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Disney Board Game – Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom

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20200914 SEL Brief

Good morning, Marketers, welcome to Monday.

Consider these statements:

When you don’t see people like you, you end up devaluing yourself. — Amanda Jordan

Not seeing yourself reflected makes it harder to ask for a raise or think you can get on a big stage. — Aleyda Solis

You often have to lean in 2x as hard as a woman. It can be hard to keep up the momentum. — Nicole DeLeon

Those are from notes I jotted down during our Live with Search Engine Land discussion on closing the gender gap in SEO Company because they really struck — and resonated — with me. In addition to talking about their experiences, we discussed Nicole’s research on (the lack of) representation and pay equity, the importance of intentionality in affecting change, why men should be part of the conversation, the benefits of building a network of female and male allies and resources such as WomenInTechSEO Company.com and much more. It was a dynamic discussion, and the full replay will be up on Search Engine Land and our YouTube channel soon. Let’s keep the conversation going — be sure to follow Nicole, Amanda and Aleyda.

Also on Friday, we launched the inaugural Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity & Inclusion In Search marketing agency. Nominations are now open through October 9. You may nominate as many organizations or individuals as you feel deserve the recognition.

Did you know? The data and signals that make up Google’s core search algorithm updates do get updated regularly between Google core updates, John Mueller confirmed with Barry Schwartz last week. That means sites may see some recovery between updates. “It’s not something that requires a site to kind of wait for the next update to have a chance to be seen differently. They can continue working on things and things can improve over time,” he told Barry.

Keep reading for Barry’s daily Search Shorts and more.

Ginny Marvin, Editor-In-Chief

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The Reason Good Businesses Tell Boring Stories

September 13, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

“Ultramarathon Man” Dean Karnazes is a jerk. I say this jokingly because the year I ran my first marathon, he ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. He’s also written several bestselling books about his trials and triumphs as an ultramarathon fanatic.

A business journey, like a marathon, can become quite rambly, yet you can make engaging, vibrant stories out of it. The key — and this is something people get horribly wrong every day — is respecting the difference between a story and a narrative.

The good news is you don’t need to be a creative genius to tell a story that makes people want to work with you. Simply understanding the distinction between a story and a narrative will help you construct higher-quality stories with greater ease. And that will help you grow your business.

Marathons as narratives

A marathon rarely makes for a great story. In fact, running 50 marathons could be fodder for 50 really bad stories. But that’s not what Karnazes did, which raises the question: How do you talk about running a marathon, whether a literal marathon or “marathon” as an analogy, in a way that keeps the audience engaged? Because if running a marathon is both a joy and a slog, listening to someone yammer about it start to finish is only a slog.

Think of a marathon from a narrative standpoint. It may be grueling, yet it follows a predictable course and ends at a designated spot after 26.2 miles (assuming you’ve trained well and aren’t injured). The potential to add endless, mundane details is unlimited, just like the stories you forge on your business journey.

The reasons this doesn’t work are similar to the reasons businesses are so bad at telling their stories, telling their clients’ stories, presenting interesting case studies and communicating purpose. The storytelling principles below give you clear guidance on what to emphasize, what to leave in and what to leave out.

Related: Communicating Purpose Can Create a Boom in Business

Storynomics

In the excellent book Storynomics: Story-Driven Marketing in the Post-Advertising World, authors Robert McKee and Thomas Gerace discuss the difference between stories and other forms of narrative. Simply put, “stories progress with emotional dynamics; narratives repeat emotionless facts.”

McKee, who has taught and mentored hundreds of award-winning screenplay writers, directors and authors, is emphatic: “All stories are narratives, but not all narratives are stories.” In Storynomics, he defines “story” as “a dynamic escalation of conflict-driven events that cause meaningful change in a character’s life.”

Most people incorrectly use these terms “story” and “narrative” interchangeably.

It’s important to convey credibility, but creds don’t get you anywhere if you can’t hold a person’s attention. Doing that successfully requires coming back to those two elements — emotional dynamics and conflict.

Set your conceptual hat aside for a moment and think of it this way:

If you’ve ever considered triggering a fire alarm just to get out of a bad conversation at a cocktail party, you were probably trapped in someone else’s narrative.

If you’ve ever found yourself hanging on every word of someone whose company you normally dislike, that person was telling a story.

If you can add the phrase “and then” to the beginning of almost every sentence of a “story” without messing up the grammatical logic, that’s a narrative, not a story.

In telling your story, remember that nobody wants to hear about your IP strategy, your headquarters move or your workplace pet policy — unless there’s a specific, practical reason it concerns them.

Related: 4 Reasons Why Empathy is Good for Business

With each story you tell, ask yourself these two questions:

Is it clear what’s at stake?

Am I communicating a shared purpose that invokes some emotion?

Case in point: Bad story narrative | Good story

This story is based on an actual company and its founder, but I changed all information that could be used to identify them. This is the narrative version of their origin:

Bart Bartlebee, the founder of Bartlebee Household Products LLC, understood that if you’re proud of your work and show that you’re proud of it, good things will follow naturally. With 13 patents and counting, Bartlebee has emerged as a trusted industry leader (blah blah blah)…

Interested? Me neither. Here’s the same company, storified:

Bart Bartlebee had an independent streak not everybody appreciated early in his career … like the time he fired his boss’s mistress. He was always tinkering and looking for different ways of doing things. That restless, proactive and imaginative nature nourished the vision for Bartlebee Household Products.

Although Bart was a capable and well-liked founder, our early years were a roller coaster…

This is a decent hook with humor and a somewhat empathic character. It hints at conflict without being cinematic, which is unnecessary.

Not all narratives are stories. Respect that distinction and you’ll tell good stories that contribute to an authentic, memorable brand. Ignore it and you’ll alienate people or put them to sleep.

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This Award-Winning Social Media Automation Tool is Half Off

Get this 2020 G2 High Performer for less than $100.

Free Book Preview Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing

This book takes readers through a 360-degree perspective of social media marketing agency in businesses.

September 13, 2020 2 min read

Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

Building your business online can be tough, especially if you have a small team. With so much noise on the Internet, one of the best ways to get eyes on your business’s web pages is simply posting on social media frequently. But who has the time to create and manage all that content? If you need help with your social media strategy, you need a tool like Postoplan Social Media Automation.

Postoplan is an award-winning social media automation tool that’s trusted by more than 15,000 professionals across 140 countries. It was named a 2020 High Performer by G2 and 2020 Quality Choice by Crozdesk, plus it has 4.8 stars on Capterra and 4.9 on Trustpilot. Simply put, users love Postoplan.

Postoplan is an all-in-one automatic marketing agency system for all of your social media accounts and messengers. It allows you to add an unlimited number of accounts, choose from more than 700 ready-made post ideas, and create an entire social media strategy while barely lifting a finger. You can schedule messenger posts, customize and schedule content, edit photos to meet your brand’s style guidelines, and much more. Everything is fully customizable so you can create unique messages that are in line with your brand voice. You can post as many videos and GIFs as you want, communicate with followers as much as you want, and schedule up to 1,000 posts each month across platforms.

With Postoplan’s premium plan, you get ad-free access to the entire platform and all of its top-tier features.

Grow your social media marketing agency without any significant investment. Right now, you can get a lifetime subscription to Postoplan Social Media Automation for 50% off at just $99.99.

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Todd Isberner’s Faith and Family-Based Blueprint for Repeatable Success

September 13, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Am I enough? Do I have what it takes? How do you instill and multiply confidence and trustworthiness in all areas of your life as a man? And how many times have you reinvented yourself over the course of your life and your career? Could it be your marriages, your jobs, maybe the businesses you’ve started and sold?

The University of Warwick studied 1.3 million adults in 51 countries and found a measurable decline in happiness at age 40. The research found that midlife divorce rates in the United States have doubled since the 1990s. No wonder it’s been called the dark night of the soul. It’s when you reach a wall in your career and your business, your marriage, your life, your relationship with your children, and even your body start to change.

