MARKETING TOOLS TO CREATE EXPLOSIVE BUSINESS GROWTH IN 2021

We’ve entered 2021 after one of the most unusual years in human history. Because of safety measures including the need for social distancing, more businesses are online than ever before. And to find success in a digital arena that’s new for many people, it’s essential to use the right tools to boost marketing efforts. 

In this post, we’ll look at the top tools any business can use to engage more customers, build trust, and keep customers happy. The list of tools in this post will give you an edge and make your website and content dynamic compared to your competitors’ content.

Let’s get started!

Push notifications

A push notification tool is one that will send a short message to your users through their browser or app. The magic of this tool is that it’s timely. It engages a user when they are active online and it can draw their attention right away. 

Push notifications can help with browser abandonment

It’s faster than email when it comes to reaching out to your customers and its conversion rate is even better.
Using a push notification tool can be the way to grow your business fast in 2021. If you have a WordPress site, then use PushEngage for the easiest way to make push notifications that improve conversions. 

Form tools

Your users expect your website to have a form tool. It’s a common method of communication that people use to make queries and get in touch. 

However, a form tool can be more than just fields where users enter their information and send a message. 

When a form tool is used well, it can be leveraged to carry out multiple functions that support your marketing. Let’s look at the ways you can use a simple form tool to carry out different things:

• Build contact forms. When users have questions that they don’t need urgent answers for, a contact form serves as a great way for them to communicate with you. 
• Grow your email list. A good contact form will integrate with email marketing service providers. When users send you a message, add a checkbox field to ask users if they want updates from you. Your users will get added to your newsletter list automatically
• Create form landing pages. A form landing page is one where your form page isn’t forced into a specific look by your WordPress theme. You can build a landing page without any content except for your form to improve the rate at which people submit a form
• Carry out surveys to get ideas and feedback from your customers 
• Create an ‘ideas’ form for your audience to send you ideas and feature requests
• Set up order forms and collect payments 

Form tools seem simple, but if used well, they can play a major role in growing your business. 

SEO tools

All the content you create, the outreach you do, or the money you spend on advertising won’t matter if you don’t understand what your audience is looking for and how your content is currently doing. 

An SEO tool acts like a diagnostic tool that reveals what people want by looking at how they behave on search engines and your website. 

SEO tools help you find the right keywords to focus on. They’ll show you what your content ranks for even how your competitors’ content does. 

With the information that an SEO tool provides, you’ll improve your chances of getting more traffic by a significant percentage. Without SEO to guide your content marketing, it’ll be like wandering around blindly without any sense of direction. 

Content and Graphics editing tools

Visual components convey as much information as your written content does. Without good imagery and the use of graphics, your content will not draw your audience’s attention even if it provides high-quality information. 

To up your marketing efforts in 2021, use content creation and editing tools like Canva. You’ll get premade social media templates, icons, and even animated templates for making social media stories. 

Ready-made templates make content creation easier

Also, if you want to have high-quality images for your blog headers without investing in expensive stock photography, you need to use a CC0 or Creative Commons Zero license stock photo side. You’ll find pictures on virtually any topic for your content. 

Landing page builders

A landing page is a standalone web page that focuses on one thing – encouraging users to take engage with your call to action. 

This is different from a normal web page or home page since they can have different themes and try to meet several goals at once. 

A landing page is a powerful tool to drive conversions especially when you create paid ads to lead users to your website. Or if you’ve set up a marketing campaign and need to funnel your users to one place where they take action. 

Building a high-converting landing can take weeks if not months to get right. But if you use a good landing page plugin, this can take e much shorter time. 

You’ll have your landing page up with all the right features that get users to convert. 

A landing page can help you convert users

Social feeds 

We all know that it’s critical to have a presence on social media. It’s through social media platforms and content that we can have interactive and two-way communication with our audience that’s visible to people’s peer groups. 

One of the most innovative ways to use social media is to use the content on it to populate your webpages. And this is where a social feeds tool comes in. 

Social feeds can add more content to your website and also create social proof by letting your audience know that other customers use your product too. 

An added benefit is that you can keep your users on your website instead of losing them to competing content on social networks. Based on how you use social feeds, customers can learn about your product, get inspiration, or view news updates. 

Conclusion

Great marketing and higher conversions rest on the use of good tools. With the tools suggested in this post, you’ll be able to easily create marketing strategies to win in 2021 and grow your business. 

