The Interview Series: Spotlight on Alyssa Joy

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Alyssa Joy

Tell me a little about you and your company.

Hi! I’m Alyssa, owner and lead creative over at www.alyssajoypd.com where I specialize in helping creatives, small businesses and non-profits beautify their brand from start to finish! I offer full branding packages, Squarespace web design, and custom styled stock photography and just recently launched my stock photography shop! I really love getting to know my clients, I believe that’s the best approach to design the perfect brand just for them - and well who doesn’t like making a new friend along the way?!

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An Intro to Google Analytics and the Ecommerce Sales Equation

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An Intro to Google Analytics and the Ecommerce Sales Equation

Google Analytics is a reporting tool that allows you to track your website visitors and their behavior on your site. You can use a different software to track this information, but it's important that you track it somehow. If you manage a large site with significant web traffic and more detailed ecommerce capabilities, you might want to look into an enterprise software like IBM Digital Analytics (formerly Coremetrics) or Adobe's SiteCatalyst. For small business website data analysis, I like Google Analytics. It's easy to use and free if have an account with Google.

Design Your Content Writing Process

Design Your Content Writing Process

If you create consistent content for your website and social media posts, you know how time consuming it can be. If you design a process and develop a schedule, you can make copy writing and content creation easier and faster. Here are some suggestions that you can implement to streamline your content writing. Use these tips to design a process that works for you.

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Wendy Zook

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Wendy Zook

Tell me a little about you and your company.

I took the long road to get where I think I was always meant to be. I left attempted careers and 60-hour work weeks in journalism and hospitality to stay at home with my two children (Zack is now 5 and Addie is now 3) about two years ago. I realized I was missing too many bedtimes and milestones and was just too burnt out to feel like a good mom and wife on my days off, so we took a risk and it's been just fantastic. However, I soon realized that despite stay-at-home-mom being one of the most intense jobs imaginable, I still craved a little creativity and an outlet and so I started to reemerge myself into my passion for photography. I found that, much like in my past careers, lifestyle photography allowed me to still tell stories and freeze time. I love capturing memories for my couples and families and I am so ecstatic when a stranger says they feel like they know the people in my images -- that's what Wendy Zook Photography is all about to me.

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Do I Need a Digital Marketing Strategy?

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Do I Need a Digital Marketing Strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is a plan to increase brand awareness or grow sales using digital channels. Digital channels include everything from your own website and email campaigns to social media and blogs. A good digital marketing strategy helps you reach your customers wherever they want to interact with you by providing several opportunities to learn about, interact with, and possibly even purchase from your business. You can hire a marketing pro to create your digital marketing strategy as part of a larger marketing plan or on its own. Either way, your professional will most likely provide you with a comprehensive plan that leverages your website, email list, social media, and outreach.

Research Keywords in Google Adwords: A Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners

Research Keywords in Google Adwords: A Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners

When you write content for your site, it's important to use the right keywords to help search engines and customers find your business. If you need more information about that you can read 'What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?' and 'Why Does Content Matter in Digital Marketing?' for details about how SEO works and the how your content can be used in other aspects of your marketing. A good SEO firm will provide very strong keywords for your business, but you can get most of the way there on your own if you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn how to research your keywords and do so often enough to implement changes to your site as needed.

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Patricia Talavera and SYT Biz

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Patricia Talavera and SYT Biz

Tell me a little about you and your company.

Save Your Time Biz Solutions is a family company, the team is made up of me, my twin sister Lily and my husband Boshwell. We help women entrepreneurs play in their zone of genius. We free up their time by taking over the web design piece of their biz so they don’t have to stress over something they don’t know. When you ‘don’t know,’ leave it to the experts, we say. 

This way, our clients have the time to work with their dream clients doing the type of work that they really love. Oh and they impact change that way...no small deal. This gives our clients the added bonus of being able to finally implement those BIG ideas they’ve been dreaming about. Those grand schemes can now become reality.

What Is a Pitch? Why Do I Need a Pitch?

What Is a Pitch? Why Do I Need a Pitch?

A pitch isn't just about sales. A pitch is a way of telling your story. More than that, your pitch should be authentic and tell your story in a way that compels others to learn more about your brand and your business, but also shows your excitement about your products and services. If you are truly excited about your business, that will show. You cannot fake genuine enthusiasm.

You need a pitch because a good pitch will engage your audience and make them want to do business with you. Your pitch will help determine whether you get media placement, customers, and possibly investors.

Review Your Product and Service Assortment

Review Your Product and Service Assortment

Your assortment is made up of the products and services that you offer your customers. Some industries require frequent product line adjustments, but most large products and services companies review their assortment annually. Through the product assortment review process, you can determine which products and services in your offering no longer meet the needs of your customers, which items are your best sellers, and where you might be able to alter your pricing to maximize your profit on your current offering.

The Interview Series: Spotlight on All Fired Up in Florida

The Interview Series: Spotlight on All Fired Up in Florida

Tell me a little about you and your company.

