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Gadgets News

Gadgets: 5 of the best cocktail shakers for the home and parties

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Barmans Barware Kit, www.drinkstuff.co.uk, 24.99

Barmans Barware Kit, www.drinkstuff.co.uk,

We look at the 5 best cocktail shakers

Tom Dixon Plum Cocktail Shaker, Copper, www.nest.co.uk, £76

This futuristic copper-plated cocktail shaker combines a thick centre and tapered ends to provide a sturdy hand grip, for pleasurable shaking. The slim lid cap can also be used as a spirit measure. A handsome and useful bar accessory, it makes a great gift for the discerning cocktail-lover.

Rainbow Cocktail Layering Tool, www.drinkstuff.co.uk, £12.99

Imagine being one of those cocktail masters. The kind of person you see behind the bar of a trendy London nightclub, dazzling everyone with some amazing layered cocktail creations.

John Lewis Stainless Steel Cocktail Muddler, www.johnlewis.co.uk, £7.00

Stylish yet durable, this stainless steel muddler has a non slip handle for a sure, comfortable grip and a textured silicone head for mashing fruit and herbs. A must have cocktail tool for fans of mojitos.

Barman’s Barware Kit, www.drinkstuff.co.uk, £24.99

You’ll soon be mixing and shaking cocktail like a pro with the Barman’s Barware Kit. A perfect kit for beginners and keen bartenders, this gift set is stylishly presented in a gift box tube. Containing a range of professional quality equipment, including a Professional Boston Cocktail Shaker, Twisted Mixing Spoon and selection of strainers, you’ll be able to accommodate any drinks request.

John Lewis Glass Recipe, Cocktail Shaker, www.johnlewis.co.uk

The clear glass body of this cocktail shaker recipe indicators that provide the correct measurements for six classic cocktails, ensuring that you mix up perfect cocktails, time after time. Features a stainless steel lid and collar.

[“Source-newsletter”]

 

 

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Blogging

5 Ways to Become a Lean, Mean, Blogging Machine

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Many business owners recoil at the notion of regular blogging—and their concern is a perfectly fair one: They simply feel as though they can’t afford the time investment required for consistent, high-quality blogging.

To be sure, maintaining a robust business blog is going to require some man hours. With that said, there are ways to make your blogging endeavors more efficient—requiring less time, but still getting good results.

Indeed, with the right tweaks to your blogging strategy, you can become a lean, mean, content-creating machine—and we can show you how!

Recommended for YouWebcast, August 1st: SEO: How to Outrank Your Competitors on Google (Our Step-by-Step Process)

Become Ruthlessly Efficient in Your Blogging

Here are our five tips:

  1. Always start with an outline. One of the most time-consuming parts of blogging is going back through a post to review, to add or subtract points, and to bring shape and focus to your argument. One way you can cut back on revisions is to have a clear blueprint of all your primary points before you start writing. A simple outline will take a couple of minutes to put together, but it could save you a lot of time on the back end.
  2. Know your call to action in advance. A lot of time can be spent trying to land the plane—figuring out how you want your blog post to end and what results you hope to achieve. Those are things you should know before you start writing. Have a goal in mind—a specific call to action—and allow that to guide your writing. Again, this is a small investment of time on the front end that can make your process more efficient overall.
  3. Keep buyer personas handy. You should always know who you are writing for. Once more, this is imperative for keeping your writing focused and on-point. Start each blog post with a clear sense of who’s in your audience, and which problems or pain points you need to address on their behalf.
  4. Block off time for content marketing. Schedule an hour each week (or more) for content marketing activities, and treat it just like an appointment with a client—that is to say, don’t blow it off! Use this time to write a blog post, but also to put together the accompanying social media posts you’ll use to share that blog. Get all of these like tasks done at the same time.
  5. Keep a running list of blog ideas. Always be ready to write down a topic for some future post—meaning that, when you sit down to write, you shouldn’t feel stuck or have to spend too much of your time brainstorming.

