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Ready to move into IT management? Learn the skills you need for a promotion - TechRepublic

WARE, Mass., Sept. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Local Marketer (https://www.thelocalmarketer.com/) recently announced it had rebranded, overhauled its website, and now offers premium marketing packages to help SMBs and organizations develop a multilevel targeted plan to grow new audiences and impact local communities. The brain child of web consultant and author Roberto Torres, The Local Marketer is a model of its own practice, having been nurtured to grow from a small side business into a full-time small business that has already helped dozens of businesses over the years. The Local Marketer utilizes a variety of marketing strategies on behalf of its client proven to increase sales and broaden visibility.

The Local Marketer: A Solid Marketing Strategy

With online courses and consultations, along with exceptional reading/training materials, SMBs can find exactly what they need to help expand their local footprint while growing their reputation and increasing sales. Core products include:

Local Search Basics Mini-Course: Available in October, the mini-course teaches businesses how to get discovered by Google, showcase products and services, and facilitate easy customer contact.

One Hour Local Marketing Consult: A one-hour online consultation with networking and marketing pro, Roberto Torres. Do a local search audit and ask any questions needed to help new and ongoing marketing strategies thrive.

Local SEO Checklist: Opt-in to receive a localized SEO checklist with 20 tasks that are designed to help businesses rank in local searches. Save valuable time by reading and implementing approaches already proven to work.

The Local Marketer: What Exactly Is Local Marketing?

Local marketing refers to how a business or organization can reach a target audience that lives within a specific geographic area. Many strategies used by large corporations nationally are also useful for SMBs and local organizations, but it takes experience to understand how to scale those tactics down appropriately to a smaller, more localized audience. The Local Marketer offers help, showing clients how they can effectively leverage:

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Online Ads: Use large platforms like Google, Facebook, and Beacon to target specific geographic areas, ensuring that customers see those ads whenever they do a platform search.

Sponsorships: An old but reliable way to positively impact a community, sponsoring local teams, events, and activities helps a business grow its reputation. Communities need business partners learn how to chat with the local chamber of commerce to make a big impact for a new small business.

Partnerships: Partnering with an established, related business can grow a customer base quickly, while generating important word-of-mouth advertising. A classic example is a restaurant that partners with a farm to provide local produce, but a wide variety of partnerships are possible.

Search Marketing: Local search marketing allows businesses to get discovered in local search results conducted online. Highly effective because it targets customers who are already specifically looking for a business's services, search marketing requires a great website with high SEO ratings. The Local Marketer can help businesses craft websites and web copy that ranks high in search engine results.

For case studies, advice, and helpful marketing tips, visit The Local Marketer blog. Or follow them on social media: Twitter, LinkedIn.

About The Local Marketer

Author of The Local Marketing Handbook, consultant and networking guru Roberto Torres founded The Local Marketer to help local businesses and organizations grow, while positively impacting the people who live and work within local communities. Engineered for SMBs, internal marketers, and agencies, The Local Marketer provides access to a wealth of information and resources that offer strategies on how to use local marketing in new and dynamic ways. And with one-on-one consultations available with Roberto, businesses and organizations have an expert ready to help them implement sound practices that translate into sales, while benefiting whole communities. Learn more at: http://www.TheLocalMarketer.com.

Media Contact:

Roberto Torreswww.thelocalmarketinghandbook.com318724@email4pr.com Ph: 413-277-8691

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Helping SMBs and Organizations Increase Their Marketing Footprint at Local Levels - 'The Local Marketer' Announces Rebranding and Company Launch with...

Marketing your business is important for small and large advice firms. As Andrew Marshall of Cognito Media, a financial services marketing agency, can attest: "Nearly 90% of financial adviser firms still have five or fewer advisers, despite consolidation. Smaller firms like that have to lean hard on their personal networks, but for bigger firms especially, marketing can build a brand that is bigger than the individuals, and ultimately have equity value.

"In a business like financial advice, where clients associate strongly with an individual adviser, that is always the challenge, but it can be done."

Before starting your marketing, Octo CEO and founder Lee Robertson says advisers should consider how much time they can dedicate to marketing, their budget and how consistent they can be. They should then pick a medium or how they are going to use media to market themselves. "This is such a broad subject covering external communications that a marketing plan will address these issues."

There are also many marketing tactics firms can use and that, of course, may feel overwhelming. "It's important to think through, candidly, where you can best grow clients and have a clear plan with good measurement," adds Marshall.

