In News

The iPhone’s Next Breakthrough Features May Depend on These Technologies

August 4, 2022 No Comments

By Lisa Eadicicco

Apple’s smartphone just turned 15. Lidar and AI could play a big role in where the iPhone goes next, experts say.

For Lucy Edwards, a blind, UK-based journalist and broadcaster, maintaining a social distance in public during the height of the pandemic was challenging. That’s why she tried People Detection, a feature within the iPhone’s Magnifier app that uses the iPhone 12 Pro‘s and 13 Pro‘s lidar sensor to detect when others are nearby.

“I’m going to have to get used to it, but I’m really excited that I can be in control again,” Edwards said in a BBC video from 2020 documenting her experience.

Lidar, or light detection and ranging, is just one example of how the technology inside the iPhone has evolved in the last 15 years. When the first iPhone launched, on June 29, 2007, it had a 3.5-inch screen that would be considered minuscule by today’s standards and a single 2-megapixel camera. Now Apple’s most sophisticated phones come equipped with triple-rear cameras that are advanced enough to shoot films, sensors that help people like Edwards navigate the world, and powerful chips with billions of transistors.

The iPhone often served as a catalyst for the technologies introduced within, whether it’s digital assistant Siri, mobile payments or wireless charging, and helped drive the evolution of how we live our mobile lives. But in the future, the most important part of the iPhone might be everything around it. That’s according to analysts who’ve observed the mobile industry’s general trends and Apple’s strategy.

In the short term, we’re likely to see incremental improvements like higher quality cameras and giant displays. But over the next decade, the iPhone could evolve into a hub for smart glasses and other devices. AirPods, Apple Watches and CarPlay-enabled vehicles may be just the start. The iPhone’s core elements, like its display and charging systems, are also expected to get a significant boost.

“The next quest for the smartphone is to figure out what it will connect to next,” said Runar Bjørhovde, an analyst with market research firm Canalys. “Because the smartphone has not necessarily reached its potential yet, but as a standalone device I think the smartphone is getting closer and closer to the edge.”

Your iPhone at the centre of everything

There’s plenty of speculation about what’s next after the smartphone. The resounding consensus seems to be smart glasses, with companies like Meta, Snap and Google all working on their own version of high-tech spectacles.

Apple is no exception; reports from Bloomberg indicate that the iPhone maker could debut a mixed reality headset this year or next that supports augmented and virtual reality technologies. A pair of AR-powered smart glasses could arrive later this decade, according to the report.

So what does this have to do with the iPhone? Possibly everything. Even though Apple’s headset is expected to function as a standalone device, the apps and services it runs would likely stem from the iPhone.

Think of the Apple Watch. It doesn’t need a nearby iPhone to function, but a large part of its appeal involves its ability to sync closely with Apple’s phone. Many of the Apple Watch’s notifications are also tied to accounts and apps that were set up on the iPhone.

Whether it’s a smart headset, the Apple Watch, AirPods or HomeKit-enabled appliances, analysts expect the phone to remain at the centre.

apple-glasses-airpods-watch — The iPhone will likely remain at the centre of the Apple experience, serving as a hub for AirPods, the Apple Watch and possibly a pair of smart glasses one day.

Scott Stein/CNET

“The phone will be the anchor,” said Gene Munster, managing partner for tech investment firm Loup Ventures and a long time Apple analyst.

But it isn’t just about connecting to new personal tech gadgets. Apple is gradually turning the iPhone into a viable replacement for the wallet, weaving it even more tightly into the nondigital aspects of our lives.

Apple has made a lot of progress on this front over the past year by rolling out new features like digital IDs for Apple Wallet and Tap to Pay, which turns the iPhone into a contactless payment terminal for merchants without additional hardware. Apple also just announced Apple Pay Later, which lets Apple Pay users split a purchase into four equal instalments paid over the course of six weeks.

“It’s clear that there’s a lot of momentum within financial services with Apple, and I think we will see further advancements there,” said Nick Maynard, head of research for Juniper Research.

Better lidar, more advanced AI for better spatial awareness

Making educated guesses about Apple’s general direction for the iPhone is certainly easier than pinpointing specific changes that might be coming. But analysts have some ideas based on the seeds Apple has planted in current iPhones.

Lidar will likely continue to be important as the company pushes more deeply into augmented reality. Apple added lidar on the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020 to boost the performance of AR apps, enable new camera tricks and facilitate accessibility features like the aforementioned People Detection. The technology measures distance by determining how long it takes for light to reflect off an object and bounce back.

Yet the iPhone’s current lidar sensors might not be sophisticated enough to bring Apple’s augmented reality ambitions to fruition, said Munster.

“Specifically what needs to happen is the mapping of the real world needs to be more accurate,” said Munster, whose firm conducts research on topics like augmented reality, autonomous vehicles and virtual reality. “And until that happens, AR isn’t really going to happen.”

iPhone People Detection — The iPhone’s People Detection feature uses lidar.

James Martin/CNET

Lidar improves the iPhone’s depth-sensing skills, but it’s still up to the phone’s processor to make sense of all that data. Apple has leaned into artificial intelligence — one of Silicon Valley’s favorite buzzwords in recent years — to give the iPhone and other products more context about users and their surroundings.

Once again, you can look to the Apple Watch to see this approach at work. Apple’s smartwatch uses artificial intelligence and data gathered from its sensors for tasks such as tracking your sleep and noticing when you’re washing your hands.

Hanish Bhatia, a senior analyst for Counterpoint Research, provided a hypothetical example of how AI improvements could one day manifest in upcoming iPhones. He envisions a future in which Apple’s smartphone can observe a person’s habits to understand whether the phone’s primary user or a family member may be using the device.

“The way you use your phone, at what angle your smartphone is tilted … Do you press with a particular pressure, or do you just tap it with your nails or something like that?” he said as an example. “All of these are different types of behaviours which are very unique to a user.”

Bhatia’s example is speculative and doesn’t reflect Apple’s actual plans. But with advancements in AI and technologies like lidar and ultra wideband giving the iPhone more spatial awareness, it’s easy to imagine a scenario like this.

Displays and charging tech could get a big change

Perhaps one of the biggest questions surrounding Apple’s future smartphone plans is whether the company will ever create a foldable iPhone. Samsung, Apple’s biggest rival in the mobile space, has already launched several generations of phones with flexible designs. Motorola, Huawei and Microsoft have all followed suit, and Google is rumoured to be working on a bendable Pixel. Shipments of foldable smartphones are said to have increased by 264.3% in 2021 compared with 2020, according to The International Data Corporation.

But experts like Munster and Maynard are sceptical about whether Apple will take a similar approach. Though the tech giant has filed patents for mobile devices with flexible displays, those filings aren’t always indicative of Apple’s plans. Sales of foldable phones have been growing, but shipments still pale in comparison with regular smartphones. (Research firm IDC estimates that 7.1 million foldable phones were shipped in 2021 compared with 362.4 million phones shipped in just the fourth quarter of last year). And then there’s the question of whether foldable devices bring anything truly new or meaningful to the smartphone experience.

There are also challenges with creating a true glass screen that’s foldable, says Munster. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip has a glass screen, but that glass is also combined with “a special material” to “achieve a consistent hardness,” CNET reported in 2020.

“The piece that’s missing from my perspective is how [Apple] would actually do it,” Munster said.

Samsung Z Flip 3 — Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 can fold in half.

