#linked to the calendar so if you want higher quality you can solve the little puzzle and download the zip file!

[daisyofwaterdeep]

BG3 companion wallpapers from the 2024 Larian Advent Calendar

[mlacks]

Becoming an investment banker Progress report November 2023 - March 2024

Written by Michael, on Mar. 12 , 2024 

Image stolen from the Dolphine Project progress report - Short link

As I transition out of the military, Its time to apply more pressure to the areas of my life that will move me into investment banking. I want to document as much as possible so that I can both keep track of my changes and others can follow in my footsteps. Big updates are I'm not out of the military, I've completed a pseudo internship at Goldman Sachs, and have a new job at Accenture Federal Services paying about the same as my previous job - not accounting for taxes.

In some more important news, I am testing a new 'operating system' for myself that has more checks for productivity and progress making. It's been a challenge to get into a good rhythm that works with my wife and my own needs at the same time, but it is getting easier as time goes on.

Add to all of that a marathon of my first ever internship applications and my internship prep, and another course I signed up for and you've got yourself a BAIB Progress Report.

Enjoy.

Notable Changes

Started using Toggl again from a reminder on a Rian Doris video. I've been following Rian Doris for a while and his videos are just unreal as far as the quality and actionability of them goes.

The 10-Minute Rule That Makes Hard Work Feel Like TikTok

When I first implemented watching these videos regularly, I ended up tracking them in outlook as "Flow" R&D.  I make it a point to watch a video per week and implement the lessons in my schedule.

Unable to track things properly without assigning them 'Projects"

I can use something like this but it doesn't really offer any insigts unless EVERYTHING is in a categroie. So I took about 45 minutes and put everything in a category.

I did more time driving than I can study prep

This is what  typical calendar looks like when I plan it. You can see here where I tried moving things around if I didn't get a chance to get to the, I don't always do it and find it easier to just track what I'm doing in toggl and get back to work

This is what calendar integration looks like. I struggle with doing things 'on schedule' because I don't have as much control of my day as I would like to. This is actually alarming as I'm on vacation until the 25th. I should have total control of my calendar life but I use small things like my wife needing a ride to work both as a crutch not to get things done when I say I will, and as a crutch to not try to plan my day at all.

I think its shocking that as someone who prioritizes personal performance, I never bothered to track my time.

Its interesting to see this particular line graph for each project, but as far as I can tell there isn't a way to view these overlayed on each other or even on the same screen without screenshotting them manually.

The other course I signed up for is icanstudy. Its got a bunch of study methods for you to try out.

Knowledge mastery (order of learning)

Techniques

Lower-order

(Best for direct fact recall and detail memorization)

3Cs

Flashcards (simple)

Brain dump (linear)

Generated questions (isolated)

Teaching (isolated)

Feynman method*

Method of loci or our Modified Method of Loci

Story/link method

Ben system

Mid-order

(Best for knowledge application, basic problem solving, and obvious relationships)

Flashcards (simple relational)

Brain dump (mindmap)*

Generated questions (simple relational or multi-relational)

Teaching (simple relational)

Practice questions (direct method and advanced group method*)

Feynman method*

Higher-order

(Best for discussions and complex problem-solving where multiple concepts affect each other)

Chunkmaps

Flashcards (evaluative) 

Brain dump (mindmap)*

Generated questions (evaluative)

Teaching (Modified WPW)

Peer/Group discussion (evaluative)

Practice questions (extended method and advanced group method*)

Feynman method*

The course is a little expensive but it comes with access to the instructors and a discord community, so I'm finding value from it

Answering the questions

Evaluating our confidence

Creating perfect answers

Checking our answers against official answers to find even more gaps

Choose a Topic: Select the topic or concept you want to learn or understand.

Teach it to a Child: Explain the topic as if you were teaching it to a child or someone with no prior knowledge of the subject. Use simple language and avoid jargon.

Identify Gaps and Simplify: As you explain the topic, pay attention to areas where your explanation is unclear or where you struggle to simplify. This helps you identify gaps in your understanding.

Review and Refine: Go back to your primary sources and learning materials to fill in the gaps and improve your understanding. Simplify your explanation further if necessary.

right now I'm focusing on marginal gains

Think about marginal gains consistently. Train yourself to view progress through this lens by default.

Whenever you make mistakes, feed them back in as reflections for your next cycle of experiments.

Avoid randomly experimenting on different changes every time.

Get feedback on your work and progress regularly.

Ensure you are getting advice from reliable, qualified sources of expertise.

Non-linear note-taking

Delayed note-taking

Grouping and categorising

So Anyway, this is the report. I'll check in next month with an improved reporting methods. See ya!

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

11 Feb 2020: Why political software sucks. Writing for death. Remote working.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

OK, this one’s a bit of a linkorama.

Sustainability, data and AI in retail

Pandora, Zalando, IKEA, Amazon ramp up sustainability focus - how long until retail businesses must have a clear, strong sustainability position if they’re to avoid losing customers and revenue? - not long, believes this newsletter.

UK consumers warming to AI, with 54% happy to resolve queries with bots.

IKEA are promising new data controls for customers - that link might be behind a paywall so it’s explained here.

“In the future, all but the most convenience-based retailers will begin to use their stores as media to acquire customers and their media platforms as stores to transact sales. Put another way, media is now a cost of sales and rent is now a cost of customer acquisition.” - a retail opinion.

“Amazon Choice” labels look like an editorially curated quality filter but are just a popularity algorithm.

The impact of coronavirus on China-centered supply chains - now that China is responsible for around 15% of global manufacturing, the concerns for supply chains are real.

Why political software sucks

In the US, the Democratic party’s Iowa caucus votes were delayed by flaky software (and here’s how caucuses work). Some interesting commentaries on the underlying causes of unreliable software:

“The space is dominated by decision makers who are stuck on a very short term decision making cycle. Structurally there is no space for long term investment, despite everybody stating that this would be good [...] In normal tech circles we’d have a bunch of free software libraries and tools we build on together, but the campaign tech space doesn’t have this because decision makers fear our tools will be taken and used by the other side.”

“no one should have been solving the problem of making the caucuses more innovative. transparency & speed was what it sounds like the actual needs were, & those are often best served by rock-solid last-gen technology, optimized & tested to heck.”

“well-intentioned but underfunded and lacked comprehensive organizational buy-in [...] the product testing cycle and margins are nonexistent [...] a hard market where everyone hates you and no one has money to pay you”

Software is always harder than it first looks, even to fellow developers commenting online! The comments above recall Conway’s law (“organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations”). But here you might extend that slightly: the software you get reflects the organisations’ communications structures, but also the values and the incentives that commissioned it.

Writing for death, care promises

Designing content for people dealing with a death: “There’s no room for doubt or misunderstanding. That means the words we use must get straight to the point. By trying to be kind, we often use more words when we should be helping people to understand what they need to do as quickly and simply as possible.”

Scotland’s independent care review has published its comprehensive report on the care system, encompassing “legislation, practices, culture and ethos” - it’s ambitious and essential reading for those working in digital gov, but also those who care about humans.

Remote working

18F’s best practices for making distributed teams work (18F is a digital services agency within the US government). Perhaps there are some lessons here for organisations with many locations: tear down any head office vs shopfront barriers by going “remote first”.

There are now startups explicitly working on making remote staff work easier.

Help agriculture

Digitalfolk, could you help next-gen agriculture get more sustainable and more human-centred? Add your name here: Agriculture is a game-changer! Community of Practice.

Digital in organisations

Six digital strategy plays to drive value in established corporations - some of these plays are common sense (like cutting cost/time/process/error), but this is an interesting read, and it’s good to see some failures discussed as well.

How to scale agile product development and delivery - spoiler: not by imposing some framework.

