Branding & Marketing
Marketing On A Budget: How To Make Your Content Look More Professional
By Alex Birch, SEO Manager at Typeform You don’t need hundreds and thousands of dollars to make your marketing campaign look professional. Here are a few tricks you can do to make your content more effective. Your content marketing could be the most interesting piece of content on the web, but if...
Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing in 2020: 10 factors that drive traffic
You may have heard the complaints: "Pinterest is getting harder." I see once rabid fans and even Pinterest course creators and coaches jumping ship because they're not seeing the traffic results they once were and they're throwing in the towel. And yet, I've more than doubled my engaged audience...
11 Ways To Refresh, Repurpose, And Get More Value Out of Your Old Blog Posts
One of the unexpected consequences of blogging for any length of time is that at some point, part of your job becomes managing all of the content you've written. Older blog posts can lose their popularity over time, but that doesn't mean you should send them out to pasture!Instead of...
I Wrote 100 Blog Posts. Here’s What I Learned…
Today I published a new blog post and the Google spreadsheet I use to keep track of them informed me that this was the 100th post! I thought it would be a great time to check in to compare where I was a couple of years ago versus where I am now... was all this effort worth it? Were there any wins...
Essential Components of a Strong Brand Identity
When we think about the word “branding,” what usually comes to mind are the things that our customers can see -- our logo, website, and our distinct colors and fonts. But these things are actually a more specific facet of branding known as brand identity...Brand identity refers to the aspects of...
How To Create A Brand Guide
+ Template for Canva
Creating a brand guide is a super valuable exercise for any business -- it's a process that helps you really think through how you're going to create consistency with your visuals and delves into the deeper, more philosophical aspects of your brand too -- all the reasons your customers will care...
How To Create A Brand Board – Ultimate Guide with Template & Examples
One of the easiest ways to accelerate the process of becoming recognized, remembered and trusted is to create consistency in your brand. When it comes to this, nothing is more important than your brand visuals because this is the information that's processed the fastest (within milliseconds!). To...
The Four Stages of Freelancing
(And How to Level Up)
There are two types of freelancers: those who proudly call themselves freelancers and those who wouldn't be caught dead using that term and prefer to call themselves entrepreneurs instead (but they're often times still technically freelancers). Because I work with service-based businesses, I've...
Can You Still Find Customers on Social Media in 2020?
When it comes to social media, do you ever think to yourself, "Hello?! Is this thing on?" I have to confess: I have a love/hate relationship with it. As an ex-pat who lives thousands of miles from her family and tribe of friends, I depend on it to stay connected with people I love and to share...
Brand Fonts Guide – 8 Pro Tips for Choosing & Using Yours
Choosing and using the right brand fonts is a detail that separates design amateurs from the pros. When used well, fonts have the power to communicate your brand personality and build trust and awareness with your target audience. You might be wondering: What is a brand font? It...
How To Use Content Upgrades To Build A Bigger, Better List
List building tactics come and go, but content upgrades provide so much value to you and your site visitors that it's safe to say this method of list-building is here to stay. If this is a new concept to you, let's start from square one... What is a Content Upgrade? A content upgrade is a free...
How To Stand Out And Build A Remarkable Brand On YouTube
Special thanks to video editor and brand designer Paigon Davis of Natasha Lane Design Co. for the following guest contribution. Want to know how to stand out and build a remarkable brand on YouTube? It used to be easy to stand out on YouTube. You just had to create high-quality content and that...
10 Essential Branding Factors To Build A Successful Brand
Online marketing is a combat sport, am I right? With each passing year, it becomes increasingly difficult for a small business to build an audience, beat the algorithms, and break through the noise to win the hearts of customers. Because of this environment, I find myself becoming less focused on...
Brand Essence: The Emotional Reason For Customers To Care
Branding your business takes more than designing a logo and calling it good. It requires introspection and clarity about who you are and why anybody should care. Brand essence describes your brand in a nutshell. It’s a one to three-word statement that expresses a guiding principle or...
6 Core Marketing Strategies To Grow Your Online Business
If there's one thing I've learned about marketing online, it's that "just winging it and hoping it works out" is not a good strategy for attracting clients and building a sustainable, scalable business. It requires implementing core marketing strategies and then applying plenty of focus, patience,...
What Makes You Unique? How To Answer The Branding Question We All Love To Hate
"What makes you unique?" is a question that can cause most people to freeze in their tracks and spiral into some kind of identity crisis: Who am I? What's it all for? What's the meaning of life? First, I want you to know... You're not alone if you struggle to answer this question. While we're all...
