#Well heck. Ad revenue for a good cause

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 2: The Racism of the Conductor’s Baton (Part 3)

BRIGHT: Also, the prompts in John’s head are back and are making increasingly strident demands. Namely, they want John to follow Nannasprite to the cookies. John isn’t too keen on this idea. He’s so not-keen on it that he fails to notice Rose whacking him in the head with a box. Frustrated by his lack of compliance, the voice devolves into insults. I’m not sure why the Wayward Vagabond is so insistent on this? It’s not like he can eat the cookies.

On the whole this is a really good sequence, I think. It lays out some basic background information for the reader and John, and it’s paced pretty well.

Back in the future, an agitated slip of the finger causes a cupboard door to open in the Wayward Vagabond’s hideout. Out fall a few tins of food and a heavy tome of HUMAN ETIQUETTE.

Rose has updated her GameFAQs walkthrough with the new information from Nannasprite. We’re getting something of a motif here: Cut-aways to the Wayward Vagabond are followed by a walkthrough update. It’s a nice little pattern.

Rose also speculates on the prototyping process and on why the prototypings of other players worldwide have not affected John’s foes, and comes to the conclusion that each client/server pair -- or daisy chain -- spawns its own copy of the Incipisphere, or ‘session’. She’s also caught up in rewriting her work. Couldn’t the reader go somewhere else? Or somewhen else?

Why yes, the reader can. Namely the reader can jump back to Rose’s birthday, where she’s having a conversation with GG.

This conversation reinforces that there’s something funny about GG. She asks about John’s present the moment Rose opens it, and Rose isn’t surprised by this. GG also knows without being told that Rose’s dead pet is a male cat, and she’s been working on her birthday present for John for years.

Finally, she asks what Rose would say if GG told her she knew a game that could bring said cat back to life.

TT: If someone told me that, I would regard the remark with a great deal of skepticism. TT: If that someone was you, on the other hand, then I would have to ask preemptively: TT: Is that someone you? GG: yes that someone is me!!!!!!!! GG: i just thought you might find it interesting TT: So what is this game?

Whatever strange abilities GG has, Rose is familiar with her knowing things she shouldn’t, and trusts her even when she makes claims that sound impossible.

CHEL: Note, also, that here GG is the one who brings up the game, while in an early convo with John set chronologically after this one she asked “lol! whats sburb?” This is not an inconsistency. Again, it comes up later. We end up saying that a lot. Sorry.

BRIGHT: Also: Rose knows John well enough to guess that he was wearing a disguise when he talked to her earlier -- but still interprets his gift of knitting needles and yarn as a subtle jab at her habit of making analytical comments, much as her mother. GG points out that he probably didn’t mean it that way. Later, Rose says she’ll make him a gift with strong sentimental value as a dig at him, but admits she doesn’t really mean it that way when GG points it out. Then again, this takes place some months before the comic starts, and may show how Rose and John’s relationship has evolved.

Back in Dave’s home, the sun is beating down. Meteors pepper the city, and smoke is rising. Dave captchalogues his katana, and sets out in search of his brother’s copy of the game.

Dave elaborates a little on the concept of irony that he and his brother live by. His brother is awesome, apparently. Dave can only hope to one day reach those heights of irony.

The puppet theme from earlier continues, with puppets strewn around the living room where Bro lives and sleeps. Among them are a Mr. T puppet, which is wearing a leather thong and handcuffed to a pantsless Chuck Norris puppet. What makes it a little disturbing is that this is just lying out in the living room, which Dave presumably goes into all the time. Dave’s narration here sounds a lot like he’s trying to convince himself that these things are totally cool, no, really. He can’t see Lil Cal anywhere, though...

CHEL: Other puppets are the iconic Smuppets, possibly a portmanteau of “smutty puppets”, vaguely humanoid nude puppets with enormous behinds and phallic noses. There are implications that they are intended for non-PG purposes. Further implications are that the leaving of obscene material around the home has been going on for all of Dave’s life. For the record, intentionally showing pornography or sexual aids to children is classed as a form of sexual abuse. Casually leaving them lying around the house in front of kids long-term, well, the motive may not be malicious but I doubt a jury would care. It certainly counts as neglect. The popular fanfic Brainbent explored the damage this kind of thing could inflict on a kid in a realistic setting.

Also note, there is no hint of Dave having or ever having had parents, not even a photo in the background or something. The immediate assumption would most likely be that they’re dead, but Bro’s strangeness might also suggest estrangement - behaviour like that would probably result in one’s parents not talking to one anymore, though they most likely wouldn’t leave a child in a place like that if they were around. We find out the truth later, and it’s even weirder.

BRIGHT: Between one panel and the next, Lil Cal appears atop a speaker box. Dave is fine with this. Totally fine.

CHEL: For the record, this is Lil Cal:

Not something one would be very happy about finding behind one, is he?

BRIGHT: He plays a bit on the Xbox, gives Cal a fistbump, and then checks out his brother’s computer. It’s password-protected, but Dave knows the password, and Bro knows he knows it, and Dave knows this, and it’s all totally cool.

One of Bro’s websites is a puppet pornography website. Apparently this is popular enough to bring in thousands of dollars a month, and Smuppets are a multi-billion-dollar-per-year enterprise. Time for our next point:

Magic-onomics - wherein characters’ funds issue from nowhere Half-baked attempts to justify a protagonist’s mystery money can also backfire. Explanations should amount to more than “Somehow Rain had lots of money.” Giving Rain an inheritance, or explaining that she recently gave up her job at a top law firm to pursue her art, will work only where these things feel like part of the world of the novel.

Bro and Dave live in a crappy apartment in which Bro doesn’t even have his own bedroom, instead sleeping on the futon in the living room where he works. Yet they have the funds to spend on swords (not cheap) and expensive turntables. The Con Air bunny prop Dave bought for John sold in real life for almost $1,300.

And how the heck do smuppets bring in multiple billions of dollars a year? That’s a niche market, even if Bro is the only supplier. (Which he wouldn’t be — if it’s worth that much, someone else would want in on the market.)

CHEL: Even if said market is fairly disturbing. If there’s enough people who like it enough to buy it, there’ll be people comfortable with supplying it.

BRIGHT: Their income shouldn’t be anywhere near that high, even with puppet pornography adding to the revenue stream. If we grant that in this universe it is that high, then they should be living somewhere more comfortable.

HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 13

CHEL: In order for this to actually work as stated, not only would the puppets have to appeal to everyone on the planet, but there would probably have to be a lot more people on the planet than there actually are. I’m pretty sure it’s an exaggeration for humour, but considering the inconsistencies with their income status as presented, it’s still a bit shaky.

It’s also worth another count, because this is basically a handwave to mean the characters presented aesthetically as poor are still as financially secure as is necessary for writing the scenes Hussie wants to:

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 6

If the comic was presented as a non-serious cartoon for the whole story, this would pass without comment, but when one’s trying to be dramatic and include real stakes, I think one needs to apply real stakes to everyday things too.

BRIGHT: Then again, it’s possible that their financial status is higher than the apartment would suggest, and Bro just chooses to spend his money on katanas and expensive equipment rather than upgrading. (And/or is lying to Dave about their income.) That might not be out of character given what we see of him later. But overall, this is a mess.

FAILURE ARTIST: Maybe the Smuppets is a money laundering business.

CHEL: A lot of people would read that fanfic.

The theory that the guardians knew the game was coming might explain why he chose to spend so much on swords, at least. He’d know Dave would need them. Not so much of an explanation for everything else though. Considering the weirdness that’s going on, I could imagine Bro not wanting attention drawn to it, but wouldn’t hiding weirdness be much harder in a flat than in a house set off some distance from neighbours?

For that matter, where’s John getting the money for movie memorabilia? Later reveals show the Egbert family originally came from money but they don’t seem to have that much to throw around now.

BRIGHT: Remember how Rose said earlier that she quite enjoyed Bro’s websites? I think that counts as a point for CALL CPA PLEASE…

FAILURE ARTIST: I question how pornographic the site really is. It might just literally be puppets being mashed together with no human body parts. A thirteen year old can surely see that.

BRIGHT: Fair point -- the page we see is teen-safe, at any rate.

CHEL: If it isn’t actually sexual, that possibly makes the supposed popularity level even sillier. Fetishists need constant fresh material and there are probably people who don’t have a specific puppet fetish who would ignore the puppets to look at the guy, but to keep up that level of popularity the viewers who don’t have a puppet fetish would have to keep finding it funny long after most people would think the joke had worn off. Both options say disturbing things about the world this comic is set in and their tastes in either pornography or humour. At least Veronica Chaos appears onscreen with her puppet… (Link contains no porn but you probably don’t want it on a work computer.)

For the record, I think Smuppets would actually make pretty bad sex toys. Plush is a porous material, so it would be hard to clean sticky substances out of it properly, and the phallic noses seem to be too floppy to use for penetration of a human orifice. Maybe that first point is why he brings in so much cash - the smuppets are single-use? People do use plush toys for masturbatory purposes, but usually when they can’t find anything else to use, specific fetishes for them being rare, and generally don’t use the soft parts as penetration toys.

Personally, I quite like the theory the kinkmeme brought up years ago; PlushRumps is actually an elaborate multimedia webcomic a la Homestuck itself. Now that I can see bringing in that much cash. Or possibly it just looks like this, which was made by the guy who wrote Thirty Hs (warning for eye injury and surreality): "Jumping!" (Watch on YouTube)

I could see Bro being that dude.

BRIGHT: And Dave admits, again, that he finds the puppet thing unsettling.

This is a pretty good depiction of someone trying to convince himself to be okay with something that freaks him out. He pesters John to distract himself from the puppets everywhere, and when he doesn’t get a response, he pesters Rose. And Hussie once again repeats the entire blinking pesterlog we read fifty pages ago instead of just linking back to it.

GET ON WITH IT!: 6

CHEL: Just occurred to me; why is Dave so bothered by the puppets? I can’t imagine that Bro suddenly started leaving them around when he hadn’t before - in fact, I believe a later flashback shows infant Dave using a Smuppet’s nose as a pacifier (eww, god I hope it was a freshly-made unused one). Dave really ought to be used to the things by now. Then again, now he’s reaching his teens, he’s probably old enough to start realising this is weird and creepy on a deeper level. But then that brings up the same problem we had with John; doesn’t he have any local friends he could have learned this from sooner? Though I could picture Bro not bothering to send him to school, and we do later learn there is quite possibly magic afoot in hiding the oddness of the Strider household. That’s a complicated theory and requires much more setup than we have here, though, so pin in that for later.

Also, the puppets thing counts for a point of ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?, and Dave is in fact the reason we created that count. A kid in Dave’s situation in real life would be messed up, but so would a kid in the situations of the others (or at least the girls), and Dave’s situation seems to be taken more seriously than theirs, at least later on.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 5

BRIGHT: Back to Rose, who’s beating John over the head with a box in a futile effort to get his attention. She eventually gives up and deploys another piece of equipment called a Punch Designix, using the Shale John collected. Since she doesn’t know what it does, she pesters John and asks him to experiment.

Unfortunately John has bigger problems to deal with: His garden is by this point overrun with imps, who are climbing on his tire swing and wearing his disguises. This is enough to snap him out of his Wayward Vagabond-induced state and get him to respond to Rose. They need to get those monsters off his pogo ride!

Fortunately, Rose is able to help by picking up the piano and dropping it on the imp. Less fortunately, the piano does not survive the experience. Neither does the imp.

The pogo ride seems fine, though.

John is reluctant to risk Nanna’s ghost cookies to go retrieve the grist, so Rose uses the pogo ride to transport it up to his room. Then she tells him to go find out what the Punch Designix does, while she works on building the house up to the gate. Apparently stairs cost a lot of grist to build. John makes a SBaHJ reference while Rose recoups the grist she used to build the catwalk earlier, sending an imp tumbling into the depths.

In the kitchen, Nannasprite has produced a lot of cookies. An imp tries to sneak one, and is blasted into grist by Nanna as a result.

John sets out on a hunt for imps and useful items, grabbing some shaving cream and his pogo ride, and launching his telescope out of the window. Amazingly, this proves relevant only a few pages later.

CHEL: Dad apparently keeps an entire cabinet filled with nothing but shaving cream. Rule of Funny, I know, but how fast does this guy’s beard grow?

BRIGHT: His living room is full of imps, who have taken a shine to the Cruxtruder and left cruxite dowels lying everywhere. Armed with hammer and shaving cream, John mounts his trusty steed and pogos his way to victory, which works amazingly well (read: works at all), until he slips on a cruxite dowel and lands flat on his back.

This is incredibly dangerous!

Acting on a polite prompt, John absconds into his Dad’s study, and Rose covers his retreat with the refrigerator, which levels up to FIVESTAR GENERAL ELECTRIC and earns 285 Boondollars.

Further extremely polite prompts ask John for a can opener. Despite the presence of two imps in the study with him, John stops to consider where to find one, while Rose takes out the imps with Dad’s safe. I don’t think that counts as HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING, though, since it’s clearly supposed to be the joke.

Back in the future, the Wayward Vagabond munches on a few pages from the etiquette book. Rose updates her GameFAQs walkthrough with a series of images of John’s house in the Medium. She does refer to Colonel Sassacre’s as racist in one of these, but it’s not really much of a rebuttal.

CHEL: She experiments with building a bit more on John’s house; ladders prove cheaper to build than stairs, albeit harder to use safely. John eventually stops contemplating can openers to examine the Punch Designix, while Rose answers Dave’s angry rant about being buried in Smuppets. I think this may be another point for ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY, because in the context of a kid ranting about his brother’s annoying hobby and his friend snarking back it’s hilarious, and it seems at this point to be presented as funny, but as discussed above the nature of Smuppets makes this rather creepy.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 6 TG: i am enrobed in chafing, wriggling god fucking damned puppet pelvis TG: an obscenely long, coarse kermit cock is being dragged across my anguished face TT: Let's put this into perspective. You put up with the puppet prostate because you love it.

Okay, this I think could be a point for CALL CPA PLEASE. A child probably would make fun of another child’s discomfort with non-consensually being surrounded by sex toys on the grounds of not knowing better, but it’s unsettling to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 2

John discovers there are codes on the backs of his captchalogue cards, which can be entered into the Punch Designix to make punch cards. Punching the captchalogue card itself renders the item irremovable from it, but the punch card can, he guesses, be used to recreate the item via the Totem Lathe and Alchemiter. Before he can test this, Rose hurls a bathtub through the wall to kill some nearby imps; to be fair, when he checks his PDA, he sees he missed a message from her warning him about it. He messages her back and she says the precarious staircase up to the gate is ready. John is nervous and asks why she didn’t build straight up through the hole in his dad’s bedroom ceiling.

EB: oh come on. what's the big deal, i'll just climb up and go right through! TT: Will you? EB: yeah, why not? TT: Are you saying you've never wondered what's in there? Or why it's been kept a secret from you? EB: well, i mean yeah... TT: Then trust me. You won't be going "right on through." EB: wait, are you saying there's something, like... EB: troubling in there? TT: I don't know. EB: what do you mean? what do you see in there? TT: I can't see in there. EB: oh. TT: But I don't have a very good feeling about it. EB: pfff... EB: whatever! EB: i think i can handle a few more stupid clown paintings.

Well, that’s ominous.

Examining the destroyed safe, John finds a book about shaving, several old newspaper clippings about meteor strikes, and a much older copy of Colonel Sassacre’s book, possibly the one involved in the mysterious accident which caused Nanna’s death. Behind where the safe was, he finds an empty captchalogue card and a proud fatherly note from Dad, praising him for now being strong enough to lift the safe; presumably intended for several years in the future at least, since the safe is big enough to fit John inside it. The note further explains that John is now entitled to the contents of the safe, and provides the now-useless combination for the lock. Further sylladex shenanigans launch Sassacre’s book, killing an imp, and John heads up the stairs, but slips. As he precariously clings on, the hands and jester’s motley of something much, much bigger than the imps start to emerge from the chasm...

Cut back to Dave, still searching for the beta and/or his brother, finding only that one of Bro’s swords is missing. A brief shadowy flash takes the second sword from the wall too.

You know this drill all too well. Trouble's a brewin'.

Dave heads for the door, finding one of Bro’s “ironic” comics pinned to it. The comic in question:

Erm.

TIER: Now that is, as the folks would say, unsettling.

FAILURE ARTIST: This is another work that Hussie created pre-Homestuck and decided to add. It was part of this drawing battle on a forum.

CHEL: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that was supposed to be Kermit. I was seeing it as a teddy bear, with the spiral cheeks as eyes and the eyes as ears.

TIER: . . . I was “literally just now” years old when I realized that was supposed to be Kermit.

BRIGHT: Ditto!

CHEL: Me too, actually, it was after I saw it while posting it here. Before I thought it was Fozzie, drawn even worse than the rest of the comic.

Dave is fairly mellow about the comic as compared to his reaction to the puppets, but thinks that he “[doesn’t] need to see this shit right now”. It looks like something a kid his age would either draw themselves or like (I know I would have loved it), but having things like this pasted randomly about your house would definitely be unsettling even so. He understands it as further irony, and thinks Bro is trying to annoy him with it as “some weird gauntlet he's throwing down to see if you will "GET IT"”.

Worse than the comics, however, is what’s in the kitchen. Weapons are piled up on every counter and the sink is full of fireworks. Dave considers this “awesome”, the implication again being that this has been normal for his whole life. He’s really lucky he’s a cartoon character, there’s no way a real kid would still be alive here. When he turns on the blender, a green puppet in it is shredded to pieces, releasing fake blood; inside the eye socket of a Jigsaw puppet on top of the microwave is a webcam, broadcasting the incident. Okay, again, we need to consider how “pornographic” PlushRumps actually is to determine whether this is a problem. Videos of a kid shredding a puppet are harmless in and of themselves. If it’s actually being marketed as fetish material… ew. Dave appears just as unsettled by this as I am, enough so to behead the cam-puppet, so the implications aren’t good.

More Smuppets spill out of the microwave, and then we go back into fucking sylladex shenanigans as Dave tries to collect every dangerous object in the room

GET ON WITH IT!: 7

Distracted by same, Dave fails to notice a silhouetted figure which is presumably his brother appearing briefly behind him, dropping Cal on the stovetop, and disappearing. Dave’s expression doesn’t change on seeing it but he literally leaps a foot in the air. Poor kid, that is freaky. We also discover why Dave had juice in his closet way back; Bro uses the fridge as storage space for swords instead of comestibles, and cherry bombs in the icemaker.

… Okay, where does Bro keep his own food? Both humorously and actually abusive/neglectful guardians still require energy intake, you know. There are later hints that Bro himself is someone’s puppet, but only in the figurative sense.

TIER: Dude probably has spots around the apartment to stash stuff, like how Dave has apple juice hidden away in his closet.

Figuring out how seriously we're supposed to be taking things can get tricky, especially with the Big Thing way later on in the comic putting earlier events in a new light upon rereading (well, mostly just stuff related to Dave).

CHEL: And if we are supposed to take it seriously, how the fuck is Dave alive? A real kid in this situation wouldn’t have lived long enough to be traumatised.

