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Back in the day, business owners and executives designed marketing messages for their products and services that, like a megaphone, were directed outward toward target customers and cast a wide net. The usual marketing media were print, radio and television.

Traditional marketing activities are still employed, but they’ve been joined by a more personalized strategy known as content marketing. Neil Patel, CEO of KISSmetrics, defines content marketing as “… the way for a business owner to educate customers and potential customers about your products and services. The goal is to offer tips, help and education about anything that can be useful to the customer. This kind of information can be shared in the form of a blog, white paper, webinar, video. or social post… ”

Content marketing directs inward and engages customers on a granular level. Solopreneurs and organization leaders can reveal a deep understanding of customer priorities and challenges, build trust and credibility and demonstrate how customers might benefit from using their products and services.

Michael Brenner, a Forbes Magazine Top 40 Social Media Marketer and head of strategy at NewsCred, points out that “Small businesses don’t have the luxury of massive ad budgets… They need to drive brand awareness and (sales) leads with limited resources. Content marketing is a great way for small businesses to do both.”

Great. How can early-stage entrepreneurs, small business owners and Solopreneurs get started with content marketing? First, identify the content that your customers will value and present it in a way that will lead them to your message. Consider your customer’s viewpoint about the reasons that they use your products or services: what are they trying to achieve and what information might they appreciate? Speak (and listen) to your customers about their business goals and challenges and get a better handle on where your products or services fit in.

Shelly Kramer, founder and CEO of V3 Integrated Marketing, advises marketers to “Tie your overall business goals and objectives into your content marketing strategy” and to incorporate content marketing into social media. “Social and content have to work together in order for you to be successful… You can’t have success with content without a robust presence in the social media space… Understand the role that fresh, relevant content and social media channels play. There is great content being published on corporate blogs on a daily basis that no one ever sees.”

Next, choose your delivery platforms. Do customers visit your website often? Then posting a white paper once a month or writing a weekly blog could work for you. Are customers part of your LinkedIn group or Facebook fan page, or do they follow your business on Twitter? Add those icons to your email signature block and website, to create social media connections that alert customers to your content.

Along with fresh and relevant, volume, value and variety are your other guide posts. Brenner says “(Volume)… starts with this notion that you need to be present in our always on, always connected world. The second thing is value. Your content has to be good. I always recommend that brands identify what they want to talk about and then make every effort to produce as much valuable content around those topics as often as possible. The final tip is about variety. Customers (and search engines) reward brands that deliver value in multiple ways, so think about text-based articles, videos, SlideShare presentations, case studies and all the information we consume across the digital, social and mobile web.”

Finally, measure your content marketing ROI and monitor its impact. Patel offers three metrics: 1. Track content views; 2. Use Google Analytics (free) to track which types of content drives visits to your website; and 3. Measure your search traffic. “You have to give it time. Don’t expect great results in three months or six months, but you will see traction. Within the first three months you should see more traffic to your site. Within a year you should start to see good results and an opportunity to monetize traffic on your site.”

Patel concludes, “Good content marketing builds trust. If someone trusts you, they are more likely to buy your products and services and more likely to tell their friends and family.”

Thanks for reading,

I believe the problem we face today is people are more concerned about social issues then financial ones. We’ve been brainwashed in thinking more about environment, sexual preference, and from my perspective over done on being healthy. If you don’t have enough cash how can you eat right, or reduce stress wouldn’t that be more of a health risk? Rather then citizens going protesting for better wages, job creation, and reducing the way over taxation we fight for social issues. I am a very compassionate person, but bringing in 30,000 immigrants who don’t have a shot at getting a decent well-paying job either is not prudent. It turns into more of our tax dollars to support them, while there are thousands of citizens who can’t afford a place to live or food in their mouths. It just seems we have our priorities really mixed-up in these uncertain times. Here is what I mean by this statement.

Obtaining an education today means taking on serious debt, and then not being able to find a well-paying job is financial suicide. No matter what fair waged job or not our greedy government expects to be paid back. It is no concern of theirs they aren’t generating job creation and taxing people into bankruptcy. It’s all about giving away our tax dollars to people from other countries. The burden gets even worse here because those who can find jobs end up on welfare, or get mentally ill living on disability. The part of population going to their crappy jobs pays for those people too. What about new entrepreneurs can they still exist in this country?

