business insights
I’m officially building my first Al app. No code. No hoodie-wearing co-founder. Just me, my idea, a no-code tool called Lovable.dev, and two years of quietly training an Al on everything I know about marketing, messaging, and digital products.
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100 Profitable Digital Product Ideas
Plus, a totally free challenge to kick you into action and get this baby launched.
Why You Should Create Long Form Content in 2021
You’ve likely heard some mixed things about creating long-form content as a marketing strategy for your business. Some say it’s worth the time, others disagree.
Some people say it’s worth it for SEO purposes-- stuffing a bunch of keywords into some fluff so you can rank higher on Google, and others believe it’s a great tactic of actually engaging with and building a reputation and relationship with your audience.
Of course, we believe the latter… Maybe even a little of both? While it’s a must to make sure your SEO is optimized to help your website traffic and search engine rankings, it’s equally or more important that the content is actually providing value and that your audience will take something away from it.
So, why should you create long-form content in 2021? And what does that word “long-form” really mean?
The Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post
We know that you're probably hearing every single day how important it is to have a blog. The numbers don't lie, the interaction with your audience is incredible, and the value of what you can give can be a game changer. Blog posts are a way to create evergreen content: posts that are always relevant and that your audience can find useful no matter what.
We also know that sometimes you put off something simply because you don't know the best way to go about getting it done. We want to make sure that you're using each and every post to its full advantage– it takes way too much time to prep those posts for them to not be working for you!
Today, we're breaking down a blog post piece by piece. We'll tell you exactly how your post should be laid out, what to include in it, and how to wrap it all up!
15 Ways You Could be Using Canva Right Now
Whenever we need to create quick graphics, Canva is always our go-to. The user-friendly interface and intuitive builder makes it ridiculously easy to create graphics for practically anything we need. It’s the perfect graphic design tool for business owners looking to create marketing assets themselves because anyone can use it, no matter if you have little to no graphic design experience or you’re an award-winning designer. (Our in-house designer for Boss Project, for example, still uses Canva for many of our graphics.)
But what would you actually use Canva for? Anything, really! In fact, we can think of at least 15 ways you could be using Canva right now, which we’ll cover in this blog post.
The Ultimate Guide to Canva Features + How to Use Them in 2021
Canva takes the cake as one of our all-time favorite graphic design tools. Its user-friendly interface makes it the perfect go-to for small business owners (really, anyone) to create graphics for all different aspects of their business. Instead of having to use a super robust software like Adobe, Canva gives you all the best features wrapped up in one platform that’s available on desktop or the mobile app.
Even though it’s designed with the average user in mind, you face a learning curve with any tool or software. So today, we want to give you a complete walkthrough of Canva features inside the builder, plus how to use them!
Our Top 3 Must-Have Tools for Pinterest
We. Love. Pinterest. Seriously, it’s helped us tremendously increase the traffic we have to our website and blog, in turn increasing our conversion rates. However, as much as we love Pinterest, it isn’t the platform alone that gets us our results– it’s the tools that we pair it with that allow us to do wonderful things! Technically, Pinterest is really only doing half the work.
Today, we’ll be walking you through our top 3 (in no particular order) favorite, must-have tools that will up your Pinterest game and get you the results you’ve been striving for!
The Ultimate Dubsado Set Up Checklist
So, you’re ready to get started with Dubsado as your CRM, but you’re unsure where the heck to start. We love Dubsado and would back it up with our lives, but we also know that, as with any software, it can be super intimidating to think about setting it all up. That’s where we come in!
We’re going to walk you through everything you need to know about getting your Dubsado account up and running in no time. When you break it all down, it really isn’t confusing or hard, there are just a lot of steps involved that can make it seem daunting.
So, save this post to come back to as you get to know Dubsado more and want to use it to its full potential! If you want, you can open up Dubsado in another tab now and read along as you set it up, but you definitely don’t have to complete all of this in one day.
How Brand Collateral Can Make Your Business Turn Heads
Your branded marketing collateral is like the sidekick to your business. They aid you in marketing and promoting your brand across different mediums, which means they play a huge part in your overall brand strategy.
Your branded marketing collateral is what makes the first impression on people, so it’s important to make sure that each asset is planned and designed to effectively let the market know about your brand story and what you offer.
OK, so it plays such an important role, but what actually is it? Keep reading as we dive into how brand marketing collateral can make your business turn heads, plus the different types of collateral!
