What if I told you that you can increase your profitability without winning any new business?With this guide, we are going to cover a few ways in which you can make your business more profitable as it stands today, both by saving time (one of your largest assets) and by increasing revenue.

With this guide, we are going to cover a few ways in which you can make your business more profitable as it stands today, both by saving time (one of your largest assets) and by increasing revenue.

Sell more to current customers

The obvious path to greater profits without signing up any new customers is to sell more to your current customers. The metric for this is called lifetime value (LTV) or customer lifetime value (CLV). You can calculate a rough estimate of it as the monthly income (revenue – expenses) of your average customer by the average number of months somebody is a customer. (The actual formula involves calculating a retention rate and making a discount rate assumption.)

The two ways to increase your LTV are:

1. Increase the amount of income per customer
2. Lengthen the amount of time that somebody is a customer

Let’s focus on the first one. Here are some ideas on the additional value you can provide your current customers with (and charge for).

• Training (Employees are a huge expense for your customers so they will pay for them to be using your service efficiently.)
• Higher level of service (Telephone or onsite support, a quicker response time, dedicated support representative, etc.)
• Customization (If your service provides 90% of what a customer needs they will sometimes pay handsomely for that last 10%.)
• New products or services (Upsell the customers that are getting the greatest value from your service.)

Charge more

Many business owners resist raising prices because customers HATE when prices increase. Technology (consumer electronics, web hosting, etc.) might be the only industry where prices decrease over time with more customer adoption allowing production to scale. Every other industry tends to have prices increase over time. Your utility bills go up, the price of visiting the doctor increases, automobile prices increase, and tuition skyrockets.

Your prices can increase too.

The simplest way is to only increase prices for new customers as you do not risk alienating your current customer base. However, some of your oldest customers–the ones that have received the most value from your business–might be open to paying more, as well. They have a vested interest in your success.

Bill annually

Annual billing can actually have a negative effect on your profitability but can be an important component of cash flow, so we are going to cover it here. Typically, customers get a bit of a discount if they pay for a year of service up front rather than month by month (e.g. pay upfront for the year in the price of ten months; thus, getting two months free). So, if you do offer a discount, you are reducing your per-customer profitability in order to increase immediate cash flow which you can use for growth initiatives.

You do not have to offer discounts, though. Depending on your business you can make annual contracts standard and only offer month to month billing for those that ask (and charge more for that option). Depending on your churn rate, this can result in higher profitability.

Save time

You have definitely heard the following saying:

Time is money.

When you are a fresh entrepreneur with a brand new business you often have more time than money. However, as your business matures you learn that distractions and busy work have an effect on your bottom line in two ways. The first way is that there is a cost to your time. For the same amount of money that you take out of the company (either via payroll or profits) the number of hours you spend to make that amount of money is how profitable the business is for you.

Fewer hours spent working for the same results = more profitable

The second way that the time spent on your business affects your profitability is that those distractions and busy work take your time and focus away from building your business.  Ultimately that is what is going to make the biggest difference over the long run.

Let’s identify the things you do not like doing and find a way to not do them!

Create systems

Great systems liberate you from the grunt work of your business and allow you to spend more time working on the things that will help you grow it whether that be marketing initiatives, sales, or developing new products. Systems take the guess work out of any repeated process and, when created correctly, can be automated or can be outsourced by hiring somebody else to perform the tasks for you.

The first step in saving time is figuring out what you are spending it on. (This is also the first step for saving money if you are looking to do a budget for your business.)

Documenting

Spend this week thinking about the things that you do more than once. That might be on-boarding new customers, checking the status of orders, sending out invoices, customer support, or a wide variety of other things.

First, pick a method for documenting your processes. That can be a piece of paper, a Google Sheet, an internal wiki, Evernote, or task management software such as Asana. Pick what works best for you but eventually, you are going to want to share these processes with others and track their progress. So, some sort of project management solution is what you will ultimately graduate to.

Now, whenever you find yourself doing something for the second time this week write it down as the name of the process (e.g. process expense reports). Under the process, record each step that you go through to complete it. For processing expense reports this could be:

1. Check that all required information is on the expense report and that it is signed.
2. Look at each transaction and ensure that it is covered by the expense policy.
3. Make sure that there is a matching receipt for each transaction.
4. Approve report.
5. Scan expense report and receipts and save in Finance folder.
6. Email approval to the employee.
7. Write check to the employee to reimburse for expenses.
8. Deliver check to the employee.
9. Record check in bookkeeping software.

That is a lot of steps for a simple expense report. Now that you have them written out you can find ways to optimize. Maybe require the employee to scan the expense report and receipts and submit them to you electronically? Instead of writing and delivering a check maybe you can add it to payroll? Or print it from the bookkeeping software so you write the check and record it simultaneously?

You will likely find that some of your processes, have a few steps that can be eliminated as they have been built up over time and things are done because “it has always been done that way”. Having it documented allows you to identify areas that this is the case.

Automation

After documenting all of your processes and looking at steps that can be eliminated we can turn our focus to steps that can be automated which can save a few minutes here and there that add up to quite a bit of your day.

Many of us use a lot of different online applications as part of our day to day business functions. We might use one system for customer support, one for sales, one for email marketing, one (or many) for social media, and use Google Apps all sorts of back office work. IFTTT and Zapier are two online platforms that help automatically pass data between all of the web apps that we use and can help automate some of the steps of the processes you created.

Marketing

There are a lot of tools available to business owners that help them streamline and automate their marketing efforts. With Buffer you can schedule your social media posts and post across all of the social media platforms from one app. Drip helps you build a mailing list and convert your subscribers into customers by using segmentation and automation to deliver personalized content to each subscriber at specific points in the sales funnel.

