RVC Design Solutions

Your startup might be lurching along without much capital, but that doesn’t mean you can drop off the grid. Your business needs social media, and, fortunately, you don’t have to drain your account to get a big boost from today’s hottest platforms. You just have to be strategic without becoming too stingy.

A joint study by Smart Insights and Clutch echoed this reality,quantifying the value of various social media platforms across organizations: 58 percent of B2C companies and 46 percent of B2B companies surveyed considered social media a worthwhile investment in time and money. But, with the number of people active on social media predicted to grow from 2 billion to 2.5 billion in 2018, those percentages are also likely to rise.

From edging out competitors to building loyalists to wooing investors, social media is an increasingly essential component of doing business today. And for an entrepreneur with a shoestring budget, all it takes to navigate this social realm is wholehearted dedication, a strong company culture and a desire to connect to your audience in a genuine way. Here’s how:

Mapping out a cheap — but killer — social media campaign

Social media is meant to be a more cost-effective way to gain publicity for any new product or service. This benefit is especially potent for startups because of how often they operate with a very limited or nonexistent marketing budget.

Moreover, a social media presence doesn’t require outside help (though outside help certainly doesn’t hurt if you can afford it!). Even founders who are busy can add a social media plan to their “to-do” lists by understanding how and why they’re using it. Or, they can designate other team members as their “social guru team” to manage their channels and their communications, so long as there’s a social media policy guideline to follow. Having at least two people on this team with the requisite credentials can help ensure that your company’s efforts are coordinated and outreach is backed up by collaboration.

That said, building a social media presence is no different than integrating any new program or system into your business. The effort takes proper planning, particularly with regard to figuring out which social channels are likely to give your company the most bang for its buck.

Entrepreneurs who are initially unsure where to focus their efforts can look to their competitors for guidance. Those businesses and leaders have already done their research, so follow their lead, understanding that their audience is your audience; and hone your strategies by utilizing the best plaforms for your bottom line.

Next? It’s your time to go live, but keep in mind these three strategies as you do:

1. Always keep your end goal in mind — regardless of platform or situation. Be sure to coordinate internally to create a voice and content style that accurately represents your organization and aligns with your other marketing materials. Will you communicate through a formal tone or informal one? Will you create videos to showcase employees or customers? Use unique photos or purchase stock images to drive links?

Spending time outlining your preferred social media interactions and how you envision your company on your chosen platforms can help you maintain your overall goals, even if the objectives shift across the various social platforms. While Facebook is the most-used social site — 79 percent of U.S. internet users log on, according to Pew Research Center — it may not be your preferred platform if your company is more B2B-oriented. At the same time, you should be certain that you have the manpower to achieve your vision.

For instance, if you want your Twitter account to serve as a customer service arm, you’ll need an employee to monitor that account and react to concerns humanely and in real time. You can use United Airline’s 2017 passenger-dragging fiasco as a guide on “What not to do in a crisis situation.” Specifically, appearing to be (or being) tone-deaf to a public-relations disaster is the quickest way to lose in the social media game.

2. Engage in actual conversations with your audience. How many nameless, faceless corporations can social media take? If you’re simply posting, knock it off and start engaging. Reply and comment to build a community. Otherwise, you’ll be viewed as senseless chatter or too robotic.

Take Cisco’s creative @WeAreCisco drives, for example. Cisco uses its own employees and their journeys to connect with up-and-coming talent from colleges and even high schools. The company went as far as to pilot a #WeAreCisco hashtag program on Snapchat that’s run by Kitten Rainbow Unicorns, a special team devoted to evangelizing Cisco’s messages.

Still, keep in mind that the more often you plan to post, the more it will cost, even if you cover everything in-house. After all, time is money, and while consistency is essential to ensure you retain followers’ interests, it’s much more important to predetermine and then stick to a degree and manner of posting that you can teach your audience to expect. Are you going to be the company offering daily informational updates, weekly announcements or just those occasional quirky tidbits?

3. Never stop evolving, which also means acknowledging when you mess up. Eventually, you may find that your social presence has become a bit rote and complacent. But, as your organization evolves, your social media presence must, too.

Merrill Lynch is a great example of this evolution. The company added GIFs, infographics, real-time newsworthy remarks, polls, and more to its Twitter account, making @MerrillLynch a coveted handle and a company that isn’t afraid to push boundaries in an industry not known for its quickness to change.

Being willing to evolve, though, inevitably means embracing proactivity and social spontaneity. While this spontaneity may sometimes be right on the money, sometimes it won’t be. Thus, if and when you take a wrong step, admit your mistakes and rectify that wrong (however impactful it is) by being human. When McDonald’s messed up a Black Friday tweet by not having any content, for instance, the brand roasted itself quickly, even though it knew it would be mocked by competitors, especially Wendy’s, with its own snarky Twitter persona.

Overall, entrepreneurs have a lot to balance and often little to work with. But negating social media simply because you don’t have the marketing budget that can support a full-fledged program isn’t a good strategy. Social media is, by its nature, cost-effective, and entrepreneurs who prioritize their organizations’ end goals, act socially and evolve their companies’ presence while remaining human, can capitalize on these platforms without breaking their budgets. So, get started posting, because #IfNotNowThenWhen?

Ari Rabban

In the hours following the announcement from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday that the social network wanted to focus more on “meaningful interactions” between people, pandemonium struck in the business world.In Facebook’s effort to reduce news feed noise, posts from friends and family now have even more priority over posts originating from Business Pages, including ads.

If you run a business on Facebook, you’re affected by this news feed update Mark Zuckerberg announced last week. With a reduction in organic reach for content that originates from brands, small businesses and news publishers, it will become even harder to share important information without venturing into paying for Facebook ads.

So who is most impacted by this update? Small business.

With less news feed space available for public content, videos and posts from smaller Facebook Pages may continue to see a decline in reach, a valuable tool for those with smaller marketing budgets. But that doesn’t have to be the case.

As owner of The Ad Strategist, we’ve created and analyzed content (organic and paid) that’s made it into the timeline of millions of Facebook users. My prediction is that certain businesses will get hit hard and be forced to use Facebook ads to show content to their audience. Yet for other businesses, they will continue to evolve and dominate their markets by focusing on engagement and connection, the main facets of this week’s update.

