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Infographic: Work Email Trends After Hours
How Often Do You Check Your Email? There was a time, not that long ago, when anyone who stayed in the office past 5 o’clock was either working hard to get ahead or keep from falling behind. The idea of “working overtime” was considered unusual. Today, however, email and the Internet mean the definition of “working overtime” is a lot fuzzier. Because it’s possible for many professionals to get work done anywhere and anytime they have an Internet connection, it’s no longer unusual for people to be following up on work at all hours of the day. Many of us not only can receive an email from our bosses at 9 p.m. on a Sunday, but have come to expect it, too. There are no regular business hours on the Internet, which is a big part of why more than 269 billion emails are sent every day — workday or not. Email has weakened the line between “work” and “home,” and there are pros and cons. Email has allowed us to work with more flexibility and get tasks done faster, but it also means many of us are living with the stress of our jobs 24/7. While there are numerous tools and techniques available to professionals to help them manage their email inboxes and decrease the amount of time they have to spend tending to them, email continues to sap a great deal of our attention and energy throughout the course of the workday. As the following infographic illustrates, usage…
SEO vs. PPC. WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?
Just like one of the life’s unanswered questions “Did the egg come first or the chicken?” so is this a perpetual question in the minds of the digital marketers, “Which is more important – SEO or PPC?” It holds great interest for online marketers because it pits two significant sets of traffic strategies against each other. Both have instrumental roles to play in the promotion of a business and a website. SEO and PPC – AN OVERVIEW Both of these strategies affect the boosting of your business as well as your brand visibility. Therefore having a clear idea about these strategies is essential. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is about acquiring a higher rank or a higher organic search result on targeted keywords on the most essential and important search engines. PPC (Pay Per Click), on the other hand, is about paying for an advertising space which is targeted on specific and most searched keywords on the search results page. Both are essential methods of acquiring traffic for the website. I know it is as difficult as separating two peas in a pod. But to determine the importance of each, we need to analyze them at first. SEO – ITS PROS AND CONS The pros of organic search results are plenty. It is undoubtedly very difficult to get ranked based only on organic searches. However, it showcases the premium quality of a website if it ranks high in organic searches. Let’s discuss the pros of organic search: Brand Visibility – Organic…
5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes That Are Killing Your Open Rates
As a marketer, you’ll be fully aware that email marketing is a strong now as it ever has been before. Sure, the techniques have changed, and the methods may be different, more so, half the tasks we spent all day doing are now automated, but the marketing technique is still as effective as it always has been, if not more. However, many marketers are falling into the trap of making some crucial mistakes when it comes to this essential strategy. What makes it worse is that it’s harming these company’s open rates, costing them leads and, therefore, business. Today, we’ll explore five of these common mistakes so you can avoid making the same errors. Not Thinking of Personalisation In the industry, this is more commonly known as email segmentation. A good email for a 20-year-old male is not going have the same interest of a 50-year-old female. Likewise, a customer in the UK won’t have the same interests as a customer in the U.S. Emails needs to be personalised depending on their recipient. The best way to achieve this is by using automated software and the analytical data that your business has access to. This way, you can create separate mailing lists for different demographics. For example, you can divide your users by age, location, gender, customers who have items pending in your shopping basket, regular customers and language. This may sound time-consuming, but with email marketing software, it’s simply a case of organising everyone, and you’re done. Then you…
7 Tips to Improve Automated Email Marketing Workflows