Sales

If your business utilizes outbound sales then there are countless CRM platforms that you can use to create and automate, as much of the process as possible. There are likely even a few CRM platforms specifically developed for your industry. The best ones make is easy to schedule calls, dial, leave voicemails (called voicemail drops), and send emails based on templates. They should do all of that and then get out of your way. Great CRM software will pay for itself many times over with the right salesperson.

Billing

Invoicing and billing are not activities that push your business forward but they are critical functions that ensure you have the cash flow to grow. Using Elorus will make the billing and invoicing process easy!

Since we mentioned automated processes above, you will be happy to know that Elorus can automate your invoicing with its “Recurring documents” feature. You can create rules and the application will issue sales and purchases invoices automatically, saving you both time and your peace of mind!

Another exciting feature has to do with the seamless collaboration between you and your partners. Your employees can have access to your company’s organization in Elorus so routine tasks can be completed with you having a real-time monitoring of operations. And your bookkeeping just got a lot easier, as well! Give access to your accountant so they can download your records in a few clicks, without having to deliver them paperwork or any further communication.

Turn time into dollars

No matter what your business is, there is probably a slew of tasks that you wish you did not have to do so that you could spend more time on other activities such as customer development or activities outside of work. Saving time, in conjunction with increasing customer lifetime value, provides you with the ammunition needed for your next business breakthrough.

About the author: Will Johnson loves helping others succeed and is currently helping bootstrappers grow their businesses through marketing. You can read more at The Underdog Marketing Blog.

The post Increase your profit without getting new clients first appeared on Moneytized.

With careful planning, you can do the same for your business.

Find Your Influencers

Dedicate a person to find influencers that you can reach out to who will broadcast your message. You could easily spend an entire day on Klout or Who Tweeted Me searching for new contacts. Your time is better spent elsewhere. For those social media professionals out there, what are you doing to find and connect with the influencers in your network?

Klout is a great tool to help you laser focus your marketing efforts on reaching specific bloggers to broadcast your message. Klout has grown beyond a simple measurement tool and now allows you to tweet and interact with others directly from the page. Try thanking your contacts for a recommendation, or looking for followers with high Klout scores and asking for recommendations from them.

Define Social Media Goals

Too often a social media staff is given the shaft when they don’t produce enough to remain viable. That’s a valid decision to make, if you properly defined measurable goals in the first place. Without you dictating a set of goals for things like sales, engagement or follower buildup, the social media department will just build your account. That’s good, but thousands of followers mean nothing if you can’t actually get them to do anything.

Think about:

• What kinds of Twitter followers do you want?
• How can you get them to retweet you?
• Can you respond to them? Can you involve major influencers in your conversation?

Knowing what you want out of your follower base will help you advertise to them and better carry your message.

Tweet Things Customers Want to Hear

Reddit and Digg are two social bookmarking websites you can use to help gain insight on what your customers want to know. Search for broad concepts related to your niche, like “save money” or “exercise” and see what the sub communities on these sites are discussing. What content are they sharing? If possible, you should share that content with your followers and look for opinions. Be prepared to give your own and help fuel the discussion.

When something important comes up in conversation, retweet it to your followers. It helps show that you care about what you read, and you’re willing to give credit to the source.purplepayday.loan .Both of these qualities are great for your reputation.

Search for Your Brand

The search tool for both Twitter and Facebook is more than adequate to find hashtags and keywords related to your brand. You can fall back on third party tools like Raven Tools, which will measure your influence and compare it to your competition, but you can learn a lot from a quick skim of the conversation.

One of the best things you can do is to set up a Google Alert that checks public posts on Facebook and Twitter for your brand name and related terms. The service will deliver emails containing links to the posts as they are made, so you can reach out to those users and resolve those situations before they become a problem.

Post Photos

Instagram and Facebook have merged, making photo content more important than ever before. New services like Vine even let you create short films. Look for ways to show your products in action, or give short glimpses into company culture. The Imgur team famously tweeted a staff photo of themselves walking away from a Photoshopped explosion in a fun little show of personality. It gave their audience deeper access into the company culture, and it was great for a laugh.

Host a Competition

Hosting a competition through social media involves some careful planning. You should create a method for your users to contact you and enter the contest, but it should be separate from your other social media efforts so you don’t confuse the results of your campaigns. For a proper competition to take place, you’ll need:

• A website with a blog: somewhere you can host the contest rules and possibly entries
• A social media page that you can use to broadcast the contest
• A contest that has an element of social sharing built in (for example, sign up to vote, tweet the contest to your list and receive a second vote under your name)

Your contest also should not rely on user generated content. Instead, distill the rules to the lowest possible bar for entry, then use a system where the winner is chosen at random.

Find a Way to Acknowledge Customers

The simplest way to acknowledge your customers is with a “Thank you” or a retweet. If you receive a compliment, be sure to retweet it to your audience. When you get complaints, reply to the customer directly and resolve the situation as best as you can. When you’re using Facebook, there is no shame in asking the customer to stand by as support attempts contact. Be proactive. Reach out to the customer, don’t rely on an email coming to you.

Social media is just as much monitoring as it is reacting. Setting up a good system to gather intelligence will help you respond better to customer concerns, and reach new customers online.

The post How to Use Social Media to Find your Customer first appeared on Moneytized.

The ubiquity of social media in our daily lives is now undeniable. As people share their lives online, they broadcast the places they’ve been, the products they’ve consumed and the services they’ve been rendered. Chances are, your hotel has already been featured innumerable times in the social media posts of your customers.