#homespork #homestuck #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #homestuck review #let's read homestuck #literary critique #sporking

[tigerlover16-uk]

Do you think that Dragon Ball Super is going to hold up better than Dragon Ball GT did long term? Or do you think it'll eventually fade into the background for most of the fandom as well and become a niche thing?

Part of that I think is going to depend on how the movie and the inevitable follow up series(s) are received… but most likely, yes.

Here’s where Super has the advantage over GT in that regard… it’s canon.

Or at least, it’s being treated as canon and is being used as the foundation from which modern Dragon Ball stories and products are going to be built off of for the foreseeable future. We can get into debates about semantics and this fandom’s rather annoying “There is no canon except maybe the manga!” mantra that I’ve never been in favour of, but Toei is treating it as the current canon for the moment and so does Toriyama, it seems.

The upcoming movie is going to be a follow up on Super. FighterZ, the recent fighting game that blew up and became a huge success recently to the point of bringing in a lot of new fans, has it’s story take place sometime during the events of Super, has beerus and Whis show up in the story, and includes characters like Hit and Goku Black on the base roster while Merged Zamasu and Vegito Blue are DLC, while no GT character has been added yet. 

Even the Xenoverse games treated the events of Battle of Gods and Resurrection F as canon events, while GT was an afterthought in both, having DLC packs for the first game and it’s characters only appearing in side quests in the sequel, and it’s timeline treated as an alternate future on par with the old movies.

Even the upcoming PR anime for Dragon Ball Heroes is adapting an arc that’s more or less a follow up to the Future Trunks saga in Super. And when a ongoing “Canon” Dragon Ball show does get made (And it will. Toei aren’t going to keep it off the air for too long, Dragon Ball’s gotten too big and profitable again since Super started for them to want to let the franchise go dormant again for too long), it will inevitably be a sequel to Super.

Unless Toriyama changes his mind and decides to scrap everything from the last few years and start over with another new continuation of the manga (Which is unlikely considering how involved he’s been in Super’s production as well as the upcoming movie, and he’s shown no signs of wanting to stop putting out new stories), then it’s likely that for the foreseeable future, all future Dragon Ball series, movies and spin-offs are going to be made with the idea that Super and it’s follow ups are “Canon” events.

And that’s going to inevitably influence how hardcore fans, casuals, and the portion of general audiences who consume Dragon Ball content view things.

Whatever people’s perception of the Prequel Trilogy was initially, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that more people have watched those, and new fans getting into Star Wars for the first time are ENCOURAGED to watch them, than have watched, say, the Star Wars Holiday Special or the Ewoks cartoons and specials.

Why? 

Because love or hate them, the Prequel Trilogy is, now and forever, a crucial part of the Star Wars saga and the foundation for a large, important era of the franchise that has spawned a large number of spin off works, from comics to at least two cartoons, one of which is basically the predecessor to the most current Star Wars animated series, Rebels, and a number of it’s events and characters are followed up on in that show.

The Prequel Trilogy is an essential cornerstone of the Star Wars franchise, and even casual fans who aren’t interested in all the expanded universe stuff are going to watch them, because they’re episodes of the main film series that are the backbone of the entire franchise and whom millions and millions of people watched in theatres when they came out. For all the controversy and handwringing about “MY CHILDHOOD IS DEEEEEAAAAAAD!”, there’s no getting around the fact that the Prequel Trilogy will continue to have an overarching presence over the rest of the Star Wars franchise going forward. And over time, the movies have also been increasingly vindicated with more and more supporters feeling safe to express their support of it publicly.

As for the Holiday Special and Ewoks cartoon and movies? They’re not canon, never had as big a presence and impact in the first place, and the former is especially reviled among the fandom and is treated as a laughingstock that people only watch ironically, and considering it’s reputation for being terrible, not a HUGE amount of people are going to be inclined to watch it these days or in the next few decades because of that. I’ve never watched it, for example, and I never intend to.

No one is going to tell you that you have to, or even should, watch those products if you’re getting into the franchise. The general public who only care about the most mainstream installments of the Star Wars franchise, I.E the films, doesn’t even realize the Ewoks HAD their own cartoon and made for TV films. I’ll bet there are going to be people reading this post shocked about it.

This goes for the rest of the Star Wars expanded universe too, the old one and the new. If you ask people on the street or people who are generally casual Star Wars fans for the most part, they’ll probably be able to tell you who Darth Maul and Captain Phasma are… but significantly less people will know what you’re talking about if you bring up Thrawn, Asajj Ventress or Savage Opress. 

Not because they aren’t good characters who are memorable and interesting in their own right, heck they’re more developed and interesting than Phasma ever was. But because they’re not mainstream, and in Thrawn’s case he wasn’t even canon to the current EU anymore until Rebels introduced their own take on him (I haven’t seen the 4th season, so I can’t discuss how that worked out).

I think GT has, and is going to have a similar issue to a lot of those expanded universe and non-canon Star Wars works going forward.

Let’s not kid ourselves, while it might have had some support when it was first airing, GT came out at a bad time both in Japan and in the West, and here in the West especially didn’t leave a good lasting impression.

In Japan, franchise fatigue for Dragon Ball as a whole was starting to set in around the time of the Buu Saga. While the saga was well received there and is looked back on fondly, Z’s ratings were continuously declining after the Cell Saga, and they declined more sharply during GT’s early run because the majority of people found the Black Star Dragon Balls saga boring.

While GT did pick up momentum again with the Baby saga which restored some interest, it didn’t actually do a thing to help the gradually increasing sense of fatigue. Ratings still steadily declined later on in the shows run (Admittedly not much more than they were during the Buu Saga, to be fair), but merchandise and revenue for Dragon Ball was going down really fast, which caused Toei to hastily pull the plug on the series, recognizing the fatigue and that Dragon Ball needed a bit of a break. (This is likely why the ending felt so rushed and sudden, BTW).

 So while it wasn’t viewed as a disaster or anything and a lot of elements from the series are still well regarded and promoted in merchandise and video games like Heroes (Super Saiyan 4, some of the villains, etc), it’s never been as well regarded as the rest of the series and certainly wasn’t as successful in terms of profit and renewed interest in the franchise as Super has brought forth.

In the West, it’s case is even worse. The Buu Saga was much more controversial when it aired in America to the point that for years a significant segment of the franchise ragged on it as being the worst thing to come out of Z. Buu was supposedly the worst villain, Babidi stinks, “THEY RUINED GOHAN!”, etc. (I personally always thought that was nonsense and I love the Buu Saga, and in recent years the general consensus has improved, but these reactions were common and a lot of people still resent the saga to this day or at least hold it in less regard than the previous ones).

Dragon Ball Z’s popularity and the initial hype the show had gained after finally catching on in America (And here in the UK) had started to wane by this point, and a large portion of viewers who had been watching jumped ship by that point. While GT enjoyed some acceptance by the fanbase at first, by the time it finished and in the years that followed, it became regarded as the black sheep of the entire franchise (Until Evolution came along, anyway), with loud and vocal hate thrown at it for years. 

People were quick and eager to declare it non-canon and shoot down the possibility of it being so, to the point that even before the franchise itself started gradually downplaying it’s significance in favour of the newer works, pretty much the majority of people were in agreement over it’s non-canon status. 

And the fact that it came out at a time where Dragon Ball Z was starting to slowly lose it’s hype among casual fans and the general public (And then became an internet laughing stock until roughly the start of the current decade when Kai’s dub came out and starting a gradual renaissance where the series regained a lot of respect in the West), means that GT, while a lot of people do know about it, has never had as much of a mainstream presence in the West (Kind of like the Original Dragon Ball, sadly), being mostly something the hardcore fandom was invested in enough to watch and discuss… and again, for years the consensus was that most people hated it.

It’s true that GT hate has calmed down in more recent times among the fandom, and while it’s still not well regarded it’s defenders are more vocal and comfortable about supporting the show than before. And there is a common consensus that the show had a lot of good ideas, even if most of them weren’t executed as well as they could have been. 

There are definitely people who have revisited the series and appreciated it more nowadays… and people like me who used to defend it but immediately started hating it after re-watching it :P.

But here’s the thing a lot of those defenders might be surprised or try to smugly lecture me about how wrong I am over… GT these days is, like you suggested anon… a NICHE.

GT’s fans may be vocal in a lot of places online, but in the grand scheme of things… people generally don’t care much about it either way. And the fact that it’s non-canon and has officially been replaced as the “Official” Dragon Ball follow up means that in the years to come, it’s only going to become less and less relevant.

Regardless of how much of a broken base there might be over the series in the fandom, you can’t argue that Super isn’t a big success for Toei and the Dragon Ball brand in terms of promotion and profits.

Here’s one of several graphs I can find online demonstrating the revenue the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole has been bringing in for Toei over the last decade.

Notice how when Kai first aired, it barely made a blip in merchandise sales and overall income for the franchise, and by the time it ended it’s initial run in Japan revenue kept falling until the year after Battle of Gods came out, and then in 2015 after Super was announced suddenly everything started to explode and it’s become super profitable, peaking this year even with Super’s conclusion?

Heck, it’s Toei’s most profitable franchise again nowadays, bringing in slightly more than twice as much as One piece even in Japan, which is a longtime juggernaut franchise. And general enthusiasm from both the public and fandom is at a high not seen in years.

It’s certainly not to the level of when it first aired. Super is also significantly less of a mainstream hit in Western Countries that aren’t Latin America than Z was aswell, certainly (Probably doesn’t help that the Toonami Block it now airs in is a late night slot that only fanboys stay up to watch).

But it’s still popular and watched by a lot of people, and the fandom is especially deep into it.

Heck, bringing up Latin American countries again where Dragon Ball has historically been extremely popular and a staple of pop culture, Super and the movies it spawned from are huge hits, to the point that across various countries including Mexico, huge public events were held in many cities and community centres where large crowds of people, many numbering in the THOUSANDS, gathered to watch the streams for the last two episodes of DBS. Which were huge hits, of course.

All things considered, Battle of Gods, Resurrection F and Super left more of a positive impact for the franchise starting out since, regardless of Super’s… very bumpy start and production, these works have been big hits that caused a franchise renaissance that generally brought Dragon ball back to a level of prominence and success it hasn’t seen in a long time.

A far cry from GT which pretty much signalled Dragon Ball’s leave of absence from the mainstream, during which time interest in the series waned for years even with Kai helping to restore it’s rep a fair bit (At least in America, said series was met with more of a meh reaction in Japan).

The results of this can’t be understated. Worldwide, Super has brought in a number of new fans. For many children and teenage fans, it’s going to be their introduction to Dragon Ball, or at least a cornerstone of their formative experiences with the franchise. 

Many casual fans who had long drifted off from Dragon Ball were drawn back into the fold when Super came out, many people becoming bigger fans of Dragon Ball than ever as a result of that. I’ve talked with a number of people on this site who have admitted that Super actually helped them to appreciate Dragon ball in general a lot more whereas they only had a casual interest in the franchise before.

And a lot of those people are probably going to stick around rather than drift off again in favour of other series, considering we have the movie coming up, potential new shows in the near future, and other high profile Dragon Ball products like FighterZ to keep them occupied.

For every fan who complains about Super or is put off by it, I’ve seen as many, actually more, express a lot of thanks to it. Right before my recent break I remember reading a post from someone who admitted to never liking the Dragon ball franchise, being a Naruto fan before that started to disappoint them later on to the point they felt nothing when it ended (A feeling I find tragically relatable).

Said person said they started watching Super at some point as a joke… and by the time of watching the last episode, they had become a big converted fanboy, loved the majority of characters, had watched the previous series (I think, I might be remembering that part wrong), and even cried at the last episode due to being so emotionally invested.

For as many fans as there are who like to pick apart Super (And to be fair it is a flawed series and I do think it’s fair to criticise it’s missteps, I have issues like anyone else despite overall loving it), it IS generally a well liked series.

It’s true that a lot of that could fade with time. Heck, I’m sure a lot of people will like it somewhat less with hindsight and the hype wearing down.

On that note, I think some people might also like it more after a while.

Did you know that earlier on in Super’s run, people actually complained A LOT about the Slice of Life episodes, finding them a waste of time and no different to DBZ filler? Even by the end of the Champa saga that opinion started to soften and everyone started realizing how fun the slice of life episodes were, to the point that everything between the Future Trunks and Universe Survival Sagas is some of the most beloved content from the show now.

Even the potaufeu arc, widely despised when it first aired, has a bit of a better reception now. it’s not considered particularly GOOD, mind you, but people generally regard it as okay and at worst harmless now, compared to the hate it got earlier on. Helps that Brian Drummond was cast as Copy Vegeta for the dub, I guess.

A lot of other elements of the show have been viewed more fondly over time too, in addition to the stuff that gets more flak.

So it’s highly possible that, if the upcoming movie and any Dragon Ball series that follow up on Super in the near future are generally well received, opinions on Super from people who are critical of it now might gradually soften over time, at least to the point that a lot of people complaining about how the franchise is supposedly being “Ruined” might stop and realize they might have overreacted a little.

The opposite could also be true, we could have another series that’s a complete trainwreck and that could sour the fandoms opinions over modern Dragon ball as a whole, lead to a great decline in public interest and probably put us back on a franchise hiatus.

Which would stink a lot, let me tell you, and Super probably wouldn’t be remembered THAT fondly in that case… but to be honest, I have faith things will turn out at least reasonably well. Everything I’ve heard about the recent movie and it’s production suggests that Toei have put a ton of care and effort into making it right, and giving us the best product possible for a milestone movie like this.

And that suggests to me that they’ve learned from their missteps.

The big issue with Super, both in terms of it’s production values and writing, was ALWAYS down to it’s rushed production. The show was rushed to be aired, and that had a catastrophic effect that the show never completely recovered from, even when it did mostly stabilise later on.

But between the big increase in it’s production quality later on, the care that seems to be going into the movie, and the fact that behind the scenes Toei and Shueisha seem to be restructuring a lot of stuff to better focus on producing Dragon ball content and planning out new directions for the franchise… it feels like Toei are making all the right moves to keep Dragon ball relevant, and more importantly, GOOD into the foreseeable future.

They seem to have learned from their mistakes. And considering Super DID have a number of talented animators and writers working on it who did do a lot of good even though they were in far from suitable conditions… I for one feel confident that Toei could produce a much better follow up to Super down the line.

And if that’s the case, and Super does continue to be the launching pad for future stories in the Dragon Ball franchise for years to come… that’ll help it’s image to an extent. 

Because even if the series itself is continuously acknowledged as having problems, if Dragon Ball is still relevant two or three decades from now and still producing moderately well received series… fans are going to encourage newcomers and casuals to watch Super to “Get the full story”. Just like Star Wars fans these days unanimously agree that, whatever the quality, you should watch the Prequels and yes, they do count (Even if begrudgingly to a lot of people).

GT… will never have that.

See, as much as it’s fanboy’s like to pretend the support for GT these days is bigger than it is… most people who watch Dragon Ball either haven’t watched it, haven’t watched it in years, and probably aren’t going to watch it anytime soon.

Heck, half the people watching Super these last few years haven’t watched Dragon Ball Z since it was initially airing. I have a mutual who’s a BIG Dragon Ball fangirl, who writes fanfiction (Usually Vegebul related) and is one of the most passionate and positive people you’ll see on this site when it comes to Dragon Ball… she also regularly admits that while she needs to get around to it, she hasn’t actually watched Dragon Ball of Z since she was a kid, just clips of it and I think Kai. (On that note she didn’t watch GT because she couldn’t get into it, she did watch the first two episodes recently but seemingly hasn’t found the time to get further into it).

This is actually surprisingly common among the fandom. I remember when the first episodes of the Super dub were airing someone who had clearly only watched the dub of Kai before was confused while watching Super and Kai: The Final Chapters back to back, wondering if Elder Kai as seen in Super was the same character as Shin The Supreme Kai. There’s a ton of people out there who’s only experience with Dragon Ball was watching Kai’s dub years ago and getting back into it now because the franchise is putting out new major installments.

FYI, this is also one of the big reason that memes, particularly TFS related, have taken over the fandom and warped the perception of the series and the characters so much over the years. A majority of people who call themselves Dragon ball fans are actually casuals who don’t re-watch the series often and look to the fandom side of things to refresh their memories and base their opinions off of since they probably never thought too hard about the series other than “This show is fun, and these characters are my favourite!” before.

And no, that doesn’t make those people less of a fan than people who re-watch/read the series yearly and are obsessive about it, because screw that elitist noise. I’m just pointing out that… well… many people’s interest in Dragon Ball, as with many mainstream franchises, is very much in the “Here and now” variety. Especially in the age of Crunchyroll, Netflix and online streaming, where anime fans are constantly binging and hopping around from one series to the next.

Hardcore fanboys and people who have nostalgia for it are the only people who actually care about GT more than enough to casually acknowledge it’s existence from time to time. And while you might get the impression by browsing the internet, fansites, forums, comments sections, etc that the hardcore fandom is most of the people that watch and talk about Dragon Ball… they’re really not, in the grand scheme of things.

Going by Star Wars comparisons again, this video by Moviebob should explain what I’m talking about better than I can. 

To sum everything up nicely though… GT is non-canon and hasn’t actually been relevant for two decades. It has long had a reputation as one of the worst things in the franchise, and while there are certainly things the fandom likes about it and plenty of people willing to go back and watch and then defend it (And people like me who re-watch it and end up hating it where we used to defend it, too), it’s status as non-canon and the fact that it has officially been replaced by a new ongoing continuity means that it’s only going to become more and more niche over time as the fandom grows and changes.

And about two or three decades from now, new fans aren’t likely to be encouraged to watch it when there are various other sequels to Z starting with Super to get through, even before you take supplementary material like the movies and video games into consideration than only people looking to go hardcore will want to look up.

However Super is viewed in the future, it seems highly likely to me that it’s going to be held in at least higher regard by a significant portion of the people who are really into Dragon Ball over the next few decades if only because it was the necessary flint that sparked the era of new content more ambitious than the occasional OVA we’d been getting every few years before Battle of Gods came out.

Heck, even in terms of content, I think people in the fandom are going to look back on Super more fondly than GT because it gives people more stuff that appeals to them.

Think about it, Super has given us a plethora of popular characters. Beerus and Whis and Jaco are holdovers from the movies sure, but the former two are easily more popular than literally any character to come out of GT.

And in Super itself? We have huge fan favourites like Hit, Caulifla, Vados, and various characters from the universe Survival Saga. Super arguably has introduced a lot more popular characters than GT did, which included… uh… Baby, Nuova Shenron and maybe Omega Shenron to those who don’t find him unremarkable.

And be honest… unless you intentionally go looking for it, when was the last time you really saw fanart or anything about Baby or Nuova Shenron floating around here? Now when was the last time you saw stuff for Frieza, Cell, Beerus or Broly?

There’s probably a big gap there. Sure is for me.

And Super did a lot more for the supporting cast too. Krillin and Gohan got their own character arcs, Android 18 was a highlight in the Tournament of Power and saw the most action she’s seen in any series (Plus a ton of extra insight into her and Krillin’s relationship and great shipping moments, plus new interactions with her brother and other characters). Frieza may have hit a rough spot with the RF saga, but the Universe Survival Saga showed him at his very best and made the fandom fall in love with his character all over again.

