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Often times, we feel like we have to take on the world by ourselves. Like asking for help is a sign of weakness and that we should be able to get everything done without any help.

This is often referred to as superman/superwoman syndrome.

When it comes to being an entrepreneur or starting your own business, you may feel like you don’t have the money to hire anyone else to help or it’s just easier to take care of things yourself.

No matter your reasoning, FORGET IT.

I once thought that I should be able to do it all by myself too, and then I learned that it’s totally okay to get help, in fact it makes life 100 times better!

In this blog I want to discuss why I think it’s a good idea to get a personal assistant.

Time is Short

It’s important to think a little deeper about how your work is really affecting your life.

Are you able to spend time with your family or doing things you love? Is your business operating at its highest capabilities? Are you able to spend time focusing on you and staying healthy, both mentally and physically?

If the answers to those questions are ‘no’, or even just ‘sometimes’, then you should consider getting a personal assistant.

We only get so many hours in a day to do all of our work and personal tasks. The amount of time that we have to spend on the monotonous everyday tasks that come with both work and personal life, take away from precious time we can spend on our true gifts.

When you have more time away from the daily tasks, you can focus on what your true calling is and on your business itself. You can work to create and improve your business so that you get better engagement and business from your customers.

It turns into a positive feedback loop. If you are able to improve yourself and focus on your passions, then your customers will receive better services/goods and your business will do better.

Why Choose Proximo?

I am a master strategist and I have 10+ years of experience in running multiple businesses.

I’ve helped MLM-ers, doctors who are acquiring new practices, experienced HVAC vets, and even start-up realtors. With all this experience, I can help work with you on forming a budget plan that would allow you to hire some help.

Together, we’ll make sure that this budget works for you, for the person you want to hire, for the business, and for any personal commitments.

We’ll also work to prioritize which things to keep and which things you could “outsource” or hire help for. I am also able to use the connections I’ve made to help find you the perfect person to fill the position you need.

On top of that, my connections allow me to find cost saving solutions to any problems you may face along the way.

I want to help you make the most out of your situation and get you the help you deserve! Contact me so that we can discuss it more!

I can’t wait to start working with you!

Decision fatigue has become an increasing problem in our world, and that’s because there is a continuous intake of information and what seems like endless options.

Sometimes making a decision can feel overwhelming. Everyday life is often stressful enough, but when it comes to deciding where to spend your money and budgeting appropriately, it can feel nearly impossible.

Let’s talk more about decision fatigue and how you can implement all-inclusive packages to help combat that for your businesses marketing.

Where Does Decision Fatigue Come Into Play?

Decision fatigue stems from the idea that we as humans make hundreds of decisions every day.

From what we’re going to eat for breakfast, to where we should be spending our precious marketing dollars. Making so many decisions can wear you out, lead to a stressful work environment and potentially cause you to make poor decisions as a business owner.

When it comes to managing your marketing budget, while also trying to determine where to spend it, it can be hard to decide which services to implement and which to sacrifice. When a company’s services are proposed “a la carte” it can be hard to determine what’s more important to you.

For example, how do you decide between SEO, Google Ads, and social media when you feel like you need them all or when you’re unsure what those services even mean.

Ultimately, you feel like you either have to sacrifice your budget to get everything, or drop a service you need in order to stay within your budget.

You also have to factor in the idea that in 6 months, you may need a new service. Do you push the budget again or drop a service you were using for the new one?

Bottom line; making these decisions is stressful, but they don’t have to be. 

The Importance of All-Inclusive Packages

Implementing all-inclusive packages for your customers can help them avoid the stress of making a decision, because it allows them access to multiple services your business has to offer.

Instead of leaving your clients stressed and hesitant to move forward, you’ll leave them feeling at ease knowing their marketing is covered and they can “set it and forget it” on their marketing budget for the year. 

At Proximo, we have incorporated all-inclusive marketing packages designed to help stop your decision fatigue.

The all-inclusive packages are meant to give you the peace of mind that all your marketing materials are covered under one fee.

No need to ask for a budget increase or stress about which services you think matter more. Instead, choose a package that works for your business and get all the services you need within your budget.