Here are four free strategies you can immediately do in your business to survive this recent update.

1. Focus on measuring and improving your content performance. 

Use the Insights tab to discover which content is performing on a Facebook Page.To know which type of content gets the most engagement (and therefore will play favorably into the algorithm), look at the Engagement Rate of each post.

We’ll compare these two recent posts from my own Facebook Page where I went live to break news of this update.

To calculate this, add your Total Engagement and divide by your Total Reach.

In our example, post no. 1 has a 16.6 percent engagement rate. Post no. 2, which has an exponentially higher reach, only saw an 8.5 percent engagement rate.. This is an indication that your audience may like to see more content similar to post no. 1.

Calculate this for your top posts to find the similarities and patterns. Learn which post style works best for your audience: link, video, text or image. Double down in the content types that are working and getting great results. This will grow your Custom Engagement Retargeting audiences and make advertising on Facebook cheaper in the long run.

2. Create a livestream strategy

In their announcement, Facebook shares data around livestreaming.

Now is the time to make livestream a part of your social marketing strategy.

The key here is getting started. Brainstorm creative ways that you could showcase your brand:

• Is there a unique way you make your products? Livestream it.
• Did an exciting new industry update just happen? Livestream it.
• Is your practice a fun and educational place for patients? Livestream it.

Most people are worried they need to say or do something prolific. That’s not the case. Be you, show brand personality, and go live.

Then review which topics are resonating with your audience most using the Engagement Rate calculation above.

Related: Why Boosting Your Facebook Posts Is Just Throwing Money Down the Drain

3. Prioritize community

When you post on Facebook, act like a human. Don’t automate your efforts with third-party tools like schedulers or content recyclers. Be present and SOCIAL on your Facebook Page.

Facebook’s algorithm “uses signals like how many people react to, comment on or share posts to determine how high they appear in News Feed,” according to the update.

Make it easier for the algorithm to push your content to more people with Engagement Looping where you create open loops by using open ended questions to spur conversation on your posts. Just make sure you are active, too.

How? Encourage meaningful conversation on your Facebook posts.

Keep the conversation going by asking questions and referring to other experts or community members:

Now you’ve empowered your audience to use your Facebook Page as a community (and not just a broadcast tool). People will return to the discussion through notifications and shows the algorithm that your content is relevant to reach a wider audience.

4. Ask your audience to prioritize your posts

The last step to ensure people see your content is to enable the See First feature in News Feed Preferences.

Ask your audience to mark your Facebook Page as See First by updating their Following preferences directly on your page:

Under IN YOUR NEWS FEED ask them to select “See First.”
Under NOTIFICATIONS, ask them to select “On” for your events, sug Suggested Live Videos).

Related: Looking for a Cool Tool to Make Your Company Profitable? Have You Considered Facebook Live?

Reach will instantly gets a boost to these people when you publish any new content which can then signal to the algorithm that your content is relevant and timely and keep serving it up to a larger and larger audience.

Amanda Bond

One of the most important aspects of starting a company or career is building your personal brand. That’s because your reputation is a crucial part of doing business, both online and offline. Here are some reasons why it’s essential to have a personal brand.

1. Building trust.

If people plan to talk to you, work with you or buy from you, they’re going to check you out online. Having a personal brand means they can easily find you online, get you know you before they meet you, and learn what differentiates you from the competition.

It’s great to have your own website, preferably with your full name as the domain, so people can search for the person behind the company. Join the social networks your customers frequent the most, and publish content from your point of view. This helps create trust and authority, which can lead to eventually becoming a thought leader.

2. Making better connections.

People don’t connect with companies; they connect with the people behind the companies, so showing your human side with a personal brand will result in better business. More and more, people want to know your values before they commit to becoming customers or partners.

A personal brand puts those values out there for the world to see. This will help you make the connections that you want and increase your ability to work with and network with the right people. And it will help you earn more revenue, too.

3. Increasing content visibility.

The stronger your personal brand, the more people will see, share and respond to your content. When WPBeginner launched, we started with a handful of dedicated readers. Now that more people know what we’re about, we have more than 600,000 email subscribers, and people reference our WordPress tutorials all the time.

The truth is, even if you’re not paying attention, you already have a personal brand. Since you’re going to be found online anyway, you might as well take control. Here’s how to start creating your personal brand the right way.

Related: 6 Famous Entrepreneurs Who Show How Your Personal Brand Powers Deal Flow

Do a “vanity” search.

Although it’s called a vanity search, I see it as a sound business practice to know what’s showing up about you in search results. Google your name, both with and without quotes, in an incognito or private browser window, and you’ll see what everyone who finds you online can see.

If you’re happy with the results, then at least part of your personal branding job is already done. If not, then you have some remedial work to do to make sure what shows up does you credit.

Start a blog.

If you don’t have a blog, then it’s time to start one. And if you have a blog that you’re ignoring, it’s time to blog more regularly. Search engines love blog content. That’s one reason why a blog is at the heart of your brand, giving life to all your other online outposts.

You want to be proud of the content you publish because it’s a reflection of you. Put your best content foot forward whenever you post. Mix your personal thoughts, your achievements and trending stories with helpful topics for a well-rounded content plan that will enhance your online reputation and will give people a reason to pay attention to you.

Grab your social handles (and make them match).

One mistake I made early on was buying the wrong domain name for my personal website. Sure, it was my last name and initial, but the problem was that nobody recognized me because I was using my full name as my handle on all social media sites.

Eventually, I had to buy a new domain name, SyedBalkhi.com, so that everything matched up. Now, people know exactly who they’re dealing with, no matter where they find me online, and that builds trust. One last tip on social media — use the same avatar and cover image wherever you can, so that you become a recognizable online presence.

Related: 5 Signs You Need to Start Building Your Personal Brand

Be active and helpful.

Don’t let your online presence exist on autopilot. Work actively to make it better by:

• Participating in online discussions related to your business, whether that’s within a LinkedIn or Facebook group, or a Twitter chat.
• Curating the information you share online so it reflects your values.
• Looking for opportunities to be helpful. You don’t have to launch a whole website as I did. You can start by being responsive to questions.
• Taking part in two-way communication, rather than just broadcasting.

