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This Blogger Makes $2,000/Day While Sailing Her Family Around the World. How She Became Financially Independent at 30

September 12, 2022 No Comments

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner never thought her family would be living on a boat. She just wanted to pay off her $40,000 in student loan debt.

“I was living paycheck to paycheck,” says Schroeder-Gardner, whose first salary out of college was $40,000/year, despite having an MBA in finance. “I was searching for ways to pay my student loan debt and make more money.”

The financial analyst stumbled across an online magazine that featured personal finance blogs, including stories about the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement, in which people aspire to become financially independent earlier in life. FIRE culture celebrates cutting expenses and seeking out additional sources of income to design the lifestyle you want, which may include flexible or uncommon living arrangements in order to see the world.

“I read the stories of regular people creating financial independence and thought, ‘If other people could do it, why couldn’t I?’” she says. Over the next eight years, Schroeder-Gardner cut living expenses and increased her income through side hustles. One of those strategies was to start a finance blog called Making Sense of Cents, which she established in 2012.

The bootstrapped website helped her pay off her student loans and go on to achieve financial independence at 30 while she and her husband travelled the world in an RV, and, later, a 42-foot sailboat. Her blog now generates $760,000 annually in passive income, and the couple live on the water nine months out of the year.

The finance blogger has advice for anyone who wants to reel in expenses, make money online, and pursue financial independence.

Get Inspired, Then Take Action

Although Schroeder-Gardner liked her analyst job, the salary was barely enough to cover the mortgage on a home she had purchased in 2009 (with her then-boyfriend), their car, her student loans, and everyday living expenses. Schroeder-Gardner spent evenings searching online for ways to pay off her debt and increase her income.

“I started diving into the personal finance community,” says Schroeder-Gardner. “I decided to start my blog so that I could talk about how I wanted to stop living paycheck to paycheck and pay off my student loans.” The struggling analyst liked what she saw with blogging, so she decided to start one of her own to chronicle her financial journey. She started a blog called Making Sense of Cents to document her journey toward financial independence.

Schroeder-Gardner spent six months commenting on other personal finance blogs to bring attention to her knowledge of finance. She wrote guest articles for blogs with a larger audience, with a link to her blog in her bio. She also became active on Pinterest to make more people aware of her blog, and used strategies like display ads and affiliate links to create passive income.

“At this point, I wasn’t planning on turning Making Sense of Cents into a full-time income or anything like that, but I thought it could be a pretty good extra income or side hustle,” she says.

Schroeder-Gardner’s efforts helped her establish a reputation online. Her blog grew to 50,000 monthly readers in less than a year, and created several opportunities to generate additional income.

Test Lots of Side Hustle Ideas

Schroeder-Gardner knew she was onto something when she landed an opportunity to make $100 by reviewing a financial company in a sponsored post on her blog.

“Back then, $100 was a mind-blowing amount of money,” she says. “I had no idea blogs could even make money like this, and I loved my blog, so $100 was super amazing.”

The blogger also found ways to increase her income through other side hustles. She took on work as a freelance writer for various websites, and managed the social media accounts of five other bloggers. Outside of blogging, she found items at garage sales and items from around her house that she could sell on eBay. Her eBay side hustle brought in an extra $5,000 in 2012. She took on work as a contract mystery shopper, making $200 a month. She and her boyfriend even rented out the spare rooms in their home; they charged $400/month per room, and had four roommates from 2009 to 2013.

Schroeder-Gardner says she spent 40 to 50 hours per week growing her side hustles while working 40+ hours at her valuation job. She would often work 100-hour weeks.

Pay Off Debt and Invest Spare Income

Between the blog, the side hustles, having roommates, and her day job, Schroeder-Gardner’s brought in $12,000—$13,000 a month in income throughout the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013. She used this extra income to pay off her $40,000 in student loan debt fully, and decided to quit her job in October of 2013.

“I quit when I was making more money in my business and side hustles than I was making at my job,” she says. “I felt pretty secure because I knew I was making a good monthly income, but I also had just paid off my student loans, so I didn’t have that huge monthly debt hanging over my head anymore, which helped me feel more comfortable.” Schroeder-Gardner and her then-boyfriend Wes (now her husband) celebrated with dinner, but the more significant celebration was that he was also quitting his job to help build Making Sense of Cents.

Most of the revenue from the blog at that time came from affiliate marketing and display advertising. Schroeder-Gardner was paid when links on the blog and social media posts sent visitors and/or sales to partner brands. With over 50,000 readers visiting the blog every month, the clicks added up. She also continued freelance writing and social media management. Altogether, the top-line business revenue in 2013 was $116,519.

With extra income in the picture, Schroeder-Gardner was able to invest. The blogger says she chose to prioritize investing in low-cost, low-risk index funds such as Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index (VTSAX), Vanguard’s Total International Stock Fund (VTIAX), and Vanguard’s Total Bond Index Fund (VBTLX).

Pro Tip

Look for ways to cut back on your budget or make more money to widen the gap of excess income. That might include lowering your housing costs, house hacking, cutting back on monthly food costs, and/or finding ways to make passive income.

Embrace Location Independence

Michelle and Wes had often talked about how much they wanted to travel. Since their income sources were now entirely online, the couple decided to put their house on the market and explore digital nomadism, a work lifestyle that allows you to see the world while still generating an income.

“We wanted to fully immerse ourselves in the full-time travel lifestyle,” she says. “We didn’t feel super tied to our house, we [had] owned it for about five years, and selling it was another way to save money.”

Wes was interested in RV life after they sold the home, but Michelle wanted comfort. They compromised, bought a Class B-plus RV for $70,000 using savings, and used a loan to cover the rest. Building an online business means you need good WiFi, so Schroeder-Gardner ensured they stayed at campgrounds, camped on public land, and had a Verizon hotspot when necessary to run the business remotely. The business continued to grow, and the revenue in 2014 was $163,929 from Making Sense of Cents and freelancing.

Michelle and Wes Schroeder-Gardner on a hiking trip. Once the couple’s income became 100% location independent, they decided to sell their house and purchase a camper van, which they lived in for three years while traveling around the country.

The couple eventually found their rhythm, and 2015 was a good year, with business revenue being $320,888. Schroeder-Gardner turned in a notice to all her freelancing clients and stopped offering client services altogether. She went all-in on the blog as the way the couple made money.

