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Entrepreneurs

Apply now for the Google for Startups Accelerator Canada..

GFSA Canada Startup Accelerator

Since launching the first Google for Startups Accelerator Canada cohort back in 2020, we’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the country’s brightest startups, offering the best of Google’s expertise, technology and mentorship, to help them scale and grow.

Google Accelerator Canada 4th Cohort

In the last three years working with this cohort, we’ve supported more than 30 Canadian startups from coast-to-coast, including Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia and Nova Scotia. These startups cover a wide range of industries—from healthcare and biotech, agriculture, education, finance, telecommunications, real estate and more. And we’re thrilled to share that since graduating from the program these startups have gone on to raise more than $140M CAD collectively.

We are equally excited to announce that applications are now open for the fourth Google for Startups Accelerator Canada, launching March 2023. The accelerator is designed to bring the best of Google’s programs, products, people and technology to Canadian startups that are leveraging machine learning and AI today or plan to in the future.

In addition to mentorship and technical project support, the accelerator also includes deep dives and workshops focused on product design, customer acquisition and leadership development for founders. Like all of our accelerators, the program is equity free, and concludes with a Demo Day to connect founders, increase startup visibility and drive connections to other ecosystem builders across Canada.

We’ll select up to 12 Seed to Series A tech startups headquartered in Canada. Participating startups can expect detailed technical training and high-level strategic development opportunities with our machine learning, people, product and growth labs.

Applications are open until February 1 and the accelerator will kick off in March 2023. If you’re a startup using AI and machine learning to innovate and grow, apply here—we’re excited to see how we can help you!

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Rocket Now Partners with EukaPay to Accept Crypto Payments

We are thrilled to announce a new partnership with EukaPay, a cryptocurrency payment processor.

Rocket Now x EukaPay

Rocket Now will now be able to accept crypto payments from all our customers worldwide, making it easier for us to make use of and have access to funds faster than ever before, being able to immediately start client campaigns from products and services in the digital world of 2023 to really any bills that normally would have to wait.

 

This partnership will provide Rocket Now with increased flexibility and scalability in all our payment processing needs, allowing us to provide our customers with greater convenience in their digital marketing campaigns.

 

About EukaPay

EukaPay helps businesses grow their revenue by accepting crypto payments and getting paid in dollars while avoiding problems like currency volatility, onerous financial & tax reporting, and expensive security infrastructure.

 

EukaPay is a cryptocurrency payments processor with a point-of-sale, invoicing, custom requests, and e-commerce integration with built-in accounting and reporting compatible with Xero and Quickbooks. 

 

Businesses never need to take custody of crypto as we instantly convert crypto into dollars or stablecoins without price volatility at the moment of transaction. Fees are simple and transparent at just 1%, without any setup or monthly fees.

 

Don’ wait. Click Below To Get Paid Today.

www.EukaPay.com

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Blog

Marketing Style

Shopping for the right marketing company is a big problem, from price ambiguity to getting you results. Everyone has their own grandiose promise they want to pitch you on but few actually make the effort to create a personal connection and fewer still will have the talent and skill you require to leverage you and your company to the next level.

We created Rocket Now to position ourselves as the Desmond Llewelyn’s to the the Sean Connery’s. The Q’s to the James Bond’s. (Q is the genius inventor behind James Bond’s gadgets that enable 007 to save the world)

And whether we set you up to connect that extra 10 yards on the golf course, or our job is to keep everyone else distracted out in the water while you catch the next perfect wave. Rocket Now is all about designing your Marketing Style, which will open a path to your targets that you will want to experience, especially in the new omniscient electronic world.

It’s not just about getting there, it’s also about how you get there that will matter in the end.

To your customers, your style matters, they know your voice, and this builds trust and respect for your company. If you own your category or are starting a new one, Marketing Style design will be your new super power.

When you market your reputation is on the line, and your Marketing Style either hits its target like Mike Tyson on a speed bag, and your sales go through the roof, or it falls on death ears.. and you’re out dollars, and worse.. time..

Finding the right marketing company that truly cares about your journey as much as the destination is what Marketing Style design is all about.

You may have heard about the billions made from early Category Design, Experience Design, or many others, but let me introduce you to this new concept. Your Marketing Style.

Marketing Style design is a one of a kind concept we came up with to describe the success we were witnessing from clients at the top of their categories. In fact we think it’s so powerful that it is now our primary service, and we personally implement it. We only offer Marketing Style design to clients that we think we can align with, because ultimately it’s your story and we want to help you continue to delight your customers, and ultimately, get you more of them.