The truth is Government decided to let in major corporations from other countries in, then actually investing in their own talented citizens. A corporation like Wal-mart is very hard for small Mom and Pop business to compete against. These corporations offer minimum wage which is substandard to cost of living, and no job security including set hours. They’re not doing anything wrong, it is our government who sets the minimum wage, and labor board who determines what they can and can’t do. Our wonderful government has also allowed them to be one stop shops. An entrepreneur wanting to open up a shoe store can’t compete, dead in the water before the doors open. The government knows this, so that is why getting a business loan is almost unattainable. Just consider how many small businesses have been destroyed in smaller towns by companies like Wal-mart, and everyone buys into the trip. Better pricing but no well enough paying jobs for consumers to buy step-up quality. There has been so many horrendous financial mistakes done by our governments over the decades it’s ridiculous. Free trade took away our manufacturing jobs, belonging to O.P.E.C took away low-cost fuel pricing, and now the Government taxes that even further.

Maybe we should re-think how much time, effort, and money is being thrown into social issues. How about stop taking one for the team living on credit cards to supplement our incomes. Focusing on fighting for the things that will provide our children with a bright future instead. Fair wage jobs, money, and reasonable taxation might be the first direction. Here’s the truth for the majority of us no one will remember we even existed in a 100 years. Worrying about our Great Grandchildren environmentally is a smoke screen the governments and activists take away hiding real issues which is financial. Maybe it is also time to bring home the troops stopping the financial bleeding we are experiencing here. No more bringing refugees until all our ducks are in row. That means every child gets a proper education, health care, and possibility of an amazing future with our tax dollars. This also includes the right for their parents to buy homes at reasonable pricing, not purchasing a shack they can’t afford because it so over priced, and then the hydro costs effect how the purchasing power for the necessities.

I am very fortunate to have a well-paying job, so this article is not about me but injustice I see everyday. I watch people taking about the environment because they can’t deal with the reality of their own lives. I see our Government being so careless with our hard earn tax dollars it makes me ill. The problem is anyone like me who speaks up is considered aggressive, not caring when I do!! It’s time for all us to lobby the Government to provide all of their citizens with being able to have a quality of life!

Perhaps during this 2016 Presidential Election season you got so tired of the Political Correctness and name-calling (being called a racist) that you just decided to hell with it and voted for Donald Trump. Why do so many Americans feel this way? Maybe it is because the political correctness we are forced into isn’t real, it’s not what we deserve and we are just tired of it. Look as a former Franchisor CEO, all I ever wanted was the best person for the job – and I didn’t give a rats rear end if that was a man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, young or old person. I didn’t care their religion or non-religious status – I just wanted to win. We were not in business to lose.

Now then, I also believe that the best person for the job, may not be the best person for a different job and vice-versa. Different folks have different gene expression, IQ levels, social skills, experiences, education, physical abilities, just a different types of athletes are better at Figure Skating than Snowboarding and these types of bodies are often quite different. I think this is the way of things, specialization, niches in the food chain, corporate hierarchy, small business realm, and professional services – that’s how nature works – why go against what works?

The best operating system to fly an unmanned aircraft will not be the same as the electronic chess champion, and the AI system used by executives in a decision making matrix won’t be similar to the one GM uses to make cars in the factory, so GM can pay the legacy costs of all the union retirees (ouch, sorry Michigan).

Sometimes the best person for the job is a computer software program, sometimes it is a better machine, and in the future for more and more companies it will be a robot. Not always, but when it is the decision has to be based on reality – real costs for employees and the cost of real depreciation, maintenance, installation and purchase of a robot. That is if the work human versus robot is equal in quality and time. Maybe a robot costs $200K, and you know it will be obsolete in 5-years to do a certain job – well, you can mathematically figure out if it is worth the money or if human labor is better and less expensive.

Yes, there will be times when the best person for the job is a robot, and as the future progresses, I bet the prices of robots come down, so the robots may indeed be the best option more of the time. Please consider all this and think on it.

