If you use a WordPress website, it probably uses a MySQL database. Another one that it might use is called MariaDB.

Every website needs one of those to store information like passwords, posts, and user data. When WordPress can’t connect to your MySQL database, your website probably won’t be accessible.

There are a handful of reasons why it’s important to understand how it works. Here are a few that I can think of.

• You may need to delete old data or tables
• You may need to update the titles of a ton of different posts at once
• An individual database table might need to be imported or exported

In order to get to the area we’re going to talk about, click “phpMyAdmin” from your website’s control panel. It may say “Access PhpMyAdmin” or some similar variation like mine does below.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

The next screen you should see looks like this:

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

On the left-hand side, click the database that corresponds to your website. In my case, it’s “backupweathersite” below “New” in the tree. Then, you should be at the screen we’re talking about:

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

The menu highlighted in red has some useful tabs on it for doing the types of things I mentioned above. Starting with Structure, here’s what you can do with each one.

Structure

Structure is probably the most important of all the tabs because it lists the tables of your database. Each table has its own set of options, like emptying it if you want to delete all the data. You can also drop the table if you want to get rid of the entire thing completely.

Be very careful with that. Instead of deleting everything, you can clear out things like old posts by running SQL queries.

SQL

Selecting SQL will give you this screen:

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

There, you can run SQL queries. For example, on one of my sites, I need to remove expired jobs pretty often. If I don’t, the database fills up even if the jobs are deleted on the frontend. This causes the site to slow down a lot, and I can’t add new posts or other data.

The solution? Running this query: delete from `wp_posts` where `post_status` = ‘expired’

That takes care of thousands of old jobs in about a second, which is pretty nice!

As a side note, the screenshots in this article are from a local WordPress installation I have for a different project.

Search

Search does what it sounds like it would. When you put something in the main search field, it will automatically go through the entire database, looking for anything that’s a match.

Here’s a tip that might also help: you can choose to include or exclude searching specific tables if you want so it doesn’t search everything.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Query

The Query tab essentially does the same thing that the SQL tab does, except it offers guidance for creating the query. You can select the table that you want the query executed in from a dropdown and then click “Update query” to see it in the window below.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Export

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Export allows you to download all of the tables from your database. This is useful if you want to do manual backups periodically (although there are some great plugins that can handle that). You can export the tables in a bunch of different formats, too.

These include SQL, PDF, CSV, XML, and a handful of others that you’ve probably never heard of. Mainly, Texy! Text and YAML.

Import

The import function allows you to bring in outside database tables to yours.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

You can only import a table if it doesn’t exist in the current database. If the table exists already, you will get an error, and the import won’t finish, according to DreamHost.

The file can be compressed or uncompressed in a few different formats. Those include bzip2, gzip, or zip files. Something you may not be used to is the compressed file name.

It needs to be structured like “.[format].[compression]”. An example of a common one is “.sql.zip”.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

You can choose from a handful of different formats. These include CSV, ESRI Shape File, MediaWiki Table, OpenDocument Spreadsheet, SQL, and XML.

There are also a number of different SQL compatibility modes. The compatibility mode setting will dictate how MySQL works. We won’t go into each one and talk about the differences, but your options for those are ANSI, DB2, MAXDB, MYSQL323, MYSQL40, MSSQL, ORACLE, and TRADITIONAL.

Operations in phpMyAdmin

This tab gives you the ability to perform a handful of different operations, like creating a table and renaming the database. In order to create a new table, just put in a name, and the number of columns, and click Go.

Siteground has a great tutorial for creating tables since things can get kind of complicated. Below that, you can rename the database. The check box that says “Adjust privileges” is there because MySQL does not adjust the original privileges related to the database on its own.

When you check that box, phpMyAdmin adjusts the privilege table, so users have the same privileges on the new items. If you do that, the privileges for all the database-related elements are also adjusted to the new name. That includes things like tables, columns, or procedures.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

This section also allows you to do things like copy the database to another one and change table collations. A collation is a set of rules that defines how to compare and sort character strings.

You probably won’t ever need to mess with things like collation, but it’s nice to be semi-familiar with that, just in case.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

One other thing is that you can’t really rename a database. When you do that, phpMyAdmin will create a new one (example below) and drop the old.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Routines in phpMyAdmin

The Routines section looks like this:

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

“Filters” won’t do anything unless you actually select a database to search. Putting a word into the “Containing the word:” section will find all of the tables containing that word in your database.

Routines are procedures and functions that do various things, like the job data cleanup function mentioned earlier. You can add one there, and it will be displayed under that tab.

Events

In the event scheduler tab, you can create and run tasks automatically based on a schedule. The schedule can vary a lot, like running a task every couple of seconds to every few weeks. In order to use it, you will need to manually turn it on by clicking where it says “off” in the picture and then clicking “Add event”.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Triggers in phpMyAdmin

A trigger is a named database object that is associated with a table and that activates when a particular event occurs for the table. You could use a trigger to perform checks of values to be inserted into a table or to perform calculations on values involved in an update.

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Privileges in phpMyAdmin

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

The Privileges section allows you to make changes to current user privileges or export them to a new database. There are a handful of options for editing the privileges:

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

Designer

The Designer tab can be kind of a mess, as you can see (it’s in the “More” dropdown):

Image Source: Bob Buckley; Thank you!

The Designer feature is a graphical way of creating, editing, and displaying phpMyAdmin relations. These relations are compatible with those created in phpMyAdmin’s relation view.

To use this feature, you need a properly configured phpMyAdmin configuration storage and must have the $cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_coords’] configured. It’s unlikely you’ll ever need to do anything in this tab.

Wrapping Things Up

Going into the phpMyAdmin area for a WordPress site can be pretty daunting. If you find yourself in that position, it’s important to be familiar with all the different aspects of the dashboard. Understanding the basics of what each section does will help you navigate and get things done a little quicker with less of a headache.

Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!

The post A Quick Guide to Understanding Your phpMyAdmin Area appeared first on ReadWrite.

I have survived two PIPs (performance improvement plans) in sales. Few people probably want to admit that they were ever on one, but a lot of reps go on those once in a while during their careers. I am also still friends with both my managers who put me on them. I doubt many people can say that.

What A PIP Is and Is Not

A PIP plan is something that a lot of people in sales dread hearing about. It kind of feels like you’re about to walk the plank professionally and there aren’t many escape routes. Getting put on a plan is usually the result of repeated missteps in a job. Typically, it’s your final chance at turning things around before being let go.

Just because you get put on a performance improvement plan does not mean you’re for sure being fired, though.

Some People Disagree with That

There are a few people out there who disagree with my general stance on PIPs. Human resources veteran Liz Ryan is a strong supporter of the idea that people only get put on performance improvement plans when management wants them out.

In some circumstances, that’s probably true. More than a few companies out there likely do their best to help an employee improve without actually putting anything in writing. Then, after repeated attempts at fixing the issues, they finally decide that’s all they can take and put someone on one.

Looking at the flipside of that, there’s also probably companies that don’t help their employees improve. After a certain amount of time, they just set the plan in motion. Next steps are usually escorting the person out.

Sales PIPs Are Different

In a nutshell, if you miss your numbers for a few months, that will get you on a PIP. Some can be escaped by hitting certain goals within a given timeframe and others take longer. Sometimes, a full quarter of consistent quota attainment is necessary.

I’ve seen more leeway for mid-market or enterprise account executives. Ultimately, the timing just scales with the amount they need to sell. Some reps have gone a year and a half without closing something in places I’ve worked, but that’s the maximum time I’ve ever seen.

Most companies have a pre-determined timeline in place to judge whether you should go on a plan if you are a sales rep or marketing/business development rep. This takes the emotion out of it for managers – either their employee hits and they don’t initiate a plan or misses and they do.

Whenever I’ve been in this situation, my manager has always been on my side. It’s a lot less awkward for them, too, since they get to root for you (or light a fire under you!) to try and steer things in the right direction.

How Many People Are on Them?

Even if going on a PIP feels like a lonely road, you’re probably not really alone. In companies with large sales organizations (and I’ve been in a few) there’s almost always a handful of reps getting put into performance management.

According to the Harvard Business Review, annual sales turnover can be twice as high as the overall labor force – that’s 27%! You might think it’s embarrassing to want to talk about it.

However, I’ve been in work environments where PIPs were so common, no one would hesitate to say if they were on one. That being said, I’ve also been in the reverse situation, so exercise discretion depending on your work environment.

Variations That Aren’t Called PIPs

In sales, I’ve also noticed that there can be performance management systems that lead to PIPs and have similar terms (but different names). No one gets fired for missing numbers while on those as long as they show up and try.

Again, though, I’m basing this on personal experience so it could be different for you. Pre-PIP plans are not to be taken lightly. In my experience, missing numbers on those usually leads to the actual performance improvement plan next.

The terms usually mention something about being let go early if you stop trying and have a bad attitude about it. They also have similar requirements for getting off of it successfully.

Why My Situation Was Good (And Yours Could Be, Too)

I doubt many people look back fondly on performance improvement plans regardless of the outcome. Since I’m a human being, I’ll admit that the two I survived still sting a little to think about.

