editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

Android Phone Sending To Many Ads? How To Get Rid Of Ads On Any Android Device

October 29, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from News18

One of the many reasons why some smartphone users prefer iOS over Android is the clutter-free experience that Apple offers. Android users have often complained about being bombarded with unwarranted ads while using the phone. These ads at times pop on the lock screen of the device even it’s not being used – most common in Android-based skin from manufacturers like Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, Oppo, and the likes. While some smartphone manufacturers promote ads from their end, this problem is prevalent even in brands like Samsung where the company does not send out ads from their end. If you are an Android user and have faced similar issues with your device, this could probably be caused by the downloaded apps on your phone.

How to remove ads from the lock screen?

Uninstall app sending out lock screen ads- If you have recently started using lock screens on your phones, chances are that the unwarranted ads are being sent by an app on your device. You can easily check the recently downloaded apps on your device and uninstall them to remove the problem.

– Open the Google Play Store on your smartphone

– Tap on ‘Menu’ and then on ‘My apps & Games’

– Tap on ‘Installed’

– Sort the list on basis of the last used app

– Among the most recently used apps, select the app that has been sending unwarranted ads on your device, and uninstall it.

Additionally, you can the following things in mind to get rid of unwarranted ads

– Always download apps from reputable sources based on the ratings and reviews.

– Make sure that you never give administrator’s right to any app especially.

– Update your device regularly with Android security patches. Keeping tracking for new updates

– Do not download apps that you don’t trust or are published by unknown publishers

As per the Google Play policy, apps listed on Google Play Store must not send any fraudulent ads to the device. Further, ads can only be sent when that particular application is being used. Ads appearing on the apps are considered part of the app and hence they have to adhere to the Google play Policy.

In case you spot any app with inappropriate ads violating the policies, you can report it to the Google Play store

– Go to the Google Play Store on your device

– Go to the Install page of the app

– Tap on ‘More Option’ (three vertical dots) on the top right corner of the screen

– Tap on Flash as inappropriate to report any fraudulent ads sent out by the app

Sourced from News18

In News

The Role of AI and ML in Improving Digital Performance

October 29, 2021 No Comments

By Anil Gupta

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are among the top marketing buzzwords we come across in the field of digital marketing. These technologies have already become an integral part of digital marketing and are being leveraged to make campaigns more personable and efficient.

For instance, artificial intelligence can make personalization easy and quick by creating accurate buyer personas. These personas are auto-generated to deliver a holistic audience segmentation, thereby improving the effectiveness of the campaigns. In addition, Netflix, Google, Uber, Spotify, Pinterest, and other apps use machine learning to personalize individual accounts and make relevant recommendations to their users.

The ever-improving algorithms and the exponential growth of data are encouraging business leaders and marketers to use AI, in the form of machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), deep learning, and other technologies. These technologies are helping them improve customer experience and conversions.

A Gartner survey shows that 37% of organizations are applying AI in some form or the other to boost their digital performance.

This post highlights how AI and ML are proving to be game-changers in the digital marketing realm.

1. Offer a Better Understanding of the Audience

Great content starts with knowing the audience well. When a business knows its target audience, the connection feels more natural and relevant. That genuine connection goes a long way in building lasting relationships with customers.

In recent years, AI and ML have opened up a whole new world of possibilities for understanding audience behavior. AI tools and data-driven insights are helping businesses understand who they are reaching, what the customers want and need, when to communicate, and where to reach them.

Artificial intelligence helps marketers instantly define buyer personas. Then, platforms like Socialbakers auto-generate these personas to deliver more holistic audience segmentation in the form of actionable insights. These insights help content marketers share inspiring stories that convert.

Keeping your audience at the centre of your online strategies is critical to business success. AI can help by offering unique audience insights, enabling businesses to deliver an integrated brand experience through relevant content. It also helps in selecting the most trustworthy and effective influencers for the brand.

2. Help with Lead Management

Big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning are being increasingly used in business intelligence these days. Machine learning, with its ability to bring out valuable hidden insights from large data sets, can create tangible value for businesses.

Leads are the driving force for businesses. They are the ones who will soon contribute to the organizational revenue. Hence, business leaders spend a significant amount of time in lead management. ML can be leveraged to improve and scale a firm’s approach to lead management, thereby boosting the bottom line. It helps firms generate better leads, qualify and nurture them, and ultimately monetize them effectively.

For instance, ML can help you create an ideal customer profile (ICP) to reach the best customers. ICP takes a structured look at the demographics and psychographics of an individual and determines their purchase intent and the content that matters to them. Thus, ICP can be used for lead scoring, allowing marketers to prioritize targeted accounts.

ML can also help firms generate more qualified leads from the traffic already coming to the site. For example, check out how Drift, a revenue acceleration platform, uses conversational AI to recognize quality from noise, learn from the conversations, and automatically qualify or disqualify website visitors. These qualifiers help the sales team focus on leads that are ready for conversions.

3. Curate and Create Better Content

AI is changing the game for content marketers. The technology is being used to automatically generate content for simple stories like sports news or stock market updates. AI also allows social channels to customize user new feeds.

But one content field where AI is increasingly applied is content curation. AI algorithms make it easier to collect target audience data to create relevant content at each stage of the marketing funnel.

For instance, the algorithms collect data on what the audience prefers to read, the questions they want answers to, or any specific concerns. Using this data, content marketers can curate and create relevant content that boosts customer experience and ultimately leads to conversions.

The North Face uses an AI-powered technology like IBM Watson that recreates shopping experiences. The AI tool uses cognitive computing that brings the online and in-store experiences closer together.

