Every marketer needs the right tools in order to succeed in running marketing campaigns.
Here’s a list of every marketing tool you need updated for 2018.
100+ Must-Have Marketing Tools
This mega list of marketing tools is categorized.
Check out tools for automation, email, ads, SEO, SMM, research, analysis and a ton more.
Most of these tools are either free or affordable.
Each tool alone has the power to energize your marketing successes. Together, these tools could add up to your winning formula for making marketing unicorns.
Recently, I was speaking with an executive whose team was involved in a major purchase decision. I asked him to describe his buying process/journey. He looked at me with an amused/quizzical look. “We don’t think in terms of a buying journey. We just have something we need to get done, part of it involves buying…..”
All of a sudden, it struck me: The buying process or buying journey is just an artifact invented by marketers and sellers to rationalize what we want to inflict on the customers.
Of course I’m being a little harsh here, customers do talk in terms of buying processes and journeys, but only because we’ve trained them in that–so they’ve adopted our language. But customers don’t really think in terms of a buying journey. Customers just want to get stuff done! They think in terms of projects, things they need to get done to achieve their business goals. Buying is sometimes a component of those projects.
Even if buying is the project, “We need to buy a …..,” they still think of it as a project, not a buying journey. (By the way, if this is how they describe the project to you, you are already very late in what they are trying to achieve.)
Several years ago, I was asked to speak to a group of procurement experts. As I listened to their discussions, the concept of buyer’s journey never came up. Here was a group of some of the most advanced thinkers in buying–people whose job was to buy, and they didn’t describe what they did in terms of their buying journeys!
Why is this important?
We are (or should be) trying to see things through our customers eyes, thinking the way they think, approaching things in a context that is meaningful to what they want to do.
In the “old days,” we were less sensitive, we focused on ourselves and what we wanted to do to our customers—we wanted to sell to them.
Then some guru came up with the idea, “Customers don’t want to be sold to, they want to buy…..”
Immediately, we adopted the “buyers’ perspectives,” we translated our language from selling to buying, using terms like the buying process and the buying journey to make us appear to be more customer sensitive. But, too often, they are thinly disguised terms of what we want to do to the customers. We want them to buy, we focus on the things that make them buy.
What if we changed our perspectives?
Our customers have projects–these projects are things they want to do, goals they want to achieve, changes they want to make, improvements to what they do. What if we started talking to our customers about their projects and plans? What is we started looking at how we could help them with those projects, help them to better execute their project plans?
Why do we need to inflict our language, regardless how politically correct, on our customers? Wouldn’t we be more effective if we worked with them on what they need to get done? Wouldn’t we be more impactful if we looked at things they way they look at things?
Ask yourself a question, when was the last time a customer described what they wanted to do as a “buying journey?”
Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company focused on helping organizations engage their customers more effectively. Partners In EXCELLENCE helps it clients drive the highest levels of performance and productivity in sales, marketing, and customer service. They help organizations develop and execute business… View full profile ›
Succeeding with online sales isn’t easy so we looked at 3 examples of entrepreneurs who made it work!
It could be as simple as the right product at the right time, but success isn’t always only luck alone.
Succeeding with an online store takes the right initiative and know-how. Whether you’ve got a store online already or you’re just starting out, these businesses learned the hard lessons already, so you won’t have to.
Don’t let the name fool you, this isn’t ours! Envision Worship is a Shopify success story.
This is a small business selling powerpoint templates specifically to the churchgoing market and they’ve gone international since starting.
This is a great example of a business who honed in on their target market and took advantage of the gap in the marketplace. Starting with nothing but knowing there as an existing need was a great place to start, but it didn’t ensure success.
The owner’s advice to anyone starting an online business? Start looking at Search Engine Optimization first. Hire a professional SEO agency to really hammer this and then factor in social media marketing.
Their first sale was through Adwords but they grew their business through social media marketing.
For this kind of business where your competition is slim to none, social media marketing is the key. Earning rank for low competition keyphrases will not be hard but you may find your audience isn’t searching for what you do if it’s something nobody else provides.
If you’re in a similar position, then learn from Envision and first know your audience clearly. Then find where they congregate online and join the platform with your brand-new store, ready to sell them something they’ll want but don’t even know exists yet!
Universal Yums was not an overnight success but seemed to benefit from how common eCommerce became in recent years.
Launched in 2014 this site provides boxes of candy from various countries all over the world. They started with little-to-no-success until they found their golden goose: reddit.
After one of the two owners posting to a reddit thread about his business, he got 200 orders. From 1 reddit post!
They chugged along at a steady pace having established themselves to a point. While working full time jobs they kept at their fun side project.
Then over a year later, the other owner took to reddit for an AMA (as me anything). The volume of traffic that resulted is referred to online as the reddit hug of death. Within 30 minutes they had so many visits their website crashed!
Subscription based products are everywhere but this one worked because they kept at it until they found where their ideal users were. Once they discovered reddit was home to communities that love snacks and travel and purchase most of their products online, they knew they had struck gold. And now Universal Yums is a major operation making 7 figures with a full roster of employees.
Their advice? Apps, apps, apps. Make your processes easier with apps and you’ll save an enormous amount of time. Then find your audience and start playing catch-up with all your orders. And of course, use reddit.