Co-op Digital news and events

“‘We don’t want to just give people a refund when there’s a problem; we want to give them a genuine response and a personalised experience that they will remember.’ [says Claire Carroll, Head of Sales and Service at the Co-op.] The Co-op’s trailblazing approach has been a great success: customers actually buy more in its stores after making a complaint. ‘The basket spend is 6% higher’”

That’s from a shiny Salesforce customer success story - Co-op customer service advisors run 3m requests yearly through it. If customers are sending more after a complaint, that means Co-op is handling complaints - fixing the problem - in such a way that’s builds increased loyalty and confidence in the business. The industry term for this is “service recovery” (and that link is an interesting thread of how to win at ecommerce), but you might equally call it putting customers first. As exciting as the Salesforce bit is, this story is really about a Rescue Lasagne.

Public events, most of them at Federation House:

Carbon Co-op’s Beginner’s Guide To Retrofit (a monthly event about retrofitting your house for energy efficiency) - Wed 12 Feb 6pm at URBED, 10 Little Lever Street, Manchester, M1 1HR.

Manchester Law Tech Meetup - Thu 13 Feb 6.00pm.

Open Data Night - February 2020 - Tue 18 Feb 6.30pm.

Conscious Entrepreneurs - Wed 19 Feb 12pm.

Open Data Manchester: Black software (explores racial injustice & the professionals & hobbyists of color who helped build the internet) - Wed 18 Mar 6.30pm.

Returners/Re-trainers (about successful initiatives to create better routes for women returners/re-trainers) - Thu 26 Mar 11.30am

Internal events:

Digital all-hands - Wed 12 Feb 1pm at Fed Defiant.

Co-operate show & tell - Wed 12 Feb 3pm at Fed 6 co-operate space.

Data management show & tell - Thu 13 Feb 2.30pm at Angel Sq 13th floor breakout.

Membership show & tell - Fri 14 Feb 3pm at Fed 6 kitchen.

Food ecommerce show & tell - Mon 17 Feb 10.15am at Fed 5.

Delivery community of practice - Mon 17 Feb 1.30pm.

Health team show & tell - Tue 18 Feb 2.30pm at Fed 5 kitchen.

More events at Federation House - and you can contact the events team at  federation.events@coopdigital.co.uk. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletterbot’s typing entity @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[seogine-blog]

Top 10 Ways to Promote your Local Business

Perhaps, you are feeling lost, and you do not know the marketing strategies to adopt for your local business. Most local business people believe that as the internet has been beneficial to society, it has also allowed large companies to gain control of the local markets in all parts of the world. Even though it would be hard to know about the existence of large companies such as Amazon and eBay without the internet, the internet does not symbolize the death of local businesses. In every five customers, four of them start their shopping for services online before they walk into a local store. However, according to Forbes, around 61.2 percent of buyers are always ready to pay a higher price so that they can support the local businesses. That should tell you that the internet is not killing the local companies in any way – the lack of knowledge or willingness to implement local digital marketing is the one killing the companies. Most traditional online strategies are also useful when it comes to local internet marketing. The only thing you should do is to twist them a little so that you can maximize your ROI.

How Local Businesses Differ from Global Companies

Most of the digital marketing advice available on the internet is focused on global marketing. Also, regardless of the customers you target, you are likely to use global marketing strategies when promoting your local business. However, if your local company specializes in providing services or goods to the local community, you do not need global or national recognition. If you try to achieve that, you will end up diluting your marketing efforts and wasting your money and time. What is even worse is that by focusing on the broad market, you will end up hurting your success locally. Local marketing involves building a presence in the community. Your business has to be present in the places your actual customers live and where they search for products or services. A quick example, you do not have to rank for the antique bookstores so that you can reach the potential local customers. Instead, you have to target the antique bookstore in New Jersey. Apart from being more relevant for the local customer base, you will manage to tackle the challenges without engaging many content marketers. Just as you expect with global marketing, you will have many options and channels to use. They include search engine optimization (SEO), social media and the paid advertising.

Use Social Media Channels

Social media marketing is an excellent way of marketing businesses of all sizes. Regardless of your current location, your prospective customers are already using social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. If you have not been using the channels, you are already missing out. Proper use of the channels will facilitate the growth of your business and create devoted advocates for the brand in addition to driving sales and leads. So, first, what is social media marketing for the local businesses? Social media marketing (SMM) is one of the effective internet marketing methods and involves creation and sharing of content on the available social media networks to achieve branding and marketing goals. Social media marketing consists of activities like posting images, text, updates, and videos or any other type of content that can drive audience engagement. Before you start marketing your local business on social media platforms, you will have to consider the goals of your business. Starting a marketing campaign without any social strategy in your mind will result in loss of focus because it is like wandering in a forest without any map – you will have more fun, but you are likely to get lost at the end of the day. Before you start your social media marketing campaigns, you should try to answer these questions. o What would you want to achieve through social media marketing? o Who are the people you are targeting with this form of marketing? o Where are your target customers and do they use the popular social media platforms? o What messages would you want to pass through social media marketing? As a businessperson, you have to inform and at the same time drive the social media marketing strategies. For instance, if you are currently operating a travel or e-commerce business, you will need to get visual so that you can benefit more from Pinterest or Instagram. Marketing companies or business-to-business marketers are likely to benefit more from LinkedIn and Twitter. The social media can help you increase your website traffic, build conversions, raise the awareness of your brand, create a better brand identity, brand association, and improve interaction and communication with your key customers. You will quickly achieve your marketing goals if your audience on the popular social media platforms is bigger and more engaged. To market on social media, you will have to develop quality content because it is vital in this form of marketing. Remember to post regularly and provide truly valuable information that the target customers will find interesting and helpful. Any content that you share on the social media platform should include videos, social media images, how-to guides, and infographics. Ensure that your brand image is consistent on all the platforms. Even though every platform offers a unique voice and environment, the fundamental identity of your business – whether it is fun, friendly or trustworthy – should not change. Use the channels to share the content you have already posted on your blog or links to any other valuable content.

Use Video Tutorials

The attention span of people has been reducing consistently, and today, it is very low. Publishers are bombarding people with content after every second, but most of them do not have the patience or time to read it. In addition to that, text posts are boring compared to the funny interactive videos people produce on a daily basis – with text content alone, and it can be hard to connect with our target audience. That is the critical reason video tutorials are essential for the marketing of your business. They are easier to consume, fun to watch and most people like them. Videos are an effective way of engaging potential customers, and they will increase your website traffic. Statistics show that by the year 2019, around 80 percent of internet traffic for businesses originated from videos. As a local business owner, you might think that only the million-dollar companies can make quality-marketing videos. That was true some years ago but not today. Any businessperson can create video tutorials for business marketing purposes and post them on YouTube, website or the social media channels. You do not require the services of videographers or the fancy expensive equipment because you can use your computer or smartphone to do that. A better way of creating the video tutorials is to repurpose some of your tutorial blog posts into videos. If your blog has been attracting more people, you do not have to start from scratch. By repurposing the written content into videos, you will pull in any user who passed by your blog posts previously. Use tools like Lumen5 to transform the tutorials into videos. The tools use artificial intelligence to create videos automatically. As the user, you need to enter the blog post or the RSS feed, and the software will match the scenes with appropriate photos, music, and videos and summarize the content. With the tools, you can also customize all your videos so that they can attract more people and introduce them to your business.

Start Blogging Today

When creating a blog for the marketing of your local business, you should start by establishing the voice of your brand. Your blog should have a theme or tone, or you should present it in your personal voice. You have to focus your brand around a unique selling proposition as a way of reinforcing the reason you are very different from the others and how you can help people solve their problems. You do not have to spend your time trying to be everything to others because that is unlikely to turn your website traffic into buyers or create raving fans. Stick to a specific type of message that is suitable for your target market. Come up with an editorial calendar so that you can be able to plan for topics that are in line with your communication strategies and sales goals. Notify your audience about the coming week's post and remember to stick to the schedule so that your blogging can be consistent. After you have established your blogging goals, come up with a theme associated with your sales topic. A quick example, you can check the magazines for ideas. Most magazines have a theme for every month. A sports magazine might provide a preview for the March Madness before the month starts. Moreover, even though the month of February has many things, most of the content you will find on sports magazines relate to college basketball. To achieve your goals in sales, you will have to shift your role from that of a publisher to a content provider and inform your prospects before the publication. Next, you will have to develop subtopics that relate to the overall theme of your monthly post. It is always good you focus on a unique aspect each week and finish the month with a call to action. With the weekly content planning, you will manage to provide fresh and relevant content that you will publish on your blog consistently to keep the readers engaged and interested until they make their first purchase. Each blog should result in a sale.

