I have worked online for myself since late 2012, mostly as a blogger, copywriter, travel writer and marketer. The digital age was some kind of a revolution for business globally and many new entrepreneurs felt they needed a slice of the cake. This resulted in lots of new blogs, websites, online businesses, eBooks, digital start ups and just anything that meant you could live a free and easy lifestyle, as opposed to the traditional executive burn out in rat races, 9-5s (which became 8 – 10s) or old school methods that have since fallen by the wayside.

This has created a new working lifestyle for many with endless, boundless and limitless possibilities. I mean, until 2004, there was no such thing as Facebook. Even YouTube wasn’t around at the turn of the century. Every big business started somewhere and online is the place to do it these days. People are now free to move around the world, working on their laptops, becoming familiar with some of these new-age labels and terms:

• Digital nomad
• Backpacker
• Global wanderer
• Location independent
• Social media Guru
• Whackpacker
• Ultra vagabond

All such terms are a result of the new era of blogs becoming businesses. Websites such as My Emma are excellent in providing us with marketing campaigns and options for our new up and coming online businesses. There are also lots of new and innovative sites in the healthcare industry, for example finding Cannabis Seeds is a lot easier online now.

Today, I recommend using digital marketing, social media marketing and email marketing to enhance your business acumen and online status. The long term goal is freedom and satisfaction whilst running your business from your laptop. Am excellent website from Campaign Monitor shows the best email marketing campaigns and gives readers an insight into how to apply such models to your business and make a success out of it – with the goal – profits and long term profitability for your business.

The Campaign Monitor website uses its expertise and case studies to help businesses who run online to maximise their potential and reap the rewards, in the name of profit. The company has worked in conjunction with clothing companies, food companies and even charities to improve, adapt, develop and better their websites and email marketing campaigns.

As an entrepreneur running a new business, you don’t want to be relying on traditional methods of business. You need to move with the times. Too many emails come into our inbox. Many go into spam or junk mail before we have even clicked on them. Many we simply delete. Some of them we block.

Websites like Campaign Monitor help new business (as well as established ones) realise their true worth. Targetting the desired niche is a big part of such online businesses and for this reason, you need to start by knowing the correct market that will be receptive of your business. So before your start your next huge plan and business venture, be sure to use the correct marketing skills and use the companies who clearly have the best experience in the field.

Don’t forget to have fun while doing it!

Prioritising Safety On Your Next Camping Trip

If you’re reading this, chances are that you have a camping trip planned or booked in the near future. Camping can be an extremely fun experience where you get to experience something new and spend some quality time with family or friends in the depths of nature. But you do need to remember that you need to take various steps to ensure your safety while you are away. Here are just a few to consider in the lead up to your camping getaway!

Know How to Defend Yourself

When you head into the wilderness, you are likely to be relatively vulnerable. Not only are you relatively unfamiliar with your surroundings, but you do not have a secure house to sleep in at night. Other people and animals could both become threats to you. This is why you might want to learn some defensive techniques before heading away. Enrolling on a self defence course or picking up martial arts could help you to know what to do when faced with danger. You might also want to carry defensive tools. Take a look around for the best pepper spray and learn how to use it safely and legally.

Learn How to Start a Campfire

Knowing how to start a campfire is an essential skill when it comes to spending extended periods of time outdoors. No matter what time of year you decide to head away, temperatures are likely to drop at night, and you will need a campfire to provide yourself with a source of warmth and heat. It can also provide a source of sustainable light should you wish to stay up and talk past dark. A campfire can also be used to cook your meals if you are reluctant to carry a heavy camping stove and fuel with you on your journey. You should start preparing for your campfire by collecting flammable materials to burn that won’t emit toxic smoke. Wood, leaves, and other natural materials will do well. Just make sure to be careful when collecting these, as small creatures may be hiding inside and you don’t want to endanger or harm them. The best way to then actually start the fire is to use a ferro rod. This is essentially a form of match made of different metals – making it waterproof and thus particularly useful when spending extended periods of time outdoors. Remember to follow fire safety tips when starting any fire. You don’t want to harm yourself, damage your personal belongings, or start a fire in the woods or forest.

Understand How to Purify Water

Bearing in mind that the average person should drink eight glasses of water a day, you’re going to consume a whole lot of water during your camping trip. This is before you tailor in the fact that you are likely to become more thirsty when you are spending the day being active and hiking. It’s highly unlikely that you are going to want to carry sufficient bottled water to tide you over during your trip – this would prove to be extremely heavy and cumbersome. Instead, you will need to understand how to purify the natural sources of water that you will come across. It is extremely important that you do not consume any water from its natural source – water in lakes can be stagnant and water from anywhere can contain a whole host of bacteria that could cause you to become extremely sick. This rule applies regardless of any water’s clarity – just because water is clear does not necessarily make it consumable. There are three different ways that you can purify water safely.