4 Pro Tips for Maintaining the Best Client Relationships
By Marie Johnson, Contributing Author at Enlightened Digital Attracting clients is one thing. Keeping them is another. Creating strong client relationships is critical to the success of any business. Whether you’re part of a large corporation, running a small business, or even dabble in a bit of...
The Sleazy Tactic You Should Avoid Using In Your Sales Copy
This morning while having my coffee, I happened upon this awesome article, You're In Sales Too (Whether You Like It or Not) -- it's a short read with a powerful lesson: You never know when you're speaking to (and pissing off) a customer. It reminded me of a tactic that a lot of people use to...
101 Creative Things You Can Do To Get Clients
It's a question all service-based business owners and freelancers have, "How do I get clients?" I've created a list of 101 ideas to get more of the right people lining up to work with you! I've broken it down into 10 areas of focus. You certainly don't need to do them all, but my goal is for you...
The 5 Steps of the Consumer Decision Making Process
One of the most overlooked secret weapons of marketing is understanding the consumer decision making process and meeting people where they are on that journey. It's natural to want people to sign up the instant they see what we have to offer (because it's amazing, right?)... but the truth,...
Clarify Your Brand Message With These 5 Simple Questions
If you're looking to attract more high-quality clients to your business, the first imperative is to make your brand message clear, relevant, and focused. Put yourself in the shoes of your dream clients. They're busy. Distracted. Overwhelmed. Bombarded with thousands of messages every day. If...
6 Reasons You Should Create Productized Service Offerings
The concept of the productized service has become all the rage and for good reason: online competition is fierce and we're all battling it out for our dream clients' attention. How you present your service offerings matters, because when you look at it from their perspective... They're busy,...
Brand Promise: Connecting Your Message With Your Client Experience
What is a brand promise? Like most things related to the subject of branding, there are a lot of esoteric and conflicting definitions floating around. To make it simple... A brand promise is any claim you make about the experience your clients can expect when they work with you What a brand...
6 Fresh Google Font Combinations For Your Brand
Find the featured fonts here: Rubik | Overpass | Laila | Nunito | Yeseva One | Source Sans Pro | Lily Script | Muli | Elsie | Karla | Zilla Slab | Chivo Before you go, grab my font swipe files! These are the best, high-quality script & handwritten fonts out there that are...
Find Your Perfect Pair (of Fonts)
This guest post is brought to you by the fabulous Deborah Morgan of Bold Web Design When it comes to pairs, we’ve got you covered. The best things come in twos, and fonts are no exceptions. Sit down, buck up, and enjoy the ride because you’re about to get the ultimate instruction guide to pairing...
Brand Storytelling: 5 Rules For Telling A Story That Attracts
Brand storytelling is all the rage these days and it's no wonder: you're competing for your dream clients' attention online with a lot of noise and very few signals are getting through. The way to get their attention is to tell them stories they actually care about. But what is a brand story? A...
Brand Strategy Basics You Need To Win Better Clients
Creating a brand strategy is something most small business owners push to the side -- "I'll get to that later" or 'Meh, I don't need that." -- and opt for the default strategy instead: "I'll just wing it." Part of the problem is the language used by marketing professionals--it's convoluted...
3 Clever Ways To Improve Brand Perception
In his famous quote, Jeff Bezos gets to the heart of the definition of brand perception: "Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room." Branding is the process of influencing the way people perceive you so they'll choose you over the competition; but ultimately, your brand...
How To Design An Effective Logo
What makes an effective logo? Whether you're a new designer or planning to "DIY" your own logo design, it's important to understand the aspects of the process that separate the amateurs from the pros. We can talk about what makes a "good" logo, but I think that discussion is too subjective. For...
How To Write A Purpose Statement & Strengthen Your Brand
We all know that competition is fierce these days. If you want to capture the attention of your dream clients, it's gonna take more than just telling them WHAT you do. Connect with people on an emotional level and they'll stop scrolling and pay attention: 👉"This person really gets me." 👉"I'm...
How To Find Clients Fast – 8 Free & Easy Ways
Figuring out how to get clients fast is not about blogging, sales funnels, growing your Twitter following, or optimizing your website. All of those things will help you build awareness and even convince and convert your dream customers in the long run, but they don’t work like a magic bullet—slow...
3 Things You Need to Know About Social Media ROI
By Amanda Peterson, Enlightened Digital Social media return on investment (ROI) is one of the most frequently debated subjects in the digital marketing world. Why? Mainly because social media ROI is different for every business, so there’s not one agreed upon definition. If you ask five social...
Branding A Small Business: 8 Essential Components
This week in one of my Facebook groups, a fellow branding professional told a story of how a guru business consultant she knows advises people that branding a small business is unnecessary: "It's just a waste of your time and money." I hear that a lot so I told her: "Don't sweat it. Anyone who...