HOW ONE SIMPLE IDEA CHANGED THE WORLD

Following the end of World War II, life in America had settled back into the peaceful routine that had been established by generations gone by. Each person knew the role they were expected to play in the family and in society—a role that they had been trained for from the time they were little children. While many may have been uncomfortable or unhappy with the roles they were expected to play, they continued on, living unhappy, unfulfilled lives. To do otherwise would have labelled them as a “misfit” or a “rebel,” and they would have been ostracized as having something “wrong with them,” so people continued to play roles for which they believed they were not suited, living lives of unhappiness and loneliness, dreaming dreams and having visions of living lives differently from those around them but believing that where they were was where they were supposed to be.
Then, in 1956, along came a man who had lived in poverty as a child and had seen war up close and personal. His name was Earl Nightingale, and he not only had visions of how life could be lived in a way that differed from the multitude, but was actually living the life that he had imagined. Through a recording he created for his team, he suggested that each of us has the power, the gift, and the ability to live our lives as we imagine them to be and then went on to reveal this “secret” as to how those ideas, dreams, and visions may be accomplished by us all!
After all, men and women have been “following the followers” since the beginning of time, and this man with this recording was suggesting that it was not only okay but that we owed it to ourselves and our families, as well as to building a better society, to think about what we would like to pursue in order to become our best selves. He was not only giving us permission but was telling us that we have and have always had the power to direct the courses of our lives. This whole premise was so bizarre that each time the record was played, it sparked a response so great that each person wanted to have a record of their own and couldn’t wait to play it for others, who, in turn, wanted a copy of their own to share!
And so it was that this simple message that was written and recorded to be played for two weeks to just a handful of salesmen sparked a new idea that soon spread like wildfire, not only across the United States but, in time, around the world, selling millions upon millions of copies and igniting a new spirit—one of entrepreneurial genius—inspiring people to think in new directions. Suddenly, a new industry called personal development was born, inspiring and inviting people to become all they wished to become simply by changing the way they thought about themselves and about life. People began changing, and so did our world.
For more than sixty years, The Strangest Secret has stood the test of time, still selling daily somewhere in the world, and still changing lives for the better. Earl Nightingale has been introduced often as the dean of motivation, a legend, one of the world’s leading authorities on success, and the greatest philosopher of his time. I remember Earl Nightingale as a man of integrity who was generous in spirit and love, a man who searched for truth and wisdom and had a strong desire to share all that he learned with others so that they might benefit from that knowledge as well. I am so blessed that this incredible man chose to share his journey with me and that he has left me with his timeless legacy, one that I am proud to share with the present generation and with those to come along with the desire that each will find the secret that lies within: that we all become what we think about.

BE A CONFIDENT LEADER IN UNCERTAIN SITUATIONS

“How can I be a confident leader in uncertain situations? Does it come from your personality or is it learned?”

My simple answer to that is…

Yes. Having certain personality traits does help your self-confidence. But, self-confidence is a habit that can be learned.

Maintaining your self-confidence as a leader in unsure or defensive situations does not have to be difficult. You just have to know how to go about the situation in the right way. What makes a good leader is being confident and the practicing the right habits.

High Self-Esteem Is Essential

The first habit you should practice to maintain an unshakeable self-confidence in any situation is having great self-esteem.

The best definition I’ve heard of self-esteem is, “how much you like yourself.”

When you like and respect yourself, you always perform and behave better than if you did not.

The more you like yourself, the more confidence you have. The more you like yourself, and believe in yourself, the more efficient and effective you are in each area of your life.

Self-esteem is the key to handling yourself the best way possible as both an individual and a leader.

Live Life Consistent With Your Values

Living your life consistent with your deepest values is essential for high self-esteem.

People who are clear about what they believe in and value, and who refuse to compromise their values, like and respect themselves. People who are unclear about what is really important to them have a much harder time.

The “Law of Reversibility,” says that feelings and actions interact with each other. If you feel a certain way, you will act in a manner consistent with what you’re feeling. However, the reverse is also true.

If you act in a certain way, your actions will create within you the feelings that are consistent with them.

This means that when you act as if your time is extremely valuable, you feel like a more valuable and important person.

Practice Courageous Leadership

Another way to build up self-confidence for handling any situation is to continuously practice courageous leadership qualities.

All of life is a risk of some kind.

Whenever you engage in any action where the outcome is uncertain, for any reason, you are taking a risk.

You take a small risk when you drive to work or walk across the street. You take a larger risk when you start a business or invest a sum of money.

You take a risk whenever you venture into the unknown. Your possibilities and probabilities cannot be determined to an exact degree.

The issue, then, is not whether you take risks. The issue is how skilful you are in taking them. Being confident and courageous in taking the right risks for the right reasons puts you in pursuit of the right goals or objectives.

Take Intelligent Risks

The goal is to become better at analysing and assessing risk, and then avoiding as much of the risk as possible. Once you are, the more competent and capable you will become at maintaining your self-confidence in uncertain situations.

One of the very best ways to develop your ability to take intelligent risks is to consciously and deliberately do the things you fear, one step at a time.

You don’t have to leap out of an airplane without a parachute. Simply practice resisting your natural tendency to slip into a comfort zone of complacency and low performance.

Take any fear that you may be experiencing and treat it as a challenge or as an opportunity to grow and to become a better person. Face the fear, control the fear, master the fear, and continue to move forward regardless of the fear.

This is the mark of a confident and fearless leader.