• Boiling water – the first, cheapest, and perhaps simplest way to purify water is to boil it. All you need to do is collect water in a pan and place it above a fire (and if you have followed the steps above, you will already know how to start your own campfire). Wait until the water boils, allow it to completely cool, and then it will be safe to drink.
• Using a filtration system – your second option is to pump water from its source and use a filtration system. The water will be ready to drink as soon as it has been filtered. This is a much faster means of accessing clean water.

• Purifying water with chemicals – your final option is to purify water with chemicals. Most people opt to use iodine. All you have to do is add an iodine tablet or drop to the water that you have sourced. This will kill the bacteria that exists within it.

Incorporating these steps into the lead up to your camping trip can help to improve your safety and wellbeing while you are away!

An online business is anything that occurs over the Internet. This could be anything from buying and selling goods to specific companies. However, in this article, we will discuss the important aspects of running an online business. Then, we’ll talk about how to make the most of your promotional activities, manage your social media accounts, and manage your operational costs. Having a clear definition of your target audience is essential for success, and this is the first step in creating a sustainable online business.

Important Aspects of Running an Online Business

Defining your audience

The first step in defining your target audience is to understand who you are not targeting. This is particularly helpful when advertising through search engines. If you are attempting to market exclusively to women, for example, you are excluding half of the population. The same logic applies to marketing to seniors. If your target audience consists solely of business professionals, you are excluding half of the population. Likewise, if your product is geared towards students, you are excluding half of the population.

The second step in defining your audience for online business is to determine who is already interested in your product or service. This can be done through customer research, social media interactions, or even guest posts on other people’s blogs and websites. You can use this information to determine which groups have the greatest potential to buy your products or services. In addition to defining your target audience, you should also research your competition to better understand what they’re already doing online.

Managing your social media accounts

Managing your social media accounts for online business is important for keeping your audience engaged. Larger companies typically sell different products and services. The buying cycle for these consumers is different. Managing separate social media accounts can streamline the buying process and cater to the varying needs of separate audiences. Here are five steps to follow when managing your social media accounts. You may want to use all three to your advantage. First, analyze your engagement metrics. This will help you determine which areas of your social media strategy need to be tweaked.

Next, determine what type of content you want to share on each platform. It’s better to share content that engages the audience than to post content that will not be viewed by many. Create a social media calendar for your business that reflects the brand identity. A schedule allows you to keep track of what content to publish when. Managing your social media accounts for online business is easier than you think!

Managing your operational costs

The key to increasing your profit margins is to lower your operational costs. While overhead costs are necessary for a business to survive, you can lower your overall costs by reducing them. A simple way to do this is to cut back on unnecessary business expenses. One way to reduce costs is to review and renegotiate your current supplier agreements. You may be able to negotiate for better terms and an early payment discount. Never let a cost negotiation go to waste. Technology-based services tend to have a lower cost than other businesses.

Operating costs are the sum of all expenses that go into running a business. These expenses should be low relative to your revenue. Typically, operational costs include office leases, electricity, and employee payroll. Managing these expenses allows you to cut down on waste and increase your profits. QuickBooks accounting software can help you identify unnecessary costs and pinpoint areas where you can cut back. Saving money is always good for the bottom line, because every dollar you save can be reinvested back into your business.

Travelling is one of those experiences where no two days are quite the same. This is actually one of its great advantages and joys, and it would be a much lesser experience if you found that travelling was always the same as how it was before. Part of the reason for why it can vary so much is of course because of the range of different destinations which you can visit. Even if you spend all of your time travelling, it is highly likely that there will always be yet somewhere else that you can go and visit, and this is part of the great joy of seeing the world in all its glory. Every now and then, however, you come across a particular destination which blows you away especially. When that happens, it is usually a particularly special experience, and one which you are bound to want to replicate. Let’s take a look at some of the signs of a destination that you truly enjoy greatly and would want to visit again sometime soon.

Sure Signs Of A Wonderful Destination

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You Enjoy The Company Of The People

Something that is always going to be hugely important when it comes to whether or not you enjoy a particular destination is what the people are like, and whether or not you actually enjoy being around them. If you do, you will find that you are able to spend much more time there, and much more happily, than if you do not, and this is something which you need to consider when you are looking into destinations and whether they are suitable for you or not. Truth be told, if you find yourself in a place where you seem to get on with most of the people, that is a sure sign that it’s the kind of destination for you. Of course, you are never going to be able to be comfortable with every single person, but if you can get on with most of them you will find that this is usually sufficient for really enjoying a place.