At the same time, though, they were actually good for me. A few positive things happened with the first one. If you get into a similar situation, doing these things might save your skin:

• I audited everything I was doing – my morning routine, eating, and most importantly, how I spent my day. This was as compelling an event as ever to change things.
• Looked back at what had worked for me so far and how I could make more of that happen. Also, I started to investigate other ways of getting through to people. The ones who didn’t have phone lines, blocked our email addresses or were unresponsive on LinkedIn.
• I strategized with my manager for how I was going to beat the plan. He added his input by meeting with me weekly to review progress.
• I worked a few extra hours each week and every weekend. Almost fortuitously, I was made a salaried employee a week or two before, so it was legal for me to do that. The good news is that with my other PIP, this wasn’t an option, so I also have the perspective of only being able to work 40 hours during a plan.

The PIP’s Outcome

Along with having my best month to date, I developed some pretty useful strategies because of the PIP. The plan I’m referencing was just a 30-day one and there was no probation or anything after, which was nice.

My second plan was a 90-day gauntlet since I was in a higher quota position, but that’s for a different article. The pandemic also played a pretty big role in getting into the second one. Again, though, that’s for a different article.

I Also Discovered A Fourth Outreach Method: Video

It’s really true what they say, pressure can burst a pipe or make a diamond. Instead of losing my mind trying to get through to some people who wouldn’t reply, I started getting more creative.

Discovering video for selling might have been the biggest gem I found in that situation. I probably only used it about 20-30% of the time going forward, but when I did, it got results.

At first, I was using a service called Wistia, but then I found out our Salesloft package had a Vidyard integration. Both of those services are pretty similar, but I could drop videos into my emails quickly with Salesloft and Vidyard working together.

Plus, that gave me great analytics. Both Wistia and Vidyard have free versions if you ever want to give them a try.

There’s also a lot of free video editing software out there like OpenShot that you can learn to use in about an hour. If you want to show a prospect’s website in the video, using a free screen capture software like ShareX or OBS Studio is perfect for that.

Changing My Routine Was Also Big

Some other important moves I made were related to my routine. Mainly, I started getting up at the same time every day. In addition to that, I started eating the same thing at about the same time on most days, too.

There was something about that consistency that really helped me to stay calm and focused. There is some science behind that, if you’re on the fence about trying it. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has a great article about it here.

Looking at my phone and social media also went from the highest priority to the lowest priority, although those took months to completely break away from.

Tying It All Together

Getting put on a performance improvement plan is never fun. That goes for you and your manager who probably has no choice in putting you on it. If you decide it’s worth the fight, your chances of survival will be better by trying a few of the tactics mentioned here. Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

Image credit: Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay

The post How I Survived Two PIP Plans in Sales (And You Can, Too) appeared first on ReadWrite.

If you are thinking about advertising your business online, the first place you probably think of is Google. So, of course, it makes sense since the search engine giant commands most of the market and billions of monthly searches.

However, you have probably noticed advertisements starting to spring up lately for another search engine. One advertises more privacy online by not tracking you and being described as a more ethical version of Google.

That search engine is called DuckDuckGo. The name may be a mouthful, but the anonymous search engine has gained traction faster and faster in the last few years. According to Similarweb data, there are about 1 billion visitors per month on the site.

Despite having a fraction of Google’s traffic, a billion is still a billion. So here are five things to know about tapping DuckDuckGo as an advertising channel for your business.

How DuckDuckGo Shows Their Ads vs. Other Search Engines

DuckDuckGo advertising is pretty straightforward. DDG will show an ad based on a keyword when a person searches for a keyword. Their example is that if you search for a car, you will see ads for cars.

They might show ads for the type of car you were watching videos about recently on other search engines. It might even seem like they show ads when you just think about something without searching for it (which is kind of scary).

So, you can look at it one of two ways. You can see it as a downside that your ad won’t show after someone says or does something related to your specific product. But, on the other hand, you can be relieved that no one will be scared away from your brand by ultra-targeted advertising.

I think we all know that uncomfortable feeling when we talk about something near the Alexa or our smartphone and see an ad a few minutes later.

Why People Need to Use Microsoft Ads If They Want to Advertise on DDG

If you want to show ads on DuckDuckGo, then you will also need to show ads with Bing. DDG is part of the Microsoft Ad network, and the only current way to advertise with them is to sign up for both.

An outdated DDG help page here shows how you can manually select an option in the ad settings that will start rotating your ads to show on DuckDuckGo. Unfortunately, if you look around in the admin area for Microsoft Ads, you will not be able to find what they are referencing when they talk about that.

According to Capgemini Business Analyst Rupam Bilani, creating a Microsoft Advertising account will circulate your ads through all platforms in their network, including DDG.

Typical Ad Structure for DuckDuckGo

Setting up an ad for DuckDuckGo is pretty simple. Here’s an example of one that I was running at the time of writing this for my forecast publishing site, yourweatherconnectiondotcom.

When you want to run your own ad, the first thing to do after setting up an account clicks on the button that says “+Create new smart campaign” shown in the screenshot above. You may also be guided directly to set that up after making an account.

The first thing that they will want to know is what your advertising goal is. Do you have a physical location where you want foot traffic? How about website visitors? Pick the one that best fits your needs.

You will then need to select which business you’re planning on advertising. In my case, there’s only one for now.

Then, they will want you to select where you actually wish to advertisements to show.

This feature is beneficial because you can use the feature to go as broad as an entire country or down to a specific zip code.

After entering the location or locations where you want to advertise, it will be time to go and look at keyword themes.

They recommend adding at least 3-5 products and services that you offer. This makes sense if you run an online retail business or have multiple types of products.

If you run a small business that just does one type of thing like painting, try to brainstorm the different things you might do on one job. For example, outdoor painting, indoor painting, wall/ceiling repair, interior stripping, and refinishing would be great keywords to add.

Next, it’s time to fill in what your ad should say.

There are options for three titles you can add in, but don’t feel like you need to use all of them. In my case, it made sense to just stick with two. However, adding a third looked like this in the preview:

There is a note that mentions how Microsoft creates other versions of the ad. That may mean the third part would get dropped, and the ad would be optimized to look as appealing as possible, but I can’t say for sure.

The next screen will ask you for your phone number, which may or may not make sense for your business.

Pricing and Setting Your Budget

Next, you will be setting your budget for the ad campaign. Be really careful not to accidentally set it higher than you can afford. Even if I had $57,946 to spare every month, I think I could figure out other ways to invest in the business besides putting that into advertising.

The minimum daily budget you can set is $3.29, and the highest is $1869.21 for each campaign. Therefore, the average cost-per-click is estimated to be $0.003 if you do the minimum daily budget. I calculated that by taking the average estimated monthly clicks (lowest + highest divided by 2) and dividing $3.29 by that number, which is 976.

Clicking “Next” from that page will put your campaign into review, and it will go live once someone has given it the green light on their side.

Restricted Categories

Most ad networks out there have restricted categories. Even the ones that advertise within unmentionable spaces like the adult industry have certain things that are off-limits.

According to Microsoft, “Advertising for the following products/services is either not permitted or subject to specific participation policies: alcohol; deceptive products and services; drugs and related paraphernalia; endangered and threatened species products or services; fireworks and explosives; infant feeding; tobacco and electronic cigarettes; and weapons, knives, firearms, and ammunition.”

Alcohol is one thing that is allowed but subject to their participation policies. So basically, your ad needs to be similar in format to pretty much every other alcohol ad out there.

That means no targeting minors, including proper health warnings, encouraging responsible drinking, and other essential requirements. You can check out the rest of those here.

A handful of the categories mentioned aren’t entirely banned but just have specific rules you will need to follow.

They also don’t allow things like essay writing or pre-written essays. So basically, if it feels wrong, like cheating or any kind of law-breaking, then it’s probably not allowed.

DuckDuckGo Advertising: Tying It All Together

As privacy concerns get bigger every day, more people are starting to use other search engines that respect theirs. That’s why it could potentially help your business a lot to leverage DuckDuckGo as an advertising channel.

Before you do, it’s crucial to understand how they show their ads, why you need to work with Microsoft, what their ads look like, pricing, and what products you need to avoid or be careful with.

Image Credit: Provided by Author; Pexels; Thank you

The post 5 Things to Know About PPC Advertising on DuckDuckGo appeared first on ReadWrite.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Types of Jobs You Can Get

There are many different areas you can work in throughout the weather industry. The first one that probably comes to mind for most people is being a meteorologist. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean getting on television, either.

You can be a meteorologist in at least five different areas. Those are broadcasting, education, research, private sector, and government. Those alone cover thousands of positions out there. In addition to those, there are plenty of other jobs at weather companies like software development, data science, and then the more general positions like sales or accounting.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Businesses You Can Start

There are a few different technology businesses that you can start in the employment and recruiting space. It’s easier than ever to create a website for job searching with platforms like WordPress or Wix. Marketing them can be where things get challenging, though.

So many of them are similar-looking that you need to come up with something unique to differentiate yours and convince places like colleges to want to promote them to their students.

You can also start your own recruiting firm, which will come with some challenges but many rewards if you stick with it long term.

