Tips to Look Like a Successful Entrepreneur

We’re taught not to judge a book by its cover.

But, let’s face it, everybody does it!

Indeed, it only takes 7 seconds to form a first impression of someone. Whether we like it or not, judgments based on looks alone are part of life.

Appearance is clearly important and looking rich, with its connotations of success, is one way to come across well. Thankfully, you don’t have to pay megabucks to look a million dollars. Wondering how to look wealthy to the outside world?

A few simple tips can get you most of the way. Sound good? Keep reading.

1. Make Sure Your Clothes Fit Properly

Fitted clothing tends to carry an image of wealth.

Baggy clothes suit a relaxed and laid-back lifestyle. However, they hardly scream money when compared to better-fitting garments.

On your next shopping trip, invest in clothes that fit your body and emphasize your physical attributes. Go one step further and get tailor-made clothing made up.

2. Invest in Quality Footwear

You can tell a lot about someone from the shoes on their feet.

See your choice of footwear as the key to coming across as wealthy. People will take note of the expensive designer shoes, such as Fendi’s menswear collection. Even better, quality materials and manufacture mean they’ll last longer too.

If you’re going to fork out for anything in your wealthy-image creating endeavors, then this is it.

3. Groom Your Way to Wealth

Staying on top of your grooming will forever

You don’t see many wealthy people. Think about Christiano Ronaldo or David Beckham. Do you ever see these male icons looking scruffy and unkempt?

Keep yourself clean, your skin well-moisturized, your hair styled, and your nails painted, and so on. These efforts will all help to create the image of wealth you’re after.

4. Keep Things Clean

Rich people’s clothes look immaculate.

Make sure your outfits follow suit. There’s no room for creases, stains, and holes in your bid to look wealthy. This doesn’t mean you need to dry-clean everything. Investing in a quality washer and steamer can do the trick.

Of course, throw out your clothes that don’t meet the standard you require. Only stock clothing and shoes that look the part.

5. Accessorize Effectively

Accessories can make or break your look.

See them as the cherry on top of your efforts. For instance, nothing cries wealth more than a designer watch or bracelet. The same goes no matter who you are.

Investing in high-quality accessories lends an overarching impression of having money to your name.

Now You Know How to Look Wealthy

Try as we might, it’s hard to deny that looks are important in life. All of us judge quickly and easily based on appearance alone.

Looking wealthy is one sure-fire way to mold external opinions. After all, money is often related to success, and who doesn’t want to appear successful?

Hopefully, this post on how to look successful will help create the image you’re after.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/tips-to-look-like-a-successful-entrepreneur/

How to Build Your Own Escape Room Franchise from the Ground Up

Escape rooms are all the rage right now, which may have you thinking about starting an escape room franchise of your own. The escape room business can be lucrative, but only if you execute it properly. Keep reading to learn what it takes to launch a successful escape room business. 

1. Plan Your Escape Room Franchise

The first thing you should do is have a clear plan for your escape room business. You’ll want to map out all of the specifics of your business which will help you discover any unknown. You’ll want to identify your target market, ongoing costs, how long it will take to break even, the name of your business, and what makes different from the competition. 

2. Form A Legal Entity

You will need to establish a legal business entity like an LLC. This prevents you from being personally liable if your escape room business gets sued.

There are many different types of business structures you can choose from like DBA, corporations, and LLCs. You also might want to consider using a registered agent service that will help protect your privacy and keep your compliant. 

3. Register For Taxes 

Before you even open your business, you need to register for a variety of federal and state taxes. In order to register for taxes, you will need to apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) which is easy and free.  

4. Open A Business Bank Account And Credit Card

You will want to use dedicated business credit and banking accounts, as this is key in protecting your personal assets. If you get your personal and business accounts mixed up, you risk losing your home, car and other valuables if your business gets sued. 

5. Set Up Business Accounting 

You’ll want to make sure that you record all of your expenses and sources of income. This is key to understand how your business is performing financially. You’ll want to make sure that all of your accounts are accurately detailed, as this makes filing for taxes annually that much easier. 

6. Get The Needed Licenses And Permits 

This is key because if you don’t have the right licenses and permits, you could face heavy fines that could even cause your business to shut down. 

7. Get Business Insurance 

It’s highly recommended for all business owners to have business insurance. In some states, a worker’s compensation insurance is a legal requirement when hiring employees. 

8. Define Your Brand

Your escape room will need a clear brand that communicates what your company stands for. This key in how your business is perceived by the public and it will help you stand out from the competition. 

9. Promote & Market Your Escape Room 

Once you have everything ready to go, it’s time to market your escape room. Social media is a great way to advertise your business.

You’ll also want to establish your web presence. Build a website that lets customers learn about your escape room while attracting new customers. 

Start Your Escape Room Today

Now that you know how to build an escape room franchise, start your escape room today. Make sure you have all the proper licenses and funding set up and make sure your room stands out from the competition and your escape room should be a success. For more entrepreneurial resources, check out our blog. 

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business-start-up/how-to-build-your-own-escape-room-franchise-from-the-ground-up/

Digital Marketing Company WNY Holdings LLC Details 9 Frequent Website Mistakes Made By Online Businesses

Businesses invest a lot of time and money into marketing channels like paid traffic, SEO, and social media. In many cases, though, their website does not reach the heights users expect from a quality brand. A poor website experience can harm your reputation, reducing the effectiveness of all your other marketing strategies. Creating a quality website does not need to be difficult, though, and with some simple adjustments, you can prevent recurring problems. Here, customer-focused digital marketing firm WNY Holdings lists some common mistakes that appear on many business websites; aim to ensure you don’t suffer from the same issues.

1. Loading Issues

A serious gripe of visitors is loading issues. The time it takes to load is often the biggest concern; a matter of seconds can make a huge difference in the user experience. Also, elements on the page may not load appropriately, leaving blank spaces or conspicuous coding errors. A tool like GTmetrix can spot any issues, offering quick solutions to common problems. It is also worth looking at how your site loads across a range of devices.

2. Poor Mobile Experience

More than half of all site visits will probably be from a mobile device. If you can’t offer a quality experience for these visitors, you will inevitably lose much business. While most sites usually get designed on a desktop, you need to also look at how they work on mobile devices. Buttons should be large and visible, with less clutter than could be allowed on a desktop site.

3. No Calls to Action

While a business website can help with branding, you do want people to take action. You may be trying to capture leads through an email list or make a sale. However, these tasks are more difficult when you don’t direct visitors to the appropriate places. A call to action can be used to lead visitors towards the goal, with text links and visible buttons helping to promote the click.

4. Complex Navigation

A simple business website might only feature a handful of pages. More significant sites, though, often require many categories and sub-pages. Getting the navigation right for a more substantial site can be tricky, with visitors getting confused when there are too many options. As you collect data, you should know which pages are most popular. You can draw attention to these aspects while ensuring your search facility is user-friendly.

5. Messy Layout

Trying to cram too much into your homepage is a common mistake. A business might feel it is vital to get as much information across as possible, with most visitors accessing the site on the same page. However, you can reduce the amount of attention, confusing and distracting people with excessive content. Aim to make your pages attractive and straightforward, providing plenty of white space around crucial elements.

6. No Blog

A blog should be a core element, but many businesses don’t know what content to create. Your blog content, though, doesn’t have to relate to your business directly. If you run a gym chain, for example, you could include general fitness articles. Alternatively, your blog could take the form of a diary, detailing aspects of the business most customers wouldn’t know. If your blog is well-produced, it will attract traffic and help to solidify your brand.

7. Lack of Updates

Many business websites, particularly among smaller companies, are small and static. The site is developed to include the most pertinent information, but never developed further. These types of sites will stand out to visitors, indicating that they are not regularly updated or maintained. It is essential to add new information, so users know you are active and engaged. A blog and a list of business updates can quickly indicate the website is functioning.

8. Contact Info Issues

Enabling visitors to get in touch with you is a primary function of a website. A simple contact form is easy to set up, but it doesn’t always offer the best way for customers to reach you. Aim to include as many options as possible, ensuring visitors feel they can get in touch. You could add a visible phone number, live chat tools, and social media links, giving multiple options that suit each individual.

9. Not Optimized for the Search Engines

SEO can become a valuable source of traffic for a business. If your website gets recognized as a hub for your particular niche, you can reap the rewards of top listings for relevant keywords. Unfortunately, many sites don’t optimize correctly, with SEO not being a consideration in the development stages. Elements like title tags, descriptions, rich snippets, image optimization, and internal linking can all help with your SEO efforts.

