How a Good Asset Allocation Model Can Impact Your Financial Future
Assets allocation is just not one of those topics that most people find particularly sexy. Usually itâs the sort of thing that gets about as much attention as the instruction manual to your Blu-ray player. But as youâll see below, itâs one of those parts of investing that you simply canât ignore â largely because it can have a MAJOR effect on your finances and how long they ultimately last. The reason I wanted to bring this up is because of the roller-coaster of market activity lately. In case you havenât checked your stocks or 401k balance in a…
Get Ready to SAVE BETTER! With My First eBook
Did you know that if you had started out your career maximizing your 401k every year, thereâs a very distinct possibility that you would retire by age 62 with over $7 million dollars? Did you know that by saving your money in an IRA or 401k youâre actually saving as much as $509,774 over 30 years in compounded returns from NOT letting $4,500 slip away to taxes each year? Or, how about that a Roth-style 401k or…
Email Marketing 101, Part 1
Why Email When you think about building your site for the first time, youâre probably also thinking about your Facebook presence. After all, thatâs where the people are, right? OK, that makes sense at a superficial level. But there are two problems with emphasizing platforms like Facebook instead of your own site and your own list: Facebook owns Facebook. Building your online presence on someone elseâs digital turf which they adjust to please themselves (and not you) is risky. Facebook stinks for engagement. âStinksâ â a bit strong, you say? Well, according to https://www.michaelleander.me/blog/facebook-engagement-rate-benchmark/Â a very good engagement rate on …
Email Marketing 101, Part 2
When to Start Email Marketing In the previous Email Marketing 101 post, I talked about why email marketing is vital. Today I’ll talk about when – when to start your email marketing efforts. Good news! It’s a one word answer: Now. No, Iâm serious. Donât delay because âIâm not big enoughâ or âI donât have enough traffic.â You simply donât know when and which subscriber will be the one that buys from you, spreads the word about you, or invests in you. Look at it this way. As you start out, youâre building pages; thinking about SEO; …
Email Marketing 101, Part 3
How to Start with Email Marketing Honestly: Donât over think it. Sending blog updates by email is not only great, but also very much good enough â youâre saving your blogâs subscribers the time and effort to remember to go back to your site. Your content is already great, and now people have invited you to send it to them whenever you write. Thatâs what they want; so go ahead. Give it to them. Hereâs how you…
Email Marketing 101, Part 4
How to be Successful with Email Marketing 101 The previous three articles in the “Email Marketing 101″ series dealt with three core concepts: Why you should be email marketing; When to start email marketing; and How to start email marketing. But email marketing isn’t an end point, or a static goal. It’s an ongoing process. While automation can and does yield significant benefits, you still have to make certain commitments to be successful. If, however, you’re an avid blogger or content marketer, meeting these commitments isn’t going to be a big deal. To finish up the series then, here are some basic steps you need to keep on taking in order to be successful: Email regularly and predictably…
SmartForms: The Email Subscription Form Wises Up
Today I’m delighted to announce the introduction of FeedBlitz “SmartForms” – responsive, adaptive, flexible subscription forms available now, for free, with every active FeedBlitz publisher account. To view the video online, go to https://animoto.com/play/Pvhh0ATjCknt0EUyD700yw What’s Wrong with Email Subscription Forms Today There are several problems with almost every subscription form out there right now, no matter what product, plugin, widget or service you’re using. Very often they’re not responsive — in other words, ill suited for mobile usage. They can be hard to update and / or customize, but worst of all, they’re Just Plain Dumb. Why? Because if you have a popup, it’s…
Weâve Added @Animoto to our Video in Email Support
FeedBlitz today enabled support for @Animoto video embedding in emails we send for our publishers; an example using yesterday’s SmartForms announcement video is included here. What this means is that if you embed an Animoto video in a post, FeedBlitz will automatically convert that to a video thumbnail and mail that out instead (videos typically don’t work well in emails, here’s why). You don’t have to do anything special to include the thumbnail — it just works. Like our …
Faster Ad Revenue Reporting