Besides, machine learning feeds content strategies by discovering fresh research-based content ideas, identifying the top-performing topic clusters, showing the most relevant keywords in a specific niche.

For instance, Google Analytics and SEMrush operate on machine-learning algorithms that are useful in keyword research and discovery, and content distribution. In addition, these tools can discover industry trends and show you ways to rank higher in SERP.

AI and ML-enabled tools improve the overall reception and performance of online content. In addition, the tools allow marketers to offer relevant and personalized digital experiences that positively influence engagement.

4. Help with Competitive Search Engine Ranking

Search engines are already using AI-enabled algorithms to deliver the most relevant SERP results. These algorithms rely on AI to understand the context of the content and spot irrelevant keywords. No wonder SEOs are constantly striving to understand these algorithms and coming up with strategies to create contextual, conceptual, and accurate content.

The placement of your business in the SERPs can make or break your online reputation and performance. AI technologies make it easier to create compelling content that answers the target audience’s queries, keywords, and phrases.

SEO isn’t a day’s job. It’s challenging, and the results of one’s efforts can only be seen after months. Fortunately, AI-based SEO tools help alleviate this stress. SEO optimization tools like Moz, WooRank, BrightEdge, and MarketMuse heavily rely on AI to offer SEO solutions like:

Keyword research
Search terms to make the content more relevant
Link-building opportunities
Trending topics
Optimum content length
User intent and more.

Tools like Alli AI can instantly optimize your website regardless of the CMS and your web development expertise. The platform performs a site-wide content and SEO audit, automatically optimizes the content, and resolves duplicate content issues. All this makes it easier for content creators to avoid poor-performing content and boost their online ranking.

5. Improve Page Speed

Google has put an exact value on fast user experience by including page speed as one of its ranking signals. That’s why boosting page speed is one of the top priorities for all businesses, especially ecommerce firms. As a result, Webmasters take all sorts of measures to improve page speed.

For instance, WordPress site owners may speed up WordPress by optimizing background processes, keeping the WP site updated, using a content delivery network (CDN), or using faster plugins. Of course, they also use various tools like Page Speed Insights, load time testers, and CMS plugins for the purpose. But now, there’s another ML-powered solution available for boosting the page speed – the Page Forecasting Model.

This model predicts user behaviour using machine learning and predicts the next page visitors will click on in real-time. This allows Webmasters to preload the page in the background, thus improving the overall experience.

The algorithm is trained with historical data from Google Analytics.

For instance, user patterns like going from home page to category page or product page to the shopping cart are recognized, understood, and included in update algorithms. If the user behaves similarly, the algorithm is automatically prepared with the next page.

However, the prediction accuracy is dependent on the amount of data available to train the algorithm and the website structure. So, the models will vary according to these factors. For instance, if yours is an ecommerce website that combines industry news with product pages, it’s better to use two or more models that can predict the behaviour per section.

6. Automate Website Analytics Process

Web analytics isn’t new. Businesses have been assessing user behaviour and tracking key performance metrics since the mid-’90s. But thanks to AI and machine learning, web analytics tools now have robust capabilities that allow businesses to automate the process. These tools can offer auto-generated reports and on-demand insights that feed marketing strategies.

Within a single visit to a webpage, each user generates hundreds of data points like the time spent on a page, the browser details, its location, and others. It is practically impossible to analyse all this data manually. AI and ML make such analysis faster and accurate by speeding up the data processing.

AI-based tools can help you track each visitor’s online behaviour, understand user journeys, and how customers move through the marketing funnel. They also point out issues, if any.

Let’s say you have a blog post that gets a lot of traffic, but visitors just read the post and leave without taking action like subscribing to your newsletter or sharing your post on social media. AI-based tools can flag such issues, allowing you to take the necessary corrective action like adding internal links or improving your CTA.

Google Analytics (insights section), Adobe Analytics, and Kissmetrics are among the top web analytics tools that help firms see patterns in customer behaviour and predict future trends.

7. Improve Site Navigation

Site navigation is another critical area in digital performance where AI and ML can help is site navigation. Though it may sound negligible, the importance of having organized and easy-to-follow navigation cannot be ignored. Well-planned navigation improves the visit duration, reduces the bounce rate, and boosts user experience. It also enhances the overall aesthetic appeal of the website design.

AI can help Webmasters create a user-friendly website structure that’s easy to navigate. AI-powered chatbots can guide users through the pages and help them find what they are looking for within the first few clicks. This significantly improves the user experience and sends good signals to search engines, indicating that your content is useful and relevant.

Thus, Google and other search engines will rank your page higher than any other website offering similar content.

8. Design Better Websites

AI applications can improve the usability and experience of a website by enhancing the site’s appearance, strengthening its search abilities, managing inventory better, and improving interaction with website visitors. No wonder a growing number of designers and developers are moving towards AI-based design practices.

AI is slowly becoming an indispensable part of modern web design and development. Take the field of artificial design intelligence (ADI) systems, for instance. ADI has triggered a sudden shift in the way web designing is done. It allows designers to combine applications into the website for better user experience and functionality.

Check out The Grid website platform that automatically adapts its design to highlight the content. The platform uses ML and constraint-based design and flow-based programming to dynamically adapt the website design to the content.

Today, we have several entrants in this space that are taking AI in web design to a whole new level. Brands like Adobe, Firedrop, Bookmark, Wix, Tailor Brands, and many others are leading the segment and leveraging the capabilities of AI in web design. In addition, most of these ADI platforms can learn and offer suggestions for optimizing the website for better user experience and SEO performance.

The Way Forward

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are proving to be awesome technologies when it comes to improving a firm’s digital performance. However, it is essential to remember that these ML models are only as good as the data that’s used to train them. Therefore, it’s critical to ensure that your marketing team has access to high-quality and accurate data.

