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Jumping into a new week with both feet; who else is ready to conquer every challenge?

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7 Marketing Trends You Can’t Afford to Ignore in 2019:

Who cares about marketing trends, right? If that’s your attitude, I get it. Some trends are here and gone before you even have time to figure out how to take advantage of them. It’s easy to dismiss trends as fleeting.

But the truth is… some aren’t fleeting. Some are here to stay. And, if you’ve been ignoring all trends in favour of the tried and true, then guess what? 2019 is the year to shake things up. https://clik.site/trends-2019/

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Weekend plans are a major motivation to get through the week? Congratulations, because you've made it to Friday! 

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"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop." - Confucius

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An increasing number of scammers are using landline phone calls to con people out of money, after a crackdown on bogus emails and mobile phone texts.

HM Revenue and Customs said it received 60,000 reports of phone scams in the six months to January 2019 - up 360% compared with the previous six months.

It said conmen pose as tax officials, threatening legal action or jail.

Treasury minister Mel Stride said anyone who was suspicious about a call should hang up and report it.

HMRC, the authority in charge of taxes in the UK, said criminals were turning to more traditional scams such as cold calling publicly available phone numbers such as landlines.

It said it had worked with Ofcom to shut down nearly 450 lines being used by scammers in the past year.

Nearly 26 million homes have a landline phone, according to Ofcom, meaning they could be at risk from these type of scams.

Mr Stride, financial secretary to the Treasury, said the crackdown on text and email phishing scams had left fraudsters with "no choice but to try and con taxpayers over the phone".

"If you receive a suspicious call to your landline from someone purporting to be from HMRC which threatens legal action, to put you in jail, or payment using vouchers: hang-up and report it to HMRC who can work to take them off the network," he said.

And HMRC said it would only ever call and ask for a payment for a debt that the person was already aware of - for example by previously having received a letter - or if the person had told it they owed some tax or submitted a self-assessment return.

'Don't assume people are who they say'

Pauline Smith is head of the Action Fraud service, where people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland can report fraud and cybercrime.

"Don't assume anyone who calls you is who they say they are," said Ms Smith. "If a person calls and asks you to make a payment, log in to an online account or offers you a deal, be cautious and seek advice."

Scammers often target older and more vulnerable people. Caroline Abrahams, the director of charity Age UK, urged people to be cautious when receiving cold calls from someone requesting money, "no matter where they say they're calling from".

"If there are any niggling doubts it is always sensible to end the call and contact the company or government department separately using a phone number taken from a piece of official correspondence or their website," she said.

"We encourage people to feel in control of who calls them at home, for example by signing up to the Telephone Preference Service or installing a call blocking device."

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It's doesn't matter how good your product is if nobody has heard about it.

March 4, 2019 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You can have the best products and services in your industry. You can have an impressive website. You can have the experience and knowledge that your customers need. You can have all the elements that it takes to grow a business but it won’t happen without good marketing. 

Your marketing plan and efforts are what separates a successful business from those that won’t make it. You can’t generate revenue if no one sees what you offer. You’ve been exposed to good marketing and it’s the reason why you’ve purchased products and services. You see it every day from big brands and companies. 

Marketing can be expensive. You can pay for advertising and hire professionals. But, there are also ways to market your business for free and these strategies can be highly-effective if implemented. You can use these strategies right now to grow your customer base and bring in more sales.

Related: This Is the Main Reason Few Entrepreneurs Achieve Explosive Revenue Growth Online

1. Get interviewed on podcasts.

According to Podcast Insights, 44 percent of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast. On average, 73 million people in the United States listen to podcasts every month. The numbers are even more staggering when you factor in global listenership.

This creates a great marketing opportunity for entrepreneurs.

You have the opportunity to pitch a podcast, get interviewed on that show and market your business to new potential customers. Podcast listeners are great because they’re engaged. They are likelier to subscribe to the guest's email lists, follow the guest on social media and seriously consider buying the guest's products and services.

There is no shortage of podcasts you can pitch but many entrepreneurs get it wrong when they pitch. They send pitches that lead with who they are and what they do. No one cares. Instead, lead your pitch with the specific value and takeaways you can bring to that podcaster’s audience.

Show them how you’ll educate their listeners on your topic. You’ll get your chance to promote your business at the end of the show after you’ve added value. That’s how marketing should work, anyhow. You can find shows looking for guests using free services such as Radio Guest List. You can also find shows on iTunes that match your topic and start pitching.

Again, lead with what's in it for the podcaster.