Andie Swim is a bathing suit service/product. It’s a unique business model that allows them to offer high-end quality swimwear at a much lower cost than any competitor. And it lets women try the suits on at home before committing to buy.
The owner only launched in the fall of 2016 and they’re booming.
The entire company was developed for the same reason many are: Melanie Travis, founder and CEO of Andie Swim, went looking for something and couldn’t find it. What she couldn’t find was a little different though. While there is no shortage of places for women to buy a swimsuit, the process is not ideal.
After asking her friends and family they agreed that going to a store, trying a bathing suit on in a change room, and buying it based on how you look in a cramped space with bad lighting is not fun.
Add to that the uncomfortable anxiety of the change room curtain or door flying open, and suddenly something that should be fun is a nightmare.
Her store met a need with both product and service. With Andie Swim you get to try your products on at home and can send them back without charge. Your credit card info is vaulted so you’re only charged if you decide to keep one.
The process has been refined to combat fraud and theft and they now have a major presence in the women’s swimwear industry.
They succeeded because the owner learned a valuable lesson: only hire qualified website development professionals.
She started with a freelancer and quickly regretted the decision when she found out all the apps she needed to streamline her business model weren’t compatible with what was built.
By moving her entire online store to a prefab model and hiring professionals, she was able to integrate the right apps for her marketing and her accounting.
That time management was the key to her success as it allowed her to focus on what mattered. By refining her user experience, she finally got into a groove and has been sailing ever since.
If you’re launching a new store or your existing store hasn’t caught on, try learning from these success stories. Find your audience, automate what you can with apps, and learn to market yourself to the niche you identified before you committed your time and money to your business.
Remember what Andie learned: only hire skilled professionals and you’ll save yourself a lot of grief.
If you run into any issues at all, please get in touch. Whether the task is building the website or bringing users to it we have the experienced staff to make sure your store succeeds!
A few weeks ago, I saw a tweet with an unusual text in it. It displayed a company that automated tweets for a popular blogger who has been one of my mentors.
I tweeted back to that tweet but never received an answer back. That really got me thinking.
Do we get so busy that we become disengaged with our audience? Are using social media tools making us less engaged and not a good practice?
I quickly went back to scheduling posts on Facebook itself and the engagement level went back up! Now part of that is because Facebook wants us to spend time on their network. You can’t blame them for that!
Of course I loved the Buffer because it saved me time over the years. But is time everything when it comes to social media marketing?
Testing Agorapulse Social Media Tool
Next, I began testing out Agorapulse. I love this social media tool today! Not only does it give me great analytics to share with clients, but I can schedule tweets and it doesn’t show their name in them like the Buffer displays on Twitter. Agorapulse is also great for scheduling Instagram posts which can result in making less errors and saving you time. (You know typing on your mobile on the go sometimes can be tricky!)
Here is Mike’s Response to Me About Agorapulse and Social Media Engagement:
“We’ve done extensive testing of “Reach” because that’s something that’s easily tested, measured and compared. If you post very similar posts, the same way, at the same time of day, day after day… that’s comparable and you can draw conclusions from the data.
Agorpulse tested posting natively to all of the networks vs. using 3rd party tools and not only does the data show that there is no penalty, it’s suggestive that using a tool actually helps – though we think that’s an anomaly.
There really shouldn’t be any difference. A post is a post as far as the networks are concerned.”
Engagement is Something Else Entirely According To Mike!
“We sometimes schedule content for the reach tests that purposely avoids encouraging engagement so as not to skew the results. But crafting a series of posts that are supposed to get the “same” amount of engagement every time, and then schedule some using a tool to see if there’s a difference, seems impossible to reliably manage.
Which means the only conclusions others might reach are purely anecdotal or uncontrolled. “We started posting using Sprout Social and our engagement went down.” Really? What else might have changed? Did you post more or less? What were you talking about? What else was going on? Were you posting the same kinds of posts about the same topics? Did you stop doing something else? – So many clarifying questions which would have to be asked.”
Recently, I have started sharing some social media tips on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I am a big believer that you need to engage with your audience. Why just throw things up on the wall and leave? I see many social media management companies doing just that. They take blog posts that are canned and post them time after time. That’s it!
Now, I believe it is called SOCIAL media for a reason, to be social! Talk, engage, share, comment, etc. Do something, don’t just be passively throwing stuff up on the wall or feed on the social networks.
“The top professionals own the best gear. It’s the same with anything — sports, music or business. When it comes to Social Media; you can’t keep up with the trends if you don’t have the support of automation on your side…
It just isn’t practical to sit there all day posting manually!
However, that doesn’t mean 100% automation is a solid strategy.
(Far from it).
Always blend automation with the human touch — it’s a winning combo — and people will otherwise notice any imbalance.
I always say:
“If you’re on Social Media but not engaging, then you’re just media!”
Wisely choose your tools for the most time-heavy tasks, and perfect their application (while consistently researching new vendors).
It doesn’t matter how many you use — as long as it’s all sensibly balanced with your budget, business type, and level of interaction.”