Understand the Optimization of Search Engines

For faster results, you have to understand the optimization of search engines. For every five customers, four of them use search engines when searching for a product or service in the local area. If you have not optimized for the local search, then you are already losing out around 80 percent of the potential customers. Put differently; local SEO is vital for people who want to keep their business relevant. The purpose of Local SEO is to help companies to promote their services and products to the local customers and their prospects. To gather the information to provide for any local search, the major search engines rely on the available signals, including citations, links, social media pages, and the local content. That way, they can provide relevant results to the users. To benefit from the local search, you will have to optimize your Google My Business website, improve the on-page SEO and ensure that people can easily find your business on the World Wide Web. That might sound overwhelming, but to succeed in the three, you need perseverance and patience. Google feels more comfortable sharing the content it can verify and support, and that might be the reason they introduced Google My Business. If they can verify your business as authenticate, they will reward it with a sidebar space in the Google local search pages. To be sure that you have optimized for Google My Business, create and verify a new Google My Business page. Use Google Posts in your account as a way of encouraging your customers to share their reviews online, respond to them automatically and specify the location. In addition to optimizing your Google My Business page, you will have to improve the structure of your internal linking. Even though any internal link that posts to your website are essential, you might need to adjust the linking so that you can boost your SEO rankings. The internal linking should support visitor navigation on your website, assist with website hierarchy and information architecture and distribute the page authority and ranking power. Optimize the Headers, Title Tags, URL, content and Meta Description.

Leverage Influencers

Some years ago, the phrase "influencer marketing" did not exist in the marketing world. Today, most marketers are using it to market their products and services. A study conducted in the year 2017 showed that influencer marketing stands as the fastest growing customer acquisition method. Around 67 percent of the participants said that they were ready to spend more on influencer marketing. That does not mean that every brand can afford to engage the big influencers or celebrities in their campaigns. That is where the micro-influencers come into play. Micro-influencers have a smaller following than the mega-influencers and celebrities. However, they have a more significant number of engaged followers in specific niches. According to Forbes, the number of followers can range between 10,000 and 500,000 people. SnapApp says that the number of followers can be between 1000 and 10,000 people. That shows that different sources have differing opinions on the number of followers a person needs to qualify as a micro-influencer. On average, the number of followers is between 10,000 and 100,000 people. Micro-influencers are more authentic than the celebrities because they are the people who post regularly about their interests. People are likely to purchase a product if the person recommending it is someone they can consider authentic or trust. The same applies to brands too. Data from Stackla shows that around 86 Percent of the people see authenticity as a critical factor in choosing the brands to support. Brands can build authenticity and trust by associating with the trusted influencers. Micro-influencers are affordable. They charge between $75 and $3000 for posts that celebrities could charge for over $550,000. The difference between the cost of hiring large/celebrity influencers and the small influencers is big. It is evident that the micro-influencers charge around 6.7 times lesser than the significant influencers do and they provide better results for the local businesses. The micro-influencers have engaged the audience because they are always posting on the topics that are of interest to their followers. A market study showed that influencers with a follower base between 10,000 and 100,000 people have a better combination of reach and customer engagement.

Build a Lead Magnet

Leads magnets are among the most productive and efficient ways of collecting contact information from business websites. Today, people are choosing to offer something valuable to their potential customers so that they can get email addresses or phone numbers of their potential customers each time they land on their business website. By doing that, you will be making the internet users trust with their phone number and email addresses. Unfortunately, the method requires a lot of trial and error before you get lead magnets that can work effectively. A good lead magnet should focus on what the potential customers need, what is likely to motivate them and something that approaches them in a good-natured and genuine way. Today, people have to keep up with the rising demands of their business to generate great results within a short time. If you can identify the pain points and present solutions in lead magnets, then you are definitely on the right track. Start by identifying some of the problems consumers in your niche are facing. You can also rely on what made you get into business and develop something that you can offer to your potential customers free of charge. You can create a lead magnet in the form of a cheat sheet, eBook, video or checklist. In addition to that, you will require a sizzling sales copy so that you can get people into your funnel. At the top of the funnel, you will need an effective lead magnet so that you can reach many people. If you own a golf equipment store, you can create a sheet on how to select the best golf iron because it will be appealing to the local golf enthusiasts. If you are a software developer, you can offer free trials to attract more potential clients. After all, everyone loves getting some things free of charge, particularly software programs. Including if it is for a very short time, around 60 percent of the free trials will convert to long term paid subscriptions. The commonest free trial periods are usually less than 30 days. With the free trials, you will manage to get the credit card details of your potential clients.

Use Facebook Ads and Retargeting

Facebook Ads and retargeting is a more cost-effective and more natural way of promoting a local business. If you have tried to advertise on Facebook or Google before, but you feel like you threw your hard-earned money away, it is the time to try it for another time. Today, Facebook Ads are providing better results for local businesses. The key reason behind that is that people are no longer searching for items they purchase frequently and locally. When planning to market a new product, most businesses list Google as their first option and for several reasons that are a perfect idea. Unfortunately, Google might not work for some companies. People who purchase items locally and on a regular basis – for example, dry cleaning services, groceries, and cosmetics – are unlikely to search for the products online. They would want to walk or drive to the nearest store and purchase them. Therefore, to get more people to your local store through online marketing, you must be able to target the right people in the local area and ensure that they can see your adverts. Facebook is one of the websites that allow marketers to do that easily. Facebook Ads allow small businesses to target a single city or town and spend less money. Therefore, you will manage to show your adverts to individuals who can manage to drive or to walk into your store and buy what you offer. Third party Facebook coupon apps or the Offers app from Facebook will help you advertise your coupons easily and drive more people to your business. You will also have the option of targeting the people who have been purchasing from you solely. Facebook Custom Audience option will help you do that easily. You can use phone numbers and email addresses to target buyers in the local areas. If you already have a loyalty program, you might have collected enough phone numbers and email addresses to use in the marketing. Upload your email addresses and phone number list to Facebook. After that, Facebook will match the contact details to the associated Facebook accounts and show the people your business adverts.

Use LinkedIn Properly

LinkedIn is an excellent choice for business people who want to network with the professionals within their industry, but it also provides excellent results when it comes to marketing small businesses. If LinkedIn is unfamiliar to you or you have always thought that it is made for people searching for jobs, you should start thinking of it differently. As a local business owner, you can use your LinkedIn profile to showcase your business in the local area. Each time you invite a professional to create a connection with you, he/she will view your profile page, including the critical details of your business. Apart from the professional profile, you can make a Company Page so that your business too can exist on the social media platform. You can use the professional pages of your contractors and employees to display the profile page. You have to post updates regularly and remember to make a group that you can use to kickstart discussions with the other professionals. When creating the company profile, keep your target customers in mind. You can target professionals on the network, particularly those who need the services and products you offer or use the platform to do some business-to-business form of marketing. Studies show that the local business owners using the platform will be willing to help the other local business owners within their area if they know them personally. Share advice with the other professionals so that you can establish yourself as a professional. To start using LinkedIn for marketing, create a profile for your business. The process of creating a profile is very basic, but to many people, it will appear complicated. When applicable, you will have to include: A professional looking photo Your professional background Your experience in the industry Your skill level Your education level The certifications Projects Awards Videos, documents, and images When creating Company Pages, people end up leaving the profile incomplete. Do not do that because it will affect your networking opportunities and will appear unprofessional.

