Do You Have What It Takes to Make It as an Entrepreneur?

Are you suited to be an entrepreneur? Too often, people start businesses not aware they do not have the right entrepreneurial skill-set—they may be too complacent, laid-back, or cautious to take up on the multifaceted role of entrepreneur—which can lead to the failure of their ventures.

Being aware of your entrepreneurial style before launching a startup can help you determine if you’re suited for entrepreneurship.

1. You Are an Innovator

Do you love experimenting with new ideas? If yes, then you are probably a creative soul who loves original ideas. This type of entrepreneur has a knack for blue-sky thinking which often results in creating or inventing revolutionary products. Steve Jobs is one example of an entrepreneur who changed the face of computing with his out-of-the-box approach to thinking.

2. You Are a Risk-Taker

This type of entrepreneur is not afraid to make bold decisions in their business. They take risks as a way to challenge their own methodologies or strategies and to grow as an individual. With their courageous mindset, they are able to successfully grow their businesses and stay ahead in the game. If you have the ability to face challenges, this may describe you.

3. You Are a Wanna-Be Entrepreneur

You desperately want to be a successful entrepreneur but you seriously lack the talent and abilities to become one. You live in a fantasy world of one day having your own business, but you don’t do anything to get started. You are happy reading success stories about entrepreneurs or watching shows about successful business people and visualizing yourself in the same role. If you identify with this type of entrepreneur, then it’s time to wake up.

4. You Are a Slow Starter

You are serious about starting a business, but you want to be absolutely ready before you take the plunge. It’s important to you that everything is in order, and you want to make sure that the process goes as planned. Much of your time is spent in research and planning, and you’re constantly seeking validation from the people around you. Your constant search for information and second opinions keep delaying from getting started, and in the end, you never launch your dream business.

5. You Are a Day Dreamer

Daydreamers are the kind of entrepreneurs who are only seduced by the glamor of entrepreneurship. They don’t want to be bothered with the laborious parts of launching a startup and only want to dwell on what it feels like to be their own boss. They have mental images of fancy offices and luxurious private jets. But they do not do any real work to convert their dreams into a living reality.

6. You Are an Opportunity Seeker

These entrepreneurs are always searching for new opportunities for starting businesses. They do not build castles in the air, but they instead look for opportunities to build their business. They will also keep in touch with influential people in their industry to get help, even if it comes in the form of financial help or volunteering.

7. You Are Resilient

This hardy type of entrepreneur belongs to the group of strong-willed people who never give up, no matter how difficult the circumstances are. Even if finances are a problem, they never lose sight of their vision and keep progressing towards their goals. Through their determination and resilience, they manage to find solutions.

8. You Are Dependent on Others

There are entrepreneurs who are dependent on others to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality. They are not willing to launch their businesses until they can find the right partners to work with. Therefore, they oftentimes keep delaying their ventures and sometimes end up giving up in the end.

Source : http://bit.ly/2d9LXrs

7 Ways to Take Your Content Marketing to the Next Level

Online marketing is all about the content. Content marketing is an essential part of building your business.

 How else will people find your content — and by extension your website. Part of converting is a good content plan that allows people to find you and decide that you offer something valuable enough to buy. But is your content marketing as effective as it could be? If you are struggling a little bit with getting your site to the next level, here are seven ways you can improve:

1. Start with Quality

 In the past, content marketing was a quantity game. While quantity can help, don’t forget about quality. Search engines — and consumers — are more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago. Quality content is a must if you want to stand out. Even if you post less frequently, you can see results if the content is high quality. This means including in­depth, useful pieces. While it’s tempting to give in and focus on the click­bait, at some point you need to provide value to your audience. 

2. Check Your Grammar 

While you might not be completely error­free all the time (we all make mistakes), you want to do your best to use proper spelling and grammar. Proofread your content before releasing. This goes beyond looking at website copy and blog posts. When content marketing, it also includes your social posts. You want everything to look as clean as possible. 