Even though I taught English at the high school, the subject of literature would seldom come up when I met with my main friends there. Being football coaches, most of our discussions concerned that particular sport or others that are popular in our culture.

One of the two physical education teachers on our coaching staff happened to glance at a stack of papers I had placed on the desk in the football office. The contents were poems my students had been assigned to write, so the obviously bored gym teacher decided to read the first one aloud.

We kind of chuckled at his exaggerated elocution, and after two or three poems he gave up the enterprise. His confession afterward would not have surprised me now, but my idealistic younger self back then found it nearly incredible.

“The only poem I can recite even a single line of is the one they use in that song,” he said. “That one by the Moody Blues.”

He had not needed to provide the first words of it, “Breathe deep the gathering gloom”, in order for me to know he was talking about Nights In White Satin. Had he been a more avid fan of that band, he could have used Painted Smile, a lesser known song from their Long Distance Voyager album.

The Moody Blues successfully accomplished the feat twice, but other artists have also managed to insert original poems into their songs. The most famous example is Jim Morrison, who wrote and recited An American Prayer on the Doors album with the same title.

Bassist Joe Puerta of Ambrosia wrote a poem that he recites to introduce his song Cowboy Star on the album Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled, and Ricky Wilson of the Kasiser Chiefs wrote a two verse piece in 2014 to close out Cannons from the Education, Education, Education and War album.

Occasionally artists have decided to take a poem already in our literary history and translated it into a song. Here are four classic poems that have been recorded as songs by popular artists.

The Highwayman

Folk singer Phil Ochs put an acoustic touch to this Alfred Noyes poem, resulting in a track from the I Ain’t Marching Anymore album.

The Bells

This eerie epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe was made more cheerful by the jingling rhythm of Ochs’s guitar on a song from All The News That’s a Fit To Sing.

Nice Nice Very Nice

The prog rock quartet Ambrosia turned some verse of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. into the opening track from their debut album, adding a catchy chorus and a chaotic but delightful musical bridge.

Under the Greenwood Tree

Shakespeare has been an obvious influence to writers of all genre, and folk rock singer Donovan transformed this sonnet of the Bard’s into a lovely track on the Wear Your Love Like Heaven album.

Winter always comes in layers and makes all play hide and seek throughout the season. Layer over layers and many hideous covers make this moment special for vacations as well as fashion. If don neatly and properly, winter clothes can really make you stand apart from the crowd. And in ethnic wears, designer kurti is one such ethnic staple which can be complemented with various types of western wears such as jackets, jeans, skirts and etc. This is the time when you can wittily conceal all your party wear kurtis or formal shirt dresses under shawls, dupattas, knitted long shrugs and etc. These kurtis can be easily worn with various funky and trendy casual wear outfits that we dare not to bring out during the whole year. Winter is the perfect time to showcase pitch perfect feminine élan and what can be better than beautiful online kurtis. The season is about to flaunt your sophistication, well-defined fashion and vibrancy. Do not stick to monochrome or greyish drapes; instead one can try classy and stylish kurtis this season.

Heavy clothes can be a great problem and ultra thin numbers will not be enough to prevent the trespassing of winter chills. Here check out selected types of kurtis and their fabrics which are for all smart women shoppers.

Jute Kurtis

The category of ethnic wears for women is so vast and vivacious that Indian women need not think much before purchasing any new style. Try amazing jute kurtis during winters and feel the utter cosiness throughout. This fabric is generally rough yet sensitive to skin and thus women just love to adorn them in their casual days as well.

Pashmina Kurtis

Crafted from the mountainous sheep’s fleece, Pashmina is known for its utter warmth and silky texture. A perfect metaphor of delicacy and tenderness that women carry all day long, Pashmina sarees kurtis, suits and much more are a must have for every fashionista. One can explore coral or pastel colours in these ethnic staples for that dreamy appeal.

Shirt Style Kurtis

Shirt style kurtis feature stand up or regular collars that ensure to keep the chills at bay during the winter season. Another achievement after regular shirts, these designer kurtis offer a lovable match with other formal wears as well. One can also add pseudo buttons instead of shirt style buttons in these ethnic numbers to get a different look.

