We live in a competitive environment where the business is fueled by technology 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and because of this, we need to be flexible. The days where you could create business plans a year ahead of time and expect to be able to stick to them with nothing changing are long gone. While planning is a necessity to succeed in business, particularly for long-term vision, short-term activity and flexibility are just as important. You need to be able to move when needed and respond quickly to changes in the market.
Now that we have so much business data, there is an endless supply of information available regarding our customers, our competitors, and our business results. While this is so useful, and we have more insight than ever before, the minute you make an important decision, it’s highly likely that new data will come along and completely change your direction. Rather than seeing this as a bad thing, it’s important to see how great it is because it allows you to correct the course that your business is going and make sure that by changing strategy and adapting to new results that you get the desired results that you forecasted. This is a good thing and something to be embraced, so look at new data as a mountain of information and an endless stream of insight that will allow you to flexibly change your plan to ensure success.
Embracing these new customers from new generations who have been born with the internet and mobile phones as the norm in their lives means that you need to give them what they want and that requires flexibility in how we communicate with them. You need to be able to move flexibly with your audience and growing customer base to introduce them to your brand but on their terms, rather than how you think it should be.
Technology has also meant that there has been a huge shift in the traditional business model; just look at the number of brick-and-mortar stores which are closing each week. The way we do business has dramatically changed, so if your business isn’t flexible enough to keep up with the changing times, then it will get left behind. You need to be flexible enough to shift your business model as you need to, and you can do this by using your customers and their needs as your guide. As things change, you have to get used to the fact that your old habits probably won’t work anymore, so it’s important to change them in order to create new ways of driving your business forward. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, as a change in the business model just means a new opportunity for growth. To succeed in business, it is more important to be flexible right now than it ever has been and what this means is that you may just have to make newer and bigger decisions on a daily basis to keep your business fresh and up to date as you gather new information. It might seem like a lot of hard work, but at least it makes things interesting, and if you get used to this way of working then you will easily attract new customers, and find it easier each time you need to refresh your business model for continued success.
Flexibility in the way businesses operate can take many forms, but adaptability and agility are increasingly becoming key attributes in competitive enterprise scenarios. There is a real need for flexibility at a strategic level, both in terms of the way in which businesses operate and from the perspective of individual employees. Here’s a look at some of the essential ways in which businesses can look to make their operations and their workforces more flexible:
Remote working
Through technological advancements, remote working has been made increasingly possible over the past decade or so, and it’s now an accepted part of the way many organizations operate. Different roles bring particular demands on individuals, but virtually all businesses stand to benefit from giving members of their workforce the chance to function as normal from almost anywhere.
Deploying new solutions
Equipping staff with the smartphones, tablets, and laptops they need to operate seamlessly on the move or wherever they might be is vitally important in the context of enterprises becoming flexible. But new software solutions and cloud-based business applications can be crucial too in giving businesses the best chance to be flexible and more efficient in a variety of valuable ways. There are also more physical ways to ensure flexibility, for example, if your business manages a fleet of vehicles then look at getting a Watchcard which allows you the convenience and flexibility to fuel anywhere in the U.S. with the control and security to monitor and limit purchases, track suspicious activity, and access fuel data about your fleet. This flexibility means you can manage your fleet effectively while saving time and money and gives you the power to drive your business forward and save.
Flexible hours
The advance of communications technologies of different sorts has opened up the prospect for employees of working from home and in patterns that suit their individual needs. Businesses that embrace flexible working are seeing benefits in terms of employee morale and staff retention but also from the perspective of meeting customer needs. Companies of all sizes increasingly need to be operational around the clock and having resources’ out of hours’ has become an integral part of how service providers deliver what their customers want without disruption.
Cash Flow Options
As we all know, cash flow is the lifeblood of businesses big or small and ensuring financial flexibility can be the difference between a company remaining operational and biting the dust. For small to medium-sized operators, in particular, financial margins can be tight and unforgiving. So, being aware of, and having in place, a number of emergency financing options can often be essential in keeping companies afloat during times of acute pressure on cash flows and income streams.