3. Post Consistently

 Start with a smaller number of posts if you aren’t sure you will be able to maintain quality output. These days, it’s more about expectations and readers and customers know that you will post consistently once a week, and your information will be high­quality, they will be more likely to return. They will even look forward to what you have to say

4. Research Your Topics 

Just because you think something is a great idea for your content marketing strategy doesn’t mean that it is. Instead, research your topics. There are plenty of tools out there that can help you analyze results of different topics. You can even figure out which are likely to do well using keywords or URL. Research to make sure that your chosen topics are going to convert well with your audience before you commit

5. Take Advantage of A/B Testing

 It can be a little tedious to use A/B testing with your content. However, effective content marketing includes keeping metrics on what works and what doesn’t. Pay attention to things like short articles and long articles, which headlines seem to do better, and which topics your readership prefer. Compare different efforts so you can refine your topics and approach to become more effective

6. Optimize Your Website 

Make sure your website is optimized for search engines. You want people to find you, and to stick around. Don’t forget to optimize your social posts as well. Content marketing that goes to the next level requires a great deal of planning on optimization. You need to coordinate what goes on your website with your social sharing.

7. Know Your Audience 

Understand what you audience is looking for and deliver. You don’t need to try to appeal to everyone. In fact, you are likely to fail if you try that approach. Instead, consider who is likely to buy your product or service, and focus your content on what is likely to be useful and relevant to that segment of the population.

  Source : http://huff.to/2bl5Bzi

The Potential of Social Media for B2B in 2016

“Social media's not going away - it's up to businesses to board the train or get left on the platform.

What other tool can build relationships between businesses with such ease and speed?

What other channel can generate enhanced exposure for your business and develop brand loyalty without spending a penny?

In 2016, B2B social media will generate leads for over half of all businesses and continue to break down barriers between you and those you wish to connect with - if you let it”

source : http://bit.ly/2bNTqrT

Six mobile marketing tips for businesses and brands

From chatbots to personalisation, here advertising and mobile experts share their tips on how to master mobile marketing.

We type tap and swipe our phones, on average, 2,617 times a day, according to new research by data company dscout. For heavy users that can rise to more than 5,000 “touches”. The figures are stark: mobile is where you find people’s eyes and hands. It means that brands can’t afford to ignore mobile as a marketing platform; it’s now an essential way to attract new customers and build brand awareness.

Telegraph Media & Tech Connect asked some of the top ad agencies and mobile experts to share their tips for marketing on the powerful, pocket-based platform. Here’s what they said:

1. Know your chatbots

“Chatbots provide a great opportunity for brands to engage in a personal and smart way with their audiences. We’re seeing a big shift in traffic from traditional social media platforms to messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

“With six out of the top 10 most used apps globally being messenger apps, it seems like a really interesting way for brands to exploit having a direct conversation with their customers. This worked well for KLM Royal Dutch airlines, when it launched a chatbot via Facebook Messenger to deliver flight information, itineraries, boarding passes and even delay information. That’s both useful and relevant.”

2. Think about how people travel across devices

“How you advertise across these devices depends on your product. Marketers need to understand how devices fit into the customer journey. There’s often a very complex path when people discover a new product or service: they jump between devices during the research and consideration process (this can be very varied across industries and product types).

“The size of the purchase makes a massive impact; a car purchase will involve a very different path across devices than buying replacement ink for a printer. It’s so easy to buy ink from Amazon on a handheld mobile device, you almost don’t even think about it. But if you are buying an insurance policy, it’s a lengthier process. Understanding how devices fit into your specific customer journey is important.”

3. Stop obsessing over tech and focus on users

“Businesses focus on what application or technology is coming next, but the people using it don’t care about technology – they care about what technology enables. The best technology is seamless, useful and invisible. Rather than focusing on technology or trend, shift your thinking to the user first: to their behaviours (the way the mobile user consumes content in a more snackable way); location (tailoring content depending on whether the user is at home in front of the TV or in a shop); and their need, which tends to be more immediate compared to a desktop user.”

4. Personalisation breeds quality

“Personalisation is the big trend in mobile. As datasets become richer, artificial intelligence becomes more powerful and shapes expectations, brands will be expected to offer more personalized content and better-curated experiences through mobile. Eventually ‘Recommended for you’ will reflect where you are, what you're doing and what your needs are, with no questions asked.

“In particular, it means that good content will find its way to the right people, creating a strong incentive for marketers to place an emphasis on quality rather than quantity when it comes to content.”

5. Sites need to work for mobile; being responsive isn’t enough

“Consumer behavior is different on mobile, which means that site builds must exploit the functionality mobile offers, with click-to-call buttons or GPS store locators to ensure the needs of consumers are met.

