Monthly Archives: May 2018

5 Ways of Marketing Your Small Business Effectively

May 12, 2018 By in Freelancing/Self-employed Tags: , , , , , , , 18 Comments

One of the major problems businesses have is marketing. Marketing entails that you put your products or services in front of the right audience and persuade them to buy from you. How you market your business will determine its success.

 

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Small businesses now have available marketing strategies that can help them grow. However, just like every good strategy, you’ll enjoy the full benefits when you are consistent. To help your small business market effectively, I have put together 5 ways you can get started right now.

  1. Create quality content in your blog

I can’t stress enough the importance of owning a blog. Unfortunately, small businesses aren’t taking full advantage of consistently creating blog posts that their audience will find valuable.

You can produce high-quality content that will position you as an expert in your industry or share stories about how your business, product, or service changed the lives of your clients. Evergreen content that contains tips, tricks, and hacks that your audience will find handy make amazing content you can put on your blog.

Great content consistently it makes your target audience keep coming back. Strategically putting out content will help to increase the visibility of your small business. In the long run, you are consistently marketing your business as well as building relationship with your audience who are your potential clients, and creating trust.

  1. Invest in email marketing

The email marketing strategy is about collecting the email addresses of your potential clients and marketing your business and offers via email.

It starts off by creating a resource that your audience will find valuable. This resource is called a lead magnet. It could come in form of an eBook, a mini-course, or a checklist. The essence of the lead magnet is to give it out for free in exchange for the email address of your target audience. Once you have their emails, you can send out periodic emails giving more value and marketing your business.

If you prefer text messaging marketing, Tatango offers a fast and reliable SMS marketing service that you could use in order to reach as many people as possible for a fraction of the cost of a flashy digital campaign.

  1. Try video

Videos are so much easier to consume and they work as a great way of marketing your business. Just the same way you create quality content for your blog, create valuable content on video. Since it’s easier to consume more people will be drawn to watch your videos.

There are so many kinds of content you can create for the videos. For example, you can show behind-the-scenes of how you run your business to help create trust in your brand. You can also conduct interviews with your clients and ask them about their experiences with your business, products, or services. And of course, you can advertise your offers on video.

  1. Leverage on social media

Most, if not all, of your potential clients, are on social media. Social media creates a level playing ground to build relationships with your target audience. Use it as a means to connect with them, ask for feedback about your offers and help them out with their problems or give them great advice.

If you have some money to invest, you can expand your reach with ads. This will help you connect with more people faster.

  1. Collaborate with complementary businesses

One marketing strategy that few small businesses use is collaboration. When you collaborate with a business that has a larger reach or client base than you, you are indirectly marketing your business to an already established target market.

Collaboration can come in different forms like a joint sale, promo, or package. The best part about it is that both you and the business you collaborate with get to enjoy the benefits of the collaboration.

 

 

 

 

6 Commandments of Interior Design

May 11, 2018 By in Lifestyle Tags: , , , , , 53 Comments

As a freelancer I get to enjoy the comfort of my home more than those who have a 9-to-5 job. Consequently, it’s given me the opportunity to play around with interior décor. However, it wasn’t without mistakes and interior design mishaps. I learned the hard way.

 

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If you’re like me and you’re very conscious of having a cozy home that makes you happy each time you walk in, it’s so much easier to decorate when you have some handy interior design rules up your sleeve. These rules are what I call the “Commandments of Interior Design”. Follow these rules and be assured that your home will look superb. You’d even be surprised it turned out so well.

 

  1. Thou shalt not spend so much

“I want to change the décor of my room but how much would it cost?”

When it comes to interior design especially if you want to DIY the whole thing, the price is the first concern that comes to mind. Oftentimes that’s the reason why some people shy away from giving their space a facelift.

Coming from experience, interior décor doesn’t have to cost so much. In fact, expert interior decorators advise that you should only spend a fraction of the value of your house. Little changes like sitting arrangements, decorative ornaments and pictures you can hang on the wall make a huge difference. Plus, there are great deals on furniture if you search hard enough.

 

  1. Thou shalt not overdo it

Who wouldn’t want to make a great impression when someone walks in your house? We would all like the perfect state-of-the-art interior décor, but you’ll lose the essence of what interior design is all about.