"Maybe you have a strong local focus, or maybe it's built on a profession or economic sector, we worked for a financial planner with a strong position in sports and advertising high net worth individuals."

Likewise, Claire Bending, founder of CuriousCat Digital, another financial services marketing agency, says working out what your unique selling point is important. "Discovering what makes your firm unique through a brand positioning exercise and then crafting messaging that really sets you apart and is designed to resonate with potential clients."

Content marketing specialist Andrew Gibb, from advice firm Old Mill, adds: "By thinking about content marketing more strategically in terms of where it fits in the marketing funnel you can begin to create content that adds value and resonates. So, a white paper will showcase you as the authority while a case study is more about mapping out how' you have helped others."

The World Wide Web

One marketing tactic that might well be your first port of call, is how and where you showcase yourself online. Unsurprisingly, online marketing, as well as the quality of your website, is vital to improving your business, the experts say. According to Portent, the first five seconds of page-load time have the highest impact on conversation rates. These rates then drop by an average of 4% as each second of load time goes by.

How compatible your website is with devices other than a computer is important too. As of July 2018, 52.95% of people use mobile to browse the internet, compared to 43.11% who use a desktop. As the majority of people use the internet, what your website says about you is important. Cognito's Marshall says a website is critical and often advisers focus on the wrong things through their website.

"Design and content matter, certainly. But most critical is to audit how your website is working technically, in terms of content optimisations, user journeys and analytics.

"You need the technical capability to sort out things like semantic mark-up and metadata to support your search engine optimisation and quality score. Organic rankings and domain authority are now increasingly crucial."

What Marshall means by this is ultimately ensuring your website will be one of the first to show up on Google when a client searches financial advisers in North Yorkshire', for example. This is what search engine optimisation, or SEO, is and is crucial in driving the quality of website traffic.

Data from imForza shows that 93% of experiences start with search engines and 91% of pages on the internet never get any organic traffic. To improve SEO, your website should include keywords that clients might search and you should regularly update your content and fix any broken links.

Of course, you might want to market yourself online in ways other than just a website. Blogging, newsletters, social media or virtual events are all viable options. You may even want to use all these tactics depending on how much time you have to dedicate. Research by responsify shows that 53% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority and firms can expect about 67% more leads every month if the brand has a blog.

Getting social on social media

Social media is also a popular way of getting people to reach your company website. According to Hootsuite, 52% of all online brand discovery happens through public social feeds. This number includes paid and organic posts.

Curious Cat's Bending says tactics such as Google ads and display advertising could become costly and ineffective: "This can lead to budget wastage and the false belief that these channels don't work."

However, a quarter (27%) of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads. "Throwing money at pay per click, Facebook advertising and the like - it is easy to spend a lot of money this way for limited results," Robertson says.

"I am sure that it can work but I would suggest a good marketing agency would be able to help here and would be worth the investment if this was the way a firm wanted to go."

According to Weidert, 61% of companies use social media to increase conversions and 50% use it to gain customer or market insights. "These have always been used, but there does seem to be growing confidence amongst advisers to get their messaging out via a variety of mediums. I have even seen advisers using TikTok," Robertson adds.

Professional Adviser recently wrote about the dangers of giving unregulated advice via social media platforms like TikTok, so it is important advisers do not get mixed up with the bad guys or unregulated finfluencers' when using such platforms.

Marshall, on the other hand, believes paid search works well. "With one larger firm, we secured over 60 appointments with 500k+, at an average cost per appointment of around 260. Good training of advisers on social selling is critical - it is shocking to see non-optimised LinkedIn profiles, sometimes without photos, even.

"Spending 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn by every adviser can make a huge difference to your social footprint."

Current marketing trends

In terms of current trends, Marshall says Cognito is seeing lots of ESG-related marketing. "On ESG, the trick is how to use the plethora of information and terminology in a compelling, simple way, and for some prospects that may be more around opportunities, for others more around risks. It's an area that is moving very fast."

Of course, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will have an impact on how businesses currently market themselves. Old Mill's Gibb says: "While traditional, in-person events have long been the bedrock for many professional services firms in terms of their marketing activities, the pandemic accelerated the shift towards a more digital approach underpinned by content creation, but this transition also contributed to a lot of noise'."

Robertson adds: "Trends being seen at the moment include virtual meetups for clients and professional connections, an increased use of video and podcasts and a much greater use of content'. This could be newsletters, blogs, webinars and articles all aimed at informing, educating and involving clients and potential clients."