Diversify Your Income Streams

Schroeder-Gardner knew it would be wise to diversify the business’ revenue, so she got into selling information products. She created her first online course in 2016. Online courses are notorious for being high profit with low effort, but they require proven expertise to fly.

With her firsthand knowledge of blogging, advertising, and affiliate marketing, she launched a course called Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. She charged $197 for the course. The course launch was a huge success, and business revenue more than tripled to $979,321 in 2016.

Schroeder-Gardner cemented her monetization strategy, and used 2017 to focus on building her audience. She did 100 podcast interviews, grew her Facebook page to 80,000 followers, built her email list to 70,000 subscribers, and grew blog traffic to an average of 500,000 visitors a month. Business revenue in 2017 was $1,536,732 — Schroeder-Gardner’s first million-dollar year.

“2017 was a huge year for me and my business,” she says. “Not only that, but I also traveled full-time and went on many hikes and bike rides. It was a great year where I finally started to manage a good work-life balance.”

From Campervan To Catamaran

Michelle and Wes did RV life for about three years. In 2018, one of Wes’ friends, who had a sailboat delivery company, invited him along to sail from France to Croatia — about 3000 nautical miles. Wes was hooked after taking the trip, and the couple decided to trade an RV for sailboat life. They did a lot of research, bought a 42-foot sailing Catamaran, and vowed to continue building the business from the sea.

“We wanted to try something new,” says Schroeder-Gardner. “We had done RV life for about three and a half years, and we thought a life of sailing sounded fun.”

Even though the couple didn’t start their financial independence journey with a traditional FIRE number, they achieved their goal of financial independence in 2018. The pair had enough cash, investments, and passive income to where work was now optional, and could retire early.

Michelle and Wes have done sailboat life since 2018, sailing to Exumas, Eleuthera, Berry Islands, Puerta Plata, Dominican Republic, Palmas Del Mar, Puerto Rico, Key West, Florida, and Annapolis, Maryland. In 2021, they bought a cabin in Colorado to spend three months on land during Hurricane season, as they now travel with their seven-month old baby. They still live on their sailboat (with their baby) nine months out of the year.

Prioritize Your Boundaries

Up until 2019, Schroeder-Gardner had published income reports, sharing the financials behind her journey and the lessons learned along the way. One thing she did not expect was the extra attention and requests for money sharing her income would bring.

People saw how much money Making Sense of Cents was making and would ask for money frequently. Michelle and Wes also had a scary incident in which someone tracked them down at an RV park and confronted them, asking for money. After that, Schroeder-Gardner decided to stop sharing the specifics of what she was making. She also prioritized optimizing the business to where she could work less.

“I spend ten hours a week working,” she says. “I write posts, make Pinterest graphics, and evaluate affiliate and sponsorship offers. I publish one blog post a week, and my team consists of an editor and my sister as my virtual assistant.” Schroeder-Gardner says her part-time employees each work about ten hours a month, which is mostly spent editing articles, doing social media marketing, monitoring Facebook groups, and providing admin support.

When it comes to Making Sense Of Cents’ income streams, affiliate marketing commissions are 50% of the revenue, 20% comes from course sales, 5% comes from display advertising, and 25% comes from sponsorships. The Schroeder-Gardners’ online income streams have made millions, and they now own a paid-off sailboat valued at $750,000, a paid-off campervan valued at $150,000, and a cabin valued at one million dollars.

Once the couple found their stride online, they focused on generating the same amount of income in fewer hours or work per week to maximize boat life. The couple spend three months out of the year on land to avoid being on the water during hurricane season.

Schroeder-Gardner’s Advice to Achieve FIRE

The successful blogger says that, when it comes to FIRE and pursuing financial freedom, it’s important to get clear on your why.

“What’s your reasoning, and what do you envision yourself doing once you reach FIRE?” she says. “Then, figure out how much money you’ll need to get there. See how you can cut back on your budget or make more money. That might include lowering your housing costs, house hacking, cutting back on your monthly food costs, and finding ways to make passive income. You can do this with a plan, hard work, and being consistent.”

Design the lifestyle you want, even if it means continuing to work. You might end up loving it so much you don’t want to retire; that’s the plan for the Schroeder-Gardner family.

“I plan to continue what I’m doing.”

Feature Image Credit: Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and her husband on their 42-foot catamaran. The former financial analyst’s blog, which she started to help pay off her $40,000 in student loans, now generates over $60,000/month in passive income.

By Kimanzi Constable

Sourced from NextAdvisor

In News

Twitter whistleblower may have just bailed out Elon Musk

September 12, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from CNBCTV18.com

The explosive allegations made by former Twitter head of security-turned-whistleblower Peiter Zatko against the microblogging giant could not have come at a better time for Elon Musk, who is currently mired in a legal battle with the company after he agreed to buy out the social media platform and then backed out of the deal.

According to an 83-page confidential disclosure sent to the US Congress and federal agencies last month — accessed by CNN, Time, and The Washington Post — Zatko said he began asking about the prevalence of bot accounts on the platform in early 2021 and was told by Twitter’s head of site integrity that the company was not sure of the number of total bots on its platform.

He alleges that he came away from conversations with the integrity team with the understanding that the company “had no appetite to properly measure the prevalence of bots,” partly because if the actual number became public, it could harm the company’s value and reputation.

Musk, while backing out of the deal, had cited the “inaccurate number of bots” being disclosed to him as the deal breaker.

While the initial agreement did not mention any bot-related exemptions, Musk claims that the number of bots on any given platform could affect the user experience, and hence could bring down Twitter’s value in the longer run. After Musk stepped back from the deal, Twitter was quick to take the legal route by suing the billionaire, alleging that Musk is using bots as a pretext to get out of the deal, which he now regrets making following the recent market downturn, asking a court to force the deal on him. The case is set to go to trial in October.

Figures like the number of users on a platform are crucial to businesses that have most of their revenue come from advertising, and ad revenue depends on how many people can potentially see an ad. These figures are heavily unreliable throughout the industry due to manipulation and error.

According to the report by CNN, Twitter uses a measurement it calls monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) to report its user numbers to investors and advertisers. Other platforms simply count and report all their active users, a practice Twitter followed until 2019, Zatko alleged, after which it switched to mDAUs as its numbers took major hits following takedowns of major bot networks. With mDAUs, Twitter counts all users that could be shown an advertisement on Twitter — leaving all accounts that for some reason can’t (for instance because they’re known to be bots) in a separate bracket, as per Zatko.

