Money & marketing Recipes
Bite-size ideas to take your money or your marketing from ugh to aha!
VIDEO: Stitch Fix for Savings
My favorite SmartCookie money hack? Spend it! Wait…what? How many of you have clothes in your closet that still have the tags on them? Or clothes that you wore even though they weren’t flattering, just because it was easier to just keep them than to make a return. Add...
29 New Tools for Small, Busy Teams
I have a hard time sitting still. My to-do list never seems to be a ta-da-done list. This means I'm forever testing tools, apps, and resources that help me do everything – faster. And for good reason. I love what I do. I want to do more of it. Here are 29 tools that...
4 Secrets To Smarter Social Media Posts
Last week, my client handed me a deposit for her new website and branding strategy. And as we sat down to lunch, she asked me, "do you feel my current marketing is all over the place?" Wincing inside, I said, "I do. But in a few short weeks, you'll have a handle on...
How We Reduced Our Spending by $35,736 in One Year
How One Introduction Can Make You More Dough
Remember, bread? Remember, breadmakers? It was the mid-90’s when they shot to popularity. I remember when a friend’s mom got hers. While I don’t remember eating a slice, I did learn how and when to introduce a product. If you’re looking to improve your bottom line and...
Two Ways To Make More Money (Using Something You Don’t Own)
Rinse & Repeat. It’s on the back of every shampoo bottle. And it turns out, if you ask any hair stylist, they’ll tell you the magic of good hair is in the repeat. I was skeptical, but I decided to follow the directions a few years back. Wash. Rinse. Wash and...
When Visitors Don’t Read: A Double Check in Typography
Remember the dreaded group work while you were in school? Ugh. Me too. But after moonlighting as a Marketing Professor, I figured out why instructors use it. Students don’t read. They skim. And they don’t even skim well. Put them in a group together and they’ll...
How to Create a Facebook Lookalike Audience in 5 Minutes (or Less)
Use these Screenshots to Build Custom and Lookalike Audiences One of the most-targeted, low-risk marketing activities out there these days, is Facebook Lookalike Audiences. But if you’re like most people, hearing about social media advertising leaves you with...
Win Customers With These Exact Images On Your Website (& Social Media)
Want to know where your competitors drop the marketing ball? As humans, we like lots of things. Clothes, sports, cars, jewelry, food, toys and vacations. But nothing gets our attention the way a happy, fulfilled person (or groups) of people do. So yes, for starters I...
Looking for the back story?
(Here’s my bio. It’s written in 3rd person – because that’s how all the cool kids write them.)
Meet Nicole Schmied, digital marketer, podcaster, and four-time entrepreneur. For almost two decades, Nicole has provided web, email, social media marketing, & event strategies for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits and small businesses. She’s a FRIENDS sitcom fan and she’s even moonlighted as a marketing professor with a private university. Founder of SmartCookie Media and co-founder of Events That Don’t Suck, she approaches business with humor, persuasiveness, and an eagle eye on profitability.
Raised by a single dad running his own business, Nicole found herself playing office manager, soaking up marketing lessons, (and getting countless paper cuts.) She realized her biggest job was to help dad navigate marketing and new technologies. Years later, she figured if she could help her not-so-techy dad in the 80’s, then helping you, a user of Facebook and a smartphone will feel easy breezy.
Don’t let her fool you, Nicole’s not limited to marketing and quotable 90’s sitcoms; she was the accidental, first place winner at a Lake County Fair Tractor Pull at age 9. (And to her knowledge she remains the only accidental winner since.)
When you can find her sitting still (almost never), she’s found listening to a Crime Junkie podcast while folding a mountain of kiddo laundry or she’s with husband, Kyle and their two boys, Luke (5yrs) and Will (1yr) attempting a new house project.