A recent study shows that travel has been cited by Facebook users as their biggest life moment, and that 42% of Facebook users make more posts about travel than about any other life events. Photographs of vacations inevitably include coverage of hotel stays and meals, and the proliferation of photo sharing applications such as Instagram only increases the potential for hotels to cash in on the social media frenzy.

If you’re clueless about social media marketing, this article will shed light on the ways social media marketing can be tailored to the marketing efforts of your hotel, and also provide pointers on how to effectively harness the power of social media in your marketing campaigns while avoiding common mistakes often committed by companies new to the game.

Communicate directly with your customers 

While print and television advertisements do provide companies with a medium through which they can communicate with their clients, such communication is indirect and one-way. Social media offers a direct line of communication from your business to your customers, and also allows you to gain direct feedback from them.

Used wisely, such direct communication can help to bolster your reputation in the eyes of your clients. Being easily contactable and responding personally in a timely fashion is particularly crucial in the hospitality industry and helps your customers feel as if they can get their issues resolved quickly. This in turn makes your organization appear more helpful and approachable. While poor service may not sound the death knell in other industries such as retail, where customers may be persuaded to make purchases nonetheless due to the quality of a product, for instance, in hospitality the perception of poor service can be devastating.

Allowing your customers to communicate directly with you, other than enabling you to receive valuable feedback, also gives you the added benefit of being able to respond swiftly to criticism and complaints. Doing damage control by offering an explanation and soothing words to appease an irate customer can go a long way towards protecting your hotel from a PR disaster.

Promote your brand more effectively

Because social media places brands smack in the middle of the personal spheres of their customers, it can offer a particularly potent and pervasive avenue of promotion. For instance, any special offers or events receive immediate publicity once they are broadcast on social media platforms. Such publicity extends not only to your customers but also reaches their friends on platforms such as Facebook. The potential for inexpensive exposure is huge.

Exposure on social media platforms also tends to be more targeted than other forms of advertising such as television commercials or direct emails. People who like your Facebook page are likely to already be interested in your hotel. For instance, they might be visiting a destination where your hotel is located, or they might be avid travellers who fall within the demographic your hotel targets. Your conversion rate from social media exposure thus has the potential to be quite high. Compared with for instance direct emails, which may be unwanted and viewed as a nuisance, promotions on social media are usually viewed only by choice. David Lowe from Sebel Pier One commented that “Facebook has become an invaluable channel for us to communicate deals and special events to our customers. They don’t always want promotional material in their email inbox, so sharing it on our Facebook page is a great non-invasive way to get the word out.”

Manage your reputation

The sheer number of hours the average urbanite spends online each day and the fact that for many, the internet is now the first port of call when researching a company are testimonies to the importance of maintaining a positive online reputation. This is particularly relevant to hotels, due to the prevalence of doing online research on a hotel before making reservations. Websites such as Tripadvisor are extremely popular with travellers, and negative reviews can be a particularly persuasive deterrent to would-be customers.

Maintaining an online presence can allow you to deal directly with poor reviews and criticism. Doing so on platforms such as Tripadvisor makes it possible for your comments to be seen publicly, and thus enables you to mitigate the damage done by negative reviews.

Publish content with care

While the prudent use of social media is a must in any hotel’s marketing campaign, be wary of jumping on the bandwagon without doing your due diligence. Companies tend to be lax about their social media output, and this can have devastating results. In a worst case scenario, social media output that is negatively perceived by the public can go viral and cause serious damage to your hotel’s reputation.

For instance, the spontaneous nature of Twitter has led to many companies unwittingly generating bad publicity for themselves by inadvertently releasing tweets in bad taste, such as when Gap made a tweet about Hurricane Sandy and suggested that those hiding from the storm indoors do some online shopping instead. This tweet was viewed as highly insensitive by those who were affected by the storm, garnered a barrage of angry re-tweets and was later removed.

In closing

The popularity of social media as a marketing tool must not be dismissed, and this is particularly so in the case of the hospitality industry, where an online presence is absolutely essential. Hotels should aim to present a communicative and approachable online persona, and must take care to manage customer reactions through online reviews and comments on platforms such as Facebook. Used wisely and proficiently, social media can be an incredibly powerful marketing tool.

The post How you can use social media to drive your hotel marketing first appeared on Moneytized.

1. Never underestimate the power of your headline

According to copyblogger, 80% of people read headline copy yet only 20% will click through to read the entire post. It makes sense then that you should go all out to attract that elusive 20%. Check out “How to Write Magnetic Headlines” for some great tips including why you should always write your headline first and why “How To” headlines are often the most well read.

2. Keep things simple

While no one is suggesting that you dumb down your content, it’s advisable to keep a tight rein on any use of industry jargon. This is especially true with those “How To” articles. It’s likely that at least some of your audience will be new to the subject (hence why they are reading your “How To” in the first place). You want them to go away having learned something and not feel baffled by unnecessarily complex content. Readability is key.

3. Make careful use of links

Good content will always refer the reader to other useful content. As a rule of thumb, you should try to include at least two links for a 500 word post (although more is acceptable). At least one link should be internal to related content on the site to which you are submitting. This will help with their SEO and show that you’re paying attention. The second link should be to a credible external source.

4. Keep your content conversational

It’s difficult to do that if you mostly write in the third person. That style of writing tends to distance you from your message, almost as though it’s not really you that has the interesting thing to say. The less informal second person (you, your, and yours) gives your readers the impression that you are talking directly to them. Head over to Grammar Girl for a quick guide to first, second, and third person. It’s fine for blokes to visit too!