Twitter has stood by the fact that less than five percent of its mDAUs are either fake or spam accounts. But Zatko’s disclosure argues that by reporting bots only as a percentage of mDAUs, instead of taking it as a percentage of the total number of accounts on the platform, Twitter makes the true scale of fake and spam accounts on the service very unclear, which Zatko alleges is deliberately misleading, as per the CNN report.

Zatko’s allegations could back up Musk’s central claim that the number of bots is much higher than Twitter claims.

As per CNN, by going public, Zatko says he believes he is doing the job he was hired to do. “Jack Dorsey reached out and asked me to come and perform a critical task at Twitter. I signed on to do it and believe I’m still performing that mission,” he was quoted in the CNN report.

Sourced from CNBCTV18.com

In News

Forget Keywords, This Is What Really Matters for SEO

September 12, 2022 No Comments

By Frank Wazeter,

Creating content that people want to read needs to be your priority.

Every business owner wants to rank on page one, spot one on Google. SEO can be a massively worthwhile investment that can single-handedly transform your company’s ability to reach more customers more easily and cheaply than your competitors. Using a combination of SEO and social media, I’ve helped companies grow from $300k a year to over a million in seven months and changed how multi-billion-dollar industries do their marketing.

Yet, for all that, I spend a lot of time talking people out of SEO. The reality is, until you’ve got about $50,000 a year to invest in it, you’re probably not going to get the result you want, and despite good intentions, the typical professional you find won’t be able to deliver on their promise. Even worse, for most, if you get the ranking you want and the traffic you desire, you still probably won’t get the actual sales conversion you’re hoping for.

Fortunately, what matters most to make SEO work for you is also what makes for a highly effective website and increases your online sales dramatically. It’s all summed up in one word: value.

Make value-driven content that’s compelling, wins your readers’ attention, and wows them.

The most important ranking factors never change, everything else does.

By far the most important ranking factors that Google considers are how many people visit your site directly, how much time they spend reading it, and whether or not they visit multiple pages. People visiting your website directly tells Google that you must be credible because people are visiting the page all on their own. The other two are all oriented around the quality of your content and whether or not it actually delivered value to the reader.

Google’s prime directive to make its search product better is to provide the most suitable answer to a searcher’s question. The better you answer the questions people are looking for, the higher you’ll rank and the more your conversion will be. That means that insightful, compelling, and valuable content that’s different from your competitors is always going to be the primary driver of search results.

SEO is about editing and promoting content, not ranking.

There are hundreds of optimizations that are all technical. Think of these as edits, similar to how a proof-reader edits an article. All that’s being done is optimizing and changing the language a little bit and adding metadata, schema (JSON-LD), and other technical aspects to “tweak” how an algorithm processes the data of the content.

The other piece, commonly blasted out as backlinks, is really just another way to say promotion. The more people reference your content, the higher over time it will rank because it’s valuable. People try to cheat the system by buying backlinks that are of questionable quality, which means that when a big Google algorithm hits, they start losing all the things they worked for because Google starts eliminating bad “backlink” sources.

An editor can’t make bad content good and a promoter can’t make bad content popular. That means even with the technical factors involved in SEO, the universal answer is: Make good content that people actually find valuable enough to read.

Forget keywords, write content based on customer questions instead.

The easiest way to focus on what people actually want to read is to do what you do as a professional anyway: Answer questions that matter to customers. When you create content focused around the things that your customers actually ask you, and answer them in the way that you actually do in person, a funny thing happens: You get content that people actually want to read because it matters to them.

If all you did was get in the habit of writing down or recording the questions your customer asks, answer them in the way that works for you in person, and turn those into articles, you’d be miles ahead of the competition in search engines because you’ve created valuable and insightful content to drive the whole thing.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Frank Wazeter,

Sourced from Inc.

In News

How to Make Sure Your Business Lasts Long After You

September 9, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from readwrite

With a Succession Plan, Your Business Can Last When You are Gone

Yet far too many small and family business owners neglect this step. A Small Business Survey conducted in 2017 by Nationwide showed that fully 60 percent of all small businesses lacked any kind of succession plan.

Failing to plan may literally be planning to fail in this case. A strategic succession plan helps you prepare your company’s future leaders so that the business can reach its goals. It helps you retain loyal employees and grow to become a more stable, resilient organization that’s prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

To help your company survive and thrive after your departure, start to create your own succession plan today. Here’s how.

Start Succession Planning Early

It pays to plan early—literally. For example, you’ll want to adjust your tax strategy in particular if you want to sell the company to an outsider. You’ll want to maximize profits to make the company more valuable and attractive to qualified potential buyers. The earlier you start your planning, the sooner you can implement the adjusted tax strategy to maximize your sales price.

The Essential Components of a Succession Plan

A timeline with specific dates, if possible, and a description of what events might trigger the transition.
Your chosen successor and any alternates, as your top choice, may not be able to step up as planned for any one of a number of reasons
A formal document outlining all of your company’s operational and administrative policies, procedures, documents, employee manuals or handbooks, and all training documentation
A formal valuation report from a professional appraiser, preferably one familiar with your niche or industry, with plans for the valuation report to be updated regularly
A description of how your succession will be funded—i.e., life insurance proceeds, a note, other funds, seller financing, etc.

Choose Your Succession Method

Decide how you plan to proceed. Whether you sell or otherwise transfer control of your company to your successor, and whether the transition is triggered by retirement or unanticipated events, there are five key methods of appointing and transferring your ownership.

Sell to a Co-Owner or Partner

If you have partners or co-owners, consult your partnership or operating agreement to understand your mutual rights and obligations when you leave the company. Requirements may dictate that you offer your interest to the remaining partners for their purchase first. This arrangement can often make things far simpler and easier on your heirs and surviving spouse, if any.

It also helps your spouse and heirs realize the fair market value of the interest without the burden of running the company themselves.

Theoretically, the partner must keep adequate funds on hand to buy out your shares at any time, as an unplanned departure can occur at any time. Alternatively, life insurance or key person insurance can be used to fund this transition.

Sell to a Key Employee

Selling your interest and control to a key employee ensures you’ve got an interested, experienced party ready to take over for you while also avoiding the complex challenges of selecting a family successor out of multiple heirs.

This plan also allows you plenty of time to train and coach your intended successor in all aspects of leading your company.

Most of your employees won’t have ready access to cash or liquid assets sufficient to cover the cost involved.