Related: Kevin Mawae on a Faith-Filled Road to the NFL Hall of Fame

Todd Isberner guides men who are looking for a practical blueprint on how to master four foundational cornerstones of life — faith, family fitness, and finances — to build a purposeful and satisfying life.

Isberner has been there and done that. He’s the bestselling author of What Every Man Needs to Know, winner of the Christian Music Broadcasters Industry Achievement Award, and has help raise funds for organizations including K-Love Radio Network, Compassion International, the Salvation Army, Reach Beyond Global Media, and radio networks in England, Australia and New Zealand.

These days, giving back and making a positive impact are his core focuses.

From Isberner’s perspective, the biggest thing men struggle with today is an identity crisis. He believes they’re getting increasingly confused with who they’re supposed to be and what their role and purpose are. The certainty and clarity of how a man is wired is dissipating in obscurity.

Isberner is defiantly standing up and saying, “No! Reclaim who you are wired to be.” We function in the fullness of our manness, and that is the road to not just happiness and success in life, but the road to true contribution and the betterment of others. There are way too many men out there who were designed to be eagles and soar, says Isberner, but instead, they’re scratching and pecking around like chickens.

His mission is simple: help men rediscover who they are, what their role is, how to be successful and fulfilled, and convince them they actually do have what it takes and that they’re more than enough.

Isberner was educated in the school of hard knocks. He grew up in a little town in Minnesota; he and his siblings had a great mom and a dad, who raised them in the Catholic church. From childhood, he thought that he would go into the priesthood — that is, until the ninth grade. By the end of that school year, the furthest thing from his mind was becoming a priest.

Related: 3 Concepts for Developing Inner Peace In a Hectic Life

He discovered girls, parties and athletics, and ultimately embarked on a 10-year road of rebellion and bad choices that caused some tremendous consequences, including getting married at a young age, being a lousy husband, and losing his wife to another man. It devastated him.

He felt like his face was literally in the dirt, but it needed to be because that’s the only way he could look up. When he finally did look up, he called out to God, and through a series of circumstances, he had a spiritual conversion. It was a pivotal moment in his life.

From that point on, things began to change. He was a single dad, co-raising two young daughters, went to seminary, and started a business. He decided to use his gifts to serve others and pivoted his business toward helping organizations that needed funding. He and his team became experts in the nonprofit world, and after 42 years of doing this very fulfilling work, he sold the business and developed his Cornerstone System, a blueprint for success.

Todd Isberner’s Cornerstone System

Faith: Isberner believes that faith is the glue that holds everything together. People get nervous talking about God, but Todd believes spiritual growth is a lifelong journey, and that our Creator made you because he loves you and wanted you here at this time and place in history.

Family: Every man is a son. Many are also husbands, former husbands, husbands to be, and dads. Family must be that safe place where you are rewarded with feelings of love, respect, security, and leadership. Always put your family and wife’s needs ahead of your own. Isberner suggests men use the “No Resistance button.” It’s very simple… she is always right, period. Even when you are right, and you know you’re right, let her be right. In doing so, you show her respect, that her opinion is valued, and that you’re not controlling her. Your relationship will experience unbelievable respect and freedom as a result of this approach.

Fitness: Two things that will get you fit: knowing what you want and knowing why you want it. One of the benefits of participating in a fitness program is that you also toughen up your mind each time you tell your body what to do while it’s experiencing discomfort or pain. You’re developing a stronger mind as you develop a strong body.

Finances: You have a relationship with money just as you have a relationship with your family. What you think about money defines who you are, but your financial statements are not proof of your value. Money doesn’t prove your true success in life — unless that’s the meaning you give it. Learning better ways to manage your money with purposeful intention, will free you from money entanglements so you can be defined by who you are, not what you have.

So if you’re questioning… who am I, really? How am I wired? Do I have what it takes to be the man I’m supposed to be? Am I fulfilling this purpose and role in life? If these questions are starting to surface and you’re hungry for something more, start a conversation with Todd Isberner.

The reality is you’ve got more inside you than you realize, and working with a trusted advisor can help you unlock that potential for impact.

Get a free copy of Todd’s book here: https://www.ToddIsberner.com/Free And watch the BONUS video with Todd and Wendie here: www.MrBz.com/ToddandWendie

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Build a Professional Website that Meets Your Specific Business Needs with Wix

Get your business online with an intuitive, seamless website builder.

Grow Your Business, Not Your Inbox

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September 13, 2020 2 min read

Having a professional-looking website is essential for any business in the best of times. As people spend more time indoors these days, however, it’s especially important to have a powerful web presence.

To get your business online, you could hire a web designer or take things into your own hands with Wix. It’s a website builder that enables business owners and their teams to create websites that are perfectly tuned to the business.

When you sign up for Wix, you get access to more than 500 templates that are fully compatible with desktop and mobile devices. Using these flexible, intuitive templates, you can create a professional website to meet any of your needs. From building informational pages to creating blogs, media galleries, video channels, menus, booking calendars and more, Wix offers an all-in-one solution to support your business vision. You’re in the driver’s seat to turn your web presence into anything you’d like.

With Wix, you also get built-in ecommerce functionality that enables you to accept payments online, showcase products, calculate tax on individual orders, offer coupons and promotions, and much more. Restaurant owners can even accept delivery and pickup orders online without paying hefty commission fees to fulfillment services like GrubHub.

Best of all, Wix also offers reliable web hosting, digital security, search engine optimization services, and access to dedicated support teams.

More than 180 million people around the world trust Wix. You can join them and build your website today.

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10 Tools to Help Your eCommerce Business Get off the Ground

September 13, 2020 4 min read

While the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the global economy, eCommerce has proven surprisingly resilient. As brick-and-mortar shops close, many people turn online to purchase, putting eCommerce in a promising boom.

If you’re thinking of starting an eCommerce business in these times, technology can be a significant boon for you. We’ve rounded up 10 of the best budget-friendly tools to help you get your business off the ground.

1. ImageX Ultra: Image & Graphics Editor – $28.99 (Orig. $85.00)

A budget-friendly alternative to the Adobe Creative Cloud, ImageX Ultra gives you design powers, even if you have no idea what you’re doing. With more than 500 customizable graphics templates, you can quickly create a design for your website without any technical expertise needed.

2. SocialBot by ZapApps: Lifetime Subscription – $29.00 (Orig. $1,740.00)

Facebook Messenger can be an excellent tool to improve your customer service and boost your sales. But who has time to constantly monitor messages? With SocialBot, you’ll have dedicated bots for Messenger, SMS, and email marketing agency to handle any job you program them to.

3. Blueprints Website Builder: Lifetime Subscription – $39.00 (Orig. $149.00)

With 200 examples pages, 500 responsive blocks, more than 30 navigation panels, and many more tools, Blueprints helps you build websites without writing a single line of code. Creating a custom eCommerce site is easy, even if you’ve never coded before.

4. WooCommerce 110+ Premium Plugin Bundle – $39.00 (Orig. $199.00)

WordPress is one of the top platforms for building eCommerce websites these days because of plug-ins like WooCommerce. WooCommerce Plugin Bundle makes it extremely easy to build and manage an eCommerce website, and with this massive bundle, you’ll have everything you need to get the most out of your business. With more than 110 plugins, you’ll be able to vary images, analyze site data, and much more.

5. .STORE Domain Name 5 Year Subscription – $39.99 (Orig. $145.00)

You’re an eCommerce business, why not have a domain that says what you do? With a .STORE domain, users will know exactly what they’re on your site to do: buy! Plus, you’ll have access to secure, fast hosting and be able to find a domain that more accurately describes your brand.

6. Sellful: All-in-One Business Software for Freelancers & Entrepreneurs – $49.00 (Orig. $840.00)

You could invest in a dozen different programs, or you can just use Sellful: All-in-One Business Software for Freelancers & Entrepreneurs. This ingenious platform combines a website builder, CRM, SEO Company planning, appointment scheduling, and much more in one platform.