So, before applying these technologies to your digital efforts, there are specific steps that you need to take.

Set up tags to track and capture on-site user behaviour.
House all the data from different sources in one central place like Google BigQuery, a Big Data analytics platform.
Invest in data deduplication to eliminate duplicate copies of repeating data from multiple sources.

Once your data is in place, you will be in a great position to start deploying AI and ML for boosting your digital performance. In addition, the information shared above will prove to be useful as you start building machine learning solutions for improving your business’s online presence.

By Anil Gupta

Anil is the CEO & Co-Founder of Multidots, one of the top WordPress development agencies on the planet. He is a technopreneur with over 13 years of experience coding, thinking, and leading the business with mind and people with heart. He and his team are seasoned in delivering secure and feature-reach WordPress services for businesses big and small.

Sourced from readwrite

In News

What would it take for advertisers to leave Facebook?

October 29, 2021 No Comments

By Jeremy Goldman

The question: What would it take for advertisers to give Facebook the boot? The answer isn’t as inspiring as one might think.

The findings: Advertisers on the whole are sticking with the platform—but there’s still a split between who will stay and who might go.

Performance marketers like mobile app advertisers, for example, use Facebook predominantly to drive app installs. Facing aggressive revenue targets and typically operating under the radar as brands, those companies are less likely to take part in advertiser initiatives like brand safety boycotts.
That’s more likely to happen among bigger, institutional brands, such as Coca-Cola, Nike, and Procter & Gamble, which have more of a stake in how consumers perceive them. These highly visible brands are often looking for brand exposure, which allows them to shift spending to other channels—since the top of the funnel offers more advertising options.

The marketer’s point of view: While Facebook has issues, it’s important to remember some companies have performed well by relying on the company’s ad ecosystem.

Some of the advertisers eMarketer spoke with have indicated that they’re diversifying into different channels in order to ensure they aren’t overly dependent on the Facebook ecosystem.
“I think there is something to be said for the CPM [cost-per-thousand] increase. It’s much more expensive than it was last year. There’s no question there,” said Avi Ben-Zvi, vice president of paid social at Tinuiti.
But rising CPMs only account for a fraction of his increased Facebook spend year over year, Ben-Zvi added. He said he’s seen a major increase in investment for mid-funnel consideration campaigns on Facebook that are designed to fuel the bottom of the funnel.

Our analysts weigh in:

“Facebook has weathered multiple scandals and headwinds in the past and continued to grow, indicating that advertisers will continue to spend on Facebook despite negative public perception,” said Jasmine Enberg, eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence. “What’s different this time is that Facebook is facing a real potential threat to its ad business.”
“Brand safety is a noble concern and something that many major companies think seriously about, but when it comes to their ad expenditures, the bottom line often ends up being more important,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “If ad performance were to start suffering, advertisers will look to other media. But brand safety concerns alone aren’t going to drive most advertisers away.”
“Measurement and attribution problems are causing performance declines for advertisers, especially ones focused on the lower funnel,” said Audrey Schomer, eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence. Schomer sees that advertisers are confused by a lack of clarity regarding what’s causing performance to go down: Is targeting particularly challenged by iOS users opting out of tracking? “That could be having some impact on performance, though most advertisers I’ve spoken with believe it’s primarily an attribution problem,” Schomer said.

By the numbers: Even in light of the whistle-blower news, our upcoming Facebook ad revenue forecast won’t be making any big downward adjustments.

Facebook’s net ad revenues for 2023 will actually be higher than previously forecast, but growth will be a little bit slower.
“The biggest thing that’ll come out of the whistle-blower revelations and platform outage is that advertisers will look to diversify their spending more,” said Nazmul Islam, forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence. “While you won’t see a big drop in Facebook spending overall, you might see a bit more growth in the other social platforms that benefited from last year’s Facebook ad boycott.”

By Jeremy Goldman

Sourced from eMarketer

In News

Twitter Debuts New Ad Features, Revamped Algorithm Ahead of Ecommerce Push

October 28, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from News18

Twitter is positioning itself to eventually allow brands to sell products through the service by first improving on its ability to show users relevant ads and increasing the likelihood they will click the ad.

Twitter on Tuesday rolled out new ad features and revamped the algorithm that decides which ads users see, as part of an effort to lay the groundwork to launch future ecommerce features, the social networking company told Reuters. The new features come as Twitter is pushing to grow its performance advertising business, a strategy that aims to quickly generate sales, and constituted just 15 percent of Twitter’s business last year. The effort could help Twitter reach its goal of doubling annual revenue by 2023.

The San Francisco-based company is positioning itself to eventually allow brands to sell products through the service by first improving on its ability to show users relevant ads and increasing the likelihood they will click the ad. “Performance ads are a very large opportunity … that’s relatively untapped for us,” said Kamara Benjamin, group product manager at Twitter, in an interview. “Ultimately, this is going to lead to people installing apps, visiting websites and finding products that meet their needs.”

Ads promoting downloads for mobile games and other apps, which are a major type of ad on social media sites, will now allow users to initiate the download without leaving the Twitter app, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday. Previously, users had to leave Twitter to download other apps. Twitter added it is working on new tools to let companies run ads to find customers who are more likely to make in-app purchases.

Slide-show ads that feature multiple products can now send users to different websites when they click the ad, whereas previously brands could only choose one destination. This increased the number of clicks by 25 percent on ad campaigns that set a goal of driving website visits, the company said.

Twitter also improved the advertising algorithm, showing the ads to a larger pool of people at the beginning of the campaign so it can better gauge user interest, Benjamin said. Those algorithm improvements led to a 36% increase in ad campaigns that achieved at least five downloads during the time period that the ad ran on Twitter, the company said.

Sourced from News18

In Uncategorized

Here’s Why Your iPhone Stops Charging at 80%

October 28, 2021 No Comments

By Keyede Erinfolami

Does your iPhone stop charging at 80%? We’ll explain why it does that and how to fix it.

Aside from broken screens, charging issues are the most common problems that iPhone users face with their devices. This is understandable because the battery in your iPhone—or any smartphone, for that matter—is one of the few components that degrades naturally over time. Time does its thing, and iPhone batteries aren’t exempt from that.

Although, if you’ve noticed that your iPhone won’t charge past 80%, don’t assume that it’s time to get it replaced. There are a few reasons why that happens, and most of them have easy fixes. Keep reading to find out why your iPhone stops charging at 80%, and what you can do to fix it.

If your iPhone only stops charging at 80% sometimes, it’s most likely due to a feature Apple implemented to extend the life of your iPhone battery. Apple introduced a battery optimization feature in iOS 13 that slows down how your iPhone charging, and even holds it at 80% to prevent over stressing the battery.

That’s why your phone sometimes charges, but then stops at 80%.

Most of us try to keep our phones as charged as possible, but as it turns out, this can be detrimental to your iPhone’s battery.

For starters, charging to and maintaining a full charge is more demanding on lithium batteries in smartphones, shortening their lifespan. Not to mention that over charging your phone overnight causes the battery to heat up, which reduces its overall lifespan.

How to Turn Off Optimized Charging on Your iPhone

If you’re running iOS 13, the Optimized Battery Charging feature on your iPhone will be enabled by default. If you’d rather have your phone charge to 100%, you can easily disable this feature in the battery settings.

To turn off Optimized Battery Charging, go to Settings > Battery > Battery Health and toggle off Optimized Battery Charging. You’ll see two options: Turn Off Until Tomorrow or Turn Off (permanently). Choose whichever one you prefer.

Image Gallery (4 Images)

Maximize Your Battery Power

Understanding what affects the lifespan of your iPhone battery is the first step towards making it last longer! By keeping the charging tips from this article in mind and using high-quality iPhone chargers, you’ll give your battery the longest life possible.

By Keyede Erinfolami

Sourced from MUO

In News

Is It Too Late to Start Podcasting as a Marketing Strategy?

October 28, 2021 No Comments

By Timothy Carter

Do you listen to podcasts on a regular basis? If the answer is no, you’re part of a shrinking minority. The majority of Americans (and listeners in developed countries around the world) listen to podcasts at least occasionally, with many listeners tuning into their favourite shows every day.

The sheer popularity of podcasting has led millions of savvy marketers to try and tap the channel for marketing opportunities. Sometimes, they start a podcast on behalf of their business, interviewing people connected to the industry and talking about new products. Other times, they use it as a content marketing channel to promote and popularize their brand’s archive of content.

Either way, the income potential is impressive, to say the least. Moreover, with a sizable podcast listening audience, you could get millions of additional visitors to your site – and new fans for your brand.

But here’s the thing – podcasting is an environment that’s already saturated with hosts and content creators. And there’s no guarantee podcasting will continue growing as it has in the past decade.

So is it too late to begin podcasting as a marketing strategy for your start-up?

Why Podcasting?

Why podcasting? What makes this strategy so unique and desirable in the first place?

Ease of entry. The simplest podcasts are simply casual conversations between two people who know each other. Even more complex setups aren’t especially demanding. With any computer, a decent microphone, and a bit of free time on your hand, you can create and upload a podcast of your own. This makes the cost low and the barrier to entry basically non-existent. Because the upside is so significant, this makes the return on investment (ROI) potential for a podcast ridiculously good.
Potential audience size. There are hundreds of millions of people listening to podcasts on a regular basis. If you can manage to tap even a small sliver of that audience, you’ll have a robust listenership to whom you can market your business.
Flexibility and topic possibilities. There aren’t really any rules about what you can and can’t podcast. Likewise, you’re not limited by any regulations or platform requirements (for the most part). That means you can talk and operate however you choose.
Potential scale. If you have a successful podcast and a loyal audience, you can quickly scale up your efforts without spending more money. You have the potential to snowball your audience from very small to very large without fundamentally changing your core operations, meaning you can keep making more money indefinitely without spending more.
Content diversification advantages. Podcasting is an excellent tool for content diversification. Content marketing strategies often centre on written content; this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you want to see better results and reach more people, it’s essential to incorporate mediums like video marketing, image development, and audio streams like podcasting.
Podcast networking and interviews. Podcasts are also advantageous because they make it easy to connect with other podcasters. If your show starts getting attention, you might have the option to do interviews with other known podcasters in your niche; the cross-marketing potential is almost unlimited.
Connection to other channels. Most people also don’t podcast in a vacuum. As a marketing channel, podcasting can connect to almost any other marketing or advertising channel you can think of; it has tremendous synergy with written content, email marketing, social media marketing, and more.

Why “Too Late” Is a Concern

So why are people concerned that it might be “too late” to get into the podcast game? Are these advantages going to disappear?

Not exactly, but there are some serious threats:

Podcasts as a fad. Podcasts have experienced a meteoric rise in popularity, growing from relatively obscure to a staple of modern existence. But, is this growth going to continue? Is it going to remain consistent from here on out? Or was this explosive growth just a temporary fad? If the latter case is true, podcasts could be in store for shrinking popularity in the near-term future.
Early risers. Some podcasts benefitted from being ahead of the curve. Many of today’s most popular shows are ones that started before podcasts were a popular forum. Without the benefit of riding that initial wave of popularity, it could be harder to build a sufficient audience.
Established competition. There are millions of successful podcasts out there, and millions more unsuccessful and struggling ones. So if you want to earn customer trust and new business, you’ll have your work cut out for you. In addition, you’ll be competing with people worldwide, many of whom will have more experience and bigger existing audiences. In this view, the podcasting world is too saturated to be a reasonable marketing opportunity.
Marketing and consumer fatigue. Using podcasting for marketing and advertising could also be problematic. Because marketing is so common in podcasting, many listeners are growing fatigued of the dense and transparent promotional activity. Pushing your product or business too much could actively turn people away.

Uniquely Defining Your Podcast

You can get around some of the biggest problems with entering podcasting now by uniquely defining your podcast – creating something truly original that stands apart from your competitors.

Here are just some of the ways you can do it:

Topic novelty. Choose to cover a topic that no one has covered before, or a topic that has been neglected by the most popular authorities in the space. It’s challenging to find something that’s not already been done to death, but if you can find something, you’ll have an easy way to stand out.
Niche demographic targeting. You can also cover a topic for a niche demographic – one that isn’t being reached by current podcasters. For example, you could specialize in targeting teenagers or retirees, rather than middle-aged adults.
Entertainment value. Using a unique tone of voice or adopting a sarcastic style could help you make your podcast as entertaining as it is informative. If there’s a unique character to the show or something entertaining about it that’s truly original, you’ll be in a much better position to attract new listeners.
Genre innovation. You can also try experimenting with podcasting as a genre. Many people go into podcasting with interviews, monologues, or dramatic readings. But maybe you could try something else entirely – and tap into a market that’s been hitherto undiscovered.

Is It Truly Too Late?

So what’s the bottom line here. Is it really too late to start a podcast?

If you haven’t jumped into podcasting yet, you’ve missed the initial surge of the medium’s popularity. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about that. But it’s not truly too late to take advantage of podcasting as a marketing channel, as long as you:

Know what you’re getting into. Make sure you know what you’re about to face. Who are the biggest competitors in this niche? Who are your target demographics, and what’s most important to them? How much will it cost to keep your podcast operational, and do you stand to make enough money to cover those costs?
Find a way to be different. Making your podcast both valuable and unique can be tricky – especially when you’re facing literally millions of competitors. So you have to find a way to be different, whether it’s in the topics you’re covering or the way you’re covering the topics — if you want to be successful, change it up.
Minimize your spending and reliance. Since you can create simple remote setups for voice recording, it shouldn’t be hard to minimize your spending in the early days of your podcast’s development. It’s also a good idea to diversify your marketing approaches, so you’re never too reliant on one channel or approach.

Podcasting remains one of the most accessible and cost-efficient content marketing strategies around. As long as you have a solid plan and a flexible mindset, you should be able to get it to work for your brand.

Feature Image Credit: George Milton; pexels

By Timothy Carter

Chief Revenue Officer

Timothy Carter is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Seattle digital marketing agency SEO.co, DEV.co & PPC.co. He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO and digital marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams. When he’s not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach — preferably in Hawaii with a cup of Kona coffee. Follow him on Twitter @TimothyCarter

Sourced from readwrite

In News

How to Start a Blog That Actually Makes Passive Income

October 27, 2021 No Comments

By Peter Daisyme

When it comes to generating passive income, several ideas and strategies get tossed around quite frequently, one of them being blogging. So the question is, can you really make passive income from a blog? In a word, yes.

Four Bloggers Who Make Some Serious Cash

By now, we’ve all heard claims that bloggers can make six or even seven figures per year. But isn’t that an exaggeration? Are there actually people that make significant sums of money running blogs online?

While it certainly takes some work — and isn’t the norm — it’s more than possible. Just ask the following bloggers, all of whom have transformed their lives by creating blogs that generate high passive income on a monthly basis.

Jeff Rose has a successful personal finance blog called “Good Financial Cents” that nets him monthly blog revenue of $102,000.
Robbie Richard of RobbieRichards.com generates over $60,000 per year on affiliate revenue alone without spending a dime on ads or traffic generation. And that’s just one of his revenue streams from the blog!
It took Lena Gott of the What Mommy Does blog just ten months to scale up to $10,000 per month in revenue. Best of all, she works just 20 hours per week.
Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich earns millions of dollars per year on his blog. On top of that, his blog has paved the way for bestselling books, six-figure speaking gigs, and various seven-figure courses and business ventures.

Those are just four examples. It’s relatively simple to find more than 4,000 examples of bloggers who are making lucrative full-time revenue with blogging. There are tens of thousands more who are using blogging as a passive, supplemental source of income to cover bills or upgrade their lifestyle.

In other words, it really doesn’t matter if your goal is to make $300 per month or $3 million per year — blogging can help you get there.

The key to making money blogging is to have a game plan. You can’t just throw some words into cyberspace and hope they come back with dollar signs. (That’s highly unlikely.) Instead, you need to be intentional with your approach.

While every blogger has their own unique formula for success, here’s a basic three-step plan that will increase your odds of building a cash-generating blog.

Step 1: Start a blog.

The very first step in the process is to create a blog and launch it out into cyberspace. In many ways, this is the easy part. However, there are several things you’ll need to keep in mind if you want to do it well the first time around.

According to The Blog Starter, which has helped many people successfully launch revenue-generating blogs online, there are six overall steps to follow when starting a blog. Four of them occur during this initial step.