To alleviate that problem, you can offer seller financing, where the employee will pay you or your heirs some amount as a down payment and then periodic payments over time. You’ll need to work out these details with your chosen successor in negotiations prior to your departure.

Sell to an Outside Party

If you don’t have a suitable heir or key employee who’s willing and able to take over, selling to an outside party is a viable option to consider. Look at other entrepreneurs or even competitors in your field and area for potential buyers.

The key challenge here is to make sure you have a proper and accurate business valuation on hand, and that it’s updated regularly.

Some challenges to an outside party sale

Drawbacks include the difficulty involved in selling some types of businesses over others. If your company is service-based and built around your name or personal brand, it might be challenging to demonstrate the company’s true value.

It’s also a complex undertaking for you or your heirs to manage. However, that challenge can be relieved by outsourcing the sale to a professional broker or another professional who can handle the intricacies of an outside party sale.

Bequeath or Otherwise Transfer to an Heir

This is one of the most popular options (and the basis for a successful HBO TV show to boot). If you have a child or children, or other heirs, who have the interest, aptitude, and inclination to run the company themselves — this can be the simplest and easiest method to pass on control of your business to the next generation.

Emotions often run hot in family transitions, especially when the succession is occasioned by death. If you have an heir who presents the requisite skills, experience, potential, and innate interest in running the company, it may be worth the risks.

Just be very careful in the documentation you leave behind and the way in which your choices are communicated to all your heirs.

Establish Your Company’s Core Values

Define your company’s core values and make sure all of your employees understand them. This is crucial because it directly impacts the success or failure of your eventual succession plan and the transition to new leadership. If your successor doesn’t align well with your company’s values, the disconnect could negatively impact your company’s operations, employee engagement, and ongoing viability.

Define your goals in writing

It’s also important to identify your goals. What do you want for your company, both short and long term? What are your personal goals, both practically and financially? Define those personal goals and make sure they align with your business values and objectives.

Have a senior team member or manager give you input

Consider getting input from senior team members and managers at this phase to make sure you’re considering a wider perspective during the process. With their input, project your company’s future needs. Work on a five-year basis and think about what meeting the company’s objectives will mean for its changing structure.

Finally, create updated job descriptions that align with the data you’ve identified and analyzed thus far. Clarify and manage your own expectations so that your next decisions will be based on logic, reason, and current and future anticipated conditions.

Identify and Train Your Successors

To identify potential succession candidates for the position, evaluate each candidate against the list of skills and experience metrics that you created for the role in the prior step.

For top positions, you’ll want to make sure you’re choosing candidates with significant problem-solving skills and adaptability. If the pandemic proved anything, it’s that small businesses must be able to pivot quickly when the unexpected occurs.

Remember that you’re looking for potential. People can develop experience as well as key skills over time. Look deeper than the resume and keep personal biases and preferences out of the equation to the extent possible.

If you can verify interest in the succession, it will help you

After you’ve identified your successor and verified their interest in transitioning to leading your company, create and implement a plan to give them the tools they need to succeed.

Your goal is to empower your successor with appropriate training opportunities so they can gain the necessary experience and expand the skills they’ll need to perform up to their potential in the new position when the time comes.

Explore formal training courses and offer a mentoring or coaching program for ongoing support. Establish open communication and an ongoing feedback policy so that you can continue to refine the training and development program.

Give them the opportunity to learn about every aspect of the business and to ask you and your leadership team/team members questions.

Document Everything

It’s important to create a formal plan and reduce it to writing in as much detail as possible, and to do this well; you’ll need feedback from all stakeholders throughout your planning process.

Your plan documentation should include employee manuals, training plans, operating and administrative procedures, contact information (both internal and key external vendors), decision trees, and emergency operations planning.

What happens when a hurricane or the next pandemic hits? How can you keep things going? How have you pivoted in the past, or how can you do so in the future?

Periodically review and update your plan document. After all, things change all the time. Key workers might retire or take different jobs.

Your family members involved in the succession plan might lose interest or take other employment. Industry realities may evolve and change. Every year, take some time with your key group of advisors and professionals to review the plan and see if there are any places that need adjustment.

Let It Go

Once you’ve chosen your successor and implemented a training plan for that person, you may choose to begin the transition while you’re still around to help. If you’re deliberately transitioning out of your leadership position, this is the right time to ease off the gas and let go of control gradually.

Begin allowing your successor to make their own executive decisions.

Let go of the reins gracefully. Proving to the company and to your successor that you have complete faith in them now by letting them take over the helm will help bestow legitimacy and loyalty on your successor. In the long run, that will only help your company stay strong and profitable into the future.

Stay in Touch

Maintain communication with your successors after you’ve stepped down, in order to offer guidance when needed. Keep those lines of communication open but don’t abuse this or set any expectations. Let them come to you.

You can also ask if they’d like to schedule a regular, recurring lunch date to discuss their concerns and get your input. However, it’s important to make sure this is their choice. They know what they need and how they operate best.

Don’t take it personally if they don’t come to you often or at all. Recognize that they need to chart their own path in order to reassure others that they’re in control. You would not have put this individual in place if you didn’t think they could do this job. But they won’t do it your way — allow that freedom.

Celebrate Your Success

Now that you’re transitioning out of actively running your company, it’s the ideal time to take a moment to appreciate your accomplishments. Take time to look back on your journey and be proud of what you’ve built. It’s also a good time to recognize you didn’t build this alone. Being humble means appreciating that a team effort led to your business’s longevity.

Part of your success is choosing the right successor. It’s a bit like being a parent. If they’re flying high on their own, you did your job well. Take pride in their success, as well.

Featured Image Credit: Photo by Cottonbro; Pexels

Sourced from readwrite

In News

Scientists have increased the life of fuel cells – why that matters for solar and wind

September 9, 2022 No Comments

By Michelle Lewis

In research that could jumpstart work on a range of technologies including fuel cells – key to storing solar and wind energy – MIT researchers have found a relatively simple way to increase the lifetimes of these devices: changing the “pH” of the system.

The US Department of Energy explains how fuel cells work:

Fuel cells work like batteries, but they do not run down or need recharging. They produce electricity and heat as long as fuel is supplied. A fuel cell consists of two electrodes – a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode (or cathode) – sandwiched around an electrolyte. A fuel, such as hydrogen, is fed to the anode, and air is fed to the cathode.

Fuel and electrolysis cells made of materials known as solid metal oxides are of interest because in the electrolysis mode, they are efficient at converting electricity from a clean energy source into a storable fuel like hydrogen that can be used in the fuel cell mode to generate electricity when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. They can also be made without using costly metals like platinum.