Email marketing is an effective strategy for growing and developing your business. In order to have a successful business you need to be able to connect effectively with potential customers in order to persuade them to purchase your product or service. Once you’ve built up your mailing list you should take time to make it as efficient as possible with email marketing automation. Instead of being lost with countless email exchanges you should build a structure to follow each time and simply create an automated email flow that will do the work for you. Here you can find tips to help you create an efficient automated email marketing workflow: 1. Set Your Goals The first step when planning out a workflow is to determine your goals. What do you want to accomplish with these emails? There is no purpose in creating a workflow if you don’t know what is your goal. Your goals can be variable – sales, customer engagement, building trust, and more. 2. Plan After you have set your goals you need to decide and plan how you are going to get to that goal. You should think that you want to bring your users from awareness to action. Make sure that while mapping out and planning your workflows you take into account all possible contingencies. Create a written plan and take advantage of tools such as Boomessays to edit it. 3. Know Your Customers It’s important to understand the sales process from your customer’s point of view. Learn to…
How to best eliminate stress at work
Work-related stress is a major issue for many in today’s society—often spilling over into everyday life. An epidemic in itself—if weed is a gateway drug—work stress is a gateway for anxiety disorders and depression. With such high stakes, stress at work should never be ignored. Ridiculous demands, bullying, perfectionism, and immense pressure from parents, peers, employers, and the individual themselves all contribute to this vicious cycle. On top of that, an education system that focuses on conformity—and rewarding only those with high grades—sends children out into the world ill-equipped to deal with their emotions. The so-called path to “success” has been laid out long before we were born with little deviation in spite of the tech explosion and a massive cultural shift which leaves many people asking questions they can’t seem to answer. This path to success—it would appear—focuses solely on money. And while we know that money doesn’t buy happiness, the narrative remains strong and fears of breaking from tradition ensure most remain trapped. Our strong desire for success and happiness, along with a distorted view of what that is, paradoxically, carries with it high levels of stress which often ensure financial freedom or happiness is never achieved. Unfortunately, most career decisions are made for others. If your work causes you more stress than joy, you’re not doing it for you: You’re doing it to impress others, make peers jealous or parents proud. And that mindset will get you in a lot of trouble. Chronic stress at work is…
7 Tips On How To Reduce Stress
Hold your arm out straight for a minute while holding a book, and it won’t cause you too much distress. However, if you keep that arm held out for days, months, or even years, that distress will very quickly turn into pain, and that pain will soon become unbearable. According to the WHO, the number of people suffering from depression and/or anxiety has increased by nearly 50% between 1990 and 2013. That’s stress on steroids. As a means of management, most strive to endure it as if it’s just part of the transaction for life. The consequences of not addressing stress are nothing short of catastrophic—anxiety, depression, panic attacks, an endless list of life threatening diseases, and yes, suicide—can all stem from chronic stress. A pretty high price to pay I think you’ll agree. You can always fold the cards your playing for a better hand. And if you are dealing with chronic stress, that’s exactly what you should do because life is far too short not to be lived. Regardless of how severe, everybody can benefit from better managing stress. Here are seven tips on how to reduce stress in your life today: 1. Meditate There is too much research on the benefits of mediation to be ignored. If you think it’s some hippy-dippy practice reserved only for the ‘spiritual enlightened,’ think again. When 50 Cent’s not wearing his bulletproof vest—he meditates. Meditation is not about emptying your mind. It’s about peace of mind. All you’re doing is focussing…
How To Organize Your Day At Work
The digital age has brought stress, overwhelm, and mind-clutter to extravagant heights with 70% of U.S. employees—and 96% of senior leaders—saying they feel burned out. The pressure most put on themselves to perform consistently at high levels, paradoxically, creates more chaos in an already chaotic world which spills into day-to-day life unless managed carefully. By implementing a few proven strategies to better organize your day at work—you will see your productivity, creativity, and efficiency shoot up—with any associated stress from an overly-stimulated mind ease off while providing you with better mental clarity and feeling of content. Here are five simple tips to better organize your workday 1. Write Take 5-10 minutes at the end of your workday to write in a journal and evaluate the day. There is so much going on in our heads that it’s almost impossible to process and gather thoughts without some form of outlet. At the end of the workday, most want to run for the hills—and by doing so—bring their work and associated stresses home with them. A study by UCLA psychologists revealed that by verbalizing your feelings—whether you speak to someone or write them down—will help ensure any associated negative emotions are much less intense. So, instead of bringing any anger or stress home with you, leave it behind in your notepad. On top of that, by writing down specific challenges you’re facing, your subconscious mind will get to work on coming up with corrective solutions while you sleep at night so you…