Start an Affiliate Program

If you are one of the many people who spend their time on social media, you have possibly seen or shopped through affiliate links. When an influencer writes about a product and asks you to swipe up to get the link, they are most likely telling you about the affiliate link. Each time someone clicks on the link and purchases the offered product, the influencer will get a kickback. Affiliate marketing relationship is usually mutually beneficial because the company benefits from more customers and traffic while the influencer gets a commission for every successful sale. It is an excellent way for social media influencers and bloggers to make money. After deciding to set up an affiliate program your next step should be to invite other companies to join the program. After that, you will have to supply the affiliates with content as a way of promoting your products. Business people use various methods to promote their businesses such as coupons, loyalties, and content marketing. Coupon affiliates have a stronger email list or SEO while the loyalty affiliates provide users with incentives to purchase through links, such as cash back or rewards points. Content affiliates are more desirable because they generate more leads. Affiliates will provide the fuel you require for growth but approaching the best partners might not be easy. If you want the best big affiliates to start taking you seriously, you will need good conversion. Most marketers will tell you that navigating the midfield of affiliate marketing is tricky. You will have to be persistent and be ready to spend more money. Most local business owners get discouraged after facing a few problems. Never allow emotions to control your affiliate-marketing program. Most websites are ready to offer leads.

Use Email Marketing

The email has stood to be an effective marketing channel for local and global businesses. When used correctly, email marketing can be inexpensive and more effective in driving leads and sales, growing brand engagement, increasing customer loyalty, growing the fan base and conducting research. You will need a social media algorithm to communicate on your fans on the social media, but after developing a long email list, you will be able to control how and when you interact with your audience. To start using email marketing, you will have to select an email service provider carefully. The internet provides many email-marketing platforms that allow users to store their data, design templates in addition to creating, sending and tracking their email campaigns. MailChimp is among the most popular platforms, possibly because it is easy to use, free and integrates with Shopify, WordPress, and Squarespace. Others are Drip, Constant Contact, and dotmailer. As you promote your products, promotions, services, and events, the emails will provide people with valuable information in addition to the sales messages. You can give advice, tips, stories, and news that are in line with the values of your brand. You will have to send emails regularly, but not very often, because you can bombard your audience. It is always a great idea to make a content plan for each year as a way of organizing your time and send out the emails around promotions and events. Capturing of data and communicating with your customers should be your priority when marketing your local business. If you are very busy, ask people whether they would want to hear about your business strategies or something similar.

Conclusion

Growing a local business is not easy. To market it, you will have to define your target customers and come up with something of value to sell to them. If you have been peddling products, information or services, the above tips will help you get the word out efficiently. They will also help you keep your profits afloat. Within a short time, you will be at the next level. Read the full article

[berthastover]

Blogging in 2019: Marketing Benefits and Best Practices

In an image-driven world, visualization is still a hot topic, especially in marketing. The hype around video content is still alive and well, and blogging is everything but over.

If you’re planning on starting your own business or stepping up your business game, your content strategy should still involve blogging, as there are great marketing benefits of it.

Featuring a blog as part of your website significantly increases your chances of being ranked higher in search engines.

Also, businesses that use blogging in their content marketing campaigns have increased chances of generating more leads than those who don’t. There are dozens of good reasons why blogging is important:

It’s an essential content marketing tactic.

Blogs provide in-depth material that is engaging.

People trust blogs.

It allow businesses to develop a unique brand voice and stand out from the crowd.

Blogging drives traffic to sites and is excellent for SEO campaigns.

Blogs provide inbound links that give sites a higher rank in search engines.

Blogging is cost-effective and gets results.

Blogs allow businesses to get in touch with their consumers.

Blogging is essential for a strong social media presence.

It’s better than advertising.

With all this in mind, let’s go through some of the most important marketing benefits of blogging, as well as what the best blogging practices are in 2019.

  Marketing benefits of blogging

Blogging is an excellent inbound technique that helps every online business create value for its consumer base and sell their products more effectively.

Now, business blogging has to be all about quality, usefulness, and relevance. These three things give any online business authority in their niche by posting in-depth content that will capture the right audience by providing specific solutions to specific problems.

If we take all these facts into consideration, we can safely say that the most important marketing benefits of blogging are:

Industry expertise

SEO & more traffic

Exposure

Subscriptions

Lead generation

Backlinks

  Industry expertise

As a business owner, you want to show your audience that you are an expert in your industry. The main benefit you get from this is trust. The best way to do this is by sharing high-quality, industry-relevant knowledge with your customer base.

That means that you need to be consistent in publishing in-depth content. In return, you build confidence with the customers that will result in their trust. A loyal customer is the best customer, and it’s much easier to sell if they trust your brand.

  SEO & traffic

The main benefit of search engine optimization is higher ranking in search engine results. But, SEO is much more than just that. It’s a tactic that works best in the long run. SEO makes your brand visible and it helps you stand out from the crowd.

Writing blogs around the most frequently used and popular keywords when publishing relevant content is the best way to increase online visibility. Higher ranking means more online users seeing your blog.

On top of all that, blogging also requires using online tools to increase online visibility in searches even more. It’s a fantastic way to drive more traffic to your website.

A lot of recent studies have shown that most online users don’t go beyond the first page of search results. So, if your brand doesn’t show up on page one of Google, it’s like you don’t exist. If you use SEO to your advantage, you get higher ranking and increased visibility, which allows you to feature more prominently in search engine results.

The higher the ranking, the more traffic you drive to your website. People use the most popular keywords to find what they need, so blogging and keeping SEO in mind helps you be the first to answer their questions and solve their problems.

Also, if you need help writing SEO-friendly content we’re here for you ;).

  Exposure

Building brand awareness is an excellent way to stay competitive by staying relevant. Instead of investing in promoting your brand, building awareness allows it to promote itself.

Every brand needs online exposure to increase its visibility and a blog can provide it by sharing valuable knowledge.

It’s not only about selling and revenue, it’s also about catering to the needs of your customers and educating them further about your industry, niche, brand, products, services, and so on.

It’s about adding value and spreading awareness about new features and products.

    Subscriptions

Subscriptions are a great way for any brand to engage with their customers and get to know their preferences and habits.

Blogging helps businesses collect emails – asking people to subscribe to a blog they find helpful is much easier than trying to get them to subscribe for email updates as soon as they land on the homepage.

All these subscriptions are an excellent way to add more users to your marketing funnel to improve brand-customer communication, offer products that might interest your audience, promote new products, and so on.

  Lead generation

When a business builds a list of potential customers, they can use these subscriptions to improve their lead generation. Communication allows a brand to convert potential customers into loyal consumers.

That’s why most brands use such a contact form to capture those potential customers. Once a brand generates enough demand, they can sell easier, but it’s also a great way to cultivate interest in their products.

  Backlinks

One of the greatest SEO growth tools is generating inbound or backlinks. These are links on other web pages relevant to your business niche that link back to your website. Backlinks create even more value for customers and also help online businesses remain relevant in search engine results.

Be sure to check out the most effective tactics to earn high-quality links.

  Best practices in blogging

Now that we’ve pointed out some of the most important marketing benefits of blogging, let’s review the best blogging practices to get those very benefits.

  Create a content calendar

A content calendar helps business get organized throughout the entire year. This helps brands be more productive, stay consistent, and always have the most relevant content prepared.

Use a content calendar to show the right information to the right audience and at the right moment. This way you’ll avoid cluttering your blog with loads of chaotic information.

There are many online tools that may help you and your team plan all the posts in advance and stay on schedule.

  Provide value

Consistent content generation helps an online business create value.

And when a brand consistently provides value, it helps them grow and expand their customer base, increase lead generation and conversion rates and generate more revenue.

Blogging is the best way to do this, as you can post in-depth and original pieces, that can’t be found anywhere else, as many times as you find suitable, even with little budget.

I’m sure people will appreciate you being a knowledge compendium on everything they need to know about your niche.

  Make it visual

Blogs help brands find their voice by exploring issues and concerns of their audiences. Brands can capture the attention of their customers by providing exactly what their audience needs. This is where visualization plays an important part.