However, their commercial viability has been hindered, in part, because they degrade over time. Metal atoms seeping from the interconnects used to construct banks of fuel/electrolysis cells slowly poison the devices.

What the researchers did

In the electrolysis mode, electricity from, for example, the wind, can be used to generate storable fuel like hydrogen. On the other hand, in the reverse fuel cell reaction, that storable fuel can be used to create electricity when the wind isn’t blowing.

A working fuel/electrolysis cell is composed of many individual cells that are stacked together and connected by steel metal interconnects that include the element chrome to keep the metal from oxidizing.

But, said Harry L. Tuller, RP Simmons professor of ceramics and electronic materials in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering:

It turns out that at the high temperatures that these cells run, some of that chrome evaporates and migrates to the interface between the cathode and the electrolyte, poisoning the oxygen incorporation reaction.

After a certain point, the efficiency of the cell has dropped to a point where it’s not worth operating any longer.

“So if you can extend the life of the fuel/electrolysis cell by slowing down this process, or ideally reversing it, you could go a long way toward making it practical,” continued Tuller.

The team showed that you can do both by controlling the acidity of the cathode surface.

Changing the acidity

The researchers explained what’s happening: To achieve their results, the team coated the fuel/electrolysis cell cathode with lithium oxide, a compound that changes the relative acidity of the surface from being acidic to being more basic.

“After adding a small amount of lithium, we were able to recover the initial performance of a poisoned cell,” said Tuller.

When the team added even more lithium, the performance improved far beyond the initial value.

Tuller added, “We saw improvements of three to four orders of magnitude in the key oxygen reduction reaction rate and attribute the change to populating the surface of the electrode with electrons needed to drive the oxygen incorporation reaction.”

The researchers observed the material at the nanoscale, or billionths of a meter, with state-of-the-art transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy.

James M. LeBeau, another MIT professor involved in the study, said:

We were interested in understanding the distribution of the different chemical additives [chromium and lithium oxide] on the surface.

The team found that the lithium oxide effectively dissolves the chromium to form a glassy material that no longer serves to degrade the cathode performance.

Why it matters

The research, which was published this month in Energy & Environmental Science, was initially funded by the US Department of Energy through the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s (FECM) National Energy Technology Laboratory, should help the DOE meet its goal of significantly cutting the degradation rate of solid oxide fuel cells by 2035-2050.

Robert Schrecengost, acting director of FECM’s Division of Hydrogen with Carbon Management, said:

Extending the lifetime of solid oxide fuels cells helps deliver the low-cost, high-efficiency hydrogen production and power generation needed for a clean energy future.

The [DOE] applauds these advancements to mature and ultimately commercialize these technologies so that we can provide clean and reliable energy for the American people.

Thanks to Elizabeth A. Thomson at MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory.

By Michelle Lewis

Sourced from electrek

In News

The Most Consistent Aspect of a Brand Is Consistency

September 9, 2022 No Comments

By Kaushik Saha

When was the last time you trusted someone or something whole-heartedly? And, if you did, that particular person or thing most likely might be the one who is the closest to you, one very special. ‘Trust’ is the sole reason why people want to relate to you and, in order for people to trust you, they need to feel like they know you very well. In order for them to feel like they know you really well, they must first notice you, then recognize you, and thereafter keep remembering you. For people to notice, recognize, and remember you, you must always show up in a way that makes them believe it obviously is you and no one else. Making people take notice is a process. It might take them seeing you in their field of vision at least fifteen to twenty times before they actually take notice of you and register. Therefore, you will need a way to get in front of these people a second, third, or twentieth time so that you can kind of be worthy enough to prove to them that you are credible, trustworthy, and surely the best choice among all the others they might consider.

As humans, we are inherently programmed with something called the ‘context-dependent memory’ syndrome, which means that we tend to forget something very easily as soon as it gets out of context. Therefore, to remain in context, it becomes extremely crucial to showcase ourselves in a consistent manner that can aid in gaining the trust of our deserving patrons. Also according to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, showing that purchasing is more of an emotional decision than a practical one. Because we as humans are usually driven by feelings. Have we ever wondered why we end up buying the same soap or visiting the same café? It is a consistent brand experience delivered every time that makes us feel comfortable with every interaction. We know what to expect and are kind of very sure of the outcome. Brand consistency does foster goodwill, helps build strong equity, and acts as the adhesive that assists viewers put you back in contextual memory.

Have you ever wondered how much you relate to a Dove or a McDonald’s commercial, every time it ends up playing on your television set or you share a glance at one of their adverts while you are traveling somewhere or driving your car or maybe simply updating yourself with the daily news, either in print or on your tech gadget? And most of these times you ended up relating to them before you even took note of their logo mark. I do not intend to promote a particular brand out here but it’s worth a mention as how such brands have been delivering a consistent brand message for years. In today’s digital era, content is truly becoming more and more dominant. I really don’t need to tell you how much of it is there for you to consume. As you read this very moment, thousands of fresh new content are being published to the web in different forms, ready for you to relate to and consume. And, the more this happens, the more it also gets difficult for you as a brand to stand out. To cut through this large chunk of noise being generated, the brand will need to differentiate itself from the competition. But while differentiation is key, it might only aid in grabbing a sizeable market share which must remain intact for the brand to prevail continuously. The brand will need something much more. Something that will stick on to the viewer’s mind, something that will build their trust and win their loyalty, not just for once but possibly for a lifetime.

The benefits of being consistent can provide significant differentials within highly competitive markets, generating authority in respective segments and thereby building loyalty for the brand. Brand consistency can truly help the bottom line of a brand. According to research by customer experience expert Esteban Kolsky, 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a ‘guaranteed good experience’. As he clearly mentions that ‘guaranteed’ is the most important factor here, noting that customers are no longer satisfied with just being promised a good experience. There has to be something more concrete that can ensure that this good experience is being delivered each time, every time. There has to be a consistent projection and delivery mechanism in place that can validate that the promises made are being translated into trustworthy action points. And this in turn will help consumers build a strong relationship with the brand going forward.