3 myths about internet and cyber-security
In this modern day anyone is able to pick up a laptop and throw a couple of hundred words onto a web page about any topic whatsoever; so how can we tell whether the article you’re reading is factual and relevant? The Internet is crawling with poor quality content that’s there solely to give the author a presence on the internet (which is why we’re told a thousand different things when we’re looking for one simple answer on Google). This issue is all too relevant when it comes to technology, it seems like everyone is a ‘tech blogger’ or ‘cyber security expert’ these days. Conflicting content goes hand in hand with technology, internet and cyber security. Everywhere we look we’re given different tips on how to keep your business safe online, very few of which are relevant or trust-worthy. Malware, ransomware, DDOS attacks, phishing and identity theft are all on the rise as the Internet of Things (IoT) and M2M communications (M2M) is becoming more popular. This paired with the fact that it’s harder than ever to decide which content to trust has caused many myths arise. That being said, there are articles out there that address the importance of online security, but we don’t even feel safe enough to follow their steps. We’re stuck in an ongoing battle of sifting through trustworthy and irrelevant sources. So ignore the clickbait, obvious exaggeration and content-churners; we’ve debunked 3 of the most common myths when it comes to internet security so you don’t have…
Customer Service: Your Lead Generating Secret Weapon
Lead generation has become the primary concern of establishments of all sizes. The market that is becoming increasingly saturated each day and where the competition gets really hard, attracting consumers interest to your business’s products or/and services is not as easy as it used to be. Branding strategy, consistency in communication with prospects and digital marketing strategies are some of the most powerful means of lead generation. Today, companies are heavily relying on the Internet to convert prospect and push them to enter the sales funnel. Marketing strategists are using landing pages, blogs, forums, paid ads on social media. But no matter how many leads are generated by marketing, approximately 20% of those leads actually convert into customers. Is there something more that can be done? The answer lays in forming a deeper relationship with the prospects. In order to achieve this, you will have to excel in your customer service. Lead Generation via Comments on Blogs You may already know that a blog is an important aspect of any website. Useful and up-to-date content attracts more visitors and in the end, it increases website traffic, time spent on page and the website’s rank in search results. However, there is also one more thing you can use your blog for – invite readers to ask or recommend something in the comment section after each article. It might seem like an “out of your comfort zone” task for customer support agents to be active on a blog, but it really isn’t…
How to Best Combine Email with Messaging Apps like Slack
Email has been here for over 50 years, and the question remains: What’s the next evolution for email? In this digital age, mobile apps are all the rage, especially when it comes to messaging and task management. Yet, most companies rely on email for their first choice corporate communication method. Also, private email users are convinced despite all their aversions towards email – Email won’t die. That’s why I am going to look at how to best combine messaging apps (Slack example) and email. Why using messaging apps such as Slack? Nowadays, most corporate teams prefer Slack for collaborative communication, especially in projects. In fact, The Verge and New York Times touted Slack as the ultimate email killer. 2.3 Million people are using Slack every day to be exact. It allows channel members to communicate more quickly, share documents, and has dozens of amazing bots to automate a score of things that email just can’t. For example, Slack gives a super option of sharing code through snippets – my personal favourite. Although it can cut down on email between team members, Slack cannot completely replace it. Email won’t die Forbes writer Maureen Henderson (@GenerationMeh) hit the nail on the head: “Email is your brain’s cloud storage, easily divided into folders. Need a link your boss sent you last week? Search your inbox. Have to double check your flight time out of Newark? Pull up that confirmation email from Delta.” The recent report by Radicati group supports that statement. It shows…