5. Inject a little personality

Remember it’s a blog post you’re writing and not a scientific paper or final year thesis. Blogging (and reading blogs) is for the most part supposed to be fun. It’s okay to insert a joke here and there to make your readers smile; just avoid obvious sexism, racism, or pretty much any other distasteful “isms” and you’ll be fine.

Follow these five steps and you’ll be well on your way to creating guest posts that people actually want to read. One last tip; try to end with a question that will get your readers talking. That in itself is a great learning tool for everyone involved.

Do you have any tips for writing successful guest posts? (See what we did there?).

The post How to Create Killer Guest Posts that People Actually Want to Read first appeared on Moneytized.

Over 4 billion hours of video are viewed on the site each month, and 72 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute, so the chances are you’ll have come across one of the following at some point during 2012.

Making a video go viral can never be guaranteed but all eight of these videos have one thing in common, they were HUGE worldwide hits last year.

Gangnam Style

Published in July

(image courtesy of popdust)

If you haven’t heard of Gangnam style you’ve either been living in a dark cave hidden away from society for the last year or you’ve well…somehow managed to avoid the huge phenomenon surrounding it.

This video by South Korean rapper Psy became the most watched YouTube video ever back in November when it surpassed Justin Bieber’s Baby video. To date, the wild dancing South Korean has more than 1.2 billion YouTube views.

Before that, it had broken the Guinness World Record for the most liked YouTube video back in October.

The rap is named after the pricey Seoul district of Gangnam and features 34-year-old Psy dressed in tuxedo and sunglasses dancing his now, world renowned galloping-style horse dance.

Kony

Published in March

(image courtesy of the resolve)

This 30 minute documentary about Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony was viewed more than 100 million times in a week.

The video by charity organisation, Invisible Children, aimed to promote the “Stop Kony” movement in order to have the International Criminal Court fugitive arrested.

It gained huge acknowledgement from a number of celebrity figures such as Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian, who all encouraged their fans to watch and share the video.

To date it has 96,320,725 YouTube views however, viral video tracking website Visible Measures says the number of actual views is actually over 200million, once Vimeo views and response videos uploaded by the audience are taken into account.

Red Bull – Stratos

Published in October

(image courtesy of Techno Buffalo)

They say drinking Red Bull gives you wings, well on this occasion it didn’t but it definitely helped Felix Baumgartner to fly.

This monumental piece of science, technology and sheer daredevil adventure provided a moment of worldwide entertainment. The aim was for 43-year-old Felix, from Salzburg in Austria, to break the world record (and sound barrier) to travel at a speed man has never done so before.

The journey into the stratosphere and back down was the most watched live online event ever. Streamed live on YouTube, the mission achieved 7.1million viewers before Felix had even reached his target altitude.

TNT – Chaos

Published in April

(image courtesy of Recode Media)

When a big red button with the words “Push to Add Drama” written above it appears in a street near you, you would be well excused for being a little inquisitive and giving it a push.

So to promote the launch of a new TV channel in Belgium, TNT did just that and tested the locals curious nature.

The second somebody pushed the button, all hell broke out. From a man on a stretcher falling out of an ambulance, to another man fighting with paramedics…there was even a full on gun battle between police and a getaway car driver. All put on by actors of course.

At the end, a giant banner was unfurled on a building side that read: “Your daily dose of drama. TNT.” The clip was a stunning success and to date has over 42 million YouTube views.

Obama – Call Me Maybe

Published in June

(image courtesy of She Knows)

This spoof mash up featuring clips of President Obama singing the hit single by Carly Rae Jepson, proved to be a huge hit.

BarackDubs had previously uploaded mash ups of the President singing “Born This Way”, “Sexy And I Know It” and “Drink To That”, but this mash up of the Canadian pop-star’s mega-hit was their most successful.

Although it wasn’t an official campaign video in an election year, the video has over 35 million YouTube views to date, suggesting it may have gone some way to gaining a few of the votes which helped the President get re-elected.

Samsung Kicking Apple’s Butt

Published in September

(image courtesy of Android Analyse)

Last year saw the launch of the Galaxy S III by Samsung as well as a video campaign to go with it; and it soon became one of the most viral TV adverts ever.

The advert begins by mocking fans of Apple waiting in a queue for the iPhone 5, and then features fans of Samsung weaving in and out of the line to compare the two phones and highlight how the S III may be better.

The advert currently has more than 17 million views on YouTube but Viewable Measures estimates using its True Reach methodology that it drew in almost 72 million people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM

Angry Birds Space

Published in March

(image courtesy of Engadget)

The advert for the fourth game in the Angry Birds franchise became a real viral success as children’s and other gamers excitement grew about its release. It currently to date has over 45 million YouTube views. To see the whole playlist, click here.

Thank You Mama

Published in April

Just before the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Procter & Gamble launched their “Thank You Mama” Campaign. The campaign recognised and celebrated the mothers behind the athletes, but also mothers around the world by thanking mums for all they do.

The campaign was also a part of Procter & Gamble’s worldwide partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The video may only have 700,000 YouTube views compared to other videos on this list but it has been shared over 2million times.

(image courtesy of Thank You Mama)

So there you have it, from a South Korean inspired horse-like dance to the emotional thanking of mothers… these were eight of the biggest viral videos in 2012. Which was your favourite?

The post 8 Top Viral Campaigns of 2012 first appeared on Moneytized.

Billboards are usually placed close to roads in order to advertise goods in a surreptitious way – drivers don’t focus on the ads for very long at all, but it’s enough to get the idea of the goods or services that are being advertised into their minds. That’s all it takes when it comes to marketing.