“I think too many automation tools is not only a bad idea, but for many reasons. One, if you’re trying to game the social media sites you will get caught eventually. Two, if something bad happens in the world you might have an inappropriate and untimely post that you missed because you didn’t remember where you put it.
I only use two. First, I use Tweeten for Twitter (of course) because I hate using browsers for things like this. Then, I can pre-post articles and such on there and it works great. I also use Buffer, but I only use it for LinkedIn, since you can’t pre-post there. If you have a business page on Facebook you can pre-post there, so there’s no need to use any other automation services. I know some people use it for Instagram, but it’s problematic sometimes.
Finally, if the only thing you’re doing on a social media site is posting stuff and not engaging anyone, you’re missing out on the opportunity to actually meet potential customers. You don’t have to do it a lot, but having people see that you sometimes talk to others humanizes you and people will get comfortable with you.”
“Automating every aspect of your social media marketing can make you look like a spam bot, helping you lose contact with your audience.
On the other side, liking, following, commenting and engaging on every mention of your brand or social media post can be overwhelming and absorbing all of your time.
I think the right strategy should be somewhere in between.
Depending on your goals, try using some automation tools to increase your reach, while keeping authenticity by engaging with your community, every time is necessary.”
Use Social Media Tools to Engage Your Audience, Not Put Them to Sleep!
I believe finding the right blend as others suggested here on the blog is key to balancing your social media. I always tell clients you have to spend time or money. It’s either one. You must invest your time or money with social media marketing today.
Finally, be sure the social media tools you use today don’t put your audience to sleep. Be sure you have a way to respond to others when questions are asked in a timely manner. I go on each of the networks for at least 5 minutes to start the day. Not only on my own channels but those that I manage.
Then, I check notifications mid day and again before hitting my pillow. This can be done with Agorpulse too and they even have an app for it!
What do you have to say about the use of social media tools and engagement? Do you use tools only post to social media? I’d love to know more in the comments below!
Lisa loves helping others to thrive online through Content Marketing with Social Media, Blogging and SEO. What good is knowledge if you cannot share it with others? She has 30+ years experience in marketing/advertising with 8 years experience in content marketing, social media, blogging and SEO. Check out her latest eBook “How to Tweet and Thrive on Twitter” now on Amazon.
Looking for Best VPN (virtual private network) service for protecting Internet Privacy? Here this post we discuss How to choose a Best VPN service provider to protect your online privacy (Where we look things Encryption and Protocols, Logs Policy, Speed, Global Coverage, Cross-Platform Support, Customer Support and the most important is Cost.) Before go ahead for them Who don’t aware about VPN service, it’s typically a paid service that keeps your web browsing secure and private over public Wi-Fi hotspots. In other words:
A virtual private network (VPN) is a technology that creates a safe and encrypted connection over a less secure network, such as the internet. VPN technology was developed as a way to allow remote users and branch offices to securely access corporate applications and other resources. Along with VPNs can also get past regional restrictions for video (Netflix) and music-streaming sites and help you evade government censorship restrictions.
The VPN server is operated by a VPN provider, and the connection between your computer ( smartphone, tablet, or similar) and the VPN server is encrypted.
You still need an ISP to provide your internet connection, and that ISP can still see how much data you consume.
But Your ISP cannot see what data you consume, however. This is because it is securely encrypted.
As the VPN server acts as a proxy, No one (include your ISP) cannot see which websites you visit on the internet. Your ISP can only see that you have connected to an IP address belonging to a VPN provider. It cannot see which websites you visit after that.
How VPN works?
The best way to think of a VPN is as a secure tunnel between your PC and the destinations you visit on the internet. Your PC connects to a VPN server, which can be located in the United States or a foreign country like the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, or Thailand. Your web traffic then passes back and forth through that server. The end result, As far as most websites are concerned, you’re browsing from that server’s geographical location, not your actual computer’s location.
And Once you’re connected to the VPN and are “inside the tunnel,” it becomes very difficult for anyone else to spy on your web-browsing activity. The only people who will know what you’re up to are you, the VPN provider (usually an HTTPS connection can mitigate this), and the website you’re visiting. For better understand you can see image below How VPN secure your Data Between you and internet.
When you are connected through inside the tunnel, it’s very hard to stealing your login credentials or redirecting your PC to a phony banking site Along with your internet service provider (ISP) And it’s near impossible to figure out which websites you’re visiting. With this, you can also get the benefits of spoofing your location And access regionally restricted websites and online services such as BBC’s iPlayer or Sling TV. Include Netflix (fighting against VPN) the American version of Netflix when they’re really in Australia or anywhere.
Which VPN Should I Choose, Paid Vs Free?
Still, now I am sure you are clear about VPN (virtual private network) And how this Service works and Secure your Internet privacy. Now let’s discuss Which VPN service you should choose Free Or paid VPN service.
Free VPN
For them who thinking about Free VPN, There are tons of free options from reputable companies, but these are usually a poor substitute for the paid options. Free services usually allow a limited amount of bandwidth usage per month or offer a slower service.
And the most important drawback is the low level of security. Most free VPN services provide only PPTP VPNs, which is insecure. Paid VPN providers allow you to use PPTP, L2TP/IPSEC, OpenVPN, SSTP and even SSH to tunnel your connections securely.
Free VPN-services create to attract a huge number of users, without thinking about the security of their service. Often, if not always, the traffic of users of these services is transmitted in clear form, making it available to everyone.
Any free VPN service is just a cover for a paid and perfectly working project. Therefore, you will always be shown paid VPN advertising. Perhaps even the use of VPN will be limited by time or traffic, motivating you to purchase a paid version of VPN, on which these restrictions will not be. We believe that advertising when using VPN is annoying, so we do not cooperate with advertisers in any way.
Paid VPN
And when you go for a paid VPN they primarily take care of your privacy. Where you get high-level security and allow you to use PPTP, L2TP/IPsec, OpenVPN, SSTP and even SSH to tunnel your connections securely.
Paid VPN providers normally invest a decent percentage of their profit on bandwidth and servers, so you will get a very good internet speed with unlimited Bandwidth.
support is one of those things you pay for. When you choose a paid VPN service, you should expect someone to answer your tickets and do his job, while free services are usually provided “as is”.
Choose A Best VPN service for you
Things matter while Choose the Best VPN Service Encryption and Protocols, Logs Policy, Speed, Global Coverage, Cross-Platform Support, Customer Support and the most important is Cost. And after reading lots of comments on forums, a number of posts about “Best VPN service 2018” with user feedback review Finally I End up with ExpressVPN – A Fully featured, privacy-friendly VPN service. Here what impressed me
With best-in-class encryption and a strict policy to keep no activity logs and no connection logs, ExpressVPN comes to #1 Trusted leader in VPN with High speed, ultra secure, and easy to use.
ExpressVPN
Number of servers: 1800+ | Server locations: 148 | IP addresses: 30,000 | Maximum devices supported: 3
Based in the British Virgin Islands, ExpressVPN ensures a totally private browsing experience. They keep no logs of your activity and are outside the jurisdiction of major nations. With a full suite of security features including military-grade encryption, perfect forward secrecy, a kill switch, and leak protection, you can be sure that nobody can see what you do online.
ExpressVPN applies strong encryption method AES-256 the military encryption standard, which can protect your data 360º completely. Multiple protocols including OpenVPN TCP, OpenVPN UDP, SSTP, L2TP/TPsec and PPTP are provided for you to choose from.
ExpressVPN operates thousands of servers in 148 VPN server locations in 94 countries and offers apps for all devices and platforms, like Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, Linux, and routers, in addition to browser extensions like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Also, ExpressVPN runs its own Zero-knowledge DNS on every server. That means your personally identifiable data is never stored on any server.
Superior performance with excellent speeds and reliability throughout the VPN server network.
High-security applications with maximum encryption (passed all privacy/security tests).
Excellent offshore jurisdiction and company policies to protect customer data and user privacy (which were recently verified with the server seizure in Turkey).
Still works with Netflix and other streaming services.
Huge selection of apps that are well-designed and very user-friendly.
Top-notch customer service with 24/7 live chat support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Does ExpressVPN work with Netflix?
Yes. ExpressVPN is one of the few VPN providers that continues to work with Netflix, no matter where you’re located in the world. If you get any kind of proxy error with Netflix when you are connected to an ExpressVPN server, just contact ExpressVPN’s chat support and they’ll tell which server to use instead. Plus, ExpressVPN is the only VPN service that lets customers use SmartDNS to unblock Netflix on
Also, ExpressVPN a solid choice for torrenting that offer
High-performance (premium) server network with exceptionally fast speeds and great reliability.
Overseas jurisdiction that is not subject to DMCA requests or copyright violation demands.
High-quality applications that will keep your data and anonymity secure while also protecting you against leaks and vulnerabilities (WebRTC).
No bandwidth limitations or traffic restrictions whatsoever.
That means using ExpressVPN you can Unblock almost every popular online services
Unblocks popular online services
ExpressVPN No log policy confirmed
ExpressVPN does not possess any customer connection logs that would enable that to know which customer was using the specific IPs cited by the investigators. As the company explains we were unable to see which customers accessed Gmail or Facebook during the time in question, as we do not keep activity logs. ExpressVPN issued a statement on their website, here is a brief excerpt:
We do not collect logs of your activity, including no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, or DNS queries. We also never store connection logs, meaning no logs of your IP address, your outgoing VPN IP address, connection timestamp, or session duration.You can find more information on the ExpressVPN website (see Privacy Policy)
ExpressVPN encryption
ExpressVPN offers a very high level of encryption that is considered unbreakable by current standards. For encryption, ExpressVPN uses an AES 256-bit cipher with a 4096-bit RSA key and SHA-512 HMAC authentication. Additionally, ExpressVPN utilizes Perfect Forward Secrecy negotiated through Diffie-Hellman key exchange. If you want more information on ExpressVPN’s encryption implementation, you can find that on their website.
ExpressVPN split tunneling feature
Split tunneling allows you to select which apps will go through the VPN tunnel and which can bypass the VPN to the regular (unencrypted) internet. And ExpressVPN offers a split tunneling feature with their applications for Windows, Mac OS, and routers. By default, all traffic and applications are routed through the VPN. But you can manage this In the settings, select three different options:
All apps use the VPN
Do not allow selected apps to use the VPN
Only allow selected apps to use the VPN
If you click the second or third options, a pop-up window appears, allowing you to select the specific apps.