If you think we might be a good fit, or want our help developing your personal Marketing Style, book a free Marketing Style design consultation now and we’ll not only give you our best gadgets, but by the end of the call, the sports car will be running, the keys in the ignition, and everything will be ready for your next getaway.

Now go get em.

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Blog Entrepreneurs

3 Vital Steps to Becoming a Coderpreneur

If you work in web development or programming, you may have heard the term “Coderpreneur” to describe someone with your skills working in an entrepreneurial fashion. Or, perhaps you’re already an entrepreneur and you’re considering adding a new skill set to your resume. Codepreneurs are advanced freelance professionals; they set up a small business, a website, and a brand based on their talents. Learn what you need to do to upgrade your skillset and your digital presence to become an in-demand Coderpreneur.

 

  1. Make Sure Your Skills and Credentials Are Up to Date

Some of the best coders learn on their own, or they got their start in a high school program. If you don’t have a professional degree in computer programming or a certificate that attests to your abilities, you may consider completing one to better sell yourself to customers. Another good idea is to create a professional, eye-catching portfolio of your work.

 

Give your new small business a name and incorporate it as a legal entity. This can save you legal fees in the future, give you limited liability, and increase payment flexibility. Use an online formation service to incorporate your business before trying to attract new clients.

 

  1. Market Yourself and Find a Niche

As a coder, you’ll experience high employability. Every business in the digital age, if it wants to keep up with the times, needs a good coder on staff (or at least on-call). Those with knowledge of how computers work may be called upon to fix website bugs, design a new interface, or correct cybersecurity issues before they become unfixable problems. If you’re good at what you do, you’ll never struggle to find open positions, but you may have a hard time getting hired if you don’t pitch yourself to new clients correctly.

 

You likely know how to make a personal website, but do you know how to market yourself and your skills? Focus on your narrative biography, your niche area — do you mostly work with small businesses and startups, or do you see yourself freelancing for larger corporations? — and your services. Your website should make it easy for potential clients to find you, understand what you can offer, and book a consultation or get in touch with you easily. If you’ve yet to create a website, or the one you have seen better days, then get in touch with Rocket, a results-oriented agency that can help you intelligently grow your business.

 

  1. Find Your First Client and Do a Great Job

Your first client may be a friend of a friend or someone you’ve found on a job board. As soon as you’ve found your client, make sure to consult with him or her to thoroughly understand what is needed of you. Communicate with your client throughout the job and deliver what you’ve promised.

 

Don’t forget to ask your client for a review when you’ve finished the job — but only if you’ve exceeded the expectations. Online reviews can make or break new businesses. According to Podium, a customer is more likely to trust you and even spend more money on your services if you have higher reviews.

 

If you’ve always wondered about starting a small business while relying on your skills as a professional coder to make money, venturing out as a Coderpreneur may be a great option for you and your future career. Remember to make your new business’s site easy to navigate, be willing to explain your services to potential clients, and build your brand by showcasing your work and telling your story on your website.

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Marketing Tools

Top Marketing Resources and Tools of 2021

Marketing resources are essential for any company.

This includes traditional businesses looking to go online, existing digital companies, or any individual Internet marketer who wants to build an income from home.

However, with so many choices out there, which one is the most suitable?

Taking a closer look at the marketing software community, no shortages of options will come up in your research.

There are tools for creating websites, building sales funnels, and developing shopping carts so payment can be processed online.

While these are essential tools, the problem that many business owners face is that those products do not seem to be the most suitable for them.

That is why GrooveFunnels was created.

GrooveFunnels is a suite of online business tools designed for business owners, but without the complexity and the expensive price tag.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite, because GrooveFunnels is not only easy to use, it is also free.

Ever since taking the Internet marketing industry by storm in early 2020, GrooveFunnels has since become the number one platform in the game.

Now, to end the year in spectacular fashion, GrooveFunnels has just announced the launch of the Groove Magazine, dubbed the definitive marketing and business magazine.

The pages of the Groove Magazine will contain decades of entrepreneurial experience into each issue.

Not only that, but you will also have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn from the very best, straight from inside the virtual doors of their world-class internal marketing team.

This is why the team at GrooveFunnels are masters at what they do, revealing yet another million-dollar plan just in time to close off the year.

For those who are looking for the new best way to get started with the system, and be able to learn digital marketing directly from the very best Internet marketers in the world, now is the time to get started with GrooveFunnels.

Josh James
https://magazine.groovesell.com/a/8CyGbi8JSOHc

Categories
Blog

Top marketing agencies

The top marketing agencies..