7. Botsify Chatbot: 5-Yr Subscription – $49.99 (Orig. $2,940.00)

Botsify Chatbot is one of the leading bot builders on the market. With this clever tool, you can build your own chatbots and customize them to help customers answer their questions, complete sales, and much more.

8. Bouncer Bulk Email Verification: Lifetime Subscription – $50.00 (Orig. $100.00)

Nobody wants to work hard on an email campaign only to discover that half of your email list is expired or broken. With Bouncer Bulk Email Verification, you’ll be able to verify your entire email list almost instantly. It goes through to verify syntax, check activity, and remove duplicates so your email list is always up to date.

9. JumpStory Authentic Stock Photography: Lifetime Membership – $99.99 (Orig. $2,340.00)

Stock photography is essential for any business that engages in digital marketing agency. JumpStory gives you unlimited access to more than 25 million authentic photos, videos, illustrations, vectors, and icons, as well as an AI tool to edit them instantaneously. You can crop images, insert text, insert your own logo, and much more, allowing you to quickly spruce up marketing agency campaigns in just minutes.

10. ThunderDrive Cloud Storage Plans: Lifetime Subscription – $59.00 (Orig. $1,200.00)

Every organization needs reliable cloud storage. This seamless tool gives you 2TB of access to secure AES 256-bit encrypted storage as well as a central hub for organizing all of your files. ThunderDrive is the perfect Dropbox cost-effective alternative.

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Building a New Habit Starts with These 5 Steps

September 12, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you’re like most people, you probably have countless goals and aspirations: eating a more balanced diet, saving money, exercising more, being a more engaged parent. Prepared to make a major life change with your sights set squarely on perfection, you fail — if not immediately, within the first few weeks.

According to Marti Hope Gonzales, an associate psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, 80 percent of people who set New Year’s resolutions fail or have forgotten about their resolutions by the second week of February.

So, what can you do? Are all attempts to change doomed to fail?

Fortunately, no.

Whether you want to exercise more, sleep better or build any other new habit, here are five science-backed techniques to help you create lasting behavioral change.

1. Create your implementation plans

Implementation plans are one of the simplest and most effective ways to build new habits.

In one research study of participants who wanted to exercise more, one group was told to create an implementation plan by completing this statement: “During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [day] at [time] in [place].”

The other participants in the study were given no instructions.

The results?

Several months later, only 39 percent of the non-planners were exercising. What about the group that made the implementation plan? An amazing 91 percent of them were still exercising regularly!

This study is not one-of-a-kind.

A meta-analysis of 94 studies spanning a total of 8,000 participants found that using implementation plans had a “medium-to-large” impact on goal achievement. In simpler words? Implementation plans work. To get started with your implementation plan, use the same formula: During the next week, I will [desired habit] on [day] at [time] in [place].

Related: 5 Ways to Set Good Habits That Actually Stick

2. Make your new habit small

The key to long-term change is to start small. By choosing to implement small behavioral changes, you can easily develop new habits with minimal effort.

Here’s a quick example of small habits:

Do one squat after brushing your teeth

Read one page during your commute

Eat one piece of fruit at lunch

Meditate for 10 seconds before bed

The beauty of small habits is that they remove willpower from the equation. The habit is so small that it doesn’t require much time or energy to perform it.

Phillippa Lally and her team found that it takes anywhere between 18 and 254 days for a behavior to become automatic. The bigger and more complex a habit, the longer it took to make it automatic; and the more frequently you performed a behavior, the quicker it will become habitual.

Lally’s research suggests that keeping your behavior small while repeating it frequently may be the key to success. Thus, while doing one squat or meditating for 10 seconds daily may not seem like a big deal, doing these small behaviors repeatedly will make them more automatic.

3. Build your habit over phases

When it comes to habit formation, consistency matters more than intensity. That’s why you should start with the smallest possible version of your habit.

However, once you’ve mastered your small habit, level up to a slightly bigger version. For example, here’s the process I used to create a daily writing habit that has allowed me to write and publish 12 books:

Phase 1: Write one sentence every day.

Phase 2: Write one page every day

Phase 3: Write five pages every day

I intentionally made the first phase of the habit as easy as possible. Success was defined as “opening my Word processing software and writing at least one sentence.” Sometimes I wrote more than that, and at other times that was all I could accomplish.

After 10 days in the first phase, I felt comfortable enough to move onto the more challenging goal of writing one page a day. This turned out to be more challenging and as a result, I spent almost a year in this phase before moving up.

The takeaway here is to start as small as possible and only level up to the next phase once you’ve mastered the smaller version of your habit.

Related: 7 Habits of Super Successful Business Owners

4. Reduce the friction

Getting a taxi required people to stand in line and wait to be picked up. Then Uber came along — and you could suddenly hail a ride with the click of a button. By reducing the friction needed to get a cab, Uber revolutionized an industry.

Any time you can reduce friction by making it easier to perform a behavior, people are more likely to do it.

There are several ways you can reduce the friction associated with performing your habit:

Reduce the number of steps: Want to work out more, but don’t like commuting to the gym? Start with at-home workouts. There are many apps for this.

Prep in advance: Plan to go for a run in the morning? Layout your shoes and clothes the night before.

Increase accessibility: Want to eat healthier? Keep a fruit bowl where you can see it and hide all the candy.

As you embark on your quest to create your new habit, it’s a good idea to consider how you can reduce the friction associated with that behavior. The more convenient and easier you make your new habit, the more likely you are to do it.

5. Track the habit

Using a habit tracking app like HabitBull or Strides. A journal or calendar to track your habit visually can prove to be a powerful source of motivation for some people.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld was once asked if he had “any tips for a young comic.” He advised the man to buy a calendar and hang it in a prominent place where he had no choice but to see it. Then, every single day, Seinfeld told the comic to commit to writing jokes.

“When you succeed, put a big X on your calendar for that given day,” Seinfeld said. “After a few days, you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only next job is to not break the chain.”

So, how do you apply this?

Find a way to track your habit. It doesn’t matter whether you do this the old fashioned way using a pen and calendar or a habit tracking app, just as long as you track your progress. Strive to build a chain, but when you do fail, get back on track again to see if you can beat your previous streak.

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3 Ways Technology Helps You Make Money With Direct Mail Marketing

September 12, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The average person is exposed to an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 advertisements per day. So it’s not surprising that we are almost ‘immune’ to their charm.

Don’t get me wrong — this doesn’t mean they’re not effective or they don’t have their place in marketing. In fact, marketers have been able to experience a 96 percent increase in clicks with an active Facebook ad campaign.

However, there is another mode of marketing agency that might be even more effective. Direct mail marketing has been used for years, long before advertising online was a thing.

Although direct mail marketing agency might seem to be an archaic form of marketing agency, it does have its perks now that technology is here to change the rules of the game.

Technology has revolutionized everything we do including how we market our offers. Several years ago when things were pretty much all manually driven, there wasn’t an efficient way of collecting and storing data.

Now, technology helps us work faster and smarter and provides us with more accurate data about our potential clients. And obviously, this leads to better conversion rates and happier customers. Technology has sharpened the direct mail marketing agency process to provide great results.

What makes direct mail so appealing?

Direct mail marketing is a form of marketing agency where advertisements and other promotional materials are physically delivered to your mailbox.

While some say direct mail is dead, research has proven that direct mail response rates are a lot higher than all other forms of advertising combined — in fact, direct mail’s response rates have been getting better year after year as digital becomes more widely adopted.

Its advantages over the digital system stem from the long-standing accuracy of its data (which dates back decades) and the very real, tangible impression businesses can make on consumers by sending them a quality mail piece. Its disadvantages are rooted in the startup time it takes to move a campaign from conception to completion, along with the higher price that comes along with the logistics and manpower needed to make that tangible impression. Technology, however, has made direct mail easier to execute and more affordable than ever.