Content greatly matters but content alone isn’t enough to make the best impression. So, making it visual allows the customers to not only read about the business but also see it.

If you give examples, try to add a couple of screenshots and photos (always give credit, btw.). If you’re trying to illustrate something or give instructions, you can make infographics, GIFs or even videos, and embed them in your blogpost.

Images can also bring lots of traffic to your website – you just need to know a few trick, so be sure to check out 6 Tricks for Getting Traffic to Your Blog from Image Search.

GetResponse likes to show visual examples of good marketing automation workflows on the blog. Why? Because it familiarises the user with the product, gives visual inspiration and shows that it’s easy to use.

      Keep the content quality consistent

If the quality of your content is consistent, it helps potential customers and online users trust your business.

Publishing quality content means establishing authority in your line of work.

On top of all that, quality, fresh and unique content ranks well on Google, so you do the math.

Do all the needed research before you make statements on your blog. Write on subjects that matter, even if it matters to a teeny-tiny segment of your target audience. Enrich the content in any way you seem fit.

Also, it’s not a good practice to publish clickbaits – it makes you untrustworthy and lowers your blog’s quality.

And, remember to proofread your content before you hit “publish” to avoid any funny or business-threatening mishaps.

  Engage with users

Modern online users love personalization. Customers are more likely to buy from the brands that engage with them and listen to them. One of the best ways to this is by asking for feedback.

Customers can use blogs to leave comments and impressions, which is an excellent way to engage with them even more. Some companies adjust their marketing strategies according to the engagement they get.

So, encourage your readers to comment on your content, say what they like and dislike, ask questions, and tell you what they’d like to see in the future. Then, reply to as many of them as you can to make the audience feel seen. They’ll know there’s a real person behind the blog that cares about their community and they’ll visit you and engage with you even more.

  Promote your content

Since blogs help brands promote their content, blogging is an excellent way to stay ahead of the competition. Every brand that actively promotes their content in an interesting and consistent way encourages its customers to buy more. Blogging is all about the content promotion so by putting the two together, brands can reap significant benefits.

Share the posts you publish on social media and send content updates to your subscribers once in a while ;).

  Allow guest authors to share their knowledge

I already touched the subject of how backlinks help your brand increase organic traffic, search engine rankings, and the overall domain authority. Well, there’s one more way: guest authors. Guest blogging has many benefits such as mutual reputation benefits, increased social visibility and, of course, more traffic.

  Set up a subscription funnel

Setting up a subscription funnel by using your blog allows you to gather valuable contacts, engage with them, establish a relationship, and maintain a connection with your customer base to increase sales and grow more revenue.

  Add great calls-to-action

CTA or a call to action, is the key to mastering the best blogging practices.

You probably know CTAs from (and use them in) your emails and landing pages. But do you incorporate them into your blog?

A blogpost captures the attention of the potential customer by subtly promoting your product in the copy and once the person is hooked, you place a CTA to seal the deal.

Good CTAs increase conversion rates, create more revenue and grow and expand your business. More importantly, CTAs directly invite customers to trust your brand and buy your products.

  Conclusion

Based on everything I’ve mentioned, it’s safe to say that blogging is essential for your business if you’re planning on staying not only relevant but competitive in your business industry.

It’s more than clear that in 2019, small and medium businesses need blogging if they want to beat their competition.

  Related posts

4 Ways to Align Your Content Marketing Strategy With Your Mission

Do Words Still Dominate the Digital World?

The post Blogging in 2019: Marketing Benefits and Best Practices appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.

[suzanneshannon]

Clips from my DEV AMA

I recently did an AMA over on DEV. Just taking the opportunity to port over some answers here like a good indiewebber.

If you were starting out as a front end dev in 2020, what would you say is the first thing you would learn and why?

You need to put yourself in a position where it's your job to create and take care of a website. Even if that feels like a stretch for you early on. Get the domain, get the website on the public internet. Put your name on it. Now you've given yourself stakes, and you'll learn technology because you must make your ideas come to life.

For me, 650 years ago, that was putting up a website for the ol' college band. We needed a website! That sounded like fun to me, and I managed to struggle through buying a domain, hosting, and putting up a WordPress website. Then, over time, I learned front-end web technologies because I wanted to change up the design, change up the templates, add cool features, etc.

Get yourself a project and learn through the project.

How do you determine what you want to turn into a blog post and what you leave as a simple Tweet?

I usually won't avoid the tweet. The tweet is usually a good proving ground for the blog post anyway. If nobody cared, eh, maybe not that good of a post. If it does get good engagement, it's like the conversation around it is useful in the creation of the blog post. Plus, tweets are so easy to kick out the door. Blog posts, for me, on purpose, have a longer schedule that includes editing and scheduling and such.

Here's an example tweet. Just a silly little UI experiment. I didn't feel like waiting to blog about it to drop the demo. But from the Twitter thread, I got some interesting technical feedback, info about what parts people were most suprised by, and some other related ideas. That will, hopefully, lead to a much more robust blog post.

I even treat DEV like that, honestly. I wrote this blog post reaction quickly here, but then refined it for my own blog with some of the feedback.

Do you have a favorite CSS-Trick, where you were just like "wow"?

I think "scroll shadows" in CSS is one of my favorite CSS tricks of all time. It's originally by Roman Komarov, but explained and improved by Lea Verou. I saw a tool the other day around the idea by Stefan Judis.

It's a real mind-bender involving four-layered gradient backgrounds, each positioned, sized, and colored differently, and then behaviorally different regarding scrolling.

It's not just a neat trick because it has real UX implications. Showing a shadow of where you can scroll is important UX. Consider this story of a recent design update in iOS that led to complete confusion around UI actions hidden behind a place you could scroll to, but had zero affordance on how to get there. (Happens to me all the time in Spotify, for the record.)

What would be your top 3 pieces of quick advice for developers trying to follow a similar path to growing their influence and exposure?

I think writing is literally the only way.

I can't think of a developer with influence who has that influence for anything other than writing. Or if it's not writing, then it's a YouTube channel or some other form of creating public stuff.

How much do you see yourself personally playing with Houdini APIs as they are released? Which API are you most excited about (Painting, Layout, Typed OM, ...)?

This super-low level stuff sometimes feels over my head. It's hard for me to picture the industry implications of stuff like this just by looking at specs, ya know?

To me, it seems the Layout API has the most powerful potential.

What I'm imagining right now is that Houdini doesn't affect normal day-to-day front-end developers like me that much. I won't be writing much Houdini code. But I'll use fancy things that other people create, because it does something useful for me. Just like most people don't write their own libraries or have published npm packages — they just use them.

It's fun to be wow'd by Houdini. If anyone is looking for that, make sure to look at Vincent De Oliveira's showcase website.

What is your favorite thing about working at CodePen and/or CSS-Tricks?

You know what I really like? I like getting into the office every day and having a pretty decent amount of freedom of what I'm going to do that day. I'll probably have meetings. I'll probably have some stuff on the ol' calendar. I'll probably have some team expectations I'm trying to meet. But I also usually have plenty of time to pursue things that are interesting to me at the moment.

Sometimes I'm in the moment to drill through some emails. Sometimes I want to tinker with some demo that sounds like fun. Sometimes I want to write up a thought or record a video. Sometimes I want to plan something out or document something. Sometimes I want to talk something out with other people or do some pair programming.

I'm fortunate that I'm the boss (lol) and I put myself in that position on purpose so I have that freedom.

What is something that you wish we could add in CSS?

I feel like every time someone asks this we all should take every opportunity to scream Container Queries! until we get them.

The idea is that we should be able to write CSS that says, "When this element is this wide, this CSS should take effect." And not just width, but whatever media queries we have at the page level already.

The best demo of a use case out there is Philip Walton's page.

I want to write a card component that shuffles itself around based on how wide it is, not how wide the page is, because there isn't always a direct connection between those two things (e.g. a card component can show up in a narrow sidebar on a large screen, but be full-width on a tablet or something).