Admit To Your Shortcomings

Lastly, being a self-confident leader doesn’t mean you’re always right or even have to be right in the end.

Leaders need to be courageous, but they also need to be open to the idea that they could be wrong. There are many leaders who eventually fail because they refuse to question their own assumptions or conclusions.

Don’t get caught up in your ego.

It makes you a much more courageous and confident leader when you admit to your shortcomings. If you made a mistake or a bad decision, be honest with yourself and with others to admit your wrong doings.

There’s a difference between being confident and blind.

Maybe you are not wrong. Opening yourself up to that possibility, though, is going to make you a more confident leader. It will open your mind to new ideas or new thinking or new solutions to the uncertain situation.

Grow Through The Insecurities

Remember, new opportunities and experiences can be just as exciting as they are scary. Growing through the insecurities is what shapes you into a confident leader. You just have to continue practicing the right habits.

DON'T SOLVE PROBLEMS BUT DEVELOP PROBLEM SOLVERS

Let’s see, you’ve been promoted to team leader and, along with your new title, you get a lot of new perks, right? You get the best parking space, you get the opportunity to impact change and share ideas and you get to solve all the problems that come up yourself. Wait. What?

Don’t let that become your story! You’ve seen this happen before, for sure. Maybe you’ve even had a hand in it. There’s something wrong on the front line. Someone isn’t getting along with others or pulling their weight. There’s a technology glitch that seems unresolvable. Or maybe it’s that persistent, angry patron who just won’t leave the team members alone! The solution? Elect someone to go knock on the team leader’s door (that’s you now, remember) and say “fix this, will you please?”

There are multiple alternatives a team leader can take when this all-too-common occurrence happens. First, they can fix it, or at least try to. It might be harder because 

1) they’re not involved day-to-day so they’re missing a few facts or 

2) others involved don’t really know them so they don’t trust their solutions or, most frequently,

3) the leader has other things on their plate and doesn’t really have time to address and resolve the situation so it sits, and ferments, and gets worse while no one does anything to fix it.

How about a new solution? Instead of solving problems, you develop problem solvers on your team. Every single member is, after all, an adult and well prepared to know and understand the rules, policies, and procedures required for a smooth operation. If they could only add to that knowledge some enhanced skills in the areas of conflict resolution, communication, and creativity the instead of one person doing all the solving, you’d have many!

Further, when team members are trained and then trusted to solve challenges by applying their own knowledge and good sense, their overall confidence is increased and their resulting contributions to the organization are enhanced as well. Also, as their skills grow, so too do their future aspirations, especially if they have a natural affinity for leadership to go along with their enhanced abilities.

Someone isn’t getting along with a team member? Imagine if the two of them were to sit down and have a respectful, professional conversation and resolve their differences? Someone on the team isn’t pulling their weight? What if a co-worker were to offer to trade some assignments so that each ends up with work they’re both more suited to and enjoy more? That technology glitch might be best explained by the team member whose strengths are in software management. Perhaps they could be the one who calls the IT department and begins working towards a solution? And that one annoying patron who seems, for some reason, to leave a certain team member alone...maybe she can be the one to kindly suggest another approach might be best?

 All of these potential problem solving steps can and should take place without you involved, as long as you’ve done YOUR job as the leader and developed, supported, and trusted your team members to manage their own success!

 

THE STORY OF SUCCESS, NO MATTER YOUR JOB

Author Early Nightingale tells a story of a cab ride where the driver was explaining how he'd talk a friend out of trying to start his own cab company because he might have failed.

Nightingale said, "But if he had succeeded? What if he had found his way out of cab driving into successful and prosperous career as a businessman, like Marshall Field or the founder of all the businesses in Chicago? You didn't do him a favour, you kept him from what might have being a wonderful success".

Many friends seems to have a vested interest in keeping us in their company. Any talk on our part to elevate us to a new plateau will start them spouting myths and challenges. That doesn't make them bad friends. But when you get advice, consider the source. What are their qualification for commenting on something you very much want to do? Best of all, don't talk about it! just do it. And if it fails, do it again and again, until you get it right.

The story of success in all fields is the story of persistence, perseverance, doggedness, bullheadedness, stubbornness, and tenaciousness. 

Try this: We frequently want reassurance that what we want to try is a good idea. The next time you want to start something new-be it a hobby, a work project, or your own business-don't look for the approval or support of the people who are your friends but are not qualified to give advice in that area. Instead, just start, stay with it, and let them celebrate your success with you down the road.

INSTAGRAM: THE GAME HAS CHANGED

Never before in human history have we experienced the same remarkably fast pace of change as we do today. We see this with technology in general, but perhaps on an even more profound level with the Internet and social media. What may have been hot and relevant one week quickly becomes last week’s news. To this end, platforms need to adapt and evolve with the times to maintain the interest (and engagement) of the public at large. Instagram is shining example of that.