One great example I can possibly recall reading about is the man Sir Richard Branson himself. A brand name in his own right, he has gradually evolved from running a record label to building a dynamic airline brand and many other successful ventures along the way with the most recent being travel to outer space on Virgin Galactic – the world’s first commercial spaceline. He has envisioned and built a multi-billion dollar brand around his core principles and though people always seem to expect the unexpected from him, what is important to note is that he remains consistent in delivering a super cool brand experience that is customer-centric and aesthetically entertaining, no matter the venture he gets involved in. It is like swearing by what to expect from any new venture that might have the brand name ‘Virgin’ associated with it.

When you are focused on brand building, the last thing that you would end up doing is to confuse your target customers and the market at large, because they would be the ones helping you drive the bottom line for your business as well as register a worthy return on investment on your branding exercise. By not following a consistent approach to brand building, you could deprive yourself of multiple chances to drive authentic figures in sales. It is very important to remember that people buy from brands they can strongly connect with and those that seem to be authentic enough to be able to trust. After all, it does become hard to connect with a brand that doesn’t seem consistent enough. Ask yourself, how easily would you be able to trust a person you have met for the first time? Even though he might have seemed to be the perfect candidate to tick off all the questions on your preferential checklist. Yet, you wouldn’t be able to do so, right? It would probably require multiple consistent interactions for you to even think of taking the next step. And that is exactly how human behaviour works, irrespective of scrutiny being for a human or a brand.

Consistency is one of the most crucial steps toward successful brand-building. And it doesn’t end at the product or the messaging only. It needs to be strictly adhered to, across all parameters of the planning and delivery mechanism. From research, development, manufacturing, delivery, human capital, finance as well as stakeholders to the last possible mile in this entire process, there has to be a unified approach and projection at all times. With every interaction at every single touch point, the brand promise needs to be loud and clear, delivering a consistent experience to consumers. It would be really good to conclude with clarity here that even a well-articulated and clearly defined branding exercise that lacks a well-planned and consistent brand projection in place, will absolutely hold no merit at all and will end up failing to deliver desired results.

Feature Image Credit: Francois Olwage

By Kaushik Saha

Sourced from Brandingmag

Kaushik Saha is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Tricycle Brand Solutions, India. A firm believer in ‘Impossible is Nothing’, he intends to deliver strategically defined, impeccable creative and design solutions to help new-age enterprises create visible impact. With Tricycle, he wants to effectively combine relevance with the magic of design, to create powerful brand expressions. He has been recently conferred with the ‘Creative Entrepreneur of the Year’ award by Entrepreneur India.

In News

Drone superhighways and airports are coming – let’s make sure they don’t make life miserable

September 8, 2022 No Comments

By Paul Cureton

Within just two years, the UK could be home to the planet’s biggest drone superhighway thanks to the plans of a group of technology companies. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but it’s just one of a number of projects in the pipeline as part of the UK government’s drone ambition statement announced recently.

But it’s important not to get carried away. These plans could change British skies and people’s lives. Now is the time to think about whether the noise, safety risk and disruption to family neighbourhoods is worth it.

Right now, UK laws restrict the use of pilotless drones. But the Skyway will allow automated drones, using ground-based sensors installed along the highway. These sensors provide a real-time view of where drones are in the airspace.

The 164-mile “Skyway” aims to connect the airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby by mid-2024, and will receive more than £12 million government funding.

Some of the other aerospace projects include air taxi services which will transport people and cargo. They need landing pads as big as a small airport.

Next year a pilot for the world’s first electric urban airport will start construction in Coventry in 2023. Hyundai plan to build 200 such urban airports in the next five years.

A proliferation of delivery drones is also likely to lead to new logistic centres, which could be designed as bee hive-like hubs, as seen in a patent filed by Amazon.

UK planning rules will have to change dramatically to accommodate these new structures and the public must be consulted and the community benefit made clear. Yet the UK government has presented plans for the Skyway before it has decided on the infrastructure changes needed to make way for it.

It’s not alone in this respect. Several countries including Germany, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates are locked in a space race to establish drone and air taxis. Technological drone innovation is being approved before regulation is established and ahead of a proper assessment of the ethical implications.

Launch pad with small runways surrounded by houses, roads and a stadium. — Coventry’s planned electric urban airport.

If people are to have a proper say in the plans, they need the right information about the technology involved. A recent survey (March 2022) showed the UK public was about evenly split between those who said they had a good understanding (31%) of drones and what they are used for, those who had some understanding (36%) and little understanding (33%). The same study found 54% of participants would be uncomfortable if they saw drones regularly.

The transfer of military technology such as drones into public life leads to a marked difference between the pace of innovation and people’s understanding of its impact. Many benefits result – for example transporting medical supplies to remote areas – but ethical issues are also created and governments need to communicate this.

The darker side

One of the most obvious problems is privacy as drones often record and capture images. Another key issue arises from the fact drones are likely to fly at the bottom of airspace (up to 400 feet in the air) and so will increase noise and air pollution.

Drone flight paths are likely to be built around existing transport hubs, railway corridors and airports. The people who live in these areas will suffer the most from pollution and congested skies.

Plans to open a noisy bar, takeaway restaurant, leisure complex or even just next door’s new extension can have a devastating impact on your quality of life. Imagine if the skies above your home slowly started to fill with buzzing drones.

Aerospace is a safety-led culture, but drone cargo delivery handover and landing carries much greater risk of collision with low level objects, buildings, structures or people. We don’t know exactly how dangerous this will be because it hasn’t been done on this scale before.

Recent research shows people have other red lines when it comes to drone and air taxi development. These include protecting wildlife and taking measures to prevent pilotless drones from being hacked.

All these issues show why announcing a roadmap for commercial drone rollout is easier than winning public support for it. It doesn’t take much for people to become concerned about drone use. For example, nearly two thirds of the UK public say the 2018 Gatwick airport incident, in which drone sightings forced the airport to close for two days, negatively influenced how they think about drones.

Drones swarm over trees — The details of a drone highway are yet to be worked out. Andy Dean Photography/ Shutterstock

As a result, there is likely to be opposition to future drone delivery, but how the mechanisms of government respond is yet unclear. However, there are some key principles that could help.

The use of data from drones should be ethical and transparent. Commercial operators need to tell the public about when their drones will record images and video in surveillance.

They need to reassure us that AI technology used in pilotless drones is trustworthy and whether facial recognition algorithms or other analytical tools are been used, outline how the public’s data will be protected and how third parties may use it.

Research has shown people find even small drone noise annoying. You can imagine how much worse the problem will be with air taxis and new drone designs.

Surrounding architecture and even local micro climates can amplify take off and landing noise from drones. The simple solution to this will be for engineers to design quieter models.