You Feel Relaxed

You probably want to go on holiday to relax, but the truth of travelling is that it is rarely as relaxing as you would like it to be. For that reason, when you do come across somewhere which makes you feel genuinely relaxed, that is bound to be a very strong sign that you could spend a lot more time there than you might think. If you are uptight and stressed, conversely, then it is one of the quickest indicators that you should probably think about going elsewhere. The more relaxed you feel, the more time you will be able to spend there, so this is definitely one of the main things to watch out for on the whole. Sometimes, this sense of relaxation occurs the moment you step foot in a place, and when that happens it is something you absolutely don’t want to ignore, as that is an indicator of a very good place to be indeed.

Sure Signs Of A Wonderful Destination

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The Weather Is Perfect

The typical image of travelling or vacations is sun and sand. But not everyone is into that, and if you are more of a snow-covered mountain top kind of person, you will appreciate the truth of this. Whatever your own kind of ideal weather is, you should be on the lookout for this in your chosen destination. If you can find it there, then this is definitely going to be the kind of thing that really solidifies your enjoyment of the place. It might be that you want to be somewhere very cold, and you could find yourself in the Nordics feeling very happy about your decision indeed. Or maybe you want the traditional sunny climes, and there’s nothing wrong with that either – so you find yourself in California or Australia. In any case, it’s a good sign of a place when you personally enjoy the kind of temperature and precipitation they generally tend to have there.

Sure Signs Of A Wonderful Destination

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You Could Live There

Have you ever had the feeling of being in a new place, and suddenly getting the very strong impression that you could happily live there? This is an almost eerie feeling, and one which is hard to shrug off, but when it happens you know it for sure. Feeling this way about a destination of any kind in any place is one of the strongest signs that it is a place you should spend a lot of your time in. Very rarely it might turn out that you were incorrect, and actually it’s not somewhere that you would be happy living. But more often than not, the opposite is the case, and you spend more and more time there and become only more convinced that it is the town, city or country for you. If you do get this feeling in any destination you visit, you might even want to explore it further by finding a penthouse with good view, or some kind of relatively stable accommodation, and see if you can stick it out. Who knows – it might even be that one day you fully migrated there.

It Is Calm

We have looked into the sensation of being relaxed in a new destination, but the feeling of calm that can come over you is somewhat different, and altogether more powerful. If you have experienced it, you will know, for it is more a feeling that comes from within, and one which feels so resolute that you wouldn’t be surprised if nothing could stop it. Having this sense of calm when you enter or have spent time in a new place is often likely to be a reliable indicator of somewhere you should spend a lot of your time. After all, life is much more complete if you are able to feel calm where you are, so why not just go where you already feel that way? If you have ever been somewhere where you feel like that automatically, then you will know that it is a feeling you probably want to replicate. This calm should be taken as a good sign of somewhere that it is a fine place to spend your time.

Sure Signs Of A Wonderful Destination

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It’s Fun

After all, what is the point of living if not to enjoy yourself as much as possible? Some places are calming and interesting and so on, but seem to lack a particular kind of enjoyment – while others are possibly lacking in those other areas, but are incredibly fun to be in. if you ever find yourself somewhere that is hugely fun to be in, it might well be so intoxicating that you never want to leave. Of course, this fun is a hugely positive sign, but only if you are also in a place which has many other good qualities. Fun alone can be something that fades from a place, but if it is compounded by other qualities, then it is absolutely something that you will want to celebrate. Ultimately, if you are not able to have fun in a place, then that is not a good sign of that place. Of course, the proviso here is that everyone has their own idea of fun, so it is up to you to decide whether or not a particular place is fun for you. If it is,perhaps think about sticking around.

Sure Signs Of A Wonderful Destination

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It’s Flexible

Some places seem to be very stuck in their ways; it’s not hard to see how a place might end up being so rigid. Usually these are places of great history which have not quite caught up with the modern world, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But it is highly likely that you will have much more of a good time and feel much more at home and relaxed in a place which is relatively flexible in terms of how it treats its people. The flexibility of a place is usually an indicator of how open and liberal the people are, and although not everyone looks for this, it is almost always a beneficial thing for someone who happens to be a tourist in that place, so it is something to watch out for. Flexibility is something to be admired and respected, as if nothing else it means that you as a visitor will be easily welcomed and accepted.

It Has A Rich History

Of course, that doesn’t mean that a place with no history is likely to be very interesting, and in many respects the best destinations do tend to have a long and rich history which you can easily see as you walk around it. If you want truly old places, like Rome and Egypt and so on, you will see its history etched in every piece of architecture and every wall and so on. But maybe this isn’t for you, and you are happy with the somewhat all over the place nature of a city like London, which has old and new side by side. In any case, make sure that you are happy with the level of history in the destination, and if you are that is a strong positive indicator that it is the kind of place for you.