“If you have an app, it’s also really important to think about how it works with your site. 

“Having a single user journey – with actions performed on one touchpoint showing up in another – is critical to ensuring that the customer journey is seamless. The key here is they can continue whatever it is they started on the device or touchpoint, they choose.”

6. Ask yourself: where is the right place to advertise?

“Two important areas of mobile content consumption are the social ‘feed’ (Facebook, Twitter and so on) and editorial ‘read’ environments (for example, an article on the MailOnline mobile site). But consumers in the ‘feed’ are in a very different mindset than those in a ‘read’ environment.

“We asked a group of mobile users to spend 15 seconds interacting with a social feed and 15 seconds reading an editorial story. We found that users in the feed scrolled past about three ads, translating to a dwell time of only about 1.5 seconds per ad. In the editorial environment, users scrolled past an average of one ad, with five seconds dwell time – a much better exposure for a brand.

“But it’s not just about speed. Consumers in a feed are searching for something to engage with, but in read mode, they’ve already opted into an article they want to pay attention to – much better exposure for contextually relevant brand messaging.

“There’s one more thing to remember: grabbing an engaged consumer’s attention isn’t enough; if you don’t serve an ad that’s more creative and interactive than a standard static banner, for example, you can’t blame the audience for failing to interact with it.”

 Source : 

6 SOCIAL MEDIA TRUTHS EVERY BUSINESS PIONEER SHOULD UNDERSTAND

The modern business owner cannot assume a website is the only thing a company requires to tide through this digital era.

Two of the most volatile worlds collide when we mix business with the Internet. The former has to heavily depend on the latter to grow, stay afloat and survive in the competitive world of marketing.

Online marketing has become one of the most popular and efficient ways to not just reach new customers but also to understand and evaluate current trends and requirements. The modern business owner cannot assume a website is the only thing a company requires to tide through this digital era.

Social media is a powerful weapon in the field of marketing and is a double-edged sword at that. If used correctly, it can lead to enormous growth and positive publicity; whereas, if left unsupervised and unmonitored, it can be the cause for a downfall in no time.

There are a number of things one must keep in mind while investing time and money in online marketing. The few truths of the ever-changing world of social media, which one must abide by, are noted in this blog post.

Planning your marketing strategy

Out of the main giants of social media, the one that is often the most neglected is the one that may have the most potential if utilized in the right way. Google Plus must be used optimally when planning your online marketing strategy. It may still be in its infancy, even now, and is usually overshadowed by bigger fish in the social media field like Facebook or Twitter, but it has amassed a niche crowd in a short span of time.

Google Plus has the advantage of being linked with other Google services and will ultimately be able to provide your ad campaign with a wider audience with less investment of energy and resources.

Google Plus allows a company to start off its social media campaign in fresh light and with a clean slate. It has unique features such as “huddle” and “circles,” which allow for the grouping together of like-minded people, creating a ready consumer base for your idea/service/product.

Building your brand online

The reach provided to companies by social media platforms is unimaginable. Ranging from the youth right up to centenarians, everyone is taking to these websites and online portals to connect, share, debate and discuss events and ideas.

While it is not an easy task to get noticed and make a dent on the shiny, polished exterior of this world, once you do manage to crack the code to what catches the eye of your target audience, you will sail through. In order to do so, you have to be well aware of what makes your product(s)/service(s) better than your competitors.

Every day you do not use social media platforms, your rivals are getting the better of it and, ultimately, gaining from the exposure — not just in terms of reputation but also regarding consumer base and loyalty.

Building your brand online is the way to go in this day and age of flux. Review reporting is an ingenious method to gauge your growth and study trends which could become a rage in the future. This can only be done if you are a part of the cult that believes in social media advertising.

Increase your digital presence

Many people, if not most, who use the Internet usually have Facebook and/or Twitter and Google Plus accounts. This ready customer pool is always accepting of unique things or ideas that have potential.

Keeping your brand visible in these circles will increase your digital presence by multiple folds. Social media spreads across laptops, tablets and smartphones. This not only improves your visibility but also increases your reach. The number of people using smartphones has increased; and, simultaneously, the digital market has expanded.

Boost traffic with SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another important aspect of maintaining your online presence. Many SEO experts say the easiest way to hide a dead company is in the third page of Google’s search results, and those words couldn’t be truer.