All Fired Up In Florida provides hand-made functional art in kilns.  This includes glass and clay media.  I got started in this when I was barely 20 as a way to take a break from two teeny children one night a week for just a couple hours.  My mom had a kiln and taught ceramics.  She taught me some of the most important things I needed to know about the art.  I find myself still calling her for advice to this day.  I don’t do much ceramics, or slip-casting, but I do some because there is still demand for some of those old retro items or items that are easier to cast by mold than throw on a wheel or build from hand.  I spend a large amount of time doing hand-building or creating pottery completely by hand or on a pottery wheel.  In addition, I create fused glass items in the kiln.  Nearly all of the items I make are functional for the home.  I never get tired of what I do because there are so many different aspects and new areas to explore.  I’m constantly experimenting with new techniques. 

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What Social Media Should I Use to Promote My Business?

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What Social Media Should I Use to Promote My Business?

Social Media planning is important for any entrepreneur or small business trying to build a following for their products and services. If you know how and where to spend your time and create a social media strategy around your business, you can leverage your social media presence to increase your brand awareness and grow your audience. If you operate without a strategy, you can waste valuable time and resources on a platform that does nothing for your business.

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Rose Valley Textiles

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Rose Valley Textiles

Rose Valley Textiles is an art & design studio offering decorative fabric designs for interiors and home decor.  My name is Brittany and I am the Creative Director. As a textile designer, I have an affinity for exceptional quality textile materials and sustainable manufacturing practices. My color palettes are refined; my patterning references traditional textiles with a modern twist.  

Launch with Less: What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

Launch with Less: What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

The idea to create a minimum viable product comes from the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. We covered the book in my entrepreneurship course in graduate school (one of my favorite courses) and I do recommend reading The Lean Startup if you plan to launch your product to the market using a test-and-learn or agile methodology.

The concept behind developing a minimum viable product is fairly simple. Develop a pared-down version of your offering and launch it to the market before you are ready so that you can solicit feedback from your audience about how to improve your offering, while also making some money to reinvest into your business. 

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Name Your Business for Growth

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Name Your Business for Growth

Choosing a name for your business can seem like a daunting task. However, if you plan ahead and choose a name for the future of your business, you can save yourself time and effort. One of the most difficult decisions that creative entrepreneurs struggle with when choosing a name is whether to name their company or brand after themselves. Before you name your company, think about your long-term goals for the business. Your long-term goals should help you determine how you name your brand. Do you want to be a small one-man shop? Do you want to be a multi-national corporation? Most business owners want to be somewhere in the middle.

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Tumbleweed Apothocary

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Tumbleweed Apothocary

Tell me a little about you and your company.

Tumbleweed Apothecary started on a walk—we were discussing the various plants around us and how we would use them to improve our lives and the lives of our families, however, this gave us pause. We are both herbalists, we know about plant medicine and how to combine it with nutrition to enrich our personal lives (and those of our loved ones), but not everyone knows how easy, accessible, and life changing plant medicine can be. So we set out to create a business that could not just support our health, but the health of our various communities. 

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Review Your Marketing Efforts and Plan for Next Year

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Review Your Marketing Efforts and Plan for Next Year

Tracking your marketing campaigns while they run is always a good idea. Tracking campaigns allows you to make changes midstream, especially for social media and other digital campaigns. It is also a good idea to compare all of your campaigns at the end of the year to measure the results against one another and determine what you want to run again v. what was not beneficial. December is a great time to review what worked and didn’t work in your marketing for the current year and to create a plan for the year ahead. If you do the comparison review first, you can use the things you learned this year to make next year even better for your business.

I Have a Great Product Idea! How Do I Get Started?

I Have a Great Product Idea! How Do I Get Started?

If you have an idea for a product that you would like to take to market, you can get started by creating a prototype and testing it with your potential customers. Showing the product to friends and family might be fun, but in the end, your customers will be the ones to make a purchase and will offer the best feedback to optimize your products for sale. Once you have created a prototype and adjusted it for feedback, test it again. You do not necessarily need to test your product for years, but you might go through three or four iterations of your product before you launch it to the market. 

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Three Feathers Design

The Interview Series: Spotlight on Three Feathers Design

Tell me a little about you and your company.

I am a mom of two little kids, a wife, surfer and designer. My company is Three Feathers Design and I help creative entrepreneurs build kick ass brands. 

How long have you owned your own business?

It is coming on 2 years, but I just recently started working full-time for myself, up until recently I had a part-time job - to pay the bills and provide a little security while I built my business. 

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Create a Content Calendar

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Create a Content Calendar

Creating content for your business on a regular basis is incredibly important for SEO and provides more choices for you marketing messages. Google and other search engines reward businesses that publish content on a consistent basis. Consistency helps these search engines understand that your business is an authority on your subject matter. Creating content on a regular basis also helps to establish your reliability as a content creator and as a business in general. If you begin publishing a newsletter every Thursday, your clients and customers will come to expect your newsletters on Thursdays. 

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Create a Simple Customer Journey Map: A Step-By-Step Guide

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Create a Simple Customer Journey Map: A Step-By-Step Guide

If you sell a product or service with a long buying process, your business may greatly benefit by creating a customer or user journey map. Your map can be used to create messages that resonate with your customers at the right time in their purchasing process.

A user journey map can essentially be broken into two parts: Who are your customers? In what stage of the buying process are those customers?