That’s tough. The whole agency model is so insanely oversaturated like there’s so many small-mid size agencies making outlandish claims that it’s become really difficult to know which ones are actually industry leaders.

I think finding true answers regarding that would require some rabbit hole digging through twitter and sifting through people you personally trust and who they are engaging with over time. That’s the only reliable way to know who is actually winning in the industry.

There’s a small % of superstar agencies that thrive because they essentially monopolize audiences. And most of the ones that do that are based in NY, Silicon Valley, areas where they leverage their network and have plentiful of networking opportunities. Beyond that subset, I felt like it was time to make a real list.

I’ll start by putting it together for you. I’m gonna include my top picks then some links to ranking lists. I think it’s hard to just list off the “top 5 agencies” because there’s just so much variability between agencies now. Considering the vast differences in what niches they can specialize in, the budget sizes they deal with, etc

Also another factor, especially in the bigger cities the reason why there can be so many different “top agencies” that are all doing well is because they tend to have a more collaborative environment with each other rather than directly competing. And a big reason why most of them are willing to collaborate is because being in a big city where there’s so many different agencies it forces you to niche down to a very specific specialization. 


So you’ll get tons of agencies but they all prioritize things slightly differently. They all pretty much do the same thing, or are capable of doing the same thing, but for their own marketability they create a very niched down brand story.

Notable Top Marketing Agencies

Rocket

https://www.rocketnow.com/ Rocket hyper focuses specifically on Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization. We’ll be the best fit for your business if you’re at the stage where you already have a product, business or business idea. We’re great at growing from 0 to 1, from 10 to 1000, or 50,000 to 60,000. Our favourite projects are the ones where we fit exactly into your marketing journey. Don’t wait, contact us today and we’d be more than happy to prepare a proposal to show you how we can help with your growth at any stage.

Note: Rocket only does 1 company per market and never crosses swords in your geo-location as our competitive nature is your best edge and we never want to water down our services.

The Futur

https://thefutur.com/ Creative agency based in California that has a really solid social media presence and highly educational youtube channel. For example a pretty amazing resource here with tons of material solely dedicated to value based pricing and optimally pricing your services https://thefutur.com/content/pricing


Vayner Media

https://vaynermedia.com/ Have to include Vayner as they are obviously an industry leader in social media

Blind

https://blind.com/ Amazing brand strategy agency that I had to include here. They are absolute beasts.

Lists of Top Marketing Agencies

For lists of agencies that can be edited and refined down to either very specific, or broad parameters, Clutch.co and Agency spotters are both good resources.

Categories
Blog

Modern sales for the distinguished salesperson

How I grew a marketing agency from 0 to 5 Clients in one weekend during the pandemic.

Content Marketing, with barely a $1000 bill in my pocket to do so, during the pandemic– I managed to find a way to opportunize on the situation over a weekend and I want to help you do the same.

Why don’t we start with the big question, why did I want to power up my Marketing Company – Rocket Now – and why was it not as active as it was.

Let’s just say my other ideas normally pay better and are less time consuming.

Long story short, in order to fund our other projects, we needed capital, and since we used to be marketing entrepreneurs, we thought: “let’s focus on the business we know we are successful at so we can pay for the help we need on our other projects”

Well, that mindset changed pretty quickly once we got the ball rolling. Boy do we love marketing, we had forgotten how much we loved that challenge.


STEP 1 – COME IN HOT

Tip #1: Make sure you are up to date with the latest. Don’t go back in cold. Come back in hot and ready to help clients succeed.

For us that meant updating to the latest, I’ve been in professional online marketing for over 12 years and I still took several courses to completion to educate myself on any changes before even talking to a single client.

If you’re going to be doing content marketing like this, I highly recommend you take this course before doing anything: https://growandconvert.com/content-marketing-course/

Let’s be clear, a year of trial of error went it before we figured out how to get clients in one weekend.


STEP 2 – UP THE MOUNTAIN

Tip #2: Start with who you know. Make sure everyone knows you’re in the game, back in the game, or reachable online with your business.


Now, open up a new browser window and start finding the groups you want to promote in. Yes, sorry to tell you, direct Pay Per Click (PPC) doesn’t work anymore.

Hopefully that statement will save you from losing a shirt on PPC. Plan to create one great piece of unique content that reflects your business over the next week, make it unique, and interesting, period. Don’t worry about your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) just yet and never worry about your volume. You want to be marketing the content, not your product or service directly, it’s become a 3 stage process. Create great content, market it to the right people, optimize it for conversions.

