Let’s take a look back at your favorite articles of 2017. Revisit your favorites and catch up on any you missed. See something you like? Forward to a friend!

Email Marketing for Small Businesses    

Every different type of small business will require a unique marketing strategy. One tried and true avenue that has consistent benefits across multiple business types is email marketing. There are a multitude of approaches to email marketing. The main goal is to decide what it is that you should be accomplishing with your email marketing campaign and then develop an action plan to execute those goals.

The Value of the Retrospective Meeting              

The retrospective meeting is one that everyone thinks they want, but often times people don’t actually do.  It’s extremely important though, after you do something big, to pull everyone back together and ask, “What worked well? What needs improvement? What should we never do again?” The difficult part to having a retrospective meeting is doing it in a way that really stresses that the point of the meeting is to grow and improve and not to blame.

Social Media Marketing: Polling

Recently, we’ve begun using polling in our marketing approach to get a little feedback from our followers and readers.  I should say, recently, we’ve been attempting to use polling in our marketing approach.  Why is that? Well, elections aside, this polling stuff is for the birds.  We’re not even registering people to get their vote here –this should be much simpler than it is.

How You Can Rescue Your Facebook Organic Reach        

After Facebook started changing things around for business pages, it made organic reach on Facebook pretty close to dead.  The whole point of having a social media presence is to interact with customers and followers.  Without people seeing your posts, this can be pretty difficult to do. If you’re tired of seeing posts that only end up in front of anywhere from one to twenty followers at most, there are a few things that you can do to recover a little bit of your reach which translates into increased engagement.

Apple Falling Behind on AI          

We’ve just had a big tech season. Between Facebook’s F8 conference, Google’s I/O Conference and Apple’s most recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) we’ve seen the big plans that these tech companies plan on focusing on over this next year. As a huge Apple supporter, I have to say, companies like Google in particular are giving Apple a run for their money.

Influencer Marketing

Whether your route is social media marketing, content marketing, or both –influencer marketing is an avenue that can help boost any sort of online campaign.  If you’ve been diligent about creating and posting new, unique, and relevant content on a regular basis, and you still aren’t getting the results you’re searching for, influencer marketing may be a smart next move for your business.

Consulting: Are you a strategist or a tactician?   

As a consultant, ever changing roles and new projects are normal undertakings. One way that consultants can vary from one to the next is their approach to new projects, new clients, and new situations. To be a successful consultant, and to choose the best consultant for a business to work with, the individual consultant needs to know what type of approach it is that they can offer. Different styles work best in different scenarios.

Using Polling in Your Marketing Strategy              

When it comes to social media marketing, one of the most valuable tools you have at your fingertips is the instant feedback from your followers. Customers and potential customers alike are available to give you the responses you may need to grow, change, and improve your business.  This is where polling can come in handy in your online marketing strategy.

Problem Solving: The Skill Every Consultant Should Have              

Consultants enter brand new situations every day. As a consultant, you may be coming into a company you’ve never dealt with before, you may be dealing with a specific problem or set of obstacles you haven’t encountered before, or you may be the fresh eyes and perspective that this client needs. Whatever the circumstances, you have to consider all options and opportunities for improvement and then dive in and decide how you’re going to approach and conquer that specific task.

The Business of Negotiation      

When building software, there are many times that you will be negotiating with other companies or clients.  Negotiation is a business within itself. If done properly, it can really benefit you. If done improperly, it can really hurt you. Negotiations will come up in countless areas of development.  For example, when developing software you may be negotiating with a company for the honor of using their own software inside of yours.  This type of deal is a mutually beneficial one.  My company will get the benefits of your software to add value to mine, and you will get money from every transaction that transpires or set of software sold. If you can negotiate properly, so that everyone is satisfied, it’s a win-win.