So what does technology have to do with direct mail marketing agency?

It’s simple — with the presence of technology, direct mail marketing agency has gone digital. This makes direct marketing more accurate, reliable, and effective. Here are three ways technology has transformed direct mail marketing agency.

Related: 3 Secrets to Adding Direct Mail to Your Online Sales Funnel

1. Technology lets you digitize the direct mail marketing process

When done correctly and with the right technological integrations, direct mail marketing agency can create a more memorable experience for your ideal customer with your business. And some businesses are already taking advantage of that.

A good example that explains the process of digitizing the whole marketing agency process is PostcardMania, a $60 million marketing agency firm that specializes in direct mail. Just recently, PostcardMania integrated with Zapier and hundreds of other CRMs, giving marketers a chance to take data from their CRM or website and send targeted postcards to their marketing agency pipeline based on specific triggers like dates or seasons.

Some common trigger-based setups include: sending postcards to shoppers that abandon their carts without purchasing; sending welcome postcards to new online subscribers with special discounts to encourage conversions; and reconnecting with buyers for upsell opportunities.

This integration allows business owners to automatically send direct mail in any quantity, thereby putting an end to what normally would have been a very lengthy setup.

2. You can integrate direct mail into your marketing campaign

Businesses who use direct mail marketing agency can now utilize digital technology to optimize their campaigns. Through using personalized URLs, QR codes, or even SMS codes, they can get their potential clients to connect with them online and increase response rates. These integrations make the tracking of leads and revenue a very easy process compared to what it was before.

Related: The 3 Attributes of Every Successful Marketing Campaign

3. It delivers accurate data about customers for precise targeting

Unlike how it was in the past, where the success of direct mail marketing agency was all left to chance, businesses can now have access to more accurate data about their target audience before sending them their first mail in their mailbox. This helps increase the efficacy of the direct mail marketing campaign.

What this means is that when it comes to direct mail, you aren’t just targeting a profile or an IP address — a targeted list can include first and last names, neighborhoods, even the date an insurance policy runs out. Businesses can leverage this data to speak directly to recipients individually on every mail piece. For example, a headline that states, “John, welcome to the neighborhood!” for John Smith and another mail piece that says, “Jane, welcome to the neighborhood!” for Jane Doe. This technology is called variable data and can definitely get the attention of your intended target market.

The future of direct mail

There’s no doubt about it — technology has made direct mail marketing agency more effective. This is good news for a lot of business owners who were at a loss for what to do to get their products and services in front of their target audience.

Related: Going Green With Direct Mail

Through tech, businesses have a higher chance of making every mail they deliver count. With the right kind of tools and strategies in place, businesses will be able to receive real value for their money in direct mail marketing agency.

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The Right Words Can Make You More Money

September 12, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Cornerstone concepts act as the invisible structure for a sales letter. Like bricks, they build on each other and become a conversion machine for sales.

You’ve probably heard that a persuasive sales letter has certain elements including headlines, emotional storytelling, fascination bullets, the lead, the hook, the “Big Idea,” the client’s belief matrix, and other factors that come together.

But between the layers of these elements, you’ll find 3 principles woven into every piece of hyper-effective sales copy.

They are picture, proof and promise.

These 3 cornerstones act as the critical backdrop to the canvas that you paint your message on. This message turns cold shoppers into your ever-expanding brand audience.

Related: The 6 Essential Components of Effective Sales Letters

1. Picture

Your sales letter should not be about what your product/service does or what it is. Your customer doesn’t care.

Let me repeat: No. One. Cares.

What do they care about? Themselves.

How do you get them to care? Paint them a picture they can step into and feel for themselves.

Consumer self-centeredness is nothing new and nothing personal. So, if you want to sell record numbers of your product/service then you have got to get on your ideal customer’s level and craft imagery in your copy.

Every customer is the hero of their own story and it’s your job to use pictures that make them the hero of that story.

“In 2 weeks after taking this vitamin you’re going to have so much energy you’re going to be able to hike that mountain/run the Boston Marathon/play a full game of basketball with your teenage son (and beat him)…imagine waking up in the morning with a back free of pain and moving like you were 21 again…”

Craft positive, powerful images of what the product can do for your customer and how it will transform their life. Use them throughout your sales copy to make the consumer the center of their story, not yours. Do that and you’ll make legions of loyal fans who you made the hero of their own story.

2. Proof

To improve sales, have an ample amount of proof sprinkled among your messaging. Some clients are logic-based in their decisions, so you have to build credibility in your copy.

Credibility is how believable you are to a potential client. This is created through a combination of two factors: authority and social proof.

Authority is drawing from facts from resources that hold a degree of status in society. Status is the degree of esteem you hold for the advice and/or statement of fact from a source. For example, on seeking information for the chronic migraines, your family doctor might be a good resource. You can confirm that he has studied medicine for 22 years, specializing in treating migraines and cured 1,000 migraine sufferers.

Your brother-in-law, Jerry, who changes oil at Jiffy Lube but swears if you put tree moss between your toes it will cure your migraines, probably not so much.

Documented research from universities or medical institutes or consumer protection groups are examples of credible resources. Also, quotes, authors, researchers, and experts are additional credible resources for your sales copy.

Related: 10 Secrets to Building Trust and Credibility With Your Customers

3. Promise

The core of every sales letter is your offer, which is a value proposition. A value proposition states, “You give me _____ and I’ll give you _______ back in return.”

Simple as it is, that is the essence of every transaction between buyer and seller since the dawn of time.

But your product/service has to deliver a certain result and that is your promise to the consumer.

A promise can be direct or indirect. If it’s direct, then you state in your copy: “If you give me ______ then I will guarantee you’ll get _________ .“ Then use that promise to act as the foundation for your offer and guarantee in your sales copy.

If a promise is indirect, it’s usually layered inside your sales message using subtext.

“At my seminar, you’re going to learn secrets of investing that have made over 100 millionaires in this last year alone…follow the instructions in this exercise program for 30 days and you’ll have the physical power of a 25-year old weight-lifter…implement these 3 easy marketing steps and you’ll see an immediate 10% boost to your business’ bottom line…”

Use a combination of direct and indirect promise elements in your copy. This creates a winning sales message that moves your customer to take action and buy.

Related: 5 Key Tips to Improve Conversion Rates

Crafting Your Conversion Machine

Copywriters are trained to use sales letter structure to deliver your brand’s message. This is the science of effective copy which is robust and proven. It’s like a Timex versus a Rolex — one is a digital representation of time displayed while the other is an analog masterpiece fine-tuned with ultimate precision and perfection of purpose.

But the fabric of your sales letter will fall flat without the 3-P’s: picture, proof, and promise.

As you craft your marketing agency message for client-attraction, attention-getting, taking your customer on their hero’s journey, and making the case of why they should choose you over a sea of “me too’s,” use the 3-P’s as fuel for your conversion machine’s success.

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How to Build the Right Mindset to Change Careers and Learn New Skills Fast

September 12, 2020 8 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There’s a reskilling revolution happening. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has spurred the evolution of how business is done. Whether positioning a new brand or as an authority in the marketplace it’s critical to realize there is a new awareness of the skillsets required by both staff and clients.

Businesses large and small are rethinking the requirements of employees as well as the technology necessary to deliver products and services to clients. This awareness is driving entrepreneurs in the technology and training industries to position themselves to win by offering courses specific to those skills.

Related: 4 Ways ‘Fake It Till You Make It’ Can Backfire

Businesses aren’t the only ones rethinking their futures. Given the significant disruption in the workforce and high unemployment rate related to COVID-19, individuals in the workforce are considering career changes as part of their post-pandemic plans. According to the Strada Education Network, of those individuals who have an interest in pursuing additional professional development and training, 64% say they will be looking to change careers, rather than get another job in the same field. This is a process known as “reskilling.” In fact, a recent report on CNBC.com estimates that approximately 17.6 million Americans will not be able to return to their pre-pandemic jobs, which will require them to learn new skills.

If you are a thought leader looking to support your clients through this upheaval, you are most likely considering how your expertise (content) can lend itself to the mass desire for reskilling. An effective way to do that is to ensure you position your expertise as learning programs that are developed through the lens of Edge Learning. Edge Learning is the continuous process of developing the peripheral skills that have the most impact on a person’s ability to achieve a successful and fulfilled life. Edge Learning is not about memorizing facts, technical skills, or understanding how to effectively use the tools of business. Instead, it seeks to develop a person’s soft skills.

Let’s use workers in the field of accounting as an example. Every well-run business needs qualified employees in their accounting department. These are people who have successfully taken courses of instruction in accounting practices. This is a very specific and important skillset. When multiple candidates are considered for hire with similar training and experience, it is their peripheral or edge skills that differentiate them.

Those peripheral skills include the candidate’s level of confidence, their personality, the type and level of etiquette they demonstrate during the interview process and their communication skills—among others. In essence, what differentiates them is how they present themselves. Beyond the question of whether the candidates have the necessary education for the role is how well they work and if they will be a good fit with the rest of the team. The same hiring considerations apply for every role from those on the manufacturing line all the way up to the CEO. It’s their Edge skills that make the difference. And educators who can deliver skilled training in those areas, in an effective manner, are in high demand. Edge Learning is an essential component of the Reskilling Revolution!

Related: 11 Practical Tips for Successful Schooling at Home

Edge Learners know that confidence will make all the difference in the type and quality of work that comes their way. The world is craving confidence after all the recent uncertainty. That same Strada Education Network study referenced above reports 64% of Americans are feeling concerned, 50% are feeling cautious, and 51% are worried. Confidence has always been key to success, but it’s more important than ever in a post-COVID-19 landscape.

Changing careers

This is not surprising given the current state of the employment market. Though the unemployment rate has since dropped slightly, the employment landscape has permanently and undeniably shifted since April, when a staggering 22 million Americans found themselves unemployed. Given the significant disruption in the workforce, it is not surprising to find that many are thinking about how a career change fits into their post-pandemic plans.

Edge skills that are readily transferable are most desirable by workers considering a change of careers. In volatile markets, it is feasible that workers can expect to work through multiple opportunities before landing positions that best suit them. On the employer side, it has become painfully obvious that HR departments are expected to hire for multiple iterations of teams over the years. It is rare that workers and employers form long-term partnerships in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.

Training content developers need to be aware of not only the latest formats for delivering training but the multitude of avenues for distribution. With the increased development of technological resources, various users of content have their own specifications or requirements for delivery styles and formats. On top of that is the importance of keeping content relevant by analyzing it against the current marketplace needs and having a system for updating it.

It is important to carefully evaluate your thought leadership and the creation of your professional development programs to ensure they meet the needs of the current climate. Edge Learners know that the quality of expertise they receive will make a difference in how quickly they are able to create new opportunities. Learning experiences must be engaging and providing amazing outcomes. They must be delivered in multiple formats to meet the various learning styles of those who will take the courses.

Content created for Edge Learners must meet specific criteria to gain traction and succeed in the coming years. Those deeply involved in the reskilling revolution are bound to be cautious in their evaluations of various training programs. They want solid results as quickly as possible and will denounce any content or training programs that simply don’t deliver.

There are four red flags to avoid when attracting Edge Learners:

The course does not promise a specific result. Instead, it makes vague promises about what the course might do for learners. Be very specific in the goal for each course and design it accordingly. Explore your industry vertical to see if your course qualifies for continuing education credits or some other industry-specific certification.

The course is too broad. Content developers fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone. The result is that the course offers very little, to very few. Consider where consultation fits into your course development process. How much research has been done into the specific needs of your ideal clients? Were you already committed to a topic without first listening to what people wanted and said they need? If you already have an audience, that audience knows, likes and trusts you for a reason. Allow them to guide your course development to ensure it meets the specific needs of future prospective learners through surveys and focus groups. When you ask the right questions, your clients will tell you exactly what they want to own.

The course is not implementable. If the course doesn’t provide tactics, strategies or a process for learners to apply, then there is no opportunity for them to put into practice the skills they’ve acquired—and generate tangible results.

The course does not offer follow-up by the thought leader. Thought leaders need to be accountable for the content they create. Think about the overall plumbing of your thought leadership business. How are you best optimizing your connection to your audience and leveraging the technology at your disposal to make connecting with that audience easier? Your course is not a stand-alone – your website, your sales page, your newsletter, your social media, your learning site platforms, all need to work collectively to provide your clients with a holistic product they can trust.

Jonathan Robb, Associate Vice President of Customer Experience & Engagement at NorQuest College is responsible to evaluate content specific to post-secondary institutions. He indicated that his considerations include not only the above red flags but that the skillsets being offered are in high demand both currently and into the future by industry and businesses.

Related: Your Next Career Move Should Be Learning a Language with This ‘Apple App of the Year’

The reskilling revolution is at hand. The enhancement of soft skills is what occurs through real-world experiences and mentoring from leading experts and entrepreneurs. When new skill development is required, learners first turn to those who have been where they want to go. They value the experience and expertise of others.

The time to evaluate your content and training programs as to their delivery of Edge Learning skills in demand on both sides of the equation of business: business owners desirous of enhancing the skills of employees and workers wanting or needing to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Use these strategies to imbue your thought leadership programs with Edge Learning skills and strengthen your impact on this everchanging market.

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Here’s How to Avoid Distractions and Reach Your Peak Level of Focus

This meditations app comes preloaded with tons of original tracks that can help you feel empowered, inspired, relaxed, and more.

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September 12, 2020 2 min read

When you’re working from home, it’s hard to stay focused. There are chores to do, kids to take care of, roommates to work around … and that’s all while trying to run your business remotely at the same time. As the world adapts to a new normal, it’s becoming more difficult to block out all the distractions. Fortunately, WAVE Kit is an innovative solution to help you do just that.

WAVE Kit provides the world’s most immersive at-home meditation experience, helping you to reduce the noise and reach your peak level of focus. The kit comes with premium over-ear headphones that connect directly to a revolutionary bolster. The bolster creates physical vibrations throughout your body that sync with the beat of the music, providing an extremely relaxing experience that will help you get centered.

The WAVE app comes preloaded with tons of original tracks that can help you feel empowered, inspired, relaxed, or just about anything else you want to feel like. The memory foam headphone material and microsuede cover ensure the headphones stay comfortable while adjustable vibration levels let you find the perfect combo for your mood and sensitivity.

WAVE Kit has earned rave reviews from The Wall Street Journal and GQ, who writes that it “Makes meditation more of an experience worth looking forward to.” When you’re excited about blocking out all the noise, you’ll be able to focus more and do better work.

Don’t let the distractions of 2020 derail your progress. Normally $199, you can get the WAVE Kit for 14% off at just $169.99 now.

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This Tool Can Help You Increase Open Rates and Verify Your Email List Before You Send

Save up to 50 percent with Bouncer Bulk Email Verification.

Free Book Preview Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing

This book takes readers through a 360-degree perspective of social media marketing agency in businesses.

September 12, 2020 2 min read

Building an email list is an essential task for any business that utilizes digital marketing. But growing it can be difficult, time-consuming work that you want to know wasn’t wasted. When you send emails to your list and get hundreds to thousands of bounce-back messages, that is less than ideal. You can’t run profitable campaigns if your email list isn’t up to date, and you can’t create the best campaigns if you’re constantly trying to verify that your email list is up to date. So, what do you do?

You get a service like Bouncer Bulk Email Verification.