Long Anarkali Kurtis

Apart from plain kurtis, long Anarkali kurtis are the fave choice of every fashion enthusiast. Catch up bright and pastel colours in these staples and strut off with much compassion. Net fabric, lace work and maximum pleats add grace to this type of kurti.

Be a true fashionista and steer your fashion world with best ethnic collections and let not anything or anyone spoil the charm of your personality.

IndiaRush, a leading online company for women Ethnic wear, offers a wide range of designer kurtis and a huge collection of online kurtis. The site has a user-friendly interface, where you can make online shopping of ethnic clothes and offer speedy delivery all over India.

Some people are cut out for just this. It starts early, that careful grooming of hair, nails, hands, feet and face, it may extend to lifestyles and food habits that will maintain the ideal body shape, keen interest in fashion trends and knowledge of beauty secrets passed down the ages and beauty tips for the not so patient listener.

Conde Nast started Vanity Fair, the popular magazine on fashion, culture and current affairs in 1913. A hundred years later, it is still publishing monthly articles on notable people, fashion trends, world events and carries full page portraits of beautiful celebrities. He was just one. There are many like that who would like to share the world of fashion and beauty that is so much within their reach with the rest of the world.

With the advent of the world wide web and blogging, publishing a magazine is no longer necessary. There are many bloggers who write about the very same things one would find in a world class magazine like Marie Claire, Vogue or Vanity Fair. There are so many blogs that the first twenty, or the first fifty has been rated for the reader’s convenience.

The outstanding reason behind a successful fashion and beauty blog is the knowledge that you the blogger have something different to say and works hard at saying it.

What are the other reasons that go into making a successful fashion blog or beauty blog?

A fashion blog is like having a fashion magazine online. While a magazine has different departments and people to take care of writing, photography, art department, sales, etc. a blogger basically has to do all of this on his or her own.. Some of the skills required for this job of having a fashion blog are

· Writing skills – writing should be appealing and readable. Anything that’s boring and dull will not get readers

· Editing skills – punctuation and grammar should be right – translating into something the reader can trust.

· Modelling and being a stylist – should not be awkward when it comes to modelling in clothes. A certain level of comfort and confidence in your own body is essential. A sense of style which can create a unique statement which is creative and interesting is essential.

· Photography/ Creative visualization – Basic photography skills with a high quality camera with knowledge of lighting and angles is a great asset to have

· Photo editing skills as in Photoshop for lighting, color, shadows is essential for those pictures which will attract traffic to your fashion blog

· Social media skills – must be conversant with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ etc. Making the accounts in all these visually appealing will generate more interest to the benefit of your blog.

· Ad sales and Public Relations – This has to do with advertising your blog with a little bit of showing off your achievements in order for advertisers to tie up with your blog. Public relations is establishing good relations with brands and companies that are relevant to the matter of your blog.

· Basics of web design and HTML – will help you make changes or fix bugs on your website without having to resort to expensive outside help.

The same skill set holds good for a beauty blog as well. Armed with these skills a beauty or fashion blog will surely be a winner.

Online fashion shopping is rapidly gaining popularity and the reason behind it is the ease and convenience that it carries with itself. The utmost craze about online fashion shopping is that you do not have to leave the comfort of your home and travel a long way to the retail store. You can browse through a huge section of collection and procure them by just clicking on few buttons. In some instances, online players or retailers carry more items than the actual outlets.

You will find several online players offering different sorts of clothes. Even though this is the case where not all consumers could be provided with best quality products, therefore, be aware of while you shop online for items that are supposed to be added to your collection. However, here are a few tips to keep in mind before you go for buying fashion online:

Fresh Gaze with an Extensive Range of Collections:

Do your online fashion shopping with retailers presenting the latest trends. It is clearly seen that the world of fashion keeps on changing constantly and only a few can keep up with the latest trends. Therefore, you need to keep yourself updated about what is in and what’s out, and apply this knowledge while shopping online.

Reasonable Prices:

Branded clothes are always more expensive, but this does not mean you should go with the first thing you find, as you need to make sure that you are getting value for your money. You can always spend a little more on clothing staple including a classic t-shirt. You can even use this for various occasions for having a product that will last longer which would worth the extra bucks. In addition, when you go for brand, you need to accept to spend a little more.