On a social media platform that once prided itself in its simplicity, it almost feels like Instagram rolls out new features all the time. It’s the modus operandi with parent company Facebook, so it only makes sense that the same philosophy trickles down to Instagram too. And if you want to continue leveraging Instagram for profit, you need to keep up with these changes and take advantage of what they can offer.

Think Outside the Square

Remember when Instagram was only offered on the iPhone (and other iOS devices)? It took quite some time before they expanded onto Android, and even longer before any semblance of a desktop experience was offered. Similarly, Instagram was once restricted only to square photos. That has changed dramatically as well, and this represents an entirely different kind of opportunity for online content creators.

If you are only using Instagram to share square photos with the default filters, you’re missing out. From different aspect ratios to collages to carousels, from Instagram stories to IGTV, it’s more important than ever to reach your audience in as many ways and as creatively as possible. How are you leveraging these different formats?

Rise of the “Captionfluencer”

The original premise of Instagram was to share spontaneous moments in your life instantly. That’s the “insta.” But the “latergram” has become the de facto standard for the overwhelming majority of professionals. And while it is still very much a visual platform where photos (and videos) are featured front and centre, how captions are used is completely changing the game. It’s not just about the image anymore.

Indeed, a New York Times article discusses the prevailing trend of “captionfluencers.” In effect, what once may have been an afterthought to accompany the photo has turned into the primary point of focus. The photo itself is stylized and intentional, but the “real story” is found in the caption… and it might not have all that much to do with the photo directly either.

For all the people who say that blogging is dead, the truth is that blogging is just taking on more forms. There’s traditional blogging (if you can call it that) in posts like this, but influencers are also treating Instagram and other social networks as microblogging platforms too. The caption says a lot more than what’s in the photo.

In this way, the photo might be worth a thousand words, but the caption is worth a thousand pictures. Take the same care and attention to your caption as you do with the image.

Tag! You’re It!

Along the same line of thought, it’s not just about the picture (or video) and the caption either. Discoverability plays a hugely critical role and one of the ways to help nudge the algorithm in your favour is with location tags and hashtags, as well as tagging relevant accounts that are mentioned in your Instagram posts. This is true of the main feed, just as much as it is true with stories.

While there are competing schools of thought as how to best approach hashtags on Instagram, and those recommendations are in a constant state of flux, it’s obvious enough that if you’re not using hashtags strategically, you’re missing out on huge opportunities to extend and expand your audience too. Can you even say you’re #LivingMyBestLife if no one else sees, likes, and comments on it?

What are some of the biggest Instagram trends or changes that you’ve noticed? Is Instagram a big part of your overall business plan?

PUSH NOTIFICATION: GREAT BENEFITS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Have you ever used push notifications for your business?

Many marketers are using push notification campaigns in their marketing strategies and have seen a major jump in their revenue.

Using these notifications is a wonderful way of communicating with your audience and keeping them updated about your business.

But what exactly are these notifications?

Push notifications are nothing but short messages that pop up on a customer’s mobile device. When you create these messages, you generally add a clickable link to them using which your audience can land on the desired location and take action.

Marketers can send these notifications directly to a customer’s mobile for promotional or marketing purposes. They can use it to notify the user about an upcoming sale, a new launch, new items in stock, or anything that they want their audience to know about.

Generally, using push notifications on your marketing campaign can be one of the fastest and most effective ways of communicating with your audience. And because they land straight into your user’s mobile phone, your notifications will definitely be read by your users. This improves the possibility of them taking action on your site.

However, that’s not the only reason why you should use push notifications for your business. There are several other ways how push notification can help your business achieve success.

But before we move ahead, if you don’t know how to send push notifications, you can use tools like PushEngage to do that. Just install it on your website, activate it, and start sending out push notifications to your customers.

The best thing about this tool is that you don’t need to have any professional knowledge for using it. You can install it with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Now let’s look at why you need to use push notifications for your business.

1. Re-engage Users

Do you know that 75% of your website visitors never return to your website again? But you can re-engage them on your site if you have a solid marketing strategy. One of them is to use push notifications on your marketing campaigns.

Sometimes you’ll have customers who will land on your website, add items to their shopping cart and then leave your site just before they complete the payment. This can happen because of various reasons.

In business, things like these are not uncommon. But no matter what the reason is, you can remind your users to complete the payment by sending a push notification on their mobile. This is a great way to re-engage your users on your website and prompt them to take action.

2. Target the Right Audience

Push notification is a very powerful way of targeting the right audience for your business. To make it even more effective, you can personalize your messages based on the customer’s previous activities.

For example, if a customer is buying beauty products from your website, you can use their buying pattern to identify the kind of products they are interested in.

Now using this pattern, you can notify them about any product you think they might want to buy. You must have received such notifications on your mobile phone from businesses that you’ve used in your daily life.

Platforms like Netflix, too, use this tactic in their marketing strategy. Based on the movies or series you watch, it sends you the notification every time there’s a similar movie or series added to the platform. Since you’re interested in those kinds of movies or series, you might even go and watch the new ones too.