With our all-inclusive packages, you can have videos when you need them and upgrades to your website too! Find yourself needing headshots for the team? No problem because there’s a package that includes that! With these packages, you can get a strategy session, help with social media, and so much more!

We thought hard about these packages and made sure they were built with things that mattered to you!  We can’t wait to work with you! Contact us to get started setting up your all-inclusive package and say bye-bye to decision fatigue! https://proximomarketing.com/contact-us/

Social media has become the medium of choice for successful businesses to communicate with their customers, from promoting products and services to engaging in conversations.

That’s not to say that other forms of digital marketing have become obsolete; however, if you’re not on social media, you’re losing a lot of business.

Whether you just don’t know how to get started or you haven’t joined due to the misconception that it’s a waste of time, here are some pointers to start your business’s journey on the road to social media management. 

Create a Strategy 

Whatever social media platforms you decide to use, create a specific strategy for each one.

Each platform is different and has a set of particular practices that work best for engaging the audience. This will help you create targeted, relevant content.

Prioritize the quality of your content over the number of posts and sites that you use. Don’t try to manage five platforms at once, because the quality of your content will suffer.

Ask yourself these questions to start: 

• Why am I using this platform? 
• Who do I want to reach through it? 
• What type of posts work best there? 
• How are my posts unique? 

Set SMART Goals 

Before making or enacting a new plan, it’s smart to set the goals you wish to achieve with it. Use the SMART goal system to lay the foundation for your social media marketing strategy. 

• Specific – Your goals should state exactly what you expect to accomplish
• Measurable – Be able to answer whether or not you reach your goal clearly
• Attainable – Don’t set goals that are impossible to reach, as this will only discourage you. Set reasonable, realistic expectations
• Relevant – Your goals for social media should fit into the goals of your overall marketing strategy. They should be relevant to each other
• Timely – Stay on track with your goals by setting dates and times by which to accomplish them. This creates accountability
  

Identify Your Audience 

If you want your message to be effective, you should identify the specific audience you want to reach with it.

Develop a customer or subscriber profile using industry information, demographics, and interests to pin-point the kind of content they want to see or products they want to purchase. With social media management, you want to tailor your content to your audience’s needs and interests. 

Be Consistent 

Stay consistent in how often and at what times you post to your social media.

Some platforms require you to be active multiple times a day to get the most potential from your audience. Consider how each platform’s algorithm works and how content is curated when determining your posting strategy. 

Watch Trends 

Keep your eye out for new and popular trends emerging on each platform. Utilizing a new trend that aligns with your message in your social media strategy can help your brand rise in popularity.

That doesn’t mean that you should jump on the bandwagon of every new trend you see. If it isn’t relevant to your message, it will confuse your audience and potentially drive them away.

Pick and choose wisely and stay original. 

Analyze Results 

In order to know whether or not your strategy is working, you need to measure and analyze your results. If you don’t, you won’t be able to easily tell if it’s working or not.

You can do this simply by identifying a few key metrics that are important to your brand, such as: 

• Reach and engagement 
• Impressions, shares, and mentions 
• Clicks and interactions 
• Likes, comments, and views 

Track these regularly so you know when to adjust your strategy to improve them. 

Getting started on social media doesn’t have to be a daunting task. If you take the time to do it strategically, it can turn out to be very successful for your business.

If time is an issue for you, employ someone to take over your social media management. At Proximo Marketing Strategies, our team of experts can help you create and execute a social media strategy and manage your content.

If you would like more information about this service, call us at or visit our web page.

Ranking on the first page of search engine results is what most, if not all, businesses dream about.

If you’re one of the few who doesn’t see the importance of a high search ranking, conduct a search for a product or service your business offers to see how much of your competition appears before you do. If you don’t appear until after page three, chances are that you need some serious SEO.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process by which business climb to the top of search engine results. There are many factors that go into it; and if you’re a beginner, you might make some mistakes.

Here are some mistakes to avoid when DIYing your SEO. 

Keyword Stuffing 

No, it’s not the kind of stuffing you put in your holiday turkey.

