Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

How to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign – @emilybest

By
1

Emily-Best-Pinterest-pt2A successful crowdfunding campaign isn’t one where you just sit back and let the platform do all the work. You first need to determine your audience before you can share and draw their interest with a clearly defined and carefully crafted vision. You can help do this with a direct and effective pitch video. And finally you want to offer incentives that are not only personal, but also visual and shareable.

Emily Best is CEO of the most successful crowdfunding site in the world, Seed and Spark. What started as a personal fundraising campaign turned into a startup dedicated to helping independent filmmakers launch successful crowdfunding endeavors.

Keep reading! →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Crowdfunding Secrets with @emilybest

By
Reply

Emily-Best-PinterestBegging for money – or soliciting contributions –  has been a time honored tradition most commonly identified by organizations such as public radio stations, non profits and even churches. Fast forward to the modern day spin on this and you’ve got crowdfunding. Crowdfunding – in a nutshell – is simply a way to solicit contributions in small amounts via the internet.

But asking for money to help fund your project is so much more involved than you might think, if you want your campaign to be successful. And isn’t that the whole point? When you figure out who your target audience is, and how to best identify with them, that’s when your campaign will gain momentum.

Emily Best is the CEO of Seed and Spark, the most effective crowdfunding platform in the world. Through launching her own crowdfunding campaign, Emily learned valuable lessons – sometimes the hard way – of what works and what doesn’t, and out of this experience Seed and Spark was born.

(This is part one of a two-part interview with Emily as she shares her personal stories and experiences with crowdfunding for her own project.)

Keep reading! →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Marketing Agents Mailbag – @therichbrooks

By
Reply

Rich-Brooks-Pinterest-2015The Marketing Agents Podcast host, Rich Brooks, answers actual listener questions that have been sent in.  He advises on SEO and driving increased traffic to your website, how to advertise your business so it stands out in the crown and reminiscences on wise words issued from past guests of the show.  He also offers suggestions on one listener’s current website, in hopes that making a few changes will give them the boost in business that they are looking for.

“My question revolves around SEO and driving traffic to my website. If I understand correctly, all I have to do is look for keywords that have a high search rate per month that is related to the topic of my next blog and make the key phrase the title of the blog. I suppose in time this will help drive my targeted audience to my website. If this is true, then buying advertising through Google just quickens your ability to drive that traffic to you, is this correct?

I ask this because I’m trying to start my first online service and I have zero cash to invest in marketing. If my research serves me correctly, I should practice what I mentioned above, then use those same keywords in my Twitter feeds as well and somehow, magically, Google begins to send people my way. Please tell me I have finally figured this sorcery out.”

Keep reading! →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Psychology of Website Conversions – @crestodina

By
7

Andy-Crestodina-PinterestContent marketing can be a slippery slope to navigate. You want to draw your potential customers into your webpage, but knowing how to keep them there is the key.

A good website isn’t just pretty colors, fancy graphics and related links.  Improve your conversion rate using neuromarketing techniques such as “social proof”. Convince your potential customers that doing business with you is the smart choice.  By using methods such as “priming” or “anchoring”, you can leverage your customer’s predisposed opinions and convert them into fans.

Andy Crestodina is cofounder and strategic director or Orbit Media and author of Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Handbook For Content. Andy’s tactics for successful content marketing have helped over a thousand businesses and made him a sought after speaker at a number of national conferences.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Keep reading! →

How to Prospect for New Business on LinkedIn – Rich Brooks

By
2

Rich-Brooks-PinterestLinkedIn is so much more than just a place to post your resume.  It’s an incredible platform that you can use to meet, grow and maintain your valuable business prospects and clients.  All you need to do is learn how to utilize the many tools that LinkedIn offers to create and maintain visibility and credibility for your business.

Anyone can upload a photo and post their job description, but how do you make yourself stand out from the rest of the pack?  The key is to provide an engaging profile and build from there.  In this case, less is not more, and the more you share the more likely you are to be able to make connections with other people.  Today you will learn the art of the “LinkedIn search” as well as the benefits to LinkedIn’s “In Mail” function.  

Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, creator of The Marketing Agents Podcast, founder of Agents Of Change Digital Marketing Conference and smarty pants for all things marketing-related.  Rich explains some basic, yet key tips, for unlocking the mysteries of LinkedIn and how anyone can use it to gain visibility and reach prospects that may have seemed elusive in the past.

Keep reading! →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS