Some of the UK’s largest traditional advertising spenders greatly tightened their belts in 2018, with overall spend slumping across cinema, outdoor, press, radio and TV.
According to research from Nielsen, top spender Procter & Gamble reduced its traditional ad spend from £196m to £186m in the UK last year. Sky’s expenditure, meanwhile, slumped to second with a 30% decline from £177m to £124m. Unilever fell out of the top three advertisers for the first time in the last five years, coming in at number seven and down 29.2% to £82.8m from £116m.
McDonald’s Restaurants took third place with a 28% increase to £122m, while BT clocked in as the fourth biggest spender.
Overall, traditional marketing spend from the brands profiled was down slightly from £8.7bn to £8.5bn. Amid an uncertain political and economic climate, just handful of brands increased their budgets.
Among those on the up was Amazon’s, which rose by 18% (£74m to £87.5m). Compare the Market saw budget growth of 30% to £62.2m and Camelot Lottery’s spend rose 40% to £53.3m.
Supermarkets, in particular, expressed caution. Sainsbury’s dropped out of the top 100, while Morrisons, Aldi and Lidl also reduced their spend in 2018.
Barney Farmer, UK commercial director at Nielsen, said: “With traditional advertising spend down 1.41% from 2017, our latest data highlights the changing advertising strategies from the biggest brands and retailers.
“However, it’s interesting that the rise and fall of advertising spend doesn’t seem to be consistent within sectors. While most supermarket retailers have opted to reduce spend, Asda and Tesco increased their spend, and this is the same for finance, with HSBC and Natwest dropping spend but many others continuing to show increases in year-on-year spend.
“There are many factors influencing this, from hardening budgets due to Brexit, to competition within the sector. There are likely to be some interesting times ahead.”
The figures come amid ongoing indecision around the economic status of the UK as it prepares to leave the European Union. If a no-deal scenario is the outcome of Theresa May’s negotiations, Enders Analysis predicts there will be an adverse effect on brand budgets.
Jean-Christophe Coutures, chairman and chief executive at Chivas Brothers earlier this week said that while no-deal Brexit strategy would be “a short-term nightmare” for businesses that it would not have any long-term impact on marketing plans.
Check out the top ten UK ad spenders below. Digital ad spend wasn’t taken into account by Nielsen.
Moments now matter more than place or channel for brands trying to connect with consumers. To deliver the most engaging experience in the moments that matter, CMOs need the right strategy, technology, organizational structures, and metrics.
Today’s connected consumers expect instant information and experiences that “wow” them. If they have a question, they want to do a quick search on their phones and get an immediate answer. If they’re buying concert tickets, they want to see seating options, the view from their selected seats, and the best place to park—all before hitting the buy button. If they’re B2B customers, they want seamless contracting, procurement, and supply chain processes. In this instant-access economy, brands are challenged not only to deliver the right information over the appropriate channel but to give consumers relevant, personalized experiences in the make-or-break moments that matter.
Brands that can do this effectively have an opportunity to improve customer relationships, differentiate themselves from the competition, and drive brand value. Consider a retailer that has a loyal, high-revenue-generating customer who gives a one-star rating to a piece of clothing sold on the brand’s web site. Beyond just aggregating this review with all the other reviews to determine whether to keep this product in the lineup, the brand can go a step further. It can acknowledge this person as a high-value customer and take a personalized action such as sending the customer a replacement free of charge or giving her a gift card.
Or consider a sports venue that wants to create a more personalized fan experience to drive people off their couches and into the stadium. The venue could use a one-stop app for everything: If a customer shows a preference for a premium beverage, the app could trigger a notification asking whether he wants it delivered to his seat and, later, as the game comes to an end, give him access to nearby restaurant reservations reflecting his preferred cuisine. Throughout his visit to the stadium, the customer could be given personalized photos, the opportunity to engage in interactive gaming through augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), and tips on the most efficient navigation for his journey home.
Delivering this type of one-to-one interaction and exceptional customer service in crucial moments can result in improved customer satisfaction, repeat business, and positive social media promotion, all of which lead to increased experience value for the customer and increased business value for the brand.
But how can brand leaders maximize business value without underinvesting or overinvesting in these experiences? As CMOs are increasingly charged with driving revenue and growth for their companies, they can rethink technologies, organizational structures, and metrics to help them find the perfect balance.
The “Three Ds”—Data, Decisioning, and Delivery
CMOs can consider the three Ds when designing and implementing technology platforms to support the offering of relevant, personalized content to consumers in the moments that matter:
Data. A customer data platform that contains relevant information about customers—who they are, how they have interacted with the brand before, where they browse, how they respond—is foundational to enabling this type of personalized engagement. It is also important for CMOs to make sure their companies are in compliance with applicable data privacy laws and regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act.
Decisioning. Once companies have compiled customer data, they can use software and analytics programs to make decisions about how to deliver the right content to customers in relevant moments and how to maximize value. It’s no longer a matter of creating awareness at the top of the funnel or driving purchase at the bottom of the funnel. With advanced analytics and decisioning software, brands can interact with consumers at precise moments throughout their journeys to create that wow factor and differentiate their brands.
Delivery. Finally, brands can orchestrate their responses and other interactions with consumers based on data and insights from analytics programs, whether that means sending a personalized email offer at just the right time or advising a support agent what to say when a particular customer phones the call center. Customer engagement orchestration software can help enable the automated, contextual delivery of one-to-one communications with customers. Emerging technologies such as AI, AR, VR, and connected devices give marketers more ways than ever to provide contextually relevant, immersive experiences to customers.
Organization and Talent
As they look at deploying new technologies to deliver relevant content and experiences to consumers, it’s important for companies to start with a well-thought-out strategy that’s supported by senior leaders.
It’s also essential for ownership of CX to be clear and consistent across the enterprise. At more than half of large organizations, the role of CMO has been expanded to include end-to-end CX. (Alternatively, CX may be elevated to a distinct function, led by a chief experience officer, complete with a dedicated budget, staffing, and governance of all CX capabilities enterprisewide.)
To support the technical enablement of CX, CMOs are partnering closely with their chief information officers, often bringing critical CX processes and skills back in-house and using cloud-based solutions, plus adding more tech-savvy professionals—data engineers, data scientists, business intelligence specialists, and the like—to their teams.
Proving ROI on CX
As the CMO role becomes more influential in the C-suite, marketing leaders are under increasing pressure to demonstrate a return on their investments, particularly when it comes to the value of CX to the organization. CMOs can start with a few initiatives and track select KPIs that support the case for investing in end-to-end CX technologies and capabilities.
Some CX-value metrics include:
Net promoter score
Customer satisfaction score
Usability score
Average revenue per visit
Brand engagement frequency
Campaign ROI
Repeat visits
Social sentiment (e.g., shares, likes)
Referrals
Average customer tenure/loyalty.
Steps CMOs Can Take Now
To help their organizations deliver the most engaging content and experiences to consumers in the moments that matter, CMOs can take the following steps:
Create a new mindset. Providing contextually relevant content and experiences to reach consumers in the right moment is not just a project—it requires a shift in mindset. CMOs can lead this charge by becoming CX champions at their organizations and having a plan in place to show the tangible value of investing in CX.
Start small. Begin with a pilot project focused on a single engagement channel (e.g., email or mobile app engagement) or single outcome (e.g., increased enrollments, increased satisfaction score), show some quick wins, demonstrate value, then create a road map to scale across the organization.
Reorganize for CX. Determine the organizational structure needed to operationalize change, for instance by creating a CX leadership council with clear accountabilities made up of marketing, sales, service, and other functions that interact with the customer.
“The doctor can bury his mistakes. An architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
As digital design people, we like to think we’re all fancy. We’re much more advanced than print designers. Our work looks great on desktop and mobile. We wear scarves, un-ironically, indoors.
But it’s good to recall, scarves aside, that we’re the new kids on the design block. Architecture, for example, has been around for quite some time. I thought I wanted to be an architect when i grew up, and took some classes in school. Instead I became an information architect, which, as it turns out, sounds decidedly less impressive when introducing oneself. But where was I.
Because architects have been designing human-spatial interactions for like, ever, there are a number of helpful principles they take for granted that can be useful for UX (User Experience) people in those moments when you’re grasping for a design compass. Here are just a few from architect and author Matthew Frederick.
1. “The more specific a design idea is, the greater its appeal is likely to be.”
Users will gravitate to products with a clear design focus. Image Credit: Mathew Fredrick
This will immediately resonate with anyone who’s ever had a design direction watered down in the interest (however well-intended) of “making the product appeal to more users.” This is honestly one of the most difficult balances to achieve in client work: wanting to be receptive to input, but also making sure the work accomplishes what it’s supposed to do in the first place. Matthew Frederick, AIA:
“Being nonspecific in an effort to appeal to everyone usually results in reaching no one. But drawing upon a specific observation, poignant statement, ironic point, witty reflection, intellectual connection, political argument, or idiosyncratic belief in a creative work can help you create environments others will identify with in their own way.”
It’s an interesting concept because it’s counter-intuitive. Why not add a specific link for all of our audiences? Why not include all of our business units on the homepage — won’t they feel left out? Well, you may be doing more harm than good. I really like the concept of design inviting the user to interact in his or her own way. It gets at the heart of what UX is about: not creating experiences per se, but creating an environment for experiences to take place. The user will always meet your work on his or her own terms.
2. “Any design decision should be justified in at least two ways.”
Entry way serving as congregation space. Image Credit: Matthew Frederick
I love this because it discourages lazy design thinking. Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s not all that hard to build a website these days. Anyone with a bottle of wine and a Wix account can do it. But UX people make their money in taking highly complex information and making it appear dead-simple. That means you really have to get the most out of every design element. In architecture terms, this means thinking about both the form and the function of space:
“A stair’s primary purpose is to permit passage from floor to floor, but if well designed it can also serve as a congregation space, a sculptural element, and an orienting device in the building interior. A window can frame a view, bathe a wall with light, orient a building user to the exterior landscape, express the thickness of the wall, describe the structural system of the building, and acknowledge an axial relationship with another architectural element.”
In digital terms, if you’re struggling with the layout of a particular page, you might consider how you want the user to feel in addition to what you’d like him or her to do. If you’re not using techniques like CSS Shapes yet, this can be a great way to get your content to work harder by putting in something other than boxes. CSS3 animation in general offers a huge range of possibilities to have page elements work double-time: check out the subtle movements on French creative site waaark, for example, or the appropriately-unsettling site for feminist communal living experiment one shared house, where eyes literally follow you around the room.
Likewise, you can use this rule to weed out the interactions that are purely self-serving. For example, what about that auto-advancing hero carousel to ensure all 26 of our business priorities are displayed on the homepage? Do we really need that? (Spoiler: No).
3. “A parti is the central idea or concept of a building.”
Various concepts that capturing the feeling of a design project. Image Credit: Matthew Frederic
“A parti [par-TEE] can be expressed several ways but is most often expressed by a diagram depicting the general floor plan organization of a building and, by implication, it’s experiential and aesthetic sensibility. A parti diagram can describe massing, entrance, spatial hierarchy, site relationship, core location, interior circulation, public/ private zoning, solidity/transparency, and many other concerns. The proportion of attention given to each factor varies from project to project.”
For UX people, the idea of a unifying design concept is nothing new. Those I’ve worked with know I’m a big fan of the diagramed core content strategy statement, for example. I don’t burn a ton of time on it, but it is a great way to get the team aligned on the brand mission. Likewise, we’ve been using a lot of UX mood boards lately, or even simpler approaches like the 4×4 Mini-Design Brief.
But a parti can help you hone in on your desired experience even more. Architect-cum-experience-designer Steven Hien sums it up well with this example in his excellent piece How to Use Architectural Parti in Digital Design:
Parti in Architecture: “Experience a building like a diamond.”
Parti in Digital Design: “Experience a website like the California coast.”
What does a “website like the California coast” feel like? What does it sound like, or smell like? Now that’s a design challenge!
Of course apps and websites, unlike buildings, change rapidly overtime. The parti can provide the uniting force behind those changes (until you decide to bulldoze the whole creaky thing and start over, that is). Take Uber’s app redesign, for example, which evolved around the parti of “Where to?” leading to specific UI updates like re-working the product selection slider.
As a side note, we should point out that one shouldn’t take any of these concepts too far. I probably wouldn’t go up to my developer, for example, and complain that the latest code release “doesn’t align to the design parti.” (Unless you want to get punched directly in your parti).
4. “Any aesthetic quality is usually enhanced by the presence of a counterpoint.”
Points and counterpoint. Image credit: Matthew Frederick
Building on the previous idea, just because you have a unifying concept does not mean all of your design elements need to be uniform. By contrast, adding a stylistic counterpoint to your design will emphasize, rather than detract from, the central idea.
“If you want a room to feel tall and bright, try designing an approach through a low, dark space. If you want an atrium to feel like a geometrically pure, highly organized center of a building, surround it with spaces that are more organically or randomly organized.”
In digital design, this can be something as simple as alternating light and dark layers as a user scrolls down a page, or something even more jarring like this example from Vanguard Prague. I’m not sure I love it personally, but the “static buzz” does create an interesting counterpoint to the otherwise minimalist design to emphasize the unconventional feeling of the living space.
What’s more, counterpoints in digital spaces needn’t be visual. With the advance of artificial intelligence (AI), interfaces like chat-bots can now respond to humans in real time, and are beginning to take on their own personalities. How might the inherently probing nature of a bot prove a useful counterpoint to the aesthetic quality of your site? It’s an interesting question, whether you’re creating AI to help with taxes, take out a new insurance policy, or simply text back your mum.
5. “A good building reveals different things about itself when viewed from different distances.”
Appreciating design from afar and up close. Image Credit: Matthew Frederic
Finally, this is a good one to recall in terms of designing for the first-time user as well as the returning user. In any new project, it’s easy to design with only new visitors in mind — where will they look first? Will they be overwhelmed with choices and flee? Will they hate us and trash us on Twitter? These are reasonable questions, but in reality, anyone can only be a new visitor once. Just as a well-designed building reveals new information to the inhabitant, your interface should provide sufficient detail and refinement to support the user who is up-close and personal, day after day. I’ve talked before about content density, longitudinal studies and other techniques for keeping this person in mind.
But this principle is also interesting in light of recent backlash against superficial, template-driven sites that skimp on actual content and value. UX designer Kate Meyer draws some clever architectural parallels in her article linking this backlash to recent trends toward brutalism and anti-design:
Brutalism intentionally attempts to look raw, haphazard, or unadorned. A reaction to cookie-cutter, pre-made template sites that dominate the web today.
Anti-design is brutalism without the rigor. Intentionally creating ugly, disorienting, or complex interfaces, often with a complete lack of visual hierarchy.
Of course, anti-design can get you noticed and talked about, but it makes longevity difficult to achieve. Clinging to an intentionally unintuitive interface, for example, is now blamed, among other factors, for where Snapchat went wrong.
It’s important to remember that the principles of these reactionary movements are founded in legitimate concerns about the sameness of today’s digital world. Reacting on that ground alone, however, can lead to a lot of equally terrible designs (and even some great counter-reactions like the site Brutalist UX Deliverables, which includes such awesome user stories like: “As a User I want to Visit the website so that I can See it.”) So it’s simply a question of how far you take it.
Or, to put it in terms of the age-old architectural question: Less is more? Or less is a bore?
Colin A. Eagan, M.S., is Principal for User Experience at ICF in Washington D.C., where he directs content strategy and information design projects for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and government clients. He is a frequent contributor to UX conferences and publications, including Confab, Convey UX, IA Summit, and The UX Booth. He credits any career success thus far to not going to law school. You can follow him @colineags
If you’re a photographer, or someone who simply loves taking photographs you probably get a real thrill from taking photographs.
For those of us that take images, there’s real excitement from seeing stunning light and interesting people and places that we want to capture with our cameras. Making time to take photographs can be challenging in the busy, modern world. So how can we find ways to be more creative every day?
1. Don’t be afraid to daydream
This might seem like an odd thing to suggest, but multiple studies confirm that daydreaming and napping can actually help with the creative process. Giving yourself time to think up plans is such an important part of creativity, and allows the brain time to switch off and think about things that actually interest us. (And an afternoon nap isn’t the end of the world either if it helps you recharge your batteries!)
2. Think before you shoot
The trouble with digital photography is that it’s easy to just ‘snap’ away every five minutes. In some ways, this takes away from the magic of photography. Photographs can become meaningless when there’s less care and attention taken with what we’re actually choosing to photograph.
A great way to be more creative in your day-to-day life with your camera is to imagine that you’re shooting on film. Limit the number of exposures you shoot and you’ll start to pay more attention to what you’re shooting.
3. Switch off from technology
There’s so much digital noise in the world today. Email, the internet, social media – all these things take up our time and distract us from the world around us. We can often be so busy with the online world that we don’t leave space in our heads to appreciate the world around us.
And how can we be creative if we don’t ‘see’ the beauty in the every day? Take time to switch off from technology and you’ll allow yourself more headspace to be creative.
4. Don’t be too much of a perfectionist
Nothing stifles creativity more than the pursuit of being a perfectionist. Even the most experienced photographers can have a tendency to think their work isn’t good enough. We can think that we don’t have anything new or interesting to say with a photo, or that our shots would be far better if we had new gear.
But actually, focusing on negatives can stop us from being creative. Instead of putting obstacles in your way, just get out and start creating!
5. Embrace your natural rhythms
Another issue with creativity is that we can try and force ourselves to be creative at times when we’re naturally not. For example, I am not a morning person. I’m naturally at my most creative in the afternoon and evening. So it’s at those times that I will write articles or go out and take photographs.I’m naturally at my most creative in the afternoon and evening. So it’s at those times that I will write articles or go out and take photographs. If you stick to the times that work naturally for you, you’ll find it far easier to embrace creativity.
6. Seek outside inspiration
There’s a world of inspiration out there to help you spark your own creativity. Read up on other photographers, or explore the theory of photography. View photographs and think about what you like and don’t like. Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from others and use it to fire up your own creativity.
In conclusion
These are just some ideas to help you start being more creative each day. Once you start applying them, you may well come up with more of your own! But the key thing is to find your inspiration and embrace creativity.
Jo Plumridge is a UK based photographer, writer and lecturer. She specializes in portrait, corporate and travel photography, and writes photography, travel and comedy pieces for magazines, websites and books. You can see some of her work at her website, follow her on Twitter or Google+.
With increasing coverage and interest in startups, fundraising and venture capital, many terms have become more ambiguous than ever. That can leave entrepreneurs pretty foggy on how they should really be approaching raising money.
So, who is funding what? Why does it matter so much if you are launching or trying to scale a venture?
Startup Fundraising
Whether you are still juggling a startup idea or already have data and revenues and are ready to scale, it’s vital to understand who the investors are that will take you to the next level, and what your following milestone or exit is likely to be.
Fundraising and navigating potential exits can be incredibly time consuming and stressful. It can be confusing. The lines have certainly blurred. Far more so in the last couple of years. Different capital sources are playing a larger role in the startup ecosystem. Various players are stretching how and at what stage they will participate.