Timeless Industries: Weather

Unless the world ceases to exist, the weather will always be one of our most timeless industries. Even if humanity gets replaced in 1,000 years, there will still be entities of some kind centered around the weather. This industry is projected to be worth over $2 billion by 2025.

Types of Jobs You Can Get

There are many different areas you can work in throughout the weather industry. The first one that probably comes to mind for most people is being a meteorologist. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean getting on television, either.

You can be a meteorologist in at least five different areas. Those are broadcasting, education, research, private sector, and government. Those alone cover thousands of positions out there. In addition to those, there are plenty of other jobs at weather companies like software development, data science, and then the more general positions like sales or accounting.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Other Recruiting Jobs

You could also get a job as a recruiter at a company that focuses on external and internal hiring. These positions may be more challenging to get since companies want to see prior experience (like with a third-party firm).

It’s similar to how companies prefer to hire internal accountants with previous experience at a public accounting firm. Often, companies hire accountants away from the firms they have current engagements with.

Businesses You Can Start

There are a few different technology businesses that you can start in the employment and recruiting space. It’s easier than ever to create a website for job searching with platforms like WordPress or Wix. Marketing them can be where things get challenging, though.

So many of them are similar-looking that you need to come up with something unique to differentiate yours and convince places like colleges to want to promote them to their students.

You can also start your own recruiting firm, which will come with some challenges but many rewards if you stick with it long term.

Timeless Industries: Weather

Unless the world ceases to exist, the weather will always be one of our most timeless industries. Even if humanity gets replaced in 1,000 years, there will still be entities of some kind centered around the weather. This industry is projected to be worth over $2 billion by 2025.

Types of Jobs You Can Get

There are many different areas you can work in throughout the weather industry. The first one that probably comes to mind for most people is being a meteorologist. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean getting on television, either.

You can be a meteorologist in at least five different areas. Those are broadcasting, education, research, private sector, and government. Those alone cover thousands of positions out there. In addition to those, there are plenty of other jobs at weather companies like software development, data science, and then the more general positions like sales or accounting.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Types of Jobs You Can Do in This Timeless Industry

There are a variety of jobs that you can do in the employment industry. One of the easiest ones you can get is a position as an external recruiter with a third-party firm. You can make a lot of money doing it; however, be aware of the high turnover rate.

Being a recruiter is pretty similar to being a sales representative. Speaking from experience in sales and knowing enough folks in external recruiting jobs, I can say that if you decide to go this route, be prepared to hit the ground running. You will always need to be contacting people at a high rate (think 45-100 activities daily) and stay very organized with follow-ups.

Other Recruiting Jobs

You could also get a job as a recruiter at a company that focuses on external and internal hiring. These positions may be more challenging to get since companies want to see prior experience (like with a third-party firm).

It’s similar to how companies prefer to hire internal accountants with previous experience at a public accounting firm. Often, companies hire accountants away from the firms they have current engagements with.

Businesses You Can Start

There are a few different technology businesses that you can start in the employment and recruiting space. It’s easier than ever to create a website for job searching with platforms like WordPress or Wix. Marketing them can be where things get challenging, though.

So many of them are similar-looking that you need to come up with something unique to differentiate yours and convince places like colleges to want to promote them to their students.

You can also start your own recruiting firm, which will come with some challenges but many rewards if you stick with it long term.

Timeless Industries: Weather

Unless the world ceases to exist, the weather will always be one of our most timeless industries. Even if humanity gets replaced in 1,000 years, there will still be entities of some kind centered around the weather. This industry is projected to be worth over $2 billion by 2025.

Types of Jobs You Can Get

There are many different areas you can work in throughout the weather industry. The first one that probably comes to mind for most people is being a meteorologist. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean getting on television, either.

You can be a meteorologist in at least five different areas. Those are broadcasting, education, research, private sector, and government. Those alone cover thousands of positions out there. In addition to those, there are plenty of other jobs at weather companies like software development, data science, and then the more general positions like sales or accounting.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

Some work never goes out of style. More specifically, some timeless industries will always exist because there will pretty much always be demand for their products. But, of course, we’re talking about family-friendly industries here, too. Not the unmentionable ones that will also exist forever (you can probably guess what those are).

They might look slightly different in 100 or 200 years, but the following timeless industries will still have plenty of opportunities.

Employment and Recruiting

The employment industry has been around as long as companies have needed talent. Although there could have been earlier groups, the first documented private employment agency was started in 1873. It’s actually still in business today, according to their website. Between recruiting firms, job search websites, and internal positions, the employment market will continue to be worth billions in the future.

Types of Jobs You Can Do in This Timeless Industry

There are a variety of jobs that you can do in the employment industry. One of the easiest ones you can get is a position as an external recruiter with a third-party firm. You can make a lot of money doing it; however, be aware of the high turnover rate.

Being a recruiter is pretty similar to being a sales representative. Speaking from experience in sales and knowing enough folks in external recruiting jobs, I can say that if you decide to go this route, be prepared to hit the ground running. You will always need to be contacting people at a high rate (think 45-100 activities daily) and stay very organized with follow-ups.

Other Recruiting Jobs

You could also get a job as a recruiter at a company that focuses on external and internal hiring. These positions may be more challenging to get since companies want to see prior experience (like with a third-party firm).

It’s similar to how companies prefer to hire internal accountants with previous experience at a public accounting firm. Often, companies hire accountants away from the firms they have current engagements with.

Businesses You Can Start

There are a few different technology businesses that you can start in the employment and recruiting space. It’s easier than ever to create a website for job searching with platforms like WordPress or Wix. Marketing them can be where things get challenging, though.

So many of them are similar-looking that you need to come up with something unique to differentiate yours and convince places like colleges to want to promote them to their students.

You can also start your own recruiting firm, which will come with some challenges but many rewards if you stick with it long term.

Timeless Industries: Weather

Unless the world ceases to exist, the weather will always be one of our most timeless industries. Even if humanity gets replaced in 1,000 years, there will still be entities of some kind centered around the weather. This industry is projected to be worth over $2 billion by 2025.

Types of Jobs You Can Get

There are many different areas you can work in throughout the weather industry. The first one that probably comes to mind for most people is being a meteorologist. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean getting on television, either.

You can be a meteorologist in at least five different areas. Those are broadcasting, education, research, private sector, and government. Those alone cover thousands of positions out there. In addition to those, there are plenty of other jobs at weather companies like software development, data science, and then the more general positions like sales or accounting.

Businesses You Can Start

Thanks to the government making weather data completely free and available in the public domain, you can leverage that to start various tech businesses based on national weather data. The simplest thing you can do is start a forecast publishing website using their RSS feeds.

There are even WordPress plugins that make it pretty simple to set something like that up and then publish the data automatically every time they push out new information. The only downside is that since it’s been freely available for a long time, there are a lot of websites out there already doing it.

If you are willing to invest more time, you can do other (potentially more lucrative) things. One idea is combining the free weather data with the (also free) government GPS data system.

For example, you could build a navigation app for driving that shows storms in real-time using Weather.gov’s API service, GPS data, and MIT’s App Inventor tool.

The platform from MIT allows people without much knowledge of programming to use a blocks-based tool to build their app for iOS, Android, or both. It’s also free and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

Real Estate

Real estate is among one of the most timeless industries for two reasons. One, they aren’t making any more of it (unless we colonize mars soon or build flying cities). Two, everybody needs somewhere to live and do business. Either one of those should be enough for you to want to think about getting into the $200 billion+ industry.

Types of Jobs You Can Do

One of the quickest jobs you can get (and without a college degree) is a position as a real estate agent. According to Investopedia, you only need to be 18 years old and pass your state’s license test, which typically takes 4-6 months.

Even though the average earnings are only around $50,000 annually, some agents prove six figures can be reached within a few years. Just look at Graham Stephan, the guy who became a millionaire from selling houses by the time he was in his mid-twenties. He used his real estate success to invest in many different areas, including building up a wildly successful YouTube channel that he does full-time now (making even more money).

That’s just one of the positions you can do, though. There are at least 29 other jobs you can work in real estate, according to Real Estate Express. Some likely require a college degree, like being a property manager or escrow officer.

Businesses You Can Start

Although in the beginning, it’s usually a good idea to work for someone else, you can start selling real estate on your own if you want. Besides owning your own firm, there have been many opportunities in proptech during the last few years with all of the different IoT technologies out there.

Thanks to things like open-source drone technologies, there aren’t as many hurdles to clear for starting your own company. Of course, you’ll still need to have a firm understanding of how everything works, but you won’t need to worry about coding or building everything entirely from scratch.

Final Thoughts on Timeless Industries

These three aren’t the only industries around for a while, but they will be as long as we have some basic form of economy in existence. First, many components of global trade depend on knowing what the weather will be like.

Frankly, anyone who goes anywhere daily relies on weather information to be accurate. Most businesses will always need employees at some level, even once we see more repetitive jobs eliminated by AI and robotic systems.

Lastly, people will always need a place to live or do business, no matter how they find it.

The post 3 Timeless Industries to Do Business In appeared first on ReadWrite.

Some say that the age of writing guest blog posts is over and some stand by it for growing a brand. Regardless of where you stand on guest blog posts — here are a few lessons I learned from publishing guest articles during the last year and a half.

