On My Reading List: The Ultimate Marketing Toolkit 2nd edition

Grab a copy of Paula Peter's The Ultimate Marketing Toolkit 2nd edition.

Whether you want to incorporate your brick-and-mortar business into the online environs, or an already-successful online firm, Paula Peter’s The Ultimate Marketing Toolkit, 2nd Edition 2nd edition is a must-read if you want to master the tips and tricks in marketing your business. Electronic marketing, online marketing, e-commerce marketing, whatever you that form of marketing your business through the internet has now become the hottest way to market a business. What’s even greater is that even startup business can now take advantage of these tools, thanks to their accessibility and affordability.

The e-commerce evolution also made customers more sophisticated than ever, enabling them to purchase even the most complex services imaginable right at the comfort of their home. Even those who buy online still take advantage of the web as a tool to make their final decision whenever they are planning to buy something. This usually includes following a sales meeting with a prospective vendor.

Small businesses who don’t take advantage of these online tools are actually miss the huge opportunities awaiting them. So, you might as well want to try setting up a website now before your competitor gets one for himself and outpace you in the competition. And while more and more businesses are dumping business cards, print and broadcast ads in favor of blogs, social media presence, and email listings, customers on the other hand are demanding more and more electronic interactions. But since each business is unique from one another, there is therefore a need to try to make a right mix of traditional and contemporary marketing tools to make the right blend that will catch the taste of customers.

Indeed, in today’s evolving world of business, traditional marketing needs to work hand in hand with cutting-edge technology. Today’s marketing tools are morphing faster and faster than you could ever think and if you don’t want to get eaten up by the competition, you’d better learn how to swim the tide!

And that’s what this book is going to tell. It will give you the “kick in the pants” that you need to make your business thrive and prosper no matter how tough the competition may be. From brochures and newsletters to v-cards and email blasts, Peters gets you covered with her resource lists and information that will make It very effective for you to market to today’s customers to tomorrow’s profits!

Paula Peters is an award-winning author and entrepreneur. She has been in the publishing world since 1991. Her firm, Peters Writing Services, Inc., has written material for more than 100 customers. 

Inspiring Quotes for a Lovely Weekend

We've scoured Pinterest for some of the most inspiring quotes to lift up your spirit. Here are some thoughts to inspire and enlighten you this weekend!

@etc-AlltheRest

@Etsy

@Stephanie Champney

@Etsy

@BlogLovin

Online Money Making: 5 Resources to Promote your Online Business

Running a startup online business is not easy. But once you’ve get hold of the basics and you have established your business’ presence and brand online, it’s going to be a lot easier. If you think starting a website is all that you need to launch your business’ presence in the virtual world, think again! You might be missing the bigger picture. There are quite a number of elements that you have to incorporate into your web marketing strategies to fully succeed in your web marketing endeavors. What are these? Read on and find out some tools that are up for your grabs in making your online business truly successful.

Business logo

Creating a logo is key to sustaining your clients’ memory about your business. Your logo serves as your business’ face to the world! In fact, it makes your business appear even more professional and sophisticated. That’s one way of gaining your customers’ trust because it lends your business an image of credibility while also giving them the idea about your personal style and taste. What’s even more important is that a well-designed logo is really helpful in making your customers decide to do business with you! Place your logos prominently on your website, blog, social media pages, press releases, emails and everywhere that your customers could key their eyes on! Your logo is one thing that will set you apart from your competitors!

Company website

No online business will achieve greater level of success without a website. It your company’s showcase of what you’ve got. In fact, a website is more powerful than a business card or any other print or broadcast medium! That is how critical a website is in today’s e-commerce environs! If a customer wants to get a business’ product or service, the first thing he’d do is check out the website. In fact, a website holds heavy influence over a customer’s buying decision. Creating a website is a rather affordable, convenient and interactive marketing strategy that makes it a lot easier to reach out to customers without spending money. If you don’t have your website yet, now’s the right time to start doing so. You’ll be amazed at the convenience and information that you can give to your clients.