Finding The Confidence To Get Visible Online
As business owners, we want to attract clients we love and that means getting visible with them online. These are all things we think of when we talk about online visibility: 👉Creating a stunning logo and beautiful website 👉Adding content to our blogs 👉Sharing things on social media 👉Networking...
Create A Social Media Posting Schedule You Can Set & Forget
A lot of people ask me how I create my social media posting schedule so today I thought I'd pull back the curtains on my strategy and show you what's worked for me and exactly how I post to social media on autopilot. First, there are a few ground rules if your goal is to get visible with your...
Create A Pinterest Mood Board for Your Brand in 5 Easy Steps
We all want a visual brand identity that captures our dream customers' attention and makes us feel proud and happy every time we look at it. But it can be daunting to settle on a creative direction when we're faced with so many choices. This is where creating a brand mood board can really help!...
Branding Your Small Business On A Budget: 10 Clever Hacks
I work with a lot of solo business owners (and I am one myself), so I understand the reality of branding your small business on a budget. Here are the things you need to create a cohesive and effective brand identity without breaking the bank. 1. Selfie Headshots For solo professionals, your...
The Truth About The Psychology of Color & Branding
If you're not familiar with the phrase color psychology, and you're looking for information to help you choose the right colors for your brand, you're probably going to run across information like this: When it's presented in this manner (there are a ton of infographics on this subject, maybe...
The 5-Step Client Attraction System
Mastering the art of client attraction is no child's play. Tell me if this sounds familiar: You put yourself out there in the biggest way possible and wake up to the sound of crickets chirping in your inbox. If you're not attracting enough of the right people to you, it can feel soul-crushing ......
5 Ways To Create A Brand That Gets Noticed
Capturing the attention of your dream customers ain't easy these days, you have lots of competition. So the question is, what can you do to break through all the noise and create a brand that gets noticed? #1 Create a visual identity that sets you apart When building awareness, the first...
7 Ways To Make A Great First Impression With Potential Clients
Making a great first impression with potential clients is often the determining factor for whether they'll hire you, and it isn't all about who has the lowest price. A lot comes down to who they think they'd like to work with most and feel they can trust with their business. I'll be honest with...
4 Tips To Find Your Niche When You’re Stuck
This week I caught up with an old friend and we talked about how it used to be so easy to drum up business—there was scarcity in the market. These days the internet is so much noisier and defining your niche market as "anyone who needs what I sell" just doesn't cut it anymore. Whether we want to...
Define Your Niche in 3 Simple Steps
Yesterday I had a meeting with a friend of mine and he said, "When I read your blog posts, I feel like you're speaking directly to me." I replied, "I am speaking directly to you." The reason why it happens that way is because I have a clearly defined niche and target audience. Because I'm clear...
The Sleazy Tactic You Should Avoid Using In Your Sales Copy
This morning while having my coffee, I happened upon this awesome article, You're In Sales Too (Whether You Like It or Not) -- it's a short read with a powerful lesson: You never know when you're speaking to (and pissing off) a customer. It reminded me of a tactic that a lot of people use to...
What This Experiment About Murder Teaches Us About Branding
By definition, our brand is what sets us apart. Going back to the historical origins of branding, it was a way for merchants to distinguish their products from other products at the market. Here's the problem: because we're humans, we feel uncomfortable when we appear to be different...
How To Charge More For Your Services
Competition is tough these days and there's always somebody willing to do it cheaper. How can you position your brand in a way that allows you to charge more for your services? A few months back, there was a big, heated discussion debate in one of my Facebook groups about how much a business owner...
Suck at Sales? Then Don’t Sell. Build A Brand Instead.
The problem with the word "brand" is that it means many different things to different people. Industry pros are always defining it in esoteric (and often unhelpful) ways and business owners mostly think to build a brand means they just need to get themselves a logo, a fancy website, pro...
Marketing Your Business When You’re Short On Time
Running a service-based business means we get busy serving others--that's what brings in the cash that pays the bills. Finding the time for marketing very often falls by the wayside. But keeping your client pipeline full and attracting new clients to you is crucial for overcoming the "feast or...
How To Break The Freelance ‘Feast or Famine’ Cycle
Let me just state right up front that "The Shoemaker's Children Have No Shoes" might as well have been my tagline for most of my career. If you don't know the story behind the expression... A shoemaker is really great at what he does, but he's so busy making shoes for other people that he doesn't...
5 Lessons I Learned The Hard Way About Marketing My Service-Based Business Online
I'll get right to it: the biggest marketing mistake I've made as a solopreneur is to not market my business at all. If you're looking to attract clients online, don't be like me. I'm going to share the five biggest lessons I've learned the hard way as I've made strides to up my online marketing...