You may disagree with some, agree with others, or even find something new to help with your strategy.

Guest Blog Post Length Can Vary A lot

The common knowledge is that the longer the post, the better. However, not all sites are alike when it comes to length requirements.

For example, Going Concern’s minimum is 500 words and Business2Community’s is 300 words. Does that mean you should write for the minimum? Not necessarily. These articles here and here that I published with them are around 600-700 words each.

That’s still pretty short, depending on who you talk to.

There are also sites like Content Marketing Institute that don’t have word count goals and prefer whatever engages best with readers.

Why It Matters

There are some major differences between writing long and short content. Being able to change gears and write both types effectively is really important if you want to maximize your brand’s reach. That means knowing how to get a point across in fewer words or continuing to interest readers consistently throughout a longer article.

No Two Sites Are Exactly Alike, So Pitch Accordingly

Arguably the most important thing when approaching guest posting is knowing that every site is different.

For example, ReadWrite and Sales Hacker both have articles about sales. However, the articles I have published with them are pretty different. Length-wise — they’re apart by about 1000 words.

Content-wise, the ReadWrite article is more statistic-heavy with evidence tied to the examples and advice. Those are things like screenshots of sales conversations on LinkedIn or links to lead gen videos sent with Wistia.

The Sales Hacker article is more anecdotal with stories of hard rejections and strategies to get over them.

The reason for the differences is really straightforward if you look at their guest posting guidelines.

ReadWrite has an audience of more technical readers in the AI and IoT space. The Sales Hacker audience, if you can guess by the name, is mostly salespeople. In sales, it’s about crafting a good story that connects with prospects on an emotional level, so that’s what they look for.

Why It Matters

Trying to pitch the Sales Hacker article to ReadWrite or vice versa probably wouldn’t work out well. Writing a custom pitch for each site is your best bet for success since sending the same one just doesn’t cut it.

Syndication is Your Friend

There are two kinds of content syndication that can benefit your site. One is getting your blog’s articles syndicated (or republished) by other blogs with a link back to your original.

The other is when the blog that you guest post with has syndication partners who republish that content. We’re talking about the second one here.

As marketing guru Neil Patel puts it, “Republishing lets you leverage the same content multiple times. Guest posting, on the other hand, is not scalable [unless you guest post for a site that has an awesome list of web content syndication partners!].”

Your best bet for finding out whether or not a site uses syndication partners is to look at their guest post guidelines. Both ReadWrite and Business2Community mention it very clearly in theirs.

Why It Matters

Guest posting on blogs with syndication partners can mean more bang for your backlink – or something like that. This strategy can really help you build a big backlink profile fast.

Lead Time Can Vary Drastically for Getting Published

Guest blogging takes patience, a lot of patience. You need realistic expectations to avoid frustration.

Posts could be edited and published in as little as a week like this Business2Community article. It could also take up to four months as this Localiq article did.

Plus, sending out at least one or two pitches per week will keep you busy. Focus on that volume to keep them customized but also to see something published about once a week after a few months of consistency.

Why It Matters

Knowing that lead time varies will help you avoid getting discouraged when something takes a while. A good mindset is crucial for long-term success.

Getting Your Guest Blog Posts Rejected is an Opportunity

Rejection might sting a little bit, but, it’s a lot better than being outright ignored. Embrace it when an editor is willing to email you to say “no” as a chance to start building a professional relationship with them.

Let them know that you appreciate hearing back and will come up with a better pitch. They might even be willing to give you some topic ideas.

The Sales Hacker and Localiq articles mentioned before are both results of a first-pitch being rejected. The editors of both blogs were really receptive to getting a re-write.

Why It Matters

The old saying “It’s not what you know, but who you know” will probably never go out of style. Building relationships whenever you have a chance will maximize your overall guest blogging efforts.

Avoid Self-Promotion and Focus on Giving the Audience Value

Two big things that all of these guest posts have in common are that none of them involve self-promotion. I’ve used certain past experiences as examples, but never any calls to action or anything that might remotely seem like an ad.

For example, these guest posts on Freelancer’s Union and Wordtracker both focus on very specific things people can do to start or grow a business on a budget. Some suggestions are as simple as working from home and others get into technical details like adding SSL to a site for SEO benefits.

Why It Matters

Most people don’t like reading an ad when they expect to click on something useful. Genuinely giving someone value will make them remember you positively – especially if it relieves a pain point.

So, is writing guest blog posts worth your time?

Guest blogging is still a great way to get your name out there. It may not have the same SEO benefits that it did in 2010, but it can definitely help you grow brand awareness and make a lot of noise.

Understand that blog post length and content can vary a lot from site to site, so it’s important to customize all of your pitches. It can potentially take a while to go from pitch to publishing, so be patient along the way.

Image Credit: Pixabay; Pexels; Thank you!

The post 6 Lessons From Publishing 7 Guest Blog Posts appeared first on ReadWrite.

Video content marketing has been around for a little while. You probably use some video or plan to, since 85% of businesses already used it in 2020, according to data from Wyzowl.

But, just because a lot of teams report using video, that doesn’t mean they all have success with it. Measuring the effectiveness of a campaign can be difficult and determining success can vary depending on your goals.

6 Video Content Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Campaign

There are so many different platforms, delivery methods, and video types that it can get overwhelming just deciding where to start. The good news is that there are examples from a few different brands that can inspire your next campaign.

1. Dollar Shave Club’s Breakout Video

A great example of low-budget video content marketing that uses humor is the Dollar Shave Club’s breakout video “Our Blades Are F***ing Great.” They released it a few years ago now.

The video features founder Michael Dubin walking around their warehouse talking about how no one needs all the bells and whistles of fancy, expensive razors. He also talks about the features and benefits of their product with some pretty funny supporting bits, like someone in a bear costume.

The video cost them about $4500 to make. You can expect most videos like that to be under $10,000 as long as the background is something simple and the people in it are employees or customers.

The company may have hit a home run with their first video, but they did make some mistakes. They only geared their other marketing (like emails) toward men and that first video was pretty gender-neutral.

2. Thomson Industries Videos

You can look at Thomson Industries, Inc for a good example of a video that’s low-budget and more serious. Plus, it’s more focused and goes after a pretty specific segment of customers.

This video shows the difference between two types of screws used for industrial machines, with an actual engineer doing the talking:

To date, it’s accumulated about 130,000 views on YouTube. Not bad considering the smaller market size.

The major difference might be that they are a B2B company, although their videos seem to be aimed at educating average consumers.

Both this and the Dollar Shave Club video were low-cost by comparison to what you might see on television or somewhere else online. Even if you have less budget to work with, it’s still possible to make effective videos that get your message out.

3. LinkedIn User Video Content Marketing

You’ve probably seen someone making videos like these on social media before. They could range from a video uploaded directly by a user to an actual advertisement.

If any of your sales development reps or outside reps are comfortable with making one, LinkedIn video content marketing is a great way to build rapport with many connections at once. The nice thing about people working from home is that many probably have an office or a room to film in, too.

For example, one of my connections is an outside sales rep at Price Spider and makes weekly videos every Monday. They’re all very straightforward and he makes ones like this from his house.

The content is never aimed at one person or company but speaks to different specific situations that could relate to pain points. His recent ones have been about enforcing pricing policies for brands.

To someone outside his industry, the video may not make a lot of sense or garner much interest. But to people working in that space, it would be tough to skip since it’s just under 3 minutes and very relevant.

4. Bumble’s Snapchat Ads

Jumping back to B2C products, you can also leverage this style of video there as well. Most of the dating app companies run ads on Snapchat where a girl or a guy records a selfie video with the call-to-action being for people to download their app.

Here’s an example of a few of Bumble’s Snapchat ads:

Some of them look like there’s a tripod, but in others, the person is usually holding the camera (OkCupid does a lot of these). You can keep production costs down if this type of thing makes sense for your brand.

Even if you keep costs down with production, running the campaigns can still add up quickly. Snapchat has a pricing guide here that goes in-depth about how their platform works.

5. Popsockets Original Kickstarter Video

For ideas on a funny, very low-budget video, look to the company PopSockets. Their founder’s Kickstarter video campaign was able to hit about 150% of his goal thanks to his crazy dancing with the product:

The great thing about it is that he did most of the filming in what looks like a college classroom (he was a Philosophy professor). Interestingly, he said in this interview that a lot of tech bloggers didn’t really like the video.

The good news is that it didn’t matter because consumers loved it. Since then, the company has seen revenue of over $200 million dollars and it is continuing to grow.

It’s clear that lower-budget videos can have a massive ROI. However, sometimes it takes a bigger investment for a brand to really make a splash.

6. Squatty Potty’s Unicorn Ice Cream Video Content Marketing

Because of a few viral videos, Squatty Potty is a household name. Plus, people know where rainbow ice cream comes from thanks to this one:

Making a video that attracts over 100 million views takes work – and a big investment.

The viral video that helped Squatty Potty blow up cost about $250,000 to make. That’s a little over $180,000 per minute for the nearly 3-minute video.

If you can get your hands on that kind of money, it could absolutely be worth it. Just make sure that whoever you work with has a proven track record for creating viral campaigns.