And Android 17? He went from being the least appreciated of the trio of him, 18 and Android 16 to being a huge fandom darling and is regularly agreed to be the MVP of the universe survival saga, if not Super PERIOD. 

I could go on too, because for all it’s missteps, Super actually did go out of it’s way to do things with the characters and expand the universe in various ways, leaving tons of potential for new stories for years to come in it’s wake…

GT though? Let’s be honest, the most popular thing to come out of that was super Saiyan 4. And while I love that form… in the grand scheme of things, transformations are actually one of the least important things about the Dragon ball series, so that right there is a sign that somethings off there.

GT really is designed to be a series that appeals to certain subgroups of fans, and feels alienating to many others. It starts off with an arc that jettisons the majority of the cast in favour of a trio featuring Goku reduced to a kid again, a grown up Trunks, and Pan… who’s portrayed as an annoying brat who’s more of a detriment to the group than anything. Plus a cute robot sidekick to boot, and they all go on boring space adventures for a while.

It has all of one arc that’s all around good (…mostly…), followed up by what’s almost unanimously considered a trainwreck of a mini-arc that, as I’ve said before, looks worse than ever in light of Super due to it’s mishandling of Android 17′s character and the past villains, in comparison to how 17 and Frieza were handled in Super’s last arc. And then we get a final arc that had an awesome premise that devolved into a huge mess due to poor writing and most of the villains being annoying, underwhelming monsters of the week and the final boss being very unsatisfying, capped off by an ending that’s always been wildly divisive.

I’m not going to say that GT, as a what-if spin-off like it currently is, was a complete flop. But it’s definitely a series that I think takes a certain kind of fan to appreciate, whereas I think that Super, for all it’s own faults, in general is a show that captures a lot more of what gave the previous series their wider appeal and generally gives more people what they want.

Not everyone of course… but unlike GT, which really isn’t going to have any continuations anytime soon to do any course corrections or make up for any lost potential, a lot of Super’s missed opportunities can easily be made up by whatever series and movies come after it.

In general I just think that Super has more stuff that a wider group of people are going to be inclined to want to come back to.

Heck, on that note, a lot of people only like GT because it’s pretty much their only resource for Next Gen, post EoZ official Dragon Ball content. People starved for content about Uub, Pan, Bulla, Marron etc especially still use their GT designs as a basis for aged up fan art, and a lot of people who are fans of said character look to GT because outside of a few video games, they don’t have a lot of content for them.

I guarantee you though the minute a new series is made someday set past EoZ again which does more with those characters or otherwise portrays them better than GT did, those holdovers will gladly jump ship, because who in their right mind is going to buy bread crumbs from a shady street vendor when that new bakery across the street is giving away whole loafs?

I could really go on and on talking about this subject, because I actually find this interesting to discuss and speculate on, but it’s getting late and this is getting ridiculously long, so I’m just going to leave it here for now and give you my conclusion.

Yes. I think for most people, Super will be remembered more fondly than GT in the long run. Whether Super will be viewed particularly well in of itself years from now is another matter entirely, it’s probably always going to be a big base breaker at the very least. But on the whole… regardless of how you feel about the two series, I think it’s safe to say it has the advantage.

#dragon ball super #dbs #dragon ball gt #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #dbgt

[calacadraws-blog]

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Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About

The new year is right around the corner. And I know you are already prepared because you read this blog and tons of other marketing blogs, right?

But here is the thing: I also read most of the popular marketing blogs, follow all of the marketing YouTube channels, and listen to the same podcasts you do.

And I’ve noticed that very few people are talking about what’s really going to happen in 2020.

Sure, they will tell you things like voice search is going to account for over 50% of the search queries next year but all of that stuff has already been talked about.

And there are actually more interesting trends that will affect your marketing that no one is really talking about.

So, what are these trends? What’s going to happen in 2020?

Alright, here goes…

Trend #1: Companies who rely on Google Analytics will get beat by their competition

We all love Google Analytics.

Heck, I love it so much I log in at least 3 or 4 times a day. And here is the kicker: I get so much traffic that my Google Analytics only updates once a day.

I really need to break that habit but that’s for another day.

You are probably wondering, what’s wrong with Google Analytics?

There actually isn’t much wrong with it. It’s a great tool, especially considering that it’s free.

But here is the thing… marketing has been changing. New channels are being constantly introduced, such as voice search.

And transactions no longer are as simple as someone coming and buying from you and that’s it.

These days there are things like upsells, down sells, repeat purchases, and even checkout bumps. On top of that, there are so many different ways you can generate revenue for your online business, such as partnerships, affiliate marketing, and even webinars.

This has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that tie into their database better, such as Amplitude.  Or better yet, you are seeing a big push into business intelligence.

A central place where you can tie in all of your data and make better-informed decisions so you can optimize for your lifetime value instead of your short-term income.

In 2020, you will see more companies adopting business intelligence solutions… from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t checked out Data Studio, you’ll want to start now because it is easy to pass in all of your business and marketing data into one place. For example, you can pass in more granular data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio while that would be a bit difficult to do with Google Analytics.

Trend #2: Companies will optimize for voice search, but not for revenue

According to ComScore, over 50% of the searches in 2020 will be from voice search. But that’s not really a new trend… everyone has been talking about that for years.

So, what’s the big deal?

Optimizing for voice search is a great way to get your brand out more, but how is that going to convert into sales?

I haven’t seen too many solutions so far when it comes to capitalizing on your voice search traffic, but so far there is Jetson.ai.

If you aren’t familiar with Jetson.ai, it makes it so people can buy from your site using voice search. It doesn’t matter if it is Alexa or Google Home, they work with most of the popular devices.

What’s cool about Jetson.ai is that it can learn from each customer and customize the interactions.

For example, if I keep ordering the same toothpaste from a specific store using voice search, Jetson.ai keeps track of that so you can easily keep ordering the same product over and over again with little to no friction.

Heck, it’s easier than logging into your computer or pulling out your phone to make a purchase.

Trend #3: Your lists won’t convert as well, so you’ll have to look for alternative communication channels

Email, it’s something we all use in the corporate world.

But here is something interesting when it comes to marketing emails… I’m in a group with a bit over 109 email marketers across different industries in different parts of the world.

And can you guess what we are all noticing?

Our open rates are staying roughly the same and that’s largely because we all know how to clean and optimizing for deliverability.

But our click rates are going down.

So far as a group we have seen our click rates drop by 9.4% in 2019.

That’s crazy considering as a group we have over 146 million email addresses.

Now does this mean email is dead?

Of course not!!!

Email is here to stay and will be here for a very long time.

But what companies will have to do in 2020 is to leverage more communication channels.

Chatbots will take off drastically. Not necessarily the Intercom’s or Drift’s of the world but more so the solutions like ManyChat and MobileMonkey.

ManyChat and MobileMonkey leverage Facebook Messenger and as they connect it with Instagram and WhatsApp it will get even more popular.

In addition to chatbots, you’ll see more people leveraging tools that allow push notifications like Subscribers.

It’s so powerful, here is the impact I’ve been able to generate from push notifications so far using Subscribers.

You can wait till next year to lever chatbots and push notifications, but I’d recommend you start sooner than later. 😉

Trend #4: Moats will almost be non-existent, other than brands

You’ve probably heard the word “moat” before. If you haven’t, just think about water around a castle.

Back in the day, they had water all around the castle and they used a drawbridge to get in and out of the castle, so it would protect them from invaders.

With your business, you may have a moat. It could be a feature, your cost structure, a technological advantage, or even a marketing advantage.

Over the years, moats in the online world have slowly been disappearing.

It’s easy for anyone to copy these days. So, what’s separating you from your competition?

Something could work right now, but it won’t last forever…

But do you know what will still be a strong moat in 2020 and even a stronger one in the future?

It’s branding.

People buy Jordan shoes because they love Michael Jordan. His brand is stronger than ever even though he hasn’t played in the NBA for roughly 16 years.

His shoes are so popular, it’s helped him boost his net worth to over a billion dollars. Plus owning a basketball team doesn’t hurt either. 😉

But what’s interesting is he’s made more money after retirement than he did as a basketball player.

And it’s not just Jordan who built a strong brand… so have the Kardashians.

Kylie launched a billion-dollar company according to Forbes and it was all because of her personal brand. Her cosmetic company isn’t doing anything revolutionary. She just has a strong brand… and good for her for monetizing her brand.

The same goes for companies like Nike, Ferrari, Tesla, American Express… and the list goes on and on.

It’s why companies are spending over 10 billion dollars a year on influencer marketing.

Just look at my agency NP Digital. It’s literally one of the fastest-growing ad agencies out there. And when I look at all of my competitors’ numbers, we are growing at a much faster pace because of my brand.

Yes, we have a great team, but again, that really isn’t a moat as a lot of agencies have great teams. It’s my brand that gave us a really fast kick start and continues to hopefully push us up.

You’ll want to build a brand in 2020. Whether it is personal or corporate, it’s the best moat you can build in marketing. Plus, it will help you with Google’s EAT.

Trend #5: Marketing will become a more even playing field, you’ll have no choice but to use automation

When I first started off as an entrepreneur, I turned to SEO because I couldn’t afford the big ad budgets as my competitors.

Heck, I couldn’t even afford to run any paid ads.

Over the years, the playing field has become more level.

There are credit card companies like Brex that make it easier for startups to get approved for larger limits and you may not have to pay them back right away.

There are financing companies that will give you cash to spend on marketing, so non-venture funded companies can more easily compete.

There are even companies like Lighter Capital that will give you loans without all of the headaches based on your existing revenue.

And to top it off, software solutions are now starting to integrate AI to give better recommendations. From Clickflow and RankScience to Distilled ODN… everyone is trying to use AI to make SEO and other forms of marketing.

Heck, BrightEdge can even automate your SEO (or at least a large portion of it). According to them, their automated SEO solution increases page views per visit by 60% as well as provides 21% more keywords on page one​.

Keep in mind their clients are really big (their software starts in the thousands of dollars per month) so they would probably see better results than most companies, but still, you will start seeing many more software companies leverage AI.

Even with Ubersuggest, I’m working on creating AI that does the SEO for you so you no longer have to spend endless hours while, at the same time, saving you thousands of dollars.

In other words, the marketing playing field is getting more even. And if you want to do well, you are going to have to leverage AI and automation.

If everyone else is using it and you aren’t, you are going to get crushed because it will make changes faster and more accurately than a human. Again, it’s the only option you’ll have if you want to continually compete.

But don’t worry, there will be affordable/free solutions that exist, it’s just a matter of time. 😉

If everyone is leveraging the same AI marketing technology, how can you beat your competitors?

Well, it will come down to everything else… price, customer service, upselling, operations, sales… All of the small stuff is what’s going to help you win.

Trend #6: There will be no more silver bullets, we will all have to optimize for marginal gains

A lot of businesses were built off of one marketing channel.

Dropbox grew through referral marketing. Invite more friends, get more free space.

Facebook was built off your email address book. Facebook used to tap into it and invite all of your contacts to use Facebook on your behalf.

Companies like Quora and Yelp were built off of SEO. All of those rankings really help drive their businesses.

But you no longer can build a business through just one marketing channel. Good channels now get saturated extremely fast.

Even if they work and cause explosive growth, it will only last for a short while before your competitors jump on board and make it harder.

Marketing is now heading in the direction of being about “marginal gains.”

There’s a British cycling coach named Dave Brailsford. His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

And he’s right, that’s how you win a race.

The same will be with your marketing. There will be a big shift from people focusing on one channel and trying to find the “Holy Grail of marketing” to working on slightly improving each area of your marketing.

From split testing your title tags to get a few ranking improvements to adding checkout bumps to your order page so you can spend a little bit more on your paid ads to using Google Data Studio so you can better optimize for your lifetime value…

It’s all about the little things. That’s what is going to add up to winning.

That’s what you’ll have to shift your mindset to in order to win in 2020 and beyond.

Trend #7: Personalization is the new marketing

The problem with marketing as it exists today is that 95% of your visitors will never convert into a customer. And that’s if you are lucky.

Chances are you are more likely looking at 97% plus of your visitors never converting.

The big reason isn’t that your marketing sucks or that all of those visitors are junk and unqualified.

It’s that your message doesn’t fit every single one of your visitors.

But through personalization, you can convert more of your visitors into customers.

A basic example of this is Amazon. When you go to Amazon, they know your patterns and what you typically buy so they show you what they think you want to see in order to boost their conversions.

And it works! When I log into Amazon I see tons of household supplies because that is what I buy the most often. I never buy dog food (which is smart because I don’t have a dog) so I’ll never see ads for dog food.

Businesses are also trying to personalize each and every single experience both online and offline. 

Companies like Amperity are trying to create a customer relationship engine so you can better serve each of your customers, whether it is online or offline.

Marketing is going to become a game of personalization. With ad costs and even general marketing costs rising, you have no choice but to figure out how to convert the 97% of your traffic that just never comes back.

You’ll see a big push for this in 2020.

Conclusion

I know a lot of the stuff I mentioned above isn’t talked about a lot and they aren’t popular marketing topics that everyone wants to hear… but it is the future.

These are trends that will come true, some already are, and you have to adapt for them.

Here’s the beautiful part, though. You just read this, and now have a chance to act on the information before your competition. So, make sure you go and do so.

I want to see you not only succeed but I want you to beat your competition. And I believe you can, whether you are a big company, or just starting off with very little to no money.

So, what do you think of the trends above? Do you see any marketing trends that will come true in 2020 that few people talk about?

The post Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About appeared first on Neil Patel.

Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[dallasareaopinion]

Biden’s infrastructure plan is weak, needs more and

He needs to quit compromising.

There are now at least three or more types of Republicans: The McConnell do not let anyone do anything least it spoil our power faction, the Trump crazy as hell faction, the old guard that Wall Street is everything faction and possibly some actual Republicans who are truly conservative and care about our country. 

Either way we need to rethink what infrastructure is and build on it. And what is more, what is weak etc??? 

First there are serious infrastructure problems and we cannot afford the amount of work we need. Second we still need to find the money because what we need we sure as heck need. 

Biden’s plan to incorporate including a new energy grid that incorporates renewable energy is infrastructure. He shouldn’t compromise.

Roads and bridges and similar are desperately needed and probably more so than what first meets the eye.

As per my previous post, education has desperate needs. 

And there is so much more. And as a conservative you have to look at best ways to fund the infrastructure projects, some is general taxation, some can be direct taxation like the gasoline tax for roads, and some can be with public private partnerships from businesses that will benefit from the project. 

First a note on the gasoline tax since we want to change to renewable energy. There will have to be a shift away from this revenue stream for planning purposes. If we want to get off fossil fuels we cannot expect this revenue without finding another source to replace it. This really should be part of the discussion going forward. I do not like toll roads for many reasons, yet one being it is like double taxation since we are paying for the gasoline tax since we use gasoline to drive on these roads. This will need to be something we get ahead of to maintain roads going forward.

For now though I am rehashing an idea I think is important for the future of our country, gives an example of public private partnership, and economic development and this approach should be examined for many of the infrastructure projects going forward.

My project is the management of water. I previously talked about building canals criss crossing the country maybe running side by side with the interstates, someone recently told me use pipelines instead. 

Doing this creates many jobs including middle class and upper middle class jobs in management, engineering, project management, construction, architecture and the list goes on.

The goal is to manage areas that are prone to flooding and moving that water to the west to continue agriculture and help with adding water back into the system where there are droughts. You could pipe the water to points upstream in a river such as the Colorado River let it flow its natural course and then eventually that water helps to fill into Lake Mead so the water supply is replenished and Hoover Dam continues to generate electricity.

Industries that benefit include insurance, agriculture and of course the electric companies. Agriculture and electric companies are obvious, insurance benefits in many ways. First if you plan ahead well, you can start pumping water from rivers before the heavy rains begin so as to prevent widespread flooding and the damages it causes. This water is then pumped westward. While you could never get it perfect reducing the amount of water temporarily and the management of this helps to protect property and hopefully lives so the cost of claims is significantly lower. The water headed to drought areas reduces the wildfire risk also protecting property and lives and again reducing the claim costs. Yes, the government would have to be involved in a project this large, but by including private industry money  and possibly planning, it helps to lower the tax burden on the general population. And yes there are many details to work out, yet the benefits could be tremendous such as expanding agriculture in the west even expanding more into the desert. And I have another idea around farmer subsidies if agriculture is expanded, but that is another post. 

And this is a quick example, there may be other industries that benefit that could be involved to lower tax payer costs even more.

I know skeptics will say industries will transfer costs to the consumer and if not managed well, they will. Part of the planning will include cost analysis to help alleviate this scenario. You help the industries invest, create revenue bond packages in general paid for by the income of people consuming water, and implement temporary price controls. There will be say that conservatives believe in the free market and prices shouldn’t  be regulated. In our interconnected world that no longer applies across the board and we have to realize certain situations and events will require some intervention to adapt to changes we can’t predict. It doesn’t have to be permanent, but the laissez faire concept of business has to be readdressed. Too much of our world relies on too many pieces to let the market define everything. It would be nice, but some markets such as water and electricity etc will need cohesive management for the greater good. 

This is not abandoning business, but accepting the reality we face in the modern world. Wall Street balking at everything that doesn’t allow them to churn money to make money is not capitalism, just greed. These are the projects where Wall Street’s role is to be more of the traditional investment banker such as packaging the revenue bonds, not driving a you must meet our expectations to be considered successful. Businesses should be allowed to plan long term so the company thrives long term versus being forced to answer to short term profits all the time. 

Anyway the above aside, we need to plan ahead as a country so when you talk about infrastructure it is about fixing roads and buildings, but to really make infrastructure work, you also need to think long term and plan to meet the challenges ahead. Building a new road or school won’t do anyone any good if it is washed out in a flood or there is no power to turn on the lights. 

And one final point, if you think climate change is happening then these types of projects are a must.

Cheers

[preciousmetals0]

Powell’s Wake-Up Call; Uber Eats It All; Progyny Stands Tall

Powell’s Wake-Up Call; Uber Eats It All; Progyny Stands Tall:

You Don’t Have to Call Me Darlin’

When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke this morning, well … it was all that Wall Street could do to keep from crying.

Speaking during a webcast with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Powell warned that the COVID-19 pandemic could “leave behind lasting damage” to U.S. economic productivity.

“The recovery may take some time to gather momentum, and the passage of time can turn liquidity problems into solvency problems,” Powell said.

It was a reality check for Wall Street. For some investors, it seemed so useless to remain. The Dow quickly plunged more than 500 points.

Even renewed promises of “infinite” stimulus weren’t enough to stem the selling.

The Takeaway:

This may be the start of the reversal Great Stuff has called for throughout this market rebound.

But you don’t have to call me Jerome Powell.

And you don’t have to call me Charlie Pride.

And you don’t have to call me Mr. Great Stuff … anymore — even though I’m on your fightin’ side!

(Ok, that’s enough David Allan Coe … for now.)

Speaking of “your fightin’ side,” I ran across a millennial-centered article yesterday that I just had to address.

Per CNBC: “Young investors pile into stocks, seeing ‘generational-buying moment’ instead of risk.”