If your company doesn’t get listed on the first page then you automatically lose against your competitors who do. Once you begin to get clicks on your website and climb the rankings, your focus should shift to ensuring that the clicks are converted into actual customers. This will boost the traffic on your website and help your business grow.

Combine traditional and digital marketing approaches

While engaging in social media, the tertiary benefit is that your offline play becomes much stronger. This marrying of traditional and digital marketing is the key to a successful campaign.

The online strategy will increase your visibility and keep your product/service fresh in the minds of your target audience so that the traditional methods of advertising can build on a pre-established consumer base.

Grow your customer base

The biggest, and possibly the most underused, advantage of marketing via a social media platform is that every single share, like or comment creates a channel for your product/service’s page or post to be featured on the newsfeeds of thousands of people you didn’t even know had the potential to become your customers.

This vast untapped pool of virtual population can be used to not just boost click rates on your website but also, in the long run, increase the number of loyal and happy customers your company serves.

Engaging in conversations on posts over social media with those who take the time to give you an appraisal, and taking concrete steps to solve their grievances, will help you receive the goodwill of people you did not even know would stumble upon your post.

Social media marketing is a tough nut to crack; but once you realize how powerful a tool it can be and how gigantic the potential is, you will waste no time utilizing this approach as a main method of advertising. Social media has sealed its position as one of the most important ways to reach millions of customers — and with minimal resources and investment needed. It allows you to reinvent your marketing strategy every few months, or years; and the best thing about the Internet is that, although it can be ruthless at times, it is also very forgiving. You can’t help but be noticed when you use the Internet as a tool to grow your business if you do it right.

  Source: http://bit.ly/1UJgXN6

20 People Who Only Achieved Success After Age 40

As we look at actors, businessmen, and other geniuses who found success at a young age, we sometimes cannot help but wonder what we have been doing with our life. But not everyone hits their peak in their 20s to 30s. Here are 20 famous people who achieved success after the age of 40, and what they did to get where they became.

1. Samuel Jackson

The famous movie star was 46 when he played his role as Jules Winnfield inPulp Fiction. Before then, Jackson had struggled with drug addiction for two years until he got his first major role in Jungle Fever in 1991.

2. Martha Stewart

Stewart worked in catering for years, but her role as “America’s housewife” did not materialize until she started writing cookbooks and other pieces on domestic living in her 40s.

3. Ronald Reagan

Reagan obviously had a successful acting career, but he first came onto the political stage when he delivered his famous “A Time for Choosing” speech during the 1964 election at the age of 53. He leveraged his past acting talents to become one of the most respected presidents of the 20th century.

4. Henry Ford

In his youth, Ford worked as an engineer under Thomas Edison, where he worked on ways to improve the then new automobile. It was not until he was 40 that he founded the Ford Motor company, where he introduced the Model T five years later.

5. Abraham Lincoln

At the age of 40, Lincoln left the House of Representatives and went back to practicing law, his young political career seemingly over. He jumped onto the just-founded Republican Party seven years later, and then was elected President of the United States four years after that.

6. Reid Hoffman

Not every social media website was founded by some young tech genius. Reid Hoffman founded SocialNet.com in 1997, a precursor of sorts to Facebook. But he founded LinkedIn in 2002 at age 35, and then worked for years to make it the professional social networking site. When Hoffman took LinkedIn public 8 years later, he became a billionaire.

7. Lee Ermey

Ermey’s infamous performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket was his first major acting role at the age of 43. Ermey was originally supposed to be an advisor, but was cast as Hartman by impressing Stanley Kubrick with his knowledge of life as a Marine.

8. Ray Kroc

Kroc worked various jobs including a pianist and a traveling salesman for a milkshake maker. Then at the age of 52, he met the McDonalds brothers and proposed that their restaurant could expand across the United States. By the time he died in 1984, McDonald’s had become well, McDonald’s.

9. Richard Adams

While he worked as a British civil servant, Adams told his two daughters a story about a rabbit, who insisted that he write it down. After writing it down two years later, he published Watership Down, which instantly became a children’s literary classic.

10. Jack Cover

Cover worked for NASA and IBM, and eventually used his scientific knowledge to create a weapon which could stop individuals without killing them. Today, police agencies across the world use his Taser to subdue criminals nonviolently.