Of course, a witty or memorable ad is also a prerequisite when it comes to billboards. No one’s going to recall a boring ad they barely took notice of in the first place, so billboards need to utilise bold colours, funny slogans and eye-catching graphics.

You can also find interactive ads that utilise the elements and surrounding buildings. So, if you’re wondering what makes some of the best billboards and other outdoor ads in the world so amazing, here are ten of them to give you a few insights:

1) Anando Milk

This billboard ad in the building in India was crafted by the McCann Erikson Agency. Anando Milk wanted to boost milk consumption in India as the number of kids choosing milk over fizzy drinks was continually falling.

It’s safe to say that this ad only works so well because of its placement, which is a stroke of genius. It shows a child pushing out a section of the building; presumably because his bones are so strong thanks to all the milk he’s been drinking!

2) Vodafone

Vodafone’s motto of ‘make the most of now’ has been around for years, but I’m not sure any other ad manages to pass this message on so effectively. Situated just outside Terminal One at Heathrow Airport, this outdoor advert sums up one of the biggest wishes for most people – to travel the world.

3) GTA IV

The ad was created by BBH London and depicted a huge fridge, on which were magnets for destinations around the globe such as Egypt, Fiji, Ireland, Amsterdam and Tokyo. Right at the bottom was Vodafone’s logo, tying the concept together very nicely.

The sheer size of this ad is what makes it so amazing, although it also I’m fairly certain it can be counted as a piece of artwork as well.

Back in 2008 this visually stunning ad for Grand Theft Auto IV appeared in New York City. They depict three of the main characters from the game, along with a handy reminder of when the game was to be released – April 29th 2008. It definitely worked though, as GTA IV announced $400m sales in its first week of release.

4) Nationwide Insurance

This ingenious ad is actually for Nationwide Insurance, although it looks as though it’s for a paint company for Coops Paints.

The ad was created by TM Advertising and could be found in Columbus, Ohio, in 2007. It consisted of three separate billboards, plus yellow paint made to look as though it was running down the side of the building and had splashed into the car park below, covering a van and car, amongst other things. The tagline ‘life comes at you fast’ definitely sums up this ad!

5) Nike

This ad relies on an optical illusion and it’s pretty darn effective! The ad, which spans over two buildings, is designed to make it look as though the runner featured on the second ad has run through the first building. It comes complete with a fake interior of the ruined building, making it all-the-more impressive.

6) Lego

In Chile, building workers don’t work at the weekends. So, the advertising company IDB-FCB decided to make the most of this curious fact by using one of the many deserted cranes in Santiago City for a Lego ad.

It’s a surprisingly simple but effective advert – all it used was a fake Lego brick that was suspended from the crane (very securely!) and a much smaller sign for the Lego company to link to two.

This ad relies on the viewers’ imagination to conjure up the idea that Lego bricks are being used for the building!

7) Powerhouse Gym

This interactive ad is actually an optical illusion, as it makes it look as though the bodybuilder in the image is lifting heavy weights in the construction site.

In actual fact, the cranes in the background are attached to the ad by lengths of thick wire and join at a point where the photographed man is holding two handles. This all makes it look like he’s carrying off one of the world’s most ambitious standing cable flies!

8) iPod + iTunes

This fantastic ad for Apple the iPod + iTunes is supposed to convey the message of just how much music can be stored on an iPod. Literally thousands of songs, albums and snippets can be held on an iPod, and the albums streaming out of the iPod in this ad clearly shows that.

There are albums from Greenday, Frank Sinatra, Eminem, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers and hundreds of others shown on the ad.

9) Midea

The Haitong building in Shanghai is famous for its strange shape which, in this ad, it utilised to great effect. The wavy lines of the building are made to look as though they’ve been blown into that shape by the Midea fan in the ad on the building behind, which certainly matches the ‘powerful fan’ tagline used in the billboard.

10) Pantene

To advertise Pantene’s anti-breakage shampoo in 2008, the advertising agency Grey Canada placed these imaginative ads in three locations around Toronto, Canada. They featured Rapunzel-style braids that were climbed by real rock climbers to show just how strong Pantene hair can be.

Billboard and outdoor advertising can be hugely successful and is a sure-fire way to promote your brand. There are many other display marketing options available though, so if your business isn’t quite ready for its very own billboard yet, why not consider floor mats, banner stands or promotional displays?

Images courtesy of Ads of the World, Adverbox, Rappzula, Ads of the World, Visual Fun House, Ads of the World, adoholik, The Fire Wire, Ads of the World.

The post 10 of the best billboard advertising efforts in the world first appeared on Moneytized.

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the pitfalls to avoid when branching out into the world of social media and discuss which brands you should be seeking to emulate with your efforts.

Ignoring your Customers

Even if you don’t have the time, budget or resources to engage in a full-on social media campaign, you should at least be looking to listen to what’s being said about you online. The platform provides unparalleled opportunities to gain intelligence on how your business is perceived.

Once you’ve got a handle on how your brand is being discussed, you can tailor offers, campaigns and even responses accordingly.

Not Interacting or Interacting Badly

So you’ve set up your social media page to stand as a hub for your business in the digital world, what now? Many businesses take a lacklustre approach to their social media management when it’s really a case of all or nothing.

Social media is a deceptively resource-intensive task to undertake so before you start – make sure to allocate sufficient time and effort. It’s no good to simply stick an intern on managing it for a couple of hours a day. When it comes to social media interaction, you need to go the whole hog.