Content marketing is not new, but we all need to promote more than we realize.

We also need to be ok tailoring our content for the perfect customer.

Great content shines in todays market and you need to create content that is in alignment with your audiences pain points (everyday challenges) even if that means “levelling” your content to a higher expertise level. This is where we can help you, Rocket Now can help you align your product or service with demand.



STEP 3 – STRATEGIZE

Create 1 unique brilliant piece of content for your target customer every month that will help them with some pain point or challenge they are having and develop a long-term strategy off of that. You have people to reach out to with questions on their pain points, now is the time to do so, that will get your creative juices flowing. To assist you in that, start with who you are and what your business can do for them and learn from your customs what problems they are having. That’s what you need to align with and write about the solutions. The solutions are what people will search for, and if you are the one providing them with the right solutions, guess what, they’ll convert over time.

Great content designed for your specific client hits hard.


STEP 4 – TEAMWORK

From what we’ve learned in trial and error, this content has to hit smarter than your ideal clients expertise level.


It’s an amazing thing to think about, if this content actually hits at a smarter level than what you’d normally be reading you’ll likely reach out to us. We do professional online digital marketing and optimizing your content for search is one thing, but we also optimize for conversions. We’ll work with your feedback, as you know your business, and use that feedback to dramatically grow your business.

Our goal will be to align with your market, open doors, and start long term relationship building content for your audience. The more you succeed the more we succeed.


STEP 5 – CLOSING

So, who do we write these blog posts for: namely our clients and you.

We want to help you align with demand, find customers and drive real revenue from online.

That can only be done with the support, feedback and trust of each and every single one of you. Rocket now loves what we do. In breathing life into the company again we realized we missed our passion project. Helping you grow your dreams is as good as growing ours, so we’re always here to help you on your journey.



You’re an expert in closing deals, we ‘re experts at opening them.

Categories
Blog

Snapchat Marketing 101

We’ve seen Snapchat grow exponentially from photo to video, to interactive filters and advertisements. Today, the app harnesses an array of innovative branding opportunities–going way beyond your teen’s palm. 

Why should you consider Snapchat as a marketing tool for your business? Over 150 million people use snapchat. Every day. The app also provides trackable results, geographic targeting, and prices that work with almost every style, and size of business. Moreover, an interactive platform like Snapchat enables your target market to actually play with your campaign, rather than simply stare at it. 

WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE?  

The options are all over the map; below we organized an overview of a few. 

Video Ads: These mobile video ads run on the app starting at a cost per campaign of $10,000 per month, in ad spend. http://wallaroomedia.com/snapchat-advertising-cost/ Not cheap, but a classic and effective method of advertising that functions similar to YouTube advertisements. 

Sponsored lenses: This interactive advertising option starts at $450,000 per day. It’s something users get excited about, and play with (trust us). 

Nationwide sponsored geofilters: Starting at $500 000 per day, these geofilters snag everyone in your target geographic location, prompting them to interact with your brand through an exciting new filter they haven’t seen before. 

Snapchat discover: These are the ads that are placed at the top of the app feed screen. Users can scroll through them at their leisure, like they do their snap stories. These cost $50 000 per day to run. 

Snap to unlock: Brands put the codes, which look like Snapchat logos, on billboards, in stores or on products for people to scan. The price of this advertising fluctuates but runs slightly above that of sponsored local geofilters. An affordable, creative branding option fit for a timely campaign.

Sponsored local geofilters: The option that is scalable down to a small business size, has proven to be quite effective, and starts at $5 per day. They are the perfect tool to engage and promote your brand organically.  

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

A small investment can go a fairly long way with snapchat local geofilters filters as they ultimately spread word of your brand organically, and within your target demographic. A few creative branding scenarios fit for these filters include the following:

Trade show: Create a geofilter with your company name and table number. The result? A conversation starter, and attraction to your spot in the show. 

Charity Event or Party: Create a custom geofilter that unites attendees, spreads news of the event in real time, and creating the allure of an inclusive experience.

Product Launch: Create a geofilter within the location of your storefront. This functions to entice prospective shoppers to check out the excitement as well as share their enthusiasm. 

SUCCESS STORY:

 JPMorgan Chase & Co. launched sponsored geofilters across college campuses nearing graduation season in combination with running takeovers of college graduation and high school graduation. Through these Snap tactics they achieved 17 million impressions; 89% of those being high school students, college students and future graduates–their target demographic for the campaign. 