[“Source-business2community”]

 

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Gadgets News

Nokia 5 Pre-Bookings, Samsung Galaxy On Max Launched, OnePlus 5 Camera DxO Rating, and More: Your 360 Daily

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Nokia 5 Pre-Bookings, Samsung Galaxy On Max Launched, OnePlus 5 Camera DxO Rating, and More: Your 360 Daily

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Nokia 5 now available to pre-book across major outlets in India
  • OnePlus 5 scores 87 points in DxOMark
  • Samsung Galaxy On Max comes with 4GB of RAM

HMD Global launched its trio of Nokia Android smartphones earlier this year and today, the Nokia 5 is available for pre-bookings across various cities like Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Calicut. The Nokia 5 is priced at Rs. 12,899 and will be available exclusively via offline retail. The Nokia 3 went on sale late last month, which only leaves the Nokia 6 which is all set for July 16 release, which will be exclusively available through Amazon India.

The Nokia 5 comes with a fingerprint scanner mounted on the home button and sports a 5.2-inch HD (720×1280 pixel) display. It runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat and is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC coupled with 2GB of RAM. It comes with 16GB of inbuilt storage, which is expandable via microSD card (up to 128GB). Nokia 5 packs a 13-megapixel camera on the back along with a flashlight and while an 8-megapixel sensor sits at the front.

Samsung Galaxy On Max launched as Flipkart exclusive
Samsung has launched a new mainstream smartphone called the Galaxy On Max, which is priced at Rs. 16,900 and will be exclusive to Flipkart. Some of the highlights include the presence of 4GB RAM, a 5.7-inch full-HD display, front flash, large aperture cameras, and support for Samsung Pay Mini. The Samsung Galaxy On Max doesn’t have an exact release date yet, and it’s just listed as ‘coming soon’ on Flipkart. It’s powered by a MediaTek MTK P25 SoC, 4GB of RAM and features a 13-megapixel rear camera.

OnePlus 5 camera gets DxO score of 87
The camera setup on the OnePlus 5 (Review) is its defining feature but when we tested it in our camera comparison, it didn’t quite stand up to other flagships like the Google Pixel and the Samsung Galaxy S8+. Our findings are now backed up by popular photography benchmark, DxOMark’s findings too, who have awarded the OnePlus 5 a score of 87. This puts it behind the Galaxy S8, Google Pixel and even the recent HTC U11. We guess its back to the drawing board for OnePlus.

Nubia M2 with dual cameras launched in India
Dual rear cameras is definitely a new trend in the smartphone space as Nubia has just launched a new model called the Nubia M2 in India, at Rs. 22,999. This phone will be exclusively available via Amazon India and will be made available exclusively for Amazon Prime members during the Prime Day Sale starting from July 10. The Nubia M2 features two 13-megapixel Sony CMOS sensors, a 5.5-inch full-HD display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC.

Vivo X9s, Vivo X9s Plus with dual selfie cameras launched
Vivo, a popular Chinese smartphone manufacturer in India, has just launched two new smartphones – the Vivo X9s and the Vivo X9s Plus in China. The big highlight of both the smartphones are their dual selfie camera setups and the fact that they run on a custom ROM based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Prices for the Vivo X9s and the X9s Plus are 2,698 (roughly Rs. 25,600) and CNY 2,998 (roughly Rs. 28,500), respectively. It’s only a matter of time till they find their way to our shores.

Microsoft’s White Space project in trouble
Google’s free Wi-Fi project and Facebook’s recent Express Wifi project has helped millions of Indians get online for free. However, Microsoft’s White Space initiative, which uses the unused TV spectrum to beam Internet-carrying signals to several villages across India, has been in the works for three years now and is yet to take off. The company had pledged to bring affordable Internet connectivity to over 500,000 villages in the country in 2015. The company piloted the project in Harisal earlier this year but stopped it in a few months after the government refused to renew the spectrum band for commercial deployment, according to a report.

Xiaomi’s record quarter, MIUI 9 to launch before August 16 
Xiaomi’s custom Android skin is due for another major version bump, which brings it to MIUI 9. The company claimed its under development and is slated to arrive before August 16, as confirmed by a  forum post. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun had mentioned earlier that MIUI 9 will be more fluid and powerful than previous versions and will feature split-screen mode and the picture-in-picture mode as some of the new features.

In more Xiaomi news, CEO Lei Jun confirms that the company has managed to ship 23.16 million smartphones in Q2 2017, which is a 70 percent increase from the previous quarter, marking a record high for quarterly smartphone shipments in the company’s life span. Jun also stated that revenue in India in the first half of the year is up 328 percent year-on-year.

