10 Tips To Navigate The New Google Chrome Ad Blocker

We've all encountered awful online ads in the form of pop-ups, autoplay videos and intrusive banners. As more and more consumers seek to eliminate advertisements from their browsing experience (the use of ad blockers grew 30% worldwide from 2015 to 2016), Google has decided to do something about it: On February 15, the internet giant started blocking any ad from its Chrome browser that doesn't comply with the standards set forth by the Coalition for Better Ads.

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Want To Scale Content Creation? Agency Professionals Share Their Best Insider Tips

Content creation has become one of the primary activities for many marketing and public relations agencies. Whether it's blog posts, newsletters, whitepapers, infographics, social media copy or thought leadership articles, every brand wants a slice of the content marketing pie to satiate consumers' growing demand for high-quality, valuable information.

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Eight Questions To Ask Yourself Before Starting A Podcast

It seems there's a podcast for every professional interest out there, from broad topics like entrepreneurship and career advancement to niche subjects like agile development and software as a service. With 67 million Americans tuning into podcasts each month, there's a growing potential to reach your customers through this medium.

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Create And Understand Your Unique Value Proposition With These 12 Tips

Your brand's unique value proposition (UVP) is a critical asset that should serve as the core tenet of your marketing messaging. It tells consumers, employees, investors and other stakeholders exactly what your company offers that no others can. It defines your point of differentiation and explains why you're the right choice to help a customer solve their problems.

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In-House Or Outsourced? 12 Questions To Help You Choose The Right Marketing Talent

When you first started your business, you may have worn every single hat yourself, including marketing. Now you've grown to the point that you need help – but do you hire an in-house staff member or outsource an agency?

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13 Strategies To Help Your Global Brand Maintain Its Local Roots

Not long ago, mom-and-pop shops struggled to compete with the big conglomerates and internet businesses luring their customer base away with convenient shopping at low prices. Today, the local business scene has made a resurgence, thanks in part to millennials who want to "shop small" and support entrepreneurs in their own backyard. In fact, nearly half of consumers in this generation are willing to pay more to support a small business.

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11 Agency Payment Models That Make Sense In The Modern Marketing Landscape

Determining pricing structure is often one of the most difficult tasks for a service-based business. Product-based businesses can easily quantify the cost of making, storing, displaying and shipping goods, but the intangible nature of creative agency work often means that campaign metrics determine your firm's value and worth to a client.

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Ten Signs It's Time For A Brand Redesign

In November 2017, Snapchat unveiled a new design that separates content from a user's "friends" from branded content by publishers and creators. Parent company Snap hopes the changes to its popular social app will "lead to more conversations between close groups of friends," and ultimately expand its stagnant user base, reported The Verge.

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Want People To Share Your Social Content? 12 Ways To Optimize Your Posts

A robust social media presence has quickly gone from a "nice to have" to an absolute necessity for new and established brands alike. Whether your target audience is on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or all of the above (and then some), being where your customers are and providing consistent, interesting content is key to creating loyal followers.

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14 Thriving U.S. Cities Amazon Should Consider For HQ2

This past September, Amazon announced plans to build a second headquarters to complement its existing Seattle location. Since then, cities across North America have been scrambling to draw the attention of the tech giant in hopes that they'd become the chosen location for HQ2. By the time submissions closed in mid-October, Amazon had received more than 200 proposals from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

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