It is easy to make simple mistakes when creating a website, but the repercussions can be extensive. Individual elements that may seem minor can lead to a poor user experience, particularly when these issues start to add up. Your website will be the central hub for your online business, with users making decisions about your brand based on their browsing experience. While everyone has the best intentions with a new site, sometimes you need to audit your existing platform and identify any factors holding back your success.

About WNY Holdings LLC

WNY Holdings LLC was started in 2018 to provide industry-leading marketing services for small businesses. The founders are a husband and wife team, Ben and Melissa, who left their corporate jobs to specialize in helping restaurants, coffee shops, and retailers utilize tailored digital marketing strategies to attract visitors and turn them into loyal customers. WNY Holdings offers services such as content marketing, web design, graphic design, media creation, SEO, and Facebook advertising. They focus on creating an excellent user experience that keeps customers coming back for more. Throughout the process, ongoing data analysis and custom reporting help clients track and understand how their digital marketing efforts are helping their businesses thrive.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/technology/digital-marketing-company-wny-holdings-llc-details-9-frequent-website-mistakes-made-by-online-businesses/

How Does User-Generated Content Improve Your Business?

When your business is trying to market itself and gain popularity, you can use content created by your customers and users. The content that you collect over time can become a large part of your marketing plan, and there are a few tips listed below that will make using this content simpler. You can grow your business using content that was gifted to you, and you can turn that content into the most convincing marketing campaign of them all.

What Is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content is the content that is posted on your website, on social media, and on review sites about your company. This is a common form of marketing used by movies and books because reviewers release their reviews of movies and books all the time. Customers release their opinions on your business, and you can use their testimonials to make your business look good.

Write The Content Into Educational Articles

You are likely producing content to educate your customers. When you are talking about how to use your products, you can quote customers who love your products. These customers likely explain how the products work, how much they spent, and how much value they got out of their purchase. A quote from a customer gives potential customers a reason to trust your company.

Use The Reviews As Part Of Your Traditional Marketing

When you are producing traditional ads for your company, you can use comments and reviews as the tagline or slogan for your business. Plus, you can easily give credit to that customer without overshadowing your marketing. If you are using more than one quote from a customer, you need to make sure that you have cut those comments to the right size.

Edit Longer Comments To Fit Your Ads

You must cut down long comments to the sentences that have the most meaning. You can put ellipses between one quote and another. A paragraph can be turned into a few sentences, and people can easily read through the information that you have provided. If you want to join parts of two sentences together, you can use ellipses to make sure that your content is not that long.

Welcome Reviews On Your Site

Companies do not want to spend their time scouring review websites to find a review you like. Set up a web store on your website, allow customers to leave reviews, and pluck those reviews from the website. You can interchange reviews at any time, and you will find reviews that might explain exactly how useful your products or services are.

Use Secret Tips To Help Other Customers

You may find customer reviews that explain secret or new ways to use your products and services. You might ask your customer to write a full review of your product that you can post on your website. Loyal customers will happily write a review, and you can give them a free product or discount for their trouble. You do not necessarily need to hire someone to write all your content because your customers are often writing what you need for the website.

How Much Content Do You Need?

If you are creating ads, you need to rotate your ads to ensure that your website does not look stale. You can pull new reviews at any time, and you can use content that offers the best information. You might reach out to loyal customers for content, or you can ask customers to make video reviews that are very convincing.

Video Reviews

Video reviews are a powerful way for you to market your business. When customers make a video explaining how much they love these products, you can post those videos to your website. Customer-to-customer marketing is very effective, and you must make sure that you have formed relationships with customers who will happily create content for you.

Conclusion

There are several ways for you to publish user content on your website or in your web store. You can use that content in your ads, and you can work with customers to make video reviews. Customers marketing to other customers is very effective, and you can ask for new content every month that will make your website look fresh, compelling, and useful.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/content-marketing/how-does-user-generated-content-improve-your-business/

How Gary Kaplan and the Kaplan Foundation are Creating Charitable Waves Across the World

Brooklyn, NY native and international businessman Gary Kaplan left New York over 30 years ago to launch a new life of travel, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. These works of love and the specific dedication Gary Kaplan shows these charitable endeavors have blossomed into the HG Kaplan Foundation. This non-profit is committed to assisting children growing up in underprivileged and underserved communities, supporting each child’s hope in what is on the horizon and making certain these kids are given the best opportunity to succeed in the future. By providing monetary resources and mentorship for healthy and happy life development for the children of each community he works with, Gary Kaplan and the HG Kaplan Foundation are giving children the ability to dream of a future full of possibility.

Gary Kaplan’s Many Travels Inspire His Philanthropy

Kaplan’s vision for the foundation was inspired by his travels all over the world in his early adulthood. Travelling to and getting to know life outside of New York, like on the island nation of Cuba in the Caribbean or in places like Zambia, Africa where women traveled miles from their communities for necessities as simple as water for their families.Gary Kaplan was continuously culture-shocked to see how many necessary (to live) resources were basically unavailable to these people. Fetching these essentials was the cause for the women’s daily trekking for miles.

A natural businessman, Gary Kaplan simply looked at these communities as a sinking fortune 500 company that was in need of a little capital and a leg up to get back on the positive path to health and harmony. Each situation and community that Kaplan encountered was simply viewed as a “problem” and Gary Kaplan very quickly went to work finding a solution for it. 

Gary Kaplan’s Foundations are Focused with a Solution-oriented Approach

His solution-focused approach in Zambia kept Kaplan focused on a completed fresh-water well that was piped into the town quickly and consistently from a river that ran almost 7 miles from the village. Once Gary Kaplan and the Kaplan Foundation completed that project Gary turned his devoted attention to the purchase of building supplies and in the hiring and training of certain local townspeople to make building and structure repairs as needed. These charitable acts and donations gave Gary Kaplan a very special drive and focus in his heart-led work that makes a difference to an entire community of people and can change lives. These acts are intertwined into Kaplan’s daily doings and. Allocating and setting aside dedicated time to these work projects is a central priority for Gary Kaplan to fulfill his life’s callings and the mission of the HG Kaplan Organization, one foundation among many that Kaplan leads.

In his plan to simply help and to encourage these communities down the road to success, Gary Kaplan’s long list of leadership and entrepreneurship skills like his ability to prioritize and organize are deep-seeded in his philanthropic spirit. These skills are put on display in his everyday charitable efforts in the communities near his home in Costa Rica. 

In an interview with Everything PR, Gary Kaplan explains how he creates and determines his priorities:

1. Things I need to do for my children

2. Things that people ask me to contribute to

3. Requests from the Humanitarian Foundation CR

4. Requests from the headmaster in Uganda

5. Report cards to see how the children we sponsor are doing.

6. And onward, etc. etc.

By breaking down every action he takes throughout his day and placing them into one of these key categories, Gary Kaplan is able to maximize the production and charitable giving coming out of each of his foundation’s daily, starting with the things that matter most to him and his family.

These specific methods of productivity have been nothing short of successful for Gary Kaplan and the HGKa plan. Based in Costa Rica, the HG Kaplan Foundation is committed to bettering the quality of life for communities in Costa Rica and throughout all Latin America. At any given time, the foundation is managing or contributing to 50+ projects centered around enhancing the well-being of the local population. Many projects center around healthcare, education, community development as well as providing basic needs to those families who go without. The HG Kaplan foundation strives to create a positive influence in the communities assisted, offering a fulfilling cultural experience to both parties in the process. The initiatives supported are high-touch involvement, creating strong relationships and partnerships with those people that are affected by the outreach along the way.

The four pillars that dictate that project path for HGKaplan Foundation are:

• Innovation is a Must
• Integrity is the Way
• Solidarity
• Every Penny Counts

By focusing on these values, the core of the foundation can continue to create new opportunities for community enhancement while being careful and mindful stewards of the funds offered to maximize the impact. To make sure of this, administrative costs are kept low and volunteer’s hands-on involvement in every project is key. Gary Kaplan himself takes great pride in his own physical service and personal involvement and reach on projects.

These four basic programs make up the infrastructure of the foundation to maximize the benefit and pinpoint the needs of every person involved:

• Health Education Program
• Daycare Center
• Bed and Basic Food
• Clinic Projects

Health Education Program

By providing basic lessons in health, hygiene, and nutrition, the foundation is able to stave off illness and potential family issues and give children a strong start for their journey into adulthood. Aside from the basics, this program also offers emotional support in the home, sports and community development and projects to give a safe sense of love and trust for children at risk.