Online Newsletter

An online newsletter is quick and easy to make and it serves as a way of letting your customers know that you have something special to give them. It also gives them that feeling that they’re privileged enough to receive a special email from them! Basically, a newsletter contains relevant information that you would your clients to know about, from latest product launches, to events, and even promos and gigs that you have to offer.

Pay-per-click Ad

If you have extra cash and you want immediate but lasting result for your online marketing endeavors, pay-per-click ad may be the one for you! Pay-per-click ad enables you to jump to the top of the search engines as a “featured” or “sponsored link.” The fee, though, is minimal. You only pay a couple of cents for every click you get and you can control whoever you want to see your ad, what place you want it seen, and how much money to spend every month.

Blog

There’s no wonder that blogs are in every online marketer’s tool kit. While having a website makes your business look professional, launching a blog adds a touch of personality to it. It will also help keep your website on top of the search engine. What you need is to keep it updated regularly and the content should be informative, something that will give your clients the reason to check it out from time to time.

Personal Finance: Top 5 Sources of Retirement Income

Diversify your retirement income. Image: USAToday (Instagram)

Here in the Philippines, a regular retiree would usually have two sources of income come retirement time. The first source is the traditional pension. The second one is income provided by his children or relatives. While the former arrives monthly, what is the latter does not exist at all? What if the child is too financially-strained to provide for his elderly parents? Money is something that doesn’t come easily, especially if you are already past your prime. Sometimes, even the 60 and 70-somethings find it a responsibility to supplement their children’s income that even their own needs (like medicines and regular check-up with the doctor) are neglected. If you are in your 20s and 30s, perhaps, you might want to consider changing how your future your should. You don’t want to grow old poor and pitiful, right? The best thing that you should do if you really want to boost your income stream even during your golden years is to diversify. Here are some tips that you might want to consider to make sure that plentiful of cash remains in your pocket even way beyond your retirement years.

Inspiring Quotes for a Lovely Weekend

We've scoured Pinterest for some of the best quotes to keep you inspired this the weekend.

@Stormi

@DumpaDay

@EventsOrb

@Rahel♥ Hack

@Etsy

Inspiration: Quitting My Day Job and Pursuing my Passions? I Can, Perhaps!

Follow your dreams

Since my grandfather's health deteriorated, i have not been feeling really great from within. I have always been stressed out financially and emotionally and juggling between three jobs, keeping up with grad school requirements, and having a rather dysfunctional family around have all been keeping me busy (and pressured!) more often than not. Right now, I am actually entertaining thoughts of leaving my day job and just focusing on the things I find more meaningful and important.

For more than two years, I have actually survived and thrived without a day job. I had my online writing gigs as my sole source of income and I was doing well in fact. I was able to focus on my master’s degree at the same time and I bet I was feeling less pressured then than I am right now.

My decisions whether or not to quit from work is like in a tug-of-war right now. I need to set priorities. I need to decide which is really which. While I enjoy the company of people here at work, what takes my energy is the pressure associated with running an academic library.

Add to this, I have my master’s degree thesis to finish. I hope I could do this before this summer ends. Perhaps, eventually, I could really decide what path to thread. I might as well leave the library and just teach part time? Or accept consultancies, maybe? With more time left at hand, I could only look forward to spending it building my blogs. I have long yearned to make them a successful enterprise. I would like to give a lease of life to my declining online business and if everything goes well with my blog, perhaps, it becomes self-sustaining enough to generate substantial income, I could cease writing for clients and simply focus on my blog. Hopefully, I could write an ebook… or ebooks perhaps, travel to places I want and enjoy a simple, bountiful and fulfilling life? Quitting my day job and pursuing the plans of my heart are just wishful thoughts for now. But I don’t lose hope that someday, these plans will all become true realizations. AMEN. 