I firmly believe that having a personal brand has helped me win customers, get speaking gigs, make high-profile connections and earn lots of revenue. In fact, it would be hard to grow my business without it.

Syed Balkhi

As your business grows and you become more successful, it’s natural that other entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their business will reach out to you. There is nothing wrong with asking questions if the approach is made properly.

As you have probably seen, the approaches tend to be sloppy. Social media has created a tremendous opportunity by giving us access to successful people who can help us, but there’s a good way and a bad way to network on social media.

Your time becomes increasingly important to you as you grow. You will have less free time, so you have to think through every appointment and call you agree to take. Requests for your time from your audience will become increasingly more frequent. If you give in, you won’t have time for what you should be doing to grow your business. You will have to say “no” a lot more but not feel bad about it.

There will be four times of requests that come through email, social media, and even text. Here’s how you respond.

1. “Can I Pick Your Brain?”

This request will be the most frequent. You will get messages asking to pick your brain and/or pick your brain about a certain topic. It sounds easy enough and because you’re a good person, you want to help. You might start by answering a few questions but this request can easily become a black hole. Also, if you have paying clients that spend money to pick your brain, it isn’t fair to them that you let others do it for free. You can say no and still be a good person. Remember how important your time is.

The way you respond to the pick your brain request is to point the person to your free content. Point them to your articles, blog posts, podcast interviews, YouTube videos and any other place where you release free content. You produce this free content for this very reason—to help people and to help people who can’t afford your services right now. You can send them a specific link or point them in the right direction.

Tell them your free content is how they can pick your brain. If they want specific questions answered, you have to be paid for your time and knowledge. If you want to go beyond and help people for free, you can do a Facebook Live Q&A session or a group call through Zoom to answers many questions instead of doing it individually. People can go back and watch the recording and probably hear their specific question being answered.

Related: How to Recognize Your Biggest Weaknesses As a Leader (and Why You Should)

2. “Let’s connect/network.”

This request sounds innocent enough but the problem is that it’s too vague. “Connect or network” can mean getting on a call, picking your brain, a joint venture or 10 other things. It is a request that will eat up your time and/or require some of the knowledge that clients pay you for.

The way you respond to this request is to ask for clarification on exactly what the person is looking for. Tell them to be specific so you can best figure out what works for both of you. If they tell you they just want to get to know you or if they say they were hoping to discuss a joint venture, you make the decision that best works for your time and business.

Networking and connecting are great if it makes sense for where you are and your goals. Saying no is okay.

Request: How Smart People Work Less and Get More Done

3. “Let’s trade/barter.”

This request is an offer to exchange services or knowledge. This is something that’s commonly done when someone is starting out or they see an opportunity to make an equal trade. For this type of arraignment to work, it has to be mutually beneficial for both parties and both parties have to understand the value of what is being offered.

If you don’t see the value in what is being proposed, it is okay for you to say no. The way to respond to this request is to evaluate whether or not what is being offered makes sense for you. It might not or you might not see the value in what the other person is offering. This isn’t to say there is no value in their offer—just that it doesn’t make sense for you.

Related: 9 Telltale Signs That It’s Time To Quit Your Job

4. “You should do something for me because I’m a big deal.”

This type of request comes in as a message from someone who is looking for something. They want you to write about them, hire them, recommend them, or something else. They send you a message talking about all the things they’ve done and how big of a deal they are. The message is meant to say that they’re so amazingly awesome that it would be a privilege to do something for them.

The way you respond to this request is to ignore it. You can start a conversation trying to bring them back from the clouds but it’s not worth your time. If the message is from someone you want to connect with, that’s a different story, but if it’s an unsolicited bragging pitch, it’s easy to bypass it and move on with life.

Related: How Successful People Stay Productive and In Control

You will get these requests and many more as you grow your business. Your audience and customers will want more of your time but you have to be careful. You started a business to create freedom in your life and to be in control of your schedule. Don’t let anyone else take control by demanding your time and knowledge. Know your worth and make decisions accordingly.

Kimanzi Constable

Reportedly, 83 percent of marketers consider email their primary lead generation channel. While email marketing can be a cost-effective way to reach new prospects and stay in touch with existing customers, its popularity as a marketing tactic demands that you understand how to optimize your email campaigns in order to cut through the clutter.

Here are some important email marketing tips to keep in mind when you design your next email marketing campaign.

The day of delivery matters.

The “best time” to send emails depends on your unique product/service, customer base and content, but there are some general best practices email marketers can use to optimize when their campaigns arrive in inboxes. Based on the email provider’s analysis of billions of email campaigns, it found that emails sent on Thursdays generally receive the highest amount of opens, followed closely by those sent on a Tuesday. With the exception of campaigns promoting hobby and recreational content, its data indicates that weekends are the least ideal time to send an email marketing campaign.

Time your campaigns carefully.

The type of content your email marketing campaign promotes dictates the time of day it arrives in your inbox, too. MailChimp’s data suggests that:

• Email with recreational content gets a better-than-average response when delivered on the weekend, as do some email marketing campaigns promoting retail and hobby-related content.
• Hobby-related content email marketing responses are optimized when messages are delivered between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.; retail-related email content is most impactful when it arrives in inboxes between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Both data points suggest that B2C content may most likely be read when it’s in the recipient’s inbox before the traditional work day begins.
• Government and nonprofit email marketing efforts tend to perform best when sent on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Spend time crafting the perfect subject line.

Your email’s subject line acts as the headline that will entice a prospect to open your email, or cause them to delete it. Some experts recommend subject lines that lead with actionable language (using words such as “save,” “learn,” “take” and “see”). When you eliminate nouns and pronouns, your subject line is concise but impactful: Tell recipients exactly what your email can offer them and why they’ll benefit from opening it.

Segment your email lists.

Personalized content is key to a successful email marketing campaign. It may begin with communicating that you know the person’s name, but it also demands that you consistently send relevant content and offers that match their interests based on their search history on your website, past responses to your other email messages and purchase history. Your email copy should address these points, and focus on second-person language (you, yours) that puts the customer front and center throughout the campaign.