Sarah Tew/CNET

The iPhone’s charging experience is probably due for an upgrade too. Between USB-C, Lightning and MagSafe, it isn’t an exaggeration to say that Apple’s charging options are complicated. Maynard believes pressure from the European Union and US senators could mean a switch to USB-C might be in the iPhone’s future.

But more dramatic changes could also be in the pipeline. Rumours about a completely portless iPhone have swirled for years, and Maynard doesn’t think it’s totally out of the question.

“I suspect if any vendor was going to launch a fully portless system, then it probably would be Apple,” said Maynard, citing Apple’s decision to remove the iPhone’s headphone jack in 2016.

Wireless charging has also been a focal point for Apple in recent years, further supporting the case for a port-free iPhone. There’s Apple’s relatively new MagSafe chargers, and many CarPlay-enabled vehicles also support wireless connections. Apple has also patented wireless charging systems that would be built directly into MacBooks, enabling Apple’s laptops to charge iPhones, Apple Watches and iPads. The iPad Pro’s Smart Connector also provides a quick and easy way to attach accessories to Apple’s tablet without a port.

“The number of systems that actually 100% must have a cable are diminishing,” Maynard said.

Apple MagSafe Battery Pack — Apple’s MagSafe battery pack wirelessly connects to the back of an iPhone.

Patrick Holland/CNET

Otherwise, analysts expect to see routine upgrades to the camera in the near term. Munster says there’s room for improvement in the iPhone’s front-facing camera, while Bhatia expects Apple to continue to use display size and camera quality to distinguish the regular iPhones from its Pro iPhones.

It’s impossible to know what’s next for the iPhone without Apple’s input. But experts seem certain on one thing: Apple is laying the groundwork for the iPhone’s future today. Current iPhone features, like Apple’s lidar-powered accessibility tools meant to help people like Edwards, could provide a clue about what’s ahead.

“Everything we can see that they’ve done over the last few years is a good hint of what’s coming up next,” said Bjørhovde. “Because a lot of what I think they do is setting themselves up for the systems they want to integrate the iPhone into in the years to come.”

By Lisa Eadicicco

Sourced from CNET

In News

Advertising must focus on the consumer reality of the downturn

August 4, 2022 No Comments

By Rob Sellars

The marketing and advertising industry has long had a tendency to focus on the next shiny thing that sits on the fringes, promising virtual revolution. From the advent of social, through the questionable promise of VR or NFTs, to the infinite possibilities of the metaverse, many have made their way from the edge of the tech world to the slides of an agency deck.

This isn’t to dispute their worth, but to reflect on the fact that for every presentation or panel about how to utilize the virtual reality of the metaverse, how many focus on the very real and current reality for consumers. The people who we talk to, track and temp. The people who buy products and services we advertise. And now, the people who are in the midst of the harshest personal finance crisis in a generation.

The reality can’t be underestimated. UK inflation has hit a 40-year high of 9.1%, driven by soaring food and energy prices, exacerbating the fall in ‘real’ incomes (after tax and inflation) Brits have experienced since 2021.

YouGov found half of all Brits say their financial situation has become worse in the last month, with one in five already struggling or unable to make ends meet. 5% are already saying “I cannot afford my costs, and often have to go without essentials like food and heating”, up from just 1% last year.

Efforts from Chancellor Rishi Sunak to tackle the crisis were labelled by the Think Tank Resolution Foundation as a “big but poorly targeted policy package” which ultimately will still “see a further 1.3 million people fall into absolute poverty next year, including 500,000 children – the first time Britain has seen such a rise in poverty outside of recessions.”

So as purveyors of goods and services that we hope these same people will exchange their – increasingly restricted – disposable income for, it’s not a huge leap to say that we should take some responsibility and explore ways we can help.

Even if the human case weren’t enough, it’s worth noting that a third of Brits say they can mostly cover essential costs but don’t often have money for luxuries now. With that picture likely to get worse before it gets better, it’s worth considering how quickly your product or service could become one of those unattainable luxuries. The cost of living emergency is a significant crisis with no single solution. But here are some ways we might all be able to help.

B2B: less about cutting costs and more about adding value

It is crucial to hold fast during the crisis and avoid eroding or undermining your hard fought for brand equity. So where possible avoid price and promo strategies that reframe your product and its value in consumers eyes. When consumer confidence and disposable income rise again, you don’t want to be left behind.

Instead, consider other tactics as a business. Offering benefits or points for loyal customers who have long shopped with you shows that loyalty works both ways. Reducing charges for things such as delivery demonstrates that you understand that every pound counts and your willingness to go the extra mile. Or work with retailers and providers to offer free add-ons or savings with every purchase.

Consumer: less about short term pain and more about long term gain

If your prices go up or your products change (see the reported rise in ‘shrinkflation’) make sure you communicate with your consumers as to why, what it might mean for your business, and what it might mean for them.

If, for example, the issues in European supply chains mean you’ve started sourcing locally and therefore that might push up prices, demonstrate the benefit of that to communities and be honest about the impact – good and bad.

Consider other ways you might be able to help your customers save in the long run. Could you offer your product through a subscription service that ultimately saves them money, but also creates one less thing to deal with day-to-day? Are there small elements of added value you can offer, like gifts or free experiences to collect?

And think about those at the sharpest end of the crisis, who don’t know where their next meal might come from or how they’re going to clothe their families, and consider your scope for offering your help to charities, welfare providers and other partners who can put your products to good use.

Importantly demonstrate empathy with what might be happening, but don’t try to commercialise it or take advantage in any way. Our bullshit detectors are at their most sensitive in times of crisis.

Employer: less about pay and more about care

It might be easy to forget that some individuals within our companies will be feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis too. Those who we’re asking to immerse themselves in the metaverse so we look smart in front of a client, might likewise be worrying about their reality as any pay rises or bonuses are quickly outstripped by rising inflation.

So consider how you might be flexible and ready to work with employees on their needs.

For example some might feel the crunch on their home utility costs meaning they would rather be in the office, while conversely others might be less able to afford transport costs and so would rather work at home.

And consider how the benefits you offer to your teams might be able to help ease costs and pressure in certain aspects of their lives. Pay rises might not always be an immediate option, but there are other ways to ease their cost-of-living.

The future will come, the next marketing revolution will inevitably take hold. But here and now, we must consider the reality for our consumers, and the role our brands can play in tackling a very real crisis.

By Rob Sellars

Sourced from The Drum

In News

How to Master Socially Conscious Advertising … by Not Advertising at All

August 3, 2022 No Comments

By Farhoud Meybodi

4 steps to credible purpose-driven campaigns

Most brand marketers know they should be socially conscious. Of course. The most effective way these folks can do their job is by remaining conscious of their customers’ needs, wants and values. But therein lies the problem. This “socially conscious” aim traditionally remains in service to convincing people to spend money on products. Basic Marketing 101.

In reality, if you want to transform customers into brand evangelists, marketers should sell the ethos of their brand … not their product. You want your audience to “buy” into the heart and soul of your legacy and values. Only then will the same people support your business long-term.

In short, what if mastering socially conscious advertising meant not advertising your product? At all.

Brands must brush up on the reasons for their very existence, and elevate how they view the function of advertising—to sincerely connect with audiences and incentivize them to support their mission. The first goal out the door should not be tied to profit margin.

I have this conversation time and again with executives across a variety of industries. This inspired me to create a high-level roadmap they can use to craft purpose-driven campaigns:

Do the work.