Related: 7 Tips for Getting Interviewed on Top Podcasts in Your Industry

2. Leverage large audiences. 

If neither your online audience or potential customer base offline is very big, then go where there already is an established audience. The idea is to take your expertise and train someone else’s large audience. That entrepreneur would be willing to agree to this kind of arrangement because of the value their audience would be getting. 

You can train in large Facebook groups. You can create content for large media publications that get millions of monthly visitors. You can do joint-webinars. There are many ways to leverage an already established audience and create a win-win scenario. Use this strategy. It’s free and can get you exposure to millions of people rather quickly.

Related: 4 Things Editors Are Looking When They Read Your Pitch

3. Go deeper with your content. 

Not enough entrepreneurs harness the power of strong content. Good audio, video and written content can be leveraged and repurposed. While it can take some work on the front-end, content will pay dividends to your business by helping potential customers to know, like and trust you. It starts the buying process in their mind. Good content gets shared in many places, which creates word-of-mouth marketing for you. That’s a warmer way to market. 

Don’t skimp. You can give away a lot in your free content and customers will still buy to get handholding and/or the next steps. Creating good content is free and will market your business far and wide when distributed on social media, through media exposure and to your email list. 

If this is going to be a year of explosive growth for your business, you’re going to need to step up your marketing. The good thing is that you can use these three free strategies, and many more, to bring new eyeballs to you and your business. 

Get clear on what you offer and who it’s for. You can then find that group and show them why they should pay attention to you. Use marketing because it works.

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No matter if it's a project, a presentation, or an interview - here's to hitting it out of the park this week!

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The best way to predict the future is to create it. – Peter Drucker #HappyMonday 

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“If my boss knew how unproductive I am on Fridays, he wouldn’t want me here either.“
James Johnson

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"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." - Henry Ford

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It's important to talk up your product/service/message. But don't forget that sometimes your social media just needs to have fun and engage with your audience just to engage! Ask a question, reach out with a fun fact - whatever it is, be genuine and be open.

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Keep your eye on the prize and you'll get through Monday just fine!

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Facebook Stories hasn't yet become an essential element of the on-platform experience, though usage of the option is growing. Sure, Stories are growing faster on Facebook's other properties (Instagram and WhatsApp), but the company still sees Stories, in general, as the future of social interaction, and one which will eventually usurp the News Feed as the main social sharing option. 

And Facebook's keen to work with that trend - whether it's an actual trend or they have to make it one.

Along that line, Facebook has now released a new set of CTA stickers for Pages, which will enable businesses to make more effective use of the option via direct response tools. 

Spotted by user Ahmed Ghanem (and shared by social media expert Matt Navarra) the new buttons mirror the CTA options available in the main header of business Pages. As you can see here, you can now prompt Stories viewers to 'Shop Now', 'Get Directions' or 'Book' directly from the Stories feed.

The option will no doubt be of interest to those businesses considering how they can utilize Stories within their digital marketing process - and whether Facebook Stories is worth the effort. Is it worth the effort? That's hard to say - definitely, if the same option were released on Instagram it would be of more interest, but again, Facebook Stories usage is growing, maybe not at a comparable rate to others, but it is growing all the same.

Back in September, Facebook reported that, combined, Facebook and Messenger Stories (formerly 'Messenger Day') now see 300 million daily active users. That's not so bad - especially when you consider that Instagram Stories, which has been a big success, sees only 100 million more daily actives (400m).

The problem is that Facebook's main app has much broader scale (2.27b MAU), and as such, it's seeing far slower take-up of the option.

Consider it from this perspective - Facebook and Messenger combined now have more than 3.5 billion users, yet only 300 million of them are bothering to check their Stories each day. That's despite its prominent, top of screen placement - in fact, there's not much more Facebook can do to make Stories more present in the app. And yet, fewer than 10% of users checking them out at all. Not a great endorsement of the option.

For comparison, Snapchat has previously reported that 25% of its daily active users post to their Story every day, while on Instagram, 40% of its users engage with Stories daily. Facebook Stories is basically seeing a lot less attention, despite being in a much bigger app.

That's not to say you should ignore Facebook Stories - 300 million DAU is still significant. But it's still unclear as to how relevant the Stories option will be for Facebook users, and whether it will, as Facebook has predicted, become the dominant sharing option in its main app.

But Facebook clearly wants it to become so, and that might actually make it a great option to consider for brands. If Facebook continues to push Stories usage, through in-feed promos and other awareness efforts, that could help boost exposure for your brand Stories content, with less competition currently in the space. And with these new CTA buttons, along with links in Stories (still in testing), the benefits for business promotion may be significant.

It remains to be seen how popular Facebook Stories will become - but even right now, it's a relevant consideration for business promotion.

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Laugh often, because like the weekend, life is short. Happy Friday, and don't forget to laugh!