Online Money-Making: 5 Ways to Make Money with Your Blog

Blogging is a popular past-time for many. But for some, it’s a source of income. If you have the knack for writing, why not set up your own blog and start reaping the rewards of making cash out of it? There are actually so many ways of income-generating opportunities that your blog has to offer. Here are five of the most popular ways that you might want to take advantage of.

Google AdSense makes sense. Image source here

Google AdSense

Affiliating your website through Google AdSense is one way of generating passive income through your blogs. How do you earn money from this? When you enroll your blog through the Google AdSense program, you will be allowed to display three banner or text-only advertisements in your blog page. Whenever someone clicks that ad, you get to earn money! If your blog has thousands of pages and it has thousands of visitors every day, you have better chances of earning big bucks! When your account has accumulated $100 and up, you’ll be eligible to get your payment already.

How paid ads work. Image source here

Paid Ads

Another way of earning money through your blog is by getting sponsors who will pay in exchange for letting them display ads on your blogs. If your blog is so popular already and people are asking you if you could allow them post ads on your blog pages, now is the right time to come up with a plan. You can offer different advertising programs with corresponding price tag. The price could range depending on the size of the banner ad or the length that your client wants the ad displayed on your pages.

Here's how online reviews work. Image source here

Reviews

Writing reviews about books, products, or establishments gets you paid either in cash or in kind. If you have established your credibility as a guru or expert in your niche field, expect people to contact you, asking you to write good things about them. Because you have gained a considerable influence among the consumers, your words are too precious that they can’t afford not to have you to say something about their products or services. Before your write a review, your clients would send you their products that you could try out. You don’t have to say all the good things about the product. You don’t also have to write a really scathing review. A balanced one would be good enough. Just lay the facts and let the consumers judge whether or not they’d want to get the product that you’re writing about.

The business of ebook publishing. Image source here

eBooks

If you have been writing about your niche market for so long that your blogs have accumulate a lot of information already, why not collate what you’ve written, tweak the information a little, then publish and e-book? You can then sell them through Amazon! Don’t forget to advertise it through your blog, of course. You can never tell, you might be the next best-seller!

The anatomy of a link. Image source here

Backlinks building

With your credibility as a blogger and with the thousands of followers you have, it’s not just the businesses that would want to have a slice of your blog. SEOs and webmasters would also want to have your blog’s authority to pull up their rankings and increase their ratings. That’s called backlinks building. Say, your blog already enjoys a PR 5 or 6, a website with a PR or 3 or 4 that wants to improve his PR rank would ask you to include his link in one of your posts. However, you should be careful about this. It’s important to make sure that the website that you’re sharing does not have a bad reputation, or else, it could have an adverse effect on your blog’s rating, as well. 

Inspiration: Life's Silver Lining

There'll always be a silver lining amidst life's trials.
 Image: solodialogue.wordpress.com

Certain situations in our lives could hurt us and really break us. There’s the thought of bankruptcy looming around or the thought of all your friends turning their back on you. The situation may take its course and we are helpless about it. But what comes after is for us to act upon. Situations may be bitter and seemingly hopeless, but how we react to it could mean our saving grace or breaking point.

How do we react? Do we drown ourselves in alcohol? Smoke ourselves to death? Dig ourselves deeper into depression? Or eat our lives away with drugs? We cannot control events in our lives.

We cannot stop a person from dying. We cannot help our loved ones from breaking our hearts. We cannot prevent financial breakdowns. But what we can do is always hope for the better. It’s how we react to things that make all the difference.

So, how do we do that? Do we react with a positive mind that looks into all the goodness in life despite the trials that afflict us? Or do we react with negative feelings and sink into it? The choice is yours. But remember, there’s so many beautiful, blissful things in life that dwelling into the dark, negative side would mean robbing yourself the right to all the wonders that God’s hands have to offer. AMEN.  

Inspiring Quotes for a Lovely Weekend

We've scoured Pinterest for some of the best quotes to keep you inspired this the weekend.