ExpressVPN network lock (kill switch)
ExpressVPN refers to their kill switch as the network lock that keep your data secure by blocking all traffic if the VPN connection drops. This ensures you are always protected. Once you are reconnected to the VPN server location, Network Lock restores your internet traffic automatically.
ExpressVPN Discount
ExpressVPN offers $12.95 per single month, while a yearly subscription cuts it down to $8.32 per month. However, through this discount link, you can now get ExpressVPN for $6.67 per month, which drops the VPN price significantly.
ExpressVPN Alternative
If you are looking for ExpressVPN Alternative, Then you can go for NordVPN.
Number of servers: 3500+ | Server locations: 60+ | IP addresses: N/A | Maximum devices supported: 6
NordVPN features
Privacy and Logging Policy, Where NordVPN states that they have a strict no logs policy. And the kill-switch feature available which is basically supposed to protect against revealing your real IP in case the VPN connection drops. It’s very useful in some cases and we understand the need for it. Along with this NordVPN offers some solid features to enhance user privacy and security. Let’s take a look at a few of these features.
NordVPN CyberSec
NordVPN CyberSec is a new security feature that includes a malicious sites filter and an advertisement and tracking blocker. It blocks DNS requests based on a real-time blocklist of harmful websites that may host malware. As such, it should shield you against malware, help prevent botnet control, and block many intrusive web ads.
NordVPN kill switch
NordVPN offering two different kinds of kill switches. A kill switch is important because it blocks traffic if the VPN connection drops, which protects you from de-anonymization and your regular traffic being exposed.
In the screenshot below you can see the two different kill switches:
Internet Kill Switch – This will block all traffic if the VPN connection drops (recommended).
App Kill Switch – This will close applications if the VPN connection drops, but will not block any traffic.
NordVPN kill switch
Double VPN (multi-hop)
Using a multi-hop VPN chain offers many advantages over a standard VPN setup (single server). If a server were to be targeted (monitored), a multi-hop VPN configuration would add further protection by helping to conceal incoming and/or outgoing traffic.
NordVPN currently offers 18 double-hop VPN configurations, which they list on their website. The drawback here is that these are not self-configurable. In other words, you can’t create your own custom multi-hop configuration.
Works Great for Torrenting and Netflix
Since NordVPN has a lot of servers they also work well with Torrenting and bypassing geo-restrictions on certain sites like Netflix. While use VPN together with Netflix it seemed to work: But not all servers are working with Netflix because we all know how Netflix fight against VPN services to crack down certain IPs that belong to VPNs.
Torrenting is safe and fast too, NordVPN has made special “P2P servers” that are solely meant for keeping your torrenting activities safe and private. You can access the P2P servers via “specialty” servers list on their application.
Nord does operate a large number of individual servers at over 4,000 Over 60 countries all over the world. So that you will not struggle to find a suitable location. Europe and the Americas are served very well, with the majority of countries covered, including a few options in South America. It’s great to see so many choices in the Asia Pacific region such as Indonesia and Taiwan, as well as several locations in Africa and the Middle East.
With Android TV app you can use it with devices such as Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick without any manual configuration. also use it with a range of other devices by connecting them to a configured router. This includes devices like AppleTV, Xbox360, Roku, Nintendo Wii, PS3, Sony SmartTV, Roku XDS, and many others.
NordVPN Offers proxy extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari. The add-ons for Chrome and Firefox are incredibly easy to download and add to your browser
Nord VPN offers a decent range of custom apps for various devices including Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. With NordVPN’s fully-featured service, double VPN, VPN over Tor, DNS-based malware protection, Smart DNS, and more, all part of the very reasonably-priced package.
Enjoy 2 years of online security for only $95.75!
NordVPN offers three different pricing options. A one-year plan costs $6.99 per month, while a 2-year plan is $3.99 per month. To get these monthly rates, you’ll have to pay for the entire term of service upfront ($95.75 for three years). It’s possible to buy into the service one month at a time, but you’ll pay a punishing $12 per month for the privilege. That’s $143.40 per year.
NordVPN Save 66% discount linkGrab a 2-year plan, just $3.99/month! (30-day money-back guarantee) Payment can be made through a number of options including credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin etc.
NordVPN offers one of the most generous refund windows in the VPN industry. With every subscription plan, they give you a 30 day money-back guarantee. If you aren’t completely satisfied with the VPN, simply cancel within 30 days to get a full refund (explained further on their website). Therefore if you purchase a subscription, use it for a few weeks, and then cancel within the 30 day window, you will have technically used a short-term VPN for free.
Currently, ExpressVPN and NordVPN both are the Top players on VPN market where both provide almost every feature and security which makes VPN service perfect. The only different the Quality of the service and features make the small extra cost for ExpressVPN. If you have already tried these services lets share your feedback on comments below.
Note: Both ExpressVPN and NordVPN offer (30 day money-back guarantee) If you are not satisfied with their service you can ask for a refund within 30 days.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, Where we earn a small commission for every sell which help us to pay to host, CDN, Developer charges to light up the site and serve free articles to you.