According to the article, discount brokers Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade and Robinhood all saw a surge in new accounts when the market cratered in March.

In a note to clients (mostly non-millennials, I’m sure) Citi Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Tobias Levkovich said that young investors saw the plunge as a “generational-buying moment.”

Yes, Tobias, I’m sure millennials saw it that way, especially since they “do not have much background in the equity space.”

You can almost hear him thinking: Back in my day, young people didn’t invest in the market … and I had to walk to school in snow uphill both ways … or something like that.

Once again, we’re seeing Wall Street’s old guard dump on the millennial generation. But it’s not about takeout coffee and avocado toast this time — it’s their retirement.

Unlike those investors in or near retirement, March’s mayhem was a buying opportunity indeed for younger investors. Millennials have a longer investment time frame and can afford to be more aggressive with their capital.

But that’s only if they don’t panic and instead, hang on through the economic madness yet to come. And as today’s Powell reality check shows, there’s still considerable downside risk in the market.

If these new younger investors panic when the market rolls over again, they’ll get wiped out. How’s that for leaving behind “lasting damage?”

See, there are only two ways that this goes down. And it’s better to learn now than when you’re buried under 18 positions bleeding red like stuck pigs.

The wave carries you … or it crashes on you.

That’s it. No surfing analogy, no nothing. It’s crush or get crushed.

If it sounds like I’m oversimplifying things, it’s because I don’t want the wave to crash on you! I don’t care how long you’ve been in the market — first-time investor or a decades-long HODLer — you have what it takes to make it through this pandemic market with pride.

I believe in you … Paul Mampilly believes in you…

Heck, Paul Mampilly has been a guide for thousands upon thousands of readers, no matter their investing background. And the tech mega trends that he follows are exactly the kind of buying opportunities that come once a generation.

In fact, Paul just found one tech stock that’s set to transform the way we use and create energy: “This technology can single-handedly power a major American city … virtually free of charge.”

Click here to learn more!

And remember: Don’t let the wave crush you … or sweep you by.

Going: Uber Eats Grubhub

Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) is hungry, and it reportedly set its sights on gobbling down Grubhub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB).

The ride-hailing/food delivery company offered an all-stock deal for Grubhub — 2.15 UBER shares for every GRUB share, according to The Wall Street Journal.

As of yesterday, that valued Grubhub at $71.36 per share. That’s quite a tip compared to GRUB’s current trading range near $31.30.

Uber has yet to comment on the news, but Grubhub said that “consolidation could make sense in our industry, and, like any responsible company, we are always looking at value-enhancing opportunities.”

Very noncommittal there, Grubhub.

While the deal makes sense for both companies, it’ll be interesting to watch the political and social fallout from this news … especially in California, where the “gig economy” these companies helped create has been under fire for some time.

Wall Street feels the same way, with both stocks down today.

Going: If I Work From Home Forever…

Will it all remain unchanged?

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey knows that his employees are scared inside, and they don’t really understand. Is it profits on Twitter’s mind, or is it health care?

But heaven is now in the palm of Twitter workers’ hands. “If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen,” Doresy said in a company email.

The company laid out a considerably employee-centric plan to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes allowing employees to decide when or even if they come back into the office.

The move should reassure TWTR investors that the company has the pandemic situation under control. That’s a pretty big feather in their caps. Now, Twitter traders just have to worry about the company’s slowing online ad spending.

Gone: Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge

Not every stock is down with the sickness today. Shares of fertility-benefits manager Progyny Inc. (Nasdaq: PGNY) soared more than 20% after the company beat first-quarter earnings and revenue expectations.

Progyny, which went public back in October, said it earned $0.04 per share as revenue surged 72% to $81 million.

The company noted that customers’ access to care was “meaningfully disrupted” by the pandemic. But it also said that the disruption would be temporary, as “fertility is commonly recognized as an essential medical service.”

Essential service? Say no more … a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.

In fact, CEO David Schlanger added that “the prevalence of infertility means people will still need assistance in order to pursue their dreams of having a family.”

Here’s yet another initial public offering (IPO) that’s outperforming market trends and defending the niche it carved out. Very good. Very good.  It’s wicked. Wicked. You know who else is wicked?

Paul Mampilly with his IPO research. Eh? Know what I mean. Know what I mean? Wink wink, nudge nudge.

IPO research? Click here. Grin grin, wink wink, say no more?

Confidence — that’s our word of the week.

Government disapproval? That must be the theme of the week.

And right now? It’s time for the Poll of the Week!

In last week’s poll, we asked for your thoughts on how the government — yes, every level of it — is reopening the economy. A bit broad, yes, and here’s the rub: Depending on your exact location, your experience during the Great Reopening could vary drastically from every other Great Stuff reader.

That’s why we love to hear from each and every one of you — especially amid the great scrambling brouhaha of local, state and federal government bodies alike.

A big ol’ 54% majority of you believe we are on the “They botched it again!” front. And with how many different stories I’ve read from friends nationwide … I hear you.

But, before we team up with Elon Musk’s latest “freedom fighter” campaign, let’s turn our attention to something that surely couldn’t cause any disagreements at all — printing more Benjamins.

How would you feel about another round of stimulus checks? Is this exactly what the brave souls need right now on America’s front lines? Or are we devaluing the dollar like there’s no tomorrow?

Click on below to answer our poll!

Great Stuff: Sing Me Back Home

As long as my two hands are fit to use, Great Stuff is what you’ll read. And here on our team, we’re ready to hear from you!

You have one day left to make it in this week’s edition of Reader Feedback. That’s right: If you’ve resorted to tallying up the days out there, it’s almost Thursday already!

Send us a message at [email protected], long or short, night or day, rain or shine. And you can always catch up on the latest Great Stuff on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

It’s always great to hear from you. So until next time, stay Great!

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[goldira01]

You Don’t Have to Call Me Darlin’

When Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke this morning, well … it was all that Wall Street could do to keep from crying.

Speaking during a webcast with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Powell warned that the COVID-19 pandemic could “leave behind lasting damage” to U.S. economic productivity.

“The recovery may take some time to gather momentum, and the passage of time can turn liquidity problems into solvency problems,” Powell said.

It was a reality check for Wall Street. For some investors, it seemed so useless to remain. The Dow quickly plunged more than 500 points.

Even renewed promises of “infinite” stimulus weren’t enough to stem the selling.

The Takeaway:

This may be the start of the reversal Great Stuff has called for throughout this market rebound.

But you don’t have to call me Jerome Powell.

And you don’t have to call me Charlie Pride.

And you don’t have to call me Mr. Great Stuff … anymore — even though I’m on your fightin’ side!

(Ok, that’s enough David Allan Coe … for now.)

Speaking of “your fightin’ side,” I ran across a millennial-centered article yesterday that I just had to address.

Per CNBC: “Young investors pile into stocks, seeing ‘generational-buying moment’ instead of risk.”

According to the article, discount brokers Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade and Robinhood all saw a surge in new accounts when the market cratered in March.

In a note to clients (mostly non-millennials, I’m sure) Citi Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Tobias Levkovich said that young investors saw the plunge as a “generational-buying moment.”

Yes, Tobias, I’m sure millennials saw it that way, especially since they “do not have much background in the equity space.”

You can almost hear him thinking: Back in my day, young people didn’t invest in the market … and I had to walk to school in snow uphill both ways … or something like that.

Once again, we’re seeing Wall Street’s old guard dump on the millennial generation. But it’s not about takeout coffee and avocado toast this time — it’s their retirement.

Unlike those investors in or near retirement, March’s mayhem was a buying opportunity indeed for younger investors. Millennials have a longer investment time frame and can afford to be more aggressive with their capital.

But that’s only if they don’t panic and instead, hang on through the economic madness yet to come. And as today’s Powell reality check shows, there’s still considerable downside risk in the market.

If these new younger investors panic when the market rolls over again, they’ll get wiped out. How’s that for leaving behind “lasting damage?”

See, there are only two ways that this goes down. And it’s better to learn now than when you’re buried under 18 positions bleeding red like stuck pigs.

The wave carries you … or it crashes on you.

That’s it. No surfing analogy, no nothing. It’s crush or get crushed.

If it sounds like I’m oversimplifying things, it’s because I don’t want the wave to crash on you! I don’t care how long you’ve been in the market — first-time investor or a decades-long HODLer — you have what it takes to make it through this pandemic market with pride.

I believe in you … Paul Mampilly believes in you…

Heck, Paul Mampilly has been a guide for thousands upon thousands of readers, no matter their investing background. And the tech mega trends that he follows are exactly the kind of buying opportunities that come once a generation.

In fact, Paul just found one tech stock that’s set to transform the way we use and create energy: “This technology can single-handedly power a major American city … virtually free of charge.”

Click here to learn more!

And remember: Don’t let the wave crush you … or sweep you by.

Going: Uber Eats Grubhub

Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) is hungry, and it reportedly set its sights on gobbling down Grubhub Inc. (NYSE: GRUB).

The ride-hailing/food delivery company offered an all-stock deal for Grubhub — 2.15 UBER shares for every GRUB share, according to The Wall Street Journal.

As of yesterday, that valued Grubhub at $71.36 per share. That’s quite a tip compared to GRUB’s current trading range near $31.30.

Uber has yet to comment on the news, but Grubhub said that “consolidation could make sense in our industry, and, like any responsible company, we are always looking at value-enhancing opportunities.”

Very noncommittal there, Grubhub.

While the deal makes sense for both companies, it’ll be interesting to watch the political and social fallout from this news … especially in California, where the “gig economy” these companies helped create has been under fire for some time.

Wall Street feels the same way, with both stocks down today.

Going: If I Work From Home Forever…

Will it all remain unchanged?

Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey knows that his employees are scared inside, and they don’t really understand. Is it profits on Twitter’s mind, or is it health care?

But heaven is now in the palm of Twitter workers’ hands. “If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen,” Doresy said in a company email.

The company laid out a considerably employee-centric plan to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes allowing employees to decide when or even if they come back into the office.

The move should reassure TWTR investors that the company has the pandemic situation under control. That’s a pretty big feather in their caps. Now, Twitter traders just have to worry about the company’s slowing online ad spending.

Gone: Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge

Not every stock is down with the sickness today. Shares of fertility-benefits manager Progyny Inc. (Nasdaq: PGNY) soared more than 20% after the company beat first-quarter earnings and revenue expectations.

Progyny, which went public back in October, said it earned $0.04 per share as revenue surged 72% to $81 million.

The company noted that customers’ access to care was “meaningfully disrupted” by the pandemic. But it also said that the disruption would be temporary, as “fertility is commonly recognized as an essential medical service.”

Essential service? Say no more … a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.

In fact, CEO David Schlanger added that “the prevalence of infertility means people will still need assistance in order to pursue their dreams of having a family.”

Here’s yet another initial public offering (IPO) that’s outperforming market trends and defending the niche it carved out. Very good. Very good.  It’s wicked. Wicked. You know who else is wicked?

Paul Mampilly with his IPO research. Eh? Know what I mean. Know what I mean? Wink wink, nudge nudge.

IPO research? Click here. Grin grin, wink wink, say no more?

Confidence — that’s our word of the week.

Government disapproval? That must be the theme of the week.

And right now? It’s time for the Poll of the Week!

In last week’s poll, we asked for your thoughts on how the government — yes, every level of it — is reopening the economy. A bit broad, yes, and here’s the rub: Depending on your exact location, your experience during the Great Reopening could vary drastically from every other Great Stuff reader.

That’s why we love to hear from each and every one of you — especially amid the great scrambling brouhaha of local, state and federal government bodies alike.

A big ol’ 54% majority of you believe we are on the “They botched it again!” front. And with how many different stories I’ve read from friends nationwide … I hear you.

But, before we team up with Elon Musk’s latest “freedom fighter” campaign, let’s turn our attention to something that surely couldn’t cause any disagreements at all — printing more Benjamins.

How would you feel about another round of stimulus checks? Is this exactly what the brave souls need right now on America’s front lines? Or are we devaluing the dollar like there’s no tomorrow?

Click on below to answer our poll!

Great Stuff: Sing Me Back Home

As long as my two hands are fit to use, Great Stuff is what you’ll read. And here on our team, we’re ready to hear from you!

You have one day left to make it in this week’s edition of Reader Feedback. That’s right: If you’ve resorted to tallying up the days out there, it’s almost Thursday already!

Send us a message at [email protected], long or short, night or day, rain or shine. And you can always catch up on the latest Great Stuff on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

It’s always great to hear from you. So until next time, stay Great!

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

#Timor Invest

[communityglobalbuzrush-blog]

Build Brand Awareness

Build Brand Awareness

What number of these Build Brand Awareness do you know specifically what/who they had been following just milliseconds?

Maybe it’s colour or method of making that grabs your eyeball.

Or probably the logo itself is identifiable sufficient that you simply never even require the content or company name that goes with it.

Each of these huge Build Brand Awareness have put in a whole lot of time and money ensuring you no doubt know theircolors and logo, and the things they represent as a supplier by heart.

In order to get onto the competition and remain there, these companies have gotten to frequently generate Build Brand Awarenessfocus. But what the heck is Build Brand Awarenessunderstanding really and just how do you utilize it to cultivate your online business?

So what is Build Brand Awarenessunderstanding?

They can’t purchase your product or service if people don’t know who you are. Make attention will happen your second anybody remembers your Build Brand Awarenessfrom previously being able to see something similar to your brand or agency brand name. While you build Build Brand Awarenessconsciousness you might be creating your reputable name. This will help you to attain customers, sustain previous people and differentiate themselves from the competitors.

Let’s require Build Brand Awarenessrecognition a step further with Build Brand Awarenessacceptance. Following your clients understands your corporation company name your next aim you could have is to allow them to own an in-range an understanding of your products, overall and services a feeling of your organisation.

As an illustration you are able to more than likely realize the Starbucks logo design from the mile out there while you are driving a vehicle on the freeway. You know the company is at present in search of options to their typical organic green straws. They have a stage procedure that lets you receive celebrities up until you receive a absolutely free drink up. And you without a doubt have your go-to order memorized.

Well before your customers can get in touch with this condition of Build Brand Awarenesspopularity you should grow Build Brand Awarenessknowledge. This will permit you to aim for potential customers, crank out business leads, and in close proximity revenue.

How would you put together Build Brand Awarenessattention for ones small business?

Rome wasn’t made within 24 hours nor is Build Brand Awarenesscomprehension. People are not going to automatically know your Build Brand Awarenessafter seeing your logo/name once or twice. You need to be employed by it because they build a technique, making customers’ believe in and helping to make your appeal best-known on numerous channels. This strategy need to be unique and creative that allows you to conquer your challengers.

On top amount you should generate a good Build Brand Awarenessrecognition method focusing extremely precise readers and emphasizing Build Brand Awarenessremember and consumer proposal.

For everybody who is just starting you must describe your target audience and improve customer personas since you can not preferred all of us. More on target your listeners is, the greater. You desire individuals that will in fact participate on your model. Top quality above quantity.

Working on Build Brand Awarenessremember may be the fundamental of creating Build Brand Awarenessrecognition. The true secret to Build Brand Awarenessrecall is being constant on all tools. There are various methods to participate your customers on-line - from promotion on social network sites to writing a blog. Be sure to know which promotion tips you may use and which to protect yourself from.

Factors to include in your advertising course of action

1. Regularity Is Important

You possibly can possibly figure more then one reason it is extremely important to stay consistent. Obviously it helps people remember your Build Brand Awarenessif they have seen the same logo on every platform. But uniformity may help with Search engine ranking optimization. If you have a The search engines My Company (that you simply really should) you will recognize that your “NAP” also referred to as your name, address and phone telephone number is displayed once you look for your company. This ought to be the same all across all tools.

In the event you own personal a regulations company together with your office buildings mention on the search engines My Company is Regulations Place of work of Invoice Brown yet your label on Yelp is Rules Clinics of B. Light brown this is really bothersome for the major search engines. Serps plus your clientele might view these as two different business owners.

Any time you in the form of Build Brand Awarenessare continuous in all you does a person can become a dependable and well-performing cause for people to go back to again and again. And you should have a elevated chance of positioning searching.

2. Buy Advertisement

You might surely want to invest in advertisements. But you should take advantage of the suitable routes. Social bookmarking and Yahoo marketing and advertising are two best ways to construct Build Brand Awarenessfocus for a industry.

By now you have probably seen advertisements on each individual social network sites base. When walking postings on social bookmarking networks you will likely have a graphic coupled with some copy. You are going to undoubtedly need to have a photo that resonates in your customers with a small amount of word so that Facebook approves your advertisement but you will probably wish to incorporate your logo design.

Even if it is subtly located in a corner of your photo that is a system which enables you to you build Build Brand Awarenessconsciousness. You want prospective buyers so as to recognize your logo so place it any and everywhere you look it is easy to.

You can also manage advertising on bing with AdWords. There are 2 different alternatives when creating advertising for this platform - display and search commercials. Browse promotions are copy based and are the advertisements you have the experience of witnessing after you Search engines a specific thing.

Show commercials are those you notice as banners or side area bars on other internet sites.

In order to create Build Brand Awarenessattention with every sort of advertisement you will have to make sure you are using your brand’s preferred key words for seek images and ads that reveal your Build Brand Awarenessfor exhibit adverts. All postings really should be cohesive collectively together with your website. This way, whenever a individual notices your advertisement, they really are certainly not baffled and not can see a escape or lapse in branding. A similar kinds of imagery, fonts and colors and company logos throughout all promoting initiatives will greatly build up Build Brand Awarenessknowledge.

Working with Yahoo and google promoting and marketing and social media marketing promoting and advertising together can increase your Build Brand Awarenessattention adventure, enhance potential customers and make it easier to special revenue! You will missing a huge opportunity to build Build Brand Awarenessawareness if you forgo online advertising. With online digital advertisements it is easy to maintain a record of customers almost every step and also your Return on your investment.

3. Social Networks Appearance

In a very online globe it’s significant to own a position on social networking. Sure you are able to work commercials but you need to be putting up consistently. Bear in mind constancy point we talked about? That is true on this site very. There are lots of actions to take together with submitting to reinforce your Build Brand Awarenessvisibility.

Respond to suggestions on Facebook or twitter! Do you desire to be known as the trustworthy, valuable Build Brand Awarenesswhich has a very good social network appeal? Make an effort to talk with your visitors. If someone asks a question, answer it. If they have a problem, solve it.

You could make sure you carry out a livestream. This is among the organic and natural strategies is known as most cheap. And is particularly shown to build up your conversion process speed - quick. You need to simply purchase the program which has the greatest proposal. Be certain that your posts is intriquing, notable and tempting to draw in more people to get motions with what you offer. And achieving stable CTAs during your live stream will quickly earn you takes.

Develop a hashtag for your special Build Brand Awarenesson Instagram. Hashtags assistance end users come across items, Build Brand Awareness and a lot more because of blog posts that are marked with hashtags. In order to build Build Brand Awarenessawareness, you will want to use hashtags that are both generic, niche, and branded. If you only use generic hashtags, your posts can get lost in the mix. Design your own individual hashtag. It may be a while before it takes off but it helps you create an identity and stand out from the crowd.

An Instagram bank account called Meals In Your Air has attained 389k enthusiasts and also has crafted a sufficient amount of Build Brand Awarenessknowledge to acquire their own personal hashtag #FITA and #foodintheair. If someone is searching for photos of bagels they might just stumble across their account, in this post they also hashtag bagels which is generic but.

The colors, photos and tone in your social media stations can assist you make Build Brand Awarenessconsciousness. For instance, your Instagram subject know a lot relating to your model. Building a theme means the entire snap shots on the membership use a related feel. Nisolo Pair of shoes offers a clean Instagram topic and each of their images have quite similar tones. So when a customer sees a photo that looks similar to their theme, they will associate it with this company. Let alone, by using a absolutely consistent style just feels attractive, created and skilled professional.

Work with Pinterest! This may seem like an dated software but pins on Pinterest will consistently generate traffic to your site and are ideal for providing people with advice about your branding. One of the keys this is to experience unique visual content and articles to enable you to shine. Graphics of your respective videos, gifs, products and infographics can all assist you improve your Build Brand Awarenesson Pinterest.

4. Companion Along With Other (Larger) Famous brands

Partner with established Build Brand Awareness to have giveaways or even collaborate on a product if you are a smaller Build Brand Awarenesslooking to build Build Brand Awarenessawareness.

If you are a smaller Build Brand Awarenessjust starting out ready to build Build Brand Awarenessawareness, it’s time to turn to Instagram and find Build Brand Awareness that you would like to work with. Once you have built a relationship you can ask them to collaborate Engage with them on social media and. Instagram special gifts are good for generating Build Brand Awarenessrecognition. It’s an uncomplicated way of getting your business on the market also to interact with other Build Brand Awareness and influencers as part of your market place.

This blogger and influencer partnered with a different Build Brand Awarenessto get a nutritious free gift. Contests like this are perfect because in order to enter, Instagram users have to follow both Build Brand Awareness. You can easily boost your follower development to make most people concious of your brand.

This collaboration free gift is involving the Build Brand Awareness Gun Paper Co, a non moving and chosen lifestyle Build Brand Awarenessand Loccitane, a kind of healthy beauty products. An intriguing collaboration perfect? Rifle Newspaper Co in fact designed some the labels for Loccitane’s goods. In order to gain more exposure, these are more well known Build Brand Awareness but they have taken a collaboration to social media.

Even two giant Build Brand Awareness can also work with one another. In order to give both Build Brand Awareness a marketing boost with Apple’s series 3 watch, apple partnered with Hermés, a luxury fashion Build Brand Awareness. In this methodology, each and every one Build Brand Awarenessis aiming for two shopper bases.

5. Recommend A Pal

When you have a referral program ready this may be a easy way to acquire potential customers together with raise Build Brand Awarenesscomprehension. If an individual is already a devoted follower of your Build Brand Awarenesslet them have the opportunity share your Build Brand Awarenessthat has a good friend.

But if your chum says to you about a product and requires you to check it out do you? If it was free, would you be more inclined to do so? Violet Apron, meals registration field, is well known regarding their affiliate training course; it is a significant a part of their brand. If you refer a friend, you get a discount and so do they. Absolutely everyone wins! These prospects effectively get zero cost ambassadors for ones manufacturer.

Violet Apron blends a kind of “free” test with ideas to supply their Build Brand Awarenessa boost. Folks that have not heard about Blue Apron could eventually have an acquaintance that shows them about that so actually Blue colored Apron merely has to enhance a circle of faithful people that will propagated the term and in essence industry for them.

6. Offer A Free Trial Offer

Everybody loves freebies. Before the fully commit, and people especially love to try out a product. Informing customers take a analyze jog of your product or service can generate Build Brand Awarenessknowledge plus have confidence in.

As opposed to a “trial” Spotify has a totally free model on their company therefore you never even really need to decide to put decrease a credit card.

Even so the zero cost variety does not appear will the compensated elements, it grants clientele a taste within the supplement minus the anxiety of obligation. In March of 2016 Spotify have 30 thousand settled owners. That quantity has around tripled. By Jan 2018 that they had 70 mil paid off members. Using a free trial to build Build Brand Awarenessawareness is smart, especially if you can make it commitment free and give users a long test run.

7. Take Action Confident

There is lots of negativity on the globe so want to do something confident for your personal people. Answer to good critical reviews, improve with comments on web 2 . 0 or respond to questions that people tweet at you or develop your shape of favourable advertising.

Dominos established a Build Brand Awarenessknowledge venture labeled as Paving for Pizza precisely where they proceeded to go approximately restoring potholes with the street. They crafted a great impact and discovered a way to feature their logo! You don’t will need to go to this extraordinary but men and women realize as soon as you take steps fine. This will grow impressive Build Brand Awarenessunderstanding and can control potential customers forthcoming selecting steps.

8. Offer Appreciate

One other great way to develop Build Brand Awarenessfocus would be to offer you significance to your people by formulating your blog! The key to getting a balanced blog is care. You should be blogging weekly in order to keep your audience engaged. Sometimes it is hard to keep up when you are operating a business, check out blog site formulating services which might be a better formula for your needs. In combination with weblog routinely you really need to have matters which offer valuation on your prospective customers. Examine what basic questions your prospects are demanding followed by answer them as your blog.

Your website must be abundant with effective information and facts not only for your special site visitors also for search engines like bing. Search engines like google are better than you might think. They never just give attention to keywords and meta tags; they think about how effective your web site could be to target audience. Publishing websites for Seo optimization can be challenging although with the best keyword and key phrase, it will be easy to outrank rivals.

9. Charm

A further strategy to grow Build Brand Awarenessknowledge may be to purely amuse your buyers. Chubbies is known as a attire Build Brand Awarenesscontaining established a tremendous using. Their promoting end goal is to always focus on the the younger creation but even to become as compelling as you can. They connect to their clients over a very own levels as well as Build Brand Awarenessis acknowledged for this.

Their key totally focus is on submitting wonderful subject matter that will captivate their crowd and then make them laugh. Without it interesting, care free subject matter the Chubbies Build Brand Awarenessmight get missing while in the blend of other attire businesses that market identical products and services.

10. Use Retargeting

Brand information is centred on ensuring that your visitors visit yourads and logo, organization identity, and the like. Retargeting is the only way to win back the ones people who could possibly have stopped at your website and also position a specific thing within their cart but didn’t turn.

Retarget customers wheresoever you will! You will probably be able to identify just where from the shopping for process your web visitors fit on the chart. This is where you must use a retargeting methodology that lets you develop Build Brand Awarenessreel and awareness people shoppers back in.

There are certain varieties of retargeting. You are able to get together data files from purchasers who see your web site then use that date to retarget all of them social websites and Search engines adverts. You may as well use electronic mail to retarget clientele. Deserted cart emails are some of the most popular solutions to retarget. They pleasantly tell shoppers they have left anything at the rear of and get them to continue browsing.

Do you know what number of your web visitors buy something to begin with they view your homepage? It is scarce for a customer to convert the first time they connect with your branding. This is exactly why should you utilize retargeting. If they are not you are missing out on potential earnings. Use retargeting as an opportunity to establish a relationships with prospective customers.

Brandnames with high amount Build Brand Awarenessrecognition

After you have gathered a adhering to of dedicated prospects you have got made it! You not ever need to worry about promoting and marketing or building Build Brand Awarenessunderstanding anymore most suitable? Nope. In order to stay on top, even the biggest Build Brand Awareness out there continue to redesign their branding strategies.

If you ever read the language “Just Do It” what pops into your head? Probably the Build Brand AwarenessNike. Their slogan is acknowledged world-wide. They may have crafted their Build Brand Awarenessavailable this slogan and usually tend to niche occurrences rather than just a brand name. Actually they can be supplying systems that will assist you accomplish your goals. If you purchase their shoes, clothing or accessories they will enhance your experience.

Truly instructed a person to “Google it.” Yahoo to be a Build Brand Awarenesshas plenty of awareness and recognition that their title is commonly employed rather than your message “search.” This is certainly likely the utmost volume of Build Brand Awarenessinformation but additionally they did not stop there. Google made a symbol alteration of 2015 that a great many customers didn’t care for. But folks carry on figure out their significant colors and name. This rebranding hard work still has exactly the same thoroughly clean appear nevertheless in a typeface which may be legible on smaller sized units and three years in the future we do not even keep in mind they replaced something.

In order to draw attention to historic events and people like Gerda Taro, a German war photographer, they are also known for replacing their logo. They are already established, still uses techniques like this in order to retain and engage their users, although google.

Coke has built their Build Brand Awarenessthroughout not supplying coke. They are really providing contentment. Their wide open satisfaction advertising campaign presented during 2009 and he has possessed a great effects on their company. Their next tremendous advertising advertising campaign, “Taste the Feeling” constructed an looks in 2016.

Both of these ads are selling reactions not the product or service by itself. These rebranding ways can offer a Build Brand Awarenessan innovative check even though presenting buyers a fresh gratitude towards the systems they furnish.

Each of these companies has a unique take on branding with iconicslogans and colors. Alternatively, ways of marketing that have allowed them to continue to build Build Brand Awareness throughout their existence.

In an effort to develop Build Brand Awareness information you need to have a technique into place that allows you to constantly increase your brand name. Focus is not basically a one and completed approach. Successful businesses continue to iterate and redesign even if they are big Build Brand Awareness like Google. If you are ready to start building Build Brand Awareness for your business, let us know! Our consultants will create a special strategy that focuses on your client base detailed with retargeting, everything and advertising in the middle.

Get more info visit BuzRush

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Kyra Bussanich of Kyra's Bake Shop, a brand that makes award-winning pastriesSome stats:Product: Award-Winning PastriesRevenue/mo: $120,000Started: May 2009Location: PortlandFounders: 1Employees: 24Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hey everyone! I’m Kyra Bussanich, founder of Kyra’s Bake Shop, an exclusively gluten-free bakery in Portland Oregon. You may have seen us on the Food Network dominating the sweet competition on Cupcake Wars!Our claim to fame, if you will, is that everything we make is gluten-free, though you would never know it by tasting our products. When I was first developing the recipes, it was very important to me that everything we make and sell is delicious enough to appeal to anyone (and not just those who must eat on a restricted diet). I think this is part of why we continue to be so successful today.We started the business with a cottage industry certified home kitchen, and following our success, the first time on Cupcake Wars we were able to expand to a tiny little brick and mortar. It wasn’t long until we outgrew that location, and now we have a 3,500 square foot flagship bakeshop/cafe and we just opened our second location (an urban outpost) in downtown Portland. Looking back over the years, I am still shocked to see our revenue growth.While some months are definitely busier than others (Hello Thanksgiving!), our monthly average revenue from the flagship store is $120,000 (the second location hasn’t quite been open a month yet, so it’s still too new to factor those sales in). Let me tell you, you have to sell a LOT of cupcakes and cinnamon rolls to earn that kind of revenue!imageimageWhat's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?Before I went to pastry school, I had a very uncreative and unfulfilling job, but I didn’t know what I was “supposed” to do with my life. Added to that sense of directionless was the fact that I had been increasingly ill for nearly a decade. I wondered who would even hire me, and felt like I should just be grateful to have a job that was flexible and allowed me to work from home when I needed it.As my health got worse, the thought of a career that would fulfill me became more and more distant, and I found myself in and out of the hospital, doing chemotox infusions every six weeks, and more days than not, curled up on the couch in the fetal position in pain. I had been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease but none of the medications seemed to help, not even the steroids that caused me to gain 18 pounds in a week so that my skin felt stretched like an overripe grape that was about to burst.It wasn’t until my gastroenterologist wanted to remove the most diseased portions of my intestinal tract that I considered going gluten-free in order to reduce the inflammation in my body so that perhaps I would finally respond to the medications.Eating gluten-free at the time was not easy nor delicious like it is today. I felt like my tastebuds were being punished, but I also felt miraculously better, which kept me on the path. Once my health started stabilizing, I began to think about what I could do for a career that might be challenging and fulfillingOne day, my husband was reading aloud Steve Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford University, and in it, Jobs said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “You need to love what you do for a living because you spend way too much time doing it to feel uninspired by your work.” The statement was an emotional sucker-punch to my gut and I started crying uncontrollably. My husband wiped away my tears and said, “without thinking about your answer, what’s the first thing that comes to mind for what you’d want to do if you were graduating today?”I blurted out, “I’d go to pastry school,” and then clapped my hands over my mouth because I was truly unprepared to blurt that out and it surprised me.At the time, the thought of going to pastry school, and creating foods I could never taste with ingredients I shouldn’t even touch, felt daunting. Not to mention that my husband was finishing up his doctorate at the time, and it was my salary that was paying the mortgage and putting food on the table.Less optimistic friends thought I was nuts to think about trading all that in for more student loans for schooling that would get me a minimum wage-paying job after I completed the program, but for me, it wasn’t about the money; it was about the chance to feed people, and make their day a little brighter.imageTake us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.When I first started getting acquainted with gluten-free ingredients in the kitchen, I was massively disappointed: the flavors and textures weren’t anything like I was hoping. Instead of delicious gluten-free pasties, I was creating hard biscuits and dense cakes that could be used as doorstops. Not to mention that the flavors all tasted...off. I remember at the time I had read a blog post from someone who said that we couldn’t expect a gluten-free cake to taste like a “real” cake, and I remember thinking that that was a cop-out.There’s no reason a cake made with alternative grains couldn’t test as good or better than a “regular” cake.I spent thousands of dollars and hours in the kitchen, familiarizing myself with the alternative grain options, and the best way to combine them for great flavor and texture. I brought cakes and cinnamon rolls and pies and cookies and cheesecakes to every picnic and barbeque and party I attended, and solicited feedback (from people who had no dietary restrictions.) I adapted recipes and made tiny tweaks: a different ratio of starch to whole grain flours. A few more grams of binding agent. An additional egg. I tested and retested recipes.At the time, I wasn’t even thinking about starting a brick and mortar business; I was solely preoccupied with entertaining guests and feeding people (like my mom and myself) who might not otherwise be able to indulge in any treats beyond fruit.I created business cards and had my kitchen licensed by the health department, not because I thought this would be a viable business, but because some friends of friends asked me to make their wedding cake, and I thought the cards would lend a sense of legitimacy. I applied for a business license through the Secretary of State for the same reason. Basically, I was pretending to be what I thought a real business was, but I honestly had no clue what I was doing beyond the baking side of things.imageDescribe the process of launching the business.Once that first episode of Cupcake Wars aired on the Food Network in 2009, my phone started ringing off the hook. I had thousands of messages from people all over the country, congratulating me, or telling me they were cheering me on, or wanting to share their gluten-free story, or asking to place orders. I still didn’t have a brick and mortar store, but this was my first inkling that I could someday have a successful retail shop.I applied for bank loans, which were denied to me because I had no real collateral. I sold the diamond out of my wedding ring. I maxed out credit cards and got an angel investment of $62,000 to start the very first iteration of our bakeshop. Nowadays, that sounds like a very inexpensive build-out to me, but at the time, I was terrified that I would be crushed by the weight of that debt.I made a ton of mistakes in the early days (and heck! I still make mistakes now, as I am constantly learning), but one thing I did right was to write a press release when I was initially on Cupcake Wars and send it to all the local publications, as well as tv media, and nationally-distributed gluten-free magazines. I wrote another press release when I was launching my first store and was amazed by the results. I figured there would be maybe 15 customers to come by that day (all friends and family), but thanks to the press release, I had a line out the door, down the street and curling around the block!imageSince launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?You can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, then it won’t matter; you won’t make sales and won’t be able to stay in business. Conversely, there are brands out there that have a loyal following and great brand awareness, even if the product isn’t necessarily the best on the market. I would say that making PR a priority is key, right after developing a knockout product, and if you can’t afford to hire someone to do it for you, then learn how to do it yourself.In the early days of running the bakeshops, I also said yes to everything. I think part of it was me wanting to get the brand out there and build a loyal following.But you can’t do this indefinitely. Saying yes to everything did get the word out about the bakeshops, but it also meant that I had little control over my schedule, no free time, and no social life. I was exhausted and running ragged and I thought this was how it was “supposed” to be. Eventually, I reached a breaking point and decided that quality of life was more important to me than external measures of success.Now, I say yes strategically, if it’s something I’m passionate about or excited for, or if I think it will really help the business. I learned that there’s an opportunity cost associated with any course of action; if I’m busy with one job, then I can’t take on another at the same time, so I like to make sure that I feel really good about what I do say yes to.Another lesson I learned is that, while my goal is for each person we encounter in any day to leave the interaction feeling more buoyant than when they entered, there is no possible way to make everyone happy, no matter what you do. At first, I desperately tried to please everyone, but no matter what I did, someone would get upset.So I offered 7 flavors of doughnuts a day, and changed those flavors each day? One of those 7 wasn’t triple chocolate, and I was failing that customer.I had 320 flavors of cupcakes… but when people were placing an order for a dozen, I limited them to either a Baker’s Choice Assortment or 1 flavor? Shame on me. (Yes, these were from REAL emails I received. I think one customer even said, “your pastries may be sweet but your customer service is sh@#”).Once I let go of the idea of trying to please everyone, I began to focus on only those things that we do exceptionally well and maintaining the quality and service of those items. A deep dive into our net revenue revealed that 40% of our offerings were responsible for 90% of our revenue, so paring down the menu and focusing on those items allowed us to execute them extremely well, as well as cut labor costs by 40% (thereby actually increasing net revenue). But while I was so focused on being reactive to customer requests, I wasn’t able to take this big-picture strategic view of the business.imageHow are you doing today and what does the future look like?For the first 7 years of operations, Kyra’s Bake Shop experienced a tremendous increase in gross revenue. By year 4, we were grossing more than half a million dollars. By year 7, we were grossing 1.5 million dollars a year. But when we examined the margins, we realized that our overhead was nearly unbearable. Our labor costs were sitting around 62% (we’ve cut that to 31% now), and our packaging costs were excessively high as well.imageThrough starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?I wish I had made better use of my appearances on Cupcake Wars or at the Golden Globes. I just didn’t know how to fully leverage these opportunities at the time, so they mostly just because stories I can tell at dinner parties.A lot of my success has been a byproduct of the right time, right product, right message, right place. I was at the very forefront of the gluten-free wave a decade ago, before people knew what being gluten-free means, or which foods contain gluten. I simply had a delicious product that happened to be gluten-free and was spreading an inclusive message, while I educated customers around me.I opened my first bakeshop in a small suburb of Portland, where there is a high concentration of entrepreneurs who are passionate about supporting other entrepreneurs and have the disposable income to be selective about purchasing quality items. Yes, I did this strategically (and we moved to that community and joined the Chamber of Commerce and went to all the events within the community to get to know people), but it was a gamble.How was I to know that the lower foot traffic of a more dedicated health-conscious customer base would surpass the higher foot traffic of a less dedicated city location?These days, social media is king, and content is queen. There are so many amazing tools at our disposal for consistent postings, like Later. Later is an app on mobile or desktop computers that allows you to plan out your social media campaign, schedule posts (and auto-publish to Instagram and Facebook). You can upload all your media, arrange it on the calendar (including day of the week, time of day, what you want to say, and how you want to hashtag it, and even preview how it will look in your Instagram feed (and drag posts around if there is a specific formula that you’re trying to stick to). It even offers analytics so you can measure what is actually gaining traction and what is not.imageWhat platform/tools do you use for your business?We have tried other point of sale companies but eventually settled on Square, which has worked really nicely for us. Our payroll and worker’s compensation integrates nicely with the easy-to-use and intuitive system, and they even have gift cards, a loyalty program, and newsletters integrated right into their system.imageWhat have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I love everything Tony Robbins says. I think his honesty and authenticity combine to make a person approach reactive situations with curiosity rather than judgment or leaping to defensiveness. He once said that people will create roadmaps and act aligned with their core values and that this can be very informative if you can accept it as information to guide you, rather than as a judgment on what you do or how you run your business.I also adore Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why. People buy into why a product is offered before they care much about what the product is. This TED talk is a great synopsis of what his book details.Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?SO much advice: It’s important to know your product, but also know the market. These are important questions that you should have an idea of the answer to Who is your target demographic? How will you reach them? What are the growth opportunities for your product or service line? Where are your company’s strengths and weaknesses? What current problems do your products or services address, and how are they different from what else is already out on the market? What are your competitive advantages, and how will you distinguish yourself from the market?And speaking of marketing, I fully believe this to be an important component of a company’s success. I never had an advertising budget set aside, and for our product, we didn’t really need one.In the first year in business, I tried doing a Groupon and quickly realized that while this wasn’t the best avenue for us to gain loyal customers, it was marketing that broke even.imageCupcake Wars, and local media shows, while highly stressful, we're also valuable marketing tools. Cupcake Wars provided social proof, and we received a ton of other national media (LA Times, Shape Magazine, Food + Wine Magazine, The Today Show online, Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today and others) that snowballed because we had the clout and credibility from Cupcake Wars.I always love collaborating with other amazing local brands that share a similar target market. I think this is a great way to foster a sense of community, which is one of the guiding principles of our business.Above all, keep in mind why you started the business. What was the purpose, and where does that purpose dovetail with a sense of joy for you? Where are the bottlenecks to being more effective or efficient, or profitable, and how can you outsource the tasks not uniquely suited to you.Just remember: if you want to grow beyond your own personal capabilities, you need to take a global view of your business, and focus where you are most effective, and hire people who are better than you to do the tasks where you don’t excel. Early on, I realized that while I am a spectacular visionary and creative director, I am a middling-to merely adequate operations manager, so as soon as I was able, I hired someone to fulfill that role for me.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We are currently hiring bakers and cake decorators, but I’ve been very fortunate to make some great hiring decisions, which means that we have had very low turnover rates, especially compared to industry standards!Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteFacebookInstagramIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

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Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About

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The new year is right around the corner. And I know you are already prepared because you read this blog and tons of other marketing blogs, right?