Choose a blog name. Begin by choosing a blog name. Typically, this name will be directly related to your topic or your name. It should be simple yet descriptive. It also needs to have an available domain. The best blog domains are one to three words. If possible, you want a top-level domain (TLD) that’s either .com, .org, .net, or .co.
Get your blog online. Once you settle on a blog name and find an available domain, you’re ready to get your blog up and running. To do so, you’ll need a website hosting company to host your blog on the internet. You’ll also need a content management system (CMS) to help you populate your website in an attractive and user-friendly way.
Customize your blog. Armed with a blog host and website builder, it’s time to customize the look and feel of your website. You can either customize an existing template/theme or pay for a custom website developer to do it for you.
Write/publish your first post. The time is now at hand to publish your first blog post. We recommend starting with a “pillar post.” This is a long, meaty blog post — several thousand words — that will serve as a piece of foundational SEO copy for your blog.

Once you check the box on each of these four items, you can officially say you have a blog. That’s more than 99 percent of people can say, so give yourself a pat on the back.

Step 2: Monetize your blog.

Having a blog is one thing. However, you’re not starting a blog so that you can journal your thoughts online. You’re starting a blog because you want to make some serious passive income. This means you have to monetize it. Here are the four most common blog monetization methods:

Affiliate Marketing. Once you have a steady flow of traffic visiting your website, you can leverage affiliate links to capitalize on this traffic. Using this method, you don’t even have to own any of your own products or services. You just drive traffic to other people’s products and earn a commission for any sales made.
Banner Ads. Advertisers will pay for a digital “billboard” on your blog in the form of a banner advertisement. They typically pay based on your blog analytics. These include monthly visitors, engagement, conversion rate, and so forth. The more impressive your numbers are, the more you can charge.
Sell Digital Products. One of the best monetization strategies is to build a loyal following with high-value free content. After that, you can upsell followers into digital products such as eBooks and courses.
Sell Coaching. If you have a particular skill or service that you’ve mastered, there are always people looking to learn your skill and replicate your success. One way to monetize this is by using your blog to sell coaching services. Done well, you could potentially charge thousands of dollars per month for coaching. Mastermind groups are yet another option.

Every blog monetization strategy will look different. Some bloggers make 100 percent of their money from affiliate marketing. Others focus on selling their own digital products and courses. You also have bloggers who do a combination of everything. You’ll have to decide what makes the most sense for you.

Step 3: Automate and outsource your blog.

Successfully monetizing your blog is super exciting. Whether you’re making several hundred dollars per month or thousands, there’s something very rewarding about seeing your blog go from concept to published website to cash-generating machine.

However, unless you like the idea of spending 40 to 60 hours per week writing content, optimizing your website, and monitoring your email inbox, you must find a way to turn that income into passive income. There are two primary ways you can do this:

Automation. The first step is automation. Simply find tools that streamline the tasks you’re tired of doing and integrate them into your blogging workflow. There are apps to automate email marketing, social media, list segmentation, proofreading, writing headlines, scheduling meetings, tracking analytics, finding link-building opportunities, optimizing images, automating business payments, and everything in between. The key is to make sure you’re choosing smart tools that work together. You can always use a tool like Zapier or IFTTT to connect different applications.
Outsourcing. There’s only so much you can automate. At some point, you have to build up a team of skilled professionals who can help you handle the tasks that require human energy and creativity. This is where outsourcing to freelancers and virtual assistants comes into play. For best results, you’ll probably want to start with a freelance copywriter to shoulder some of the content creation burden and a virtual assistant to help out with the administrative tasks. Over time, you can expand to add more writers and assistants. You may even want to hire an operations person or sales professional to get your revenue numbers moving upward and to the right.

You don’t have to automate and outsource everything at once. Start with the tasks that are both time-consuming and undesirable. In other words, if you hate the SEO component of blogging, there are always SEO professionals who would be happy to do the work for you. Alternatively, if you find yourself spending two hours per day answering emails and replying to comments, hiring a virtual assistant might be a good move.

Once you have the most time-consuming and undesirable tasks out of the way, you simply let things progress from there. Try automating/outsourcing one new task every week. Before you know it, you’ll only have to spend a few hours working on your blog as opposed to dozens of hours. You’ll also discover that it’s easier to scale up your revenue when you aren’t the only one creating content, running promotions, or selling products.

Ready, Set, Blog!

No one is saying that you’ll magically start generating $10,000 in monthly passive income if you start a blog. However, if you follow the steps listed above and really commit to honing your strategy, you’ll eventually start generating a steady drip.

At first, your revenue might be $100 per month. Then, it could go up to $1,500 per month. Next, $5,000…and so on. It’ll take time — and plenty of work on the front end — but you can get there. The path forward has already been blazed by thousands of people ahead of you.

The post How to Start a Blog That Actually Makes Passive Income appeared first on Due.

Feature Image Credit: Due – Due

By Peter Daisyme

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

In News

The Future of Retail

October 27, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from The Atlantic

These trends are reshaping how retail businesses serve their customers, and local shops are poised to win big over larger competitors.

The retail industry is rethinking every detail of the shopping experience, redefining not only how we shop and sell, but the incredible advantages that local, independent retailers have right now. The boutique on your town’s main drag, the shoppable post that appears in your social media feed, and the marketing email sending you to an online store may all come from the same retailer. And that retailer is fundamentally different than it was a year ago.

The rise of the local, independent shop is the future of the retail industry.

To help retailers identify and lean into those strengths and strategies, Square teamed up with Wakefield Research and surveyed 1,000 consumers and 500 retail owners and managers about the retail industry challenges and trends that capture where they’re headed in 2021. What it found was eye-opening: The who, what, where, and why behind our shopping experience is going through a metamorphosis, revealing a big opportunity for local retailers to make a name for themselves and beat larger competitors.