While it takes time and strategy to segment and manage a targeted email marketing list, it’s worth the investment. According to one study, the majority of respondents said most of their email marketing campaigns are intended to drive either revenue or customer engagement, and that segmented and targeted email campaigns generate nearly 60 percent of their email marketing-related revenue.

Test your emails before you send.

According to Litmus.com, more than half of all email messages were opened on a mobile device in 2015. In addition to ensuring emails can be opened and read as clearly on a mobile device as a traditional computer screen, test the appearance and functionality of your emails in various email clients to ensure that they look as you intend (before you hit send). Litmus reports that while Apple iPhone, Gmail, Apple iPad, Android and Apple Mail are the most popular email clients this year, Outlook remains popular as well.

Email marketing can be an effective way to drive business, but it requires that you invest time into a strategy aimed at the right people with the right messages at the right time. Incorporate these best practices into your next email marketing campaign to improve its impact, and ideally, the ROI you see from it.

Kristen Gramigna

I’m a firm believer that creativity is a finite resource and something that needs to be replenished at regular intervals before it’s gone.

We all know that designer or copywriter who ignored the ‘red light’ signal until they drained themselves and crashed. Either their work quality drops off or they start drawing blanks in client meetings. It takes a long time to recharge and recover from that, if they ever do.

Our industry is working faster than ever and there is no time for reflection. Projects come thick and fast with minimal time to fill up on new ideas.

Be a sponge

Creatives need to act like sponges, they need to soak up what’s around them all the time. You never know what will be useful. Now, this isn’t a moan about there being less time to get work done. In fact, I think many talented creatives thrive in fast-paced, high-pressure environments. But when you’re taking projects from brief to roll-out as quickly as we do, it’s important to understand how your creative process works.

So, in the interest of self-preservation and sanity I’ve learned to identify the ‘trigger points’ that spark creativity in myself. Some of what works for me may either be obvious or counter-productive to other people, but the point is being able to turn creativity into a process allows me to be more effective and efficient at work, without unnecessarily exhausting myself.

• Go big – I never think about ‘the project’ when I start working on an idea. I go straight for the most wild ideas with no regard for cost or practicality and then work back from there. Once you’ve explored crazy, then daring ideas seem much more realistic.
• Zone out – My best ideas come when I’m not really thinking about the idea itself and I’m left to my own devices. It can be a tough ask when you’re in the middle of a meeting and everyone’s staring at you, but letting your mind wander can really help. There’s evidence that being tired can help creative problem solving as your inhibitions are down.
• Be social – Having someone to bounce ideas off is invaluable. Firstly, physically speaking your ideas out loud forces you to examine them closely. And secondly, another person can stop you going off on strange tangents that take you further and further from the brief.
• Bring on the wall – Like bouncing ideas off someone, putting your thoughts onto a wall lets you stand back and examine what works together and what doesn’t. Elements which don’t fit can either be tweaked or removed altogether. It’s becoming a designer cliché to stick design work up on the wall and scratch your chin, but it really does work. Just don’t photograph it happening.
• Restrict yourself – I like to know what the boundaries are. “What can’t we do?” is one of the first things I’ll ask. A restriction gives you a framework to work within and, occasionally a barrier to break down.
• Ask questions – It might sound silly but I interview myself about my ideas. I have a list of around 50 questions ranging from “How does this meet the client’s needs?” to “Have I seen this done before?” I don’t just mull these over in my head either. I write down answers to each question. If there’s an answer I don’t like I go back to the concept and work on it. It’s a little Jekyll & Hyde but it really helps.

I follow as many of these processes as possible each time I need to respond to a brief. Having a system for idea generation is vital. Taking a break and soaking up the world around you is just as important.

Rob Pratt

According to HubSpot, the third top marketing challenge for companies is the lack of budgeting resources. Unless you are a startup with venture or angel capital, you probably have a limited marketing budget. Here some ways you can market your business on a limited budget.

1. Go guerilla.

Guerilla marketing looks to leverage creativity, imagination and originality in place of a big budget. Smart small businesses with a limited budget often use guerilla marketing to compete with huge companies. There is no shortage of creative guerilla marketing ideas. Here are just a few examples:

• If you have a brick and mortar location, pay someone to create eye-catching art with chalk.
• If you sell a product that can be used on the street, employ undercover agents to promote your product directly to potential customers. For example, Sony hired agents to ask strangers to take photos of them and then raved about their camera.
• Organize a flash mob to garner crowd attention and promote awareness of your brand.

Related: How to Be Like Banksy and Reap Massive Exposure Through Guerilla Marketing

2. Socialize on social media.

According to the Pew Research Center Report of Social Media Usage: 2005-2015, nearly two-thirds of American adults use social media now. This is a near tenfold increase within the last decade.

Popular social media channels include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Snapchat. Each of these social media platforms are unique in its own right and require unique ways of engagement. Rather than try to master it all at once, choose a few you like and try to master those first.

3. Create valuable content.

Not only do potential customers love great content, but so does Google. There are many ways to share information — blogging, creating videos, hosting podcasts, designing infographics or submitting articles to online authority sites. Not only do you gain authority as an expert, but you also get free traffic. You can also offer to be a guest blogger for another complementary website or be interviewed on a podcast.

You don’t always have to produce the content yourself. You can hire freelance writers, graphic designers and personal assistants through websites like Upwork. If you run out of ideas, you can repurpose old content and give it a new spin.

4. Contests and giveaways.

Everyone loves free gifts! Give away desirable or fun items to gain goodwill, build brand awareness and connect with potential customers. They don’t need to be expensive. Things such as online ebooks, white papers and checklists don’t cost you anything but your time.

You can also promote your products through Facebook groups where members agree to try your product for free or a discounted price in exchange for an honest review. Physical gifts with your advertising on it such as balloons, smartphone wipes, key chains, fridge magnets, pens and notepads are always popular too.

You can also create a viral marketing effect by making your marketing interesting, attractive and fun. One of the craziest marketing efforts that went viral is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. People dared their friends and family to pour ice cold water on themselves within 24 hours. Those who failed to do so would then have to donate to the ALS charity.

5. Piggyback your partners.

When you are a small business with a limited marketing budget, it makes sense to partner with other complementary businesses. These can include manufacturers, suppliers and vendors. Not only do you both win when your businesses succeed, but there is added credibility when another business recommends you.