Every component can be in a situation like that, so for the love of CSS, let me write media queries scoped to those components. I echo a lot of other people when I saw that if we had this, the vast majority of media queries we write would be these, not page-level.

Do you think it's worth suggesting a { position: above-fold; }?

I'm not sure I've ever made a big fold-based decision once in my career. Not a big fan of that thinking. THERE IS A LINE IN WHICH THIS IMPORTANT MODULE MUST NOT CROSS, haha. Prioritizing the most important stuff to be higher up the page, sure. Websites don't fold like newspapers.

Plus, we've got viewport units now, so if you absolutely need to position something in the top visible viewport area, you can.

Since you've been writing blog posts for so long, have you developed a process for writing one?

Sorta! It still feels pretty casual to me (let's call my writing medium quality), so it's not like I'm renting a cabin in the wilderness and finding inspiration in the sunsets and cheap whiskey.

I write down every blog post idea that comes to me. I try to keep that list fairly public but I also have a personal list where I can be even sloppier.

I put as much context into those lists as I can, so I can hope to summon up the same emotion that made me write it down in the first place. If I revisit the idea a week later and can't, it's probably not a very good idea.

I write up the post with as much context as I can. Light research is typically involved.

We have a lead editor on CSS-Tricks, so it's reviewed by at least one person before being scheduled.

CSS or CSS-in-JS?

I see a ton of cool stuff happening in CSS-in-JS. I think it solves a lot of interesting problems for certain websites. For example, I very much like the idea of having the option to write styles that are scoped to a component programmatically, and thus are tree-shaken when the component isn't used automatically.

But the web is a big place, and dare I say most websites aren't built with JavaScript-powered component models. Thus, CSS-in-JS isn't necessary or appropriate for a lot of sites.

Although, two things to be clear:

You can't have CSS-in-JS without CSS. CSS-in-JS is still styles that are applied to elements. It doesn't absolve you from learning CSS.

The CSS-in-JS landscape is wide. It's a little hard to talk about so vaguely. Each project in the bucket of CSS-in-JS handles things a bit differently and how the styles are applied to the site is even quite wide. I think it sometimes gets lost in the arguments that some of the approaches literally make a CSS stylesheet that you link up like you would any other CSS — even Sass-produced CSS — which there doesn't seem to be much argument about anymore.

The post Clips from my DEV AMA appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Clips from my DEV AMA published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Learn how to Foster Your Kid's Creativeness

http://tinyurl.com/y6yh7bc3 By Len CanterHealthDay Reporter MONDAY, July 1, 2019 (HealthDay Information) — With college, sports activities and diverse actions, many youngsters have little or no free time. That fast-paced life-style can really stifle their improvement, making them much less more likely to be self-starters. It might additionally restrict their creativeness, an vital ingredient in creativity and problem-solving. College of Colorado-Boulder researchers discovered that youngsters who spend extra time in less-structured actions have higher self-directed management and pondering expertise than those that spend extra time in structured actions. Consider less-structured actions as free play — alone or with pals — studying, drawing and informal social outings. Different analysis has discovered worth in some fully unstructured time to daydream and let the thoughts wander. Give your youngsters time, house and a few easy instruments, like paper and coloured pencils, to start out their inventive juices flowing. Free time permits youngsters to give you imaginative concepts and discover inventive options to issues. It encourages qualities akin to impartial pondering, self-reliance and perseverance — the drive to maintain attempting if one thing would not work the primary time. So once you’re wanting forward on the weekly calendar, you’ll want to depart some blocks of time empty. Unsure in case your little one is overscheduled? The American Academy of Household Physicians lists these widespread warning indicators: Your little one is consistently drained. Your little one is usually grumpy. Your little one has developed bodily issues like headaches or stomach aches. Your little one has issue sleeping. Your little one shies away from social contacts and would relatively keep house. Your little one not enjoys or needs to do actions that was once his or her favorites. Copyright © 2019 HealthDay. All rights reserved. QUESTION The abbreviated term ADHD denotes the condition commonly known as: See Answer !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '428750600651790'); fbq('track', "PageView"); Source link

[genr-blog1]

Five Myths About Appropriate Toner Cartridges

toner HP 85A Armor A lot of people have different sights and suggestions about appropriate toner cartridges. Other people only know extremely very little about compatible cartridges. As an special user of compatible toner cartridges for fifteen several years, I have found several items that are not true. I'd like to critique five myths or misconceptions folks may have about compatible laser toner cartridges. Let us distinguish involving reality and fiction. Fantasy #1 Suitable Toner Cartridges are just low cost cartridges. It is real that a suitable toner cartridge is low cost in price tag. However, it is not a low cost quality toner cartridge. A compatible toner cartridge is a new toner cartridge manufactured by a 3rd get together. It is designed from all new sections. It is made up of the correct toner expected for your laser printer. Most firms give a one-calendar year, 1 hundred percent money again promise on their appropriate toner cartridges. You can generally acquire a suitable toner cartridge for about half of the expense of a new OEM toner cartridge.

Myth #two Working with a Compatible Toner Cartridge will void my printer warranty. This is not correct. In fact, congress handed a regulation to make it unlawful for a manufacturer to power you to obtain particular materials. If permitted, this would direct to a monopoly, substantial charges and deficiency of competition. Beneath is a duplicate of the "Magnuson-Moss Guarantee Advancement Act". It really is your guarantee that your printer guarantee will not be voided. United States Code Annotated Title 15 Commerce and Trade Chapter 50 Consumer Item Warranties 15 Area 2302 "(c) No warrantor of a consumer product or service might affliction his written or implied warranty of this sort of merchandise on the consumer's making use of, in relationship with these kinds of item, any write-up or service (other than article or assistance presented with out demand less than the conditions of the guarantee) which is recognized by brand name, trade or corporate identify apart from that the prohibition of this subsection be waived by the commission if: 1) The warrantor satisfies the Fee that the warranted product will purpose appropriately only if the report or support so identified is used in link with the warranted item, and 2) The Fee finds that this kind of a waiver is in the public desire." Myth #three A Compatible Toner Cartridge will damage my printer. The fact is a toner cartridge can do incredibly minor to problems a laser printer. It is feasible, but highly unlikely, for a toner cartridge to leak and bring about streaking on your paper. On the other hand, a simple cleaning and alternative of the toner cartridge will solve the issue. In my fifteen many years of employing compatible toner cartridges, I only had one instance in which the toner cartridge did not satisfy my higher expectations. I identified as the organization and they despatched me a new cartridge the following working day. I realized from this practical experience that it is quite important to purchase your toner cartridges from respected toner firms. How quite a few organizations have sent you a manufacturer new substitution item the upcoming day with no any hassles? Myth #four Appropriate Toner Cartridges produce bad good quality print. One particular of my preliminary fears in purchasing a compatible toner cartridge was that the print excellent wouldn't be as excellent. When I utilized my 1st compatible toner cartridge, it made exceptionally fantastic high quality. I thought it would not very last. I was improper. In simple fact, I printed more internet pages from that cartridge than I did from my unique. Right after intensive research, I observed that quite a few toner cartridges are not absolutely filled with toner when you acquire them. I took place to have ordered a cartridge from a organization that had completely filled the cartridge. For this reason, I obtained much more pages. In fairness to the major printer corporations, I want to explain just one matter. I utilised OEM toner cartridges for several several years. I usually printed the variety of web pages that the company advertised. There was no deception in their promotion. Some merely did not fill their toner cartridges to capacity.

[tweetadvise]

Content Marketing for Manufacturing Businesses

One of one of the most common production advertising misconceptions is that content advertising is not appropriate for company to company (B2B) markets. We frequently hear:

' We are the leading producer in our market!'

' When people want what we offer, they come to us!'

' People simply do not look for what we make!'

If every one of the above hold true, then why should your firm worry about Search Engine Optimization, let alone content advertising and marketing for manufacturing? Well, you could be the frontrunner in your industry, you might even go to the reducing edge of technology in technology now, however you are most likely not the only firm making exactly what you make.