So, what are the differences between VCs and PE firms? Who else is providing capital to this space? Who are the leaders that startup founders should be focusing on?
Private Equity
This space has become a little cloudier, with private equity firms diving into all types of new channels like single family rental homes and mortgage lending through conduits. Yet, in their most traditional forms, private equity firms are consider those who buy or get involve with more mature companies.
This means they are looking for established companies that already have established revenues. In some cases these are companies that may have even peaked and need new management to be optimized. Think classical music, farms and assembly lines in contrast with the typical jazz, disruption, or street art style of fast growth startups. They prefer predictability and lower risk. Even if that means lower returns.
This space is also differentiated by leveraged buyouts, in which PE firms utilize debt to complement their equity to acquire more corporate ‘real estate’. These firms are best known for taking majority stakes, if not full buyouts.
Private equity is more likely to be your end game, or at least a large part of your exit as a startup founder, rather than an early investor. Though these firms may flow down debt that can be used for some ventures.
Venture Capital Firms
In contrast, venture capital firms are equity investors at an earlier stage in the lifecycle of a startup. Just not as early as most think.
For the most part VCs are funding startups at their latest stages in their businesses. This is changing some. More are participating in earlier funding rounds as they gain experience and competition grows for returns and opportunities. You may find them involved at Series A through D fundraising rounds. Or perhaps even at the seed stage.
VC firms will typically take much smaller portions of companies than their private equity counterparts. They are still investing at a much riskier stage and mostly try to spread their bets as wide as possible.
This demonstrates more crossover between traditional private equity and the VC world. Though before you go waltzing into one of these firms in your pajamas, know that they still expect a good amount of solid data and due diligence to make a decision on. They aren’t going to be your first investors on day one.
VCs are also typically looking for a shorter term exit. They have deadlines on their funds, and need to get results quickly. They are often going to push you hard to deliver on their promises to their own investors.
PE is more about numbers while VCs are more about people. However, with both PE and VCs everything starts with a solid pitch deck where the story of the company is told in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400 million (see it here).
Angel Investors
Angel investors are a much more likely funding partner for most startup founders. Angels are getting better funded, are grouping together, and are making more investments.
Angels are willing to participate in the earliest rounds of fundraising. They are typically basing their investment as you the entrepreneur and the idea, versus any data or profits. Expect to be raising from angels for a round or two before you even approach any VCs. PEs are probably four or five rounds of financing away at this point.
Notable angels include:
Mark Cuban
Richard Branson
Barbara Corcoran
Ron Conway
Fabrice Grinda
Ashton Kutcher
Michael Jordan
Will Herman
Typically the best angels are those that were entrepreneurs before and fortunate enough to have an exit. I have the pleasure of interviewing some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the DealMakers Podcast where they share some of the patterns they are looking for when investing in other entrepreneurs.
Other Startup Investors
Startup accelerators and incubators are another rising form of early funding. They may invest anywhere from $10,000 to over $100,000 and offer an array of intensive programs, resources and training opportunities. These include names like The Founder Institute, Angel Pad, Y Combinator and 500 Startups. They can get you going if it is a good fit and you can get in. Then help you show off your startup to other investors.
Family offices are increasingly investing in startups as well. They don’t want to miss out on the game that VCs and big private equity firms are enjoying. Though they often like the advantage of investing directly, rather than losing returns to middlemen.
Family offices can be quite different when it comes to what they want and their future expectations though. They may be more likely to offer patient capital or to seek cashflow than other types of investors.
Corporate investors are playing a bigger role in the startup ecosystem today too. They are setting up their own accelerators and are making more strategic investments in startups that can propel their growth and extend their reach.
Summary
Despite the confusion and ambiguity out there, there can be distinct differences between private equity and venture capital when it comes to raising money and exiting a startup. There are many more options for fundraising and exiting than there used to be too.