Related: The Ultimate Networking Guide: 4 Ways to Expand Your Network

As an example, you can exchange customer lists and offer to pay the business a commission for every sale you make. Just make sure that you have requested permission from your customers to share their details!

For direct mail marketing, offer to share postage costs and include your flyer with the other businesses’ mail. If the other business has a physical retail space, ask to put your business cards in their customer waiting area.

You can also seek partners within your existing customer base. Create a referral rewards program where you reward your customers for referring business to you. Word of mouth is extremely effective when it comes to marketing.

6. Leverage scalable advertising channels.

Conventional advertising mediums such as TV, radio and newspaper ads can be extremely costly and hard to measure effectiveness, but online advertising can be cheaper and more targeted. Popular options are Google Pay Per Click ads and Facebook ads. Also, don’t forget to list your business in free online directories like Google Business for Google Maps and Yelp.

You also can promote your latest products and services through these free or cost effective methods:

• A telephone message that plays your promotions while customers are on hold.
• Window decals advertising your latest offer if you have a retail shop.
• Car magnets and bumper stickers displaying your advertising while you drive around town.
• Advertising on email signatures or letterheads.
• Sending special holiday discounts, birthday coupons and surprise rewards to your mailing list.

7. Milk the media.

Getting your business featured by the media is free marketing. To capture the attention of the media, try these and invite the media to come and cover it.

• Create a publicity stunt. Think of some of the crazy ones that Richard Branson has pulled off including dressing as a female flight attendant onboard his airline.
• Do something for the community, and send out a press release prior to the event. For example, some innovative hair dressers have offered free haircuts to the homeless.
• Sponsor an event by donating your products or services as giveaways or prizes or host a contest.
• Nominate yourself for a business contest or award. If you win, even better!

You can also seek opportunities to be interviewed for print, radio and TV. To look for opportunities to contribute your expertise, sign up to an email list like Help A Reporter Out.

Related Book: Market Like You Mean It by Al Lautenslager

8. Help yourself by helping others.

All your marketing should be of some use to your audience. There are many ways that you can make your marketing efforts a welcome intrusion rather than an annoyance to your audience. Try these:

• Provide useful information. Information marketing has proven to be highly effective in increasing sales. By educating your audience on problems that they care about, you are also not only growing your customer base but also positioning yourself as the solution. To do this, host a Meetup group, an event, a class or even an online webinar. Offer to speak at events.
• Provide assistance. Answer questions posted on forums and websites like Quora and direct your audience to your website for more information. There are online directories that list a whole variety of forums such as Find A Forum.Net.
• Entertain your audience. Make them laugh or cry. Think of the funny and touching ads that you see and how quickly they are shared.

Marketing your business on a limited budget is completely possible. You just need to get creative and think out of the box.

Chris W. Dunn

THE details may vary. Americans sling their business cards casually across a table; the Japanese make the exchange of cards as elaborate as a tea ceremony. Some cards are discreet. Guangbiao Chen, a Chinese tycoon, crams his with titles such as “China earthquake rescue hero”, “Most prominent philanthropist of China”, “China’s foremost environmental preservation demolition expert” and, in case you didn’t get the message, “Most influential person of China”. But the swapping of business cards is as close to a universal ritual as you can find in the corporate world.

Business cards have been around a long time in one form or another. The Chinese invented calling cards in the 15th century to give people notice that they intended to visit. European merchants invented trade cards in the 17th century to act as miniature advertisements. They can provoke strong emotions. Nothing will provoke more discussion at a board meeting than the design of the company’s business cards, says a veteran director. In Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, “American Psycho”, the serial-killer antihero tries to impress some fellow masters of the universe with his new business card. He is crestfallen when they all whip out equally fancy ones—and aghast when one produces an absent colleague’s card, which is on thicker paper and has a watermark.

Lots of companies try to turn their cards into miniature plugs for their products. Employees at Lego give out miniature plastic figures with their contact details stamped on them. McDonald’s business cards are shaped like a portion of fries. Bon Vivant, a Brazilian cheesemonger, uses a miniature cheese-grater as its card. A Canadian divorce lawyer once gave out cards that can be torn in two—one half for each of the feuding spouses.

Such gimmicks can quickly pall—or grate, in the case of Bon Vivant’s cards. For techno-utopians, they just go to show that the physical business card is in its death throes. After all, why bother exchanging bits of thick paper at all when you can simply swap electronic versions by smartphone?

However, one can just as well argue the opposite: that business cards are here to stay, and in a blizzard of meetings and correspondence, it is more important than ever that your card stands out. Attempts to reinvent business cards for the digital age have got nowhere. Even at the trendiest of Silicon Valley tech gatherings, people still greet each other by handing out little rectangles made from dead trees rather than tapping their phones together. Facebook’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, who briefly had a business card printed with “I’m CEO, bitch”, now hands out a sensible, grown-up version.

That business cards are thriving in a digital age is a forceful reminder that there is much about business that is timeless. Take, for instance, the eternal and inescapable question of whether you can trust someone. The number of things that machines can do better than humans grows by the day. But they cannot look people in the eye and decide what sort of person they are. And they cannot transform acquaintanceships into relationships. A good deal of business life will always be about building social bonds—having dinner with people, playing sport with them, even getting drunk with them—and the more that machines take over the quantitative stuff the more human beings will have to focus on the touchy-feely.

The rapid advance of both globalisation and virtualisation means that this trust-building process is becoming ever more demanding. Managers have to work harder at establishing trust with people from different cultures: chief executives of global organisations routinely spend three out of every four weeks travelling. They also have to get better at using personal meetings to reinforce bonds that were first formed over the phone or internet.

Here, business cards are doubly useful. They can be a quick way of establishing connections, particularly in Asia, where they are something of an obsession. The Chinese are following the Japanese in treating them as semi-sacred objects. Some businessmen hand out 24-carat gold cards. Nursery-school children sometimes carry cards not only with their own contact details, but also with the job descriptions of their parents and even grandparents.