But here is the thing: I also read most of the popular marketing blogs, follow all of the marketing YouTube channels, and listen to the same podcasts you do.

And I’ve noticed that very few people are talking about what’s really going to happen in 2020.

Sure, they will tell you things like voice search is going to account for over 50% of the search queries next year but all of that stuff has already been talked about.

And there are actually more interesting trends that will affect your marketing that no one is really talking about.

So, what are these trends? What’s going to happen in 2020?

Alright, here goes…

Trend #1: Companies who rely on Google Analytics will get beat by their competition

We all love Google Analytics.

Heck, I love it so much I log in at least 3 or 4 times a day. And here is the kicker: I get so much traffic that my Google Analytics only updates once a day.

I really need to break that habit but that’s for another day.

You are probably wondering, what’s wrong with Google Analytics?

There actually isn’t much wrong with it. It’s a great tool, especially considering that it’s free.

But here is the thing… marketing has been changing. New channels are being constantly introduced, such as voice search.

And transactions no longer are as simple as someone coming and buying from you and that’s it.

These days there are things like upsells, down sells, repeat purchases, and even checkout bumps. On top of that, there are so many different ways you can generate revenue for your online business, such as partnerships, affiliate marketing, and even webinars.

This has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that tie into their database better, such as Amplitude.  Or better yet, you are seeing a big push into business intelligence.

A central place where you can tie in all of your data and make better-informed decisions so you can optimize for your lifetime value instead of your short-term income.

In 2020, you will see more companies adopting business intelligence solutions… from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t checked out Data Studio, you’ll want to start now because it is easy to pass in all of your business and marketing data into one place. For example, you can pass in more granular data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio while that would be a bit difficult to do with Google Analytics.

Trend #2: Companies will optimize for voice search, but not for revenue

According to ComScore, over 50% of the searches in 2020 will be from voice search. But that’s not really a new trend… everyone has been talking about that for years.

So, what’s the big deal?

Optimizing for voice search is a great way to get your brand out more, but how is that going to convert into sales?

I haven’t seen too many solutions so far when it comes to capitalizing on your voice search traffic, but so far there is Jetson.ai.

If you aren’t familiar with Jetson.ai, it makes it so people can buy from your site using voice search. It doesn’t matter if it is Alexa or Google Home, they work with most of the popular devices.

What’s cool about Jetson.ai is that it can learn from each customer and customize the interactions.

For example, if I keep ordering the same toothpaste from a specific store using voice search, Jetson.ai keeps track of that so you can easily keep ordering the same product over and over again with little to no friction.

Heck, it’s easier than logging into your computer or pulling out your phone to make a purchase.

Trend #3: Your lists won’t convert as well, so you’ll have to look for alternative communication channels

Email, it’s something we all use in the corporate world.

But here is something interesting when it comes to marketing emails… I’m in a group with a bit over 109 email marketers across different industries in different parts of the world.

And can you guess what we are all noticing?

Our open rates are staying roughly the same and that’s largely because we all know how to clean and optimizing for deliverability.

But our click rates are going down.

So far as a group we have seen our click rates drop by 9.4% in 2019.

That’s crazy considering as a group we have over 146 million email addresses.

Now does this mean email is dead?

Of course not!!!

Email is here to stay and will be here for a very long time.

But what companies will have to do in 2020 is to leverage more communication channels.

Chatbots will take off drastically. Not necessarily the Intercom’s or Drift’s of the world but more so the solutions like ManyChat and MobileMonkey.

ManyChat and MobileMonkey leverage Facebook Messenger and as they connect it with Instagram and WhatsApp it will get even more popular.

In addition to chatbots, you’ll see more people leveraging tools that allow push notifications like Subscribers.

It’s so powerful, here is the impact I’ve been able to generate from push notifications so far using Subscribers.

You can wait till next year to lever chatbots and push notifications, but I’d recommend you start sooner than later. 😉

Trend #4: Moats will almost be non-existent, other than brands

You’ve probably heard the word “moat” before. If you haven’t, just think about water around a castle.

Back in the day, they had water all around the castle and they used a drawbridge to get in and out of the castle, so it would protect them from invaders.

With your business, you may have a moat. It could be a feature, your cost structure, a technological advantage, or even a marketing advantage.

Over the years, moats in the online world have slowly been disappearing.

It’s easy for anyone to copy these days. So, what’s separating you from your competition?

Something could work right now, but it won’t last forever…

But do you know what will still be a strong moat in 2020 and even a stronger one in the future?

It’s branding.

People buy Jordan shoes because they love Michael Jordan. His brand is stronger than ever even though he hasn’t played in the NBA for roughly 16 years.

His shoes are so popular, it’s helped him boost his net worth to over a billion dollars. Plus owning a basketball team doesn’t hurt either. 😉

But what’s interesting is he’s made more money after retirement than he did as a basketball player.

And it’s not just Jordan who built a strong brand… so have the Kardashians.

Kylie launched a billion-dollar company according to Forbes and it was all because of her personal brand. Her cosmetic company isn’t doing anything revolutionary. She just has a strong brand… and good for her for monetizing her brand.

The same goes for companies like Nike, Ferrari, Tesla, American Express… and the list goes on and on.

It’s why companies are spending over 10 billion dollars a year on influencer marketing.

Just look at my agency NP Digital. It’s literally one of the fastest-growing ad agencies out there. And when I look at all of my competitors’ numbers, we are growing at a much faster pace because of my brand.

Yes, we have a great team, but again, that really isn’t a moat as a lot of agencies have great teams. It’s my brand that gave us a really fast kick start and continues to hopefully push us up.

You’ll want to build a brand in 2020. Whether it is personal or corporate, it’s the best moat you can build in marketing. Plus, it will help you with Google’s EAT.

Trend #5: Marketing will become a more even playing field, you’ll have no choice but to use automation

When I first started off as an entrepreneur, I turned to SEO because I couldn’t afford the big ad budgets as my competitors.

Heck, I couldn’t even afford to run any paid ads.

Over the years, the playing field has become more level.

There are credit card companies like Brex that make it easier for startups to get approved for larger limits and you may not have to pay them back right away.

There are financing companies that will give you cash to spend on marketing, so non-venture funded companies can more easily compete.

There are even companies like Lighter Capital that will give you loans without all of the headaches based on your existing revenue.

And to top it off, software solutions are now starting to integrate AI to give better recommendations. From Clickflow and RankScience to Distilled ODN… everyone is trying to use AI to make SEO and other forms of marketing.

Heck, BrightEdge can even automate your SEO (or at least a large portion of it). According to them, their automated SEO solution increases page views per visit by 60% as well as provides 21% more keywords on page one​.

Keep in mind their clients are really big (their software starts in the thousands of dollars per month) so they would probably see better results than most companies, but still, you will start seeing many more software companies leverage AI.

Even with Ubersuggest, I’m working on creating AI that does the SEO for you so you no longer have to spend endless hours while, at the same time, saving you thousands of dollars.

In other words, the marketing playing field is getting more even. And if you want to do well, you are going to have to leverage AI and automation.

If everyone else is using it and you aren’t, you are going to get crushed because it will make changes faster and more accurately than a human. Again, it’s the only option you’ll have if you want to continually compete.

But don’t worry, there will be affordable/free solutions that exist, it’s just a matter of time. 😉

If everyone is leveraging the same AI marketing technology, how can you beat your competitors?

Well, it will come down to everything else… price, customer service, upselling, operations, sales… All of the small stuff is what’s going to help you win.

Trend #6: There will be no more silver bullets, we will all have to optimize for marginal gains

A lot of businesses were built off of one marketing channel.

Dropbox grew through referral marketing. Invite more friends, get more free space.

Facebook was built off your email address book. Facebook used to tap into it and invite all of your contacts to use Facebook on your behalf.

Companies like Quora and Yelp were built off of SEO. All of those rankings really help drive their businesses.

But you no longer can build a business through just one marketing channel. Good channels now get saturated extremely fast.

Even if they work and cause explosive growth, it will only last for a short while before your competitors jump on board and make it harder.

Marketing is now heading in the direction of being about “marginal gains.”

There’s a British cycling coach named Dave Brailsford. His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

And he’s right, that’s how you win a race.

The same will be with your marketing. There will be a big shift from people focusing on one channel and trying to find the “Holy Grail of marketing” to working on slightly improving each area of your marketing.

From split testing your title tags to get a few ranking improvements to adding checkout bumps to your order page so you can spend a little bit more on your paid ads to using Google Data Studio so you can better optimize for your lifetime value…

It’s all about the little things. That’s what is going to add up to winning.

That’s what you’ll have to shift your mindset to in order to win in 2020 and beyond.

Trend #7: Personalization is the new marketing

The problem with marketing as it exists today is that 95% of your visitors will never convert into a customer. And that’s if you are lucky.

Chances are you are more likely looking at 97% plus of your visitors never converting.

The big reason isn’t that your marketing sucks or that all of those visitors are junk and unqualified.

It’s that your message doesn’t fit every single one of your visitors.

But through personalization, you can convert more of your visitors into customers.

A basic example of this is Amazon. When you go to Amazon, they know your patterns and what you typically buy so they show you what they think you want to see in order to boost their conversions.

And it works! When I log into Amazon I see tons of household supplies because that is what I buy the most often. I never buy dog food (which is smart because I don’t have a dog) so I’ll never see ads for dog food.

Businesses are also trying to personalize each and every single experience both online and offline. 

Companies like Amperity are trying to create a customer relationship engine so you can better serve each of your customers, whether it is online or offline.

Marketing is going to become a game of personalization. With ad costs and even general marketing costs rising, you have no choice but to figure out how to convert the 97% of your traffic that just never comes back.

You’ll see a big push for this in 2020.

Conclusion

I know a lot of the stuff I mentioned above isn’t talked about a lot and they aren’t popular marketing topics that everyone wants to hear… but it is the future.

These are trends that will come true, some already are, and you have to adapt for them.

Here’s the beautiful part, though. You just read this, and now have a chance to act on the information before your competition. So, make sure you go and do so.

I want to see you not only succeed but I want you to beat your competition. And I believe you can, whether you are a big company, or just starting off with very little to no money.

So, what do you think of the trends above? Do you see any marketing trends that will come true in 2020 that few people talk about?

Google

[reviewandbonuss]

Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About

The new year is right around the corner. And I know you are already prepared because you read this blog and tons of other marketing blogs, right?

But here is the thing: I also read most of the popular marketing blogs, follow all of the marketing YouTube channels, and listen to the same podcasts you do.

And I’ve noticed that very few people are talking about what’s really going to happen in 2020.

Sure, they will tell you things like voice search is going to account for over 50% of the search queries next year but all of that stuff has already been talked about.

And there are actually more interesting trends that will affect your marketing that no one is really talking about.

So, what are these trends? What’s going to happen in 2020?

Alright, here goes…

Trend #1: Companies who rely on Google Analytics will get beat by their competition

We all love Google Analytics.

Heck, I love it so much I log in at least 3 or 4 times a day. And here is the kicker: I get so much traffic that my Google Analytics only updates once a day.

I really need to break that habit but that’s for another day.

You are probably wondering, what’s wrong with Google Analytics?

There actually isn’t much wrong with it. It’s a great tool, especially considering that it’s free.

But here is the thing… marketing has been changing. New channels are being constantly introduced, such as voice search.

And transactions no longer are as simple as someone coming and buying from you and that’s it.

These days there are things like upsells, down sells, repeat purchases, and even checkout bumps. On top of that, there are so many different ways you can generate revenue for your online business, such as partnerships, affiliate marketing, and even webinars.

This has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that tie into their database better, such as Amplitude.  Or better yet, you are seeing a big push into business intelligence.

A central place where you can tie in all of your data and make better-informed decisions so you can optimize for your lifetime value instead of your short-term income.

In 2020, you will see more companies adopting business intelligence solutions… from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t checked out Data Studio, you’ll want to start now because it is easy to pass in all of your business and marketing data into one place. For example, you can pass in more granular data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio while that would be a bit difficult to do with Google Analytics.

Trend #2: Companies will optimize for voice search, but not for revenue

According to ComScore, over 50% of the searches in 2020 will be from voice search. But that’s not really a new trend… everyone has been talking about that for years.

So, what’s the big deal?

Optimizing for voice search is a great way to get your brand out more, but how is that going to convert into sales?

I haven’t seen too many solutions so far when it comes to capitalizing on your voice search traffic, but so far there is Jetson.ai.

If you aren’t familiar with Jetson.ai, it makes it so people can buy from your site using voice search. It doesn’t matter if it is Alexa or Google Home, they work with most of the popular devices.

What’s cool about Jetson.ai is that it can learn from each customer and customize the interactions.

For example, if I keep ordering the same toothpaste from a specific store using voice search, Jetson.ai keeps track of that so you can easily keep ordering the same product over and over again with little to no friction.

Heck, it’s easier than logging into your computer or pulling out your phone to make a purchase.

Trend #3: Your lists won’t convert as well, so you’ll have to look for alternative communication channels

Email, it’s something we all use in the corporate world.

But here is something interesting when it comes to marketing emails… I’m in a group with a bit over 109 email marketers across different industries in different parts of the world.

And can you guess what we are all noticing?

Our open rates are staying roughly the same and that’s largely because we all know how to clean and optimizing for deliverability.

But our click rates are going down.

So far as a group we have seen our click rates drop by 9.4% in 2019.

That’s crazy considering as a group we have over 146 million email addresses.

Now does this mean email is dead?

Of course not!!!

Email is here to stay and will be here for a very long time.

But what companies will have to do in 2020 is to leverage more communication channels.

Chatbots will take off drastically. Not necessarily the Intercom’s or Drift’s of the world but more so the solutions like ManyChat and MobileMonkey.

ManyChat and MobileMonkey leverage Facebook Messenger and as they connect it with Instagram and WhatsApp it will get even more popular.

In addition to chatbots, you’ll see more people leveraging tools that allow push notifications like Subscribers.

It’s so powerful, here is the impact I’ve been able to generate from push notifications so far using Subscribers.

You can wait till next year to lever chatbots and push notifications, but I’d recommend you start sooner than later. 😉

Trend #4: Moats will almost be non-existent, other than brands

You’ve probably heard the word “moat” before. If you haven’t, just think about water around a castle.

Back in the day, they had water all around the castle and they used a drawbridge to get in and out of the castle, so it would protect them from invaders.

With your business, you may have a moat. It could be a feature, your cost structure, a technological advantage, or even a marketing advantage.

Over the years, moats in the online world have slowly been disappearing.

It’s easy for anyone to copy these days. So, what’s separating you from your competition?

Something could work right now, but it won’t last forever…

But do you know what will still be a strong moat in 2020 and even a stronger one in the future?

It’s branding.

People buy Jordan shoes because they love Michael Jordan. His brand is stronger than ever even though he hasn’t played in the NBA for roughly 16 years.

His shoes are so popular, it’s helped him boost his net worth to over a billion dollars. Plus owning a basketball team doesn’t hurt either. 😉

But what’s interesting is he’s made more money after retirement than he did as a basketball player.

And it’s not just Jordan who built a strong brand… so have the Kardashians.

Kylie launched a billion-dollar company according to Forbes and it was all because of her personal brand. Her cosmetic company isn’t doing anything revolutionary. She just has a strong brand… and good for her for monetizing her brand.

The same goes for companies like Nike, Ferrari, Tesla, American Express… and the list goes on and on.

It’s why companies are spending over 10 billion dollars a year on influencer marketing.

Just look at my agency NP Digital. It’s literally one of the fastest-growing ad agencies out there. And when I look at all of my competitors’ numbers, we are growing at a much faster pace because of my brand.

Yes, we have a great team, but again, that really isn’t a moat as a lot of agencies have great teams. It’s my brand that gave us a really fast kick start and continues to hopefully push us up.

You’ll want to build a brand in 2020. Whether it is personal or corporate, it’s the best moat you can build in marketing. Plus, it will help you with Google’s EAT.

Trend #5: Marketing will become a more even playing field, you’ll have no choice but to use automation

When I first started off as an entrepreneur, I turned to SEO because I couldn’t afford the big ad budgets as my competitors.

Heck, I couldn’t even afford to run any paid ads.

Over the years, the playing field has become more level.

There are credit card companies like Brex that make it easier for startups to get approved for larger limits and you may not have to pay them back right away.

There are financing companies that will give you cash to spend on marketing, so non-venture funded companies can more easily compete.

There are even companies like Lighter Capital that will give you loans without all of the headaches based on your existing revenue.