The EU’s safety and regulatory frameworks for drones and drone deliveries in urban environments were set out in 2020 and updated in 2022. But national governments will need to follow through with the detail and delivery of drone regulation.

Perhaps most vital, however, is that the public is given a chance to get to grips with drone technology and how it will affect them, before it’s too late to have a say.

Feature Image Credit: Alex Yuzhakov/Shutterstock

By Paul Cureton

Senior Lecturer in Design (People, Places, Products), Lancaster University

Sourced from The Conversation

In News

Seven tips for writing blog posts that captivate audiences

September 8, 2022 No Comments

By Tess Luke

Producing blog posts is a sure-fire way to connect with consumers and provide them with much-needed information, like FAQs or product guides. But writing posts that cut through requires an understanding of what consumers are searching for and an awareness of what makes a good story. The Good Marketer’s senior content manager Tess Luke shares some tips for improving this process.

What is a blog post, and why are they important?

A blog is an online journal where a group, individual or corporation discusses thoughts, beliefs, activities or records. There is a range of different blog styles you can choose from, and each will fit the context of your story: interview, how-to, listicle, news article, review, image-based or a more personal blog. Blogging is more important than ever when establishing yourself or your company online. Blogging is a great way to grow your online presence and help build your site’s authority over some time.

Many businesses use their blog spaces to post on relevant topics, conversational pieces, inspirational content and more. Here is where you could build on your relationships with your audience and inform them about your business.

SEO opportunities with blog posts

Blogs are more than just hubs of information, though. Blogs are also a great tool to enhance your SEO. Any SEO agency in London will understand the core benefits of optimizing your content for your business in more depth. However, we can quickly see that an optimal solution to increasing the visibility of your website in organic search results is through blog posts. Ensuring your site is a trusted resource is vital in building credibility. It is super important to take the time to create content that search engines can find.

Seven tips to remember when writing your blog post

It’s time to start writing your blog posts. You’ve thought about everything from structure to the storyline and word count, and you’re ready to start typing away. Keep in mind the following tips when constructing your next blog post. It could be the post that takes your site to the next level and reach a new audience.

Grammar

First up, grammar. Before writing any blog post, you should understand your target audience well enough to know the correct tone of voice. We can all likely relate to the frustration of incorrect or lousy grammar when reading. Take the time to thoroughly read through each part and don’t rush the process; it is always quality over quantity.

Backlinks to your website

When writing blogs, you should always use every opportunity to link the readers to other parts of your website. For example, if you discuss pink tops and sell them, you would connect them to that page. You should be wary of how much you do this, as sometimes it can become overbearing for the readers if you constantly try to push them off the page. Lightly sprinkle these links where appropriate to get the best results.

CTAs

A call to action (CTA) is a term that asks your readers or customers to do something. For example, ‘shop now.’ CTAs use direct response copywriting principles and help push your customers in the direction you want them to take. In blogs, this would look like the following:

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Keep it conversational

Avoid your readers becoming bored, and keep your article conversational. Write in ways that make them ask questions along the way or take them into more profound thought surrounding the topic. If this tends to happen when they’re reading your articles, they will indeed become a frequent reader – which ultimately is the goal.

Researching trending keywords

Keywords play a vital role in positioning your page in a Google search. Beginning your blog journey with keyword research will help you achieve this goal. It is also a great way to determine whether your topic is relevant. You don’t necessarily want to create content that a small group of people is searching for, as this will not boost your ranking or reach a wider audience.

Remove all unnecessary filler

Going back to keeping it conversational, you want to avoid writing statements to create a longer blog. Your readers will soon disconnect with the piece if they feel they are being fed information that isn’t relevant, or perhaps it is taking too long to get to the overall point. Stick to the news that matters and remove any filler that isn’t needed.

Proofread

Last but not least, proofread. And then proofread it again. Rereading your work and proofreading it all is a must. Take a break, return to the content a little while later, or maybe even sleep on it. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference.

Conclusion

Everyone’s writing style varies; what works for you might not work for someone else. However, keeping the above tips in mind will positively improve your writing skills for the next blog post. Think SEO, credibility and building your online presence as the overall goal when creating your content.

Feature Image Credit: Bram Naus via Unsplash

By Tess Luke

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How Buyer Personas Can Transform Your Marketing and Get Results

September 8, 2022 No Comments

By Adam Petrilli

The right persona-building strategy can sharpen your messaging and maximize your brand’s impact on buyers.

Every business, regardless of its niche, should know and understand its customer base. After all, how else will you know who to market to?

One of the best ways to understand your range of customers is by creating buyer personas. A buyer persona represents your perfect customer based on their demographics, lifestyle and goals. Strong buyer personas are made using hard data and insights gleaned from customer survey responses.

You can and should create numerous buyer personas based on hard data that tell you who your existing customer base is. These personas help inform your marketing efforts and fuel your success, allowing you to connect, impact and persuade your ideal clientele.

Follow these four tips on creating buyer personas and incorporating them into your business marketing.

Start with the data

Before segmenting your audience into different categories or creating fictional personas that represent your customers, you’ll need to look at the data to ensure you truly understand your customer base. Both qualitative and quantitative data matter!

Start with quantitative data. Dig into transaction histories and customer demographics, including how much and how regularly customers purchase and engage with your business. Age, gender, location, career, purchase power and customer loyalty are all essential data points to gather from existing customers.

You’ll also want to gather qualitative data, primarily in the form of feedback, through customer surveys or reviews. Information about your existing customers’ goals, desires and hobbies will help inform the persona you flesh out later.

Sorting through the data ultimately provides tons of raw data you’ll need to organize into spreadsheets to identify patterns. Many businesses offer templates that make this easier, or you can do it yourself in a spreadsheet. Working with a third party to organize the data can help identify patterns you may not notice at first glance.

Find patterns and create categories

Gathering and organizing mass amounts of raw data is often the most challenging aspect of building buyer personas. Once you’ve collected your data and assembled it, patterns will emerge.

As you separate your data into different groupings, your “rough draft” personas will take shape. At this point, you’re likely aware of a specific customer demographic, so start with a character who seems most evident from the data. Once they’re removed, continue separating potential personas within the remaining data. You’re looking for mass data overlap and similarities to group customers together.

Depending on the size of your business, you’ll be aiming for various buyer personas. Try focusing on the most significant customer groups to assemble the rough outlines of different personas, and don’t get too bogged down in tiny details. If specific buyer personas make up a much more significant portion of your business than others, note this as it relates to your marketing efforts.