Final Thoughts On Video Content Marketing

Video content marketing will undoubtedly continue to be a force for brands as we move into the future. You have the benefit of a wide range of video times, from 30-second clips on platforms like TikTok to longer-form content on YouTube and now Facebook Watch.

Trying some of these strategies could help you reach more customers, so hit record and see where it takes you.

The post 6 Video Content Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Campaign appeared first on ReadWrite.

If you aren’t getting enough customers in the door for your business, it might be time to try a new marketing strategy. Tapping into the growing trend of video is a great place to start. YouTube is the second largest website on the internet by monthly web traffic, according to data from Ahrefs. This makes it an awesome place to get into video and potentially drive a ton of business your way.

How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business

Start a YouTube Channel

In case you don’t have money to invest in paying for advertisements, you can still do something with the potential to be just as effective. The great thing about starting a YouTube channel is that there are no barriers to entry.

Contributing content to any website typically involves an application process. You can’t always get feedback if they don’t think your content is a fit, either.

To start a channel, all you really need is an email address. We will get to the other things required to grow it, but, the most important step besides signing up is deciding what your channel will be about.

Pick a Topic

You will need to pick a topic for your channel to focus on. It usually makes sense to go with one related to your business, so you can promote it in each video and include links to a website in the description.

Staying focused on your topic is important – it wouldn’t work very well for building an audience if you had a finance YouTube channel where every third video upload was cooking-related. Maintaining consistency will also make creating each video a little easier and faster.

Set Up a Filming Space

Depending on the types of videos you plan on making, you might want to set up a consistent filming space. This can be as simple as using your office and filming at your desk. It should be somewhere that’s blocked off from a lot of noise and interruptions.

That may just mean coordinating with your assistant (if you have one) to hold calls and avoid coming into your office while you are filming. The same goes for the family if you work from home.

Get Filming Equipment

The nice thing about today is that you probably already have a nice camera. A lot of phones have been able to film in HD and even 4K for a couple of years already. In addition to a camera, you will want a tripod, lights, and probably a decent microphone.

The tripod is crucial and you can pick one of those up for around $20 or $30 on Amazon. If your filming space has reliable natural light through a window, you could stick with that in the beginning.

The phone’s microphone should also work, at least at first. If you decide to stick with this marketing strategy, you can get all of the other equipment for under $200 later on.

Get Video Editing Software

Depending on your computer, you may already have some video editing software installed. If you use an Apple, iMovie is free and a powerful program for editing. PC users also have a variety of free options that can make high-quality videos.

I use Lightworks for our YouTube channel and it works pretty well on my older laptop. OpenShot is another free, open-source program that works well and can create videos up to 4K in resolution.

Get Comfortable on Camera

It’s pretty normal if you feel a little uncomfortable getting on camera. Pretending to talk to someone when you’re really talking at a tripod will always feel a little weird. One strategy that I’ve found works pretty well for dealing with that is to have an audience.

As long as they don’t make a ton of background noise, having someone sit behind the camera can help you focus more on making the video sound conversational. If you really can’t see yourself on-screen, consider working with someone who already has an established channel.

Work with YouTube Influencers

Working with an influential YouTube personality could be big for your business. When some of them command audiences in the hundreds of thousands, one shoutout on a popular video could (maybe) pay for itself many times over.

Every social platform has influencers, but ones on YouTube are especially powerful. Instead of written posts or pictures, they routinely speak directly to the people you want as customers.

Make A List of Relevant Influencers

There are going to be at least a few influencers you could approach that cater to your market. They will have a pretty wide range of subscribers and a number of views on their videos.

You can make a list in an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet and organize them in order of highest to lowest subscriber count (or vice versa). It also can’t hurt for you to watch a few of their videos. That will help you make sure there isn’t any content you would want to avoid associating your brand name with.

Costs of Paying for Mentions

The cost for influencer marketing will vary depending on the number of followers someone has. Everything will still be negotiable, but data from eMarketer shows a few standard rates.

If you approach someone with 500 to 5,000 subscribers, expect to pay around $315 per video. The costs can go all the way up to $3,857 for channels with 500K + subscribers.

Measure ROI Before Spending a Ton

If you’re not careful, you could end up putting a lot of money into influencer marketing without seeing much in the way of results. Just look at the story of the Instagram star with 2 million followers who couldn’t sell 36 t-shirts.

Depending on your budget, you should take caution in paying for videos ahead of time or anything like that. Additionally, consider starting with a smaller YouTube personality.

Data from this study shows that micro-influencers are actually more effective along with being less expensive. In case influencers seem too risky, you can always look at the old-fashioned (but still effective) way of getting your business’s name out there: advertising.

Getting into Advertising on YouTube

There are a handful of different types of advertisements you can run on YouTube. If you get everything ready for starting a channel and decide you don’t want to do that, you will still be in a great position for making video ads. In addition to video ads, you have the option of display ads, overlay ads (ads that show at the bottom of a video), and sponsored cards.

The Video Ads

Most of the other social platforms offer video ads now. However, on YouTube, people are expecting to be watching a video so it’s a lot more likely that someone will already be engaged when your ad pops up.

There are a lot of marketers out there that you can look at for low-budget video ad ideas. Take the Dollar Shave Club’s video from a few years ago, for example. They just filmed their founder walking around the warehouse saying funny things and it was wildly successful.

This and other low-budget videos helped propel the 2011 startup to unprecedented (couldn’t help using the word!) growth and being acquired for $1 billion in 2016.

Different Types of Video Ads

There are a few different types of video ads to consider using. You will need to decide which one makes the most sense and structure your video around the way it functions for optimal results.

The ones you might be most familiar with are skippable video ads, which allow users to skip to their video after the first five seconds. These can be inserted at the beginning, middle, and end of videos. Then there are non-skippable ads, which can go up to 15 or 20 seconds in length, according to Google.

The third ones to consider are called “Bumper ads” and are non-skippable, running for up to 6 seconds. All of these are compatible with desktop and mobile devices, maximizing your reach.

Tying it all Together

YouTube is not showing any signs of slowing down, especially with the current stay-at-home state of the world. You can leverage a few different strategies to get your business known on the platform.

It’s worth dabbling in all of them a bit to see if one really stands out as effective. Consider starting your own channel, working with influencers, and making video ads to reach the masses.

The post How to Use YouTube to Market Your Business appeared first on ReadWrite.

Deep down, I think we all want to be more productive at work and with life in general. It feels good to get things done and it feels even better when we enjoy the spoils of our efforts. We are well into the first quarter of 2021. It’s time to check our goal progress and see how far we’ve come. Here are three strategies to be more productive in 2021.

Continue in your progression in 2021 and beyond.

Start Going to Bed and Waking Up at the Same Time Every Day

Doing this was a game-changer for my professional life. It could arguably be the most valuable action you can take to be more productive in the next year.

When I was in college (back in my day!) my summer internship routines went like this:

• Stay up until somewhere between 1 to 3 am with friends every Friday and Saturday night.
• Take a while to fall asleep Sunday night.
• Look, feel, and act like a zombie at work between Monday and Wednesday every week.
• Finally, I would start to be more productive and feel well Thursday and Friday, then repeat the cycle.

I even kept doing it a few months into my first job out of college — big mistake. When too many of my hairs were turning grey too fast, I finally decided to build consistency into my wake and sleep routines a few years ago. I’ve never looked back, except maybe on New Year’s Eve or Halloween when I make an exception.

The Science Behind Having Consistent Sleep & Wake Times to Be More Productive

All of us have something called Circadian Rhythms. These are 24-hour processes that happen in our bodies to perform essential functions for our well-being.

According to sleepfoundation.org and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, our circadian rhythms are connected to a range of mental health conditions. These include things like depression, bipolar disorder, and dementia.

I can personally attest that my ability to focus is directly related to this. It may be difficult for you to hit the mattress at 10 pm sharp on Fridays and Saturdays, but try this:

Set a New Year’s resolution to do it for the first four weeks of 2021. If you don’t stumble on this article until a few months from now, give it a try anyway for the next three to four weeks.

There’s a good chance you might just keep things going a little longer than that and find out that it’s a great way to be more productive.

Develop an Exercise Routine That COVID-19 Cannot Affect

During most of 2020, I was doing pretty well keeping up with exercising. When the gyms all closed down in the springtime (around Minnesota at least) I took a week or two off since I needed to do that anyway.

Then, I put together a respectable at-home routine to stay active until September when I started going back. It definitely helped me to be more productive all of last spring and summer by following the plan. This last month, though, I messed up.

Don’t Get Sluggish

Right before Thanksgiving, all our gyms in Minnesota shut down again. This time, I pretty much took the last four weeks off. At the time of this writing, I almost feel sick from how inactive and sluggish I’ve been. Fortunately, we can go back there starting tomorrow. The bottom line, though, is that I should have made another workout plan two or three weeks ago.

Building A Plan to Be More Productive

You don’t even need to wait until after work to plan on exercising. According to the Harvard Business Review, there’s even “evidence suggesting that exercise during regular work hours may boost performance.”