Unlike company to consumer (B2C) business, one brand-new B2B order could make the difference between an average month as well as a fantastic month. Claim you make plastics, throughout a particularly peaceful week, simply someone searches for 'plastic injection molding', just how much could you lose if that person clicks the link to the firm rating above you? That person might not recognize you are the leader in your market, all they recognize is that Google prices them over you. Which web link would you naturally click?

' But my sector is as well monotonous! Just what would certainly we produce material regarding?'

It's extremely easy to obtain sidetracked by huge brand names making a great deal of sound. Coca Soda, Nike and also Tesco could succeed at their variation of material advertising, yet they are B2C companies with extremely large spending plans. Material advertising for B2B is various. Just, it is creating content that your target market will certainly intend to consume and share.

If you're feeling intimidated by the thought your content will just be a success if it goes viral - it's time to change your reasoning. The word 'viral' is commonly misused by electronic marketers. If a business asserts 'We could create a viral video clip for you!' be really skeptical. The term viral must only be applied to content that is being discussed tremendously. A lot of content gets produced for the web as well as not a great deal of it goes genuinely viral. In digital marketing for manufacturing, you don't need your content to reach the globe, you need it to reach a targeted, pertinent audience.

Typical makers' advertising and marketing objectives

Reaching your target market starts with identifying clear objectives. Without goals you will certainly not have the ability to measure your success, and also you will not be able to refine your production marketing method as it evolves. In a current study by Material Advertising and marketing Institute, makers detailed eight key content advertising and marketing dreams:

Each individual item of material should aim to target no even more than 1 or 2 goals. You can intend to encompass even more throughout your whole content marketing strategy, and also some objectives might be attained as an effect of targeting others. Beginning gradually, by setting little objectives, which can expand as your approach grows. A great area to start is by asking on your own:

What are potential clients looking for?

What could make their lives easier?

What problems can you solve?

What can you do that could make them money?

By responding to these questions, you need to be able to see exactly how your answers correspond to your goals.

For instance, take a firm that manufactures drain components. They have created an ingenious variation of an existing element, which supplies increased durability due to their new patented plastic. They must focus on list building as well as brand name recognition. This would ensure their brand-new product ends up being related to their trademark name, while motivating prospective consumers to obtain in touch. Concentrating initially on sales, as an example, would be a mistake. In production, individuals need to know even more about a brand-new product before dedicating to a purchase.

Identifying opportunities

People use internet search engine to locate remedies to issues. If you could determine these problems, you can place your material as the solution. To start with, you require to recognize what people are looking for, however not finding. These are the longer phrases people kind into Google: 'Digital advertising for manufacturers.' These kinds of queries typically have smaller search quantities, however higher intent - people looking for these phrases are far more most likely to become your clients. Have a look at Ubersuggest for inspiration.

Secondly, you have to determine what people typically aren't looking for, but would certainly discover invaluable. Recognizing gaps in the material market can produce exceptional outcomes. When you are leading the discussion, you get on your manner in which to positioning yourself as an idea leader or an 'influencer.' In content marketing, an influencer is a person that has a huge, active, and also involved complying with regarding a provided topic.

Still battling for concepts? Speak with your workforce. They understand the technical little bits, the innovative bits, the bits that make people say yes to a sale. Being them entailed in your content planning. If you are going to be successful at content advertising, you need to commit to it. Organize a regular monthly team meeting and brainstorm. They are most likely not individuals you need to obtain to see the content via to fulfillment, but they are the people that can supply you with the seeds of ideas.

Choosing a format

From post, white documents as well as sector interviews to video clips, situation studies and also infographics, there are a wide variety of content kinds you could rely on for motivation. If the breadth of selection seems frustrating, let your subject quick guide your choice. Developing an infographic simply due to the fact that your competitors are is not a reasonable method. The layout ought to supply you with the simplest manner in which to obtain your message throughout. Individuals react much better to marketing that tells a tale, what format can aid you inform your own? Allow's check out three prominent choices:

Blogging

A timeless selection for material marketing experts, blog writing continues to be a permanently prominent approach. Why? It is cost-effective and it works. By consisting of a blog site on your web site, the online search engine are continuously being fed fresh, appropriate material (which they love) and it's a quick way to target the longer search queries mentioned previously. Blog writing additionally urges loyalty. When people are returning week on week to review your content, who do you believe they will come to when they intend to make a purchase?

Ideally you need to be blogging at the very least one to two times a week, so a great technique is to create a content calendar. Your blog needs to feature a blend of search led, evergreen, as well as topical content. Think of just what events map out the manufacturing year. General Electric made use of the recent solar eclipse as a manner in which to drive topical traffic. Google Trends is a terrific method to see what's prominent when.

Video

Products are at the heart of manufacturing. Your items solve other individuals's issues, which makes video clip among the most effective methods to display your ability, development, and high quality. Show individuals what they are missing out on. YouTube is a free solution, which enables you to release video clips on their website, while simultaneously installing them by yourself. By making your titles and descriptions keyword abundant, it is additionally feasible your video will certainly appear in the search results.

Infographics

Another prominent type of visual content is the infographic. Infographics are a fantastic manner in which to visualise tales or fads via the usage of imagery. By curating realities concerning your sector, you can produce something that is truly appealing, something that your clients may wish to share with their customers. If you're really feeling truly enthusiastic, why not make something interactive?

Chronological infographics have confirmed to be extremely prominent. These are infographics that have a look at topical histories. They are specifically effective if you are targeting an influencer, who additionally happens to be a client. Do you have a large name on your books? Allow's imagine you make woollen that you provide to Marks and Spencer. For this scenario, I would certainly suggest having a look at the history of woollen and fashion. This allows you to weave both firms right into one story - a story that your influencer may wish to share.

Promoting content

Get people involved

This is what I want to call the 'pre-outreach' phase. This is where you pique people's interest. It could be as easy as advertising forthcoming content in your firm newsletter or sharing a sneak preview on Twitter.

If you're really clever, you can secure a core reader before you even devote to creating the content. Just how? Ask people to obtain entailed. Are you writing a White Paper? Send some studies. Are you composing a blog post? Ask an appropriate influencer for a quote.

Get people talking

If you've crafted the material very carefully, you should already know what the speaking factors are. They are what you have actually talked about with your colleagues at the planning stage. They are what you have actually promoted during the pre-outreach phase. Getting people speaking about your content is very comparable to applying a Public Relations strategy.

Whether you favor to call, email or tweet, this has to do with collecting appropriate contact information as well as letting the world know. Crafting the ideal outreach is a craft by itself, although basically, it's simply around creating connections with people. This may seem time consuming, nevertheless, from producing leads to creating brand awareness, the even more initiative you take into outreach, the closer it can bring you to your company objectives.

Get people sharing

They have actually seen it, they've liked it, now you want them to share it. There a few straightforward traits you can do to motivate this. First of all, just ask! Now, you should be in conversation with plenty of individuals, a lot of these will be satisfied to oblige. Is your content downloadable? Ask individuals to pay for the download with a tweet. Do you have a strong social networks following? Host a Twitter conversation or a Google+ hangout.

It is additionally essential making it simple for individuals to share just what you have actually made. By including social media sites switches on top and bottom of your content, you could motivate social shares onto the network of their choice. If you have produced an infographic or video, offering an installed code will encourage individuals to upload it on their blog sites too.

Generating leads

It's tough to remain client while you wait for your material to spread out. If you have actually seen days transform right into weeks waiting to see if your material will certainly compel individuals down the sales channel, you'll be well conscious that this doesn't 'simply occur'. It's likewise unlikely that it will certainly take just one item of content prior to the orders begin swamping in. You have to play the long online game. To make people act, you have to be proactive and also relentless. Your content ought to leave them believing:

I would like to know even more about this company

I would like to know exactly what they are going to do next

This links back to connection management. It has to do with making individuals think about you at the correct time. It's around constructing depend on and also getting commitment. It has to do with lead nurturing. Below are a few fast pointers to obtain you began:

Encourage individuals to register for a regular email

Ask people to get in touch with you on social media

Include an rss feed so individuals can by hand register for your blog

Looking for more ideas for your company? Please leave a remark below.