For marketers with no experience in impact, a foundational component is sincerity. When embarking on brand-sponsored impact storytelling, sincerity is only possible after you’ve dedicated time and energy to bridge your company’s legacy/values with a social issue. Before crafting a purpose-driven campaign, ask: Do we have the right to participate in this conversation? Could the past/present reality of our brand get in the way of our desired goal?

To do the work, enlist external experts with a background in social impact. Ideally, they’ll audit your company’s policies, speak with team members and customers, and deduce how your product or service positively/negatively impacts the world. Now, this exploration may result in a recommendation to make internal changes before embarking on the campaign. But have no fear! Now you get to create change where it matters most: inside your company. You can always move forward with an external campaign, but only when you’ve earned the right to talk about it.

Stop selling products. Enrich lives.

Nobody cares about your KPIs. Most folks are bombarded by adspeak 24/7 and have the tools to see right through the puffs of smoke from Don Draper’s Luckies. Instead of pushing manipulative tactics to turn over SKUs, what if you could detach from the dated construct of commercial content existing to drive sales?

Before you accuse me of being too woo-woo, remember we’re at the conclusion (hopefully) of a global pandemic. We’re all yearning to connect and feel something deeply human and true. If you want to create purpose-driven stories that resonate with people from all walks of life, show them you understand this reality and want to add value to their lives without seeing them as a dollar sign. Human beings long for regenerative relationships rooted in understanding, growth and compassion. Why can’t this exist between brands and customers?

Over the past few years, marketers have embodied versions of this approach, with some even forgoing logo or product placement in their brand-sponsored storytelling. In 2017, Matthew A. Cherry’s “Hair Love” Kickstarter raised nearly $300,000 for a film boosting body confidence and celebrating the relationship between Black fathers and daughters. While Dove helped finance the Oscar-winning short, there was no Dove branding in the film. Unilever made sure Cherry’s culture change took place. They even co-founded the CROWN Coalition, pledging $5 million from Dove towards advancing hair discrimination legislation nationwide.

Dove | Hair Love

Be human.

Storytelling builds powerful connections within the psyche, helping us make sense of the chaotic world around us. Thankfully, it’s impossible to create purpose-driven storytelling that connects from a place of humanity if the creators aren’t being human while making it. You must be human in development meetings, when casting, allocating budgets and creating schedules. Empathy and sincerity aren’t meant to be buzzwords; they’re a way of life.

To create impactful stories, we must first affect the four walls around us, and the people within them. Treat your team members with respect. Pay people fairly. Give them space to recharge after a long week of work. Make sure on-camera talent feels safe and not exploited. Otherwise, you’re just piggybacking on a social cause to increase market share.

Now what?

This is where the work starts. Can your finished campaign represent something bold and artistic that’s worth your audience’s time?

I believe ads only become “worth it” when the viewer is valued by the creators and seen as more than just a “consumer.” If people feel that you took great steps towards ensuring their time was worth a damn, and that your content was crafted to feed their soul, they’ll feel seen. Every time they interact with your brand, they’ll remember that visceral connection. Why not create this transformational space for your audience? Do it sincerely, and I promise ROI will follow.

By Farhoud Meybodi

Farhoud Meybodi is an award-winning writer, director and executive producer focused on mass culture change. He is signed with New York-based production company Honor Society.

Sourced from Muse by Clio

In News

The Different Types Of SEO You Should Know In 2022

August 3, 2022 No Comments

Sourced from KHTS

As we move into the digital age, it’s more important than ever to ensure your business is taking advantage of all the online marketing opportunities available. SEO is one of the most effective ways to reach new customers and grow your business, but there are so many different aspects to it that it can be hard to know where to start. In this blog post, we’ll outline the different types of SEO you should be aware of in 2022 and explain how they can benefit your business. Read on to learn more!

Mobile SEO

The first type of SEO is mobile SEO, and as the name would suggest, this type of SEO focuses on mobile devices. Did you know that half of the global search traffic comprises mobile users? This is one of the reasons why Google now crawls a site’s mobile version first, which means businesses should keep this in mind. Mobile SEO is basically optimizing a website so that it displays and runs smoothly on mobile devices, which includes site speed, time to interact, as well as the sizing of fonts and images.

Content SEO

The next type of SEO is perhaps one of the most well-known: content SEO. And with so many digital marketing agencies offering these services, such as Cozab, it’s difficult to imagine that brands have not begun understanding the benefits this type of SEO provides. Content SEO is the creation of content that helps sites rank higher. Three factors determine the success of content SEO: keyword strategy, the structure of the site, and copywriting.

Local SEO

Another incredibly important type of SEO, especially for physical businesses, is local SEO. Local SEO focuses on increasing the ranking and visibility of sites based on their geographical positioning to their audience. In other words, local SEO refers to anything done to help physical businesses reach their local audience. The most important aspect of local SEO is ensuring you have a Google My Business profile; without this, it will be incredibly difficult to reach your local audience.

Off-Page SEO

One of the most important types of SEO, which is almost a category of SEO that other types of SEO fall under, is off-page SEO. Off-page SEO refers to anything done outside of your website to raise the ranking and visibility of your site on search engines. This could include getting good reviews online, having other sites link to your site, using social media to market your business, paid advertising on YouTube videos, and more. Off-page SEO increases your authority and drives traffic to your site.

On-Page SEO

The opposite of off-page SEO is on-page SEO; as the name suggests, this type of SEO involves optimizing your site to rank higher. There are many ways that this can be done, such as by optimizing your URLs, images, internal links, HTML, title tags, and more. However, that is not all it refers to; on-page SEO also involves optimizing engaging and informative content written for Google bots and improving the site’s user experience.

E-Commerce SEO

Technical SEO

Finally, the last type of SEO is technical SEO, which refers to helping Google bots crawl, index, and interpret your site. Why do you want to do this? Because the easier the job of the bots crawling and indexing your site, the more information the search engine has about your site, and the more accurately it can predict what type of searches to associate with it. For example, increasing your site’s mobile-friendliness and creating an XML sitemap are just some ways to do this

Sourced from KHTS

In News

5 New Ways to Make Money on Facebook and Instagram

August 3, 2022 No Comments

By Patrick Kariuki

Meta is rolling out new ways for creators to make money on Facebook and Instagram.

Content is king on social media, and all the platforms are in a sort of gold rush to ensure the supply of new content does not run dry. Every day, it seems, one platform or the other announces some new scheme or incentive for content creators to sign up to.

Not to be left behind, Meta has announced several new ways creators can monetize their content on Instagram and Facebook. Here are the details.

Meta Announces New Ways to Make Money on Instagram and Facebook

All social media platforms have one way or another of making money, and perhaps YouTube offers the most accessible ways to make money.

These monetization options are always being updated. Thus, Mark Zuckerberg has posted several new monetization tools Meta is rolling out for creators on Instagram and Facebook.

In addition, Meta’s blog confirms the company will not charge subscribers a fee on Subscriptions, Badges, Paid Online Events, and Bulletin for an additional year until January 1, 2024.

Clearly, Meta is going all out to attract and hold on to its best creators.

The New Monetization Tools on Instagram and Facebook

Meta has released five new ways for creators to make money on both Instagram and Facebook.

1. Interoperable Subscriptions

Facebook will now allow creators to automatically add their fans on other platforms to subscribers-only Facebook Groups. This allows them to receive payments from their fans on the other platforms, and save time by not having to manually let individual members into their Facebook Groups.

Facebook will launch the service with a limited group of partners before expanding.