The same happens to your users as well. So using push notifications, you can target the right audience and convey the message you want to reach your goals.

3. Boost Conversion Rate

Another massive advantage of using push notifications for your business is to boost your conversion rate. Apart from using it for marketing purposes, you can use it to increase your sales as well. But for that, you need to offer them a way to make the purchase.

You can’t expect to see a spike in your sales simply by sending out push notifications to your users. You have to give them a way to make the purchase too.

Your notification will surely let them know about the product or service you want to talk about. But if you really want to convert your recipient, add a call-to-action through which they can take the action you want them to take.

4. Improve Customer Experience

Push notifications can also be used to collect feedback from your users. For example, suppose you’re using geo-targeting for your business. So you’ll know exactly when your customers exit from your physical store.

Now you can send out push notifications to your users, asking them about their experience in your store. Add a link to a short survey form to your notification.

You can use this survey to gain insight into what your customers think about your business. If you receive any negative feedback, you can use it to improve your business to offer a better customer experience.

Since you’re sending out the survey right when the user exits your store, you can have a more accurate insight because the experience is still fresh in their minds.

However, you don’t necessarily have to use geo-targeting or have a physical store to send out push notifications. You can even do it for your eCommerce business if you want.

5. Have Actionable Metrics

It is extremely important that you track and analyse your marketing campaigns to know if they are making the desired impact. Doing so will offer valuable insights using which you can identify how successful your marketing campaigns are.

If you think a certain campaign isn’t creating the impact you expected it to, you can easily change it and make it more effective for your business.

Push notifications offer various analytics using which you can gain meaningful insight into your customer’s behaviour. Using these analytics, you can know the open rates, open times, engagements, etc., for your push notifications. These insights will help you personalize your campaigns and make them more powerful.

So if you haven’t used push notifications for your business yet, you should start using them now. It’s the best way to reach out to a more targeted audience, engage them on your website and convert them to reach your goals.

THIS IS WHAT OFTEN LEADS TO VICTORY

Failures aren't the end of the world-they are far from it. If they were, no human being will ever learn to walk or speak or ride a bicycle or obtain an education. We take early failures for granted in so many things, yet when we attempt something as adults, we become self-conscious. We become concerned about what our friends or acquittances might think.

The world is full of those who "tried" and, meeting with difficult and repeated rejection, simply gave up. But why should succeeding in business world, or anything else you try as an adult, be any easier than learning to ski or play the piano? We are likely to fail at first-it's part of learning process-but it's no reason to give up. We learn something important from every failure; it's staying with it that separate the winners from losers.

Try this: When is the last time you failed at something? Did you learn from it and push forward, or did you let it scare you back into your comfort zone? Commit to trying something new, learning a new skill set, even if it is something small. And commit to failing, learning, and the staying with it.

INCREASE YOUR BUSINESS GROWTH WITH MORE WORDS

It doesn’t matter what niche you’re in because you’re going to have competition no matter what. The bloggers who are able to leverage traffic and provide valuable information will succeed. We are seeing a transformation from paid information to FREE information so you need to stay up to date with the growing trends. Before continuing, with the Internet changing so rapidly, older strategies that are still relevant can be found for free. It’s only the most recent shifts in the industry that require an investment, however, in a couple of months, those will be abundant and free as well. The point is, for you to gain authority, you need to leverage what other bloggers are doing and stay ahead of the trend.

Let’s get started…

Word #2 Free Information

People are under the impression that nothing is FREE so when you offer the valuable information, you’re already gaining credibility. There are a few fundamental rules to follow when offering your visitors free information. To optimize your landing page opt-in rate, it’s important to research and target the information people are looking for. In my previous posts, I’ve outlined numerous times providing a complete solution to a common problem is the best type of content you can provide. It’s time you dig deep into your niche and find out what your readers are looking for. After that, you can proceed to the next step, which is to put everything in place and automate the entire process.

Before continuing, consider the following:

• Your content must be of value
• Must provide a complete solution to a common problem
• Must be relevant
• It must be provided for FREE and be of the highest quality.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen bloggers make is not putting effort toward content they are offering for FREE. You’ll obtain the initial opt-in, but any other information you’re providing will be accepted with hesitation.

Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com generated 10,000 email subscribers in 13 months by providing an eBook relevant to his niche. The cool thing is he spent 2 months creating it, which is longer than anyone else I know and gave it away for free. This was his FREE information product and it increased email subscribers, return visitors, engagement, and profits.

Writing Content

Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to put everything together in an ultimate post. Make sure you go into great detail and provide examples. The key is to ensure your readers find everything they are looking for so they are enthusiastic about accepting future content. When they believe in your content and find it valuable, you’ll be able to make a profit from your subscribers. If you have money to invest, you can hire a freelancer to get the job done for you. It’s a one-time investment that can generate profits for years to come.