By interacting well, you can help shape how your brand is perceived and although it’ll be highly tempting, don’t ignore negative comments. You might have to provide customer service via the medium on occasion, but it’ll be well worth it as your customers grow to appreciate your efforts.

Above all, have a consistent voice and avoid bland corporate babble at all costs. It can help to have a single person in charge of your social media management – or if this isn’t possible, consider outsourcing.

Not Including Your Customers

Social media is a great place to engage and make friends with your customers, but you won’t be able to do this if it’s constantly a one-way conversation. Be proud of your customers and get them to join in.

Obviously how you can shape this type of interaction is dependent on your sector, product or service, but using their help to inform product decisions or offers is often a good starting point. Similarly, getting them to share experiences, stories or photos that involve your brand is also a favoured tactic.

Who to Emulate

Some brands do social media better than others and although there’s no exact formula to their interactions – some correlations can be made. As this handy infographic notes, brands like Skittles, Coke and Red Bull are absolutely killing it on Facebook – using a variety of interactions that focus on what the customer wants and gets them involved.

Companies like Dell and PlayStation are using their blogs to great effect, focusing on topics their audience wants to discuss and utilising crowdsourcing for feedback and informing product decisions.

There’s no guaranteed way to ensure social media success but by having a bit of empathy and putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience, you can start to craft a social media presence that really stands out from the crowd. 

The post Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Social Media to Help Build Brand Loyalty first appeared on Moneytized.

What is Google Sandbox?

When we release a new website and gather some links pointing towards it, we would expect that the rank for its keywords will improve. But Google does the exact opposite. After the site goes “live”, for the next two weeks, you will see some improvement for your ranks of your keywords and will be able to see where you stand against your competition. After that “grace period” passes, your rankings will plummet, and you won’t see your site ranking for competitive keywords at all.

Google Sandbox is a term used for the “penalty” that Google introduces to newly created websites for the period of 3-5 months and prevents the website to rank for its keywords and especially for the competitive ones.

Why does Google apply the sandbox effect on websites?

90% of the fine-tuning Google does on their search algorithm is finding ways to combat spam: that’s what this rule is about. It all started when spam became a very a very profitable occupation. Viagra, porn and the Acai Berry are some example niches that have been exploited the most. What was happening was the following:

Company A created a website promoting one of the offers above (or something close). Then they spent a great amount of money to gather thousands of links overnight. This domain instantly ranked for the specific keywords and by using cloaking methods, to other other popular keywords too that most of the time, that had nothing to do with that niche. By the time that Google found the site and de-indexed it, spammers had already created and started promoting the next website since they have already made back their initial investment plus a great deal of profit, so they were able to continue this indefinitely.

That’s when Google introduced the Google Sandbox effect, starting two weeks after a website’s indexing, and lasting from three to five months on average. This prevents a website from ranking for highly competitive keywords before a predefined period of time passes. This gives them time to be able to check the website and decide if it’s really worth the rank that it will soon acquire.

How can you prevent the Sandbox Effect

The number one way to make the Sandbox Effect go away, is to gather a lot of VERY reputable links quickly. For example, if you are a technology startup, and get links from TechCrunch, Mashable and Engadget, you will most probably have the penalty removed. If very reputable sources mention you, y0u will be able to come back from the penalty much faster but unfortunately that’s not always the case.

How to “win” time when you are creating your website

One of the best things you can do is to create a landing page for your domain, the second you buy it. Then, point a link to it and wait for Google to index it. To make sure that it’s in Google’s index, search site:www.domainexample.com, replacing it with your domain name. If it shows any results, this means that your site is already indexed. When a website gets indexed, even if the website is not officially released, the time is counted toward the end of sandbox so by the time you’re ready to go live, your penalty might already have been lifted. If indexing your website with a link doesn’t work, go to Google’s Webmaster Tools, add your site and then your Sitemap to help the whole process.

After all, sandbox effect is not something to be afraid of. It’s just a temporary penalty that will get lifted very soon but it’s good to know from the beginning to save you from frustration or even help you avoid it companies like the denver seo company might help a lot too .

The post What is the Google Sandbox Effect and how you can protect your website first appeared on Moneytized.

Nowadays, different kinds of real-time communication tools help bring people closer. For example, IM sends your greetings to your friends in different localities, and telephones bring mothers’ care to sons from miles away. Then what about customers and online businesses? How can customers get the same customer service experience that they can have in a physical store?

Different from brick-and-mortar stores, where customers can talk with the sales people one-on-one and get help from them instantly, customers shopping online or searching for services from the Internet also hope they can talk with real person before they make the purchase. Live chat software for website makes it possible for customer to communication with firms lively. It gives customers convenience and takes your website visitors closer to you and check this purplepayday.loan.

There are many people visiting your website all the time. How many of them became a lead, and how many just leave your website without any interaction with you? A great number of buying decisions are made based on convenience – the more convenient the buying process is, the more likely a customer is to make a purchase. If website visitors can’t get answers immediately when they encounter some problems on website, they are very likely leave and move to your competitors.An

Having live chat on your website will help visitors get quick answers without having to wait for delayed emails or to pick up the phone.  It not only creates easier browsing experiences but increases consumer’s likelihood to purchase.  A study from Forrester Research said:

“Many online consumers want help from a live person while they are shopping online; in fact, 44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.”

A survey by emarketer.com also found that 63% of customers were more likely to return to a website that offers live chat. The report goes on to say:

“62% reported being more likely to purchase from the site again. A further 38% of respondents said they had made their purchase due to the chat session itself. All these attitudes were even more prevalent among respondents who bought online at least weekly.”

