I first used my mobile phone to browse the internet back in 2005 and didn’t really like it because it was slow and the websites didn’t look good on my little phone. They simply were not optimized for web traffic.
Inbound Marketing Blog
Running your business in 2018 requires a bit of understanding of technology. Even the least technical jobs, such as lawn care professionals, are sporting smartphones to check email, talk to staff and connect with clients.
The challenge is that technology can be a bit unnerving for some business owners. It’s not unnerving because it’s technology, per se. It’s unnerving because of the need to understand, yet again, something new.
Social media, blogs, iPhones and Android, search engine optimization, flux capacitors… how do we keep it all straight?
Let me suggest that technology is only a tool. It’s no different than a hammer or drill except it’s a tool that solves a different problem. Until we understand that the technology we use is meant to solve a specific problem, we’ll continue to focus on how hard it is to integrate technology into our business and marketing efforts.
Tribute Media has been a HubSpot Agency Partner for about three years now. During that time, we've learned a lot. When we started with HubSpot, there were, if I remember correctly, only four certifications from HubSpot Academy. HubSpot has worked very hard to improve their training offerings for their clients and their agency partners.
When we first signed up as an agency partner early in 2015, I knew that the only way we'd be successful was to embrace HubSpot fully. It's paid off in spades for us and for our clients who have done the same. The Inbound Methodology is paramount to that success.
The most important question that I'm hoping to answer is: Is it worth your time to invest in attaining HubSpot Certifications?
The eight-hour workday is a tired and old concept. It's time to put aside this tired, arcane way of thinking about work. In order to understand how to fix it, we have to understand why we have the eight-hour workday to begin with.
In the late 1800s, full-time manufacturing employees would work around 100 hours per week. Death and injury were commonplace. It wasn't uncommon for children to put in far more hours than we think reasonable today in the factories, fields, mills, and mines.
Last year we tested, and then made official, Office Free Friday. It's been a very cool thing for us as a company because it's provided us some much-needed focus time each week where our customers expect us to be a little less available.
If you aren't interested in clicking through to that announcement link, I'll give you the simple gist here. On Fridays, we officially close our office and our phones go directly to voicemail. It's still a working day, but because the office is closed, our employees have an option to work wherever they want.
For as long as business owners have had a location to hang their sign, they have tried to find more and more ways to get more and more people to buy from them.
What usually happens is that businesses (even experienced marketers) will simply create a punchlist of tactics that they think are important to do — if they do they’ll get sales.
I had a neighbor ask to pick my brain about what it takes to move into the web design and development field. She is starting her degree program and still has a couple of years but is wise to start working toward her career now. I was originally just going to respond to her directly but I figured I’d write a blog post because I think it might be helpful to others, too.
One thing to note: the answers I give here are based on how we do things at Tribute Media but we are a little unique… mostly in how we work with our employees. Our office is closed on Fridays and we encourage our employees to work remotely every Friday. Most agencies/companies will expect their employees to work on site but allow contractors to work wherever. There is something positive creatively about working on-site with your team that you can’t get remotely.
Oh, and a little, not-so-humble brag here.
When we're willing to ruffle a few feathers, we get more engagement. The more engagement we get, the more people will talk to us and about us.
In 2017, you can find plenty of examples of this dynamic all around you. The abundance of clickbaiting and fake news is probably the best. They elicit emotions and cause us to take action.
Facebook and the Baiting of Clicks
If you haven't heard the term "clickbait," it refers to a title that begs you to click the link for an article. For example, a link might have the title, "You'll be amazed by number 7." When you click through, however, 7 really isn't that important. It's sort of like being Rick Rolled.
I explored this a bit in another blog post I wrote titled, “Is Facebook Making us Stupid and Lazy?” (Of course, I think the answer is yes. You’ll have to take a gander later and let me know what you think.)
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Years ago when I was in high school, I worked for a landscaper. He was brilliant. The properties he took care of were always immaculate.
The one problem was that he never took care of his own yard. His sprinklers didn’t work. His grass was more dirt than vegetation. It was awful.
He’d get home at the end of the day and his own yard was the last thing he wanted to think about.
When it comes to managing our own businesses, it’s no different. And, for Tribute Media, we’ve found that it’s hard for us to market ourselves as effectively as we market for our clients.
Why?
In 1911, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hurst made an offer of $50,000 to the first person who could fly a plane from New York to LA in under 30 consecutive days. Calbraith "Cal" Perry Rogers took up the challenge.
Of course, Cal didn't have any money. He had the plane, but in the "good ole days" an airplane required a very large support crew. So, he started talking to businesses about possible sponsorship and was able to secure a sponsorship from Amour and Company for the 1911 Wright Flyer. The company had created a new grape soft drink and wanted to get the word out.
The Vin Fiz Flyer was born. Emblazoned with the logo for Vin Fiz and messages of "Drink Vin Fiz" and "Ideal Grape Drink," Cal began his journey across North America from Sheepshead Bay, New York on September 17, 1911. Not to be outdone, all of the support train cars, paid for by Armour and Company, also sported messages of "Drink Vin Fiz."
Of course, none of this changed the fact that the grape soda advertised as the "Sparkling Grape Drink" did not even come close to living up to its purported luster.