#HelloMotoWorld event scheduled for July 25
Lenovo is gearing up to add more smartphones to its Moto lineup as it has started sending our invites for an event scheduled for July 25 in New York city. We have no idea what devices are are to be expected as the invite doesn’t really reveal much however, if we were to hazard a guess then we could see the Moto X4 smartphone being unveiled. Guess we’ll know in a few weeks time.

iPhone 8 facing 3D NAND storage chip shortage
There’s a lot of pressure on Apple for it’s next iteration of the iPhone and a new report suggests that Apple might turn to Samsung to help out with supplying 3D NAND chips for storage on the new phones. 3D NAND is still a new technology and Apple’s suppliers have reportedly failed to meet the demand for this year’s batch. With Samsung rumoured to be readying the Galaxy Note 8 too, Apple cannot afford to have any supply bottlenecks especially considering it’s the 10th anniversary for the iPhone.

RBI limits customer liability in online banking fraud
The  Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has laid out norms that essentially limit customer liability in the event of online banking fraud. The new norm directs banks to credit the amount involved in the unauthorised electronic transaction within 10 working days to the account holder. Banks may also at their discretion decide to waive off any customer liability in case of unauthorised electronic banking transactions even in cases of customer negligence.

LeEco founder Jia Yueting resigns as chairman
Chinese billionaire and founder of LeEco, has resigned as chairman of its main listed unit on Thursday. Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing said that Jia Yueting will remain controlling shareholder without any role, having resigned as chief executive in May to focus on the electric car business, of which he will now become chairman.

Qualcomm files patent infringement lawsuit against Apple
Chip maker Qualcomm has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple for unlawful and unfair use of the chipmaker’s technology. Qualcomm is requesting a ban on the importation of some iPhones, due to this. “Qualcomm’s inventions are at the heart of every iPhone and extend well beyond modem technologies or cellular standards,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Online Marketing

5 People You Need On Your Digital Team

by admin
written by admin

Creating a strong digital team is integral to the success of any company. Digital is the future, and much of your company’s marketing efforts and sales pushes will come from this sphere. Having the right people can ensure that your digital department runs like a well-oiled machine, while the wrong hires or empty chairs in certain areas will leave your business severely handicapped. Whether they’re working as a remote freelancer or sitting in the office 9-5, make sure you have these 5 people on your team if you want your digital department to thrive.

  1. A Design Wizard.Web designers like designers from http://www.nothingbutweb.com.au/ for example are absolutely crucial to your business, as they are the foundation on which your successful website will be built. A designer plans and implements the look of your website, the way it functions, and the coding and software involved in ensuring that your site runs absolutely perfectly as soon as it goes live. Your designer should have a creative mind, an ambitious attitude, and the ability to adapt to problems in the design process as they inevitably occur. They’ll also have to work with the marketing side of the team and other departments to ensure that the website is completely in line with the aims of the business as a whole.
  2. A Content Expert. While the designers and developers will make sure that the website looks good and runs well, it’s the content creators who fill the website with the goods that will keep customers clicking. This person will be a skilled writer, and comfortable with all forms of digital media. They’ll be able to easily adapt to different forms of content, and have an innovative mind that quickly comes up with exciting new strategies for the company’s content. Blog articles, social media posts, videos and copywriting will all fall under the expertiseof a high-quality content creator.
  3. The Data Analyst. If you want to know how well your digital content and website are performing, you’ll need an expert in data analysis to sift through all of the information. They’ll be able to understand what your goals are for your digital marketing campaign, and then carefully measure the results of each campaign as compared to your targets. They’ll then be able to make recommendations on how to improve your content and campaigns to get the best possible results.
  4. A Tech Know-It-All. Even the most creative, agile minds can sometimes have difficulty with the more technical aspects of digital technology. That’s where a technical specialist comes into play. They can keep an eye on your website’s coding, understand where the software’s is going wrong, and make relevant updates when necessary.
  5. A Social Media Manager. Because social media is one of the most important digital spaces for business marketing right now, every company should have a position open for an experienced social media specialist ready to focus on these platforms. They’ll take the digital team’s overall marketing strategy and apply it directly to social media, engaging with customers and ensuring that the business social media pages are always up to date on the latest trends. This person should likely have a strong social media presence of their own which reflects their understanding of the platforms.
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Gadgets News

InFocus Turbo 5 With 5000mAh Battery Launched in India: Price, Release Date, Specifications, and More

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

InFocus Turbo 5 With 5000mAh Battery Launched in India: Price, Release Date, Specifications, and More

InFocus on Wednesday launched its newest smartphone for the Indian market. The InFocus Turbo 5 features a massive 5000mAh battery, its highlight feature. The smartphone will be exclusively available via Amazon India from July 4 in Mocha Gold and Pure Gold colour variants.