11. Momofuku Ando

As Japan recovered from the end of World War II, Ando sought a way to provide quick and cheap noodles to his impoverished countrymen. At the age of 48, Ando developed the instant ramen which sustains college students everywhere.

12. Alan Rickman

Rickman quit a successful graphic design business in his mid-20s to go into acting, but spent years working in theater until he was asked to play the role of Hans Gruber in Die Hard.

13. Sam Walton

Walton ran several stores, and failed many times in the process. But he learned from those failures and used the lessons to open the first Wal-Mart at 44 and become one of the richest men in the world. The store’s philosophy was simple, buy in bulk and sell them cheap. Today his stores sell everything from groceries to electric skateboards, and everything in between.

14. Miguel de Cervantes

Widely credited as the first Western novelist for his work Don Quioxte,Cervantes did not publish his first book until 38 and his most famous work at 58. Before then, he served in the Spanish Navy and struggled for years to find work which could support him as he wrote.

15. Julia Child

The woman who brought French cuisine to American televisions did not eat French food until she was 36, working for the OSS in post-war France. But after being absolutely stunned by French food, she studied the cuisine fanatically until she had enough knowledge to host The French Chef at 51.

16. “Colonel” Harland Sanders

Sanders worked a variety of odd jobs throughout his life, and watched his first attempt at a fried chicken restaurant fail at the ripe old age of 65. But Sanders used his Social Security checks to begin franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken, which became the success it is today.

17. Tim and Nina Zagat

These two certainly enjoyed success throughout their life as a pair of corporate lawyers. But after making a list of local restaurants they liked or did not like, they expanded the list into a full-time business. Today, the Zagat list covers over 70 cities.

18. Charles Darwin

Darwin went on his famous voyage on the HMS Beagle at just 21, but his work as a naturalist was held back by health issues. It was not until he was 50 that he finally published On the Origin of Species.

19. Peter Mark Roget

Peter Mark Roget had an interest in lists and orderly language throughout his life. When he retired from his scientific and mechanical work in 1840 at the age of 61, he began preparing to work on a book which would organize words by their definitions. The first thesaurus was published in 1852.

20. “Grandma” Moses

Anna Moses loved to embroider, but when her fingers started to fail at the age of 78, she took up painting. Today, she is remembered as one of America’s great folk artists, who painted scene after scene of American rural life.

  Source : http://bit.ly/1RsdFYf

8 things successful people do every single morning

How you wake up in the morning could make or break your day. In a new LinkedIn post, psychologist Dr. Travis Bradberry, a coauthor of "Emotional Intelligence 2.0" and president of TalentSmart, has revealed the eight things he believes successful people do before 8 a.m.

Here we go.

1. Drink lemon water

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“Drinking lemon water as soon as you wake up spikes your energy levels physically and mentally,” Bradberry wrote. “By improving nutrient absorption in your stomach, it gives you a steady, natural energy buzz that lasts the length of the day.”

Does lemon actually boost mineral absorption? According to Dr. Mike Roussell, a nutritional consultant at Shape, it could due to its high levels of Vitamin C, but so would any food with Vitamin C like kale or bell peppers.

The more important component here appears to be the water, which many successful people like NextDesk Director Dan Lee start their morning by drinking.

But unless your stomach lining is sensitive to citrus fruits, a squeeze of a lemon certainly couldn’t hurt. 

2. Exercise

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Exercise in general is healthy for you, and getting it out of the way in the morning is a smart way to start the day.

“A study conducted at the Eastern Ontario Research Institute found that people who exercised twice a week for 10 weeks felt more competent socially, academically, and athletically," Bradberry wrote. "A second study conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol found that people who exercised daily had more energy and a more positive outlook, which are both critical for getting things done.”

There are lots of benefits to exercise and famous CEOs who also work out in the morning include Disney's Bob Iger, Virgin Group 's Richard Branson, and Apple's Tim Cook.

3. Disconnect

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"When you wake up and dive straight into e-mails, texts, and Facebook, you are far more likely to lose focus, and your morning succumbs to the wants and needs of other people,” Bradberry wrote.

Instead, read a book like AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, meditate like the CEO of Twitter and Square Jack Dorsey, or spend time with your family and pets like director of NextDesk Dan Lee.

4. Eat a healthy breakfast

Deena Jones/Flickr

Eating a well-balanced breakfast will not only help you stay focused, but also improve your waistline since you’ll most likely eat less throughout the day.

“People who eat breakfast are less likely to be obese, they have more stable blood-sugar levels, and they tend to be less hungry over the course of the day,” Bradberry wrote.

Not sure what to eat? Here are some healthy ideas.

5. Medidate

RelaxingMusic / Flickr

Bradberry said practicing “mindfulness meditation” can be good for your productivity and stress levels.

According to Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar, it can also increase gray matter concentration in areas of the brain, which can lead to less stress and more awareness of both yourself and outside forces.

CEO of Twitter and Square Jack Dorsey meditates every morning at 5 a.m. — maybe you should, too.

6. Set goals for the day

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Benjamin Franklin was obsessive about planning his days,” Bradberry wrote. “When you plan out your day as carefully as possible, your chances of successfully accomplishing your goals skyrocket.”

Science supports this. Checking off goals is a mini reward and can help you be more productive, according to Kelly McGonigal, a psychologist at Stanford University.

7. But make sure your goals are realistic

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Look no further than studies on New Year’s resolutions to find that we all have a really hard time keeping lofty goals.

Being realistic about your daily goals will help you feel more accomplished and get more done, according to Psychologist Peter Herman, because you won’t be setting yourself up for “false hope syndrome.”

“There’s no point in setting goals if they aren’t realistic,” Bradberry wrote on LinkedIn. “Take the time to ensure that your schedule for the day is doable by assigning times to your to-do list. A good rule of thumb is to make your day as top heavy as possible.”

8. Say "no"

Flickr/Martin Lain

“No is a powerful word, which will protect your precious mornings,” Bradberry wrote, adding that you’ll be less likely to “experience stress, burnout, and even depression.”

Science may support this — researchers at the University of Californina in San Francisco found you’ll be less stressed and less depressed if you say no and don’t over-commit yourself.

     Source : http://bit.ly/1oEXCiD

Top Trends in Marketing for This Year

At the start of every year, many inbound marketers like to take a glimpse into what the future holds. It’s exciting to see what new software, hardware, and strategies are at the forefront, and make predictions about what will become the next best thing … and what will fizzle out.

The marketing trends for this year will not disappoint, so here’s a look at what to expect and how to plan for what’s ahead.

Video and images are essential.

Much like the last two years, imagery will continue to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert sales. However, some marketers are still getting on board to use video and images, so you’ll be competing with many more companies for customer attention. Plus, Google is now incorporating in-SERP video ads, giving your content much more exposure.

Virtual reality and 3D are the next major shift.

Video and images will continue to be essential–even more so as developers launch products enabling virtual reality and 3D technology for marketing. While the market will generally focus on gaming, there are opportunities marketers must seize. Integration with social media and video channels will lead to more direct messaging for users.

Make sure you’re optimized for mobile.

Users of portable devices will become even more reliant on mobile usage as compared to desktops, so your pages must be developed accordingly. Use responsive design techniques or create a separate app for users to ensure smooth, glitch-free navigation.

Marketers must embrace the omnichannel approach.

Marketing has always been about reaching your potential customers in the places they’re hanging out. In 2016, they’ll be all over and expect you to be there with them. An integrated approach to the customer experience is important–one that blends interactions for a seamless encounter, instead of a series of connections through your website, social media, and app separately.

This is especially important for businesses with a brick-and-mortar location in addition to online marketplace. If there’s a disconnect between the two experiences, there will be a disruption in your messaging.

Social media is a channel, not a strategy.

For years, marketers have used social media as a strategy for reaching customers. However, these platforms aren’t an approach on their own; rather, your social media profile is a part of your comprehensive marketing strategy–it’s a channel for messaging, not a separate tactic. Think of it as a microphone that supplements and amplifies your content.

Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) will dominate.

Wearable technology means your customers are never without their smart device; the IoT is turning everyday objects into network connections. These solutions gained some traction in 2015 and you can expect them to boom in the coming months. The landscape of local marketing will see the most impact as the lines between online and traditional marketing become blurred.

The 2016 Outlook

If there’s one common theme tying together all of these sales and marketing trends, it’s that marketers must focus on the customer experience in their efforts. Your content must meet the desires of demanding customers, delivering relevance and context through the channels they want. They have high expectations and limited patience, so your strategies must meet their needs and expectations to get a leg up over the competition.

Source : http://bit.ly/1PIPq7o