Cards can also act as a physical reminder that you have actually met someone rather than just Googled them. Rifling through piles of different cards helps to summon up memories of meetings in ways that simply looking through uniform electronic lists never would. They can even raise a smile: David Cheesewright, the boss of Walmart’s international division, hands out miniature cards made of recycled paper and emblazoned with the name “Dave”, presumably in an attempt to persuade people that, in spirit at least, Walmart is just like your friendly corner shop.

Don’t you know who I am?

Business cards are also proof of a second timeless principle—that hierarchy still matters. Management gurus such as Gary Hamel of the London Business School preach the virtues of flatter management structures. Firms like Zappos, an online shoe-shop, try to run themselves as a collegial “holacracy”. But business cards tell a different story: that someone’s job title is an essential part of his identity (even Mr Cheesewright’s jokey card leaves you in no doubt about his importance). Exchanging business cards is not just a way of sparking a conversation. It is a way of placing people correctly in the pecking-order without the embarrassment of asking them their formal title. As “wearables” go, this is a killer app.

The business world is obsessed with the notion of disruptive innovation. But there are lots of things that do not need to be disrupted or innovated. Your columnist finds paper diaries less fiddly than electronic ones. Having dinner with someone is a better way of getting to know them than Skypeing. And exchanging business cards still seems to be an excellent way to initiate a lasting relationship. The ritual swapping of paper rectangles may be old-fashioned but on it will go.

The Economist

If you are committed to happiness and success, work these into your daily routine.

We are creatures of habit. Everything we think, say and do is a result of deep-seated habits etched into our minds through years and years of repitious behavior. Those very same habits either help to propel us forward or to hinder our progress in life. In fact, the state and quality of our lives right now is a direct reflection of our daily habits.

Habits are an undeniably powerful part of life. They’re an integral part of the underlying behavioral psychology that shapes the direction of our lives. They’re so integral that a study determined that approximately 45 percent of everything we do on a daily basis is driven by our habits.

Parting ways with our bad habits and replacing them with good habits is by no means a simple task. It takes commitment, willpower and an unwavering desire to overcome our seemingly natural tendencies to think, feel, speak and act in a certain way.

Related: 10 Bad Habits You Must Eliminate From Your Daily Routine

Clearly, for those absolutely committed to things like happiness and success, habits offer the pathway to enrichment in life. They’re also the tools we use to help automate our progress towards one end or another, assisting us with the achievement of our goals and the fulfilment of our dreams.

Still, for the most part, we’re often left in the dark. We’re unsure of ourselves or where to start on the road to developing good habits. What are the best habits to have in your life when you want to succeed or be happy? Are there some that usurp others, providing some secret magical recipe for achieving life’s loftiest goals?

What are the best habits to have in life?

While any list of habits concoted might seem subjective, there are, in fact, 25 particular habits that will not only help you to succeed, financially speaking, but will also keep you healthy, happy and fulfilled in life. Focus on these 25 habits, consistently making efforts to instill them into your daily routine, and in time, your progress and momentum towards your goals will skyrocket.

1. Wake up early.

The early morning hours are a time for peaceful reflection and ample productivity, where the world is still and asleep, allowing you to focus wholeheartedly on your long-term goals. Anyone who is serious about success in any measure knows that it’s important to wake up early.

Even if you’re not a morning person, use incremental changes in your daily routine to start waking up earlier and earlier. Begin by setting your alarm clock back by 15 minutes the first week, 15 minutes the next week and so on. Do this until you can wake up at least two hours earlier than you’re waking up now.

2. Gratitude.

We spend a great deal of time immersed in our problems. But problems are also a sign of life. The only time we’ll lack problems is when we’re six feet under. And if you want to shift your focus away from your problems, you have to be grateful for what you have. Yes, even for your problems.

Gratitude is the surest pathway to health, happiness and success. It shifts our attention towards what we have rather than what we don’t have. It’s the natural abundance of simple pleasures and opportunities that we’ve been afforded with and blessed with that we often take for granted.

3. Smile.

Studies have confirmed that people who smile a genuine smile (also referred to as a Duchenne smile) are happier in life. This is one of the best habits for allowing you to find emotional, mental and spiritual peace-of-mind over time — simply by placing a smile on your face.

The physiology of our bodies dictates the psychology of our minds. When we frown or slouch or do any number of other things that convey a sense of depression and unhappiness, our mind takes those cues and runs with them. However, once we shift our outward appearance by consciously adjusting ourselves, our inward feelings follow.

4. Eat a healthy breakfast.

Breakfast is an important part of life. Yet, 31 million Americans skip breakfast every single day. And that saying you’ve heard your entire life about breakfast being the most important meal of the day? It’s 100 percent true. If you’re serious about success, eat a healthy breakfast every single morning.

This single habit doesn’t take much effort. Some planning is certainly required, and if you’re rushing out the door every morning with barely any time to spare, you might want to consider waking up earlier to ensure that you wield this habit in your own life.

5. Exercise.

One of the absolute best habits to have in life is to exercise every single day without fail. This isn’t about heavy weightlifting or running a marathon. This is about doing lightly strenuous activity to oxygenate your blood and boost the endorphins in your body.

Not only will you feel physically better when you start this habit, but you’ll also feel more motivated, have more mental clairty and be more emotionally sound. Exercise releases dopaminine, oxytocin and serotonin into the system, giving an almost euphoric effect without the usage of any drugs whatsoever.

Related: Richard Branson: To Be Successful, Take the Stairs

6. Drink water with lemon.

One habit that has monumental health benefits is to drink a large glass of water with lemon every single day. Lemons are a natural source of Vitamin C, but also possess other health benefits — such as helping with your digestion, boosting your immune system, along with cleansing and rehydrating your body.

The water itself is also an important way to flush any toxins from your system early on in the morning when you first arise. Ultimately, over time, this will also aid with things like weight loss, a reduction in any inflammations and an overall boost in energy.

7. Walk 10,000 steps.

Most people have heard about the benefits of walking at least 10,000 steps in a day. Yet, as a society, we tend to fall far short of that goal. One study, which provided shocking results of just how many steps we do take, compared that number to countries from around the world by studying participants from the U.S., Switzerland, Australia and Japan.

Americans, on average, take 5,117 steps a day. Compared to Australians, who take 9,695 steps per day, and residents of Switzerland, who take 9,650 steps per day, and those of Japan, who take 7,168 steps per day — we fall way short. Event still, this single habit is a great way to resolve our sedentary ways. Park further from the office or take the stairs when you can to help boost your daily steps.