And to top it off, software solutions are now starting to integrate AI to give better recommendations. From Clickflow and RankScience to Distilled ODN… everyone is trying to use AI to make SEO and other forms of marketing.

Heck, BrightEdge can even automate your SEO (or at least a large portion of it). According to them, their automated SEO solution increases page views per visit by 60% as well as provides 21% more keywords on page one​.

Keep in mind their clients are really big (their software starts in the thousands of dollars per month) so they would probably see better results than most companies, but still, you will start seeing many more software companies leverage AI.

Even with Ubersuggest, I’m working on creating AI that does the SEO for you so you no longer have to spend endless hours while, at the same time, saving you thousands of dollars.

In other words, the marketing playing field is getting more even. And if you want to do well, you are going to have to leverage AI and automation.

If everyone else is using it and you aren’t, you are going to get crushed because it will make changes faster and more accurately than a human. Again, it’s the only option you’ll have if you want to continually compete.

But don’t worry, there will be affordable/free solutions that exist, it’s just a matter of time. 😉

If everyone is leveraging the same AI marketing technology, how can you beat your competitors?

Well, it will come down to everything else… price, customer service, upselling, operations, sales… All of the small stuff is what’s going to help you win.

Trend #6: There will be no more silver bullets, we will all have to optimize for marginal gains

A lot of businesses were built off of one marketing channel.

Dropbox grew through referral marketing. Invite more friends, get more free space.

Facebook was built off your email address book. Facebook used to tap into it and invite all of your contacts to use Facebook on your behalf.

Companies like Quora and Yelp were built off of SEO. All of those rankings really help drive their businesses.

But you no longer can build a business through just one marketing channel. Good channels now get saturated extremely fast.

Even if they work and cause explosive growth, it will only last for a short while before your competitors jump on board and make it harder.

Marketing is now heading in the direction of being about “marginal gains.”

There’s a British cycling coach named Dave Brailsford. His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

And he’s right, that’s how you win a race.

The same will be with your marketing. There will be a big shift from people focusing on one channel and trying to find the “Holy Grail of marketing” to working on slightly improving each area of your marketing.

From split testing your title tags to get a few ranking improvements to adding checkout bumps to your order page so you can spend a little bit more on your paid ads to using Google Data Studio so you can better optimize for your lifetime value…

It’s all about the little things. That’s what is going to add up to winning.

That’s what you’ll have to shift your mindset to in order to win in 2020 and beyond.

Trend #7: Personalization is the new marketing

The problem with marketing as it exists today is that 95% of your visitors will never convert into a customer. And that’s if you are lucky.

Chances are you are more likely looking at 97% plus of your visitors never converting.

The big reason isn’t that your marketing sucks or that all of those visitors are junk and unqualified.

It’s that your message doesn’t fit every single one of your visitors.

But through personalization, you can convert more of your visitors into customers.

A basic example of this is Amazon. When you go to Amazon, they know your patterns and what you typically buy so they show you what they think you want to see in order to boost their conversions.

And it works! When I log into Amazon I see tons of household supplies because that is what I buy the most often. I never buy dog food (which is smart because I don’t have a dog) so I’ll never see ads for dog food.

Businesses are also trying to personalize each and every single experience both online and offline. 

Companies like Amperity are trying to create a customer relationship engine so you can better serve each of your customers, whether it is online or offline.

Marketing is going to become a game of personalization. With ad costs and even general marketing costs rising, you have no choice but to figure out how to convert the 97% of your traffic that just never comes back.

You’ll see a big push for this in 2020.

Conclusion

I know a lot of the stuff I mentioned above isn’t talked about a lot and they aren’t popular marketing topics that everyone wants to hear… but it is the future.

These are trends that will come true, some already are, and you have to adapt for them.

Here’s the beautiful part, though. You just read this, and now have a chance to act on the information before your competition. So, make sure you go and do so.

I want to see you not only succeed but I want you to beat your competition. And I believe you can, whether you are a big company, or just starting off with very little to no money.

So, what do you think of the trends above? Do you see any marketing trends that will come true in 2020 that few people talk about?

The post Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About appeared first on Neil Patel.

[elizabethcariasa]

How states deal with gas tax hikes and the potential for, finally, a federal increase

As I was making my usual trip between my mother's and home, I noticed a wide range of prices at gas stations along the way. Heck, I noticed some wide differentials in fueling stops less than a mile apart in my area of Austin.

The one consistent factor was that they all were down from earlier this summer.

That's not a surprise. Now that the long Labor Day weekend is over, the summer vacation season where most folks still load the family in a car and hit the road is done, too.

So what exactly affects the price of gasoline?

A gas for all seasons: Seasonal changes are one thing. In fact, there actually are winter-blend and summer-blend gasolines.

That's why every spring, gas prices seem to skyrocket to the highest prices of the year as many refineries close for maintenance during this fuel transitioning.

Not to get to deep into the weeds here — you can do that in this explanation from AAA — but the fuel differences basically are how easily the fuel evaporates at a given temperature.

Fuel transport issues: Fuel distribution also plays a part. The cost of getting gas from the refineries to the individual stations often plays a major role in what we pay when we fill up our cars.

That's why the folks along the Eastern Seaboard will be paying more for a while. Until the transportation impediments created by Hurricane Dorian are removed, fuel prices in the affected storm regions will be higher.

Supply and demand: Dorian's approach also highlighted the basic free market economic rule of supply and demand. With so many residents in Dorian's path looking to top off vehicle tanks and get extra gallons for generators, gas prices spiked.

Yes, there was some price gouging. But mostly it was everyone wanting the same product at the same time. That's a seller's dream.

Gas taxes, too: Then there are, of course, fuel taxes.

Gas taxes have often been considered something of an integrated user fee to pay for construction and repair of U.S. roads, bridges and interstate highways, note the folks at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting.

But that funding mechanism has in large part been as stalled as traffic on, here in Central Texas, I-35. Feel free to substitute the major thoroughfare in your region that causes you and other drivers the most hassle.

Photo by Reinis Traidis via Flickr CC

The federal gasoline excise tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. It's been at that level since 1993.

No state raised gas taxes between 2010 to 2012, when the cost of gasoline was rising to some of its highest levels in history, according to Wolters Kluwer. Lawmakers knew better than to antagonize voters who drive by adding more taxes to those rising prices.

But with deferred transportation-related maintenance reaching a critical point in some areas, a majority of states since 2013 have now raised their state taxes on fuel.

How states deal with fuel taxes: Many states, says Wolters Kluwer, are abandoning fixed gas tax rate increases for rates adjusted for inflation, the price of fuel, efficiency of the vehicle or creating planned increases over a period of time.

Here are some other observations from the global tax information and services company on what's behind increasing gas taxes and how they can fluctuate from state to state.

Several states that had a tiered gas tax pricing structure have had to readjust their laws as a sustained lower price of gasoline has resulted in several years of lower tax revenues.

Some states with the highest pump prices, such as Alaska and Hawaii, have some of the lowest gas taxes, reflecting the role of distribution costs and pressure on legislatures to not add higher taxes to the already high cost of fuel.

Some states impose other fees that affect the pump price, such as an additional excise taxes, fuel surcharges, gross receipts taxes, transportation infrastructure assessments, as well as license fees.

California has the highest pump prices and the highest gas taxes in the nation, but it is also surrounded by states that also have similar prices as California at the pump.

Illinois has enacted the largest gas tax increase this year, from 19 cents to 38 cents a gallon. The state borders several others with significantly lower pump prices. It also is part of an area with major interstate highway routes and has its major population center not far from two other states, giving many residents options when filling up.

Comparing nearby gas stations in Illinois to those in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, drivers may save from 10 cents to almost 40 cents per gallon depending upon the state where they reside or where they stop for gas.

Some websites track state-by-state pump prices. When compared to gas taxes tracked by Wolters Kluwer, states with both high pump prices and high gas taxes include California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.

The states with the lowest pump prices along with the lowest gas taxes include Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia.

Federal gas tax could go up, too: Finally, there's the big question of what, if anything, will the federal government do as far as fuel taxes.

There are indications that Uncle Sam might be is reconsidering his levy.

The main reason is that federal lawmakers reportedly are considering major infrastructure legislation.

That's not a big surprise as fixing roads and bridges and the like is an essentially apolitical enterprise.

Every person, regardless of political affiliation, relies on ground transportation. Good roads matter to those of us who drive as well as to folks who rely on public transport. Plus, most of the products we consume get to our doors or stores by vehicles.

This nuts and bolts consideration could be a winner for members of Congress as they face re-election in 2020.

Yes, it could indeed soon be Infrastructure Week again.

You also might find these items of interest:

When did your state adopt its gasoline tax?

17 states now impose some fees on electric autos

Drivers in 14 states saw fuel taxes increase on July 1, 2019

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[socmedsean]

[ANSWERED] Using Lazy Load To Speed Up WordPress While Maintaining Pinterest Pinnable Images

SocMedSean - Social.Media.Sean [ANSWERED] Using Lazy Load To Speed Up WordPress While Maintaining Pinterest Pinnable Images

This was a great question that came from the Mediavine group on Facebook. This is a group of bloggers who are making money with their sites, so they are always looking for ways to increase the performance of their sites in order in increase organic traffic and, as a result, increase their revenues.

What plug ins do you all recommend for lazy loading images and caching? Thinking of scrapping SG Optimizer altogether and starting over with new plugins for site speed, but it makes me really nervous!

I, too, am always looking for ways to speed up my WordPress site and it happens that I have tried several different lazy load plugins, so I thought I would share those experiences in a blog post for those who might benefit from them.

What The Heck Is Lazy Load Anyway?

When a visitor comes to your site, their browser makes a request to the server for the contents of the page. The server replies with all of the HTML code, the images, videos, audio assets, etc…that make up the contents of the page.

Then, the browser renders that code and content into the pretty web pages that we are used to viewing.

This isn’t the kind of lazy load we are talking about. But I hope it makes you smile

The challenge, though, is the larger the payload of content that the server has to return, the longer the browser has to wait to get the data. The delivery of the data is then regulated by the connection speed that the user has available.

If they are browsing on a slow 3G mobile connection, it can take a long time for the browser to receive the data. If, however, they are browsing on a super-fast LAN line (think of the data jacks that most corporate environments have) then the payload can be delivered to the browser very quickly.

WiFi lies somewhere in between.

Once the data is received by the browser, it has to render all of that data and it usually waits until it has the majority of the data before it starts rendering the page.  What this means is pages that include a lot of images will always take longer to load than those that don’t.

But what if we could speed up that process?

What if the browser only had to wait on the images that needed to be visible within the screen that the user can actually see? This area that is visible to the user is often referred to as the “viewport”.

Everything that is not visible on the screen is considered to be “below the fold”. What lazy loading does is tell the browser not to request any images that are below the fold.

Then, when the user starts to scroll down the page, the browser requests those images. Since the browser is only requesting an image or two at the time of the scroll, they can be delivered very quickly by the server and rendered quickly.

What this does it provides the user with a faster initial load of the page, and images “on demand” as the scroll down.

We want our WordPress sites to be blazing fast…like a Porsche on the track!

That Sounds Great – What Are The Downsides To Lazy Loading Images?

There really are very few downsides to lazy loading images. I have experienced a few and I’ll go into detail below on how to overcome them. The challenges I have seen are:

Issue 1 – Conflicts between minification plugins like Autoptimize or with themes that cause lazy loading not to work or images to disappear completely.

Issue 2 – Issues where the lazy loading plugin doesn’t offer the configuration customization that I needed. This is particularly true in the fact that I want to give the user some visual cue that the image is loading if there is some delay. Personally, I like for there to be a placeholder that is greyed out and shows that the image is loading. I also want to be able to control when the image starts to load from the server.

Issue 3 – Some lazy load plugins just didn’t offer any performance gains. As you would expect, I ditched them in search of the one that gave me the fastest load times…since that’s kinda the point.

Issue 4 – For those of us that include a “pinnable” image (one that is specifically designed to be pinned to Pinterest) at the bottom of each post, lazy loading can present a problem. If the server hasn’t sent the image and the browser hasn’t rendered the image, than the Pinterest tool doesn’t have anything to pin.

Okay, So How Can I Overcome The Issues And Speed Up My WordPress Site?

Before landing on my preferred solution, I tried the following plugins:

BJ Lazy Load – I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS – This is one of the most used lazy load plugins for WordPress, with more than 90,000 installations. The plugin used to work great, but it hasn’t been updated in a long time and I do not like using plugins that aren’t continually updated. To keep your site safe and secure, it’s best to use well-maintained plugins. Again, I don’t recommend it.

SiteGround SG Optimizer – Works, But Not My Preference – Since I host on Siteground (and I do recommend it), I use their Siteground SG Optimizer tool for server and caching optimizations. Recently, they added lazy load to the plugin so I gave it a try. It did help my site speeds, but didn’t really wow me in its performance. Also, it didn’t have the customization options that I wanted and it didn’t solve the pinnable images issue.

NOTE: If you are hosted on Siteground, I don’t recommend ditching the SG Optimizer plugin altogether. There are some really good caching features in the plugin and I use them. I just don’t use the plugin for the image optimization and lazy loading features.

A3 Lazy Load – This One Is The Winner – The third time was the charm for me when I found this plugin. Not only does it work and reduce my page load times but it offers the configuration options that I was seeking AND it solves the pinnable images problem. This is the plugin that

How Do I Configure A3 Lazy Load To Speed Up My Site?

NOTE: I can’t guarantee that A3 Lazy Load will work perfectly for your site. For my main personal blog, I use the Genesis theme and it works great. I have two other blogs and about 15 client sites that are built on the Bridge theme and A3 works great with it, too. You’ll just need to test it with your theme and see if it works.

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are my recommended configurations that you can use to test A3 Lazy Load for speeding up your WordPress site.

Download And Install The Plugin – This is easy. Just search for A3 Lazy Load in the WordPress plugin directly and choose Install. Once you install the plugin, be sure to activate it.

Search for the A3 Lazy Load plugin and install it. Be sure to activate it after it is installed.

Open The Setting Page In Your WordPress Dashboard – In the left nav choose Settings > A3 Lazy Load.

Next, open the settings page for the A3 Lazy Load plugin to configure it.

Configure The Settings To Meet Your Needs – Here are my preferred configurations:

Plugin Framework Global Settings Tab

Open Box Display: Off

Clean Up on Deletion: Off

Leave both of these options in the Off state.

Lazy Load Activation Tab

Enable Lazy Load: On – Make sure this is on so you can configure the rest of the plugin. If it causes issues with your site, just turn this off and it will stop lazy loading.

Enable the lazy load feature to get access to the rest of the configuration options.

Lazy Load Images Tab

Enable Lazy Load for Images: On

Images in Content: On

Images in Widgets: Off (I turn this off to ensure that any sidebar widgets load when the page is requested)

Post Thumbnails: On

Skip Images Classes: Type “no-lazyload” without the quotes in this box. I’ll explain why further down in the post.

Noscript Support: On

Leave everything on except for the Widgets setting and be sure to type no-lazyload in the box of classes to skip

Lazy Load Videos and iframes Tab

Videos and iframes: Off – I turn this off because right now I don’t want my videos or iframes to be lazy loaded. This setting can cause issues with ads rendering, which can hurt revenues for blogs that use an ad network. If you don’t use an ad network and you want to speed up your site even further, then try turning this on and see if it helps.

Exclude URIs and Page Types Tab

URIs text field: Empty

Page Type Exclusions: ALL OFF

In this tab, you can exclude specific pages or page types from using the lazy load function. Cool, eh?

NOTE: Remember when I talked about all of the configuration options that I wanted to have in a lazy load plugin? Check all these options out! You can choose which pages you want to use lazy load on and which you don’t want. All in a free plugin!

Script Load Optimization Tab

Theme Loader Function: Footer – Try the footer setting first. If it causes issues with your theme or lazy loading doesn’t seem to be working, then switch it to Header.

Try loading the script in the footer for the best performance.

WordPress Mobile Template Plugins Tab

Disable on WPTouch: On

Disable on MobilePress: On

I don’t use either of these mobile template plugins, so I leave the “disable” toggle to On for both.

Effect And Style Tab

Loading Effect: Fade In

Loading Background Color: #dddddd

I like the fade in style and I use a grey background so the user feels like the images is rendering from grey to the fade in.

Image Load Threshold Tab

Threshold: 100

I set my image load threshold to 100 px.

The image threshold is an important one for me and it’s a great feature that A3 Lazy Load offers. The load threshold indicates when the browser should start to ask for an image that hasn’t loaded yet.

By default the plugin setting is zero. This means that the loading process will begin when the top of the image reaches the bottom of the viewport.

For me, that’s too late. I don’t want my users to scroll down and watch the image load.

Instead, I set the threshold to 100 pixels below the viewport. That means when the top of the image is 100 pixels from coming into the user’s view…I want the image to start loading. That way, the images is either partially or even fully loaded by the time the scroll to the image.

IMPORTANT LAST STEP – Once you have configured the plugin, be sure to click the “Save Changes” button at the bottom. That way the settings are applied.

How Do I Know If A3 Lazy Load Is Working?

Ideally, it is hard to test lazy loading because if your server is fast enough and your settings are correct (remember that 100px threshold?) then the user never knows that the images are lazy loading.

In reality, though, you can scroll down your page really fast and still see the lazy load.

So, to test it, clear all your server cache’s and clear the Autoptimize cache if you use it. You might also clear your Cloudflare or CDN cache if you use one.

Next, load your blog home page. Let the page load and don’t scroll down at all. Theoretically, there are empty images sitting below the fold waiting to be lazy-loaded.

Now…scroll down REALLY FAST. You should be able to “catch” some of your images lazy loading. Remember, though, most users aren’t speed scrolling through your site because they want to consume all your amazing knowledge!

If you can’t catch the lazy loading, try setting the threshold back to zero and see if you can do it then. Just remember to set it back to 100 once you are done testing.

Will Lazy Loading Help My Google Page Speed Insights Scores?

It should! One of the criteria that Google uses is “deferring off-screen images” which means lazy loading. That means Google is going to score your site better because lazy loading speeds up your site and Google LOVES fast sites.

But What About That Pinterest Issue You Mentioned? How Did You Resolve It?

Actually, we already fixed most of the issue. You see, A3 Lazy Load gave us the ability to exclude certain CSS classes from being lazy loaded. When we typed “no-lazyload” into the Skip Images Class field, we told the plugin to never lazy load any image that has the “no-lazyload” class assigned to it.

So, to ensure that our pinnable images always get loaded on first request and are never lazy loaded, we just have to assign the “no-lazyload” class to our pinnable images.

You can assign the class to the image when you first upload it or you can go back and edit any images in already-published posts to add it in.

When adding or editing an image, the field you are looking for is

The Image CSS Class is where you assign the no-lazyload class that prevents an image from lazy loading.

Once you insert the image with that class or update an existing image, the A3 Lazy Load plugin will automatically load the image on first request. Just assign this class to any pinnable image and it will always be available for pinning, regardless of whether the user has scrolled all the way to the bottom of the post.

That’s it! If you made it this far, hopefully you’re ready to give lazy loading a try. Maybe you followed along and set it up on your site as you read through this.