I am a serial entrepreneur and the author of the The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword by ‘Shark Tank‘ star Barbara Corcoran, and published by John Wiley & Sons, the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. The book offers a step-by-step guide to today‘s way of raising money for entrepreneurs. Most recently, I built and exited CoFoundersLab which is one of the largest communities of founders online. Prior to CoFoundersLab, I worked as a lawyer at King & Spalding where I was involved in one of the biggest investment arbitration cases in history ($113 billion at stake). I am an active speaker and have given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia Business School, and at NYU Stern School of Business. I have been involved with the JOBS Act since inception and was invited to the White House and the US House of Representatives to provide my stands on the new regulatory changes concerning fundraising online.
If you want move beyond just dreaming, you need this one thing (and no, it’s not money).
Maybe it’s opening a bakery, writing a book, selling crafts on Etsy, or building a billion dollar software startup. But whatever forms it takes, survey after survey (not to mention anecdotal evidence) suggests that a majority of us dream of becoming entrepreneurs.
So what sets those who actually take the plunge from those who only dream? What pushes a keen hobbyist or excellent amateur into actually becoming a business owner? A recent study of more than 400,000 people out of MIT came to decisive answer, and it’s not the one you’re probably expecting.
Finances? Personality? Nope, the secret is friends.
The study was born when MIT PhD candidate Hyejun Kim stumbled on an unexpected data source: Ravelry.com, a popular hobby site that bills itself as “Facebook for knitting.”
From the perspective of the knitters who use the site, Ravelry offers an opportunity to share patterns and advice with fellow enthusiasts. For Kim, it was a goldmine of data on the path people take from hobbyist to entrepreneur. By crunching through data on more than 400,000 knitters and reviewing 99 interviews with users, Kim aimed to find out why some remained weekend warriors while others went on to start knitting-related businesses.
You might think the most important factor might be personality, or perhaps finances were the big secret and either desperate straights or a cushioning bank balance helped people make the transition. Both hypotheses make sense, but both turned out to be wrong.
What was the biggest factor in who went from hobbyist to professional? In short, supportive friends. When asked what helped them make the leap in interviews, knitters most commonly mentioned having loved ones who supported and encouraged their entrepreneurial ambitions. The data confirmed these comments.
“Kim’s analysis of data on 403,168 individual knitters from 2007 to 2014 backs this up. People who joined a so-called ‘stitch n’ bitch’ group to craft socially were 25 percent more likely than otherwise identical knitters to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. This is true even when correcting for geography, experience, skill level and productivity,” reports the Washington Post.
Why were real world social connections so important? Further analysis showed that it wasn’t that they helped knitters build technical skills. Those who moved on to become entrepreneurs often had ninja-level skills to start with. Instead, these personal ties seem to provide a big confidence boost, which helps turn dreams into reality.
Your social network is your secret weapon.
Of course this study only looks at knitters, but as the WaPo article notes other experts in entrepreneurship are heaping praise on Kim’s work, suggesting it’s not just of interest to crafty types. In fact, other research in the field of network science shows that a large and supportive social network is one of the greatest predictors of career success of any kind.
For friends and family of those dreaming of starting a business, the message is clear: don’t underestimate your impact as chief cheerleader. You can make all the difference in whether the people you love pursue their big, scary dreams.
Meanwhile, those secretly longing to ditch their job in favor of setting up on their own, shouldn’t just worry about a solid business plan and bank balance. Practicalities matter, but social support is equally essential. Lifting yourself up into a new life will require the help of a lot of strong arms, Make sure you surround yourself with people willing to boost and support you.
Want to know how to get high paying design clients?
This video explains how I went from $300 design projects to 5 figure projects.
I concisely discuss 5 tried and true strategies to get high paying design clients including:
Your Portfolio & USP
Building Relationships
Marketing Strategies
Pricing Creativity (Proposals & Closing Deals)
Upsells
Inside, I recommended putting this book on your radar: Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns. It’s expensive ($200+) and only available on his website. Alternatively, you could read a short summary or a listen to a podcast to learn more about “value based pricing”.