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Bouncer uses a sophisticated process to check if all of the email addresses on your list are deliverable, without actually sending an email to their inboxes. Bouncer goes through your list to verify the syntax of email addresses, runs DNS and MX record checks, and establishes a connection to a recipient’s server SMTP to verify that it is a functioning email. Plus, their AI-supported algorithms negotiate with SMTP servers to get the absolute best accuracy.

After running verification, Bouncer will give you a bounce estimate so you know what to expect after sending your campaign. If you’d like to test the quality of your list before actually verifying it, you can use Bouncer’s free sampling to see just how strong or weak your list really is. Plus, Bouncer offers global adaptability to verify email addresses of all types from around the world.

Don’t waste time creating email campaigns for recipients who won’t ever see them. Right now, you can score a great deal on a Bouncer lifetime subscription for any-sized list. Get 50,000 email verifications for half off $100 at $50, 100,000 email verifications for 40 percent off $150 at $90, 250,000 email verifications for 40 percent off $250 at $150, or 500,000 email verifications for 40 percent off $500 at $300.

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An Introduction To Running Lighthouse Programmatically

About The Author

Katy is passionate about making tech easier for those who build and use it. In her role as a developer at Sparkbox, she works mainly in JavaScript to implement … More about Katy …

Being able to run Google’s Lighthouse analysis suite programmatically provides a lot of advantages, especially for larger or more complex web applications. Using Lighthouse programmatically allows engineers to set up quality monitoring for sites that need more customization than straightforward applications of Lighthouse (such as Lighthouse CI) allow. This article contains a brief introduction to Lighthouse, discusses the advantages of running it programmatically, and walks through a basic configuration.

Lighthouse is Google’s suite of website quality analysis tools. It allows you to assess your site’s performance, accessibility, SEO Company, and more. It is also highly configurable, making it flexible enough to be useful for all sites, from the simplest to the highly complex. This flexibility includes several different ways of running the tests, allowing you to choose the method that works best for your site or application.

One of the simplest ways to run Lighthouse is through Chrome’s DevTools Lighthouse panel. If you open your site in Chrome and then open Chrome’s DevTools, you should see a “Lighthouse” tab. From there, if you click “Generate Report”, you should get a full report of your site’s quality metrics.

What I am focusing on in this article, however, is at the other end of the spectrum. Running Lighthouse programmatically with JavaScript allows us to configure custom runs, picking and choosing the features we want to test, collecting and analyzing results, and specifying configuration options unique to our sites and applications.

For example, perhaps you work on a site that is accessible through multiple URLs — each with its own data and styling and perhaps even markup that you want to be able to analyze. Or maybe you want to gather the data from each test run and compile or analyze it in different ways. Having the ability to choose how you want to run a Lighthouse analysis based on what works best for your site or application makes it easier to monitor site quality and pinpoint where there are issues with your site before they pile up or cause too many problems for your site’s users.

Running Lighthouse programmatically is not the best choice for every site and I encourage you to explore all the different methods the Lighthouse team has built for using the tool. If you decide to use Lighthouse programmatically, however, the information and tutorial below should hopefully get you started.

Customizing Lighthouse Options

The advantage of running Lighthouse programmatically isn’t only the ability to configure Lighthouse itself, but rather all the things you might want or need to do around the Lighthouse tests. Lighthouse has some great documentation to get you started. To get the most out of running it programmatically, however, there are two main places where you will need to dig in and learn more about how Lighthouse works: configuring your test runs and reporting your test results.

Lighthouse Test Run Configuration

Configuring a Lighthouse test run is one of those tasks that can be as simple or as complex as you like.

When running Lighthouse programmatically, there are three places where you can provide custom options: the URL you will be testing, Chrome options, and the Lighthouse configuration object. You can see all three of these are parameters in the function for running Lighthouse from the Lighthouse documentation:

You can use whatever code you need in order to create these parameters. For example, say you have a site with multiple pages or URLs you would like to test. Maybe you want to run that test in a CI environment as part of your CI tasks, checking all necessary pages each time the task runs. Using this setup, you can use JavaScript to create your URLs and create a loop that will run Lighthouse for each one.

Any Chrome options you might need can be specified in an object that gets passed to chrome-launcher. In the example from the documentation, the opts object contains an array we’re calling chromeFlags that you can pass to chrome-launcher and a port where you can save the port being used by chrome-launcher and then pass it to Lighthouse.

Finally, the Lighthouse configuration object allows you to add any Lighthouse-specific options. The Lighthouse package provides a default configuration object that can be used as-is or extended and modified. You can use this object to do a multitude of things, including specifying which Lighthouse test categories you want to test.

You can use the emulatedFormFactor to specify whether you want the test to run in a mobile or desktop emulator. You can use extraHeaders to add any cookies you might need to use in the browser. For example, a test running only the accessibility category on a desktop emulator that outputs the results as HTML might have a configuration object that looks like this:

const lighthouSEO Companyptions = { extends: 'lighthouse:default', settings: { onlyCategories: ['accessibility'], emulatedFormFactor:'desktop', output: ['html'], }, }

This example represents a minimal configuration. There is a lot more you can do. The Lighthouse configuration docs have much more information. They also have a set of sample configuration objects for some more complex implementations.

Custom Results Reporting

When running Lighthouse programmatically, you can have the results returned in one or more of three formatted options and — and this is the most exciting piece in my opinion — you can have access to the raw Lighthouse Result (LHR) object.

HTML, JSON, CSV

Lighthouse will automatically format the results in three different ways: HTML, JSON, or CSV. These are all pre-configured results based on the basic Lighthouse reporting template, which is what you see if you run a Lighthouse test inside of Chrome DevTools, for example. In the lighthouSEO Companyptions configuration object from the previous section, you can see a key for output that contains an array with a single string: html. This specifies that I only want the results returned formatted as HTML. If I wanted the results both as HTML and JSON, that array would look like ['html', 'json'].

Once Lighthouse has run, it will return a results object that will contain two keys: report and lhr. We’ll talk about the contents of the lhr key in the next section, but the report key contains an array with the results formatted as you have requested. So, for example, if we have requested ['html', 'json'], then results.report[0] will contain our results formatted as HTML and results.report[1] will contain our results formatted as JSON.

The LHR Object

Running Lighthouse programmatically also gives you access to a much more flexible results object: the LHR object. This object contains the raw results and some metadata from your Lighthouse run. More complete documentation can be found on the Lighthouse Github repository.

You can use these results in any number of ways, including creating custom reports and collecting data from multiple runs for analysis.

Example: Running An Accessibility Test For Mobile And Desktop

Let’s say that I have a site that loads different components depending on whether the user is using a smaller screen or a larger one, meaning that the HTML for each version of the site will be slightly different. I want to make sure that both versions of the site get a score of 95 on the Lighthouse accessibility tests and that no code gets committed to our main branch that doesn’t meet that standard.

Note: If you want to see a working example of the code below analyzing the Sparkbox homepage, you can find the repository here.

I can configure Lighthouse to run the accessibility category twice, providing different configuration objects for each one — one setting the emulatedFormFactor to desktop and one setting it to mobile. An easy way to do this is to create an array with both objects, shown below.

const lighthouSEO CompanyptionsArray = [ { extends: 'lighthouse:default', settings: { onlyCategories: ['accessibility'], emulatedFormFactor:'desktop', output: ['html', 'json'], }, }, { extends: 'lighthouse:default', settings: { onlyCategories: ['accessibility'], emulatedFormFactor:'mobile', output: ['html', 'json'], }, }, ]

Then, I can create a function that will loop through this array and run a Lighthouse test for each object found inside the array.

One thing to note is that it is necessary to introduce a delay between each run, otherwise Chromium can get confused and the runs will error out. In order to do this, I’ve added a wait function that returns a promise when the setTimeout interval has completed.