8. Vitamins and minerals.

As a culture, we lack the necessary vitamins and minerals through our food intake. Processed and refined sugars, carbohydrates and other foods that are a staple of the American diet help to exacerbate this problem. We simply don’t get the proper nutrients our bodies need on a daily basis.

Find a good set of vitamins and minerals that you can take every day. It’s easy to ignore this healthy habit, but the feeling after weeks and months of doing this on a regular basis, is tremendous. That impact can help us to improve other areas of our lives by providing mental, emotional and physical clarity.

9. Effective time management.

An essential habit for succeeding at anything in life is effective time management. How well you manage the precious little time you have says a lot about what you can achieve. And considering that we all have the same amount of time in this world, how you leverage this resource will dictate your potential for success.

Find a good system for managing your time and implement it. This isn’t complex to do, but does require conscious and consistent effort. However, once this habit has been solidified into your daily routine, virtually anything is possible, and no goal will be too big to attain.

10. Daily goal setting.

Most people have goals. Whether it’s something to achieve in business or in life, we’re all moving in one intended direction or another. However, while long-term goals do give us direction, it’s the daily goals that we set that allow us to create short-term milestones that are integral to our success.

Long-term goals can seem overwhelming even in the best of times. But by implementing a daily goal-setting strategy, you can overcome some of the enormity associated with achieving big things in life by focusing on the one-day-at-time, short-term scenarios.

11. Inspire yourself.

It’s often difficult to stay motivated for any considerable amount of time. We get discouraged and dissuaded from our goals when things arise in life that send us on tangents and veer us off track. But one of the absolute best ways you can stay motivated in life is to inspire yourself on a daily basis.

Read, watch inspirational videos and get inspired by stories of others who have achieved their dreams. Anthony Robbins calls this your “hour of power,” but you can spend as much or as little time on this as you need. Inspiration is the pathway to achievement because what the mind can conceive, it can achieve.

12. Save and invest.

No good habit list is complete without one that calls for saving and investing. We often overlook the necessity to save for the future because we’re so busy living in the present moment. The truth is that most Americans have less than $1,000 saved up at any given moment.

But it’s not just about saving. You have to invest the money that you save, and do so wisely. The more attention you pay to this now, the more your life will be replete with financial success in the future. You should also be sure to have at least six months worth of savings in your account to stave off any potential financial calamity in the future.

Related: Why Entrepreneurs Need to Save and Invest Money

13. Budget and track expenses.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beware of little expenses, a small leak will sink a great ship.” It’s easy to lose sight of little expenses, but they add up, especially when we fail to budget. Be sure to manage all of your expenses, and sweat the small stuff, so to speak.

When it comes to sound financial habits, this is an important one to have, and one that will lend itself to your future financial success. The money saved on frivilous or extraneous expenses can be saved and invested for your future. Don’t ignore the future for sake of revelling in the present moment.

14. Learn something new.

Educate yourself, and learn something new every single day. Committ to learning and improving your life, whether it’s by acquiring new skills or enhancing the existing skills you already have. From foreign languages to software programs and apps, you should carve out a small amount of time every single day to dedicate to this habit.

Whether you decide to learn something new through an online course, an audiobook, a blog post, a video tutorial on YouTube, or even through TED Talks or other means, the importance of implementing this habit is paramount. Find something that’s worthwhile learning and do just a little bit of it every single day.

15. Organize.

Physical clutter results in a loss of focus. When our lives are disorganized and in a state of disarray, it’s hard to stay focused on our goals. Take the time to organize your home and office, and do just a little each day to enforce this habit. Take a single drawer and organize it, or organize a solitary corner of your home or even a cabinet in your office.

The importance of this habit is highlighted by a study in the Journal of Neuroscience titled, “Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex,” which says “Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex.” In plain English — clutter lends itself to a major loss of focus.

16. Contribute to others.

In our quest to achieve and succeed, we often forget about others. We fail to contribute something of value to our fellow man, woman or child. This isn’t about donating money; this is about contributing your time, which is far more valuable than money. It also helps to shift your focus from a state of lack to a state of abundance.

We tend to spend too much of our time steeped in worry and anxiety. But, when you enlist the habit of contributing to others, you can easily alleviate your personal concerns, and even your problems, by realizing the necessity of helping others. In fact, it’s the people in this world that contribute the most value to others that end up achieving the greatest success.

17. Network.

Clearly, it’s not just about what you know in this world. In order to succeed, we need to reach out to others — who you know is extremely important. But networking isn’t just about dropping names; it’s about finding ways that you can help and add value to the lives of others.

The best networkers in the world are also some of the most successful individuals. But they didn’t focus entirely on themselves at the outset. They always looked for ways that they could help others without thinking about receiving something in return. That’s how the world’s best networkers are born.

18. Break through fears.

We spend a lot of time immersed in fear. Those doomsday what-if scenarios play out in our minds throughout the course of any given day. We’re so worried and nervous about the future that we forget to enjoy the present moment. It’s so ingrained in our minds to fear things that it stifles our progress.

Breaking through your fears is quite possibly one of the most important habits that you could develop. Get used to doing one thing that makes you feel uncomfortable each and every single day. Talk to a stranger, give someone a compliment, or tell someone the truth about something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

19. Take action.

Take action. It’s a cliche that we’ve all heard repeatedly, yet it’s something that many of us fail to do. In fact, we do just the opposite — we procrastinate. We fail to take action for whatever number of reasons, hindering our progress and ability to achieve any of the monumental goals we set for ourselves.

The best way to overcome procrastination is to use the 15-minute rule. Take whatever it is that you’ve been putting off for the longest, set a timer on your phone for 15 minutes, and only commit to doing it for that long. Why only 15 minutes? First, it breaks the cycle of inaction. Second, after 15 minutes, you’ve built some momentum, so you might just keep on going.

20. Follow a plan.

Having a plan is integral to every successful entrepreneur — and person — throughout history. Whatever it is that you want out of life, not only do you need long-term goals and daily goals to help conceive, but you need to follow an intricate and detailed plan that you create along the way.

