Some of you might think it’s a thing of the past, but believe us when we say that writing and distributing an alluring press release can do wonders for your business. However, it’s not as easy as one, two, three; you need to put some work into it to make sure that your release is focused and captivating.

Photos are one of the greatest tools we have at our disposal when making a brand-new website, blogging, and adding new life to a social media page. But many people fail to understand that there are laws and regulations governing how photos can and can’t be used. Typing your desired subject into a Google search and simply copying the images from Google isn’t exactly legal. To be specific, it isn’t legal at all.

It’s surprising how many brand-new companies that are just starting out on their entrepreneurial venture have so little knowledge of what a marketing plan really is. Dozens of questions seem to surface whenever discussing a marketing plan. What is it? Do you have to make one? What needs to be put in it? Before we can answer the first question, a dozen more will be asked.

While the number of subscribers you have signed up for your newsletter can directly translate into more earnings for you, the harsh reality is that your subscriber list works best with quality subscribers rather than a huge quantity of unqualified subscribers. A few hundred good quality subscribers are worth infinitely more than even a thousand people who signed up for your newsletter just for the free stuff you have to offer.

So how do you get those quality subscribers? That’s exactly what we are here to help you with. Read on to see which of our ideas you can use to increase your newsletter subscriber list with some quality subs.

Communicating and gaining attention can be a bit harder for nonprofit organizations than it is for regular businesses. The reason is pretty simple: money. Generally, the marketing budget for nonprofit organizations is significantly lower than that of higher up brand names and businesses. This presents a conundrum for nonprofits, because in order to generate more attention you need to dedicate a decent amount of your budget, which will in turn increase your budget overall. But how do you do this when your customer base isn’t gaining anything out of giving your organization money?

The first and foremost thing you have to do is create a voice or a tone for your organization. Determine how you will approach your audience and what your key statement is. Depending on the primary focus of your nonprofit, you will determine if your tone needs to be serious and direct or more relaxed and laidback. Each category will generate a different tone, and you need to determine which tone you will use.

Once you have determined your voice, everything in your organization that has anything to do with marketing or communication has to have that specific tone. If it doesn’t, then your organization will seem lackluster and disjointed, which will result in catastrophic failure. Anyone who communicates on behalf of your brand needs to speak with your brand’s voice and message. Here are a few ways you can deliver that message and inspire your donors.

There are millions of emails that never get opened because of their poor subject lines. No matter how important or vital the content of your email is, if it doesn’t have a subject line captivating enough for the average user then your message will fall onto deaf ears.

Most of us are familiar with having dozens or even hundreds of unread emails in our inbox, but only some of them have been opened and checked to see what’s inside. Some of those emails even ended up in our spam folder and yet we still opened them to check out what the fuss is all about.

So why is it that we open some emails while letting others collect digital dust? The answer is very simple: we skim the subject line of that specific email and notice something interesting which causes us to open the email.

But what are these captivating subject lines? Which ones work and which ones don’t? Read on to find out how to increase the chances of your email being opened with these three subject line ideas.

Google Analytics is a fantastic source of information that can help you reach the levels of interaction you desire with your potential customers. However, reading and understanding data can sometimes be a headache, especially when we are talking about a rather complex system. While it can be slightly discouraging learning how to interpret the data which is presented by Google Analytics, we strongly suggest you take a few minutes and learn a bit about how Google Analytics works.

There are four major components when working with Google Analytics: data collection, configuration, processing, and reporting. All of these components work together to deliver the data you need in the most accurate and comprehensible way. Let’s take a look at each of these Google Analytics aspects separately.

Using social media to grow your business has become a standard in the marketing world. Any business can benefit from reaching out to their customers on social media platforms. However, some of us have an odd tendency to only focus on one platform at a time. While it might be slightly more cost effective to dedicate those budget dollars towards one specific platform and focus on perfecting it, the reality is that ignoring other social media networks is a really bad idea.

Some social media sites offer a much bigger audience than others, but ignoring additional potential growth from other sites is a big mistake, especially when similar content can be utilized for nearly all platforms.

One such site to look out for is Snapchat. This social media platform has grown rapidly over the past few years. It is estimated that out of all social media users out there, about 23% of them are using Snapchat or at least have a valid Snapchat account.

When we need to look something up online, most of us turn straight to Google. This isn’t a random occurrence, and everyone knows it’s the established norm for searching for anything online. As of March 2016, Google is responsible for 67.7% of all global online searches. What does this mean for you? This means you have to carefully monitor everything that Google does regarding their search engine infrastructure and modify your SEO accordingly.

One such major change that Google introduced in April of 2015 was the implementation of a new algorithm which determined a website’s mobile “friendliness” and influenced its ranking amongst search results. This meant that if your website was mobile friendly, it got better scores and was more likely to show up higher in search results for people using a mobile device. Google recognized that the mobile revolution was underway and more users were starting to search and look things up with the use of their mobile devices like phones and tablets. So the response was simple, reward the sites which are optimized for mobile use with better rankings.

If your marketing checklist for 2017 looks identical to last year’s checklist, then I’m afraid I have to break some bad news to you…you are doing it wrong. The marketing world is a dynamic environment and it changes from year to year.

Your marketing plan should be unique in its own way every year. The reason is simple: people change and you should change how you approach your customers or clientele accordingly. Instead of having a list of things that you must get done, you need to gather a set of goals which you want to attain. Try the non-linear approach. Brainstorm, write your goals down, and connect the dots from your audience perspective.