For marketing trends he believes do not work, Marshall says jumping on bandwagons can garner derision. "For example, diversity marketing can be powerful, but make sure it comes across as authentic and not clichd."

Other popular marketing strategies used, Robertson says, is events. "At my practice, I came up with the idea of a breakfast club to which we invited clients and professional connections to meet each other, hear a speaker and have a nice social breakfast."

Bending believes the traditional tactics of webinars and roundtables are still a great way to build trust and credibility with potential clients. "Regular blogs covering topics like FAQs can not only help to add value to your potential and existing clients but can also improve your firm's visibility in organic search results, so having a content plan aligned to an SEO strategy can be incredibly impactful."

Robertson also says that building a sense of community seems to work for advisers. "Involving them [clients] and their stories, if willing.Interviewing them for testimonials. I really like the way advisers are now running podcasts, which feature their clients or other local businesses.This does really help them build community and it is lovely to see."

Once your marketing strategies are in place, it is important to stay consistent and track where customers are interacting with your brand. Bending advises companies are led by the data.

"Ensuring all marketing activity is tracked in a platform like Google Analytics or HubSpot can help you identify where there is wasted budget or effort and also spot the biggest areas of opportunity."

Marshall says it is important to not stop and start with marketing as the internet is "littered with abandoned blogs and Twitter handles".

He adds: "The sales process in financial advice is long, and you need a lot of the right names at the top of the sales funnel.

"Remember, most of the time, people are not looking for a financial adviser any more than they are looking for a dentist, so they tune out. Repetition and keeping going counts, though you can measure much more effectively these days and fine-tune campaigns."

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Marketing your advice business 101: Tips from the experts - http://www.professionaladviser.com

NAIROBI, Kenya Sudanese authorities said they thwarted an attempted coup by loyalists of the deposed dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Tuesday, the latest sign of instability in an African nation battling persistent economic hardship under a fragile transitional government.

Soldiers tried to seize control of a state media building in the city of Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, but they were rebuffed and arrested, Sudanese officials said.

Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok described it as a near miss for Sudans turbulent transition to democracy, which started in 2019 with the ouster of Mr. Bashir, the longtime ruler. The prime minister blamed the failed coup on Bashir loyalists, both military and civilian.

What happened is an orchestrated coup by factions inside and outside the armed forces, Mr. Hamdok said. This is an extension of the attempts by remnants since the fall of the former regime to abort the civilian democratic transition.

The possibility of another coup has haunted Sudans transitional government since 2019, when Mr. Bashir was overthrown in a military takeover prompted by widespread popular protests.

Disgruntled officers have since hatched several plots, but all were foiled before they could come to fruition. Tuesday was the first time that an attempted takeover had spilled onto the streets, said Amjad Farid, a former deputy chief of staff to the prime minister.

It underscored the urgent need to get Sudans military under full civilian control, he said.

There will be no stability without civilian oversight over all the state apparatus, including the military and intelligence agencies, Mr. Farid said. A genuine reform process needs to start now.

The thwarted coup was the latest drama in an increasingly turbulent part of the world. Ethiopia is embroiled in a vicious civil war in its northern Tigray region; Somalia is torn by power struggles between its president and prime minister, and the international isolation of Eritrea has deepened with American economic sanctions, imposed last month, against the countrys army chief.

More broadly, it is part of an unusual surge in attempted putsches in Africa. On Sept. 6, the military seized power in Guinea, the third West African country to experience a violent transfer of power this year.

Sudans Sovereignty Council, a body of civilian and military leaders overseeing the countrys transition to democracy, issued a statement insisting the situation was under control. But the dramatic events, which saw tanks rolling through downtown Khartoum early Tuesday, were a reminder of the deep political fissures that threaten the transition.

Some military officers are unhappy with plans to send Mr. al-Bashir, currently in jail in Khartoum, to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He faces charges including genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur in the 2000s.

The Sovereignty Council, which is headed by the army chief, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, did not specify how the coup attempt had been foiled or whether it had involved any violence.

The military said that 21 officers and an unspecified number of soldiers had been detained, and a search for others was ongoing.

Two officials with the Forces for Freedom and Change, a coalition of civil and political groups that led the uprising against Mr. al-Bashir in 2019, said the attempt had been orchestrated by the military commander in charge of the Omdurman region.

It started at about 3 a.m. when officers tried, but apparently failed, to read a statement on the state radio station. It was not immediately clear what the statement would have said.

