Let me give you a little background. I was a minimalist before being a minimalist was cool. As a little girl, I'd love getting rid of toys I didn't play with anymore or clothes I had outgrown. I didn't have a label for what I was or how I acted, it wasn't trendy or popular, but I knew it felt good. Fast forward, and I'm a self-admitted minimalist living the nomad life in a Tiny House. And you know what? I couldn't love it any more than I do. 

So naturally I was curious about how I could apply minimalism to my business. First, I suggest sorting through all your "digital clutter." Digital clutter includes: files, emails, pictures, apps, Facebook groups, social media accounts, etc. This will take some time, but go through them all; delete what you don't absolutely need and organize what you do. Can you tell I'm not one of those people that has 20,459 unread emails in their inbox?

There's also a second part of digital minimalism that I teach in my masterclasses and course, The Digital Ma...

Have you heard of curiosity marketing? Better yet, are you implementing it in your business? As someone who hates being salesy and using pressure-inducing tactics to make money in my business, curiosity marketing is one of my go-to strategies. 

Think of curiosity marketing as a mutual engagement of information. Content is purposefully created in a way that will leave your audience wanting more. Instead of you as the seller trying to get people to listen to what you have to say (or sell as it may be), they're reaching out to you with questions or wanting more information. Pretty nifty, huh?

You can do this in all kinds of creative ways, but here's an example: maybe you run your own beauty business. You might make a post featuring a customer wearing the eyeshadow you sell and a caption like "Kim says this is, hands down, the best eyeshadow she's ever worn." So instead of naming the eyeshadow brand, the color, the price, and all its features, you're instilling a sense of curiosity in yo...

If you're not converting at the rate you'd like to be, take a closer look at your brand. I can say right now, with confidence, that your brand isn't strong enough. It might be enough to gain a decent following, maybe, but it's not quite strong enough to convert followers to paying clients. 

So how do we fix that? Let's first see where we're at now and then we'll identify where we need to get to. If you asked one of your followers what you're known for, what would they say? Would they be able to come up with anything at all? Or whatever they do come up with, is it in alignment with how you want to be known? If it is, you're off to a great start. If it's not, we can fix it but you've got some work to do. 

From now on, before you post any piece of content, ask yourself if you want to be known for that particular thing? If not, if it does't align with your brand, don't post it. Ask my audience, and I'm known for digital marketing, minimalism, my love of hats, tiny houses, and animals. Th...

The way entrepreneurs hashtag these days literally defies logic. Seriously. It makes no damn sense. For instance, I came across a wedding photographer and along with a bunch of other tags, they had hashtagged "she said yes." Wut. 

Why do they do this? Because all their competitors and their mother are doing it. So I'm not calling out or making fun of this specific photographer...they're far from alone. But what kind of bride is searching for vendors to hire when she gets engaged and searches "she said yes." Not only is it not specific to anyone like caterers or florists or photographers, but it's not even location-specific. What good does searching "she said yes" do? Absolutely none. Hashtagging instead something like "Minnesota wedding photographers" that is location-specific and search friendly makes a whole lot more sense. What I mean by "search friendly" is that it's much more likely that a bride would go on Instagram and search her location along with "wedding photographers" as o...

You've probably heard that you should be doing live videos. They're great for engagement, give your audience a chance to get to know you, and increase your visibility. I agree with all of that. But what if you want to take it one step further?

This is where we get into the nitty gritty of video creation. Thought reversal videos will take your lives to a whole new level. I'm talking:

• even greater engagement
• brand growth
• higher conversion rates from viewers to customers

Brandon Lucero is the pioneer of thought reversals, so I highly suggest you check him out, but let me give you the basics. Thought reversals challenge a widely held thought or belief. This will create polarity in your audience which is actually a good thing. It's a "if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything" kinda thing. To get your gears turning, a few thought reversal videos I've done are "Millennials Make The Best Entrepreneurs," "Working Hard Won't Make You Successful," and "Algorithms Actual...