Daycare Center

On leading problem for families with young children or no school, system access is childcare to allow one or both parents to work, making the daycare center a key difference-making branch.

Bed and Basic Food

By providing basic needs to families and children, new possibilities are opened for income, hope, and a future. To headstart this program, the slogan “A Bed for Every Child” led to volunteer-based workshops dedicated to building beds for children. In addition, they have created strong ties with grocery chains in order to provide food and water to populations.

Clinic Project

Rounding out the foundation is the Clinic Project of 2004. The HG Kaplan Foundation has put time, love and effort into providing a health clinic for the community of La Carpio, Costa Rica near Gary’s family home. The foundation’s Clinic project garnered so much attention and brought so much support to the area that the medical clinic was no longer necessary and was later converted to a holistic health center with massage, counseling and a variety of services. Today, the original structure that was built for the Clinic Project houses a recreation center and library for the community.

Gary Kaplan’s dedication to both the HG Kaplan Foundation as well as his long list of philanthropic efforts is an impressive investment of time, money and resources that can make daily differences for countries in need. His strategy and business-minded approach to “getting things done” gives this non-profit an extremely productive culture and provides hope, health and happiness to the communities served.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/successful-entrepreneurs-stories/how-gary-kaplan-and-the-kaplan-foundation-are-creating-charitable-waves-across-the-world/

Redesigning Your Home with a More Flexible Budget

For most people, a home redesign comes with some major strings attached – mostly with regards to the financial aspect. It’s a challenge to pull off an impressive-looking renovation job while actually not spending too much on it.

But when your budget is more relaxed, things get much easier. Many barriers immediately disappear, and you can focus on what matters most – coming up with a good style that you’ll feel comfortable living in.

Working with reliable contractors will make this process much easier, as you can get assisted with these decisions.

Start Early

One of the most important parts of this project, if you want to see it through without any issues, is to start as early as possible. There are many points that you’ll have to take into account with regards to the scheduling.

For example, reliable contractors like The Home Design Group tend to have busy schedules, and it can be difficult to find a slot for you on short notice.

And that’s just on the services front –when you need to order supplies and materials, things can get even messier. So, make sure you buy supplies and book any professional services well in advance.

Prioritize Quality

It should go without saying that you need to spend a little more time on each contract and purchase you’re considering for your renovation job, and make sure that you’re investing in the best quality the market has to offer.

It’s not as straightforward as you might think to compare offers on this part of the market, and being a savvy shopper, in general, will make this process a lot easier.

Look up reviews and client testimonies, and ensure that you know exactly who you’re hiring for every part of the process.

Get Plenty of Quotes

With a market as diverse as this, you have to make sure that you’re seeing the full picture when comparing prices and other factors.

This ties in with the two tips from above – if you start early and talk to lots of contractors, you should eventually have a nice pile of quotes to go through.

Start comparing them and evaluating which ones could work best for your current situation, and pay attention to factors like estimated completion time, warranty and other long-term concerns, and specific details covered in the fine print that might change the context of the deal significantly.

For example, the requirement to use specific materials in the ongoing maintenance of the installation can be a troubling factor in some cases.

Special Contractors

Other than the standard range of contractors for a typical renovation, you should also consider consulting with some more advanced specialists who can give your home a makeover in some additional ways.

For example, insulation is something that can be done as part of the general renovation work, but you can also hire a dedicated specialist to have a deeper look at your situation.

This can be beneficial to anyone, not just those living in harsher climates. The importance of utilizing your energy properly cannot be overstated these days, and many people are now paying attention to this very actively.

Advanced Comfort Features

Look into smart homes if you want to splurge on something that will make you smile a little every time you walk around the house.

There are many ways to make the average modern home more comfortable and conducive to your specific day-to-day lifestyle. But even small things can make a huge difference.

You come home late in the night, the entire house is already warmed up from a few hours beforehand, and you have nice background music playing.

The home lights up different rooms as you walk through them, and it generally feels “alive” and as if it’s watching your every move, waiting to serve you.

This kind of “digital butler” might sound like a thing of the future – or perhaps even out of a sci-fi movie – but it’s very real these days, and it doesn’t even cost a lot of money to implement something like this in the typical house.

Look into smart home contractors if you want to explore this area.

The Benefits of Going Green

As we said earlier, there’s a lot to gain from making your home greener, and many people are now actively looking into this for their own places.

Some contractors even specialize in these services, and they can completely transform the power usage and other expenses of your home. Insulation is just the start.

You can invest in some very efficient systems that combine solar power and other modern solutions to make your home more self-sustaining.

And while you probably can’t eliminate your utility bill completely, you can still go a long way towards making sure that you’re not overspending on that front.

Plan for Your Next Big Project

A big, expensive home renovation is not the kind of job you’d normally expect to repeat soon afterward. But that still doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to start planning for it from now.

After all, you’ve just seen how the market works with your own eyes, and it’s all still fresh in your head. This puts you in a much better position to plan for your next renovation than the average person.

You should take note of features that are important to you, and keep up with the state of the market for some time afterward as well. This can make a huge difference later on when you get to your next major renovation.

This will be a bit of a stressful ordeal. But do it right, and it can change a lot in the way you live your life.

Coming home to a freshly renovated place can be a very nice and energizing feeling, and it can also give you a nice opportunity to socialize a bit more by inviting people for a nice party after the job is done.

And on that note, if you’re the kind of person who enjoys doing this on a regular basis, you can even account for that in the renovation process itself, and make the place even more suitable for big events in the future!

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/house-and-home/redesigning-your-home-with-a-more-flexible-budget/

Is SEO worth it and relevant?

SEO has been the holy grail for the websites. It is the method of how Google algorithms work to bring your website content up. It has been there for quite a while. However, every once in a while, a sound from the marketing departments comes about SEO not being relevant any more.

Why is that? Are the changing time and technology make SEO not so relevant? Search Engine Optimization is the way through which sales increase and the links are built. SEO can be tricky sometimes, and you will need to be in constant competition for that. However, if you are willing to stay on board with SEO optimization, it is important for you to write compelling content.

Content has been a major when you are talking about SEO. It can be a deal-breaker for you. So, the point is still the same.

Is SEO worth it and relevant?

The world is changing fast. So, is the SEO and the digital world. The changes are minor, but to keep up with the changes, you need to be constant. Let’s talk about the relevance of SEO.

Yes, Search Engine Optimization is still relevant if you are thinking of running a website and generating sales, the SEO can be your straw in the river. Your competitors may be using the best SEO practices, while you are still stuck if the SEO is relevant or not. This is what makes you lack. So, grab on to your SEO specialist and start working on the SEO through robust content. The backlinks and the inbound links are also an important need for you.

But why do people think it not worth it? Is the content based on SEO not important?

Well, the misconception is there. The content is important, but how will people find it? That is only done by SEO. While SEO shows your content, this content attracts the customers and creates trust between the seller and the customer.

Here is why SEO is important

Browsing

The browsing is done through Search Engine Optimization. It is important to have SEO involved in your website content to make it visible. People will not see it if the SEO is not there and you will not have any sales.

Visibility

The content is visible with the help of SEO. It brings the content up and creates a relation of self-trust between you and the buyer.

Keywords

Keywords are making a difference. It is a whole new market on its own. These keywords then show in SEO searches, and the algorithm is made through it. This is how the algorithm works and ranks websites with the best SEO practices. These are a few things that show SEO is still relevant. Moreover, if you are skeptical if SEO is important or not, you need to start using it and learn how important it is. It will eventually bring up your content and increase the sales and visibility of the content.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/technology/is-seo-worth-it-and-relevant/

The Benefits of Commercial Heat Recovery Systems

As a business owner, you probably know about the importance of identifying ways to decrease your monthly expenses, without impacting customer experience or employee satisfaction.

Every solution translates to more capital that you can put towards meaningful growth. A fitting example is the heat recovery ventilator (HRV) system.

The premise of an HRV is simple – it uses one pipe to extract damp, stale air from inside your building and a core unit to recover any heat from the air before expelling it.

It then uses a separate pipe to draw in fresh, filtered air from outside. At the same time, the previously extracted heat is added to the filtered air and brought indoors. 

Two fans are used (one for each pipe) to continuously repeat the process while using minimal amounts of energy. So, HRV systems are pretty efficient. But are they a worthwhile investment? Most likely.