Square analysed the survey results, gathered insights from its retail experts, and interviewed leading creative retailers to identify the top retail trends for local businesses to explore this year. All data cited below comes from the survey results. For a more in-depth look at these 2021 retail industry trends, download the full report.

1. Retailers are taking on larger players by moving online

Independent retailers can connect with customers locally, and gain exponential reach by selling online in addition to maintaining their local presence. Today, shoppers make 43 percent of their monthly retail purchases online, and retailers are meeting those needs, with 88 percent now selling online.

As many retailers are changing their business models, going online increases the odds of success. In fact, among retailers selling online, 58 percent of their revenue comes from online sales. The first move to sell on a new channel underscores the importance of retailers using digital tools to continue to innovate. “That is the tipping point where you really need to run the operations of your business digitally,” says David Rusenko, head of e-commerce at Square.

2. Blending online and in-store shopping creates more meaningful experiences

Despite the mass move to e-commerce, over nine in 10 consumers still crave the thrill of shopping inside a physical store. Of those shoppers, nearly half say they miss browsing and getting out of the house, while two in five say they miss instantly getting the item they bought.

Even though retailers are digitizing their operations, it’s not an all-or-nothing approach. “We’re seeing that online experiences are less of a replacement for in-person interactions, but more of a complement to them,” says Megan Karande, product marketing manager for Square for Retail. Customers still want to experience the joy of walking into a store and finding the exact item they want on the shelf, or discovering a product completely serendipitously.

Local retailers have a clear advantage here and can engage customers at every step of the in-store experience while also connecting it to their online presence. Whether it’s revamping the in-store and curb side pickup experience or rethinking the store layout, the physical store isn’t going away, and in-store engagement strategies will only become more valuable this year.

3. Same-day delivery can give local retailers an edge over big-box stores

Nearly three out of four shoppers prefer delivery over pickup when shopping online. However, only 37 percent of retailers are offering same-day delivery. While shipping delays and supply-chain issues are more common now, local businesses have an opportunity to get products out faster than big e-commerce players by offering same-day delivery.

Local retailers are closer to customers and can set up the necessary systems to get products to them faster, leading to more sales. “What often happens is that when you start to offer something like same-day delivery, it encourages larger basket sizes,” says Rusenko.

4. Social selling and e-commerce go hand in hand, and it’s giving local retailers a clear advantage

Local retailers have a more authentic understanding of and appreciation for their communities, and can therefore connect with local customers better than national competitors. Whether it’s through a fully shoppable store or flash sales, social selling is made possible by e-commerce tools, helping local retailers reach more customers at a time when people are even more glued to their devices.

And selling on social media is working. Shoppers who buy items online purchased an average of eight products from social media sites every month, and 43 percent of retailers who sell on social media say that half or more of their revenue comes from social media sales.

If you’re interested in trying out social selling, see how Square can quickly help you get started, using the products you already rely on.

5. Virtual experiences are bridging the gap between the online and offline parts of a store

As customers get more comfortable buying through social media, it also opens up a whole new way to interact through those platforms. Enter, the rise of virtual experiences. Over one in three retailers are going to invest in livestream shopping this year, while 35 percent are also going to implement virtual-reality shopping.

These investments can lead to richer experiences for customers and more informed purchase decisions. And they’re more accessible than you might think.

How are retailers engaging customers virtually? One way is through livestreaming, which is when products are shared with customers over live video. It can be as simple as using a tablet to show customers what’s in store through a virtual shopping appointment, or by using social media to showcase the new stock that just arrived.

Virtual reality is another strategy that retailers are using to help customers experience products before adding them to their carts. As consumers now need more options to safely try on and try out items before buying, virtual-reality technology can be an effective way to improve the overall try-before-you-buy experience.

6. The borders between industries are blurring

The pandemic not only sparked business pivots, it fast-tracked the industry mashups that were already taking place. For instance, some restaurants are selling branded merchandise, and some retailers are offering digital services. And nearly three out of five shoppers say that they’re likely to buy from retailers and restaurants that are selling different items from what they typically sell.

“We’re seeing that the defined, straight vertical lines of your retail business versus your restaurant versus your services business are all blurring,” says Rusenko. “You’re seeing restaurants selling groceries (which are a typical retail offering) or retail businesses selling services like online cooking classes or Zoom calls and so on.”

7. Retailers are stepping up to the plate with community initiatives

Communities breathe life into local businesses, and both customers and owners recognize that harmony.

Retailers are deepening their connections to the areas they call home through a variety of ways. Seventy-seven percent of retailers are planning on participating in more community initiatives this year, with around one in three retailers saying they’re going to partner with local businesses”, provide supplies for local events, and support minority-owned businesses.

8. A real-time view into store inventory is opening up new possibilities

From selling on social media to launching an online store, retailers are experimenting with multiple ways of meeting the evolving needs of customers. This new omnichannel landscape is thrilling, and retailers are realizing that having a handle on inventory is the only way they can continue to sell across different channels.

Over half of retailers say inventory management is harder because of the pandemic. Not only have consumer needs changed, but supply-chain issues are slowing down the ordering process, making it harder to pinpoint the exact amount of inventory you need and when, and then passing that information along to customers.

To combat the increased complexity, 74 percent of retailers are planning on investing in real-time inventory management software to get more precise about their stock. In fact, over one in three retailers interested in real-time inventory software are already using it in their businesses. This is a key moment for retailers to invest in inventory software or upgrade what they currently use to meet the changing needs of their business.

Local retailers are tapping into the qualities that make them unique, reworking them, and using them to their advantage as consumer needs flip. The future of retail lies in the power of local businesses.