You might be more productive doing something as simple as planning 10 push-ups every hour for upper-body work. I’ve found that a 1-minute wall-sit or ten lunges across the room and back feels great for your legs. There are also plenty of motivational speeches out there online to get you through the first set in case you’re having trouble getting up.

If those seem like too much, even a 20-minute walk is great for you. Should you decide to get your exercise in by walking, take the Mayo Clinic’s advice and “get the right gear, choose your course carefully, warm-up, cool down, and stretch.” In addition to those, set realistic goals.

Set Long-Term, Short-Term, and Daily Goals

It took me a while to learn the importance of setting goals. This is another thing that I really didn’t start taking seriously until I was out of school, too.

We did do a few goal-related exercises throughout the different levels of my education. However, I never saw the value in them until actually needing to be more productive in sink-or-swim situations, like hitting a quota. Plus, life, in general, can get pretty stagnant without setting goals and progressively working toward them.

The Kind of Goals to Set to Be More Productive

Legendary business speaker Jim Rohn gave an old seminar that’s up on YouTube where he goes, “dreams and goals can become magnets.” He proceeds to explain that having powerful and clear goals can pull us through hard times.

There’s also science-backed evidence that the more ambitious our goals are, the more our brains are motivated to find ways to meet them.

The American Psychological Association has published a few studies that show how much more you might achieve if you set very difficult goals and firmly commit to them. It’s crucial to set the right ones if you want to be more productive.

A Self-Negotiation

Think of it this way: when you are negotiating with someone on price, you need to anchor at a higher number than what you intend to actually get. Then, through a series of counteroffers, you will ideally land on an amount that makes you happy. In this case, the negotiation (self-negotiation) is just you versus you.

You need to anchor high with your long-term goals in order to (hopefully) set the correct short-term and daily ones. I really wish that I had started doing this when I was younger because two years of goal-setting has already gotten me further than the previous five non-goal-setting years did.

Trust me, you do not want to do five years of aimless side-projects, sporadic gym visits, or being unproductive at your day-job!

An Example of Goal Setting

If you want an idea of what long, short, and daily goals look like, these are mine right now:

Long-Term Goals (1-2 years to complete)

-Earn the CPA license

-Earn a certain amount of money (I do have a specific amount for this)

-Launch a physical product with a Kickstarter campaign

Short-Term Goals (Quarterly)

-Pass the FAR Section on the CPA exam (section 1 of 4)

-Get 6-8 guest blog articles published

-Write 2-3 articles per week on my blog for college students

-Finish the next version of the prototype

Daily Goals to Be More Productive

-Study from 6:30 am to 9:00 am for the CPA exam, FAR section

-Write & send a guest article pitch

-Work on outline and draft of an article for This College Life

-Exercise at 5 pm

They Could Still Change

Those long-term goals might be current now, however, they could also change depending on the success of the short-term goals. My time in sales has exposed me to a lot of people making forecasts that change a lot. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

One More Good Goal Analogy to Be More Productive

I am a big fan of the old personal development record “The Strangest Secret” by Earl Nightingale (it’s about 65 years old at this point). In it, he has a great analogy to describe the importance of setting clear and concise goals for yourself.

Imagine a ship leaving a harbor with its entire journey mapped out and planned (a full crew, too). Most of the time, that ship will make it exactly where it needs to go.

Now, imagine one without a map, crew, or clear direction planned. Chances are that the second ship will either sink, crash into something in the harbor, or end up on a beach somewhere.

Be like the first ship!

Tying It All Together

The year 2020 will go down in history as one that’s created unprecedented challenges for many people and things in our lives. As you really take charge in 2021 — take as many opportunities as you can to work on yourself and keep preparing for the future.

Consider going to bed and waking up at the same time every day to stabilize your circadian rhythm. Develop an exercise plan that can’t be affected by gym closures and maybe most importantly — take a few minutes to set and write down those goals.

Image Credit: anna shvets; pexels

The post 3 Strategies to Be More Productive in 2021 appeared first on ReadWrite.

Understanding the basics of CAD (Computer-Aided Design) modeling was crucial in building my first working prototype. At this point, I’m close to filing a patent. None of it would have been possible, though, without understanding three crucial functions present in a lot of the software available out there. Here are three CAD functions to understand for building your prototype.

Once you understand the following 3 CAD modeling functions, your ideas will come to life sooner than you think.

Quick Insights On Prototyping with CAD

Using CAD for engineering has been around since the late 1950s. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s, though, that producing 3D models on a personal computer became widely available.

The best alternative before doing it yourself was contracting with a design firm (unless you had access to the resources that they did). Well-known entrepreneurs like Joy Mangano spent small fortunes bringing their products to life back when they were starting out.

In Mangano’s case — it was $100,000 for the development process of the Miracle Mop — clear back in the early ’90s.

Things Are Different Now

The good news is that now there are a ton of free open-source software options on the internet for CAD modeling.

Some commercial-grade software even has a free option until you hit a certain revenue threshold with your product (like the one I use).

These software options work great if you’re on a shoestring budget and need to build something yourself.

Plus, this is a near risk-free approach compared to borrowing a bunch of money and having deadlines to pay people back.

Real-Life CAD Example

David Barnett, the inventor of PopSockets, leveraged a partial DIY strategy in the early days of his company. After working through 60 prototypes by himself, he eventually saw the product take-off (not without a few ups and downs along the way, though).

Barnett used a design firm for a phone case that was part of an early Kickstarter campaign.

That cost him a little over $100,000. However, he perfected the PopSocket accordion mechanism (the backbone of the product) by himself with the CAD program Solidworks.

Today, Barnett’s company has seen years where revenues have reached as much as $200 million (2018). In this interview with Mixergy, he briefly touched on how simple it was to draw out a sketch and get started.

Sketch

A sketch lays the groundwork for your CAD models. If you want to build something similar to the many widely available consumer products on the market, start with a sketch. Plus, you probably already have a few doodles in your notebook of what your ideas are.

It’s just a matter of drawing them out on-screen and deciding the specific measurements. Don’t worry if you aren’t great at math. I personally struggled through geometry until the last painful final exam in my sophomore year of high school.

Creativity Finds A Way

It may sound funny or weird, but, if you have the idea clear enough in your head, your brain will probably figure out how to navigate most CAD software.

Plus, there are plenty of available tutorials on the internet. The sketching just involves clicking and dragging, anyway. Use a 12-inch ruler with millimeters on it to figure out the current dimensions of the sketches in your notebook.

Using your ruler will make drawing your designs out on the screen a lot easier.

Once you have a digital sketch that looks like what you need, you can start experimenting with making that sketch three dimensional.

Extruding A CAD Model

When you create a virtual 3D object out of a sketch, you are “extruding” it.

There might be other words for the same action in different software toolbars, like “press pull” or “push-pull,” for example.

“Extrude” means “to force or push something out of something,” according to Oxford Learner’s Dictionary. The nice thing about everything being virtual is that you can extrude shapes from your sketches at whatever distance you want and make changes immediately if things don’t look the way you thought they would.

Any shape can be extruded, as long as the sketch is drawn appropriately. Multi-faceted objects will require a more complex sketch to create, though.

Sketch In, Sketch Out

You can draw sketches within other ones (for those complex objects) and choose to extrude very specific tiny parts if needed.

For example, if you were designing a toothbrush head, there would likely be a large oval sketch with many tiny circle sketches inside of it for the bristle holes. After extruding the main brush head whichever distance makes sense, you can decide the depth for extruding each hole.

My thoughts for the drawing are to extrude the same amount of depth for each hole all at once. Here’s what that would look like:

After you arrive at a design that you think works to 3D-print and play around with, it’s time for the last step.

Save the CAD As “.STL”

If you have a 3D-printer or know where to send your object (like a printing service) you will need to save it in the “.STL” format and send it there.

Some CAD software may have a menu option that says you can print directly, but, I’ve found it easier to just save the file.

The .STL file format stands for “Stereolithography” and is the standard format for desktop 3D printing. The file will need to be opened in the software that controls your 3D-printer.

There are a lot of free options out there for that, too.

The printer software will convert the STL file to G-code so your printer can understand it. G-code is the standard language used by 3D-printers.

Since each CAD modeling software and 3D printing software will be a little different, each will have its own unique parts to navigate. The 3D printers menus should be pretty straightforward, though, and it will probably be quick and easy getting your design sent to a printer. I usually ask someone who has done this before to help me set up.

Depending on the complexity of your design, I can’t promise the printing of the object itself will be a quick process. Even reasonably simple designs take time to print in those 3D printing beasts — but it is so fun and rewarding to see the finished product.

Sacrificing Time For Money

Even if it takes a long time to print (8+ hours is long to me), 3D printing is still by far the best way to build a prototype without much money.

Contracting with a professional firm could cost anywhere from $10,000 and up, as past entrepreneurs have experienced. If your goal is to build a prototype that works enough to prove the concept, this is the way to go.

However, I’ve printed some fun stuff by just asking around who owns a 3D printer and have been able to use one in a friend’s office. Ask around and try to find one.

Tying It All Together

Once you understand the basics of CAD modeling, you will be well on your way to making your own project.

Sketching it out, extruding, and saving the file in “.STL” format are the basic steps to take in order to get something tangible off the bed of a 3D printer.