2. Facebook Stars

Facebook Stars is now open to all creators. However, they must have at least 1000 followers since the preceding 60 days, be in a country where Stars are available, and meet Meta’s Partner Monetization Policies and Content Monetization Policies. This applies to Facebook Live, videos on-demand, and will soon be available on Facebook Reels.

3. Monetizing Reels

The Reels payment program was previously only available to creators on an invite-only basis. Now Facebook is allowing US-based creators to apply to join. However, they must have created more than five Reels and have a total of 100,000 views in the previous 30 days, and they must meet Meta’s Partner Monetization Policies and Content Monetization Policies to be eligible.

Facebook is also now allowing creators to cross-post Reels on both Instagram and Facebook and earn money on both platforms.

In addition, creators will shortly be able to use the “Paid Partnerships with” label for their branded content on Facebook Reels. This will allow sponsors to convert them to Branded Content Ads.

4. Creator Marketplace

Meta is following in TikTok’s and Snapchat’s footsteps by launching a Creator’s Marketplace on Instagram intended to match creators with suitable brands.

Creators will be able to indicate the brands and topics they’re interested in making branded content for. Brands will be able to find and collaborate with creators through the Meta Business Suite.

“When they’ve found a creator they want to partner with, they’ll be able to send a project that outlines the details of the opportunity, including deliverables and payment offered,” according to Meta.

5. Digital Collectibles

Instagram started allowing NFTs to be shared on its platform in May 2022. Now Meta will allow this feature to be available to more creators in select countries, and soon on Facebook as well (starting with a small group of US creators). Users will be able to cross-post on both Instagram and Facebook.

Instagram Stories will also start hosting NFTs, in partnership with SparkAR.

Creators Have the Upper Hand

In the old days, the content we consumed was determined by a few people at the top of a production company sitting around a boardroom table. These days, social media has shifted the power to independent creators who execute and deliver content directly to us, with no oversight.

The leading social media platforms have taken notice and are scrambling to find ways to lock in the best creators on their platforms in order to lock in our eyes as well. Clearly, it’s a good time to be a creator.

By Patrick Kariuki

Kariuki is a Nairobi based writer. His entire life has been spent trying to string together the perfect sentence. He is still trying. He has published extensively in Kenyan media and, for a hot 7 years or so, dived into the world of Public Relations where he discovered the corporate world is just like high school. He now writes again, focusing mainly on the magical internet. He also dabbles in the vibrant Kenyan start-up scene, AKA the Silicon Savannah, and occasionally advises small businesses and political actors on how to communicate better to their audiences. He runs a YouTube channel called Tipsy Writers, which attempts to get storytellers to tell their untold stories over a beer. When not working, Kariuki enjoys taking long walks, watching classic movies – especially old James Bond movies – and spotting aircraft. In an alternate universe, he would probably be a fighter pilot. More From Patrick Kariuki

Sourced from MUO

In News

How to Improve your Email Deliverability Rate

August 2, 2022 No Comments

By Bharat Patel

Is your email deliverability rate making you want to bang your head against a wall? Frustrating isn’t it?

After all, you likely spent a decent chunk of time crafting the perfect email to send to your subscribers, only to find out a large percentage didn’t even receive it!

To ensure that your emails get read, it’s important to understand the best email deliverability practices.

Several elements and practices define good email marketing campaigns, and your email deliverability rate is one of them.

Today, I’ll take you through the different aspects of email deliverability, such as:

Is there an average email deliverability rate?
What is a good deliverability rate?
How to evaluate test email for deliverability?

Understanding the concept of email deliverability

Ever find all your emails land in the receiver’s spam?

This makes it challenging for your business to reach the right audience and generate leads.

Therefore, it’s important to analyse and run tests and concentrate on email deliverability before you send an email to your audience.

Email deliverability evaluates the frequency of an email reaching the subscriber’s inbox. This process is occasionally termed inbox placement.

The ultimate goal of any company is to gain metrics on whether the email has landed successfully in the inbox and how frequently it is opened.

Several factors influence your mail’s landing in the inbox or the spam folder, and they are:

IP address reputation
Sender reputation
DNS records
SPF records

Your email-marketing process has a big effect on whether the email will land in the inbox or the spam folder.

Email deliverability is an actual rate that highlights whether the email made it to the subscriber’s inbox or not. You are bound to experience a poor email deliverability rate when your emails consistently land in the spam folder or when your email address is blocked.

Common email deliverability mistakes to avoid

In addition to the factors mentioned above, there are a few other factors that impact email deliverability, and they are:

Bad list quality
Low engagement
Missing email authentication

If you aim to improve your email deliverability rate, determine what’s wrong or missing. You could have missed a single or a combination of elements shared above.

Search for authentication methods such as DKIM, SPF, and others to improve your email deliverability rate. You can implement a DMARC record setup to enable email authentication measures and protect your domain.

Simultaneously, it is important to prioritize user engagement through the content of your emails. Remember, an email engagement rate is a mix of click and open rates that indicate positive engagement signals.

One of the primary causes of poor deliverability problems is bad email list quality. For instance, a couple of inbox providers facilitate the additional services of domain blocklist lookup, where they spam your emails if you fall under the email blocklist.

Other metrics such as the sender score can have an effect on your deliverability. Sender score considers your IP reputation and domain reputation.

The difference between email delivery and email deliverability

Before sending an email campaign it is important to ask the following questions:

Is your message acceptable?
Is the message getting delivered to the inbox?

Understanding email delivery

Email delivery revolves around the probability that a receiver will accept your email before the spam folder or inbox. If your email does not end up in the inbox, the delivery is less likely to be successful.

For instance, you have booked a flight ticket, reached the airport, boarded the right flight, and got to your destination.

Similarly, when you deliver the email correctly, it will land in the receiver’s inbox; they’ll learn about you and hopefully buy one of your products.

Understanding email deliverability

Is the message getting delivered to the inbox?

Your concentration is on the inbox placement; this means you have to be mindful of where your email gets delivered. Email deliverability in the spam folder, inbox, and other folders has different impacts.

Good deliverability comprises three essential elements:

Identification: This describes the primary protocols that confirm you are a reliable authority and all you quote in the email. Some protocols are shared via SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and others.

These protocols act as a security checkpoint for your organization that helps clear your email deliverability.

Reputation: Your sender’s reputation represents your email’s trustworthiness. Each ISP and firm have different scores for you, and curating positive behaviour can help you craft a good reputation.

Content: Do you share relevant messages with your target audience? Poor copy with unorganized formatting can repel readers.

Using abrupt and unclear formatting can harm your email’s deliverability. Instead, consider what your audience is searching for and quote email messages accordingly.

The identification and reputation efforts lead the email to either inbox or the spam folder. On the contrary, if you have delivery issues, you need changes in the infrastructure. It’s time to review and work on the email addresses on the list.

However, if you notice deliverability issues, your subscribers are not interested in your content, or your practices are outdated.

Regardless of where you stand today, there is a scope to improve email deliverability.

Email deliverability best practices for 2022

This image will give you an idea about blacklist emails. If your email is on the blacklist then it will show in this list. Email service providers used to check the email blacklist to check whether your email will go into an Inbox or spam.

Personalize your emails

Subscribers and marketers have different descriptions of spam emails. For example, subscribers prioritize relevance over algorithms or spam filters.

Are you sharing content that your audience is interested in?

Analyse your content relevance and errors before you hit the send button on your email.