To find out why let’s take a look at the benefits of commercial heat recovery systems.

A Healthier Workplace

Every year, the number of Brits who suffer from airborne allergies increases by five percent, with a current estimate of around 21 million people. Coupled with the growing prevalence of harmful chemicals and toxins in countless everyday products, airborne contaminants pose a serious risk to homeowners and businesses alike.

An HRV system works to replace the old air in your building with outdoor air, which contains between two and five times fewer contaminants.

This contributes to a healthier and more comfortable environment for both you and your employees. Business owners with HRV systems in their buildings can expect fewer sick days and more productive staff.

Easily Accessible

Thanks to companies such as BPC Ventilation, you barely need to lift a finger to install an HRV system in your building. Heat recovery units can be ordered online and express-delivered right to your doorstep.

You can also organize professional installation, allowing you to focus on other daily duties while your new HRV is installed.

Reduced Environmental Impact

Most consumers, especially younger generations, prefer to support businesses that are environmentally conscious, as do your employees.

The more your business cares, the more your stakeholders will care about your business. An HRV system can serve as a valuable component of your environmental impact reduction strategy.

Why? Because in addition to cleaning up the air in your workplace, HRVs are incredibly energy efficient.

One case study conducted by Calibrate detailed an office block in Hamilton that switched to a commercial HRV system, taking their running costs from £115,000 all the way down to £18,500. This brings us to the next point.

Cost Savings

Naturally, investing in an HRV system will pay itself off in the long run. Not only does it use less energy, but it also negates the need to use other devices.

For instance, if you use an electric heating system in winter, replacing it with an HRV system will eliminate the need to use a humidifier to compensate for lost moisture.

Conclusion

The benefits of an HRV system are clear and simple. Be sure to give it some consideration – it might just end up being one of your best investments.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/the-benefits-of-commercial-heat-recovery-systems/

The 5 Worst Marketing Failures in History

We know a lot of our readers come to this website looking for advice or ideas about marketing, and we do the best we can for them. This article, however, is not full of great advice or ideas.

It’s full of the exact opposite. We’re going to take a look at some of the worst marketing failures in living memory.

Why are we doing this? To highlight a fact that a lot of people sometimes forget. It’s impossible to get it right all the time when it comes to marketing. You can do all the research you like, and collect all the feedback you desire, but you’ll still sometimes make mistakes.

Even the world’s biggest companies can get it wrong on marketing, and when they do, we all stand back and ask how they could possibly have misjudged their audience so badly.

In every failure, though, is an opportunity to learn. We’re not just going to list these marketing failures; we’re going to look at why they failed, and see what lessons can be learned from them.

By doing so, even though we can’t prevent every marketing mishap you may encounter in your career, we might be able to help you avoid the really big ones!

Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Error

This is one of the more recent examples of marketing gone wrong and an expensive mistake on Pepsi’s behalf.

We suspect that hiring the services of Kendall Jenner for filming didn’t come cheaply, and so a lot of money went down the drain when the advert was pulled after a flood of complaints.

For some reason, Pepsi decided the best way to boost their sales was to offer their drink as a solution to the standoff between black citizens and the police that was happening in the United States at the time.

The advert was seen as trivializing the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and the issue as a whole and serves as a reminder that marketing should always steer clear of contentious social issues. People want Pepsi because they like soda, not because they want a lecture on morality.

New Coke

Staying on the topic of soda, Coca Cola had an outright disaster in the mid-1980s when Pepsi started encroaching on their territory.

Pepsi’s famous ‘taste test’ challenge appeared to show that people preferred the drink to Coca Cola’s own. Instead of falling back on their century of success, Coca Cola panicked and changed their whole formula.

The result was ‘New Coke,’ a solution to a problem that didn’t exist, and a flavor that nobody wanted. New Coke was a disaster. After only a few months of plunging sales and bad press, Coca Cola went back on the decision and returned its original product to the stores.

What’s the lesson we can all learn from this? If your product works, stick to it. Don’t change your strategy based on what your competitors do. Doing so is giving your product a vote of no confidence in the most public way imaginable.

Starbucks Tackle Race

Do you remember the Starbucks: Race Together campaign? Probably not, it only ran for a month before the coffee giant realized they’d made a huge mistake.

Almost unbelievably, Starbucks genuinely wanted customers to come into their stores, buy a coffee, and talk to their staff about the state of race relations.

Their staff even underwent special training to prepare them to deal with the issues they would encounter.

To say this was a strange gamble would be an understatement. Gambling is a good metaphor—all marketing is a gamble to an extent. Imagine a mobile slots website that offers Irish themed games.

Now imagine that same mobile slots website offering a forum to discuss social and religious issues in Ireland at the same time as providing access to those games.

Customers wouldn’t want that – they would just want to play slots casino. If anything, customers go to Starbucks to take a five-minute break from the state of current affairs; they didn’t want them ramming down their faces along with their coffees and cakes.

The moral of this mistake is that you should never try to offer your customers something they didn’t ask for and haven’t shown any sign of wanting.

Budweiser Promote Drunken Liaisons

Alcohol lowers our inhibitions. We all know that, and that’s why we should avoid drinking too much of it in one sitting. A little alcohol can loosen you up and help you to party, but too much will lead to you making bad decisions.

Budweiser was already playing with fire when they started a campaign with the hashtag #UpForWhatever, but they intended it to mean that Budweiser can help you to have more fun.

They might have gotten away with it had they then not started printing the slogan “this beer removes ‘no’ from your vocabulary” on the side of their bottles.

That was seen as a step too far, and the drinks brand found themselves accused of promoting date rape. The outcry was huge, and the campaign was quickly dropped.

From this mistake, we should all learn never to go ahead with a slogan that could be misinterpreted or misrepresented.

Hoover’s Ticket To Bankruptcy

This was the most self-destructive promotional campaign of all time. Hoover is a British company that sells vacuum cleaners, and in 1992 they had too much old stock on their hands.

They wanted to clear it quickly and so one of their marketing team came up with the idea to offer two airplane tickets to the USA for every £100 (around $135) they spent on outdated Hoover stock.

That employee had got their math badly wrong. Two plane tickets to the USA cost around five times that amount. Hoover was inundated with people buying their stock who didn’t even want vacuum cleaners—they just wanted the tickets.

Nearly a quarter of a million people took them up on the offer, and Hoover had to honor the promise to all of them. In total, they lost $68m and became insolvent.

The company was ultimately sold to an Italian rival. Always check that your promotional offers make good business sense. When you’ve done so, check again just to make sure, and then get someone else to check the figures for you, too!

While we can all laugh at these marketing disasters now, they were anything but funny for the companies involved at the time so make sure we don’t put your brand on this list next time we publish an article on marketing mistakes!

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/marketing/the-5-worst-marketing-failures-in-history/

How Off the Shelf ELearning Proves Beneficial to Your Business

Are you planning to roll out new elearning course for your organization? Are you looking for creating a custom elearning course for the same? Well, off the shelf content may just be the option you are missing out on. Sure, custom learning content does offer immense advantages, but it is important to evaluate the pros of off the shelf content before coming to a decision. Read on and make an informed decision!

Readymade facilitating instant usage

Off the shelf courses involve readymade elearning modules which require no additions to content or any further development which means that these can be used instantly upon purchase. Usually covering broad topics and categories which are universal in nature, these are of high quality and standards and take less time for preparation. 

Plethora of topics covered

With off the shelf solution, users often have access to a plethora of commonly required broad and universal topics. It is always a viable option for common and broad topic areas. All the desired information which must be imparted to the learners is a part of it, hence there’s no point reinventing or customising the topic unless there’s something specific which must be added. 

The different types of topics which are often covered under off the shelf training include team building training, compliance training, communication skills, cybersecurity training, training of commonly used applications like Microsoft Office and others alike. 

Easy implementation

While custom elearning solutions are time consuming and painstaking to implement, off the shelf solutions can be implemented quickly. Custom elearning courses have a development lead in time which is used by the developers to gather all the required content, work together, code the functionality, and build the course. However, this is not the case with off the shelf solutions. These are ready to use and implementation is done as soon as possible. 

Expect cost efficiency and better ROI 

Elearning solutions are made available to multiple customers by the developers which in turn helps spread development costs, thereby reducing the price of each individual solution. 

However, if you wish to create an elearning course specific to your organisation or focusing on a particular niche, opting for custom elearning content is the way to go as lower cost of off the shelf course which covers broad and general topics will not be significant. 