The InFocus Turbo 5 price in India is Rs. 6,999 for the 2GB RAM/ 16GB inbuilt storage variant, and Rs. 7,999 for the 3GB RAM/ 32GB inbuilt storage variant. The dual-SIM (Nano+Nano) smartphone sports an all-metal design with a fingerprint sensor on the back claimed to unlock the smartphone in 0.5 seconds. The company is also touting fingerprint sensor shortcuts for selfies and flashlight.

infocus turbo 5 story

The smartphone runs Android 7.0 Nougat and sports a 5.2-inch HD (720×1280 pixels) display with 2.5D curved glass on top. The InFocus Turbo 5 is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MT6737 SoC (clocked at 1.3GHz) coupled with Mali T720 MP1 GPU and up to 3GB of RAM.
As for the cameras, the new InFocus smartphone houses a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Both front and rear cameras have an f/2.2 aperture. It is offered with either 16GB or 32GB of inbuilt storage, which is expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB). Connectivity options offered by the InFocus Turbo 5 include 4G VoLTE connectivity, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, and FM radio.

infocus turbo 5 launch event battery gadgets 360 infocus

Of course, the major attraction here is the 5000mAh battery pack that is rated to last almost two days on a single charge, deliver up to 34 days of standby time, 50 hours of continuous music playback, and 23 hours of video calling. The smartphone can be used as a power bank for charging other devices, thanks to its reverse charging feature. The InFocus Turbo 5 is 8.95mm thick, weighs 164 grams, and sensors include accelerometer, ambient light sensor, digital compass, and range sensor.

At the event, InFocus said it would focus on ‘full-screen’ bezel-less smartphones until the rollout of the 5G wireless mobile networks, and that it would launch a bezel-less smartphone later this year. The company says it is targeting sales of 6 million mobile units in 2017.

 

 
[“source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Gadgets News

OnePlus 5 Trade-in Offers Launched in Europe

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

OnePlus 5 Trade-in Offers Launched in Europe

OnePlus 5 was launched last week and while a bump in price over predecessors was already anticipated, the company officially announced that the two memory variants of its latest flagship will be offered at EUR 449 and EUR 499. It seems like the company knows its user base fairly well and in order to avoid the complications caused due to price sensitivity, it is now offering trade-in offers for the OnePlus 5 (Review) smartphone in Europe. With the OnePlus 5 trade-in offer, users will receive vouchers in exchange for their old smartphone in the next 2-6 weeks, and these vouchers can be used to purchase anything from the OnePlus online store.

How OnePlus 5 trade-in offer works
The open sales for the OnePlus 5 were started from Tuesday, which means that users can now order the device from company’s website and get receive shipments without any waiting period. Interestingly, the company has announced that there are trade-in offers available with the purchase of both 6GB RAM/ 64GB storage and 8GB RAM/ 128GB storage models. With these offers, customers will get certain amount of cashback in return of their old smartphone or tablet.

However, it seems like the company is not offering a great value in return of the devices submitted by customers. For example, if you try submitting an iPhone 7 Plus (32GB) that has no scratches, no liquid damage, and basically in mint condition, you would only get a cashback of EUR 250. If the phone has some scratches or scuffs, the value is likely to come down further.
Notably, the trade-in offer on the OnePlus 5 is available only for next 5 months. The offer is currently available in all European countries but not in other regions.

OnePlus 5 specifications
OnePlus 5 was launched last week, and sports a 5.5-inch full-HD display with wide colour gamut. It runs on OxygenOS based on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, and comes in two variants: 6GB RAM + 64GB storage, and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage. One of the highlights of the smartphone is the dual rear camera setup, featuring a 16-megapixel main camera and a 20-megapixel telephoto camera. There’s a 16-megapixel front camera on board, along with 3300mAh battery with Dash Charge support.