Of all the marketing tactics, email is the most personal channel, and hence your content must resonate with your audience. So, naturally, this directly impacts your deliverability and reader engagement.

Informative and engaging emails can lead to long-lasting relationships with your audience.

Clear opt-in process

The way you accumulate email addresses plays a vital role in your deliverability rates. An optimized opt-in procedure is more effective and affirms that the list comprises handpicked engaging users.

When you tap the wrong audience, they are likely to mark you as spam, and the ISPs consider that you are spamming others on your list.

To avoid such circumstances, I recommend the use of a double opt-in strategy that involves dual verification for the user. This verification process ensures that you have an engaged email list and target them only. Make sure to clean the list regularly to avoid spamming boxes unknowingly.

Analyse subscriber’s expectations

It is essential to consider reader expectations to improve email deliverability. The best way to do this is to inform your readers what they are getting into through transparent communication.

This way, you can align with them and obtain better outcomes.

A few businesses and marketers prefer easy ways to expand email databases, but they seldom drive results and may hamper your sender’s reputation.

One of the key reasons for this could be that they were not ready for regular messages and end up ignoring them, marking them as spam, or unsubscribing.

ISPs can track this poor engagement and degrade your sender reputation, which gradually affects your deliverability rate.

Instead, ask readers for their consent before shooting them a series of emails and playing with your engagement.

Track your metrics

Whether the result is good or bad, it is important to keep tabs on your reader’s activity and not flood their inbox with unwanted emails.

How do you understand whether your subscribers are engaged and enjoy associating with you?

Open and click-through rates coupled with spam complaints and unsubscribes can notify you of the effect of your audiences’ preferences.

Besides, high bounce rates, negative engagement, and compliant rates are bad indicators of email campaigns. You can use email deliverability tools and hire digital experts to strategize an effective campaign for your brand.

This combination can assist you in improving your sender score and eventually reaching the desired benchmark.

Key takeaways

Hosting good email lists, updating your content regularly, and sending effective marketing emails are crucial to email deliverability. This will help increase the likelihood of having your emails delivered to your recipient’s inbox.

Managing email deliverability helps to a solid foundation for your company’s future success.

By Bharat Patel

Bharat Patel heads the digital marketing team at Brainvire Infotech. He is armed with over 12
years of experience in the fields of online marketing and project management. He is extremely
proactive in implementing the latest technological innovations in his projects. Bharat’s core
expertise lies in search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and conversion rate
optimization, among other things. His immense flare of writing encourages him to consistently
pen down words revolving around current trends and innovations that relate to his fields of
interest.

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

In News

The Best Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Businesses

August 2, 2022 No Comments

By Diana Ford

Every day, new internet users buy products online. From America to Europe to Asia, eCommerce is here to stay.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that global eCommerce sales are expected to hit $5.5 trillion in 2022, according to Statista. But while you have more potential customers, more competitors are also trying to take their share of the eCommerce pie.

So, don’t expect internet users to land on your website and launch a buying spree without your effort. That’s why marketing is vital to any successful eCommerce business’s operations.

Now, there’s no single strategy that works for every eCommerce business. So how do you know the best for your business?

This guide will show you the most effective marketing strategies and how to identify the best for your needs.

How do you know what strategy is best for your eCommerce business?

As I mentioned earlier, every eCommerce business’s marketing strategy is unique according to various factors. Nevertheless, here are three critical considerations to help you discover the best marketing strategy for your eCommerce business.

Your ideal buyer

While billions of users are online, only a few profiles of people qualify as your ideal customer. Therefore, defining your ideal buyers will determine most of your marketing and even business decisions.

You can define your ideal buyer by creating a buyer persona, which will include details such as:

Name
Gender
Age
Income
Favorite marketing channels
Location
Pain points
Ambitions
Hobbies

These pieces of information will determine elements of your marketing campaigns, such as marketing channels, brand voice, targeting criteria, and more. Here’s an eCommerce buyer persona example from Drip:

Your marketing goals

Although your overall goal is to acquire more customers and revenue, there are many stages of that journey. Your marketing campaigns at various buyer journey stages will have different goals.

Common marketing goals for eCommerce businesses include:

Brand awareness
Lead acquisition
Customer acquisition
Customer retention

Once you have a goal for your marketing campaign, it will inform your marketing messages, channels, and tasks. You must also define the metrics to measure your goal during the goal-setting process.

Without setting a goal for your marketing campaigns, you can easily fall into a scattergun approach. As a result, there’ll be no way to measure the success or failure of your campaigns.

Your marketing budget

First, your overall budget will determine the channels you’ll focus on. With a big budget, you can have more space to experiment. However, a small budget will restrict you to only a tried-and-tested strategy.

Whatever your budget, it’s vital to optimize it to obtain the best result possible.

Considering these factors, you can create a unique eCommerce marketing strategy to meet your business needs.

The best eCommerce marketing strategies

Below, we’ll consider six proven strategies to help you reach more customers. Of course, you can combine some of these strategies to achieve your marketing goals.

Let’s go into the details.

Ecommerce SEO

Before a customer is ready to buy your product, they’ve done a lot of research. So to give your business the best chance of converting prospects, you must connect with them during the research stage.

ECommerce SEO is the process of optimizing your web pages to rank high for essential business keywords. Here are tasks to execute to improve your eCommerce SEO:

Content Marketing: no page can rank on search engines without some content on it. Hence, valuable content is one of the most vital criteria for ranking high for a keyword. Today, SEO has gone beyond just stuffing a page with keywords. Search engines consider search intent and ensure your content provides the information a searcher is looking for. Therefore, creating pieces of content that solve your visitors’ problems is vital.
Technical SEO: includes tasks you execute in your website’s backend to ensure search engines can quickly discover your website. For example, you can submit your sitemap to index your pages and make them crawlable. Another aim of technical SEO is to improve the website experience for visitors. For instance, you can increase the speed of your website for a boost in rankings and usability. Another similar focus is making your website mobile-friendly to complement both of the points mentioned above.
On-Page SEO: these are SEO tasks you do on your web page. They include tasks such as adding your target keyword to the page URL, title, subheadings, and other aspects of your page. Header tags are essential, they help break down content to help search engines better understand your content.
Off-Page SEO: while you can improve SEO for your eCommerce website through many actions on your website, you can also take steps outside your website. One of the most prominent off-page SEO tactics is link building. When other websites relevant to your niche link to your page, they help build the authority of that page. Another critical factor is that the website linking to you already has a lot of high-quality backlinks to your pages will boost your chances of higher ranks.

By engaging in eCommerce SEO campaigns, you can acquire more leads and customers through search engines.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Improving organic search and social media performance can take a lot of time that you don’t have. However, with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can reach your audience now.

For PPC advertising on Google, you must take the necessary steps to improve your chances of success. They include:

Conduct keyword research: what keywords are your potential buyers putting in the search box? You can find the best keywords to reach your prospects through keyword research on Google Keyword planner and other research tools.
Adjust bidding according to your goals: Are your ads showing up for your preferred keywords? Is the competition too high? Is a click worth much higher than you’re currently bidding? You can also achieve better success with your bidding if you increase your ad quality score through high-relevant ads and better click-through rates.
Build relevant landing pages: your ad copy must align with your landing page copy to improve your chances of conversions. Some landing page builders allow you to take it further through dynamic text replacement. This will feature searchers’ keywords on your landing page.
Use Google shopping ads: These ads are usually created for transactional keywords. These ads will display your products and their prices on the search results page. You can also add shipping information and ratings.
Use retargeting ads: if someone has visited some pages on your website, you can send them ads related to those pages. For instance, you can target a shopper who has visited a product page with ads for that product. This will make them more receptive to your ads.