Lower cost of off the shelf elearning will generate a better return on investment for universal categories making it the most preferred solution. 

Fewer resources involved

Another advantage involved with off the shelf elearning is that it requires minimal input from your team unlike a custom-designed course which involves your team members to work closely with the elearning developer for effective creation of the course content. In situations where generic content is all you need, off the shelf elearning is what you must opt for. 

Final Word

As you witness numerous advantages of off the shelf elearning content, you must be lured to implement the same in your business. After all, cost efficiency, better ROI, fewer resources and similar benefits are not things one can easily overlook! However, you must also pay close attention to the fact that off the shelf courses, although valuable, cover only generic, and broad content. In case you need to develop a program relating to a specific topic or niche, custom elearning is the solution for you. Make sure you don’t overlook this factor when making a choice. If you are able to get a course on the topic you’re looking for, off the shelf elearning will help you save time, money and effort. Moreover, you will also be able to distribute the course to your team immediately. 

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/how-off-the-shelf-elearning-proves-beneficial-to-your-business/

What is the Perfect Number of Social Media Platforms for Your Brand?

Social media is one of the most effective ways for companies to grow their brand. One poll found that 73% of marketers found social media to be either somewhat or very effective. However, many less experienced social media marketers struggle to make any progress with their strategy.

 One of the biggest reasons that social media marketers struggle to succeed is that they spread themselves too thin. They often work with too many platforms, which makes it difficult for them to make any progress.

How many social media platforms should they work with? According to experts from Famoid, answer is going to depend on several factors, such as the age of the company and the amount of resources the company has available and the success it has with certain strategies. We are going to assume that marketers reading this article are newer and working for smaller brands.

As a rule of thumb, new brands probably shouldn’t focus on more than two or three different traffic sources. If they are already investing heavily in SEO, then they might want to only use one or two social media platforms. If they don’t want to make SEO a core focus, then they might want to try up to three different social media platforms. Social media can work well, but only for companies that focus on the right things.

As they grow, they might find that it is worth investing in more social networks. They should start by expanding into similar platforms to the ones they have already had success with, because they will probably be able to repurpose a lot of their existing content. For example, brands that have a lot of success with Pinterest should start exploring Instagram. They can upload a lot of the same images, so they will be getting up to 70% more traffic without doing a lot more work.

We have talked about what social media is in other posts, as well as some more general strategies that need to be considered. There are a number of advantages of using it in your company. It’s time to go a little deeper and shell the Social Media platforms.

 To do that, let’s start by naming the 10 best and most influential social platforms we have. We based this data from the Alexa rank of these sites. To facilitate the process, the sites are ordered according to their Alexa score, which represents the popularity of the site. It may seem counterintuitive, but sites with a lower Alexa score have more traffic, which means they are ranked higher.

Faceook	2
youtube.com	4
Pinterest	8
twitter.com	12
wordpress.com	17
Linkedin.com	29
flickr.com	31
Blogger.com	66
Orkut.com	117

In each and every one of the platforms, you can find its Alexa ranking. Google Page Rank. This is a numerical value that represents the importance that a web page has on the Internet. Google gets the idea that when a page places a link to another, is in fact a vote for the latter, goes from 0 to 10. Finally, it has also added the category field where there is a brief explanation of the function of the social platform.

There are a lot of factors that business owners need to evaluate when choosing the right platforms for their social media strategy.  You shouldn’t just focus on the social networks with the most traffic. Although they might give you access to a larger base of potential customers, they might not be the right platform for your specific market.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/social-media-marketing/what-is-the-perfect-number-of-social-media-platforms-for-your-brand/

Overcoming Hosting Challenges of a Multi-Regional Blog

The global e-commerce market is expected to rise to $2.3 trillion by the end of 2021. The market is growing at a rate of 18% a year. One of the biggest reasons e-commerce market is growing so fast is that companies are able to promote products to more than one region.

The Internet has torn down traditional geographic barriers for many businesses. This has opened up many doors for growth, but it also raises new challenges. Companies that are trying to market abroad must deal with significant cultural and language barriers. As significant as these challenges may be, they pale in comparison to the issue of web hosting.

Last September, I created a multilingual website on Wicca and esoteric living. I was not prepared for the hosting challenges that I would face while trying to market to readers in multiple countries. Here are some things that I learned in the process.

Choose the most reliable hosting provider available

According to the Internet Systems Consortium in 2012, there are 505 million Internet hosts in the United States alone. Even if you limit that list to companies that offer mainstream website hosting services, the figure is still in the tens of thousands.

However, the quality of hosting services varies tremendously. Unfortunately, people don’t always choose the most reliable hosting provider. GoDaddy is the largest hosting company and retains about 15% of the market share in the website hosting industry, even though its services leave quite a bit to be desired.

Trying to handle traffic from different countries is difficult enough. It is going to be even more challenging with a subpar hosting provider. You need to do your due diligence and make sure that you choose an optimal hosting solution.

The placement of your hosting server can play a prominent role in your SEO and the User experience

Far too many bloggers discount the importance of their hosting solution when it comes to SEO. When I created my website, I originally intended to focus on reaching readers in Spain. However, my server was based in the United States.

As a result, my website rankings in Spain were not very good. I started publishing a lot more content targeting readers in the United States. I noticed that my keywords were ranking a lot better there, so I decided to make that my primary focus.

After a while, I realized that it would be more prudent to come up with a more holistic hosting solution to maximize traffic from various parts of the world. You need to recognize that the location of your server matters, especially when you have a global audience.

What can you do about it? A content delivery network can address these challenges.

Most hosting companies understand that online commerce has gone global these days. They want to make sure that their customers are able to extract the most value from all of their traffic. Therefore, many of the best hosting providers offer content delivery networks (CDNs), which are excellent for segmenting traffic by region. TechTarget reports that CDNs are probably the best option for handling traffic from numerous countries. You should keep this in mind when looking for the Web hosting companies on the market.

When you set up your hosting plan, you should find out whether a CDN is available. You can create filters and conditionals to make sure that it handles traffic appropriately. When users first interact with your website, your hosting plan will determine the country they are located in. It will then match them to the nearest server, which reduces that caching time for processing HTTP requests.

Make Sure that You Are Ready for the Hosting Challenges of Running a Global Website

There are a lot of hosting issues that you will face when you are running a website that serves customers all over the world. You are going to need to know how to deal with them.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/website/overcoming-hosting-challenges-of-a-multi-regional-blog/

Market Your CBD Oil Brand Online in 2 Easy Steps

Whether you’re marketing a UK CBD oil brand or trying to get a CBD brand launched in the United States, you’re going to run into the same problem when it’s time to get the word out about your company: None of the major online advertising networks differentiate between CBD and other cannabis products, and none of them will accept your ads. That fact leaves a lot of those new to the CBD business – even many serial entrepreneurs – scratching their heads. What can you do to drive traffic to your site if you can’t simply bid on the relevant keywords on Google and promote your posts to interested users on Facebook? 

When you can’t market an online business on traditional channels, getting your brand to the point at which you’ve made your first sale takes a significant amount of work. Getting consistent traffic and sales every day? That’s even harder. The reward, though, is that launching a business in a non-traditional industry often comes with the potential of incredible profits – so let’s roll up our sleeves and get started. These two simple marketing tips will help you get your CBD oil brand from zero to profitability.

Adopt a Content-First Mindset for Your Website

Since you can’t market your CBD oil business by simply paying Google for ad clicks, you’ll have to do everything you can to get your website to appear in Google’s organic search results. SEO will be your primary marketing technique, and SEO begins with great content. 

Analyze your website with a critical eye. As you do so, consider these three things:

• Google’s job is to provide answers to text queries. For your website to appear as a result for a query, you’ll need a page with text satisfying that query. How much original text does your website have?
• Does your website have informational content – articles that answer questions and solve problems – or do you have no content apart from what’s on your product pages? The competition for commercial keywords among CBD oil companies is intense; your product pages aren’t going to rank on Google off the bat. Start a blog and begin sharing your expertise through articles on non-commercial topics. It’s much easier to rank on Google for searches without direct purchase intent, and even a non-commercial article is an opportunity to explain to website visitors why your CBD oil is better than the rest.
• Is every page on your website written with a main keyword phrase in mind? Does each page satisfy the intent of its core keyword phrase more fully than the pages that Google currently displays for that keyword phrase? 