@DumpaDay

@DumpaDay

@HappyGoLicky

@SweetSayings

@DumpaDay 

Inspiration: I’m Doing OK

Everything is OK. Image: intralove.com

More than one month… Yes, it’s been so long since I’ve been here. I don’t feel good with the many misses I’ve had in blogging, but it’s just that the two months of absence have been turning points in my life… but yes, I’m alive and think I’m doing OK.

10 Quotes to Inspire

Feeling down and out lately? Here are some tidbits of inspiration and morsels of wisdom to lift you up!

Source: Alena Hennessy (Pinterest)

Source: Family Christian (Pinterest)

Image: Raspberry Essence (Pinterest)

Image: Livestrong (Pinterest)

Source: Motivated Type (Pinterest)

Source: Livestrong (Pinterest)

Source: Judy E (Pinterest)

Source: Judy E (Pinterest)

Source: Judy E (Pinterest)

Source: Judy E (Pinterest)

There's Joy in Sorrow

There's joy in sorrow

In the many trials that have come my way, I have found it spiritually uplifting, emotionally enlightening and physically strengthening to rest my case in God’s hands. Through all the hardships that I have been through, I have stayed positive in my thoughts and belief. It’s not because I hate to be dampened by the series of misfortunes that life’s circumstances may bring. But because I find it a must to stay in the light and away from the dark. 

Trials are life’s way of saying, “Hey, you’re still alive so go on and keep kicking.” I find it amusing that one has to look for food when he’s stomach starts grumbling; that a lazy student will have to study the last minute before the exams; than an employee will have to get up from his slumber a few minutes before his work commences. Trials are there. They happen all the time. But it’s up to us how to deal with them. A lot of people see trials as God’s punishment; a blessed few see them as opportunity to make life even better. It is on the latter where I thrive in. I see trials not as hurdles to dishearten me. I see trials as stepping stones that will me to somewhere else, perhaps, better than where I used to be. I see trials not as bruising wounds that inflict pain. I see them as the heat that polishes the diamond in me. We don’t grow for the better by staying in our comfort zones. Our mindsets and beliefs change when we go through something harsh and extraordinary, enough to wash away our old self and renew us to become the better us.

On My Reading List: Retire on Less Than You Think by Fred Brock

Retire on Less Than You Think by Fred Brock

I have been reading about financial planning a lot lately because I really think that now is the best time to kick-start saving and investing for my future. I found Retire on Less Than You Think (revised edition, 2004) book at a second-hand bookstore and I readily grabbed it! This book is actually an outgrowth of the author's column in the New York Times. 

A lot of us would often ask ourselves this question: "Can we really afford to retire?" On this central question there is an vital question exists the incompatibility of everyday reality with how it really takes to live in retirement and how much money financial planners, investors, bankers, brokers, etc. tell us we need. Sadly, a lot of the press people have accepted the inflated projections given by self-proclaimed financial industry experts. This misinformation has created a lot of needless worry for many people, sometimes causing them delay retire. This book serves as "the balance to these self-serving projections  and help people realize that retirement, however they're defined, is not just a dream," author Fred Brock explains.

5 Lessons on Reaping and Sowing

You sow what you reap. Image: AndySacker.com

The seeds we sow today determine the fruits we reap tomorrow. In the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, England, one can read Frederick Douglass’ thoughts on slavery. Douglas was a slave and human rights crusader. He writes:

“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellowman without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” When we dehumanize others, we dehumanize ourselves, too.

Bill Crowder writes:

“…our choices have consequences.—and that includes how we treat others. When we choose to hate, that hate can return to us in the form of consequences that we can never fully prepare for.”

Today, I am reminded of the many instances when what we do to others we also do to ourselves. Indeed, life is so full of surprises. Today, we are on top, tomorrow we’re on the pit of disgrace. With this, I’ve learned five lessons: