I'm not a wizard at this, but I've got some very simple systems you can steal and make your own that would probably get you further down the road. As this is the month of Personal Leadership at Owner Media Group, I figure this is a great time to teach you how leaders get their goals finished.
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“Unicorn.” If you read the business press these days, it is a term you simply can’t avoid. The analogy of a mythical creature to describe a very real phenomenon — the startup that has reached a valuation of at least $1 billion.
So what makes or breaks a startup? Why do some succeed magnificently while so many simply fizzle out?
There are many answers to that question, but one key element that unicorns have in common is an effective value proposition. On the flip side, venture capitalist David Skok wrote that one of the reasons startups fail is, “There is not a compelling enough value proposition, or compelling event, to cause the buyer to actually commit to purchasing.”
To help you create an effective value proposition, MECLABS Institute (parent research organization of MarketingExperiments) has created the Value Proposition heuristic. This patented heuristic is a thought tool, meant to help you optimize the factors that increase the force of your value proposition.
One key element that helps create a successful value proposition is the exclusivity of the product or the offer (denoted by “Ex” in the heuristic).
Exclusivity in product and service development
I was listening to the Re/code Decode podcast, and host Kara Swisher asked, “Were you wondering why Buzzfeed hadn’t done this? Or someone else?”
Stop here. Before I get to the interviewee’s response, consider this.
One of the reasons startups fail according to Steve Tobak, who runs Silicon Valley-based Invisor Consulting, is that “competitors with existing solutions don’t give up so easily.” And according to a post-mortem of 135 failed startups by CG Insights, the top reasons for failing were clustered in the category of “Arrogance.”
All pointing to the need to create products with an element of real exclusivity in order to be successful.
So I was glad to hear this response to Kara Swisher’s question from Dev Flaherty, co-founder, The List App — “I did, and I did my homework, and we looked at a bunch of products that tried to do related things. There wasn’t any close parallel though.”
Exclusivity in product and service offers
Fundamentally, you want to be like Dev and create products from the ground up with exclusivity, to help build a strong value proposition.
But you also want to make sure you message that exclusivity through your offers in your marketing and advertising, because marketers often do not have full control over the products they promote. And even when the exclusivity is clearly baked into the product, it is not always clearly communicated to the customer.
For example, in an experiment run by MECLABS Institute with a mailing list company, the optimization team found that many of the claims in the offer were very vague, and did not communicate any aspects of exclusivity.
However, the main point of exclusivity was there. It was just buried in the copy.
The MECLABS research team brought out the exclusivity more clearly to potentials customers in an optimized treatment.
The result — a 201% increase in conversion.
Exclusivity in balance
“Exclusivity is very difficult to achieve in an appealing way. You may be so exclusive that no one else is interested. Most customers want what everyone else wants,” Kylie Hyer, Curriculum Design Manager, MECLABS Institute, said.
Of course, exclusivity isn’t the sole factor that creates a value proposition. As you can see in the above heuristic, exclusivity must be coupled with appeal.
That overlap in customer perception — wanting a product that can only be attained from your company — creates a powerful “only factor” that helps power an effective value proposition.
How to create forceful value propositions with exclusivity
To sum it up, here are a few key ways to leverage the power of exclusivity:
Once you look past the hype and focus on clearly communicating value, you may find exclusivity in a surprising place. My favorite example comes from Denny Hatch, who was sold by the exclusivity communicated in Amar G. Bose’s obituary by Glenn Rifkin in The New York Times.
You can follow Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute, @DanielBurstein.
You might also like
Boost Your Online Ads: Strengthen your value proposition by focusing on your “only factor” (interactive Research Brief)
Value Proposition Development online course [From MECLABS, MarketingExperiments' parent company]
The Marketer as Philosopher book
Solar energy is becoming increasingly popular due to its ability to produce electricity at home with no monthly fee. Strategically located on its property, a solar panel company will ensure that the panel absorbs sunlight and provides power 24 hours a day.
The production of energy from the solar panel can be translated into costs of your electricity bill. If your panel generates 75% of the required electricity, the monthly payment of its electricity will also be reduced.
In the long term, the solar panel will create added value to your home as an asset. If you decide to sell your home, your investment in a solar panel to pick a healthy return.
When looking for a residential solar contractor, look for someone who has extensive experience in the installation of a solar panel and make sure they are licensed and insured. It never hurts to ask if both are accredited by the BBB.
The longer someone has been in business, the more experience they have and other tips and tricks you know. It also tends to be a reflection of good business due to bad company do not stay for long! Probably also they experienced more problems than a person who has been in business for a short time in order to have the knowledge to help avoid these problems.
