Marketing Automation is software designed to streamline, automate and measure marketing processes more efficiently. It’s about streamlining marketing and automating as much as possible of your company’s marketing efforts.
For technology companies, marketing automation is a must. So we created this public spreadsheet of marketing automation software that shows you the top options, their pricing, and a comparison of the features.
Check it out:
How awesome would it be to access videos of top entrepreneurs telling you what they did to succeed? Did you know that there are literally hundreds of hours of FREE video and audio content online?
Here is my list of my favorite resources for video and audio trainings.
1. Mixergy
This site has hundreds of fantastic interviews with successful entrepreneurs (including one with yours truly!), as well as trainings on topic such as Facebook advertising or search engine optimization. Includes Video and audio versions plus transcriptions of the interviews. The majority of the content is free, and they do have also a paid access section. Find out more
With the 2012 fiscal year nearly over, we bring you once again our summary of the seed and angel investments made in the past 6 months.
If you have read what we brought to you last time, you will notice that this first half of 2012 is no different. Investors continue to focus exclusively on mobile consumer apps, and rightly so, since it’s a rapidly growing market that, according to Forrester Research, made $6 billion in revenue last year. Social media startups remain a popular investment category too, not that it’s a big surprise following Facebook’s $1B acquisition of Instagram early this year.
Take note, we’ve only included businesses who received seed and angel funding and where the funding amount was disclosed.
Outsourcing work is an appealing idea – It can save you money, resources, and sometimes, a great deal of stress.
Farming out your customer service cut overheads significantly, but it’s definitely not a one size fits all solution and there are no magic outsourcing beans.
If you going to take the jump with any sort of outsourcing where company will be directly interacting with your customers, it’s important to weigh up your options carefully. Shabby service will almost guarantee a mass exodus of customers.
In this article you’ll find some best practices for outsourcing customer service, and a practical guide to help you decide if this type of outsourcing is the right choice for your business. Find out more
Wasted time in the workplace is a massive problem. How big is exactly unclear, but from our research, the cost to business is in the millions (if not billions) in lost productivity every year. The infographic below explains just how much time we waste at work, the ways we waste it, and how businesses are grappling with the issue. The results are surprising, if not alarming:
Click on the image below to view the full infographic
One of the nice things about freelance work is not reporting to anyone – it also means there’s no billing department to call, and no payroll department to cut you a check if clients don’t pay their invoice. If you work online, work from home, or do any kind of contract work, it’s vital to have a plan in place to make sure you’re paid for the work you do.
DISCLAIMER: The article below is relevant to any person or small team that does work for hire, from pure consultancy, graphic design, to writing or marketing. While I’ve done my fair share of contract work, I am not a lawyer, and I don’t pretend to be one on the internet, so please hire a lawyer to advise you on any of the information below.
When a potential client approaches you about a project, it’s perfectly within your rights not to respond right away. In addition to giving you the time to mull over pricing and the time needed to complete the assignment, search for mentions of the company online. If a Google search finds another freelance worker telling a billing horror story about your prospective client, that’s a definite red flag. Find out more
So you need a logo, or a banner, or maybe even something as simple as letterhead or a business card? You need it cheap, and you need it done well. One of the single most frustrating things about running a small business or early-stage startup is knowing how important it is to have effective visuals yet also how little there is to spend on it.
Maybe you’ve tried coming up with something yourself. Maybe you’ve called in a favor from a friend who has an old version of Photoshop or hired a student you found on Craigslist. There are plenty of places you can turn to when your budget is limited and your need is great, and we’ve seen them all. Most of them turn out to be dead ends that waste time and money. If you want great design, at great prices, you can now outsource most design jobs, meaning that the graphic design process is now faster, more affordable, and more reliable than ever…
Find out more
If you’ve ever been involved in an internet startup business, you will know it can be hard to attract media attention; if there’s not a high profile name involved, or you don’t have an instantly-recognizable-billion-dollar-idea, it’s easy to end up feeling invisible.
To complicate things further, you’ll generally only get a few chances at nailing your pitch. No one is going to touch a stale story unless you’ve don’t something like break a land speed record, signed up a million customers in a week, or made a funny video of black guy on a horse.
The good news: There are plenty of places that could be interested in your story, once you know where to pitch, and what buttons to push.
Sending a press release to blogs that specialize in interesting startup companies is one way to get your name out there, but often not a good one. Tech-related blogs are a dime a dozen and sending out a press release is often the most ineffective way to get someone to notice your story. Do your research, and find a journalist who might be interested in your story and contact them on Linked-in, Twitter, or Facebook.
Let them know what you like their stuff, and sell a short version of your story in just a few sentences. Offer them an exclusive or let them think they’ll be breaking the story first. You’ll have a much higher success rate if you can personalize your story. You can help them write the story and the angle once they take the bait.
Find out more
Starting a business and running your own company can be tough if you don’t have the right tools, especially when it comes to things like scheduling, project management, and communication…
While a quick web search will bring up thousands of resources, it can be incredibly hard to sort through the clutter and find the tools that actually work well.
Not only have we found the best tools available online, but we’ve also focused on those that are either entirely free or free for basic use . With these resources, you’ll find new ways to communicate with your team, present your ideas to prospective customers, make meaningful customer service connections and much more.
NOTE: all prices are quoted at the time of writing, and we do not profit out of any of these recommendations.
Files you save to Dropbox are available from the secure Dropbox website and your computer or mobile phone. If you invite others to share the file, they can view it and make edits. This feature allows teams to collaborate on documents, and share individual items and folders among groups of users.
Files saved to your Dropbox can be accessed on the go from your Android, Blackberry, iPad or iPhone, and the company provides clients for Windows, OS X and even Linux.
The service offers 2GB of file storage free, and you can get more storage by upgrading to a paid $9.99 or $19.99 per month subscription. Find out more
When we're not writing on this blog we run Staff.com and TimeDoctor.com. Staff.com is a platform for global recruitment and TimeDoctor.com is the world's best Time Tracking & Productivity software.
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