• Make content in-depth
• Make it relevant
• Cover all the areas (sub-headings)
• Check for grammar and other errors
• Hire someone if you have money to invest
• Always ask yourself: Is it the best content with a complete solution?

The Landing Page

Having a landing page to grab subscribers is optional, but if you are looking to grow your blog and generate profits, then it’s important to have one in place. Through a simple landing page, you can offer your FREE information product and increase return visitors to your blog. It’s as simple as embedding a form in the sidebar, bottom of a post, or even having a pop-up appear when a visitor arrives on your website. Keep the opt-in form simple and relevant to what you are trying to achieve. For example, if you are offering information, then there’s no need to get name, address, phone number, etc., because this will push visitors away from opting in. Next, don’t add too much text because this, again, will overwhelm visitors and push them away. The trick is to keep things simple and right to the point. Here is a quick guide to creating the perfect landing pages and 5 Landing Page Flaws That Reduce Conversions.

Create your landing pages and follow the guide to check what you’re missing or what you need to remove. You can achieve a perfect conversion rate by testing different versions so make sure you have an analytical tool in place. You’ll learn what to look for in the next section.

Track Statistics

Tracking statistics when offering free information requires a completely different approach because you need to figure out what you are trying to achieve. Once you’ve decided, you can take the right steps to tweak your strategy and free information bundle. For example, are you trying to increase email subscribers, user engagement, product awareness, or profits? I’ve found that no matter what your goal, you can track statistics using two awesome tools. First, Google Analytics, which provides you keywords, landing pages, return visitors, etc. Secondly, the built in tracking interface from your ESP (email service provider).

Google Analytics

This is useful to track how many people opened your free information product and click on additional resources. GA will show you visitors per page on your blog so if you see an increase in user engagement on a specific page, you know you are heading in the right direction. Even though it’s hard to tell an increase in subscribers, email opens, etc., Google Analytics is perfect for those looking to find out statistics on a follow-up page provided within messages sent to subscribers. A high number means your free information was engaging and useful, but low number can mean people stopped reading through, which means additional effort might need to be put into quality.

ESP Statistics

Times have changed and in-depth statistics can be found through your email service provider. Hopefully by now, you are split-testing different landing pages so the information important to you is opt-in and open-rates on follow-up emails. Your free product will be sent as a message and people who open it are truly happy with the information. Additional click-through from within the message indicates visitors have skimmed through the information and even clicked on links within the message. This shows user interest and engagement while allowing you to find ways to increase profits through a high converting free product. If you need people reading through your free information package, then you might consider adding affiliate links and interlink to more of your own content.

ZOOM BURNOUT IS REAL: HERE ARE 4 PRACTICAL WAYS TO COPE

"I'm here live. I'm not a cat."

It was the Zoom mishap the internet had been waiting for. A Texas lawyer, temporarily befuddled by a filter he was unable to remove, showed up on screen for his court hearing as an adorable talking kitten. And the masses, grappling with their own love-hate relationship with Zoom calls after a year of working from home, couldn't get enough of it. Even the judge on the case tweeted about it. 

In the Before Times, video calls for many American workers were a novelty -- a rare occurrence you might encounter if, say, cross-country teams couldn't get together for a presentation. Little thought was given to backgrounds or lighting, and certainly not whether your whole set-up might become the subject of critique online (thank you, Roomrater). 

Nearly a year into the world's embrace of remote work -- more than 40 percent of Americans are working from home -- and, oh, how times have changed. You're not alone if you feel like you've been living through something like the five stages of Zoom grief: 

1. Denial: Yeah, sure, I'm good with a Zoom call right now (locks self in bathroom).
2. Anger: Nope, not turning on my camera today, thank you very much. 
3. Bargaining: Can we just do this over email?
4. Depression: What's the point of even seeing each other?
5. Acceptance: Let's do this (no mention of crying kid, barking dog, and heap of dirty laundry in the background). 

In all likelihood, Zooms are here to stay, even if we wind up using them less frequently than we do now. So if you haven't yet made peace with the reality of video calls in your work life, it's time. Need some help? We've rounded up some of the best advice we've learned from 2020 about making Zoom calls less stressful, more effective, and -- crucially -- a little less omnipresent in remote work. 

1. Less is more. 

The exhaustion you feel after a day of video calls is not just you. Despite not having to go anywhere for a Zoom call, it demands more energy as you strain to parse the information you're hearing along with the few visual cues you can glean from staring at your colleagues in tiny boxes. At the same time, you might be managing children, pets, or other distractions in the background. 

This is why you shouldn't automatically mimic your in-person meeting routines with video calls, says Jason Fried, founder of Chicago-based software company Basecamp, author of Remote: Office Not Required (Vermill, 2013), and remote work champion. "If you have more time yourself, you're going to be more productive," Fried said in a recent Inc. stream event. It's a mistake to assume that frequent video check-ins are what's needed to make people feel connected and productive. Those calls may, in fact, require much more planning and stress on the attendees' side than you realize, as they juggle what's necessary for some relative peace and quiet. Take a look at how frequently you're asking your employees and colleagues to be on-camera and consider whether it's the best way to communicate.