 

 
[“source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Gadgets News

5 smart gadgets that make household chores easier

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

5 smart gadgets that make household chores easier

— Our editors review and recommend products to help you buy the stuff you need. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY’s newsroom and any business incentives.

“Honey-do” season is in full swing, people. The weather is nice, the days are longer and kids are out of school, which means your household to-do list will probably double in size. However, if you’re like most of us, you’d rather be relaxing poolside than pushing a lawn mower around in the hot sun.

No matter what tasks are on your honey-do list—building a new swingset in the yard, trimming weeds, cleaning the pool—there’s a way you can get everything done faster and more efficiently. Spoiler alert: It’s by using smart home products.

Here are several ways the right tech can put a dent in your honey-do list so you can get back to relaxing on your day off.

1. Upgrade to smart tools for optimal productivity

I’ll admit that, to date, I still borrow my father’s power tools, then put them back in the wrong spot. It’s definitely a headache for him when he needs his drill and it’s nowhere to be found—sorry, dad.

If this sounds like your household, you definitely need to invest in tools from the Black+Decker Smartech product line. Take the Smartech Drill, for example. With this smart tool, you can use your phone to locate the drill, remotely lock the device and even check the battery life. There are also Smartech vacuums, power sweepers, hedge trimmers, and more, so you can have an arsenal of smart tools at your disposal.

Get a Black+Decker Smartech Drill on Amazon for $62.20

2. Put robots to work in your yard

Is one of your recurring honey-do tasks cleaning the pool? There’s a robot for that. Seriously, with the Dolphin Nautilus robotic pool cleaner, you can get your pool sparkling clean without lifting a brush. Plus, you can pair the robot with the MyDolphin app to create automatic cleaning schedules.

Get a Dolphin Nautilus Robotic Pool Cleaner on Amazon for $629.95

3. Keep your tools secure and charged with a smart tool chest

Organization and efficiency go hand-in-hand, and for those tools that don’t have built-in trackers, there’s Craftsman’s line of smart tool storage chests. These high-quality tool boxes have plenty of space for all your tools, as well as built-in electrical outlets so you can charge batteries right in the box.

That’s not the best part, though. This line of tool chests can be remotely locked and unlocked via your phone, so you can keep the curious hands of kids out of harm’s reach without having to keep track of another set of keys.

Get a Craftsman Pro Series 4-Drawer Top Chest from Sears for $369.99

4. Inspect hard-to-reach places with a smart probe

What do you do if your honey wants you to find out what’s been living in the wall? Call on the General Tools Wi-Fi Video Inspection System. Just stick the probe in the hard-to-see location, then use your smartphone to watch the video stream. It’s the perfect way to take a look into dark, creepy places, and you can even save videos or images to your phone!

Get a General Tools Wi-Fi Video Inspection System from The Home Depot for $186.90

5. Take measurements in half the time

It’s definitely tricky to measure large objects, so if you need to take measurements for new gutters or deck railings, the Stanley Smart Measure Pro will be your best friend. Just snap the device onto your smartphone, take a picture of the object you need to measure, and the Smart Measure app will calculate the dimensions. It can even estimate the amount of material you’ll need to, say, put new shingles on your roof or replace a wall of your shed.

Get a Stanley Smart Measure Pro on Amazon for $74.95

When it comes to a long, arduous honey-do list, you’ve got to work smarter—not harder! With these smart home devices on your side, you’ll be the household hero as you tackle task after task.

[“Source-ndtv”]

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Online Marketing

5 tips on how SMBs can get the most bang out of their online marketing efforts

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Small businesses often don’t have much budget or time to spend on marketing, but there are many free and inexpensive tools that you can utilise to help market your business. For instance – fully harnessing the power of the internet.

Today the digital world provides many influential online marketing tools that can help your business be visible to more potential customers.

Here are five simple tips you can implement to help ramp up your online marketing and get the most out of your efforts.

1. Domain Name

Today, a key component of your marketing strategy will be how to promote your business in the digital world. While creating a website might seem like the obvious first step when establishing your online presence with, the first step is actually choosing a domain name that best describes your small business. Your domain name can become a unifying element throughout your marketing. Just as your company name is crucial, the domain name for your website is that all important first impression to the online world.

A domain name represents your brand online and can convey critical information to potential visitors who may be deciding whether or not to click through to your site, driving crucial search traffic. As well as portraying your brand, your domain can inform your audience about the content they can expect (eg adding .news) or where your organisation is based (eg. adding .Sydney or .Melbourne).