Be Flexible With Flexibility
While many think of being flexible in business as offering flexible hours and working from home, there is actually a lot more to making a business a flexible one. Have a look at where you can make differences to your employees, for example; you could introduce secondments, career breaks, and volunteering opportunities. All of these opportunities will make you a far more attractive employer for the new generation of employees to work for. You have to be flexible in adapting to what prospective employees are now looking for in the workplace and take these needs and wants into account. If you are good to your employees then, in turn, people will be loyal to you as an employer. If you can be understanding that your employees need breaks; they might want to explore, volunteer and travel and shouldn’t have to lose a job they love and are good at just because of having interesting outside of work. If you are the employee then again, speak out and tell your employer what it is you want, they either want to lose you, or they don’t, but any career break or secondment will only be good for your career and experience so they’d be silly not to offer you the chance to come back.
Flexibility is something of a buzzword in business at present, but it isn’t necessarily worth pursuing its own sake. What flexibility really means and why it’s important is that it makes businesses more robust, more adaptable, more competitive, and better prepared for whatever opportunities and challenges the future might bring.
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Digital marketing is slowly, but surely growing from a “nice to have” to a necessity. With so many audiences, especially the younger ones, moving away from linear television, barely touching newspapers or magazines and with their heads down into their phones even out on the streets, it seems that the only sensible place advertisers can find their audiences now is in the online space. This is driving advertisers to adapt and form digital media strategies, but media practices from the offline world don’t translate well to the online world.
Out with the Old
Where you used to define personas and find the right publication or TV programme that fit your audience, it seems that these rules don’t apply to the online world. Your audience is out there on multiple places, consuming different media, sometimes even at the same time, with each moment of interaction you have just a small window of opportunity, sometimes even barely a second. To be successful in advertising in the online marketing space, you will need to connect all the dots and deal with the complexity (and maybe even ambiguity) of the online marketing world. Moreover, that’s asking for quite a bit, which most likely can’t be found in one person or advertising agency.
No Buyers, Only Specialists Here
The problem is the balance between the complexity of online marketing disciplines and the way the market moves on. Where you used to be dealing with media buyers (people who would take care of booking media buys, placing the advert, handle the back and forth between the publisher and the creative agency), you now must deal with channel specialists. These people are professionals in their field but usually are not trained to guide a client through connecting all the dots. Even channels that seemingly should be close to each other are, under further inspection, fundamentally different. Advertisers who have been dealing with digital agencies will mostly agree not to expect agencies to be able to provide a consistent overall media view, as you would have had with offline media agencies. The most practical way as an advertiser to take care of your digital marketing mix is to take the reins themselves. That doesn’t mean to do it yourself (although in-housing seems to be a trend of late) but to start speaking the same language as the digital marketers.
Measure Everything
This also means understanding and challenged its most hailed aspects of digital marketing, which inadvertently is also its downfall, the ability to measure everything. Traditional media would have panel data to provide some insight into what the effect the media buy would have had (by proxy), online media comes with the promise to be able to measure everything. In digital speak, we call this tracking, which relies on “pixels being fired” and “cookies.” Essentially this means that advertisers (and publishers that help the advertisers) try to provide the most complete of the consumer based on data they might have volunteered and data that can be inferred. Pixels and cookies provide a bread crumb trail to piece this all together. Apart from the ethical and privacy issues at play here, this sounds to most advertisers as the holy grail, to be able to pay for only those audiences and people that fit your audience perfectly.
Post-view
However, that attention to measuring everything can turn into an obsession. Take display and video ad formats, for example. On pretty much every publisher, these are ad formats that are offered up widely. Videos have taken a flight by being offered in-stream, which basically means its tacked in upfront or in the middle of a video that someone is trying to watch. You can have a skippable or un-skippable variant, and most publishers offer a cost-per-view model based on percentage or minimal seconds watched.
In most cases, the video is an unwanted interruption of someone’s flow, which in turn leads to very few people engaging with the advert and ending up on the advertiser’s website. Display ads have the same problem, although in a lesser extent (but just barely). The display banners show up as a distraction when someone is doing something else and might not be in the mindset to engage with an advertiser. Both video and display ads will usually have a lot of impressions (the advert was shown) but not many interactions. To still proof value, the industry has come up with a metric called view-through conversions. This essentially measures if a conversion has taken place after someone has viewed the ad, usually within a specific timeframe.
Last click wins
On the other side of display and video ads, you have many pay-per-click possibilities. One of the key ones here is paid search ads. It’s dominant in such a way that most people refer to paid search ads as PPC ads, although the concept of PPC refers to the method of publisher payment (for example display ads can be on a CPC model). This is, for most advertisers, the absolute darling of digital marketing. PPC in 99% of all cases all the way down in the marketing funnel, i.e., likely the last interaction before a consumer makes a purchase.