Feel free to ask questions or ask for references. A good contractor will be happy to provide you with everything you need and take the time to explain all the details and make sure you are comfortable. Learn about financing options and ask if you can show an estimate of energy savings over time. A reliable and qualified contractor offering residential solar financing options include lease with zero down so you can save money on electricity costs immediately.
There are state and federal incentives programs that can be tapped to help finance the cost of your solar panel. Ask what kind of incentives are available in your area, a competent contractor update this information.
Ask about warranties and learn about the best manufacturers – not all solar panels are created equal and are manufacturers. You want to make sure to protect your investment by using a top manufacturer and receives a guarantee not only of the panels, but also the installation and manufacturing.
In case you haven’t heard, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not dead. In fact, SEO is an absolute must for successful content marketing, but gone are the days where the first two words dictate how you execute the third.
Ever since Google dropped its Penguin update in 2012, user experience has become the primary focus of good SEO. Yes. Today’s SEO is about finding the perfect balance between user-centric content and convincing search engine crawlers that your content is supreme.
Now, I’m pretty confident that everything I just said isn’t news to you. However, actually accomplishing that perfect balance may be something you’re still working on. And that’s where I aim to help.
Below are some best practices and tips for optimizing your on-page content for human users and search engines:
Researching and understanding your audience’s needs and intentions will help guide your keyword strategy and content creation so you can provide the best information for your prospective customers—and search engines.
If you were searching for your product or services, what information would you be looking for? What would you search queries contain? What are your pain points? How can this product or service help address those pain points?
While keyword stuffing used to be a common and acceptable practice, that’s no longer the case. Keyword stuffing adds nothing to user experience, and as robots become more advanced, your risk of being penalized for following such practices increases.
All of the items below are essential parts of on-page SEO basics. The content for each should be unique and incorporate the keywords appropriately.
If you drive users to your content with one promise, and then don’t deliver when they reach the content, you’re creating a very bad user experience. Any text—keywords or otherwise—included in the title, meta, H1, image alt tag or URL should accurately describe what a user will find when they land on your page.
Crosslinking your content to other pages on your site is an absolute must. Not only does it add relevance to pages, it also keeps people moving through your website and can send traffic to your priority pages. (Tip: Make sure your crosslinking strategy matches where you are in the sales cycle. This will ensure you’re moving people along the sales funnel in the right way.)
There is no denying that we are in an age of information overload. To combat content fatigue for your users, it’s essential to give them content that is easy to digest. A few ways to create ease of use for your audience include:
If you’re sticking with all the other guidelines above, this shouldn’t be a problem. Keywords and keyword variations will naturally occur throughout the body text, the content will be visually appealing and easy to read, links will help guide users to other areas of your site and search bots will be able to easily crawl the page.
What it all comes down to—as TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden would say—is ”Being the best answer.” Your content should provide the best possible information to your audience. And having that content optimized to today’s SEO standards will allow search engines to deliver those pages to your audience.
What are your biggest challenges for creating content that’s full of SEO, but also great for users? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Did you like this article? Then you may also enjoy “5 SEO Considerations to Win with Both Customers and Search Engines.”
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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | 7 Ways to Optimize Your Web Content for Humans & Search Engines | http://www.toprankblog.com
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A solar panel is an assembly of components packaged group consisting of solar cells for generating energy and electricity using energy soles. On the surface of the board is a grid like pattern formed by these cells collect sunlight during the day and convert it into energy. Solar energy is already used to heat things such as swimming pools and solar hot water panels to the use of hot water. Also the photovoltaic solar panels to provide electricity, which is very effective way for the use of small appliances, why not use it to heat your home?
Some owners tend to shy away from it because of the initial cost, but the impact this way, it is well worth the reward. Although there is still room for improvement, given the number of panels would be needed for use in a home or business, but there is great potential here, and further research is done all the time, it is much more cost and energy efficiency. The sun gives us this unlimited resource, we must enjoy.
Having solar energy available for your home or business can increase the value of the property, help the environment and even our world all the time reduces or even eliminate your electricity bills. Our country has become dependent on fossil fuels for energy that pollutes the environment and damages the planet. By installing solar panels can convert sunlight to produce clean, renewable form of energy at a fraction of the cost you’d pay over time for fossil fuels contaminated form of energy which is currently over pay at the moment. Solar energy does not harm the environment, so more ideal. Helping the environment helps us all.
In these times, more and more people are looking for homes and businesses with a green theme and are even willing to pay more for a property that uses solar energy, increasing property values. Believed that every £ 1,00.00 sum of annual energy savings of £ 20,000 for the resale value of your home. (Not bad!) There are also tax incentives from the state and the government to do, programs to help pay for the installation, and even discounts that can help cover the cost of your system, all vary depending on the country you live.
One of the greatest needs of the world’s energy and the shortage of it could be devastating. That is why some countries are already using solar panels on every possible home can and should try to follow.
We used to argue whether content was the heavyweight of the marketing, but given all the different contenders at a marketer’s disposal – engagement systems, marketing automation, dynamic personalization, and hundreds more – it’s definitely even more of a contested unification belt. And for today’s look at a recent A/B test, I’d say content is a lot more like Muhammad Ali in The Rumble in the Jungle.
Transactional elements like forms and CTAs are such industry standards, such thorough Don-King-supported title favorites, that they are much more like the undefeated, younger and stronger George Foreman. They’d beaten all the latest greatest contenders. They’re the bookie’s favorites by a 3 to 1 margin. They know how to get it done and land the high-figure purse. There’s an expectation that now’s their time.
But still, at the time, many couldn’t help but root for Ali. After refusing to fight in the Vietnam war, he may have been stripped of his belt, but that would never automatically make him less of a fighter. His speed and agility were phenomenal, especially for his weight class, and went out of his way to get popular support from the crowds in Zaire.
So like the setup in the fight of the century, we put Ali-style content up against the Foreman-like frontrunner, the form. We didn’t change the form at all, but paired them together to see if the explanation would drive a better understanding of the demos we provide.
In the original, you can see that we were aiming to show the reader what they’d get, but it was still pretty focused on us as a company:
In the new version, we reworded all of the copy to focus on the benefits for the user. The headline has the staple action verb directed towards the reader; the next question is posed directly to them.
The results?
Unexpectedly stellar, of course.
As with an A/B testing tool, we could quickly assess with more than 99.6% certainty that the new content performed much, much better. At one point the new copy was performing more than 130% better than the original. By the end of the 3-week test it had dipped a bit, but still held strong at around 61% above the control for the form completion next step.
But this is what I love about Kissmetrics. With the Kissmetrics A/B Test Report, we can see the results all the way to revenue. At more than 99% certainty, we can say that our content test increased sales by 213%. Not a lot of content tests can go into that level of proof.
Time to go put that title weight belt on our content strategist.
About the Author: Maura Ginty is the VP of Marketing at Kissmetrics.
Conventional lighting is fast being swopped out for LED options. One of the main reasons for this move is the huge reduction in electricity bills we can experience by switching to LED. Even if we’re not using solar panels to power up, LED cuts our electricity usage by around 80%. As well as being highly energy efficient, LED downlights are the most eco-friendly and clean way to light up our lives and living spaces.
Ecologically Friendly
As we begin to do more to protect our earth’s natural resources, one of the simplest ways to participate in becoming more eco-friendly is to change our lighting to LED. Since LEDs last as much as 20 times longer than other lighting options, LED downlights don’t need replacing as often. Within the wider framework of manufacturing, packaging and shipping processes, the impact on our environment is greatly reduced. LED are also free of toxic materials and recyclable.
Long Life
One of the top reasons why LED downlights are the better choice is the long life of LED. Since this type of lighting doesn’t burn out or stop working in the same manner that conventional lighting does, LED can be left on for extended hours and will still operate consistently for years. When left on for extended periods, the diodes naturally emit less light, creating further energy savings.
Durable Design
Well designed LED downlights are extremely durable. Manufactured using materials that can withstand vibration, shocks and external impacts, LEDs are widely used indoors as well as in rougher outdoor settings where heavy weather conditions like rain, wind, snow or sleet are found. This type of lighting is well safeguarded against external interference like vandalism and is useful in traffic control situations and public areas, walkways, and large buildings.
LED Downlights and Dimmers
While changing out your conventional lighting for LED downlights, it is possible to change dimmer switches to LED compatible dimmers. It’s important to make this change because the load is far less with LED than with conventional lighting, being around 30W compared to 240W.
Low Ultra Violet Emission
Another major difference between conventional lighting and LED downlights is the fact that LED illuminates without producing high infrared light or UV emissions. This makes LED a superior choice for lighting used to highlight sensitive materials or objects. Products that may be affected by too much heat will thrive under LED. Historic artifacts are safer in galleries where LED is used.
Premium Quality LED downlights
In replacing our conventional light fittings with LED downlights, it is worthwhile seeking out the best quality fittings and LED we can find. This represents higher savings in the longer term as the LEDs will last for several years without losing strength and the premium quality ones offer amazing design flexibility. Of the companies at the leading edge of LED manufacture who specialize in breakthrough LED design.