The prime minister accused the coup plotters of laying the ground for their actions by stoking unrest in eastern Sudan in recent days. This week, members of the Beja tribe blocked Port Sudan, the biggest port, and cut off highways leading to the city.

By midmorning, traffic was reported to be flowing normally in central Khartoum and the authorities said they had begun to question suspected mutineers. Street protests against the attempted coup erupted in several cities, including Port Sudan.

The swift return to normalcy in Khartoum belied broader worries about Sudan, where the euphoric scenes of Mr. Bashirs ouster in 2019 have given way to a sense of unease nourished by successive crises.

Public confidence in Mr. Hamdoks government has been undermined by persistent economic hardship the spark for the protests that toppled Mr. al-Bashir.

Some Sudanese also worry that the army is not truly willing to share power.

In November, the army chief of staff is expected to hand over leadership of the Sovereignty Council to Mr. Hamdok a largely ceremonial post, but nonetheless one that signifies full civilian control of Sudan for the first time in decades.

Last year, Mr. Hamdok survived an assassination attempt when gunfire struck his convoy as he traveled to work in Khartoum.

Although the United States lifted decades-old economic sanctions against Sudan last year in return for its governments agreeing to recognize Israel, high inflation and soaring unemployment have driven popular discontent.

Tough economic changes demanded by the International Monetary Fund to stem inflation, which is running at more than 300 percent a year, and to help the country qualify for new loans, have contributed to the sense of unease.

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Sudan Leaders Say They Thwarted Coup Attempt by Loyalists of Former Dictator - The New York Times

Online freedom is continuing to decline globally, according to a new study, with governments increasingly cracking down on user speech and misinformation on the rise.

The report from Freedom House, a Washington DC-based democracy advocacy group, found internet freedom declined for the fifth year in a row in the US and the 11th year internationally for two distinct reasons.

Domestically, the lack of regulation in the tech industry has allowed companies to grow beyond reproach and misinformation to flourish online. Abroad, authoritarian governments have harnessed their tight control of the internet to subdue free expression.

Freedom House cited a growing lack of diversity among sources of online information in the US that allowed conspiracies and misinformation to rise, an issue that was gravely underscored during the 2020 elections and the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The spread of false and conspiracist content about the November 2020 elections shook the foundations of the American political system, the report said.

The yearly study, which has been published since 1973, uses a standard index to measure internet freedom by country on a 100-point scale. It asks questions about internet infrastructure, government control and obstacles to access, and content regulation. Countries are scored on a scale of 100 points with higher numbers considered more free.

The report called measures taken by Joe Biden since his election promising for internet freedom, citing the reversal of a Trump administration order to halt transactions between US individuals and Chinese social media companies as beneficial.

Meanwhile, global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year, with more governments arresting users for nonviolent political, social, or religious speech than ever before. Officials in at least 20 countries suspended internet access, and 20 regimes blocked access to social media platforms, the report said.

The biggest declines were seen in Myanmar, Belarus, and Uganda. In Uganda, internet freedom fell by seven points after pro-government social media accounts flooded the online environment with manipulated information preceding the January 2021 elections. In August 2020 in Belarus, government forces cracked down on election unrest by restricting access to the internet and surveilling activists online.

The report called the Chinese government the worlds worst abuser of internet freedom, citing new legislation criminalizing certain expressions online and draconian prison terms issued to activists for online dissent - including an 18-year sentence against one activist for distributing a paper criticizing the governments handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, officials in India pressured Twitter to remove protest-related and critical commentary and to stop flagging manipulated content shared by the ruling party. Nigerian authorities Turkish president Recep Tayyip , who himself has overseen the mass incarceration of journalists and opposition politicians.

The report further showed governments are clashing with technology companies on users rights, with authorities in at least 42 countries pursuing new rules for platforms on content, data, and competition over the past year.

Specifically, in India, officials pressured Twitter to remove posts critical of the ruling party. Authorities in Nigeria blocked access to Twitter after the platform removed incendiary posts by the countrys president. President Recep Erdoan of Turkey repeatedly accused tech companies of digital fascism for their refusal to comply with provisions in the countrys new social media law.

Despite these issues, the report said legislation to address abuses of tech companies has been limited. It found that while 48 countries have pursued regulatory actions in the past year, little of that legislation has the potential to make meaningful change.

In the high stakes battles between governments and tech companies, human rights are the main casualties, said Allie Funk, senior research analyst who co-wrote the report, in a news briefing on Monday.

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Internet freedom on the decline in US and globally, study finds - The Guardian