Data Scraping For Small Businesses: Benefits, Tips, And How To Get Started

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You do not need to own a large company to benefit immensely from the power of data scraping.

While large organizations are already collecting and analyzing insanely large amounts of data, data scraping / mining is not only reserved for those with large budgets, powerful computers, and large research teams.

In fact, with the right frame of mind, data scraping has enormous benefits for small businesses as well.

The difference between good marketers and great marketers is how they effectively utilize data to make marketing decisions. While this certainly starts with the data we collect from our own website, our visitors, and our customers, it does not have to stop there.

With the vast amount of data available online, it’s possible to make use of data that’s available publicly on other people’s websites as well. Both collecting and utilizing it are a lot easier than most entrepreneurs think.

In this article, I intend to show you how small business owners like yourself can utilize data scraping to help you make more money from your business. Showing you the benefits that data mining can offer even for very small companies, and how to begin scraping and organizing data straight away.

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7 Branding Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Company

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Your brand is fragile.

It is difficult to build up – taking months or years to really connect with a person’s mind. You can get in front of a consumer hundreds of times, invest large amounts of money, and endless hours of work to reach a point where that person finally trusts you, and aligns themselves with what you stand for.

It requires a well thought out strategy and careful execution. Pull it off, and you’ll cultivate raging fans, happy to throw money at you – even if you’re more expensive than your competitors.

Do it wrong however, and you can alienate your audience – even turning once-passionate fans into people that begin to dislike you, and everything you stand for.

Brands take a long time to build up, but they can very quickly be destroyed. While no one thing will take you down, a pattern of bad behavior can quickly ruin the credibility and image you’ve worked so hard to build up.

On the opposite end, a strong brand can pay dividends for life – making every facet of marketing more effective going forward.

In this article, we’ll go over key branding mistakes you must avoid if you want to keep people on your side. By developing a framework and keeping these principals in mind, you ensure that the fans you cultivate remain fans forever – making new fans become even more valuable.

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Branding Isn’t Everything – Balancing Branding Vs. Direct Response Advertising

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We’re at an interesting time in entrepreneurship, particularly for small businesses.

Things aren’t the same that they used to be. As a society, our lives are radically different than they were 10 years ago, and marketing has changed as well.

So has the way we learn.

New entrepreneurs aren’t getting their business advice from textbooks or college courses. They’re getting it from online gurus or major online personal brands, who may have an agenda of their own that they’re pushing on you.

One piece of advice in particular that I’ve seen consume entrepreneurs is this:

“Hard-selling is bad, just focus on branding!”

I’m here to tell you why this often isn’t true, and help you find the balance between direct response marketing, and branding in your small business.

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