Work Better, Not Harder

Looking for a unique and easy content idea for your blog or newsletter? It will even improve your networking at the next event you attend. Think of a survey question where the answers of many people will give you market insight . Make sure: The results will be useful to you in understanding your market. The results will be interesting to your readers, and perhaps be useful to them, as well. The question is simple and can be articulated easily in a networking setting. The possible answers are easy to record so you can tally them up later. Here are some examples: I might ask, "How often do you send out a regular email newsletter?" My article might be something like: 45% of Small Business Owners Surveyed Don't Send Out Newsletters , with the results of the research (and how it was gathered) within. A health coach might ask, "How many times during a week do you skip breakfast?" His article might be something like: Skipping Breakfast is Rampant Among ...

(guest post by Corinne Boudreau) The reason you as a business owner or leader should care about copyright is that it protects your intellectual assets, which are an important piece of growing and scaling your business. Think licensing, franchising and creating an online brand. The points below summarize the main things to understand on copyright: What is copyright? - Copyright is the legal ownership and right to copy and reproduce "works" as these are defined in the Copyright Act, a Canada wide piece of legislation. Works include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and products of digital technology. Literary works include books but also websites, blog posts, presentations and proposals. Fixed and Original - The creation must be in a fixed, tangible format to be protected (not an idea), and must be original and not copied. Timeframe - A work is protected on its creation in a fixed, tangible format and lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years. After that...

You work hard to attract new subscribers who find value in what you're offering. Someone makes a decision to sign up to your mailing list expecting to receive that great value and... they don't hear a thing from you. I'm not talking about businesses who have sign up forms yet never send a thing - that's a different blog post (and hopefully that's not you). Delivering your precious content to your fans has always been a challenge - what with spam filters, corporate gateways, and then trying to stand out in the inbox. What you may not have realized is that Google has become society's censor, whether you use it yourself or not. Google decides what gmail users see in their inbox , and what gets (sometimes arbitrarily) moved to the promotions folder - out of sight, out of mind. Even if you want to receive newsletters from your clients, or get this week's sales at the mall, Google may decide you don't. This is interfering with: satisfying your subsc...

There are many bad newsletters out there... I'm sure you'll agree. In particular, many not-for-profit and charitable organizations lack the time and skills to craft exciting newsletter content. Sometimes it's from lack of strategy - not knowing what they can and want to achieve with a regular newsletter - and how to implement their strategy. I get a little thrill when I hit SEND on a particularly good newsletter, one that I know will deliver value to its readers. I like being a small part of that success. That's why I love working with Dartmouth Learning Network on their quarterly newsletter. Executive Director Alison O'Handley knows exactly what she wants to achieve: Our newsletter helps us to remind our community about the good work we do, and the knowledge and expertise we have to share. It is an extension of our brand and, as such, it is a tool to foster existing and build new relationships. DLN's email newsletter is a communications tool, chock fu...

Wouldn't you like to be getting a dozen new subscribers every day? I've been doing small business email marketing for a lot of years and have a pretty good idea of what will work and won't. I'm rarely surprised but this week has been the exception - building a list from zero to 68 in five days using social media almost exclusively (no paid advertising). This is even more surprising because the Facebook and Twitter accounts started at zero, too. Now I didn't do this on my own; in fact my part was quite small. I've got two partners, Anita of Twirp Communications and Tina of Lift Communication, and we're launching the Social Media Day Halifax 2018 marketing conference. Here are the success factors that have gained us this great momentum: Synergy : The social media networks that each of us have been building for our businesses and ourselves have paid off in spades when we all started promoting at once.  Messaging and Visual : Taking time to craft c...

For the first time, Halifax will be celebrating Social Media Day in grand style this year. I'm proud to be one of the organizers of the first Social Media Day Halifax 2018 conference taking place on June 22nd. The conference is for entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals working in social media roles for companies and organizations. Sessions and workshops are for anyone and everyone who wants and needs to improve their social media communications and marketing. Since Social Media Day Halifax is all about increasing marketing expertise on the east coast, recruiting presenters who are both subject matter experts AND excellent training facilitators is key to the success of the conference. Ideally, we’ll find social media professionals who want to help encourage, inspire, train and motivate colleagues in the local marketing community. If you're on the east coast of Canada and do social media marketing, you don't want to miss this conference and the chance ...