Some other studies show that 77% of people shopping online would like to make contact with a real person before making a purchase, and over half say that the lack of interaction has caused them not to purchase. See the importance of real-time communication is to businesses, especially for online businesses and e-commerce? With live chat on website, your customers get the most conveniences and have more confidence to buy from your company.

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The post How Real-time Communication Gives Your Customers Convenience first appeared on Moneytized.

 Why this guide, why now?

People who have been following this blog, might thing that this post is very basic and that people who are in the internet marketing niche, should already own a blog. The truth is that even though some people know advanced marketing tactics, when it comes to setting up their blog, they’re feeling lost. And that’s what this guide tries to accomplish, make it much easier for them to start. If you have a friend that constantly asks you more information on how they should start, give them this guide, it will help them a lot! So lets get started!

You can now download the iBooks version of this guide for iPad from: https://bitly.com/create-blog-ebook

Choosing what domain name to buy

It’s by far the most important decision that you are required to take in this whole guide (or at least one of the most important ones) because your main domain name will be with you for as long as you’re into internet marketing or feel like sharing your thoughts with the rest of the world.

Helping you choose a domain name.

Finding a domain name can be such a hard task that can take anywhere from a few minutes to several months. Why? Because switching domain names is not something wise to do and because you’re going to spend so much time in promoting and branding it that it would be a pity not to be something you love typing everyday!

Domain rules and how to find the best domain name for your needs.

If your website or store is a global one, targeting people from all over the world, then you MUST buy a dot com domain name. It’s not something that if you don’t, you’re doomed, but it’s the best practice to do and at the same time it’s so much easier for someone to remember the name that it’s a must. When someone asks what the domain of a service is, it’s so common for a site to be a dot com that most people don’t hear the part after the dot.

If your niche or target audience is local (and you’re not a US citizen) you should buy a local domain extension. In my country, that would be the .gr. This is why the domain extension plays a very important role in Google when it comes to where it will let you rank. So if you’re planning to sell products in Greece and your audience are Greek people you MUST get a .gr extension.

TIP TO REMEMBER: If you buy a .com domain you can later on specify a country that you want to target from the Google Webmaster tools but if you have a localized domain name you can’t! So the rule of thumb is that if you are not sure where the road will take you, always get a .com and take it from there.

If it’s the domain of your business, you’re lucky, it has to be “businessname”.com. If it’s not available, check what the current owner is doing with it and try to obtain it from them. If that’s not possible, then you will have to improvise. It’s not the end of the world, since if the owner of the business name.com hasn’t actively promoted the domain, in a matter of a month you will be able to surpass them in the search results even if their domain is the exact name of your business. Try to think of a combination that doesn’t make the name too long, try to find something to add before or after the company name in order for it to still sound natural but at the same time stay professional. Something like mybuzinessname+inc.com or something like that. If nothing works out for you, go with the .biz extension.

Things to avoid: Avoid by all means any hyphen (-) or numbers in your domain name. Especially if your brand doesn’t have a number attached to it, your domain will look spammy. Sure you can make it happen even with a number on the domain but just because there are exception this doesn’t mean this is the rule.

If it’s the domain name of a personal blog or a niche blog, then things get more complicated, just because your options are endless!

Golden Rules when searching for the perfect domain name:

Use your own name, if it’s a blog that brands yourself as an expert or it’s a personal blog. Should be a no no if you have a very strange name or if your name is darn long like mine (Angelos Papaioannidis) is. If it’s catchy then by all means go for it!

Try to play with words. For example, the idea for the domain moneytized.com came to me after searching for at least three to four months for a domain name and could’t get with something good. The original word is monetize, but since the blog would be about internet marketing, why not play with the word and add a y to it making it moneytized? And that’s how the blog was born. ;)

Use keywords! Google says it no longer plays an important role in search engine rankings, but it still does. Not directly from the name; but if your name is bestwordpressthemes.com that’s how people will also link to you. ;) Don’t take it to the extreme, using a silly name just to fit as many keywords as possible (that would be a worthless domain) but you get the point.

Try to be evergreen. Even if it’s a niche domain you want to buy, try to stay evergreen, meaning make sure that your domain will stay relevant for the years to come. Example: When I was looking out for a domain for a WordPress theme reviewing site, I ended up with TopCMSThemes.com because WordPress is so dominant that it would be really good to have a domain with the WordPress keyword in it but at the same time, you never know if in five years a new CMS won’t be created and crush all the competition. So to stay on the safe side I picked the CMS keyword for my domain and now I’m sure that no matter what happens I’m ok and I won’t have to start from scratch.

And what best aid to to help us find a great domain but some tools!

First off, you will need an instant domain search, a tool that immediately tells you if a domain is available as you type without a page reloading. That’s a great time-saver. Instant Domain Search is one of the best in this category.

Keyword Combinators

The following tools are great when it comes to domain research including a keyword. You can enter your main keyword or something close to the perfect domain for you and they will suggest domains. Most of the times, the domains will be not of high quality but you might also spot the perfect 10!

The best ones are Domain Groovy, Domains Bot, Name Tumbler and NX Dom.

If the above tools can’t help you find the perfect domain for you, here comes Wordoid! A tool that will create domain names that have no real meaning, but sound awesome! Try it; you will be amazed ;)

And again, if you’re out of luck, use Name Station. You can create a competition by paying $30 (last time I used it) and people start suggesting privately to you domain names to use. When creating the competition try to be as descriptive as possible so people will get a good idea of what you’re looking for. More than 20 people will suggest great domain names for you and you just have to select the winning one, register the domain and announce the winner.