Even more so, those display and video adverts could very well have been earlier in the process and led to a PPC click. Paid search ads are usually measured on the last click wins method, which is standard across most advertisers. The last click wins will not add up with a post-view conversion, attributing all value to PPC and making a post-view conversion meaningless. Therefore, especially when marketing budgets are getting the squeeze, display, and video ads lose out.
The Mantra for Advertisers
The risk you run of this principle is that all the attention is going to PPC and none is given to display and video. In other words, all the attention goes to the bottom of the funnel and none to filling up the funnel. Advertisers who do this find themselves with diminishing returns over time and a drying up supply of new users to the website. The savvy advertiser understands the value of harvesting the low hanging fruit but always ensures that consumers keep coming through the funnel, by smartly filling it up from the top.
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Hiring the wrong person can be a costly mistake and leave you feeling frustrated that you have no one to complete the work that needs to be done. Therefore, it’s extremely important that if you want your organization to succeed, that you hire the right person for the job each and every time.
There are steps you can take to help ensure you achieve this goal and aren’t wasting your time or anyone else’s. Remember that it’s never a bad idea to reach out to current employees when you’re on the hunt to fill positions to see if they have any suggestions before you go out looking elsewhere.
Work with A Specialist
There are companies such as Devonshire recruitment whose job and desire it is to help you fill positions at your workplace. They have a pool of candidates who are prepared to speak with you and will be a good fit right from the start. You can make sure you hire the right person for the job by being specific and transparent with your job description, and only bringing people in for interviews who align with your objectives and specific position requirements.
Invite Candidates to Take Psychometric Tests
There are dozens of psychometric tests such as The PI Behavioral Assessment Test, which help employers to filter out the best candidates for the benefit of their business.
These kinds of tests measure a candidate’s skill level in relation to problem-solving, ability to do the work, behavioral traits, and patterns and etc.
Contact References
It’s good practice to ask for several references from candidates on your final job application. Not only should you look to see who they are, but you should also take the extra step and time to contact them. You can learn a lot about an individual by how they’ve previously performed and what their strengths and weaknesses have been in the past. Ask the right questions and encourage the other person to be as candid and open as possible in their responses.
Hold Multiple Interviews
One interview isn’t going to give you enough time to figure out if the person you’re speaking with is right for the job. Therefore, it’s important to hold multiple interviews and in many different forms before hiring someone. For instance:
On the phone
Face-to-face
Interviews held by different leadership members
Interviews held by different department heads
Verbal and written tests
These are a few ways for how you can mix up the interview process and evaluate a candidate on their various skills and abilities to make sure they’re a good fit at your workplace. It’ll be helpful to get feedback from other people at your company as well to hear what they have to say about a potential candidate so you can compare notes.
Take Your Time
What’s going to help you out the most in your search to find the right candidate for the job is to go slow and take your time. Rushing through the interview process and failing to write a detailed job description is only going to hurt you and your company in the long run. Instead, take advantage of these suggestions for how you can make sure you’re hiring the right person for the job, and this way, they should also be more likely to stick around for the long-term.
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More and more businesses are utilising managed IT services to assist with their tech infrastructure. But is this the right move for your business?
Big IT problems have huge financial repercussions and can waste a lot of time and resources if not dealt with quickly and efficiently. Out-of-date or badly maintained technology is more likely to fail, and it can be difficult for a small IT team to keep on top of the latest trends.
But managed IT service companies make it their priority to stay on top of the most cost-effective and efficient tech to fit your needs, and to keep the operation running as smoothly as possible.
So if you haven’t considered switching to managed IT services, here are a few reasons why it might be time to give it a little thought.
Slow computers, lost files, poor security – these are commonly occurring inconveniences that arise from a poorly managed IT service. And every second that your system is down, your employees aren’t working and your business is not operating at its full capacity.
More than this, a small in-house IT team can struggle to keep up with the needs of a larger company. And whilst they are dealing with everyday issues, they can’t focus on big-picture strategies which could really make a difference to your business.
Managed IT services focus on the everyday maintenance of these issues to limit the costs of small inconveniences, and avoid big disasters. This improves the reliability and efficiency of IT operations in a way which will inevitably save you money.