Pro tip: Reconsider the humble telephone or thoughtful memo that requests responses -- they might be more effective and less draining for everyone. And if a Zoom really is required, give attendees as much notice as possible. 

2. Set up a dedicated spot and forget it.

Another way to make video calls less draining is to figure out the mechanics of your Zoom set-up once and then, if possible, leave it set up so that you don't have to worry about it every time you log on. None of this needs to be expensive or time-consuming. The most important elements are a decent light source in front of you (portable light rings go for around $30), a well-positioned camera (right around your hairline), and solid sound (wired earbuds with a mic will do just fine).

Pro tip: In the desktop version of Zoom, go ahead and use the touch-up-my-appearance function in your video settings. It's not perfect but it will smooth out the appearance of your skin.

3. Know your responsibilities as host.

In the same way that being on camera demands more of your attendees' energy, hosting a meeting on camera demands more of you to keep people engaged. Beyond the basics of how you'll run the show, like starting and stopping on time and sticking to a tightly focused agenda, give some thought as to what exactly the show will contain. If you've determined that video is necessary, then think about how you'll begin and end strongly because those are both crucial moments where you can lose your attendees' attention.

Pro tip: Start with action. That could take the form of posing a provocative question to everyone or asking them to share small victories. Likewise, at the end of the call, review any necessary follow-up tasks. 

4. Stop staring at yourself. 

We all do it: When the camera is on, we tend to look mostly at our own faces. Before the meeting starts, preview your video setup. Then remove vanity as additional distraction -- and focus more on what your colleagues are saying -- by hiding your own video from your view.

Pro tip: If you still find yourself zoning out, adopt a few active listening habits: Figure out beforehand what value you can add to the discussion; repeat what you've just heard before you speak to solidify your understanding; and take notes to keep your mind on the topic at hand.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE ACCEPTING BITCOIN AS PAYMENT

Digital currency may not be quite mainstream yet, but a growing number of companies are now are accepting Bitcoin as payment. The question is, should your small business do so too? The answer depends on your business goals, and exactly what you plan on doing with your digital gains.

Let's start with a definition: Bitcoin is just one type of cryptocurrency, which is decentralized, digital currency that can be used to buy goods and services but can also lose or gain value, like stocks. Many companies have turned to crypto during the pandemic to store their cash reserves, viewing currencies like Bitcoin as a safe bet amid economic uncertainty. Bitcoin, and most other crypto, is considered to be immune from inflation since there is a fixed supply of it and the government can't manipulate its value. However, its value is tremendously volatile, so relying on it comes with an element of risk. 

Bitcoin is still by far the most common cryptocurrency accepted by businesses as payment, though Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is gaining ground. For companies with customers from around the world, adopting Bitcoin has become a way to avoid banks' transaction fees and long processing times, as well as the added task of converting to a different currency. 

To get started, you will first need a bitcoin wallet, which allows you to buy, store, and sell the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin wallets come with private keys, or a secret number that allows the holder to access their crypto. You can also get a "hardware wallet," which requires you to either write down your keys or keep them on a hard drive to avoid storing them online. Companies can also sign up with a crypto exchange such as Coinbase or Lumi Wallet, which store keys on a third-party server. Bitcoin.org has a helpful tool that can help you select the wallet that is best for your business. 

If you're an online merchant who wants to accept payment in Bitcoin, platforms like Etsy and Shopify have partnered with payment processors like Coinbase Commerce and Bitpay, which allow e-commerce stores to accept Bitcoin. Business owners can also sign up on Coinbase Commerce and other payment processors directly. Such payment processors are free to set up and allow merchants to directly accept crypto payments from customers anywhere in the world. 

But small-business owners should keep a number of things in mind before accepting crypto. Ali Hamam, vice president of Ontario-based restaurant chain Tahini's Mediterranean Cuisine, converted all of his business's cash reserves into Bitcoin as an inflation hedge last year, but he's less enthusiastic about the currency as a payment method.

"For us, there are a lot of cons with accepting Bitcoin payments right now," he says. The many expenses restaurants have, including employee salaries, supplier fees, and rent, all need to be paid in traditional, non-digital money. And at least for now, he says, there's the issue of public awareness: "Ninety-five percent of our customers haven't even heard of Bitcoin."

Another major issue around accepting Bitcoin is the tax implications. Back in 2014, the IRS made a key decision on virtual currency to essentially treat Bitcoin as property for tax purposes. Businesses that choose to accept Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency must report it as gross income based on its fair market value when it was received. In other words, each time you sell, buy, or use Bitcoin, you're subject to a capital gains tax.

As Accounting Today points out, any business selling its Bitcoin needs to keep track of its value the day it was received and the day it was sold, and also factor in other variables that can adjust the total amount owed. For small businesses dealing with several transactions a day, that can get very complicated. A general rule is that small businesses should accept crypto only for big-ticket, luxury purchases rather than smaller, more frequent ones.