If you’re honest in your analysis, you’ll likely find that your website’s content has some shortcomings. Look at what your competitors are doing and remember that your content can’t just be as useful as the content on your competitors’ sites; it needs to be even better.

Find New Methods of Outreach and Relationship Building

Running any e-commerce website successfully requires a combination of inbound and outbound marketing. Posting informative and helpful content on your website is a form of inbound marketing; people come to you because Google tells them that your content is likely to answer their questions. Some of those people may become your customers immediately, and others may become buyers later when their level of trust in your brand increases. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, involves pushing your message out to people who aren’t necessarily looking for your products yet. 

The most common form of outbound marketing is paid advertising on networks such as Facebook and Google AdWords. Those options aren’t available to a CBD oil brand, though, so you need to be creative about outreach and relationship building. Begin your outbound marketing campaign with these 3 ideas.

• Contact the owners of CBD-related websites that aren’t selling products directly. CBD forums, CBD review blogs and cannabis news websites all present possible opportunities for relationship building and promotion. Just as you can’t advertise on AdWords to get the word out about your brand, those websites likewise can’t earn money by displaying AdSense ads. They earn revenue by partnering with CBD brands like yours.
• Become an active contributor on discussion groups relating to CBD. You’ll find CBD discussions on websites like Quora, Facebook and Reddit. Users on those websites don’t take kindly to spam, so don’t think of your participation as a way to advertise your brand. Rather, think of it as a way to build authority and trust by contributing value to the community. 
• Search social media channels such as YouTube and Instagram to find CBD influencers with large communities of engaged followers. Like owners of CBD websites, CBD personalities on social media earn their income partnering with brands. Content like brand reviews on YouTube or posed pictures on Instagram usually appear because companies like yours have sponsored that content. Partnering with a social media influencer is a great way to generate brand awareness and expose your company to thousands of people. Before paying someone on social media to market your CBD oil, though, make sure that person has an active base of real human followers; some people do pay for fake Facebook, Instagram and Twitter followers. If real people aren’t actively engaging with an influencer’s content, you’ll gain nothing by paying that influencer to promote your brand. 

Relationship building and outreach can benefit your CBD oil brand in two ways. The first benefit is that the people who see your forum posts or sponsored content may click through and visit your website – so the content may generate direct traffic. The second benefit is that, by making sponsorship deals with other websites, you’ll gain new inbound links pointing to your website. Google uses many factors to determine the search rankings that websites receive, and one of the most important factors is the quality and quantity of inbound links pointing to websites. Acquiring inbound links from other sites in the CBD industry is one of the best things you can do to ensure that your website will appear prominently on Google for a wide variety of CBD-related searches.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/marketing/market-your-cbd-oil-brand-online-in-2-easy-steps/

Five Ways to Learn How to Work on Your Car Yourself

Most of us can’t escape owning a car. That also means most of us can’t escape paying for car repairs, but there’s another way. You can learn how to fix your car yourself.

Learning more about your vehicle comes with many benefits like:

• It can help you learn more about what cars are worth, ensuring you don’t buy a lemon when it’s time for a new car.
• You know exactly how much repairs should cost, so you won’t ever get ripped off again.
• Knowing exactly how your car works will make you a safer driver.

And of course, you can save on the cost of repairs! Unfortunately, fixing your car yourself can be scary. Making the wrong repair could put you and your passengers in danger.

If you want to learn how to fix your car yourself, but you want to make sure you learn how to fix your car the right way, you have many ways you can go about teaching yourself.

Go to the Auto Parts Store

A good first stop is the auto parts store. The employees are surprisingly friendly, and most are more than willing to answer your questions.

For example, if you’ve always been interested in installing a turbocharger in your car, visit the auto parts store and talk about your plans with an associate behind the counter. Not only can they help you choose the right turbocharger parts for your vehicle, they can also provide you with tips on making sure you install the parts properly. In some cases, you may also be able to convince an associate to come out to your car and help you look under the hood.

Ask a Friend

Chances are, you have a friend who has an interest in cars. Why not make a plan to get together so they can teach you a few things?

You can start by working on their car with them. They can teach you simple things, like how to replace the windshield wipers and change a tire, while more knowledgeable friends can go more in-depth, teaching you how to change your own oil, change a battery, repair a muffler, and much more.

If your car is need of a repair, why not ask your friend to come over and help you fix it? Not only will your car get repaired, you can learn how to do the repair as it’s being made, so you can do it yourself in the future.

Go Online

The internet has a wealth of information on any topic, which includes learning how to work on a car.

Watching videos on YouTube is a great place to start. You’ll find a video that will walk you through the steps to fix nearly anything that could go wrong with your vehicle. You may even be able to find a video of your specific model!

Online forums can be especially helpful. You can ask any questions you have about your specific vehicle and the car community online will answer your questions and provide you with tips to make sure your repair or update is done safely and efficiently.

Take a Class

If you’re more the hands-on type, or you want to attempt a sensitive repair, like fixing the brakes, watching videos and sending messages to people online probably isn’t going to do it. Instead, you will want to consider taking a car maintenance class.

Fortunately, it doesn’t mean you have to go back to college either. Many communities offer a variety of courses that you can take for a nominal fee. You’ll also have the benefit of asking for advice from a knowledgeable instructor, which means you can get specific advice for your specific vehicle.

Buy a Beater

If you’re still worried about attempting repairs and updates on your everyday car, leave it in the driveway and restore an old car instead.

Working on an old car can teach you a lot about the way car systems work because beaters require a lot of repairs and updates. Not to mention, you can learn how to work on a car without compromising your everyday vehicle. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to get to work in the morning.

You don’t have to be a slave to your mechanic for the rest of your life! If you don’t have a lot of time, by all means, trust your mechanic with repairs. If, on the other hand, you want to save money, use one of these methods to learn how to update your car yourself.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/auto/how-to-work-on-your-car-yourself/

Paying too much for your printer ink? – Here’s what you need and where to buy it

As a business owner, I soon came face to face with high printer ink prices. 

The people in my team needed to print things out, and my company was forever ordering ink cartridges. While printing was a business necessity, it was expensive. I was paying thousands of dollars per month just for ink. 

Surely, there was a better way? 

Paying Too Much For Printer Ink

I soon realized that I was paying too much for printer ink. The amount that my company was getting through was unsustainable. I needed more affordable options, and I needed them fast. 

The problem was that I didn’t have much choice. I’d already bought a printer, and I believed that I had to use the company’s ink. The printer company had a monopoly, and I was stuck. 

The problem that I had was actually very similar to that faced by many startups and other companies. I had bought an incredibly capable printer for the office, choosing something that could cope with a lot of jobs per day. 

I believed that now that I had the printer, I had to stick with it. The price of ink was high, but what could I do about it? Not accepting high rates would mean getting rid of the printer, and I didn’t want that. 

Printer companies have been very clever with their pricing models. 

The upfront cost of a printer is incredibly low. You can buy printer units for my office for less than one day’s salary for an employee. That’s seriously cheap. 

But ink is a different matter. Although you pay less for a cartridge of ink than for the printer, you can get through thousands of dollars worth per month. It is a big problem. 

It was clear to me what was happening. Printer companies were using high ink prices to subsidize printer prices. Printers were only cheap because the ink was expensive. 

The situation seemed a little bit like the games console market. Games consoles themselves are inexpensive. You can buy what is effectively a gaming computer for a couple of hundred bucks. 

But a games console is no use without the games. So games companies charge a fortune for their games. It’s just how the economic incentives play out. 

Printer ink, therefore, seems destined to be expensive. But does it have to be? I began to wonder. 

How I Discovered I Was Paying Too Much For Printer Ink

The interesting thing about printer ink is that it is not expensive to manufacture. 

I understood, therefore, that I could, in theory, spend less on it. But who might sell printer ink closer to cost? It wasn’t clear to me. 

Some ink cartridge companies help to get the price down. People have found ways to offer businesses lower costs – something that they desperately need.   

When you think about it, you realize that printer ink shouldn’t be expensive. The high prices are just an artifact of low printer prices. It doesn’t have anything to do with the costs of manufacturing the ink itself. 

How To Buy Printer Ink

Some online companies, however, change this dynamic. They let business customers buy printer ink cartridges for a fraction of the price that you had to pay in the past. 

The way that they get prices down is twofold. The first is the bulk discounts. 

If customers buy more than a certain quantity of premium printer ink cartridges, for instance, they can get money off the rest of their order.