When approaching your domain name it’s important to remain consistent; many businesses use the same name for their domain and business email address to streamline communications and communicate to customers using a professional identity. It’s also an opportunity for you to be creative and express your brand’s personality.

This could be through using the last word of the name as the extension rather than the entire business name before a .com extension or adding a touch of humour to appeal to customers of a similar mind. Be sure to think long term when you’re choosing a domain name and pick one that will be relevant for the lifetime of your brand, not one that’s just trending now.

2. Content

Once you have your chosen domain it’s time to draft the content for your site. Your website should serve as an information hub for your customers; featuring relevant content and a clear, concise message that supports your marketing. Think about the kind of information your customers would be looking to find when they come to your website; support and advice, location and contact details. You’re the expert in your field, so share your knowledge with those who value it. The key to good content is knowing who your audience is and communicating with them directly. It’s important to understand what attracts and interests your customers in order keep them coming back to your pages.

Great content deserves to be seen, so it’s important to ensure your website ranks highly in search engines, like Google, using basic SEO. You can master SEO by ensuring you have a relevant title tag. To put it simply, think about what your customers will type into their search engine if they’re looking for a product or service like yours and include these same search terms throughout your website, website tags and your website’s URL itself.

3. Social Media

Linking your Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms to your website and vice versa creates a chance to build a concrete brand and engage with your customers, and when fully integrated can represent an important element in your overall marketing strategy. Your website and social platforms is where you can express the essence of your brand with the world.

Images can enhance posts and grab readers’ attention quicker. Your social posts need to be compelling enough that they only have to be looked at for a few seconds until the reader takes action. Ensure you’re regularly posting and interacting on your businesses social platforms for continual brand exposure which your audience will notice, prompting them to get in touch and learn more about you and your business, and visit your website often.

4. Email Marketing

Sending newsletters directly to your customers’ inbox is one thing, but to get them to open your email is sometimes the tricky part. Be witty and concise with your subject line, 33% of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based on subject line alone (HubSpot, 2016), which means you only have a few words to convince your customer to click on your email. Once they have clicked your email, ensure your content is just as enticing as its heading. Keep your content short and sweet, and consistent with your marketing messages.

Keep in mind that 40% of emails will be opened on a mobile device first, so you will want to help ensure the content included in your email is optimized for mobile device viewing. Contests, sales, coupons and freebies can encourage your audience to take action and increase their engagements across other platforms, like social media.

You can help speed up the process of building your brand, by utilising the free and inexpensive online marketing tools available to you. The internet has the power to help bring potential customers to your business, so use it to your advantage as a key part of your ongoing marketingstrategy to help showcase and grow your business online.

Tara Commerford is the Managing Director, GoDaddy Australia & New Zealand

taraheadshot

[“Source-anthillonline”]

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Blogging

5 Ways a Blog Can Help Your Business Right Now

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

5 Ways a Blog Can Help Your Business Right Now

There are many benefits of blogging for business today. In fact, blogging is critical.

However, bland, run-of-the-mill blog posts won’t cut it. These are lazy and ineffective.

So what is effective? Publishing informative, well-written articles that are created with strategy and customer engagement in mind.

Blogging helps to:

  • Draw online traffic.
  • Nurture and convert customers.
  • Keep current customers engaged.
  • Differentiate you from other similar businesses.
  • Grow demand and interest in your products or services.

Better yet, blogging is relatively simple and blog posts can continue to provide these benefits long after publishing.

Here are five real ways a blog can help your businesses, plus some examples of companies with blogs that are helping their business right now.

1. Increase Traffic to Your Site

A blog gives people a reason to regularly visit your website, especially if you post frequently and deliver quality content that’s entertaining, useful, or both.

Both B2C and B2B companies see business benefits – more traffic and leads – when they blog frequently, compared to companies that blog infrequently or not at all, according to Hubspot,

Hubspot Graph

Obviously, more people on your site can only mean more potential for reservations/bookings, more submissions to your contact form, and more potential client inquiries.

More website traffic is good for any kind of business, as long as those visitors are likely to purchase your product or service. Be sure to create content that speaks to your target audience’s pain points, and make sure the headlines accurately describe the content to follow.