If you do create a physical prototype of something unique and new that solves a problem, make sure to take the time for filing a patent (or at least a provisional patent) before telling the market about it.

The post 3 CAD Functions to Understand for Building Your Prototype appeared first on ReadWrite.

Some of the fast-food IoT technologies I’m about to dig into were already catching wind leading up to our current pandemic. Due to social distancing measures, it seems natural for any technology to thrive if it can help businesses operate with less person-to-person interaction in this climate. As our favorite places cautiously reopen, the following three technologies can help keep customers and employees healthy. Here are three fast-food IoT technologies that could slow COVID-19.

Ordering Kiosks

Being able to place an order for food indirectly has existed since the telephone. Right now, there’s a need for added layers of separation between people in fast-food restaurants. Using a kiosk to order has never been more helpful.

What is an Ordering Kiosk?

Ordering kiosks are large, rectangular screens that you can place an order on. The technology itself has been around since the late 1970s, thanks to people like Dr. Murray Lappe at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Major fast-food restaurants like Subway and McDonald’s began experimenting with these screens and ordering back in 2006.

In a 2018 interview, then-McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook shared with CNBC that the company would be starting ambitious plans to equip 1000 restaurants every quarter with kiosks for eight to nine quarters. The alternative way of ordering would provide better customer experience and more revenue for the company.

Fast-forward to summer 2019 and the investment paid off. In a Q2 earnings call last year, Easterbrook went over how the company was seeing higher average checks from customers using the order kiosks.

Not Everyone is a Fan of the Ordering Kiosk, Though.

Former CEO of McDonald’s USA, Ed Rensi, voiced his concerns about the growing Kiosk use about two years ago in an article with Forbes. His main problem with them was that automating these parts of the business would eliminate valuable opportunities for teens and college students who need an entry-level service industry job. Considering the valuable lessons from my own experience as a cashier back in college, I agree with the concerns.

How They Help Slow COVID-19

In our current environment, things like kiosks need to be cleaned almost constantly. McDonald’s has issued reopening instructions that any restaurant using the self-order kiosks must have them cleaned after every use. The kiosks will help employees in terms of social distancing and the employees will help the kiosks to stay clean. For the time being, then, they will work together.

The IoT kiosks are just one piece of the order, though. Customers who are still wary of using them (despite cleaning protocols) do have other options. By now, most major restaurant chains offer an iPhone or an Android app plus a website for placing online orders.

Smartphone apps and online ordering, in general, will come in handy for this situation, plus, they all provide a massive amount of data on customers who opt-in. Pizza Hut (a pioneer of digital ordering) even developed an Xbox app a few years ago and saw over a million in sales within the first four months.

More Connection than Ever

Now, the beginning of an order is quick, clean, and engaging for customers. Restaurants are also beginning to focus on the end of patrons’ meals, too. If the last thing they do before leaving is have disgusted feeling about something — chances are they won’t want to come back. That’s why businesses are looking at their garbage — and IoT — to further connect with customers and end meals on a cleaner note.

At-The-Source Trash Compactors

Different businesses, schools, and city governments have gradually been adopting at-the-source trash compacting during the last 20 years. Similar to the kiosks, major food chains like Chick-Fil-A have been adding more trash compactors at an increased pace lately. Also, like kiosks, various ideas and household versions of trash compactors and additional refuse disposal sources have been around since the 1970s.

The main reasons for restaurants adopting trash compactors and more trash disposal cans — is the operational efficiency and sustainability. Quick and easy trash disposal comes with added customer experience benefits that will be helpful in a post-pandemic environment.

What is an at-the-source trash compactor?

An at-the-source trash compactor is essentially a garbage can that smashes trash into a cube so the employees don’t need to go back and forth to the dumpsters as often. Fewer dumpster trips, in turn, uses fewer trash bags, reducing the plastic output in the environment. Many also have the IoT technology built-in for sending a text message or an email once the machine is full. This allows restaurants to focus on other things until the exact time one needs to be emptied.

How They Help Slow COVID-19

While you might see handles on outdoor machines — and of course, the much-needed garbage can foot pedals. A compactor that has been showing up in restaurants like Chick-Fil-A all has automatic doors on them that use a motion sensor to open. Automatic doors on the trash bins will help, since making garbage disposal as contact-less as possible these next few months will be crucial.

Studies that are currently underway by the CDC suggest that the novel coronavirus can survive for 48 to 72 hours on common surfaces like plastic or stainless steel. The fewer surfaces there are to touch, the better.

Outside of the direct customer experience, being able to indirectly monitor when machines are full will aid workers in social distancing measures. Instead of needing to periodically go and check garbage, they can look at a computer or smartphone to know whether a compactor is full.

Many chains have plans in place for the beginning and end of meal safety, but what about while you eat? In an April press release, the McDonald’s Vice President of U.S. Communications & Government relations included a list of precautionary measures that the fast-food giant will be taking to prioritize safety in restaurants.

Two main areas will remain closed for the time being. The beverage bars and play places will stay closed (imagine the germs in those ball pits!) but not every contact-heavy area can be locked up. Since bathrooms will need to remain open, IoT-enabled devices may be able to help the efforts at keeping things clean.

The IoT Bathroom

By now, practically everything in a bathroom can leverage some type of IoT fixture. Things like soap dispensers and toilet paper rolls can be monitored for how much is left, toilets can self-flush, and lights can even indicate whether a stall is in use or the door just looks closed. Enormous amounts of data can also be sent to facilities management and customer experience teams.

How They Can Help Slow COVID-19

Currently, the main adopters of smart bathroom technologies have been airports. One of the most useful benefits of the IoT-enabled bathrooms at places like the Atlanta International Airport and the Los Angeles International Airport are lights on the ceiling that indicate whether a stall is in use or not. When one is done being used, the cleaning crew could make sure it gets properly sterilized. According to the LAX COVID-19 plan, they are currently cleaning the restrooms once per hour. The ATL’s website mentions “increased frequency of cleaning of public areas” for their plan.

Keep It Simple

The light systems being installed at airports sound simple enough to fit in fast food. A battery-powered door lock wirelessly communicates with the light above to indicate whether the stall’s being used or not. The lights in the ceiling do require some basic wiring though, according to the website for Tooshlights, the company that provides them. After that, the status and data can be monitored remotely from a computer like the compactors and kiosks.

Tying It All Together

These next few months will undoubtedly be a tough time for everyone. In efforts to keep costs low and customer experience positive, various IoT systems may be an answer. Kiosks, compactors, and the bathroom will likely continue to be areas of focus for fast food chains to keep business running smoothly.

Disclosure: I was an intern one summer about five years ago for Compaction Technologies, a company that makes trash compactors. I’ve cleaned out garbage cans before. I am not receiving any compensation from them or any other company mentioned/linked in this article.

The post 3 Fast-Food IoT Technologies that Could Slow COVID-19 appeared first on ReadWrite.

The use of video lead generation in sales and marketing has been growing in popularity over the years. I’ve been on the marketing, sales development, and account executive side of the business, and it’s clear from my personal experience that fewer people are picking up the phone. Between that and overcrowded inboxes, it’s challenging to get someone’s attention these days, even to say “no” quick (when you really want a “no,” or a “why?”). Here are four video lead generation strategies for more engagement.

The Stats Don’t Lie, Either

Due to the 54.6 billion total robocalls made last year, trust in answering the phone has declined to a point where less than 50% of all calls received are answered, according to Hiya’s State of the Call Report. Couple that with only .02% of B2B lead list cold calls converting, and less than 1% of cold emails getting replies, it’s evident that you need to do something extra to stand out.

Trying the following strategies for video selling might just land you a few solid leads (I know it did for me). For privacy reasons, I have left out personal details in the following examples.

The LinkedIn Native Video

While this one is by far the riskiest, it can also pay dividends when done effectively. Putting a vid on LinkedIn involves making a video where you speak directly to the prospect who you want to meet with (speaking into the camera), upload it to LinkedIn publicly, and tag them in it. Here’s one that worked when I was trying to get some engagement with a wearable device company at the end of 2017.

That video managed to get about 15,000 views (unfortunately, the analytics disappeared after 60 days, according to LinkedIn, so I don’t have the hard evidence of that). Our guy sent me a message on LinkedIn later that night, and complemented the video. Then, he referred me to the person internally who we needed to speak with on his team.

To be clear, this should act as a last resort after all standard contact methods have been exhausted.

Their company had no direct phone lines, and we couldn’t scrape up any cell phone numbers through tools like Zoominfo or Datanyze. I had tried messaging him on LinkedIn, and through email several times first, too. The other thing is that since these videos take some time to make (at least this video did), the company you’re working to engage needs to be a whale of a prospect. Unfortunately, the referral he gave me never turned into anything in the immediate future. We had just missed the boat with their compelling event.

Even though I never looked at Hootsuite’s LinkedIn video guide when I made my videos — it’s worth skimming over this post before making a video for your business. Also, be aware that 45% of people will only watch for the first 30 seconds, so there needs to be a compelling hook (a great piece of video) right at the beginning.