To incorporate these retail industry trends into your business, it all starts with digitizing your operations, and then you can try out new ways of selling. When you find an approach that fits, you can give customers exactly what they need and yourself the room to try new things. When you get to that space, where you can pull the levers that work for your store, your future is wide open.

Sourced from The Atlantic

In News

iPhone owners should update to iOS 15.0.2 right now

October 27, 2021 No Comments

By Trevor Mogg

Apple is advising iPhone owners to download its latest update to iOS and iPadOS 15 as it includes an important security patch as well as a number of bug fixes.

Made available on Monday, October 11, iOS and iPadOS 15.0.2 addresses an issue that could allow nefarious apps “to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges.” In other words, it offers a way for a hacker to take control of your iDevice.

Apple even says that the issue may have already been exploited, so you’re strongly advised to install the security patch just as soon as you can.

To perform the update on an iPhone or iPad, tap on Settings, and then General. Next, tap on Software Update, and then follow the install instructions to download 15.0.2.

If your Apple devices are still running version 14 or earlier, you won’t see the update prompt for 15.0.2.

Monday’s update also includes fixes for the following iPhone issues that some people have been experiencing:

Photos saved to your library from Messages could be deleted after removing the associated thread or message
iPhone Leather Wallet with MagSafe may not connect to Apple’s Find My app
AirTag might not appear in the Find My Items tab
CarPlay may fail to open audio apps or disconnect during playback
Device restore or update may fail when using Finder or iTunes for iPhone 13 models

Apple released iOS 15 on September 20. Despite months of testing prior to release, it’s normal for new bugs and security issues to emerge once the operating system is rolled out to the entire customer base. It’s for this very reason that many people hold off installing a new mobile operating system until they’re confident that the worst problems have been addressed in subsequent updates.

Apple released iOS 15.0.1 on October 1. This update dealt with an issue that prevented iPhone 13 handsets from unlocking and using an Apple Watch and got rid of an alert in the Settings app that incorrectly claimed a phone’s storage was nearly full. It also stopped audio meditations from suddenly initiating a workout on Apple Watch for some Fitness+ subscribers.

If you haven’t yet installed iOS 15 but are ready to do so, here’s how to do it. And here’s the best of what the iPhone’s latest mobile operating system has to offer.

Editors’ Recommendations

By Trevor Mogg

Sourced from digitaltrends

In News

Want to Make Smarter Decisions? This Test Can Dramatically Improve Your Judgment and Reasoning

October 26, 2021 No Comments

By Jeff Haden

Within seconds, you’ll determine just how confident you really are in a prediction or decision.

I was having dinner with two entrepreneurs. Both are smart and successful, two qualities that don’t always go hand in hand.

One (we’ll call him Ben) thinks an emerging technology will transform his market within the next 18 months. “We’re going to drop everything we’re developing and put all our money on (that),” he said. “We’re going all in.”

In financial terms, it’s easily a $10 million bet. But “all in” is kind of Ben’s thing.

The other (we’ll call him Frank) seemed skeptical. “How certain are you?” Doug asked.

“Very,” Ben said.

“OK,” Frank said, and dumped 20 peanuts onto the middle of the table. (I didn’t say we were having a fancy dinner.) “Imagine one of these peanuts is worth $10 million. You only get to pick one. Would you rather take your chances on choosing the right peanut, or that you’re right about your project paying off in 18 months?”

“Shoot,” Ben said. “Definitely my project.”

Frank took away 10 peanuts.

“How about now?” he said.

Ben pointed at his own chest. “I’m still betting on me.”

Frank pushed more peanuts aside so only five were left.

Ben sat back. He crossed his arms. His eyes narrowed. He was clearly less certain. Eventually he said, “Still me.”

Frank took away two more peanuts. Now Ben had a one in three chance of picking the $10 million peanut.

Ben sat quietly for about 30 seconds, mental file cards clearly fluttering. Finally he pointed to the peanuts. “I think I’ll take those odds,” he said.

What happened? Ben calibrated his prediction. Instead of just thinking he was right, the exercise forced him to think thought about how he thought about making predictions. (Psychologists call thinking about thinking “metacognition.“)

Thinking about thinking — in this case, seeking to calibrate his prediction — is something Ben freely admits he rarely does. He’s smart. He’s decisive. He’s often right. Over time, he’s come to trust his instincts.

In this case, his gut told him he would be proved right, and he was willing to back that belief with millions of dollars.

But then Frank’s peanut game — an exercise called the equivalent bet test, popularized by decision-making expert Douglas Hubbard — made him realize he felt more comfortable with one out of three odds than he did with his prediction.

“Very certain”? Not so certain after all.

The beauty of the equivalent bet test is that forces you out of binary mode — either “I think (this) will happen” or “I don’t think (this) will happen” — and allows you to fine-tune a prediction. Ben’s true level of confidence fell somewhere around 33 percent.

In some cases that might be a good bet. In others, not.

For Ben, it wasn’t.

While he sees the situation as a “when,” not an “if,” still: the stakes of being too early are too high. So he scaled back the investment. He ready to quickly double down if it looks like his prediction will be right, but he’s also prepared if the timeline turns out to be longer.

Calibrating his prediction — realizing his knowledge and experience allowed him to turn a coarse judgment into one much more nuanced and fine-grained — not only improved his decision-making, it helped mitigate the risk involved.

That’s the real beauty of the equivalent bet test: Determining how confident you really are in a prediction and using that knowledge to make even better decisions — and plans.

Because you can’t always be right.

But you can determine how confident you are that you will turn out to be right. That an employee will react to a decision the way you think. That customers will react to pricing changes the way you think. That expanding your product line will turn out the way you think.

And then plan accordingly.

Because even the biggest risks should still be intelligent risks.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Jeff Haden

Sourced from Inc.