‘You’ll never have to talk to another telemarketer,’ the Google project manager said. (Which means for telemarketers: Bye-bye, business model!)
Google just announced it has come up with a new way to thwart telemarketers–heck, to completely destroy their business model. It’s brilliantly simple, and it seems like it will actually work.
Here’s how Google’s solution works–introduced at its hardware event in New York City on Tuesday. It’s called simply “Call Screen,” and it’s built into Android on the Pixel 3.
When you get a call from a number you don’t recognize on an Android device, click “Call Screen” on your device.
Google Assistant answers the call, with a greeting like, “Hi, the person you’re calling is using a screening service from Google, and will get a copy of this conversation. Go ahead and say your name, and why you are calling.”
The caller will either hang up–in which case it’s probably not important–or provide an answer, which will then be transcribed and displayed on your screen.
Then it’s up to you to decide whether to answer.
So if the message you receive reads something like, “Bill, this is your wife, I lost my phone, pick up,” you’d answer (I hope). But if it’s something like, “This is the IRS calling to say we will arrest you for not paying taxes,” you can just ignore it, since it’s absolutely a scam.
“Just tap the ‘Call Screen’ button and your phone will answer for you and ask who’s calling and why,” Google product manager Liza Ma said in announcing the new feature, followed by the eight most important words of her presentation: “You’ll never have to talk to another telemarketer.”
You can also mark spammy incoming calls as “Spam.” That way, if you ever get a call from that number again, it will come with a big red interface reminding you that you’ve previously pegged the number as suspicious.
That’s it. Call Screen won’t remove your phone number from telemarketers’ lists. But it could ultimately make the entire telemarketing industry unprofitable. If telemarketers can never reach anyone to pitch, they can never close a sale.
And, if it works as expected, expect the feature to go forth and multiply (meaning, coming soon to an iOS near you). And for telemarketers: Bye-bye, business model.
(Hat tip to Gizmodo for getting the cool shot of Google revealing this.)
This is pretty cool, and simple. It’s also very close to what your parents probably used to do back in the 1980s, when people had mechanical telephone answering machines, and they’d just let incoming calls go to the machine before they decided whether to pick up.
And it’s not far from the screening options that Google has been offering with Google Voice for nearly a decade–only you don’t get a transcription in real time.
For the Google Voice solution, just connect Voice to your cell phone, let a list of trusted numbers dial through to you directly, but prompt everyone else to state their name after the tone, and you’ll get the recording without answering.
You can even direct repeat offenders straight to voice mail without disturbing you–or else, my personal favorite, upload something like this recording that says your number is not in service, and get off their lists for good.
I’ve often wondered why most people don’t do this same thing–but the Google announcement today explains why. We are all ridiculously busy, so we need things like this to be simple, simple, simple.
It takes time to do all that setup I described on Google Voice. It takes no time at all to hit “Call Screen” when you have an incoming call you don’t recognize.
And that’s what makes this so simply brilliant. Or brilliantly simple. Whichever, you decide.
It was a Christmas advert that bosses at supermarket chain Iceland said would have “blown the John Lewis ad out the window”. But the major campaign for the discount store has been banned after it was deemed to have breached political impartiality rules.
The animated short featured an orangutan mourning the loss of his rainforest home, and was voiced by the actress Emma Thompson. Its contention was to show how Iceland has become the first major UK supermarket to remove palm oil – a major cause of deforestation – from all its own-brand products. However, regulators were concerned by the fact the 90-second film is actually a repurposed Greenpeace video.
“This was a film that Greenpeace made with a voiceover by Emma Thompson,” said Iceland’s founder Malcolm Walker. “We got permission to use it and take off the Greenpeace logo and use it as the Iceland Christmas ad. It would have blown the John Lewis ad out of the window. It was so emotional.”
Clearcast, the body responsible for vetting ads, said it was in breach of rules laid down by the 2003 Communications Act. One of the law’s stipulations is that a promotional campaign is prohibited if it is “directed towards a political end”. “Clearcast and the broadcasters have to date been unable to clear this because we are concerned that it doesn’t comply with the political rules of the BCAP [the broadcast code for advertising practice],” said a spokesperson. “The creative submitted to us is linked to another organisation who have not yet been able to demonstrate compliance in this area.”
Iceland said it will still be placing TV ads, but only 10-second clips that will highlight palm oil-free products. “We wanted [the Greenpeace film] to be our signature campaign,” said Richard Walker, Malcolm’s son, who has led Iceland’s environmental campaigning. “We have said repeatedly we are not anti-palm oil, we are anti-deforestation.”
Gartner Symposium was last week, and as they do each year at the event, the company has identified a top ten strategic technology trends for the year ahead. Gartner defines “strategic” as those technologies that will have significant disruptive potential over the next five years.” Here is a summary of the trends:
Autonomous Things
While artificial intelligence has been a consistent trend for several years now, as the technology advances, Gartner foresees a shift from stand-along intelligent things to a collaborative swarm network of intelligent things. Artificial intelligence is increasingly providing the brains for autonomous things such as robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles, empowering them to more naturally interact with both their surroundings and with people.