How to Create a Powerful Brand Identity (our 5 step guide)
Having a brand that’s authentic means being more in tune with who you are and where your passions lie, as well as the needs of your audience. Spoiler alert: It isn’t just about an amazing logo and a pretty color palette. When you pull together elements of yourself and your personality, the benefits you’ll reap are well worth the extra time and effort it takes to really dive in and build a powerful brand identity.
With all that said, here’s our 5-step guide to creating a powerful brand identity that stays closer to the things you love, the things that represent you and your business, and your personality!
Our Ultimate Guide to Client Onboarding + Crafting an Extraordinary Client Experience
Client onboarding is the most crucial beginning phase to starting a project with a new client. It sets the tone for the working relationship and can make or break your project depending on how you handle it. If handled poorly, it can lead to your client having a bad experience with you, and it’s the client experience that determines whether or not you’ll receive positive testimonials, repeat business, and future referrals. (No pressure!)
After working with clients during both our time as separate businesses and even after we first became business partners, we know a thing or two about client onboarding and making sure the client feels comfortable and taken care of before, during, and after the project.
With that said, let’s dive into our ultimate guide to client onboarding, plus crafting an extraordinary client experience!
Service Providers Earning Less than $5k Per Month: Essential Skills You Need to Have a Successful Business
There’s undoubtedly a flood of information and resources on the internet for service providers looking to grow their income to $5k+ months. Unfortunately, that also means that it can be difficult to know where to look, what to search for that’ll actually be helpful, and find reliable resources. When you’re a smaller business, your number one priority is essentially increasing your revenue, and there are a number of skills that are essential to have in order to make that happen.
In this post, we’ll be giving you our best resources to help you hone in on those skills so that you can finally break free of the feast or famine mode that so many small service-based businesses find it hard to come out of in the beginning stages of business.
Maximizing Your Potential: Understand the Relationship Between Capacity and Business Goals
One of the largest issues we see in the service industry, specifically related to CEOs and their time, is that they aren’t aware of what their capacity is or how to best split their time to focus on all of the areas that need their attention. Without the knowledge of what baseline their capacity should cover (i.e. 20% in this area and 10% in another), they also aren’t able to see the clear path forward to reaching their goals. In this post, we’ll be breaking down how your time should be spent as a CEO and how to understand your capacity and its effects on your business goals.
How to Know When You Should Pivot or Start Over in Your Business
There comes a point in every service-based business owner’s journey (especially in this market) where they hit what feels like a huge cement wall. Leads feel harder to come by, prospects feel harder to close, and it seems the only way to get through it is to either demolish the wall or change directions. In this case, that would mean pivoting your offer or scrapping everything you’ve built and starting over.
How to Identify and Define Values That Your Business Can Actually Live In
Something we’ve noticed is overlooked by many new or growing business owners is creating brand values. You may think since your business is small or because you may not have a team, that means they aren’t important at the moment, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. If you want to ensure you’re developing a clear and concise brand, creating consistent brand awareness, and attracting the right kinds of clients and audience to your business, then you need to identify and define your brand values.
Roundup: 5 Must Have Templates to Help You Review Your Year in Business and Plan for 2023
The end of the year is possibly our most favorite season of business! It’s the time where you get to reflect on your year in business, assess your analytics and results, and plan for the year ahead. Because this is such a fun time for us, we love making sure our audience is equipped with the resources to help them make these things happen. In The Creative Template Shop, we drop so many helpful templates for reflection and new year planning.
With hundreds of templates to choose from, we wanted to do a quick round-up of our top 5 must-have templates to review your year in business and plan for 2023!
What You Need to Know About Client Acquisition in 2022
Client acquisition is likely the single-handed most asked about topic we get from our audience and members of our various communities. Lately, we’ve been hearing a common complaint from business owners that they need more leads. While there have been some market shifts recently, they’re not necessarily impacting the way we acquire clients. It may feel like it’s changing when actually, everything with clients is exactly the same.
Here’s the thing; marketing is cyclical. There are things that work now that aren’t going to work in 6 months, then in 2 years, those things could come right back around again. There will always be hotspots, but you shouldn’t rely on them if you want consistency. We have lots to talk about on this topic, so let’s dive in!
Welcome to My Blog
Hey, I’m Abagail Pumphrey!
You know when you are so deeply passionate about something you can’t help but share it? That’s how this blog has felt for the last decade. I’ve written about my latest strategies, tech how-tos, experience with scaling and so much more. I hope you find just what you’re looking for. We’re here to help!
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