I planned for the video to be viewed with no sound (at least at first), and added the visual hook of an insane amount of weight on the bench. If you’re wondering, it was 585 pounds. I’m a little too small for that. I also didn’t mess around at the beginning of the video, and quickly let them know we could help them with their (publicly mentioned) global growth goals.

Key Insights on Selling With LinkedIn

Many companies saddle their salespeople with LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscriptions, and for good reason. The site has over 500 million users as of 2019, and 78% of B2B marketers rate it as the most effective platform in achieving specific objectives for their organization.

Even though you do not need to be connected with someone to tag them in a video post (they will still be notified) it doesn’t hurt to add them to your network first. One connection message that I found to get accepted a lot of the time and start conversations was simple:

“Hi, Dr. Brenner,

Bob Buckley here with This College Life. I came across your profile and was hoping you could help me out. Do you mind if I ask a few quick questions?

Thanks,

Bob”

Here’s an example of a successful conversion from a message like that (sometimes I needed to follow up asking if we could talk one more time):

Even though I just plugged LinkedIn Sales Navigator above, the majority of my success with LinkedIn actually came from simple connection requests with a custom message included, like the one mentioned above. Having the subscription to Sales Navigator will allow you to send out a few more connection requests than with a non-premium account, so it’s worth the expense for maximizing your network. Once I started doing that, it became a lot easier to find out which companies might have needed our product.

Sending Video Via Email

After having some success with a public video on LinkedIn but little with sending videos through the platform’s messenger, I started looking into whether it was possible to send a video via email. This lesser-known (although growing) strategy for getting a prospect’s attention can be really powerful for cutting through their crowded inbox. Depending on what type of email client a person has, it can even be possible to have a video play within the message. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell what your prospects are using for email ahead of time.

I’ve always used a picture with a play button in the center for the highest delivery rate. You also need to include a hyperlink within the image, so when clicked, it opens into a new browser window where the video is hosted and then it plays. I used Wistia for the first few videos that I sent via email as an SDR.

Wistia can be a great platform to start with.

I’m still leveraging Wistia in video-related marketing efforts today with This College Life. Since the personal finance website Salt (saltmoney.org) was shut down a little over a year ago, there hasn’t really been a site focused on financial literacy and student loan resources for college students the way they were. At some point, one of their marketing reps must have been working with my university because I started getting emails from Salt about once a week at my .edu email.

It seems easy in theory to send an email about picking up where Salt left off, but even getting the right person’s attention at a school can be challenging. One time, I emailed someone in the administration at mine with a budget question and it took over a month for them to get back. Video to the rescue. At the very least, I can use Wistia to see free analytics on whether someone watches my pitch or not. Here’s an example:

How do you add a picture of a video to an email?

Adding a hyperlink to an image is fairly straightforward. The first thing you need to do is pull up the page where you will play your video. Then, open up the screenshot tool on your computer. If you have a PC, search the “snipping tool” in the bottom left search bar. If you’re on a mac, press “shift-command-4” and your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Clicking “new” when the snipping tool opens on a Windows PC will turn the cursor into a crosshair. Click in the top left of your video and drag until the box is covering your video. You want the play button showing in the image, too.

Open up a blank email draft in your email client (I use Outlook) and click in the draft so the cursor is blinking there. Then, if you’re on a PC press “CTRL + V” to paste the still image of the video. On Mac, it’s “CMD + V.” Once the image drops in, you will probably need to resize it. That can be done by clicking on the image once and then clicking and dragging one of the 8 white dots to change the size. I recommend the far bottom-right corner dot. After your image is the correct size, copy the link to your video from the address bar where it’s hosted.

This Next Part Might Get Confusing

Right-click on the image and select “link” from the menu that opens up. The window titled “Insert Hyperlink” will look like you need to pick a local file on your computer. The good news is, you don’t. Right-click inside the “Address:” field and then select “Paste” to drop your link in there. Click “Ok” and you now have your video setup with a link. Add in whatever text you think is necessary within the email to get them to click on it.

Keep the message short, something like “I thought it would be better to get on camera to tell you this” or “to ask you this.” You may also want to right-click on the image before sending and select “Edit Alt Text” where you can type one or two sentences explaining what the image is in case your prospect’s email client doesn’t fully load the picture. That way, they won’t be left staring at a URL with no direction.

Using Salesloft? Vidyard Could be Perfect

If you have Salesloft in your tech stack, then you should really look at trying Vidyard for sending video emails. The integration is very smooth, and at least a few of the videos I sent from my Vidyard-Salesloft-Outlook combo were watched 20-30 times with the email itself opened 100+ times. Both Vidyard and Wistia have free options, so if you signed up for those two platforms, you could send eight videos, total without paying anything to start.

Key Insights on Selling With Video Emails

There are many compelling common-sense reasons to adopt video emails into your lead generation strategy. Think about what’s easier to pass around a company: an email that has a few sentences and might be good (when it looks like the same thing people get bombarded with every few minutes) or something that looks the same as what a person might click on to laugh at and unwind (and no reading required). Plus, almost 60% of executives prefer watching a video than reading text, according to Wordstream.

At least a few of the videos I sent via Vidyard’s platform were watched 20-30 times. These will absolutely make an impact on those who open them. Consider this case study of Vidyard’s customer Gordian, a construction technology company. They brought in 6 million in revenue with just 5 very compelling videos. They saw 736 market-qualified leads, 21 sales opportunities, and 11 closed opportunities to add up to 6 million in revenue. Even other organizations outside of business are using videos to drive further engagement. Just look at Loyola University Maryland’s strategy to welcome admitted students with personalized video.

By doing this, they stand out from the myriad of other college choices.

When the team sent out the first video campaign to 8,000 admitted students at the end of 2017, there were over 10,000 views. More importantly, 4,000 reviews. The takeaway? They made a really positive first impression with prospective students and making it personal paid off. If you’re nervous about the time investment for personalized video in your B2B company or other organization, ask yourself the following question: Can I really afford to send another 10,000 canned emails?

Facebook Targeted Ads

You should be careful about direct Facebook lead generation. Making any kind of move like that could be taken the wrong way. Imagine walking up to someone’s house outside of work hours for a B2B meeting request. It probably wouldn’t work out so well. The good news is, you can still leverage the platform in a non-intrusive way through their Facebook for Business advertising.

Key Insights on Selling With Facebook Video

As of December 2019, there are 2.5 billion active users on the Facebook platform. Overall, user statistics may not be as important, but you should still recognize the sheer volume of people there. Facebook’s lead generation ads are some of the most cost-effective to leverage in B2B advertising, too. You can collect prospects’ info directly on Facebook instead of risking losing people when they click through to your website. The site offers helpful instructions for using their ad platform and there are useful guides all over the web for making content that converts.

You can even target specific people with ads if you have their email. It should be noted, though, that those emails need to be the ones used for their Facebook accounts. Video ads will play automatically as you scroll down the page and include sound, but play it safe by assuming that your prospect will have sound turned off and try getting their attention without it. As many as 85% of all video views on Facebook happen without sound, according to Digiday. Fortunately, you can look at plenty of time-tested methods for keeping someone in the first three seconds with nothing but a visual. You can find great examples on the blogs of companies like Hubspot and Buffer for getting viewers to stick around.

Twitter and Instagram

The great thing about Twitter and Instagram is how many prominent people have public profiles. Even better, you can tweet at or tag someone, and they will be notified whether they follow you or not. Before putting too much time into these platforms, make sure they routinely post and/or engage with other accounts. No sense in contacting them there if they never check it!

Someone else might also run their account.

Be aware that someone else might also be managing an executive’s Twitter or Instagram. Although that’s more pro athletes than anyone. You can say the same about a LinkedIn profile. Regardless, if you make something creative enough, it should cut through all the noise. I’ve only tried one Twitter video before, and it was a contest entry for winning some money from Vitamin Water. While it was unsuccessful, it did get me into putting a video on the platform.

Key Insights on Selling With Twitter and Instagram

Hopefully, you took a look at some of the resources mentioned above for making video hooks. The data points to the same strategies working for making compelling videos on Twitter and Instagram, too. Creating an eye-catching thumbnail and title are both pivotal in getting someone to start the video. Planning a striking visual in the first 3 seconds that doesn’t rely on sound is equally important. Consider all the places people browse these apps where they can’t hear sound anyway.

Not so surprisingly, 90% of Twitter video views were happening on mobile soon after the feature was added. When Instagram first introduced videos, over 5 million were shared in the first 24 hours. Since then, it’s only grown more as the preferred way people consume content. In 2019, 93% of brands were able to acquire a new customer on social media through video. Don’t let your company be in the 7% that leaves scrolling customers in the dark about your product. Remember, it can be as simple as propping up the smartphone camera for filming a 30-second message.

Tying It All Together

The longstanding advice for selling anything is taking a multi-pronged approach of exploring every avenue (phone, email, social, etc.). This plan of attack will almost always yield results, assuming you keep diligently following up and maintain a laser-like focus. As new tech opens up more ways to fill your pipeline, don’t be afraid to dig in and try them. They could make the difference between hitting a number or not if you can get on the right person’s radar at the right time by sticking out from the crowd. In choosing B2B selling strategies, a video should make your final cut.

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