It works in a similar way to regular bulk discounts. The more that you spend, the lower the unit price. It happens in every other market, so why not the printer ink market? 

The second factor is the generic cartridge options. It turns out that businesses don’t have to buy ink cartridges made by their printer company. They can buy cheaper compatible versions made by a third party. 

Many companies stand behind all their third-party ink cartridge products. You can often buy generic cartridges that met or exceeded OEM standards. In other words, customers can actually get something better for less money. 

As a business owner, this is important. You need printer products that let you keep costs downs and stay competitive. Finally, some sellers are making this possible. 

Do you want to start saving on your ink cartridges?

Ink cartridges can be expensive. But if you take the right approach, you can find that you save a lot of money. 

I personally buy remanufactured inks, its affordable and do the job just fine. You can buy them online from Yoyoink or any remanufactured ink sellers from Amazon, many affordable options can be found online these days.

While it might seem like a small item on your expenses list, it can amount to a substantial sum.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/small-business-advice/paying-too-much-for-your-printer-ink-heres-what-you-need-and-where-to-buy-it/

Point of Sale Potential – Improving the Customer Journey of Your Retail Store

In the retail environment there are a number of pivotal moments in your customer journey, but none more important than the point of sale. The point of sale is the decision-making conclusion and is likely to be the last face-to-face interaction with your customer. The importance you place on the point of sale touchpoint in your customer journey can mean a lot in the ability to retain and reactivate customers, not to mention streamlining their in-house experience. To improve and drive the importance of the point of sale touchpoint with your staff, consider these tips.

Make it seamless

The point of sale is the one area of your customer journey where you don’t want customers spending unnecessarily long amounts of time. To avoid this, make sure you have the right point of sale system. The wrong system could cause bottlenecks in your retail operation which result in long wait times and a negative experience for your customers who are looking to purchase. A good point of sale system will mean quicker turnover, greater data capture and a superior experience for your customers. Remove any seams at the point of sale by making sure you have the right system installed.

Make it clear

If you are struggling to think of a negative customer experience associated with the point of sale, consider the last time you wanted to buy something, but couldn’t find the register. Customers should be capable of finding your point of sale in the instant they need to, otherwise, you might be losing sales. To improve the customer journey of your retail store, make the point of sale area clear and visible. This doesn’t mean installing neon signs, but make it clear where the customer can pay for their item and make sure the flow makes sense. Having the point of sale tucked away in a hard to navigate area probably isn’t the best positioning.

Give customers something to do

If you have ever wondered why retail stores place trinkets and other small items by the point of sale, it is usually to distract you. Helping a customer through a purchase on the surface can seem simple, but underneath can be a detailed process for the staff. To improve the customer journey and experience at your point of sale, consider placing additional items or readable content to the side. When your staff are busily entering details or removing security tags, your customers can flick through pins or badges and check out the latest catalogue to help disguise the momentary wait times. Even if you never sell an item or constantly have to replace the catalogues, by disguising the wait, your customer journey is improved.

Create a flow

The point of sale is the critical last impression for your customers. The last thing your retail store needs is to score highly in all other service aspects, only for your customer to spend their time in a line when they are ready to purchase. Thinking about the design of your point of sale is very important. You need a logical space where, if necessary, customers can line up without the physical confines of bollards or straps. Instead, consider using wayfinding to help customers identify where to line up using floor decals. Creating a flow is about managing customers without creating physical boundaries.

The point of sale touchpoint is a critical stage in all customer journeys. It can be one of the most important parts of the journey to increase and improve customer retention. To improve your point of sale touchpoint in your retail store, consider implementing the simple tips listed above.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/sales-and-marketing/point-of-sale-potential-improving-the-customer-journey-of-your-retail-store/

3 Easy Steps To Hiring The Right People For Your Business

As an employer, the process of recruiting is probably not new to you. Conducting interviews is not very difficult, but the biggest challenge employers face is finding applicants who have the right talents and skills for the job.

But who is to blame for this mismatch between the demand and supply? In many cases, employers are unable to accurately express what they are really looking for in a candidate when advertising their vacancies.

Employers can hire recruiting agencies who are skilled at looking for the right candidate but many still prefer to do it themselves in order to enjoy greater flexibility and, of course, reduce hiring costs.

If you are the DIY kind, we have some guidelines that can help ensure that you find the perfect recruits for your company.

Prepare The Content

You might be overwhelmed by work and creating your recruitment announcement might not make the top of your priority list.

But you need to take the time and make that perfect hiring poster as this will have a lasting impact on your business. Here’s everything you need to keep in mind when creating your custom hiring poster:

Write a captivating title 

Whether it is one position or many, each job listing should have a killer title that will be displayed on the poster. The title must be clear so that potential job seekers can know who you really need at a glance.

This will eliminate all those job hunters who are not a good fit for the job.

Introduce your company

Let readers know what your company is all about, but be concise. Hiring posters are not the right place to go into in-depth detail about your company.

It needs to be attention-grabbing and communicate the main message: The Position You’re Hiring for. ·        

Include the job requirements

Move on to the main point directly without wasting space. Using bullet points to explain what the employer wants can help readers to understand the message quickly and clearly.

Make the text more visible by using bold letters or different colors to highlight certain parts. This will help job seekers decide if they meet the job criteria. 

Use visual hierarchy in your poster. 

Use different font styles and sizes to reflect the hierarchical importance of the different messages within the poster.

At first glance, the reader’s attention should be captivated by the vacancy title, followed by the company name and other details such as the deadline, how to apply, etc. Lastly, the poster should provide details about the job description. 

Choose an Appropriate Template

You don’t have to be a design expert to create a stunning hiring poster. do You don’t actually need to hire expensive graphic designers to get the job done. All you need to know is how to work smart.

Instead of designing from scratch, use online platforms that can do the work for you. One platform that is a one-stop solution for all your marketing and design requirements is PosterMyWall.

It can help you with every aspect of your hiring process or any other marketing need from content creation to distribution. 

Customize their professionally designed “now hiring” flyer templates to promote your vacancies effectively.

A good hiring template should highlight the title, have a text box to sell the position and a space to list the qualifications necessary for the job.

When looking for talented employees to fill a position, remember that selling the vacancy to them is very crucial. This includes attracting those with the right abilities and skills for your company.

Keep this in consideration when selecting a template to work with. Is it persuasive enough? Is it speaking to your ideal candidates?

Another part of selecting the right template is selecting an attractive color palette. Many people would not bother to look carefully at a poster if it is not captivating enough.

The background and text colors should be in harmony to increase visibility. It is ideal to incorporate the company colors in the design as well to give a branded look to your poster.

Tell Them How to Apply

You can choose how the candidates hear about the vacancy and how they respond to it. Today, online job applications make things simpler for employers when they are filtering through the talented candidates. 

Creating an opening on LinkedIn and similar professional and job listing sites can allow candidates to apply directly through the sites. You can also bypass the recruitment hassle and hire recruitment agencies to do the job for you.

Or you can advertise the vacancy in business and industry-specific magazines with the relevant contact details. A website or email address for completing online applications should be displayed clearly and prominently on the posting. 

Start The Hunt

Finding the right talent for your vacant position is not an easy task. You might have to hit the trial and error method before you find the perfect match for your company.

But you can definitely tilt the odds in your favor by making sure your vacancy reaches the right people at the right time in the right manner. No need to fret!

Simply follow through the guidelines we have mentioned in this post and you’ll have the perfect hiring poster to attract the perfect candidate in minutes.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/hiring/3-easy-steps-to-hiring-the-right-people-for-your-business/

Online Marketing for Medical Clinics 101

Technological advancement develops in step with the healthcare industry. The evolution of medicine depends on technology to deliver new treatment strategies, improved machines, and facilities. Technological development opens new marketing doors for clinics, as well. 

Online marketing attracts clients to every business. Clinics, private or state-sponsored, rely more and more on the cyber advertisement to grow as a business. But how exactly should the health industry approach online marketing?

Showcase the Medical Staff

With marketing, every business aims to showcase their skills. The primal assets of every clinic are its doctors. The webpage should include an introduction section of every doctor working at the clinic. Some patients establish relationships with the personnel, and not with the clinic itself.

A Blog

Health information is one of the most searched terms on Google and other search engines. A who could provide legitimate information, if not the clinic itself. 

A blog section increases web traffic, which in turn increases the visibility of the web page. It raises brand awareness, as well. With blogs, clinics can create a mailing list and keep in touch with former patients. A satisfied client is eager to recommend services that helped them. 