2. Attract New Customers

Think you don’t have time for a blog? If that’s true, what do you have time for?

Think about how you do research online before buying a product or service. You probably use Google or other search engines to research just about every kind of purchase or buying decision, whether big or small. Finding informative, engaging blog content on the subject can help sway your opinion and ultimately play a factor in where you purchase from.

While creating a blog strategy may take some time out of your day, it’s going to be worth it. An informative blog allows your potential customers to research a solution on their own time and contact you when they’re ready to make a purchase. Here are a few examples:

  • A small clothing boutique could post weekly or monthly style predictions and outfit tips per season.
  • A home contractor could write about home improvement tips and feature before and after pictures of work they’ve completed along with descriptions of the projects.
  • A tax consultant’s business could benefit from the predictable and considerable upturn in tax-related searches at certain times during the year and provide keyword-optimized tax advice (see the Google Trends screenshot below for the phrase “tax help”).

Google Trends

Create blog posts with SEO best practices in mind from the beginning and be diligent about promotion. This will ensure that your blog acts as a round-the-clock tool for nurturing customers and potentially bringing in leads.

Make sure every blog post inspires action of some kind or another. Depending on your business, you might want people to read another related piece of content, fill out a form to get a quote, or call you to set up a consultation.

Industry Example: Legal Blogging

Ninety-six percent of people who need legal information use search engines to find it, according to statistics curated by the National Law Review. If you work at a law firm, there’s no question that potential customers are looking for legal services online and many of them are primed to move forward as soon as they find what they’re looking for. A blog with optimized posts containing legal advice and topics related to your area(s) of practice can attract people to your website at precisely the right moment and up the chances that they’ll choose to work with you.

This example from the Joye Law Firm shows a well-designed blog with a wealth of useful information and plenty of opportunities to contact the firm.

Legal Blog

3. Turn Your Website Into a Destination

One strategy for business blogging is to create a site that people want to read at their leisure. While some business blogs are going to be need-based (think legal, financial, or tax-related blogs), plenty of businesses can create want-based blogs that people will be interested in reading during their spare time.

While need-based blogs focus on providing answers and immediately connecting readers with solutions you can offer, want-based blogs may focus more on stimulating demand for something your readers didn’t know they wanted at first (think clothing, food, and beauty products).

The key is to make your content interesting and engaging enough that people will want to read them for fun. Over time, you can create a connection with your readers through the tone and content of the blog and foster brand loyalty.

Here are some examples:

  • Plato’s Closet Style Blog
  • William’s Sonoma: Taste
  • 24 Hour Fitness 24Life Blog

None of the products or services (trendy clothes, cooking supplies, gym subscription) sold by the companies above are really needs. Because of this, their blogs are lifestyle-based and meant to create and nurture a community and show how their solutions could enhance people’s quality of life.

Industry Example: Restaurant Blogging

If you’re a restaurant owner and you don’t have a blog, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

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While people may read legal and real estate blogs when they need advice, people read about food for fun. The hashtag #food is on over 200 million Instagram posts. “Food and Drink” is the top Pinterest category.

Restaurants are the perfect entities to run food blogs that can be a destination in and of themselves.

This screenshot from the blog of Tupelo Honey Cafe, a popular brunch spot with locations throughout the South, shows a highly shareable copycat-recipe blog post complete with an image that’s optimized for reposting on Pinterest.

Recipe

The blog also features information about new meals at the restaurant and roundups of customer pictures from Instagram.

This blog succeeds because it’s not only a visually stunning and useful blog that’s perfect for browsing, but it’s also a low-key, non-aggressive advertisement for Tupelo Honey’s delicious-looking food.

4. Show and Tell What Your Business Can Do

A blog can also act as a dynamic, attractive portfolio. For companies where proof of past success is everything, it’s important to have an easy way to show potential clients what kinds of results they can expect. Some examples of these types of businesses might be:

  • Home contractors
  • Personal trainers
  • Graphic designers
  • Beauticians

With a blog and a few high-quality photos of your work, you can easily create a portfolio to direct potential clients to.

While it may take more effort to update your whole site, depending on how it was created, blogs on content management systems such as WordPress are generally easy to update, even if you don’t have a lot of technical knowledge.

If you can publish a Facebook post, you can publish a blog on WordPress.

If you need help, there’s no shortage of free advice (another example of the usefulness of blogs!).