Augmented Analytics
Artificial intelligence can be used to augment human capabilities or automate them. Within the realm of augmented intelligence, Gartner sees augmented analytics, which it defines as the use of machine learning to transform how analytics content is developed, consumed, and shared, rapidly advancing through mainstream adoption. This will enable organizations to optimize decisions and actions of all employees, and not just those of analysts and data scientists.
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019 Credit: PH
AI-Driven Development
As organizations increasingly leverage AI-enhanced tools and technologies during development, there is a growing need for easy-to-use tools that can be leveraged by application developers rather than data scientists. Indeed by 2022, Gartner predicts that 40 percent of new app development projects will include AI co-developers within their teams.
Digital Twins
Digital twins, or digital representations of real-world entities or systems, has been a growing trend as the Internet of Things has exploded. One of the most interesting aspects will be the implementation of digital twins of the organization (DTOs). DTOs are dynamic software model that relies on operational or other data to understand how an organization operationalizes its business model, connects with its current state, deploys resources and responds to changes to deliver expected customer value.
These days, when you think of marketing, your thoughts probably turn to digital marketing. You may be pouring your marketing budget into website personalization, social media marketing campaigns and more — and it’s likely that you’re reaping good results from them.
But a marketing campaign that’s all digital and no print is out of balance. Print marketing never went away — and in an age when every other email is pure spam, print is making a real resurgence. When you tie together your print and digital marketing, you create a campaign that builds on itself to reach customers effectively.
Who Needs Print Marketing in a Digital World?
Chances are, the answer is: You and your company. In the last couple of years, responses to print marketing have more than doubled. In part, that’s because of campaigns linking print and digital marketing — but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
When consumers only receive your marketing message through one sensory channel — as happens when they read something on a screen — their engagement with the message is light. When they can actually touch the paper the message is printed on, a second sensory channel is opened, and the brain moves into a new level of engagement.
And all those professors telling college students to take notes on paper instead of on their laptops have tapped into something profound: People remember what they read on paper far better than anything they read on a screen. With all the time and creativity you’ve taken to craft your marketing message, doesn’t it make sense to deliver it via a medium that helps people remember it?
How Print Marketing Complements Digital Marketing
All that customer information you’ve gathered through digital CRM tools comes in extremely handy when you’re building a personalized print marketing campaign. Whether it’s branding a brochure for new leads or delivering coupons targeted to existing customers, print campaigns can reach customers where they live — literally.
With the CRM data you’ve collected, it’s now easy to provide QR codes that link a prospective customer straight from your print piece to a personalized landing page or URL, or straight to the product they’ve been reading about. You can turn around and collect data on how effective your print + digital campaign has been through online analytics tools, making it a simple matter to tweak your campaign for greater reach and response.
In fact, providing that link between print and digital marketing is vital to connect to some customers, since in recent years, more than 50 percent of people responding to direct mail would rather do so online or in-store. That’s all the more reason to sync your print and digital marketing campaigns together.
In recent years, more than 50 percent of people responding to direct mail would rather do so online or in-store.
5 Ways to Build a Personalized Print Marketing Campaign
Consistency is at the heart of any personalized print marketing campaign, especially when you’re integrating it with your digital marketing. Keep your message consistent across channels, and use the same colours and fonts in your design work to reinforce your branding. Take a look at other ways to build a successful personalized print marketing campaign.
Add Digital Links to Printed Media
Include your Twitter hashtag, your Facebook page and your website address to all your print materials. This allows customers to connect to your company through their preferred channel.
Integrate QR Codes
Transport prospective customers directly to your website or to specific product pages through QR codes on your print materials. These codes can let you track leads created from each print marketing piece, so you know which campaigns your customers are responding to.
Utilize Variable Data Printing (VDP)
With variable printing, you can use the data you’ve collected through CRM to know what your customers have purchased previously and even what they’ve been browsing for on your website. With this information, you can print personalized marketing materials aimed directly at segments of your target audience.
Create Customized Catalogs
Your customers are unlikely to care about your entire product range. So why send them a bulky catalogue that they’ll only flip through and toss in the trash? Instead, you can create personalized catalogues for individual customers or targeted groups that speak to their specific interests and needs, based on the data you’ve collected regarding their browsing and purchasing habits.
Add Personalized Print Inserts
If you don’t want to create an entire personalized catalogue to send by direct mail, you can create personalized offers to include with other mailings or product deliveries. Consider creating coupons or time-dependent discounts to send customers to your website or your brick-and-mortar store, or send special offers to new customers who’ve made their first purchase with you. When customers realize you understand what they want and are treating them as something special, you deepen brand loyalty and customer engagement.
Consumers are increasingly frustrated by — and consequently immune to — digital marketing techniques such as pop-up ads and banner ads. In contrast, when you invest in personalized print marketing materials, you create a unique experience that can capture the attention of your existing customers and prospective leads.
A clever marketing campaign will only take you so far.
Tech is suffering from a fundamental imbalance. Everyone wants to be a visionary without realizing they need to be salesmen, too.