Build a narrative

Now comes the fun part of building buyer personas: getting creative! To understand the different groupings you’ve organized based on data, you need to create a singular, fictionalized character to represent them. This also helps others within your business (the sales team or marketing team, for instance) to quickly get a sense of who the customer is.

If one of your data groupings is composed of millennial women who care about the environment, you might create a character to represent this persona. Come up with an entire background and personality for the persona based on your data (i.e., she’s 29, she lives in San Francisco, she enjoys yoga twice a week, she has a dog, she recycles, etc.).

Understanding this buyer persona as a fully-fledged human rather than a collection of raw data will make it easier to craft marketing materials that persuade this customer base. When creating a new campaign, your marketers should think, “Will this appeal to the persona?”

Design a marketing strategy

The final stage of developing successful buyer personas is incorporating them into your marketing strategy. Introduce your sales and marketing team to the personas you’ve created so that they’re in tune with the specific audiences of your business.

When crafting new strategies, consider your buyer personas first. What social media platforms do they use? Make sure you’re posting on the correct platforms for each persona (Gen Z buyer personas, for instance, aren’t going to be on Facebook). How do they prefer to ingest and interact with content? (Do they scroll right past photos?) What type of language do they use? (Make sure you’re not using outdated jargon in your copy). You can even craft different specialized landing pages for unique buyer personas.

Don’t forget to track data as it evolves and note which campaigns work as you adapt to target new buyer personas. Updated learnings should be incorporated into your existing buyer personas, and over time you may need to phase out or create new personas as your business changes.

By Adam Petrilli

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

Why Producing High-Quality Content Matters for Your Business

September 7, 2022 No Comments

By Jessica Wong

Creating a content marketing strategy that is consistent, relevant and valuable for your audience is the essence of a successful content marketing campaign.

Content marketing has become one of the most powerful tools used by digital markets worldwide. But to truly impact your audience, it is not enough to populate social media channels or send emails regularly. Your business‘s content must hit the audience’s pain points and deliver value.

What is high-quality content?

The Content Marketing Institute’s definition of content marketing sums up quality content. The organization believes content needs to be “valuable, relevant, and consistent.” Think of these three attributes as the pillars of quality content.

Providing value: after reading or viewing your content, the user knows something they did not know before. Alternatively, your content may have helped them solve a problem.
Being relevant: your content needs to relate to your audience’s life situation. Perhaps it helps them in their career, solves a relationship issue or serves to entertain them during a break. All three scenarios are perfect examples of content relevant to the person consuming it.
Being consistent: publishing an award-winning blog post once and then never again does not constitute high-quality content marketing. Consistency requires regular content of similarly high quality.

While those three pillars can help businesses develop their content strategy, users or potential customers will be the final judge of content quality. This is one of the most important aspects of content marketing to keep at the heart of your strategy. Content marketing is not about writing or shooting videos for you but for your audience.

Producing high-quality content

Several household brands have excelled at producing high-quality content and strategically using it to build stronger bonds with their audiences.

Example 1: LinkedIn

Out of all social media platforms, LinkedIn retains perhaps the narrowest focus on providing content that helps users advance in their professional careers. The platform may be a social network, but contrary to some of its competitors, its focus is on networking rather than socializing.

This focus is reflected in the content of LinkedIn’s blog, where writers produce highly targeted pieces that impact readers. The focus is not on building the writer’s or the platform’s profile but solely on solving user problems. Plus, the platform has mastered the art of repurposing content. Whitepapers become blog posts, and eBooks find a wider audience when extracts are shared.

As a result, users understand that LinkedIn provides high-value content relevant to their career development and stays up to date.

Example 2: Shopify

Shopify has become synonymous with successful eCommerce, and content marketing has been one of the company’s key growth strategies.

Like LinkedIn, Shopify refrained from pushing its brand. Instead, the team helped users and other businesses interested in eCommerce understand the field better by launching an eCommerce encyclopaedia. This online shopping encyclopaedia proved a valuable tool to others and established the Shopify team as an expert.

By creating content that helped users and customers, Shopify built its brand reputation and developed trust. Plus, the encyclopaedia drove traffic to the Shopify platform. Individual entries are kept short to suit the audience. Shopify knew users were not looking for in-depth explanations but preferred a quick read at this stage.

Example 3: TED Talks

Even if you are not an avid follower of TED talks, it is impossible not to have heard of the brand. TED talks are outstanding free video talks shared on YouTube or the brand’s podcasts. This is an excellent example of video (and audio) content marketing.

TED talks cover any subject, and all have one thing in common: they want to share thought-provoking ideas. Global experts present many, some of whom have celebrity status, whereas others cover a specific niche.

How has TED built an audience of over 20 million YouTube subscribers? The answer is simple: whether it is the global, invitation-only conference or a spin-off channel of the TED universe, quality always comes first. Speakers are engaging and have equally exciting thoughts to share. This focus on quality has helped attract some of the biggest names on the global speaking circuit and continues to grow the TED brand.

How can your business produce quality content?

As the examples show, high-quality content comes in many forms. It can provide value in a series of short Instagram or Twitter posts. Longer explainer videos can serve your brand equally well.

Before choosing a delivery format, start by considering your audience. Successful content provides value. Any brand considering content marketing needs to ask how the business can provide value to existing clients and gain the attention of others. You can better fulfill your customers’ needs by understanding what your customers want from your business.

Updating existing content should be part of your content marketing strategy if your business has already started content marketing. This is especially important if you are operating in a field like technology, where things are changing quickly. Plus, updating existing content will benefit other aspects of your digital marketing strategy, including search engine optimization (SEO).

Speaking of SEO, do you know what your potential customers look for when searching for companies like yours? SEO specialists call this search intent. Understanding how your audience looks for your products or services helps you tailor your content.

Keep your content engaging and easy to understand. If your content strategy includes longer blog posts, whitepapers or eBooks, they must be well presented and easy to read. Content that is hard to digest because it is challenging to understand rarely goes viral. Short sentences almost always beat long-winded explanations. If you offer video content, think about your presentation style and the technology used to record your content.

Content marketing is a great way to connect with existing audiences and reach new ones. As with every form of digital marketing, a strategic approach is the most likely to succeed. Content marketing means being consistent, relevant to your audience, and – above all – providing value.

By Jessica Wong

Sourced from Entrepreneur