Posts

Media training 101 for small businesses

Image
Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr

4 ways to grow your business automatically with Keap

Keap is passionate about keeping things personal—and they're really, really into automation. This means you can use their services to automatically deliver personalized messages while keeping the voice that makes you uniquely you . You can leverage their automated services to deliver personalized messages to new leads, maintain relationships with customers, and grow your business—and never worry about sounding like a robot. With Keap's Zapier integration, they've taken that approach to the next level, allowing customers to to use automatic workflows—we call them Zaps—to import information about new leads from thousands of other applications, and seamlessly send information to the other apps you use to keep your business running. We've gathered the best pre-made Zaps to help get you started, and show off the ways that Keap and Zapier can help save you time and open up new possibilities. Selecting Use This Zap on any of the Zap templates below will open a new Zap, and

Report: Why digital marketers are embracing automation

Image
Almost every digital marketer that uses automation software benefits from it, but these tools are currently more popular in the U.S. than in the U.K. That's according to a transatlantic survey of digital marketers commissioned by Zapier. The responses also show that digital marketers use automation software (software designed to automatically complete tasks) most often for following up quickly with leads and communicating effectively with their team. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who use automation software are much more likely to say they're working in the most efficient way possible. Methodology: Between September 29, 2020 and October 6, 2020, Zapier surveyed 519 employed Americans and 100 employed U.K. citizens who work in digital marketing, performance marketing, or advertising, including those who perform these functions for their small business. Almost everyone who uses automation software says they benefit from it 97 percent of U.K. and 94 percent of U.S. digital m

How automation helped me reach out to sources for a roundup post on my blog

Image
Blogging is an outstanding way to get your voice out and be heard. This is especially true for brands looking to boost awareness to an audience outside of their local reach. It can also be an opportunity to network with other individuals within your niche. For a recent post on my blog, Constantly Striving, I reached out and networked with quite a few amazing individuals in the blogging stratosphere for a roundup post with advice for those new to blogging. Their responses turned into a post, 23+ Successful Bloggers Share their Best Advice , which saw an awesome amount of positive feedback, referral traffic, and shares! However, the biggest problem I faced was sending out emails to every single person on my outreach list. The solution was automating my email prospecting and outreach. What is a roundup post? Now, before we get to our solution, let's understand the problem and why it was important to solve it. I spend a lot of my time finding ways to help other bloggers find succe

The great unbundling: Why specialized software is best for business

Image
In 2011, Marc Andreessen said that "software is eating the world." He was referring to a process of macroeconomic change. In his view, software was on track to revolutionize how businesses operated, grew, and served their customers. He was right. Software became a core part of daily business operations—and with it came the rise of the bundled solution. All-in-one tools and business suites became the model for software companies eager to carve out and defend their own market segment. But today, things are shifting. Organizations of all sizes can now take advantage of highly specialized solutions for whatever business needs they have. As companies adopt these niche software solutions and discard their old enterprise ones, we're witnessing the great unbundling: the average company of 50 or fewer employees uses 40 different software subscriptions . It's becoming the go-to model for business growth. There are all sorts of benefits to an unbundled approach. It means a

Why you should build pointless websites just for fun

Image
The internet was more fun when people made websites for the heck of it. I think people should start doing that again. Around 2009, single user websites were everywhere. You could see if it's Christmas , find out how many people are in space , or get a page that is sometimes red and sometimes blue . It was fun. These sites make the internet a better place, yes, but building them is also a great way to learn how to make things online. Learn by doing I made a pointless website much more recently than 2009. I'd been curious about how to use Zapier's webhooks for quite a while, but I only really figured it out after a friend (I think?) asked me for a big red button that makes me leave. I actually built that button using Zapier webhooks. Anyone who finds this button (which I will not link to) can press it, and I'll get a message in Slack telling me to leave. It hasn't been used yet, but I'm glad it exists. I need to know when to leave. I learned something an

We tried not looking at our screens first thing in the morning. It helped.

Want to feel stressed, anxious, and/or completely exhausted before you even have breakfast? I highly recommend looking at your phone right when you wake up. I tend to look at Slack, email, and (*sigh*) Twitter right after I wake up. But sometimes I wonder if my head would be clearer if I just…didn't. So I tried it out—and asked my coworkers at Zapier to join me. I didn't set hard rules, but I did offer some suggestions. Pick a time, then don't look at your screen until then. I recommended one hour after waking up, but ultimately, you should choose whatever timing makes sense for your mornings. Think of something else to do instead. Maybe take a walk, maybe do some journaling, maybe make a nice breakfast—just make sure you have a plan, so you don't default to picking up your phone. Don't use your phone as an alarm. It's going to be hard not to look at your phone if it's the first thing you touch in the morning. Consider buying an old school, actual a