It’s a widespread and shocking oversight. We constantly bemoan the lack of technical talent, citing shortages of talent in fields like engineering and computer science, but don’t realize we’re facing a similar crisis in a role that essentially every business needs.
Think about it — when is the last time you met a great salesperson? And no, I’m not including selling “yourself” or “ideas” under this designation. The top MBA programs in the country offer paths in marketing, finance and entrepreneurship, but not sales (something they’d be good at given their adroitness in selling overpriced degrees). This gap in education is a symptom of misplaced arrogance that assumes anyone can be good at sales if they just give it a shot. What we finally need to realize is that sales is a hard skill. As such, it deserves the same training and serious study more lauded degrees like finance receive.
However, before I teach you how to overhaul your relationship with sales, it’s important to first look you in the eye and tell you a hard truth, entrepreneur to entrepreneur. Even as the social stock and real capital of “thought leaders,” “influencers” and “disruptors” grows, so too does the doubt around the impact and true value of these companies. Eventually this bubble is going to burst, meaning you need a better long-term strategy to success than a well-executed Twitter campaign or viral op-ed.
While I have long been a proponent of good marketing and branding, I am also painfully aware that they alone won’t save you or your business. Selling well is not a nice-to-have. It’s survival, and here’s how you stay alive.
Start with your culture.
In tech more than most industries (except for used cars, perhaps, though I’d say we’re giving them a run for their money), salesmen and saleswomen are the people everyone loves to hate. They often rank lower than politicians and bankers in terms of perceived trustworthiness, which is a hard hit considering today’s political climate. Some words that come to mind, according to a study by Daniel Pink in his renowned book, To Sell Is Human, are “pushy,” “difficult,” “annoying,” “sleazy” and, believe it or not, “ugh.”
Because of this stigma, organizations go to great, and often silly, lengths to disguise their salespeople. In 2015, Kate Spade New York rebranded its sales associates as “Muses.” Microsoft calls them “Advisors,” and Apple goes as far as to dub them “Geniuses.”
Call them what you will, but each of these Geniuses and Muses are hired for a singular purpose: to make your company money.
However, rebranding sales does more harm than good. All these cutesy titles have real consequences, and they aren’t good. When we refuse to call sales what it is, we perpetuate the negative stigmas around salespeople. In doing so, you cause real harm to every aspect of your business, from your bottom line to the beloved company culture.
After all, without salespeople, your customers don’t buy and your business doesn’t run. Businesses and customers alike need to stop treating them as lepers to be trapped in cubicles or doused in euphemism, and begin giving them the respect they deserve, for who they are.
The nature of sales is changing.
While I’ll fight day in and day out for the honor of the salesperson, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a necessary shift happening in sales. We’re in the midst of the evolution of sales as a skill that we haven’t fully embraced or even acknowledged.
There is still a common assumption that sales is dictated by a funnel, and the two ways to force people down that funnel are brute force or over-indulgent charisma. You should read my post on sales and customer service here, but the honest truth is sales is simpler: I is about identifying a need, fulfilling it and making sure that conversation doesn’t just end when money changes hands.
As the world has gone subscription — in both B2C and B2B — this has become even more potent. Instead of the one-and-done sale, salespeople must engage in a relationship that lasts far beyond when money exchanges hands the first time. Each month, customers have a choice to keep or cancel — and that decision can be directly influenced by a good salesperson.
The interesting thing to note about this paradigm is that the stereotype of the storybook egotistical salesperson fails in this model. In practice, good salespeople act more as humble guides or patient teachers. As a job, sales requires intimate knowledge not only about the product, but an innate desire (or at least a good ability to fake it) to continue to help, even when you get nothing in return in the moment.
As a company, it is imperative to build a system that supports your salespeople as they start a thousand new relationships with each of your customers.
It’s your job, too.
As a CEO, it is your job to not only create a culture and system conducive to actually making money, but also to lead by example. In my experience, this is where most CEOs fall short. They think they are too good to sell, or that it will tarnish their M.O. as the fearless leader if they bother with something as petty as a sales call.
The Achilles’ heel of the Silicon Valley startup is that people are very good at selling themselves, their vision, their culture, and very bad at selling anything else.
If you are not willing to knock on doors, put your ego aside and hear “no” again and again, and be at the front line of building a relationship with your customer, you’re on a quick path to becoming just another startup or failed company statistic.
In the book I mentioned above, Pink provides a compelling and emotional plea to respect the great art of sales. I respect his work greatly, but I would add a crucial addendum to his thesis. Selling is not just human; it is the life or death of your business.
Feature Image Credit: sturti | Getty Images
By Ben Lamm
Co-Founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of Hypergiant
“We’ve done extensive testing of “Reach” because that’s something that’s easily tested, measured and compared. If you post very similar posts, the same way, at the same time of day, day after day… that’s comparable and you can draw conclusions from the data.
“I think too many automation tools is not only a bad idea, but for many reasons. One, if you’re trying to game the social media sites you will get caught eventually. Two, if something bad happens in the world you might have an inappropriate and untimely post that you missed because you didn’t remember where you put it.
I believe finding the right blend as others suggested here on the blog is key to balancing your social media. I always tell clients you have to spend time or money. It’s either one. You must invest your time or money with social media marketing today.