Let me know if you have any other tips for how to get bigger design clients.
Sometimes as a blogger, we aren’t always right in front of our computers to get things done. We’re often managing projects for our blog while traveling, running errands, or even waiting in line at the grocery store.
This is why, having a solid set of apps on your phone to make that easier, is a must!
Here are 12 of the Best Blogging Apps for Bloggers.
WordPress/Blogger/SquareSpace
Wherever your blog lives, you should have the app on your phone. If something comes up, you can easily fix it even if you’re not able to log in from a computer.
PayPal
Many affiliate programs and virtual assistants use PayPal as a method to send money back and forth. Keeping this handy in an app form can help you get and make payments quicker.
Adobe Photoshop Express
This app is perfect no matter what blogging platform you are on and can do basic Photoshop functions such as crop, edit, or even correct an image.
Pinterest
Pinterest isn’t just used for doing your social media on the go. You can look for trends and even pin from group boards using the app.
Dictionary.com
Whether I’m sitting in front of a computer or writing while on the go, having this app is great for double checking words and even has a thesaurus feature.
Google Analytics
Being able to check your site’s traffic while being on the go is a must! Especially if you are traveling and will be away from your computer for a while.
Google Keep
If you are looking for a great note taking app that can also organize your thoughts, this is the app that can do it all! You can share it across multiple platforms such as your phone, tablet, and computer to make sharing information easier.
Buffer
All too often I’ve gotten the email letting me know my account has been disconnected while I’m not able to login to a computer! You can check on your social media channels while you’re on the go, and reconnect accounts if you need to.
Instagram
This app is a must! Especially if you have a visual website. Having the app handy allows me to respond to comments quickly while I’m on the go, and upload photos as they’re happening.
Google Docs
If I have a lot of time to spare, sometimes it can be nice to crank out a blog post while I’m waiting for a car repair or if I’m feeling a burst of information while I’m out of the house.
Evernote
This app is great for organizing all your documents, information, and just taking notes as well. Evernote is also great for crafting a quick to do list.
Pocket
Have you ever found an article but wished you could save it for later? That is exactly what this app does! Don’t miss anything that comes across your newsfeed while you’re too busy!
You don’t need a lot of apps in order to get things done, but these 12 certainly can help you get work done when you’re not on your desktop.
EL – short for Louise, is a stay at home mom of a little boy with a big personality. After having her son, she realized how important it is for moms to take care of themselves physically and mentally. Her passions include fitness, healthy living, minimalism, and being the best mom possible.
When Orbit Media Studios decided to research how business bloggers go about doing their thing in 2014, it wasn’t intended to be a one-and-done project. The mission was — and still is — to track how business blogging evolves.
Save time creating blog posts with these free templates.
Why? Because successful inbound marketers thrive when they master content marketing and, of course, blogging is an all-important cornerstone for most strategies.
After establishing some essential benchmarks regarding how bloggers create, format, and measure their posts in years one and two of the study, Orbit Media began probing the 1000+ bloggers that participated in the survey to learn which tactics contributed most to achieving their desired results.
For the past three years, Orbit’s been focused on correlating blogging tactics with results. As trends emerge, the story continues to get more intriguing with each passing year.
In late 2018, the father of the study, research master Andy Crestodina, put considerable effort into reporting how those that saw their efforts reap strong results differed from the pack.
The results of the survey, along with Andy’s comprehensive analysis and 25 graphs to depict the data, are presented in full here. However, this year — year five of research — me, Andy, and the data-crunchers at Orbit also set out to create a side-by-side-comparison of how the average bloggers’ tactics differ from the top 20%.
Spoiler alert — the conclusion is the more you put into business blogging, the more you get out of it.
Take a look at how above average bloggers get above average results.