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9 Tips on How to Get More Subscribers: A YouTube Guide

Just like any other social network, YouTube has its own space for businesses to create communities. With Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it’s all about gaining real and authentic followers. But on YouTube, it’s essential to learn how to get more subscribers.

In case you’re curious, YouTube subscribers are exactly like your other social media followers. Instead, these users subscribe to your YouTube channel, so they’re updated every time you post something new.

On a platform like YouTube, shareability is everything. According to YouTube, there are currently more than a billion users on the network, which accounts for nearly one-third of all internet users. And as the second-largest search engine in the world (only behind Google), gaining new subscribers can help build awareness and customers.

With the right social media marketing techniques, you can increase the viewership and following of your channels. In this article, we’ll teach you nine unique ways on how to get more subscribers on YouTube:

1. Regularly Post New Content

Consistency is always key with any social network. Posting once and waiting for new followers or subscribers simply does not work. On the other hand, when you post regularly and constantly add new content to your channel, you give users a reason to subscribe.

The beauty of social media is you have a lot of flexibility with the content you can publish. However, this doesn’t mean you should zero-in on only promotional video content. Instead, try to plan out YouTube content within your social media calendar.

Scheduling and planning content on a weekly basis allows you to keep consistency with your YouTube content. This doesn’t mean you have to hit your mark every single week (especially for companies working on a video production budget), but having a plan helps keep good posting habits.

Once you start to build out your video content, you’ll gain more assets for your customers. Sales teams and account managers are constantly in need of assets to use to sell your brand.

Building helpful video case studies is a great way to give your potential customers a reason to work with you. Here’s an example of one of our customer case studies:

2. Focus on Your First 10 Seconds

Let’s face it, if you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re part of the minority. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, 49% of people read 111 words or less on web pages. And for video content, making an immediate impact is just as critical.

In fact, the same report discovered the average viewership of a standard internet video is 2.7 minutes. While that might seem like a good amount of time, this includes various lengths of video from hours long to under a minute.

Making an impression within the first few seconds of your video is essential. Businesses testing their content for advertising need to focus on getting to the point even more. While many pre-roll ads are moving toward making users watch the whole ad before viewing the content, there are still plenty of ads with five-second minimum view times.

This means users can skip ads after five seconds, but if you immediately capture their attention, you have a better chance of getting a user to complete the ad. Completing an ad is essential for your business. According to Insivia, 95% of users retain the message of a video more so than the 10% who read the message through text.

Catch users’ attentions with a stat or something to make them smile–anything to keep them watching.

3. Strategically Use Your Call to Actions

Calls to action are essential for YouTube videos because they give you an opportunity to turn a casual viewer into a subscriber, lead or even a paying customer. Make sure you don’t just place calls to action to go to your website. Instead, start by asking viewers to simply share the video. You don’t want to seem overly needy of shares, but a simple ask could make a big difference.

A study performed by Copyblogger found when users say Please Retweet on Twitter content, their Tweets are shared 50% more than those saying nothing at all. The same could apply to YouTube.

Ask your users to share and build trust within your community. Once you start to see your group of subscribers grow, then it’s time to ask for them to view other content. If you followed our first tip, you should have a steady influx of videos to recommend viewers. Recommending those videos will allow you to build up your views and total watch time, which can improve your search rankings in YouTube.

The longer you keep your subscribers’ attention, the more trust you build, which ultimately leads to happy customers.

4. Optimize Your Video Titles & Descriptions

Just like searching for content on Google or Bing, the same factors play a role on YouTube. Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for getting your videos to rank in YouTube’s search results. to making your content appear when someone searches a keyword related to one of your videos.

General SEO best practices apply to YouTube. For instance, make sure each title, description and keyword selection is tied directly to your content. If you’re unsure what keywords to attack, try using a tool like KeywordTool.io or Moz’s Keyword Explorer to get better insights.

For example, if you’re a cleaning services company, you might want to focus your content around highly searched keywords or phrases that target problems you can solve:

From here you can see what people are searching to get an idea of what content to produce. Ensure your keywords are in your title, description and even said in the video itself to help YouTube better understand what your video is about.

Ranking higher in YouTube’s search results for heavily-searched keywords is the perfect way to get more subscribers to your channel.

5. Use Custom Thumbnails for Videos

If you want users to take you serious on YouTube, put some effort into the quality of your content and page. One way to make your channel look great is by adding custom thumbnails.

These images are used in place of a specific screenshot image of your video. If you don’t use a custom thumbnail, you might end up with poor and unedited shots. This looks even worse when the image snaps you while you’re talking.

Instead, Oxiclean does a great job at using a custom thumbnail image that clearly shows their product and the title of the video. Which of the videos would you rather watch–the ones above or Oxiclean’s professional looking content?

A little effort in thumbnail images can make your YouTube channel look trusted and experienced in the industry. Perception is everything when you’re producing video content.

6. Look for Co-Marketing Opportunities

YouTube is a great avenue to co-market your brand with another company. Co-marketing has become a helpful strategy for many businesses trying to increase their audience size and YouTube subscribers count.

For example, Target often collaborates with other brands sold in its store to highlight new products customers might not know about. Its video series “This Just In” talks about one specific brand in each of its videos.

This marketing strategy not only helps Target customers, but also those interested in Sugarfix by BaubleBar. Teaming up with brands that have massive audiences has serious growth perks. However, you can’t just hit up Target and ask for a co-marketing video.

Start smaller with brands specifically in your industry and maybe focus on those just getting into the game. If you build up a few co-marketing videos with other brands, bigger companies will likely be more willing to participate in your video series.

7. Don’t Forget Your Annotations

Adding annotations to your YouTube videos is one of the best ways to engage viewers and make the content more interactive. With specific annotations, you can layer your hotspots, text over the video and add links to certain parts of the story.

Like we mentioned before, promoting your brand is good, but being overly promotional is bad. Make sure you provide annotations that allow users to skip ahead in the video, easily locate your subscribe button and even jump ahead to another video.

You can also set annotations to link toward your home or landing pages, but to truly get more subscribers, you want to focus on your content on YouTube. Making the hard sell can do more harm than good.

Zipcar creates annotations for other recommended videos before the content ends. The purpose is to keep you engaged and to watch more content. While it’s not needed for every video, see how annotations can work with your content.

8. Give a Reason for Users to Come Back

If you want to learn how to get more subscribers, it’s smart to give users a reason to come back. The better case you make for your brand, the more likely you are to see shares, links to your channel and a higher number of subscribers.

One of the best ways to leave a lasting impression is through social media engagement. This means you should try to answer comments or reach out to users who maybe asked for this type of content previously.

According to the Sprout Social Q2 2016 Index, brands only reply to 11% of incoming messages on social. On top of that, the average brand receives 957 messages on social needing a response per quarter.

Be friendly, post relevant content and engage with your users to keep your followers coming back.

9. Monitor Your YouTube Analytics

If you haven’t dove into the plethora of information about your YouTube analytics, you’re certainly missing out on plenty of opportunities. Start with the Overview Report to see how your content performed over the last 28 days.

Other questions you should answer with your analytics are where are my customers and what devices are they using to watch my content? Luckily, YouTube has stellar native platform analytics tools to track users per location.

Easily get visual or statistical breakdowns of where your audience lives. Secondly, use the devices report to track how people are watching your videos. With nearly 50% of YouTube traffic coming from mobile, it’s smart to think of content length, annotation placement and other factors that could be an issue with mobile.

If you follow these steps, you’re sure to see a spike in your subscribers. Just remember to never take advantage of your community and engage wherever possible.

This post 9 Tips on How to Get More Subscribers: A YouTube Guide originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie http://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-get-more-subscribers/