Publishers making the most of their content by monetizing with FeedBlitz’s unique RSS and email ad service can find out how they’re doing more quickly. Ad earnings are now being calculated hourly, with about an hour’s delay, instead of overnight. In other words, checking your ad earnings at 2pm will give you an idea of your earnings through about 1pm today, and the numbers are updated hourly. Ad earnings are reported at My Account | Ad Revenue Share | Opt-In Ad Reports in the left sidebar navigation. If you’re not using our ads and would like to try them out, you can set up ads …
Monetize Your Mailings: Introducing the Marquee Ad Unit
FeedBlitz is enabling a new, higher earning ad-unit, called a “Marquee” for publishers opted in to our ad network. The marquee unit in testing has significantly boosted earnings, in some cases nearly doubled them. As such, we’re really excited about this new ad format, and have enabled marquees for all publishers currently earning with our email ad network. Marquees go live for everyone using our ad network tomorrow, March 31st, 2015. Marquees don’t always show, but when they do, they appear exactly once per mailing, just under your logo and above the post content. If they don’t, there’s no material effect on your mailing’s layout. If you’re reading this via email, then odds are there is a…
Turn Facebook Fans Into Email Subscribers
When Facebook rolled out their Call-to-Action button, business owners everywhere scrambled to figure out how best to to use this new marketing option. If you aren’t using Facebookâs Call-to-Action button to encourage page fans to subscribe to your siteâs mailing list, you’re missing out on an opportunity to exponentially grow your list — and protect yourself in case a future Facebook algorithm or policy change reduces the visibility of your page even further. Since Facebook page fans are people who have sought you out, they are likely to be your target audience and have already expressed interest in hearing what you have to say, bringing them one step closer to subscribing.  Now you can combine the powerful FeedBlitz…
How Not to Be a Dirty, Rotten Spammer
Email is an incredibly effective way to nurture prospects and leads, and pave the path for those folks to make a purchase. But so much marketing email goes horribly, horribly wrong. If there’s one thing nearly everybody hates, it’s spam. It wastes our time, it insults our intelligence, and sometimes it can even trick or scam us. But not all spam is created on purpose. Lots of well-meaning businesses are creating ugly, hated spam…
How to Avoid the âIdea of Entrepreneurshipâ
Today’s guest on Hack the Entrepreneur is a freelancer turned agency owner and entrepreneur. His first introduction to working for himself was doing side-work after hours. Eventually, he was able to quit his job and freelance full-time. He expanded to a physical office and had 11 full-time, salaried employees with clients all over the world. Family and health reasons forced him to step away from his brick-and-mortar agency while moving into software and online training. Now, he makes his living by providing great software and products to freelancers and consultants from his upstairs office, with his wife…
Proof That Grit Is the Only Way to Reach Your Potential
In our culture, much is made of natural ability. But natural ability is nothing without grit. In fact, without grit, natural ability can actually be wasted. Recent science tells us that grit can accurately determine who will graduate from high school or West Point or even win a spelling bee. In other words, grit is an indicator whether or not someone will reach his or her potential. But what is grit? Where does it come from? Can you develop grit if you don’t have it? And what does this have to do with content marketing? Fortunately, these are the questions The Lede hosts Jerod Morris and Demian Farnworth tackle in…
What to Do When You Absolutely, Positively Must Know if Your Content Will Rock
Editorâs note: This post was originally published on June 29, 2011. Weâre running it again today to honor DIY media and the endless possibilities for your business when youâve built a loyal audience. Ever had a great idea, and then started to doubt yourself? Or maybe youâve already executed on that great idea, but youâre hesitating to launch. Maybe itâs an article, or an ebook, or a new product or service. How can you be sure it will work? Should you ask for feedback? Iâll answer both of those questions in this article, but first I need to tell you a …
5 Ways to Write a Seductive Sentence
Here’s the thing: Your sentences don’t have to say much. They just have to say the right things. When you are trying to get people to respond to your articles, subscribe to your email newsletter, buy your products, or donate to your cause … you need to write seductive sentences. And you need to do it naturally. Here’s how to do that. In this episode of Rough Draft with Demian Farnworth, you’ll …
Deadly Conversion Busters: Building a Targeted Audience