At first glance in its primary stages, Snapchat seemed too vast an app for marketing campaigns. How would you track and target your audience and integrate branding materials?

But with the necessary tools to execute wildly successful marketing campaigns through the app today, Snapchat marketing has proven to be trackable, scalable, and fun.

Categories
Blog

A/B Testing: The art of perfecting your conversion rate

What is A/B testing?

Think of A/B testing as an experiment; wherein two versions of a webpage or app are compared against each other to determine which one performs better. This practice can also be utilized for sales emails, or search ads. Despite being tedious at times, A/B testing is the ultimate way to pinpoint the best digital marketing strategies for your business.

How it works

A/B testing can be understood through a series of steps, pertaining to the page/ marketing material you’re testing:

Examine Current Data

Construct a Hypothesis

Test your Hypothesis

Analyze Test Data and Make Appropriate Changes

A/B testing is separated into two categories: on-sight testing or off-sight testing. For off-site testing, you’d be looking at ads or emails. Testing your sales emails is a simple off-sight A/B test to begin with. This is done by simply sending out two versions of a sales email to your list (randomly selecting which half gets which email), and then tracking which one converts better. The version that converts better, becomes the template for the one email you send to your list next time–copy-wise, design-wise etc.

For on-sight testing, you’d be looking at the sales-related pieces of your website. Think headlines, links, images, call to action buttons, ad copy, etc., the result of this test being your champion page; the final landing page with the most success, that stays put. 

Select a tool

You’re going to want to select a good tool to help you perform your a/b website testing. Some examples to try include Visual Website Optimizer or Five Second Test. Getting a little help means you can spend your time honing the quality of your content, rather than figuring out the technical stuff.

Know your baseline

You should already know the current results you’re getting from the content you’re looking to test. And as well as testing option A against B, you want to know that whichever one does better in the test is also doing better than your current results

A/B testing is a good way to keep out of the dark, digitally, in terms of how your business is attracting leads. With a few tests you’ll be able to figure out what is working–or not, and why. Maybe you just want to try something new, but aren’t sure how to evaluate if its successful. Whatever the reason, A/B testing can seriously improve your bottom line (so go for it).

Categories
Blog

How to be #1 on Google Part 2

Three weeks ago I posted 5 out of 10 steps that will help you improve your page rank on Google’s organic search. Today I will show the  5 key remaining steps.

6. GET BACKLINKS FROM PAGES WITH VARIOUS GOOGLE PAGERANK

 The main objective here is to get backlinks from websites in order to improve your rank. the only problem is that Google could seem suspicious if you are trying to cheat the system by getting back links from only high page ranks which are worth more. This is why your backlinks have to come from web pages with different google page ranks. Moreover, most of your links should come from PR0 and PR1 so that it looks natural for Googles algorithms, and only 10 %should come from PR4 or higher.

7. 20% OF LINKS SHOULD POINT TO THE INNER PAGES OF YOUR WEBSITE

These means that  80% of your links should point to the homepage, and thus 20% should point to the inner pages of your website (ex: blogs, contact info). This rule is important specially if your site has many webpages. Research shows that sites that have backlinks pointing to all pages within the website have a much better ranking on google than those that have all backlinks pointing only to the home page.

8. YOU WON’T RANK HIGH WITHOUT ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION

Today Google is not what it was before. Off- page optimization (backlinks) are not enough to rank high on Google. You will NEVER get in the top 10 if you do not implement the right on-page SEO. 
Make sure to follow these steps:

  • Create 50 pages with unique content with an average of 500 words per page. The more    content the better; as long as it is relevant.
  • Make sure that the website has unique content and it gets constant update and maintenance. 
  • Eliminate repetitive content and duplicates.
  • Create a sitemap and upload it to Google.
  • Lastly optimize website for targeted keywords.

9. MAKE SURE YOU ARE DOING LINK BUILDING RIGHT WAY!

Use an SEO calculator to find out the number of links you need in order to make it to the Top 10. This step is necessary before deciding how your campaign is performing. If this is not done then you will not be able to outrank your competitors since you will not know where they stands (what their PR is and the amount of backlinks they have).

10. LASTLY, TRACK YOUR BACKLINK RESULTS THE PROPER WAY AND HAVE REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

After following all these steps, expect to see your PR improve from link building, but not the traffic increase. There will not be any traffic increase even if you go from position #700 to #9 on Google since only the three fist spots get significant traffic. Making quick assumptions from your PR is one of the most common mistakes you will make when observing the changes of rank your page makes. Be patient, if you follow these steps, Googles Top 10 spots will come.