Keyword stuffing is when you intentionally fill a webpage with a word or words in order to manipulate search engines into ranking you higher in search results.

You’ve probably seen these types of pages, the ones that use the same keyword five times in one sentence or so many times on the same page that it lingers in your mind like a subliminal message.

The fact is that search engines won’t rank this kind of spammy content. Using a keyword too often is one of the most common SEO mistakes and might prevent you from ranking well.  

Copying Content 

While republishing content that you wrote on your website elsewhere on the web can help your marketing strategy, you should take care in how you do it.

If the same content appears in more than one place on the web, a search engine won’t show it in search results because it can’t determine which version to index. The search engine will default to what is considered the most relevant, original content. 

Careless Backlinking 

You don’t want to backlink with just any website or content creator. You want to backlink with reputable sites that are relevant to the content you post.

Links from irrelevant sites will cause your site to be devalued by search engines.

When backlinking, you also want to avoid sitewide backlinks and pages with excessive external links. With that said, you don’t want to buy links either. 

Buying Links 

If you see emails promising a first-page ranking on any search engine, especially for a small amount of money, send them to the spam box.

While there are legit SEO companies out there, like Proximo Marketing Strategies, most of these emails are from companies looking to scam you. Even if they do buy links on your behalf, Google will blacklist your site for this.

Avoid the trouble and just don’t do it. 

Hidden Text 

It’s like an invisible ink message, except it’s on a web page.

Hidden text is the practice of hiding text on your website so that visitors of your site can’t see it, but search engines will still index it.

A simple way of doing this, for example, would be to change the color of this text to the same color as the background of your page. It becomes virtually invisible, that is until it gets highlighted. It could also be hidden in the page’s code.

Search engines will penalize you for doing this. Instead, put this energy into creating valuable, relevant content and take advantage of organic SEO tactics. 

A well-optimized website should show up at the top of relevant search results, if you know what you’re doing, that is.

You wouldn’t have someone who doesn’t know the first thing about construction build your house. As such, you wouldn’t have someone optimize your search engine who doesn’t know anything about SEO, potentially filling your site with SEO mistakes. Proximo is a leading Virginia SEO company. If you would like more information on our SEO services, call us at (757) 504-2429 or fill out the form on our website.

The world of marketing is always changing; and similar to all other types of change, we are made to adapt. A marketing and advertising campaign that is planned and executed effectively can serve the needs of any business, but times have changed and so has the marketing landscape. Customers and businesses don’t interact in the same way they used to. In this day and age, your digital presence should be on the RISE. When employing digital marketing efforts, it’s important to keep up with marketing trends. Proximo is here to tell you what trends to look out for to help you get ahead of the game. 

1. Omnichannel Marketing 

Think multichannel marketing, but on an even larger scale. In omnichannel marketing, you create consistent marketing touchpoints that work together and reinforce each other on every available channel. Most businesses use social media, search engines and email as their marketing channels. Other channels you might consider are: 

• Video 
• Podcasts 
• Streaming 
• Apps 
• Chatbots 
• Virtual Assistants 

2. Chatbots and AI 

Chatbots are little AI helpers that are integrated into websites. They can answer questions and fulfill requests, offering personalized interactions without the difficulty that often comes from having to talk to the Human Resources Department of any given business. They’re super convenient. This nifty software is already used extensively on Facebook and usage is expected to increase as new possibilities for them emerge. 

3. Personalization 

Everything is personalized these days: computers, phones, online radio. Marketing is no different. Studies show that ninety percent of the U.S. population finds personalized marketing to be appealing. Another 44 percent say that they are more likely to buy from a company again after a personalized shopping experience. Personalization is expected to become the number one tool across marketing channels.

4. Video Marketing 

Videos as a marketing tool are not expected to outgrow their britches anytime soon. It has already become one of the most successful marketing tactics, and is expected to make up more than 85 percent of internet traffic by 2020. Vertical video formats are also on the rise, thanks to Instagram.

