining? Or do you have specialized expertise or authority others in your field lack?

Do you focus on solving more specific problems? Or help a more specific group of people? Or help in a way others don’t? Something has to make you different.
The good news? Usually only a small adjustment is enough to make your blog worth the attention you desire. But if you don’t make that change, you have a squirrel’s chance on an eight-lane highway to build up a significant audience.

How to Make People Understand Why They Should Pay Attention

So you’ve figured out what makes you different. And written it down, so it’s not just in your head, right? Because it you haven’t written it somewhere, chances are the idea is less than perfectly clear.

For example, it could be something like this: “My blog helps people to improve their way to run the business in terms of Information Technology, Organizational  Sustainability and Digital Marketing, so they can change their vision or style on the mechanism of using technique in applying or adopting different tool to enhance their business. . I give them practical, interesting information that they can easily add to their strategy.”

The point is, you must already have it clarified for yourself. If you don’t, you’ll struggle to make your visitors understand why they should pay attention. You need to focus everything on getting that message across. Every aspect of your marketing needs to support it. 

Even the content you share in social media and your guest posts should work hard to make people understand your value proposition.

If anything isn’t in line with it, people won’t get a strong “signal” because you’re not consistent. And then, again, they have little reason to stick around reading your blog. But getting it across isn’t as complicated as you might think.

Dominate Your Niche
 
You know what compels people to pay attention to you, share your content, leave comments, and subscribe to your list.

You publish content that your target audience has been craving and would be willing to jump through flaming hoops for. And all your content is focused on making people understand your value proposition.

Things start rolling. People start subscribing. They share the content, so more people find you. Even Google understands you better when your content is focused.

You’ve found just the right position for the dial, and the signal is clear.

Try to apply what I  raised above and dig deep to find out additional details that might be help to support what we pointed out!

Good Luck

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