Local Search

Clinics have the advantage of knowing their patients. Their location, to be more precise. The chances are that most patients are locals. For that reason, clinics don’t have to worry about reaching the global audience when marketing themselves on the web. 

Most patients search with general terms such as “Houston dentist” or “Kentucky after-hours clinic.” The web profile of a health care institution must contain an address with a map of where the office is located. Having one increases the chances of patients visiting that particular clinic. 

Easy to Navigate 

Each visitor clicked on the link for a reason. Navigation through the website should be easy. An ideal site has a bot programmed that could help patients to find what they are looking for. Each tab in the ribbon should also contain info that people are searching for. A dentist’s website should include a tab for available services, an about tab, and a testimony page.

Online Advertising Done Right

Businesses rely on the internet to reach new clients and maintain with touch with previous ones. Clinics should utilize the potential of the digital world if they want to satisfy the wishes of their patients. 

A good web page provides a satisfying user experience. If visitors have a hard time navigating through a clinic’s site, they’ll leave with more questions than answers. A great way of answering their questions is via a blog section.

Clinics should focus on appearing on top spots of local search results. After all, most patients live in the same city. Social media is a great platform to engage with people without increasing the workload of doctors. Finally, every clinic web page should contain profiles of the doctors who work there.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/small-business-marketing/online-marketing-for-medical-clinics-101/

Due Diligence Before Buying a Small Business

Due diligence is something that can happen in the corporate world, but also if you’re considering buying or selling a small business. Sometimes a bigger company will buy a small business to expand, or you might be an investor.

Conducting thorough due diligence is essential, regardless of the specifics of your situation. The following are some of the primary things to know about due diligence, particularly when it involves a small business.

What Is Due Diligence?

If you’ve never gone through the process of due diligence before, on either the buying or selling end, it can be overwhelming, and you’ll likely need input from third-party experts or consultants.

If you have an interest in buying a business, you conduct due diligence to verify it is as it seems to be and that it will really make sense for you to buy it.

You have to take into account the fact that due diligence can be a lengthy process. Along with looking at financial statements and business records, you may also be contact references and other people who are involved or could provide you with relevant information.

At the start of the process, you’ll sign a confidentiality agreement, which means if you do get help from third parties such as accountants or lawyers, you’ll have to let the owner know and get their approval.

Types of Due Diligence

There are different types of due diligence that can be relevant to the buying or selling of a small business.

The area we think of most frequently is financial due diligence. This involves key financial elements such as any creditors or debtors a business may have, projects, margins, and sales pipelines. Financial due diligence can also encompass an analysis of variable and fixed costs.

Beyond that, taxes are something that needs to be looked at during the due diligence process. As a buyer or seller of a small business, you want to think about the tax liability.

Legal considerations during due diligence can include the following:

• Lines of credit
• Financing
• Limited liability agreements
• Company guarantees

Other legal considerations in due diligence are leases, purchases agreements, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets.

If you are looking at buying a small business, what about the customers? What are the current relationships with customers like, and how do customers buy from the business? Are they loyal? Are there areas where the customer base could be improved or could grow with the right strategy or not?

Specific things to look for with customer-related due diligence includes a comparison of first-time buyers to repeat buyers, peak buying times, and the most popular goods or services. Go through current marketing and see how much is being spent and how marketing campaigns perform.

Finally, among the types of due diligence is employee-related considerations. How dependent is the operation of the business on the owner and the current employees?

What do the existing employee contracts look like?

Market Factors

No matter how much digging you do into the specifics of a business itself before you make a buying decision, you also have to look at broader considerations such as doing a market analysis.

See what industry trends are, what demographics are, and what the future economic outlook might be with particular regard to the business you’re thinking about buying.

Who are the competitors, and where do they excel versus where do gaps exist?

Common Mistakes

If you’re thinking about buying a business, it’s important to learn from common mistakes and avoid them.

One of the biggest mistakes is also one of the most avoidable—don’t buy the wrong kind of business for you. During due diligence, look at what’s beyond the paper and think about you would be a good fit for the business itself. Does it personally hold appeal for you?

You also need to have a grasp of why the business is being sold. Sometimes a business owner may be less than forthcoming about their real reason for selling, and it’s up to you during the due diligence process to figure it out.

Finally, if you see serious red flags or issues within the business, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can come in and fix them. If you buy a business that requires drastic changes and in particular, changes to operations and employees, you are likely going to find that it becomes a financial drain and perhaps one that doesn’t pay for itself.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/due-diligence-before-buying-a-small-business/

5 Digital Marketing Strategies for Remarkable Business Growth

Today in spite of several technological advances, digital marketing still continues to be one of the best-known strategies for growing businesses worldwide. This is because today a person spends an average of about 5 hours on the internet.

Some statistical facts

• It has been seen that advertisements placed on social media platforms are 3 times cheaper and 3 times more effective in targeting the niche audience than print, television or radio.
  
  
• Google statistics are even more mindboggling. As of today, about 2 trillion users post search queries on Google daily. Roughly speaking it translates into about 63,000 search queries placed in a second.
  
  Thus, it can be said without an iota of doubt that it is easier to convert traffic from Google than from any other forms of media advertisements.
  
  
• Email still continues to remain the most popular channel of communication. About 91% of people check their email accounts daily with 41.9% checking it on their smartphones, 39.9% using webmail and 18.2% on their desktops.
  
  In fact, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the revenue generated is $38 which amply justifies capitalizing on digital marketing strategies.
  
  
• Content is considered to be the king of the internet and companies who upload content on a regular basis generally report about 4times more web traffic than those who don’t.

Thus it is very important to adopt a good digital marketing strategy both for small and large businesses so that they are able to bring about positive changes in their bottom lines.

Cultivation of an online presence also enables businesses to establish contact with their customers online.

What is digital marketing?

Any strategy which includes an integrated plan detailing the use of search engine optimization, email marketing, social media and content promotion of business online falls under the purview of digital marketing.

But in order to be able to implement it properly, businesses need to have sufficient knowledge and expertise as well as time to create a winning digital marketing strategy.

6 Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

In order to be able to increase sales, a business needs to increase brand awareness, direct web traffic to its website and facilitate conversions. This can be done by building upon the 5 fundamentals listed below:

• Strong social media presence: The phenomenal growth of social media has made it a key tool for digital marketing. In fact, it is one of the easiest methods wherein one click is able to make businesses reach billions of customers and build an engaged following.
  
  This, in turn, helps to open up a direct conversation with the target audience and also enables the business to understand what the audience wants or is interested in and caters to the same.

One way to gain visibility on social media is to collaborate with influencers and leverage their popularity.

Since it takes a long time to build a dedicated following, collaborating with influencers offers a wonderful way to increase visibility especially for start-ups and new businesses.

But in order to gain the most out of this collaboration, it is always best to find an influencer who already has access to the niche audience the business is interested in targeting.

• Publishing a blog: It is not enough to have a following online. These followers need to be nurtured and uploading blogs relevant to the products, the industry or the business which interests them.
  
  Having a reputation for uploading excellent blogs is a sure way to build the reputation and brand of business online. Also providing viewers with valuable content ensures that they keep coming back, again and again.
  
  
• Search engine optimization or SEO: This is a tool that makes a website visible to those innumerable users who come up with queries on search engines.
  
  With proper optimization techniques in place, SEO is perhaps one of the most effective digital marketing strategies which have a long term effect especially in generating organic and highly targeted web traffic.
  
  There are specialized SEO companies that could help in the optimization of the website with there well-defined search engine optimization process.
  
  
• Creating a lead magnet: This is a free incentive in the form of either an e-book, PDF or a free download which enables businesses to capture their viewers’ contact details along with their emails.
  
  But a lead magnet should be such that it provides enough incentive to the viewers so that they willingly share their personal details. It goes without saying that success is inevitable when a lead magnet targeted at ideal clientele or customers is offered.
  
  
• Email list: As stated earlier the sheer number of people who read emails every day is simply mind-boggling.
  
  This makes email marketing a very important aspect of any digital marketing strategy since it enables the business owner to create a sales funnel in the form of an email list.

As enumerated by the above-mentioned strategies, there is hardly any expense involved in coming up with and implementing a digital marketing strategy.

It’s just a question of coming up with good content which is tailored to suit the needs of the target audience and that enjoys good visibility in the different channels and popular online platforms.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/marketing/5-digital-marketing-strategies-for-remarkable-business-growth/