You might ask, why someone would go into all that trouble of trying to find for me a domain name? Every time they suggest a good domain for you they get some points and when you select a domain name as a winner, they get a good cut from that $30. Clearly if you feel stuck and can’t select a good domain, it’s the best solution because no bot or machine can work better than many people trying to brainstorm on a single idea.

You have to try it, we were stunned with the ideas. ;)

When you find a great domain name that sounds amazing and fits your attitude, it’s time to register it!

Registering a domain name!

Go to GoDaddy and let’s gets started with the process.

Note: Most hosts also offer free domain registration with your purchase but we’ll go to GoDaddy nevertheless. We do this because we don’t want to mix up web hosting with the domain. If you ever want to change your host, it is not that easy to transfer the domain from the old host to a new one, so the best thing we can do is to save ourselves from the trouble and just spend $10 more for the first year.

Type the domain you’ve found into the big search box and see if it’s actually available.

If you see it available, it’s time to buy it!

Add it to the cart and continue to registration.

One ugly thing about GoDaddy is the number or up-sells they try to push to your cart. Don’t know, maybe they’re making a lot of money by offering everything possible to checkout, and they don’t care if they lose clients due to lack of usability of the site. Anyways, enough with my rant! When you try to continue to registration, a pop-over will appear and will suggest that you should buy more extensions of that domain name. You don’t really want that since you have the .com. Click the “no thanks” button as shown below. You might also click the “don’t show this again” option too.

Enter your real information because in rare cases you might be asked for verification even years later, and failing to provide the correct information might make you lose the domain.

Next comes the registration length. Most of the times, GoDaddy suggests for you to buy it for 2-5 years but let’s change it now to one year and see if you stick with it. You can always add more years to your registration later on, so why the rush?

Click “next” in the next screen as shown below; nothing of importance here.

And again… Don’t worry, we’re near the end ;)

On the following screen, make sure that everything is as it should be and click “continue” to check out.

Since you’re a new customer, you should add all your information and then continue to checkout.

Select your preferred payment method and complete your order by entering all the relevant data and placing your order.

And we’re done! You should be able to see the following screen on your computer.

And make sure that you have received the confirmation email at your email address.

And we’re all set! Now comes the hosting. ;)

Get your hosting account

It’s time to go to HostGator and purchase a hosting account to tie it up with our domain name.

Click on the web hosting plans and check out the different options.

You are presented with different options. Their only actual difference is the domain’s number and the dedicated IP options. Everything else is the same.

If you’re planning to own only one domain, then you should go with Hatchling. You won’t need something more expensive.

If you need to at least have two or more domains, select the Baby plan, and last but not least, if you need to host many websites (personal, business etc.) on the same hosting account, go for Business. The big difference is that you will own your own personal IP address and you won’t be associated with any other sites that might be on the same IP address as you are. This is not something crucial but in the long run it’s something you should check and see what other websites are hosted in the same IP, together with yours.

Note: Select your preferred option and see what payment you will want to make. The longer you preorder, the better price you will get per month from Hostgator. I’d suggest not to prepay three years: go for six months or something close to that.

After you click “order now”, you will be presented with the following screen:

Select the right column and type the domain name you purchased some minutes ago.

Select the desired package, billing cycle and enter all personal and payment information as seen in the image below.

And that’s it, you’re done buying hosting too! :)

After some minutes you will receive an email from HostGator. If you don’t, fret not! You will most probably get a call on the number you have provided in the registration and be asked about your information. They sometimes need to verify your information by calling you so that they avoid fraudulent orders.

In the email that you will receive, pay attention to the nameservers as you will be asked to add them on GoDaddy for the next step.

Login to your GoDaddy account and select the domains tab, then the domain management option as shown below.

Click your domain name and on the following screen,

go to the name servers section and click on edit.

A popover will appear and you just have to select the last option and enter the name servers that came to your email with your HostGator registration. Then click OK.

That’s it! Now you have a domain name, a hosting account and you have tied them up together!

You will need to wait for a couple of hours at least, for the changes to take effect. Go make some coffee, take a walk and try in a bit.

Installing WordPress from your HostGator panel.

To make sure that the GoDaddy domain and HostGator account are connected, go to your-domain-name.com/cpanel

and see if you are presented with the following screen:

If you do, you’re ready to go! Add the username and password you got from the HostGator email and you will see the main CPanel screen. That’s your main administration area. If you feel overwhelmed with all the options, don’t worry, we’re not going to spend a lot of time here, so let’s move.

Select the “Fantastico” icon as shown in the image below:

Fantastico is an application that easily lets you install many scripts. We’ll go with WordPress. Select WordPress and Click on “new installation” as shown below.

From the dropdown menu, select your domain and just add a Username (usually Admin) and a password for your WordPress installation. Then just add a site name (don’t worry you can change it anytime) and a description of your site.

Click Install.

Click on Finish installation

And that’s it! If you now open a new tab in your browser and go to the domain you bought, you will see the default page of WordPress. And you’re all done! It’s time to celebrate your victory because believe me, the first time I did this, I got a headache… It’s one of the most important steps you need to take and you can rest for the day, knowing that you made the best choices.

You now are a proud website owner, enjoy! (…at least until the next back to basics post). ;)

Ps. We have decided to post this guide as an ebook on iTunes and we are now live! Would love it if you could check it out. After all, it’s free. ;) You can download the book by clicking the link: http://bit.ly/create-blog-ebook

And there are many digital marketing companies like seo one click, who will create websites in attractive look and with the updated features. If you are an advanced user, we would like your feedback and would be glad if you could send the book to a friend that can benefit from it.

The post Back to Basics: How To Create Your Own Blog From Scratch first appeared on Moneytized.