5. Zero-Click SEO 

It may not have even occurred to you that there’s such a thing as zero-click search results; even though you’ve probably seen them many times. These are the search results that are automatically generated by Google to answer a search query that comes in the form of a snippet. In order to see the organic search results, you’d have to actually scroll down. Zero-click results are a big deal because they already make up over sixty percent of Google search results. Some of these snippets come from websites that rank on page one, but it’s uncertain yet how Google decides which ones to display. 

6. Voice Search Advertising and Optimization 

When virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google came along, voice searching was born. You can play music and place orders online without having to whip out your phone or other smart devices. Voice search has made it easier to find information, while reducing screen time. Twenty percent of Google searches now take place through voice search. People love it; that’s why it’s not going away any time soon. Your business should start optimizing its content for voice search by making it more conversational. 

7. Live Video (AKA “Streaming”) 

As video grows in popularity, so does the idea of live video, also called “streaming” or “live streaming.” The major draw of live streaming is that the person in front of the camera – whether a social media influencer, celebrity, or gamer – is interacting directly with viewers’ comments. This is all thanks to platforms like Twitch, which are popular for streaming video gameplay. Even YouTube has a live-streaming function. When done right, a live stream can be incredibly useful for marketing. 

8. Content Experience 

You’ve heard the term “user experience,” right? Well, it’s time to make way for content experience. What is that though? Content experience is a combination of content, context, user interface and experience. It falls in line with making content marketing more personalized and tailored to specific audiences and even individuals. Everyone experiences content differently and whether or not their experiences are good or bad determines whether or not there will be a sale. It also determines how a brand is perceived. This approach helps put more control back into the hands of marketers than content marketing. 

Adapting to changes in the marketing world early in the game is the best way to stay ahead. Keep these trends in mind and implement them going into next year and you’re sure to be ahead of the competition. If you need help marketing your business, give Proximo Marketing Strategies a shout at (757) 504-2429 or VIP@proximomarketing.com. 

How can businesses visually stand out from other brands, and how can the public recognize your brand in the midst of others? The answer is a logo. When we think of logos, we often think of the iconic blue square and white “f” for Facebook, the widely popular swoosh for Nike, and the iconic golden “M” to represent the Mcdonald’s fast-food chain. The problem is that a lot of start-up business owners believe creating a logo on “do-it-yourself” websites or even designing it themselves with no design experience will create the same results that the previously mentioned successful companies have. The truth is that these create-your-own logo gimmicks and amateur designs hardly ever make your business or brand attract the positive attention that you want.

Logo designs are supposed to be unique. When business owners think that making their own logo will be “easy”, they may be right, because while it may be easy, it probably won’t be good. Having a logo that illustrates your business is the difference between mediocre and professionalism in the business world.  Whether it’s through the utilization of a tasteful color palette, a memorable illustration, or defined typography, a high-quality logo will often speak for itself when words can’t.

Consumers are much smarter than we realize. Due to the fact that we are a social-media dominated generation, internet users are likely to see hundreds (if not thousands) of different brand images a day. In order to stand out within the crowd of media, online and in real life, logos must be able to captivate an audience and reel in potential customers, clients, and consumers into wanting to know more about your brand. Smart consumers might be able to see that your logo was curated on a DIY logo design site since all of these sites often hold the same basic tools, and this could definitely cause people to dismiss your business as a whole.

If you have little to no design experience and create a logo on your own, smart users will be able to recognize a well-established logo from an amateur one. By designing a logo by yourself, you run the risk of possibly mimicking a logo that already exists, using colors that clash with one another or putting way too much detail into the design. With no professional assistance, you won’t be able to recognize the little mistakes that we often make when trying to do things on our own.

Even though a free DIY logo design might seem tempting, it could lead to potential business problems. Poorly designed logos could stop business growth, sales, and other future opportunities. Logos are like first impressions–you only have one chance to make it right, and

your business is far too valuable for it to be represented by a DIY logo design. Logos shouldn’t just be an image to fill up space, it should create the space and represent your brand’s values by allowing the world to recognize the level of quality your business provides.

If you’re looking for a professionally designed logo and need some assistance, we are more than willing to help your business visually by bringing your ideas to life. You can reach Proximo through email – vip@proximomarketing.com or call 757-504-2429 to help you get the logo of your dreams.