After executing these tactics, you can improve performance through A/B testing. Frankly, there’s no single ad that works for every business. So, you have to test various ad campaign elements to improve performance.

Email Marketing

According to statistics from Litmus, email marketing can deliver an ROI of $45 for every dollar spent by eCommerce businesses. So, unsurprisingly, this is one of the best marketing channels to improve performance.

That is because email marketing for eCommerce has many advantages compared to other marketing channels. First, your marketing messages will land in your subscribers’ inboxes. This is more exposure than other channels.

Second, sending different messages according to the subscriber’s interests is easy. In other words, personalization can make a lot of difference in your marketing campaigns.

Naturally, the best email marketing software you can use today will allow you to personalize your emails based on many criteria such as:

Name
Birthdays
Gender
Location
Purchase history
Emails opened
Website pages visited

As a result of sending relevant emails to subscribers, you’ll increase your open and click-through rates. And since you’re directing them to a relevant web page, there’s a higher chance of converting such visitors.

Beyond personalization, email marketing automation is another effective strategy. Email marketing automation involves sending a series of messages to your subscribers based on a schedule or when some conditions are met.

Some examples of automated email sequences are:

Welcome emails
Lead nurturing emails
Promotional emails
Abandoned cart emails
Up-sell and cross-sell emails
Onboarding emails
Re-engagement emails

To create these emails, you’ll find the necessary tools in your email marketing software. Better still, some software packages will provide automation templates you can use to create your campaigns. Here’s an example of a sequence built with

While creating your sequences, you can add triggers or conditions to add or remove subscribers from your email automation. For your eCommerce business, email marketing is a must rather than an afterthought.

Social Media

While social media is a platform to connect with friends, users also follow businesses and check out information and product offers. Here, eCommerce brands can provide value to their audience through content that can solve their problems.

Of course, your business needs to focus on social media platforms where you can reach your ideal customers. Some ways eCommerce businesses can use social media include:

Posting product tips
Displaying product use cases
Providing industry information
Making product announcements
Featuring user-generated content (UGC)
Featuring influencer content
Selling products
Customer care

In many industries, you’ll find experts and celebrities who have gained a big following due to years of excellent performance in their industries. As a result, these influencers have audiences who trust their product recommendations.

Naturally, eCommerce businesses have taken advantage of this phenomenon to promote their products. However, while launching an influencer marketing campaign, you need to find the right influencers.

The right social media management tool can help you find the right influencers. Then, it can help you track the effectiveness of your influencer campaigns.

Fortunately, you’ll find many examples of brands using influencer marketing on Instagram.

Over the years, social selling has become a popular strategy for eCommerce businesses. For instance, Statista found that about half of American social media users aged 14 to 34 made purchases through this channel in 2021.

In fact, some social media platforms now allow you to sell your products on their platforms. For example, Instagram allows you to add shopping tags to products on your Instagram posts.

A user can click on this tag to buy this product or shop more products without leaving the Instagram app. This allows you to eliminate the barrier of taking users out of Instagram.

Pinterest also allows influencers and brands to create shoppable pins. This will let users shop products on Pinterest or click a link to visit the eCommerce website.

On social media, there are many opportunities to promote and sell your products.

Affiliate marketing

Since you can’t reach all your prospects through your efforts alone, you can partner with publishers who will promote your products on blog posts, emails, social media, and videos. In return, publishers will take a share of the sales they refer.

This will help you increase your reach faster. After all, according to Backlinko, “40% of U.S. merchants cited affiliate programs as their top customer acquisition channel”.

First, you have to find a suitable affiliate marketing platform. This will help you organize details such as your affiliates, commissions, and other pieces of information. Moreover, your publishers can see the number of clicks, affiliates, paid affiliates, commissions, and more.

Some affiliate marketing platforms such as PartnerStack, Everflow, and Impact.com provide tools to run your affiliate marketing campaigns. On the other hand, you can use affiliate marketplaces such as ShareASale and Commission Junction.

Beyond this, you need to create an affiliate marketing page on your website. On this page, you’ll explain your affiliate terms to publishers. Publishers should also have a link to register.

After a publisher has registered as an affiliate, you should send emails to them providing tips on how they can promote your products more effectively.

Optimizing Website UI/UX

Your website is the first impression a shopper will have about your business. If your website design is poor, shoppers will see your business as sloppy. And sloppy businesses don’t make great products, right?

So, a shopper can leave before they get to see your wonderful products if your website UI/UX is poor. However, there are a few steps to ensure this never happens.

First, you need a simple site structure. This means shoppers should be able to get to any page in no more than 4 clicks. More so, you can install a search bar to help visitors find products easily.

You can also use a chatbot and live chat to answer any vital questions prospects may have during shopping. Another way to optimize your eCommerce website UI/UX is to make your website scannable and use obvious CTAs.

Today, a large percentage of your buyers will be on mobile devices. Having a mobile responsive website ensures all the essential elements on your page will be visible to mobile users.

Adding the geolocation feature helps provide shipping information and addresses of your nearest physical stores. Implementing these tactics will help provide a seamless experience to shoppers during the buyer’s journey.

Conclusion

As more people shop online, your eCommerce business should prepare for more challenging competition. Effective marketing is one of the best ways to give your business the right exposure.

Even if you have an excellent product, nobody will buy it if they’ve never heard of it. But with the right marketing strategies, you’ll attract more shoppers to your online store and sell more products to them.

Employ the strategies explained in this guide to boost your marketing results.

The post The Best Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Businesses appeared first on Due.

Feature Image Credit: Due – Due

By Diana Ford

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

6 Truly Free Online Image Editors for Photoshop Effects (No Limitations)

August 2, 2022 No Comments

By Mihir Patkar

These free online image editors use AI to give Photoshop effects without any limitations or restrictions.

Plenty of free image editors online do wondrous things like remove backgrounds from photos or upscale picture sizes. But usually, these have some restrictions. You’ll find limitations like only editing five images in the free account or exporting images at a really low resolution.

So we set out to find free online image editors with no restrictions or limitations that don’t affect a normal user. With these tools, you’ll be able to remove backgrounds or watermarks, clear out one object from a photo, upscale images to a higher resolution with no loss, and even batch-edit multiple photos.

1. Adobe Express Background Remover (Web): Remove Backgrounds Using Photoshop Tech

Adobe Express's free online background remover tool gives you the technology of Photoshop for free

Adobe Photoshop started the trend of removing backgrounds from images with its incredible one-click tool years ago. It worked like magic, and now you can access that technology for free, without Photoshop or buying an Adobe Creative Cloud license.

In the free online Adobe Express suite, Adobe has included a background removal tool that anyone can access. You don’t even need to be an Adobe user; you can log in via other IDs like Google or Apple. Once you’re in, upload an image from your hard drive (you can’t link to URLs). Adobe Express Background Remover accepts a maximum size of 6000×6000 pixels, the largest we’ve seen so far.

Unlike many other websites to remove image backgrounds, Adobe Express has pay-to-download tiers or a limited number of tries based on “credits. Plus, you can use Adobe Creative Cloud’s suite to edit the image further online if you want.

2. Watermark Remover (Web): Remove Watermarks From Any Image

Watermark Remover does an unbelievable job of removing any type of watermarks on an image

Watermark Remover is made by the folks behind Erase.bg, one of the most mind-boggling AI photo editors online. And if that app impressed you, you’ll be amazed by what Watermark Remover can do.