In this case, I am sending the results to a reportResults function. From there, I save the results to local files, print results to the console, and send the results to a function that will determine if the tests pass or fail our accessibility threshold.

async function reportResults(results, runEnvironment, optionSet, chrome) { if (results.lhr.runtimeError) { return console.error(results.lhr.runtimeError.message); } await writeLocalFile(results, runEnvironment, optionSet); printResultsToTerminal(results.lhr, optionSet); return passOrFailA11y(results.lhr, optionSet, chrome); }

For this project, I want to be able to save the JSON results in a specified directory for our CI test runs and the HTML file in a specified directory for our local test runs. The way Lighthouse returns these different types of results is in an array in the order in which they were requested.

So, in this example, in our lighthouSEO Companyptions object, our array asks for HTML first, then JSON. So the report array will contain the HTML-formatted results first and the JSON-formatted results second. The writeToLocalFile function then saves the correct version of the results in a file with a customized name.

I also want to print the results to the terminal as the test runs finish. This provides a quick and easy way to view the results without having to open a file.

And finally, I want to be able to fail my test runs if the accessibility scores do not meet my threshold score of 95.

I invite you all to play around with it and explore all the different ways Lighthouse can help monitor your site quality.

Final Notes

While I intentionally kept the example above relatively simple, I hope it gave you a good overview of what can be accomplished when running Lighthouse programmatically. And I hope it inspires you to find new ways to use this flexible, powerful tool.

As Peter Drucker said:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

Being able to not only measure but monitor our website quality, especially for complex sites, will go a long way towards helping us build a better web.

Further Reading on SmashingMag:

(ra, yk, il)

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Smashing Magazine Is Fourteen!

About The Author

Rachel Andrew is not only Editor in Chief of Smashing Magazine, but also a web developer, writer and speaker. She is the author of a number of books, including … More about Rachel Andrew …

This week we celebrate the 14th birthday of Smashing Magazine. We didn’t quite have the year that we planned though! I took a look back at some memories from this year and previous years — with the help of the team and some Smashing friends.

This week at Smashing, we celebrated 14 years of bringing you the best web design and development content — and what an interesting year it has been! Last year, I published the 13th birthday post from our team meeting in Freiburg. Back then, we were about to run SmashingConf Freiburg and our meeting was full of our plans for 2020. We were looking forward to another exciting year of conferences, and everything else that team Smashing creates. Little did we know that a year later we would all be working from our home locations, our conferences moved online, and the whole world struggling with a virus that no-one had heard of at the time.

The last year has been difficult for many people — our little team didn’t escape that. Between us, we’ve dealt with a bunch of stressful life events in addition to the pandemic. We also lost a good friend in Scott Whitehead, who died last month aged just 39. He will be dearly missed by all of us who worked with him.

Through it all, however, there is always a cheerful greeting when I log into the Smashing Slack. Some positivity on days when it seems as if nothing is going right; and a million ideas and plans despite it sometimes seeming like it makes no sense to plan anything. We’re weathering the storm, along with our wider Smashing community, and we hope that our articles, conferences, meetups, and membership have helped to make lockdown just a little less lonely.

Birthdays should be a celebration, even when times are difficult. I asked some of our Smashing Team and friends what their favorite Smashing memories were. Earlier this week, we ran SmashingConf Freiburg online, so it seems fitting that this first memory is from Vitaly about the very first SmashingConf:

“I vividly remember the first time we were waving Smashing Flags at the balcony of the very first SmashingConf in Freiburg. It was a very sunny day, with a few clouds rising above the sky, and I was walking towards Historisches Kaufhaus to get ready for the setup. It was such a powerful feeling: as I was approaching the building, I could see the flags waving from the balcony far, far away. It’s such an empowering feeling to see that something that has always been digital actually became real right in front of you.

Another feeling that had a tremendous impact on me was in a coffee shop in Kyiv, Ukraine. I was sitting and working there at a large wooden table at some point in 2014, and there was a group of young people sitting next to me. Of course, it turned out that they were designers and developers. So at some point, they stumbled upon some issue, and they opened a Smashing article and were all reading it together. It was quite a feeling because it was actually one of my earlier articles from 2010 or so, and it was so nice to see it actually being used and valued. I didn’t say anything but ordered another cappuccino, then put my headphones on and kept on working with a smile on my face.

”

I remember that first conference well, as I was one of the speakers along with many of my friends in the industry. Kristof Van den Eede was an attendee, and told me:

“I attended the first-ever Smashing Conference in Freiburg as a starting front-end developer. The impression it left on me is huge. I couldn’t believe I was offered the opportunity to go by the company I worked for at the time. The overall experience was amazing. I remember having my mind blown by Aarron Walter, Rachel Andrew, and so many other speakers. Since then, I’ve never missed a Smashing update or newsletter!”

Freiburg, as the home of Smashing, always has a special feel and was mentioned in many people’s memories. Sarah Drasner remembers being in Freiburg “for the 10th anniversary for the famous chocolate fondue carpet massacre!” One of our subject editors, Alma Hoffmann, also remembers meeting up with the team at a Freiburg event:

“I love Smashing! Been working with these fabulous people since 2010 when I published my first article. My most cherished memory is meeting Iris, Vitaly, Phil, Markus, Amanda, and everyone else in person at the conference in Freiburg. Vitaly, Iris and I had been working online for so long and had only seen each other on video call. Meeting in person was like out of this world! I also met incredible and amazing people whom I keep in touch with. I love the commitment to quality content we all share and want. It has been a dream to work here. Love you all!”

Marc Thiele was part of the team for the very first Smashing event and was able to host Vitaly (and provide a good camera and internet connection) for Smashing Live. He said:

“This is, by any means, the craziest and strangest year in my life. Luckily the looser restrictions now allowed, that Vitaly came over to my place to run his part of the first SmashingConf Live from my house. It was a lovely and uplifting experience in these dark days. Let’s hope that we are able to meet in person soon again.”

We often refer to our Smashing community as our friends and we love it when you feel part of what we are doing. Greg Vissing remembers his first SmashingConf,

“My favorite Smashing memory was being able to attend my first Smashing Conference in 2018 in San Francisco, CA. I had always wanted to go because Smashing Magazine was one of the reasons I got into web development. When I was told by my current employer that I could pick any conference, it was a no-brainer which one I would pick. Once I met the staff of Smashing in person, it was though I had been friends with them for years because of how friendly and inviting the conference is. I’m so appreciative of how much Smashing has furthered my career and the friendships I have made with the staff!”

I often hear from people how being involved with something at Smashing has led to unexpected things happening. Here is one such story from Eric Portis.

“In 2014 I didn’t work in tech and hadn’t spoken publicly since high school and, after a series of increasingly fantastical events, was invited to speak halfway ’round the world, to tell a few hundred people how they should put images on websites at SmashingConf Freiburg.

It was all very surreal. I met a bunch of heroes who accepted me unquestioningly as a peer. Vitaly kept asking random questions and making insane demands, always with a puckish smile. There were surprise fireworks at the speaker’s dinner. And, in line for lunch, Guy Podjarny told me I should really talk to some friends of his at an image-centric startup called Cloudinary. Yadda-yadda-yadda I switched careers and work for Cloudinary, now.

I’ll be trying to pay all of this forward for the rest of my career.

Thanks, Smashing!”

The conference team has had to quickly put everything they know about in-person events and figure out how to translate that into virtual ones. We’ve now run two conferences, Smashing Live! and Smashing Freiburg, and have two more to go — Austin and San Francisco. Charis and Jarijn are based out in Hong Kong, and were involved with the in-person conferences last year. Jarijn told me that a favorite Smashing memory was in getting to Toronto for the first time, and being able to reunite with a childhood friend who lives nearby. Charis talked about how we had to very quickly change from thinking about in-person events to figuring out how to do online ones.

“I was super looking forward to what 2020 had to bring us. 2019 was a fantastic conference year, and running our conferences in SF, Toronto, Freiburg, and New York was one of my best memories of 2019.