Just like fashion, interior design seeks to reflect the personality, values and style of the owner of the house or occupier of the flat. If you try too hard by overdoing the decor then your rooms will no longer reflect who you are. Sooner or later you’ll hate the thought of sleeping in your bedroom or lounging in the living room because they don’t mirror your style – it’ll feel like you’re out of place.

 

  1. Thou shalt focus on functionality

Have you ever been guilty of acquiring stuff you don’t even need just because it “looks nice”? If you’re not careful you could get carried away by the zeal of decorating your home that you overlook the functionality of the items you want to purchase.

Each time you want to buy something to decorate your house, ask yourself: What am I going to use this for? Will it be useful in my home? What function would its presence have in my home?

If after asking those questions you get nothing back, then you don’t need it.

 

  1. Thou shalt get more light

Light is an asset in interior design. Whether its natural light or artificial, a well-lit room gives your space the life it needs. The general mood of your home changes when you have great lighting.

Take a step back and see how much natural light is coming into the room. If your only source of natural light is a small window, add a mirror on the wall facing the window to reflect more light to other parts of the room.

For night time lighting, use a combination of light sources not only the lights in the ceiling. Include standing lamps and side table lamps as light sources as well. This is very important with staircases in particular. The more lightning the better as you want this part of your area bright and airy.

It may be necessary to look into staircase refurbishment with reputable companies if you are struggling to get the lightning you need.

 

  1. Thou shalt add some green plants

Aside from the fact that plants help provide your space with more oxygen, they work well as ornaments. They also add a lot of life and colour to the room.

One major concern people have when it comes to keeping plants in the house is maintaining them. Search for easy-to-take-care-of plants or schedule time to water and trim your plants.

 

  1. Thou shalt break the rules

Rules are meant to be broken. I mentioned earlier that interior décor has to reflect your personality. Sticking rigidly to the rules may do you more harm than good. Play around with alternatives. Switch up the rules a bit. What’s important is that you have fun and create a space that makes you happy.

 

What do you think of these commandments?

 

*Collaborative post.

My Visit to Barcelona

May 10, 2018 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , 25 Comments

Thursdays are all about memories. So I am throwing it right back to when I visited the beautiful city of Barcelona in 2012. I always wanted to explore Spain, so when I had the opportunity to visit Barcelona, I was super thrilled. Barcelona is such a beautiful city with so much history and a rich culture. It is definitely a city I would like to visit again with the kids in tow this time.

Visiting Spain was a dream come true. It was on my bucket list for years so making it happen was so cool. The trip happened pre kids and pre blogging, so I never really blogged about the trip. Which is why you are reading this travel blog post now.

 

 

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The trip to Barcelona happened in my young and free days. I was determined to see as much of the world as I could see before starting a family and it happened. I did get to see quite a few cities. Now that the twins are older, I have slowly gotten back into travelling and I can’t wait to see some more cities.

I have a few cities I plan on seeing in the next couple of months. Some Spanish locations are high on my travel list and I am looking forward to ticking them all off as done. I am yet to visit any of the Spanish islands so they are definitely on my travel bucket list. One island I need to visit is Tenerife. It is the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands and I have heard amazing things about the Island. I have been looking online for Cheap Tenerife Holidays 2018/2019 and I have found some very good deals. Hoping to make that happen one day.

 

Barcelona Spain PictureTravel Blog Image

 

 

My Visit to Barcelona

Back to my visit to Barcelona many moons ago. We stayed at NH Hotel Cornellá for 3 nights. It was a lovely hotel with good customer service. I remember it was right in front of a Chinese restaurant that came in very handy.

The trip was fun. We visited a lot of tourist attractions – Barcelona Stadium, Seafood Market, Shopping malls and more. We hopped on the Red Bus Tour, which took us all over the city with running commentary. It was a lovely bus ride and we had a good time exploring the beautiful city and soaking in the culture. We even got on their own version of London Eye.

 

Travel PictureFashion and Style Police ImageSpanish holiday image

 

Have you visited Barcelona? What did you think of the city?

 

*Collaborative post.

 

 

 

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