We really put the web app through the grind, throwing images from stock photo sites with their watermarks, our own watermarked creations, and even screenshots of watermarked PDFs. Watermark Remover was able to handle each case with aplomb. It’s truly shocking what the AI can do while requiring zero input from you.

The app supports JPEG, PNG, and WebP formats, with image resolutions up to 2400×2400 pixels. However, don’t let that resolution stop you from using it because the same suite of apps also offers an upscaler, as you’ll see in the next section.

3. Upscale.Media (Web, Android, iOS): Use AI to Make Images Upto 4x Bigger

Upscale.Media uses machine learning to blow up the size of your images without any loss in quality

Often we have small-size images, especially from the past, that we want to blow up for our bigger, high-resolution screens today. But if you increase the size, you’ll see pixelated and unclear photos. Upscale.Media uses AI to blow up images without losing quality.

Upload a picture or share a URL link to an image with a maximum resolution of 1500×1500 pixels. Upscale.Media will then work on it for a bit and let you upscale it to twice or four times the size of the original image. The results will also show a comparison of normal upscaling versus AI-assisted upscaling.

Upscale.Media also offers image enhancement. This tool will remove artefacts in the image, balance sharpness and softness, and preserve the natural aspect — all valuable edits when you have blown up a picture. Nonetheless, you can choose whether to toggle image enhancement on or off in case you want to retain the original image.

Download: Upscale.Media for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Shrink.Media (Web): Compress Images and Reduce File Size Without Losing Quality

Shrink.Media compresses images to save file size, without losing quality

A sister app to Upscale.Media, Shrink.Media does exactly the opposite. You can take any high-resolution image (up to 5000×5000 pixels) and compress it into a much smaller and lighter image without losing quality.

Shrink.Media gives you two bars to play with: photo quality and dimensions. You will see a live preview of the final output image as you adjust these parameters and a calculation of how much you have shrunk the image.

Download: Shrink.Media for Android | iOS (Free)

5. ZMO Remover (Web): Remove Any Object From Photos Without Photoshop SKills

ZMO Remover is a simple way to remove any object from an image with the power of AI

When it first launched, Cleanup.Pictures took the internet by storm with its ability to remove any object in a photo without requiring any Photoshop skills. Unfortunately, the app only exports 720p images. Well, you don’t have to put up with that anymore, thanks to ZMO Remover.

This free app (which requires no sign-up) is as simple as it gets. First, upload an image from your hard drive (you can’t add URLs directly) and let ZMO Remover process it. Then, draw on the image using the brush tool to indicate which object you want to remove. The AI will then analyse the image and your desired removal, and in a few seconds, you’ll get the final image.

ZMO Remover lets you compare the original and final image, and download it when you’re happy with the result. It recommends doing multiple repeated erases for better performance, as the AI learns with each try. You can use it to remove unwanted objects or people, bad reflections, and touch up your shots.

6. ImgTools (Web): Batch Edit Images to Compress, Resize, Crop, and More

ImgTools is a free online photo app to batch-edit multiple images in different ways

ImgTools offers a suite of free online image editing tools with the option of applying those effects on multiple images at once. This batch editing is usually a paid service, but here, you can upload up to 100 images at a time and edit them together.

ImgTools supports PNG, JPG, GIF, SVG, WebP, TIFF, and PSD file formats. You can upload from your hard drive, or also through Google Drive or Dropbox. Currently, ImgTools offers 12 types of image editing options: compress, convert, extract faces, hide faces, crop, resize, rounded corners, rename, blur or pixelate, rotate, password-protect, and extract frames from animated GIFs.

All services are free and without any restrictions. Once the batch edit is finished, you’ll get to download the new images as a zipped file.

Replace Photoshop With These Alternatives

These AI-powered free image editors make it easy for anyone to edit images in a way that looks professional without needing Photoshop skills. Using them in conjunction is almost like getting a free Photoshop replacement.

For example, you can remove the background in one app, take the result in another to remove an object, and then export the final to an image upscaler to increase the size. And with several such images, you can add batch edits in seconds. Brilliant, isn’t it?

By Mihir Patkar

Mihir Patkar has been writing on technology and productivity for over 14 years at some of the top media publications across the world. He has an academic background in journalism. More From Mihir Patkar

Sourced from MUO

In News

Blueprint for Building a Data Product Business

July 29, 2022 No Comments

By Bill Schmarzo

A Blueprint is a detailed design plan of something to be built.

I have written several articles about Data Products and the role that they are playing in helping organizations monetize their customer, product, service, and operational analytic insights (individualized predicted behavioural and performance propensities).

In my first blog, “Data Apps and the Natural Maturation of AI”, I stated that Data Products were the natural maturation of AI – from a technology capability to a business discipline for delivering more accurate, more predictive, more relevant, more timely business outcomes.

Data Products are a category of domain-infused, AI-powered products designed to help non-technical users manage data-intensive operations to achieve specific business outcomes.

In my next blog “The Economics of Data Products”, I discussed Data Products as the vehicle for helping organizations drive “Insights Monetization” through the packaging of customer, product, and operational insights to optimize customers’ and partners’ operational decisions (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Insights Monetization through Data Products

And in my latest Data Products blog, I introduced the “Data Product Development Canvas” as a design tool to guide organizations in the creation of these Data Products.

This blog pulls together several key design templates to create a Data Product Blueprint to help organizations build their data products business; a business that can yield net new revenue streams while accentuating the value of the organization’s base products and services.

Note: I will use the Order-to-Cash (OTC) cycle to explain the Data Product Blueprint concepts.

Blueprint Design Canvas #1: Customer Journey Map

The Customer Journey Map ensures that we understand where and how customers and key constituents create or realize value by walking in their shoes as they try to achieve or accomplish a specific outcome (buy a car, select a college, fix a broken manufacturing press).

For example, the OTC cycle is an enterprise-wide business process (journey) for receiving and fulfilling customers’ requests that result in the delivery of specific goods or services outcomes. The OTC journey crosses multiple business operations including Order Management, Credit Management, Order Fulfilment, Order Shipping, Customer Invoicing, Accounts Receivable, and Payments Collections (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Order-to-Cash (OTC) Journey Map

We can use the OTC journey map to identify the use cases for each business domain. For example, the Credit Management business domain would have the following use cases:

Credit Approval
Rates and Terms Determination
Reduce Financial and Credit Risk Exposure
Portfolio Risk Management
Working Capital Management

For this exercise, we are going to drill down into the “Reduce Financial and Credit Risk Exposure” use case.

Note: Business Model Canvas developed by Strategyzer is a popular design canvas for helping organizations describe and design their business model. I have assumed for this exercise that organizations have already established their desired business model and now are looking to become more effective at leveraging data and analytics to power that business model.

Blueprint Design Canvas #2: Use Case Canvas

Next, we want to capture important details for each of the identified use cases. We want to collaborate with key subject matter experts to flesh out for each use case the important execution details including Objectives and Ideal Outcomes, Sources of Business Value, Execution Impediments & Risks, Implementation Considerations, and Impact on the Organization’s Financial and Operational Goals (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Reduce Credit Risk Exposure Use Case Canvas

Notice the bottom of the Use Case Canvas renders an assessment of the Overall Financial Impact and Ease of Implementation on a scale of 0 to 4. These assessments are used to jump-start the Prioritization Matrix process that drives organizational alignment and consensus on the prioritized use case roadmap.