Do you feel like you're marketing to crickets? You're putting out content consistently but it just doesn't seem like it's resonating with your audience? I know how discouraging it is. Try my simple approach that will prevent this from ever happening again. 

First, you'll need to decide which search engine will better serve you in this exercise. The options are Pinterest or Google. The way you'll choose which search engine to use is by identifying where your ICA (ideal customer avatar) is hanging out. Are they present on Pinterest or would they visit Google to answer their questions? Whatever your answer is, use that.

Second, type in key words related to your industry/business. These search engines will auto-populate what people are searching for most in relation to those key words. For instance, when I type in marketing, the results I get are: 

1. marketing ideas

2. marketing strategy

3. marketing strategy social media

4. marketing quotes

5. marketing plan 

6. marketing tips

S...

Email marketing feels tedious and loathsome for many business owners. I'm not one of them, personally I love email marketing and list building, but I do get it. So in an effort to make it a little less loathsome, I'm providing you with several email prompts that have gotten me my highest open rates. I have an average open rate of 60% with my list whereas the average business' open rate is a mere 20%. So in the interest of higher open rates, let's do this!

1. Introductory email sharing your story. You can do this every so often for your newer subscribers that have joined since your last introduction or welcome email. 

2. Email that relates to something trendy to your niche. For instance, I recently wrote an email on how to digitally declutter. This email received my highest percentage open rate EVER! With Marie Kondo and the minimalist lifestyle becoming extremely popular, people really enjoyed this topic.

3. Address frequently asked questions that you're approached with by customers...

You've heard the old song and dance over and over, serve your audience. But the people you hear it from aren't just saying it. Listen up.

I teach this concept in my course, the Digital Marketing Guide to Profits. Serve, add value, blah blah blah, right? But think about it this way: if you're hearing it over and over again from experts in the marketing industry, it must have some merit.

If you serve your audience 3 times more than you sell to them, you'll do 3 times the sales once you do sell. Read that again. You're going to triple the sales you would otherwise if you serve your audience by being attentive to their needs and adding value for free the majority of the time. That means: not selling their ears off. No one wants to be sold to. That's the plain and simple truth. I don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone say, "gosh I so enjoyed the experience of this person pressuring me into buying this thing."

Ok so now you know you need to serve your audience, but maybe you ...

It's a noisy world out there. So how do you stand out? How do you make sure you've got a step up on the competition? I'm going to tell you. 

1. Creat videos, lots and lots of videos. You should be consistently showing up on IGTV, Facebook Live, and uploading videos to Pinterest. Here's what I do to streamline the process: I start by doing a Facebook Live. After you've finished that, Facebook gives you an option to save it, so I do. Next, I use that to upload the video to my Instagram feed via IGTV and Pinterest. In this way, I only have to record one video, not 3 and this creates consistency across my feeds. 

2. Use third party validation as much as you possibly can. This means whenever and wherever your customers are talking about your business, you post it, share it, pin it. I have a highlight on my Instagram account specifically for testimonials, they're all over my website, and they're front and center on my Facebook page. If you have a Facebook group, make an album of custome...

Here's the scoop: 

If you're attempting to market your business across all the platforms out there, there's no way you can do so effectively, rendering all your time completely wasted. Trying to be everywhere will mean you're effectively showing up nowhere. Unless you're a large corporation, with a huge team, you simply cannot be everywhere well. But maybe of more interest to you? 

There's no need. It's highly unlikely your target demographic is on every platform. I have yet to meet a business owner that has an ICA that justifies them being on all the social media platforms available. My clients will tell me they set up accounts on all the social media sites almost like it's a badge of honor. Following this exclamation, I ask: 

But are you posting consistently on every single account? The answer always to follow is "no."

Are you spending time to intentionally engage and build relationships on every single account every day? "Well...no." 

Did you set up your profile in a purposeful...