Style References:

For featuring a particular look on a model and listing down the items for carrying out the collection is a clever tool to look out for various style suggestions. This tool will come with practical knowledge for those who have difficulty while mixing and matching several items. With the help of these tools, professional stylists put these looks together and further helps in buying the total package while ensuring you with a new look.

Detailed Sizing Charts:

The biggest disadvantage of buying fashion online is that the person buying the product is not even able to try on the clothes before purchasing. Therefore, a detailed sizing chart could be a solution to this problem. This significant tool will definitely help you in figuring out which outfit suits your body type.

Keeping all these points in mind can make online fashion shopping easy and a more pleasant experience for all.

To buy or not to buy online, I hear you ask…….Me I love it! Being a very busy career professional with very little time to shop I turned to online fashion about 2 yrs ago. I generally know what I’m looking for and can easily find those items online in half the amount of time it would take me to get in my car and head to the shops. Now some of you may enjoy the time you get strolling through the shops, but I just don’t physically have the time. Hence my new found passion, online fashion!

So where do you know to look?, how do you know what size to buy?, how long does it take to arrive? or how do you know if the website is legit?! Well that’s where I come in. With the past 2yrs experience in buying online and now knowing where to buy, Here are my Top 5 Tips to Buying Online Fashion. Now I have had my fair share of learning experiences, some of them hilarious (maybe another time I can tell you that story), so I can confidently assure you if you follow my Top 5 Tips you won’t go wrong, pinky swear!

What are they? Well here they are:

1) Refunds & Exchanges – A good online fashion website will have a Customer Service or FAQ’s area that clearly states its refunds & exchanges policy. You should be able to return the item for refund, exchange or credit if your reason is fair. Some examples may be too big, too small or damaged. Generally your item will arrive with a Return & Exchange form for easy processing.

2) Size Chart – This is a must with any decent online fashion site. The Size Chart should give you the measurement of each size they use for easy reference. A very good site will also go further and provide measurements if the item has stretchy material.

3) Secure Payment – Look for websites that have a secure way of paying. These will have a padlock at the bottom of the screen when you are filling in the payment details. Paypal is a very easy and secure way to pay for your items and it includes direct debit from your bank account & credit cards.

4) Shipping/Postage – The shipping/postage time frame should be clearly stated under the Customer Service, FAQ’s or Shipping/Postage area. These prices can be pricey so make sure you check these before you buy. You also need to know how long your item will take to arrive and if they guarantee delivery or your money back.

5) Privacy Protection – Be sure to check the Privacy Statement to see what they will do with your personal information.

People always have been thoughtful when it comes to buying fashion online, as that is the only thing, which could make them set out when they are going out on the lane. Certainly, you will have to have some good money to spend on advanced Designer Fashion clothing, but at the end the effect that you will receive after doing such efforts, will definitely be worthwhile. However, if you really need to start being such a person, then the primary object that you should keep in mind is to go online and look for certain websites that are promoting such stuff that will make you look at your best.

If you have not got through any of such website yet, then that is another big issue to deal with. You will surely be able to find them pretty soon with your preferred browser and search with the help of several known keyword, one of them may be buying fashion online. There are a dozen of online fashion retailers that would appear on your screen and you will now have to go with the best one that would come with everything you wish to buy at the lowest price possible.

However, yes, if you love branded clothes, then you might find it difficult when it comes to picking the ones that will fit you the best. Certainly, there are sizes that the clothes will be springy, but for the fact, if you do not personally try it on, then you would definitely not be able to identify if it will fit you perfectly or not.

Even though you might consider it to be an issue, it can in fact be fixed pretty soon and with no big efforts. You just have your sizes to be measured properly and you will directly be aware of the attire that you want to buy so that it would perfectly fit you, and if you know your measurements, then you would definitely always buy the outfit that match up the best.

If you desire to encompass your measurements, so you can gently ask one of your friends or relatives to help you out in this matter. In addition, if you do not have anyone close to you, then you will be satisfied to know that there are measuring tapes available that are specifically designed for such an operation and would be able to buy them without a problem from almost anywhere or everywhere.