Once you’ve started cataloging your work on your blog, you have a simple link to send to people who want to get a sense of the quality and efficacy of your work.

Industry Example: Home Improvement Blogging

With the popularity of home improvement and DIY shows, you know that people love a good home renovation story. If you’re a home contractor, using your blog to show off impressive projects you’ve completed helps people visualize what their homes could look like after a remodel.

Home improvement company Haskell Interiors’ blog includes case studies of past client work and home improvement tips. The effect of the high-quality before and after pictures and the detailed project descriptions is compelling enough to make anyone consider a remodeling project.

Home Improvement Blogging

5. Give Your Business Results Long After the Initial Post

Even months after a blog post goes live, it can continue to attract new leads and customers and help you increase sales.

More than three quarters of their blog views are for old posts, according to Hubspot. Even better, those old posts help to collect the vast majority (90 percent) of their leads.

While it’s still important to create new posts, older posts can remain relevant to your readers for a long time.

Not only that, old blog posts that have gained authority/ranking over time and are bringing in a good amount of organic traffic can be easily updated to serve current campaigns/goals. Sometimes all it takes are a few small tweaks for the blog to retain its usefulness and bring in qualified leads.

Start Blogging Effectively for Business

Clearly, blogging is beneficial no matter where your customers are in the purchasing process.

Try adapting one or more of the examples here for your own business. Be sure to track and measure your results.

Effective blogging will help you start attracting and nurturing leads, then capturing and engaging new customers.

[Source”cnbc”]

 

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Online Marketing

These 5 Mistakes Are Why Your Online Marketing Is Failing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

man missing targetOur Internet marketing agency has been around since 1997, and over the course of time we’ve heard it all and seen it all when it comes to assessing failed marketing campaigns. I polled our sales and account management teams, and arrived at a very strong consensus that the five items that follow are by far the most common reasons why online marketing fails.

1. No Clearly Defined Goals

“Our competitors are on Facebook, so we need to be, too” is not a reason to launch a social media campaign. Neither is a vague interest in increasing website traffic or getting more leads. A clearly defined goal sounds something like this: “We want to increase SEO-generated validated website leads by 20% over the next 18 months.” A goal like this is specific, time-sensitive, measureable and meaningful.

© simpledesign79

If you’re making too many of these common marketing missteps, your campaigns are doomed to fail.

2. Emphasizing the Wrong Metrics

Just because a goal is measurable doesn’t mean it’s meaningful. Organizations get tripped up by gearing their campaigns to improve the wrong data. Most common culprits:

  • Rankings. In SEO, rankings used to mean a lot. Now they mean very little, because every Google search engine user sees different results. Also, if you rank well for a term that nobody searches for, you’re wasting your money.
  • Traffic. Getting more traffic to your website is not necessarily going to generate more leads or revenue. It has to be the right traffic, and your website has to do a great job of impressing prospects and motivating them to contact you. If your website does a poor job of selling your wares, increased traffic can do more harm than good by turning off potential customers!

3. No Systematic Campaign Testing

The worst day of any Internet marketing campaign is the first day. Only by testing various campaign elements—content, offers, images, keywords, etc.—does a campaign become more productive and efficient. But testing cannot be whimsical; it must be methodical and properly executed. If a company uses poor testing methods, it’s rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If a company doesn’t test at all, and puts the campaign on autopilot, a crash landing is inevitable.

4. Under-budgeting

Failing to adequately budget campaigns is probably the most common of these five pitfalls. I’ve written about under-budgeting frequently, including here and here. The temptation to get something for nothing is always alluring; in addition, many companies don’t fully appreciate the complexity and scope of an online campaign with even a modest goal.

5. Not Testing New Types of Campaigns

Successful companies are always on the lookout for better ideas. This spirit must drive online marketing efforts: If a company gets in a rut with, say, email marketing and SEO, it may never realize PPC or social media is a more cost-efficient and effective means of driving leads and revenue. Smart companies don’t merely dabble in new marketing methods; they instead systematically budget, deploy resources, and evaluate results.

How does your company score? If you’ve avoided all of these errors, you are definitely on the right track. If you’re guilty on all counts, at least now you have a game plan for making major improvements. And finally, if you are doing 3/5 or 4/5 properly, then you may be only a few small tweaks away from terrific success.

[“Source-forbes”]

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