Either way, I hope it helps you speed up your site and maintain those pinnable images for sharing.

If you have questions, feel free to reach out or leave them in a comment!

Cheers!

–Sean

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[ANSWERED] Using Lazy Load To Speed Up WordPress While Maintaining Pinterest Pinnable Images Sean R. Nicholson.

This post originally posted at SocMedSean.com - SocMedSean – Social.Media.Sean http://bit.ly/2Gq8Kvt

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[centralparkpawsblog]

NomNomNow Review

https://www.centralparkpaws.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Opening-the-Porkalicious-Potluck-4.png

  Of my four dogs I have two very picky eaters. But my oldest, Daisy, is the pickiest of them all.

We’ve tried everything possible to get Daisy to eat. Finally, it got to the point that I started cooking all of her meals.

To ensure I was providing well-balanced nutritious meals I made an appointment with a nutritionist, Dr. Churchill, DVM, at the University of Minnesota.

We left the appointment hopeful, with a specially formulated vitamin/nutrient supplement in hand. We had food recipes specially created just for Daisy and thought this would be the end of our food battle.

It wasn’t.

She wouldn’t eat the homemade food with the supplement, so we were back to our game of “What will Daisy eat today?”

Then I was told to check out NomNomNow. It sounded good, and I’m always up to trying a new food for Daisy.

Looking through the ingredient list I couldn’t help to notice it contained Nom NomNomNutrient Mix. I absolutely understand the necessity of it, but I was no longer hopeful that Daisy would eat this food.

Did NomNomNow pass Daisy’s standards?

What the Heck is NomNomNow (besides a cute name)?

The Food

Simply put, NomNomNow is dog food made from fresh, wholesome ingredients. All food is made to order.

There are 4 varieties to choose from:

Heartland Beef Mash

Tasty Turkey Fare

Chicken Chow-Wow

Porkalicious Potluck

The Service

NomNomNow is food delivered to your door. It’s packed with dry ice and well insulated.

There’s also a Pet Profile Account, which allows you to make changes to your orders, shipping, and general account information.

You also get some nifty bonuses:

They gift you a complimentary variety pack with your first order.

They provide 7 emergency meals (free of charge) with your second delivery

Emergency meals are kept in the freezer, “… life happens, and should a delivery ever get lost or stolen, these will ensure that your dog never goes without their NomNomNow”.

My NomNomNow Experience…

I ordered my variety pack on a Friday which, for my area, is after the deadline, and it arrived two weeks later.

Had I ordered before the deadline, for example on Wednesday, I would’ve received the food in a week.

When the box arrived, there was no guesswork to what was inside.

I was a bit curious as to what method NomNomNow used to keep the food cold.

To ensure the food was kept at the correct temperature, the box contained insulation and a packet of dry ice.

The food was frozen when I received it.

Because I wasn’t sure about exposing it to heat, not knowing if it would change the nutritional content, I let it thaw overnight in my fridge.

I chose to start with the Porkalicious Potluck, the reason being that Sophie has food allergies and the pork variety didn’t contain anything she’s allergic to.

Sophie nomming the NomNomNow

Here’s what the dogs thought:

You can’t see it, but Sophie was scoop shoveling the food into her mouth…

And Daisy (she just got a bath, thus the spiky hair) liked it so much she went over to help Calvin finish his…

Ginger had crazy eyes when she was eating it, so I didn’t feel like sharing that picture, but it was clear the dogs loved the food.

We’ve since opened the other packets and, though they ate them, they were not all received with the same enthusiasm.

Daisy “helping” Calvin finish off his food

Here’s how the dogs would rank them:

Porkalicious Potluck

Tasty Turkey Fare & Chicken Chow-Wow – Definitely well liked, but not as strongly as the Porkalicious Potluck.

Heartland Beef Mash –  Not the favorite. They just picked at it.

Based on my dogs’ reactions, NomNomNow is a winner!

It’s terrific my dogs enjoyed the food, but I still had some questions that needed answers before I placed our first order.

Let’s Talk Ingredients

I love that the food is all human-grade and cooked to order.

Though nutritional supplements still needed to be added, I’m happy to see a lot of the nutrition is coming directly from a fresh source.

After reading through each of the recipes, I learned only one has brown rice and the others use potatoes as the carbohydrate.

I know a lot of people have steered toward grain-free foods, but recent studies are finding that grain-free diets may cause Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM).

Yes, some dogs are more prone to DCM than others, so grain-free food may not be a concern.

I like that the recipe page not only includes the recipes but also indicates the nutritional benefits for each ingredient.

Who Created These Recipes?

It was nice to read about who actually came up with the recipes. With most dog foods you don’t have the comfort of knowing who the nutritionist is and their mission.

The recipes at NomNomNow were formulated by Dr. Justin Shmalberg “…one of the world’s foremost experts in veterinary nutrition.”

I looked into Dr. Shmalberg a bit more to see if this claim was accurate or not and it absolutely is.

He’s published numerous scientific papers in veterinary medicine and frequently lectures on nutritional topics to veterinarians. His credentials can also be found at the University of Florida’s Vet Medicine‘s website.

How Does NomNomNow Compare to a Raw Diet?

For me, it doesn’t compare.

Many veterinarians have warned me away from raw diets.

Raw diets carry the risk of Salmonella, Clostridium, Listeria and other bacteria found in raw meat. In addition to infection, there’s also the risk of broken teeth and internal punctures from the bones.

Also, many raw diets aren’t nutritionally balanced, which can have adverse effects on a dog’s health over time.

Alternatives

I looked into three similar dog food companies, and this is what I found:

Fresh Pet

Pros

Can be found at local grocery stores

Is the most economical

Cons

Not made to order

Less whole food ingredients than the others

Appears to be mechanically processed

Learn More

Farmers Dog

Pros

Bulk discount

Allows for multi-recipe orders without additional Charge.

Cons

The varieties were not listed on the website. I had to call to get a list of recipes and ingredients.

Only 3 formulas: Beef, Pork, and Turkey.

Their website doesn’t provide much information unless you sign up.

Cost. It’s more expensive than kibble.

Learn More

My Ollie

Pros

4 Recipes

Donates 1% of their revenue to a rescue organization

Cons

No Multi-Pet Discount

Cost. It’s a lot like human food; the fresher and healthier the food, the more it may cost.

Learn More

Overall, there were some universal benefits amongst NomNomNow, My Ollie, and The Farmers Dog.

Free shipping

Made Fresh to Order

Excellent Customer Service (I called all three)

No ingredient Substitutions – so, if your dog has allergies, you can’t adjust recipes to accommodate their food restrictions.

Why NomNomNow is the Favorite

Their Emergency Meal feature.

The variety pack so your pet can try all four flavors.

They introduced the nutritionist behind the recipes.

Their website is easy to navigate.

NomNomNow is great for a variety of dog breeds, from Pomeranians to German Shepherds.

Conclusion

I think freshly made dog food is a great idea, as long as you are feeding a balanced diet.

Because a dog’s nutrition needs are different than ours, I would only recommend a fresh dog food if it’s been approved by a veterinarian specializing in nutrition.

If you’ve ever tried making your dogs food you know how time consuming it is, which makes companies like NomNomNow so valuable.

Fresh dog food isn’t for everyone, and I’m not even saying it’s better than kibble.

I do think that it’s a great alternative when you have a dog that’s really finicky or one that needs a more specialized diet.

The post NomNomNow Review appeared first on Central Park Paws.

from https://www.centralparkpaws.net/dog-food/nomnomnow-review/

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[iyarpage]

7 Best Side Hustles for 2019

According to some historical records, some people out there have boundless energy, loads of free time, and ambition enough to make a dictator blush. These people are called “not parents”, “morning people”, and “annoying”. Some say these people invented the Side Hustle().

Those historical records are wrong. The Side Hustle was invented long ago by people who just needed more money. Could have been Eve for all we know. Now we live in a gig economy, for better and worse, and everyone has a side hustle of some kind. That includes us web designers.

We get into them to make some extra cash, to add to our portfolios, to build name recognition, to build a network, as a creative outlet, or all of the above. As we get into 2019, we thought it’d be fun to go over some of the more common side hustles for web designers, and examine which might be the best to get into this year:

1. The Self-Hosted Blog

Ah the self-hosted blog, where you’re in full control of the branding, all the content, and you have to do everything by yourself. Why would you blog on your own site when Medium exists, and does half your marketing for you? Because the uhh… the slight community issues with Tumblr last year clearly demonstrate how quickly creators can get screwed by policy changes when they’re on a platform they don’t own. Ask any Youtuber, too. They’ll tell you.

Effort: A minimum 10-20 minutes of work. Can be expanded upon as much as you want.

Financial prospects: Depends entirely upon the following you build. Financial returns may be seen in increased clients, rather than directly receiving revenue from the blog.

Should you? Medium proves the demand for blogs has not died, and likely never will. Just about every creative should probably have one.

Free idea for devs out there: build a self-hosted blogging platform with social features that allow you to connect to other blogs. Like a self-hosted Tumblr, with a feed and everything. Well, maybe connecting to other blogs should be optional. Look at Mastodon for a general model of the idea.

2. Authority Site

An authority site is like a blog with no dates and you don’t have to update nearly as often, as they generally feature perennially useful information. They typically run ads for revenue, and the really good ones can generate reasonable passive income. It can be about one of your non-web design interests, or some bit of our own industry that may not be completely understood yet, e.g. Grid by Example.

Effort: More initial effort than blog, but less in the long term. It’s kind of like writing a mini-wiki.

Financial prospects: Again, varies greatly depending on traffic, and your monetization strategy. Sometimes these are best used as portfolio pieces.

Should you? There’s no real reason why not. Good information is search-friendly information, and launching a few of these could help you build up a reputation, if nothing else.

3. Themes, Plugins, and Other Resources

What the title says. You can always make stuff for your fellow designers and front-end developers to use in their own sites. Everyone loves stuff that makes their own lives a bit easier, and gets their own work done faster.

Effort: Depends on what you make. A single icon could be the work of a day. An icon set is another matter. Anything with code gets real interesting, because code generally requires maintenance.

Financial prospects: Making things for free earns you goodwill. Selling them makes money, but you’ll hardly be the only stall in the marketplace.

Should you? The market is saturated right now. Unless what you’re creating fills a specific and under-served niche, you’re going to face very stiff competition. You’d better know, for a fact, that you’re going to stand out.

4. Contribute to an Existing OSS Project

Ah, the beauty of open source software: anyone can make it. Okay, if you’re primarily a graphics guy, you may stick to creating assets for the project of your choice, but that is something that is still good and necessary.

Effort: Depends on what you contribute. Expect to spend some time figuring that out with other people, and factor in time for that communication.

Financial prospects: Prospects for immediate financial gain are poor to nonexistent.

Should you? If you don’t need extra money any time soon, but do need contacts, yeah. Go for it. Having your name on some OSS projects can be a big resume booster, and you’re giving back to the community in a big way.

5. Start a YouTube Channel or Twitch Stream

Video… it’s like podcasting, but with more work. Interestingly enough—and considering that web design is a very visual discipline—there seems to be a lot more podcasts and blogs of note in the web design space than there is video content, even as other industries trend toward video. Mostly I’ve seen app tutorials, some videos about the very basics, with a few vlog-style shows thrown in. These are all good things, but there’s room for growth. Heck, a lot of the content I’ve seen was made by marketers.

Effort: Loads of effort.

Financial prospects: Ad revenue on YouTube is a notoriously finicky thing, and building an audience takes time. Between patron, sponsors, and ads, Youtube videos and/or streaming can be turned into a full-time career, but that’s a long-term thing.

Should you? If you have the time (you do need a fair bit of it), and can eventually put a budget together for some entry-level hardware, it may be worth getting into the video space, ‘cause I don’t think it’s quite saturated.

6. Public Speaking

Stand up in front of people, sweat profusely, and stammer through a presentation. Then do it again and again until you’re good, and can effectively convey your knowledge to others.

Effort: There’s writing, nerves, and sometimes a bit of travel. It’s not the hardest thing you can do, but neither is it for the faint of heart.

Financial prospects: Local events are good for networking, but you may have to speak for free, or even pay to speak, depending on the event. Get real good, and conference organizers might pay you to come speak. Don’t expect to make a living, but it’s not bad for a side hustle.

Should you? If you’re comfortable with public speaking, go for it. Check out local events, and go to one or two of them. Get a feel for the audience, and then decide if you have something to share that they might need.

7. Start Your Own Events

Hosting events means networking opportunities, having fun, and making a decent bit of cash once the events start to grow. It’s a great way to bring the local design community together and learn. Of course, you need to make sure there aren’t maybe too many events like your in your area, maybe try to pick a unique theme, but it may be worth it.

Effort: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH YES LOTS OF EFFORT. Obviously, if you keep the events small, it’s not too big a deal. It’s like a second business. But if it really starts to grow, running events could quickly take up a lot of room in your life.

Financial prospects: Decent, if you get people showing up.

Should you? Only if you really, really like talking to people, managing people, dealing with people’s complaints, scheduling for other people, chasing other people, and basically doing a whole lot of undesignery stuff.

And whatever you do, remember to have fun with it. No point in a side hustle that isn’t fun.

  Featured image via Unsplash

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Source p img {display:inline-block; margin-right:10px;} .alignleft {float:left;} p.showcase {clear:both;} body#browserfriendly p, body#podcast p, div#emailbody p{margin:0;} 7 Best Side Hustles for 2019 published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

[webbygraphic001]

7 Best Side Hustles for 2019

According to some historical records, some people out there have boundless energy, loads of free time, and ambition enough to make a dictator blush. These people are called “not parents”, “morning people”, and “annoying”. Some say these people invented the Side Hustle().

Those historical records are wrong. The Side Hustle was invented long ago by people who just needed more money. Could have been Eve for all we know. Now we live in a gig economy, for better and worse, and everyone has a side hustle of some kind. That includes us web designers.

We get into them to make some extra cash, to add to our portfolios, to build name recognition, to build a network, as a creative outlet, or all of the above. As we get into 2019, we thought it’d be fun to go over some of the more common side hustles for web designers, and examine which might be the best to get into this year:

1. The Self-Hosted Blog

Ah the self-hosted blog, where you’re in full control of the branding, all the content, and you have to do everything by yourself. Why would you blog on your own site when Medium exists, and does half your marketing for you? Because the uhh… the slight community issues with Tumblr last year clearly demonstrate how quickly creators can get screwed by policy changes when they’re on a platform they don’t own. Ask any Youtuber, too. They’ll tell you.

Effort: A minimum 10-20 minutes of work. Can be expanded upon as much as you want.

Financial prospects: Depends entirely upon the following you build. Financial returns may be seen in increased clients, rather than directly receiving revenue from the blog.

Should you? Medium proves the demand for blogs has not died, and likely never will. Just about every creative should probably have one.

Free idea for devs out there: build a self-hosted blogging platform with social features that allow you to connect to other blogs. Like a self-hosted Tumblr, with a feed and everything. Well, maybe connecting to other blogs should be optional. Look at Mastodon for a general model of the idea.

2. Authority Site

An authority site is like a blog with no dates and you don’t have to update nearly as often, as they generally feature perennially useful information. They typically run ads for revenue, and the really good ones can generate reasonable passive income. It can be about one of your non-web design interests, or some bit of our own industry that may not be completely understood yet, e.g. Grid by Example.

Effort: More initial effort than blog, but less in the long term. It’s kind of like writing a mini-wiki.

Financial prospects: Again, varies greatly depending on traffic, and your monetization strategy. Sometimes these are best used as portfolio pieces.

Should you? There’s no real reason why not. Good information is search-friendly information, and launching a few of these could help you build up a reputation, if nothing else.

3. Themes, Plugins, and Other Resources

What the title says. You can always make stuff for your fellow designers and front-end developers to use in their own sites. Everyone loves stuff that makes their own lives a bit easier, and gets their own work done faster.

Effort: Depends on what you make. A single icon could be the work of a day. An icon set is another matter. Anything with code gets real interesting, because code generally requires maintenance.

Financial prospects: Making things for free earns you goodwill. Selling them makes money, but you’ll hardly be the only stall in the marketplace.

Should you? The market is saturated right now. Unless what you’re creating fills a specific and under-served niche, you’re going to face very stiff competition. You’d better know, for a fact, that you’re going to stand out.

4. Contribute to an Existing OSS Project

Ah, the beauty of open source software: anyone can make it. Okay, if you’re primarily a graphics guy, you may stick to creating assets for the project of your choice, but that is something that is still good and necessary.

Effort: Depends on what you contribute. Expect to spend some time figuring that out with other people, and factor in time for that communication.

Financial prospects: Prospects for immediate financial gain are poor to nonexistent.

Should you? If you don’t need extra money any time soon, but do need contacts, yeah. Go for it. Having your name on some OSS projects can be a big resume booster, and you’re giving back to the community in a big way.

5. Start a YouTube Channel or Twitch Stream

Video… it’s like podcasting, but with more work. Interestingly enough—and considering that web design is a very visual discipline—there seems to be a lot more podcasts and blogs of note in the web design space than there is video content, even as other industries trend toward video. Mostly I’ve seen app tutorials, some videos about the very basics, with a few vlog-style shows thrown in. These are all good things, but there’s room for growth. Heck, a lot of the content I’ve seen was made by marketers.

Effort: Loads of effort.

Financial prospects: Ad revenue on YouTube is a notoriously finicky thing, and building an audience takes time. Between patron, sponsors, and ads, Youtube videos and/or streaming can be turned into a full-time career, but that’s a long-term thing.

Should you? If you have the time (you do need a fair bit of it), and can eventually put a budget together for some entry-level hardware, it may be worth getting into the video space, ‘cause I don’t think it’s quite saturated.

6. Public Speaking

Stand up in front of people, sweat profusely, and stammer through a presentation. Then do it again and again until you’re good, and can effectively convey your knowledge to others.

Effort: There’s writing, nerves, and sometimes a bit of travel. It’s not the hardest thing you can do, but neither is it for the faint of heart.

Financial prospects: Local events are good for networking, but you may have to speak for free, or even pay to speak, depending on the event. Get real good, and conference organizers might pay you to come speak. Don’t expect to make a living, but it’s not bad for a side hustle.

Should you? If you’re comfortable with public speaking, go for it. Check out local events, and go to one or two of them. Get a feel for the audience, and then decide if you have something to share that they might need.

7. Start Your Own Events

Hosting events means networking opportunities, having fun, and making a decent bit of cash once the events start to grow. It’s a great way to bring the local design community together and learn. Of course, you need to make sure there aren’t maybe too many events like your in your area, maybe try to pick a unique theme, but it may be worth it.

Effort: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH YES LOTS OF EFFORT. Obviously, if you keep the events small, it’s not too big a deal. It’s like a second business. But if it really starts to grow, running events could quickly take up a lot of room in your life.

Financial prospects: Decent, if you get people showing up.

Should you? Only if you really, really like talking to people, managing people, dealing with people’s complaints, scheduling for other people, chasing other people, and basically doing a whole lot of undesignery stuff.

And whatever you do, remember to have fun with it. No point in a side hustle that isn’t fun.

  Featured image via Unsplash

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