Lots of people talk about “traffic,” but how can you attract more of the right people? How can you grow an audience of people you can help the most — people who will see success from using your products and services, and who will be long-term, loyal customers? In this episode of The Mainframe, hosts Chris Garrett and Tony Clark reveal: Why you need to constantly look for ways to attract new people into your community How to clone your best prospects What to do to meet…
Passion Projects, Clarity, and the Evolution of No Sidebar
As an online entrepreneur, No Sidebar host Brian Gardner is learning just how crucial being agile is to running a successful business. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being involved in a personal project — especially when youâre passionate about it — but continually keeping your audience in mind is always a good thing. Over the last couple months of running No Sidebar, Brian has identified three types of people he wants to specifically cater to … In this 24-minute episode of No Sidebar, host Brian Gardner and Robert Bruce discuss: Who has control over whether or not something is great Focusing on the fundamentals of your craft Bono, being 16, and taking over the world Why passion projects are tough in the context of business…
What Does It Mean to Be a Showrunner?
So … what exactly is a “showrunner” anyway? And what does it take to be a successful one? The Showrunner hosts Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor define the term and explain what separates successful Showrunners from all the rest. In this episode of The Showrunner, hosts Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor discuss: What essential lesson about building an audience can we learn from the very first scene of House of Cards? Why aspiring Showrunners should think of themselves as producers, in the classic media…
Why Your Mom Was Right About Blogging
It’s a good thing your mom taught you everything you need to know to become a well-respected, successful blogger, isn’t it? What’s that? Your mom never taught you anything about blogs? Because blogs didn’t exist when you were growing up? I beg to differ. I’m going to bet that she really did teach you everything you need to know. She just may have forgotten to say “when blogging.” Let’s take a look. Choose your friends wisely (when blogging) Did your mom ever tell you she didn’t like your friends? Maybe it sounded something like this: Be careful about who you spend time with. Your…
10 Social Media Errors to Avoid
Using social media to grow your community and promote your brand is a must for community expansion, especially if you run a blog or business site. However, sometimes we slip and our efforts backfire. Perhaps it’s been months since you first registered and you’re still not gaining any followers. Or you seem to attract the wrong kind of followers. Or you deleted that TMI tweet AFTER someone else has already seen it (and trust me, they have). So what do you do? Social media channels …
On Updating Your Business Blog
I’ve often heard the advice that you should update your business blog everyday, at least twice a day. Seriously? But what if you don’t have anything to talk about? Daily updates are only advisable if several significant changes or events in your business happen frequently and regularly. Otherwise, it’s not necessary to post as often. After all, your number of posts will not always guarantee a greater audience. What you do need to remember is that two critical factors are needed in order to expand your readership and client base. These are consistency and exposure. Consistency Although daily posts aren’t required, …
What Makes An Effective Newsletter?
Does your blog come with a little ‘extra’ for your readers in the form of an email newsletter? How does that newsletter work for you — does it bring in more leads, more engagement with your audience, more people clamoring for your product? Or do you simply slave away at a subscription that makes its way from the inbox to the trash bin in 0.02 seconds flat? If your blog has its own newsletter, make sure you maximize its purpose. Otherwise, it’s nothing but online …
Does Length Matter?
This will always be one of those blogging questions that will never get resolved: does post length matter? Post length has always been a bone of contention amongst bloggers — some prefer long posts (2,000 words or more), some stick to 500 to 1,000 words, and some prefer the spontaneity of 140 characters. But regardless of preference, is there an ideal length for a blog post? The answer is a resounding no. There are plenty of considerations to be made when deciding how long your posts should be. In fact, you can vary their individual lengths according to what you need to say (this is especially important for those new to blogging). Content There are topics that take 100 words, some call for 2,000, …