Looking back at what we’ve done the past few months, I can only be super proud. We had our online workshops going very quickly after lockdowns were announced, and it was great to see how well they were received. It was so much fun meeting people on the other side of the world and getting a peek into their lives.

It’s been a lot of fun figuring out how to run events online. Working together with Amanda and Vitaly has been an absolute joy.”

While I get involved with the events, the majority of my work at Smashing is already virtual. The pandemic has sometimes meant delays with writing or editing as people struggled to cope with this new normal, but we have ticked along much as we always do. We’ve managed to publish our usual article-per-weekday throughout the past few months and introduced many new writers to the magazine, as well as publishing pieces from some of your favorite authors.

We’re always happy to see your article ideas, whether you are an experienced writer or have not been published before. Don’t just take my word for it, here is what Eric Bailey had to say,

“I’ve been reading Smashing Magazine for years, and it’s had such a positive impact on my growth and career development. Having the opportunity to give back and write for the website was a dream come true.

The Smashing team is friendly, whipsmart, and an absolute joy to work with. If you have been debating writing an article about working on the web, I enthusiastically encourage you to pitch them.

Happy birthday, Smashing! Here’s to many more!”

For the conference team, however, it’s all about in-person events, and a lot of planning had already happened for 2020. Venues and caterers were booked, flights and hotels arranged, and speakers planned. A memory I will take from this period is the day we realized it would be impossible to run the April San Francisco event. Things were changing so quickly, a week previously it looked as if we could go ahead. Rather than complaining, or sitting about bemoaning our misfortune, everyone swung into action to ensure that speakers and attendees were informed and logistics for postponing dealt with. Within a few days, we had online workshops in place and were building out contingency plans just in case — as ultimately happened — we needed to move the events fully online.

Amanda is our head of events, and she remembers this time saying,

“For many people, 2020 has been a challenging year, and at Smashing this has been no exception. However, when the team made the decision to first postpone SmashingConf SF, there was a lot of unknown, yet a beautiful display of teamwork, respect, and truly love coming through. For those who don’t know, the Conf team is fully remote, spanning 4 countries, and 2 continents, and this is the longest we’ve all gone from being together in person. Yet, this is probably the closest we’ve ever felt as a team and as a Smashing Family.”

I’ve mentioned family quite a lot, and some of us actually are family! My daughter Bethany has helped with video editing for Smashing in the past. With everything moved online and her theatre job furloughed, she’s been on board to help with conferences and workshops. She shared her thoughts on being part of the team,

“Though 2020 has been a bit of a disaster in many many ways I feel really lucky that the lockdown and the fact that I’ve been left without my main job has meant I’ve been able to work more and spend more (virtual) time with the Smashing team. It’s been so nice that even though we can’t all get together we’ve still been able to do so many workshops and conferences and get together over a screen. It’s just been lovely to get more involved with a company who is just full of awesome people and I wouldn’t have had this opportunity without this free time that was suddenly thrust upon us.”

And our CEO Inge Emmler linked family and work too, saying that working at Smashing is all about, “being in touch with nice, dear people only — online and offline — what could be more smashing? Well, perhaps celebrating my Mom´s 90th birthday in March. ”

I don’t think any of us want to predict what will be in store for our next year at Smashing. We are continuing to plan — perhaps with a few more plan B and C options that we had last year! One thing I do feel sure of though, is that we’ll continue supporting each other and our Smashing Community, through whatever the next 12 months bring.

(il)

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Nominations now open: Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing

While 2020 will be remembered as a year of disruption across so many areas of our world, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, have caused our community and our country to reckon with the systematic racism, prejudice and lack of equality that has persisted for far too long.

This past June we, like other organizations, admitted that we could do a better job to promote diversity in our company and in the marketing agency community we serve. At the same time, we pledged to use our privilege as a convener to advocate for change and to set an example by using our platform to highlight the important contributions of BIPOC professionals to this community.

That is why today we are launching our first Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search marketing agency to celebrate those individuals or organizations who are affecting real change.

Today, we are accepting nominations, which can be entered by clicking on this form. You may nominate as many organizations or individuals as you feel deserve the recognition. We ask that you highlight specific initiatives conducted by the nominee and that in the nomination form you include the contact of someone who can “second” that nomination.

Entries will be gathered through October 9 and winners will be announced later that month.

Please click here to enter a nomination.

We look forward to celebrating the best in this community.

About The Author

Henry Powderly is vice president of content for Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land, marketing agency Land and MarTech Today. With more than a decade in editorial leadership positions, he is responsible for content strategy and event programming for the organization.

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Apple IDFA consent: Roughly 60% of consumers open to allowing tracking

Apple delayed one of iOS 14’s most controversial new privacy features: consumer opt-in permission to track. The rule requires apps to get consent from users to access the device’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) and transmit data to third parties.

Publishers bracing for impact, sigh with relief — for now

The announcement of Apple’s quasi-deprecation of IDFA came during the company’s developer conference earlier this year. It immediately set off alarms among mobile marketers. Facebook said the change could “severely” impact its Audience Network revenue on iPhones. Sister company Instagram is complaining very publicly about the damage the change will do to mobile advertisers and publishers.

That complaints were apparently heard. So, in recognition of the potential financial hardship it would inflict on mobile publishers and developers, Apple announced in a blog post that it was delaying enforcement of opt-in tracking consent until next year “to give developers time to make necessary changes.”

What those will be exactly remains a bit unclear at this time — contextual advertising, incentives to opt-in, some form of alternative ID resolution?

Mock-up of iOS 14 tracking permission dialog

While some mobile marketers breathed an audible sigh of relief with the delay, the reprieve is probably temporary. The most challenging aspect of the opt-in consent feature is Apple-mandated language that could scare many iPhone owners away.

While there is some customization and contextual information publishers can insert, the dialog explicitly asks for “permission to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies.”

We asked: How will consumers react to iOS 14’s “permission to track”?

There’s been considerable speculation about hypothetical consumer reaction to this mandatory screen. We decided to test the main hypothesis, which assumes most consumers will have a negative reaction. Accordingly Search Engine Land fielded a short survey through Suzy of 520 U.S. adult mobile users.

The survey sample consisted of 52% Android users and 43% iPhone owners, with the rest uncertain or choosing “other.” That’s pretty close to third party estimates of comparative market share in the U.S.

Apple has sought to market privacy as a feature of the iPhone to differentiate it from Google’s Android. That tactic appears to be working: 33% responded that Apple does a better job of safeguarding privacy than Android (28%), while 22% thought both were roughly equivalent; 3% said neither did a good job.

\When asked if people were aware of new privacy features in iOS 14 (specifically regarding location and personal data privacy), 56% said no, 20% said “not sure” and only 24% said yes. We then asked, “If a mobile app asks to share your data with advertisers, such as location or device ID, would you agree?” Just under a quarter of respondents (23%) said yes; 39% said no and 38% said “I would need more information.”

What could get iOS users to opt-in to tracking?

What this means, at least in the abstract, is that marketers still might be able to reach or access the data of roughly 60% of iPhone owners if their opt-in pitches are compelling. To that end, we asked about a range of incentives and scenarios that might cause people to opt-in.

Interestingly, 42% said they wouldn’t share their information — more than the 39% who answered in the negative to the more general data-sharing question. But 56% said they were open to persuasion with an incentive:

A coupon or discount on products I’m interested in — 23%

Reward points that could be redeemed for products or travel — 21%

A direct cash payment ($1 or less) — 12%

Other — 2%

We didn’t ask if “personalized ads” would be incentive enough, however.

The data above are consistent with previous surveys about location and personal data sharing among smartphone owners. There’s something of a bell curve of responses: those who always say “yes,” those who always say “no” and the “it depends” or “what’ll you give me” crowd.

The results suggests that with the right messaging and/or incentives iPhone owners might be persuaded to opt-in to data sharing. However, it will be challenging for publishers and developers to craft the right messaging and pack it into the dialog shown above. There will need to be a lot of A/B testing.

About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

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