And of course, since every transaction is anonymous, crypto is the currency of choice for many bad actors, including drug lords and black hat hackers. In some countries, including India and China, Bitcoin is illegal. In the U.S., treasury secretary Janet Yellen called the misuse of cryptocurrency a "growing problem" and signaled a need for further regulation. If you're set up to accept it as payment, you'll need to stay current on the rules. 

Finally, Bitcoin's staggering volatility dissuades many people who hold it from touching it. If you purchased $100 worth of Bitcoin in 2014, it would be worth more than $12,000 today. This is why consumers tend to steer clear of spending their Bitcoin on small purchases--and why you may have trouble finding enough customers to warrant setting up crypto payments to begin with. And if you do decide to go for it, remember that the volatility is a double-edged sword: Unless you cash Bitcoin payments immediately, there's always the chance of the currency's value taking a dive and damaging your bottom line. 

ONLINE ENTREPRENEURS WHO "MADE IT" AFTER 40

It’s a myth. A story perpetuated by those “30 under 30” lists that are meant to inspire young people to greatness. And there’s nothing wrong with inspiring young people to get out there and achieve something great, but it doesn’t mean that all opportunity is lost if you’re on the other side of 30. You’re not too old to start now, despite what other people may lead you to believe. 

In fact, and I’ve mentioned this before, did you know that the average age of entrepreneurs when they started their companies is 42? And this doesn’t just apply to more traditional offline business either, though it’s interesting to note that Sam Walton didn’t open his first Walmart until he was 44 and Harland Sanders didn’t start Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was in his 60s! 

Thinking of starting an online business? It’s never too late. Take a look at these notable examples of successful entrepreneurs who “made it” after the age of 40.

Lynda Weinman (Lynda.com)

For facial tissue, there’s Kleenex. For cotton swabs, there’s Q-Tips. And for professional online learning and training, there’s Lynda.com. Have you ever wondered how the company got its name? It’s actually named after co-founder Lynda Weinman, who was 40 years old at the time. 

She teamed up with her husband Bruce Heavin to create the online training library, quickly growing to employ hundreds of full-time staff, including over 100 teachers who earn royalties on a shared revenue model. After 20 years in business, Weinman sold Lynda.com to LinkedIn in 2015 for a cool $1.5 billion. LinkedIn was then acquired by Microsoft the following year, and then Lynda.com was merged and renamed LinkedIn Learning in 2017. 

Today, Weinman has an estimated net worth of over $300 million.

William A. Porter (E-Trade)

It’s almost crazy to think that it wasn’t all that long ago that we couldn’t do so many of the things that we do online today. Why would I mail a physical document to you when I can just email it to you? You can even sign it digitally. We do our banking online, we file our taxes online, and we buy and sell stocks online too. But, as you know, that wasn’t always the case.

William “Bill” Porter got an Apple II way back in 1980 and was immediately inspired by the possibilities of the personal computer. He bumped into programmer Bernie Newcomb at a party, and the two of them partnered up to build what was first known as TradePlus and later as E-Trade. Today, the company is synonymous with buying stocks over the Internet, earning an annual net income of over $1 billion with total assets worth somewhere in the $65 billion range. 

David Duffield (PeopleSoft)

Today, David Duffield has an estimated net worth of over $12 billion. The overwhelming majority of that didn’t come about until he was well into his late 40s and into his 50s. It was at the age of 46 that he founded PeopleSoft, a human resources application software company that was later acquired by Oracle for a healthy sum of $10 billion.

This is what happens when you offer a great product and you target the right kind of customers, as PeopleSoft offered everything from human resources management systems to supply chain management. In time, it grew to become the second largest software company of its kind behind SAP. 

Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post)

Of the people on this list, Arianna Huffington probably has the most mainstream name recognition. You’ve seen her on The Ellen Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, on CNN, and more. Indeed, she’s been named as one of the world’s most influential people by Time Magazine and as one of the world’s most powerful women by Forbes. She’s a big deal.

She authored several books and co-hosted a late night show on BBC1, but she didn’t really start amassing her fortune until she launched The Huffington Post (now known simply as HuffPost) website in 2005 with Andrew Breitbart, Kenneth Lerer and Jonah Peretti. Huffington’s age at the time: 55. The site was acquired by AOL for $315 million in 2011. 

Huffington’s estimated net worth in 2020 is in the $50 million range.

Anyone Can Do It

Don’t let excuses get in the way. You’re not too old or too inexperienced. Don’t fret about your lack of connections or your poor grammar skills. Those can all be improved with time, hard work, and dedication. It’s true that anyone can do it; it’s just that you have to choose that you want to do it and you want it bad enough. 

With a little bit of luck on your side, you could be the next Arianna Huffington or Bill Porter. Just don’t wait for all your ducks to get in a row. Get started now.