Without a plan, we often fail to realize our goals. Without understanding how we’ll get from point A to point B, it’s hard to see the cliched forest through the trees. But when you stick to a plan and track your progress, making changes along the way, you can eventually reach your goals as long as you don’t give up.

Related: How to Improve Your Focus to Increase Your Effectiveness and Results

21. Enjoy “me” time.

One of the habits that most of us fail to implement in our lives is to enjoy some down time — or “me” time. Do one small thing that you love doing every single day. It’s not always about achievement and success. By doing one small thing that you love, you’re actually instilling peace of mind and re-focusing your center.

Whether you listen to your favorite music pumping through headphones, take a walk through the park, go for a drive along your favorite road, watch a movie, or anything else for that matter, be sure that you always carve out some time for yourself in the day.

22. Implement positive thinking.

Like attracts like. When we think negatively, harboring negative thoughts, we attract negative things into our lives. When we think positive, we attract positive things. It’s hard to stay positive all the time, and it’s often our natural tendency to think negatively about things.

However, positive thinking is one of the surest pathways to the achievement of your goals. Ignore the naysayers and the people who doubt your abilities, and pursue the things that you love, staying positive all the while. It’s purely a matter of momentum. Think positively for long enough, and good things begin happening.

23. Read.

Whether you read the newspaper, financial news, a novel, a non-fiction book, or anything else, find time to read something. Reading is an important habit to develop in life, and you shouldn’t rely on audiobooks or movies all the time. Good old-fashioned reading, the traditional non-screen way, does the trick.

Reading can help you uncover new worlds, ideas or ways of doing things that you might not have known about before. It’s also a great way to educate yourself or entertain yourself at any given moment.

24. Get ample rest.

Although it’s important to wake up early every day, it’s also imperative to get ample rest. Finding that delicate balance might be difficult, especially if you have kids, two jobs and other obligations. However, if you care enough about your physical well-being, along with your future success, you’ll focus on a minimum of six to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.

If you have trouble falling asleep, be wary not to drink coffee or alcohol too close to your bedtime. Also, if you smoke, eat too much sugar, or ingest any other type of toxins throughout the day, you’ll find it difficult getting to bed at a decent hour. Cut those out of your routine so you can get some ample rest at night.

25. Journal your thoughts.

Journaling your thoughts is a great way to reflect on who you are and what you’ve been doing in life. Time can go by so quickly that we often forget the details of what we did even a few short months ago. Those details are often novel to recall as it adds clarity and purpose to our lives, reminding us of life’s lessons and joys.

Get in the habit of writing out your thoughts and journaling your experiences on a daily basis. Intertwine it with your goals, hopes and dreams for the future, writing out what you envision your life will look like down the road, then come back to read it later on to get a window into your mind at any point in your life. This is a powerful method for self-reflection, and also a great way to motivate and inspire yourself going forward into the future.

Getting started.

How many of the habits above have you already worked into your life? Are there bad habits that seem to continue holding you back from achieving any semblance of success and happiness? Bad habits can get in the way of our progress and quitting them is not easy by any means. However, it’s all a matter of momentum. It all boils down to small incremental steps that you can take day in and day out to help you build up the right repertoire of habits to help you achieve whatever your heart desires. The habits above are some of the best habits to have in life. How many of them will you agree and commit to taking on today?

R.L. Adams

Your candidate lost, and you’re really, really upset.

You thought she was going to win. You believed in the polls, the pundits, the experts. You were preparing for her to become President. You were (and still are) a big supporter. You gave to her campaign. You put signs on your company’s front lawn. You told your employees you were voting for her and even gave them extra time off to go out and vote too. You accepted her flaws. But you were certain she was going to win.

But she lost. This is reality. So here’s some advice.

You can complain. You can whine. You can punch the walls. You can scream into your pillow. And all of those reactions are understandable and even recommended…at least as therapy for a short while. But then, if you’re like all the other successful business people I know, you’re going to stop doing all of that. You’re going to go back to running your business. And you’re going to do it knowing that, at least for the next four years, Donald Trump will be your President and for the next two years his party will retain control of both the House and the Senate. And you will pay attention. And think about it. And make your plans.

Related: 11 Habits of Truly Happy People

Your job as a business owner is to profit.  Your business must grow. You are the leader. You have many that rely on you: your employees, customers, suppliers, partners and of course your family. These people are looking to you for their livelihoods. They understand that you’re upset, that you didn’t vote for this president, that this is not the way you wanted things to be. But they will have little patience for your emotions. They want leadership. They want to know what’s in store for the future.  They want to profit too.

And here’s what’s in store the next few years: significant disruption. Battles in Washington, even within the controlling party. Posturing. Demands. Debates. Deals. Hopefully compromises too. Donald Trump wants to significantly reduce taxes (a good thing) but his plan could add trillions to our national debt (a bad thing). He wants substantial increases in our military and infrastructure (a good thing) but the spending may also significantly increase our national debt (a bad thing). He wants to secure our country through tighter immigration laws (a good thing) but these proposals may cause problems with our neighbors and allies (a bad thing). He wants a more level-playing field with our largest trading partners (a good thing) but his proposals may cause a trade war (a bad thing). He wants to address rising healthcare costs and diminishing services (a good thing) but his desire to completely repeal the Affordable Care Act could cause significant disruption to 20% of our nation’s economy (a bad thing).

There’s a lot of good, a lot of potentially bad and a lot of uncertainty.

Related: The 10 Best New-Age Business Ideas You Haven’t Heard About Yet

How will these policies affect your company? What areas of growth will Trump create? What problems will you need to be prepared to deal with? How will his administration affect your customers, your markets, your trade? You run a business. You are a leader and people will be looking to you for answers and direction. Donald Trump is now President. You didn’t support him. But none of that matters. You cast your vote, and the rest of the people in this great country cast theirs. You must now put aside your emotions and lead by the facts. How will you profit?

Related: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

We’ve been through this before. Our elections are always close. Lincoln and Kennedy were hated by almost half the country. Reagan won the 1980 “landslide” with 50.5% of the votes tallied. John McCain received 46% of the vote in 2008. The election results in the end don’t matter. For a successful business owner, it’s your plans to profit from these results that do. Put your emotions aside and lead.

Gene Marks