Blueprint Design Canvas #3: Hypothesis Development Canvas

The Hypothesis Development Canvas facilitates the business stakeholder-data science collaboration to ensure that we thoroughly understand the business problem we are trying to address, the KPIs against which we will measure success, the key decisions that the need to be optimized, and the potential impediments and potential risks (including the costs of False Positives and False Negatives) associated with addressing the business problem (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Reduce Risk Exposure Hypothesis Development Canvas

The Hypothesis Development Canvas is an output of the “Thinking Like a Data Scientist” methodology that brings together business subject matter experts with data team members to define the use case’s data and analytic requirements including use case desired outcomes, key stakeholders, analytic entities around which we will build analytic scores, the decisions, predictions, and recommendations to address the use case, the data and analytic requirements (feature engineering), and the potential people (cultural), process, and technology impediments.

Blueprint Design Canvas #4: Data Product Development Canvas

The final step in the Data Product Blueprint process is the creation of a Data Product Development Canvas to guide the development, operationalization, and ongoing management of the Data Product.

The Data Product Development Canvas is an easy-to-comprehend tool for facilitating business and data team collaboration in triaging the targeted business problem and identifying the data and analytic components and requirements for the development of a Minimum Viable Data Product (MVDP) to achieve or deliver a specific business or operational outcome.

Figure 5: Data Product Development Canvas

Some of the key operational requirements captured in the Data Product Development Canvas include upstream dependencies (that is, what data and/or analytics need to be captured and provided by upstream processes or use cases to support our use case) and downstream obligations (that is, what data and/or analytics does our use case need to capture and provide to downstream processes or use cases).

Notice that many of the success criteria and potential impediments are repeated across the Use Case, Hypothesis Development, and Data Product Development canvases. That is to ensure that we don’t let the scope of the Data Product slip as we move through the Blueprint process.

Summary: Data Products Business Blueprint Summary

The opportunities for Data Products are almost endless – opportunities to expand an organization’s “Data Innovation Index” to create net new revenue streams while accentuating the value of the organization’s base products and services (e.g., automobiles, CT scanners, compressors, motors, wind turbines, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines). See Figure 6.

Figure 6: Data Innovation Index

All organizations need is a blueprint – a detailed design plan of something to be built – to help them master the Data Innovation Index through data products. Hopefully, this blog is the start of that mastery (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Data Products Business Model Blueprint

Note: I got feedback that my Data Product Blueprint process in Figure 7 was waterfall, not agile. Totally agree and that’s my bad. I’ve updated the image and will release a future blog to address the questions that I got about that process. Thanks for your feedback!

By Bill Schmarzo

Sourced from Data Science Central

In News

What Colours Should You Use For Your Personal Brand? (and Why It Matters)

July 29, 2022 No Comments

By Shaan Rais

When it comes to personal branding, the right colours have the power to attract clients and opportunities, while the wrong colours can do the exact opposite.

When it comes to personal branding, the right colours have the power to attract clients and opportunities, while the wrong colours can do the exact opposite. So, what’s the secret to choosing brand colours that lead you to the C-suite and closing bigger deals?

The first step in figuring this out is understanding the psychology of colour. Colour has the power to influence human behaviour. It can be utilized to induce a desired mood or emotion in someone and elicit a desired response (Masterclass Staff, 2022).

Colours are broken into several categories, the most common being primary and secondary colours. The primary colours are defined as colours from which all other colours can be created by mixing. The primary colours are:

Red
Blue
Yellow

Secondary colours are created by mixing two primary colours, with the most common being:

Green
Orange
Purple

The psychology of colour

Each colour can vary in intensity, also known as chroma (think, electric blue vs. navy blue) and its value (lightness or darkness). Here is a quick reference guide:

Red is passionate and energetic. Brands that use red in their branding are trying to communicate excitement, vibrancy and action.

Blue is calming and trustworthy. This is why many financial and healthcare services use blue in their branding.

Yellow is cheerful and optimistic — perfect for brands that want to communicate happiness and positivity.

Green is refreshing and natural, making it an excellent choice for eco-friendly and health-focused brands.

Orange is energetic and playful, often used by brands targeting younger audiences.

Purple is associated with royalty, luxury and mystery. If you want to convey a sense of sophistication and elegance in your branding, purple is the way to go.

Black, white and brown are considered neutral colours, but they also evoke emotions:

Black is powerful and mysterious.
White is pure, sophisticated and simple.
Brown is a mixture of all the primary colours and is natural, earthy and strong.

When it comes to personal branding, you want your brand colours to represent who you are, and authenticity is everything. Choosing your brand’s colour isn’t a game of “hope for the best.” It’s a scientific approach that starts with clarifying what you want to achieve and how you want to be perceived by your ideal audience.

For example, let’s say that you are a take-charge nurse who wants to leverage a personal brand’s power to move into an administrative role. In this case, you may lean towards choosing colours that convey compassion, excellence and leadership.

Let’s use Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit healthcare organization, as an example. The brand’s logo uses a calming blue to represent “loyalty and trust,” while the white brings balance and peace to the logo. When you look at the Kaiser logo, how do you feel? Do you see how this large organization used colour to make the brand feel “human”?

Get clear on how you want to be perceived by others

Now that you have an overview of colour psychology, it’s time to understand how you want others to see and experience you. What are three words you want people to use when they describe you? What colours come to mind when you hear the words fiery, bold and ambitious?

Ask yourself how your industry and/or niche are viewed. Would you expect to see a doctor in private practice using pink and purple in their branding? Another point to consider when thinking about industry standards is: Do you want to disrupt the industry or offer a slightly different approach?

Your primary brand colour is the colour you’ll use most often. It should demand attention. Visually, it is the star of your show and is used in your logo, website, social media and marketing materials. Your secondary brand colours are the colours you’ll use less often in your branding. They can accentuate some aspects of your website or add visual interest.

Consistency is key

Now that you know the psychology behind choosing the right colours for your brand, it’s essential to use your colours consistently. You’ll use your brand colours on your website and marketing materials.

Another area where your brand colours should be consistent is in your attire. So many leaders and entrepreneurs miss the mark by displaying brand presence in the way they dress. If you’re planning on doing any public speaking, attending events or networking, wear your brand colours! By showing up “on brand,” you will stand out in a crowd and make yourself unforgettable.

If advancing in your career is your goal, consider using your brand colours in your email signature, across social media and any other place you show up. To remain consistent, you also need to know the hex codes of your brand’s colour.

What is a hex code?

A hex code is a six-digit combination of numbers and letters to specify a colour. Hex codes start with a pound sign (#) and are followed by six characters, three numbers and three letters. For example, the hex code for electric blue is #00FFFF.

Hex codes are essential for personal branding, because they ensure that your brand colours are consistent across all platforms. When you use hex codes, you can be confident that the blue in your logo will match the blue on your website, and the green in your social media posts will match the green in your email signature.

A best practice is to create a guide that outlines your brand standards, including your colour palette, words that describe your brand, etc. This document is known as a brand guide, and it can also include logos, fonts and even the filters you use on social media. As your brand grows, everyone on your team will know the standards, and they can easily maintain the same level of consistency.

Colour is an essential tool that should not be overlooked for personal branding. By understanding the psychology of colour and choosing colours that align with your goals and values, you can create a strong and recognizable personal brand.

By Shaan Rais

Sourced from Entrepreneur