It will also free up your IT talent to focus on more important tech strategies, the wider benefits of which we’ll come back to in a moment!
Keeping Up With Tech
Technology is evolving faster than ever before. The ways we communicate, the ways information is analysed, shared, and protected – if you’re not in the loop you can get left behind and struggle to catch up.
And whilst your small in-house IT team are wasting time recovering lost passwords, locating lost files, and trying to work out why the system has frozen, they aren’t keeping on top of the latest technology or concentrating on how to integrate it into your business.
But one of the biggest advantages of managed IT services is that they are always on the cutting-edge of business technology, they know what will work for your system, and can implement upgrades quickly and efficiently.
Security
How much of your critical data is stored on tech devices? Computers, tablets, smartphones, servers? Do you live in constant fear of a security breach?
So if you’re not up-to-date on the latest security risks, making sure your staff are informed, and constantly updating software, you could be more vulnerable than you think.
But managed IT services conduct research with multiple companies, and make it their business to keep track of security issues and their solutions. They will dedicate the time and effort needed to maintain these security protections so that you don’t have to worry.
They will also have a full grasp of compliance standards to minimize the risk of related to client data, credit card numbers and sensitive information.
In the same way you wouldn’t waste a Michelin star chef by asking them to wash dishes, you don’t want your most creative and innovative IT talent taking the elevator three floors to restart a frozen laptop.
If your in-house team are forever wrapped up in small technical issues that aren’t necessarily their specialism, they are not excelling in what they’re best at. And these smaller issues are unlikely ever to find a permanent solution if the inhouse team are too thinly stretched to focus on big-picture tech development strategies.
Outsourcing the maintenance of your IT service to a company who specialises in the small details will give your inhouse team the freedom to elevate the whole operation.
So there we have it. There are just a few of the benefits of outsourcing IT maintenance to a specialist company, and freeing up your in-house tech team!
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A healthy diet doesn’t need to be expensive and taste bland.
Since I launched Fresh n’ Lean in 2010, I’ve been committed to breaking those stereotypes while getting affordable, pre-made organic meals to as many people as possible.
Those who need healthy meals the most, whether for medical issues or convenience, are too often left with heavily processed and unhealthy food choices. More than 50 million Americans live in food deserts, areas without access to high-quality or affordable fresh food, according to USDA research. But better knowledge about healthy eating has sparked national discourse about what we put into our bodies, and evolving consumer habits are making people less beholden to insufficient local food options.
Four principles have helped me lead my company forward: family, discipline, humility and vision.
My mission began with family in mind.
My father was facing life-threatening health issues — we didn’t know if he would be around in six months or a year. He made drastic changes to his diet and lifestyle, and his health rebounded. Seeing his success was proof that it could work for others, and that there was a greater need for fresh, healthy food options.
Discipline fueled the company’s growth.
I started Fresh n’ Lean when I was 18 years old. While my friends were out partying, I was waking up at 4 a.m. and working 16, 17, 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
That discipline carried over to the company’s financial wellbeing, where we sustained steady growth without relying on outside capital. We’ve always run a pretty lean operation, in part because we didn’t have a lot of excess funds to fuel unrestrained expansion. We had to be thoughtful in how to approach growth opportunities, because one mistake or one wrong decision could derail the whole company.
A dream since Day 1 was building our own kitchen and manufacturing area, a custom space to fit our needs. It wasn’t feasible during our early years, but in time it became a necessity. I never dealt with such a big construction project before, and it was a huge learning experience — I worked with contractors, city officials and architects throughout the permit process. There were setbacks, but we had to keep powering forward. Failure wasn’t an option.
Humility means respect for everyone’s role and impact.
I’ve worked every job the employees work, so I understand where they’re coming from and recognize the obstacles they face. I used to wash dishes and pack boxes. I’d go into the warehouse and pack boxes tomorrow if needed. We’re each a piece in a puzzle that fit together to reveal the mission and character of this company.
My vision for the future
As horrible and disappointing as it is that millions of people don’t have regular access to healthy food, I’m encouraged that our society is paying more attention to what we eat and that the rise of direct-to-consumer shipping provides additional options for people living in food deserts.
Ultimately, we want everyone in the United States to have access to a fresh organic meal within five miles of where they are. While direct-to-consumer is a big part of our business, we’re also looking to increase our offerings in grocery and retail on-the-go stores and getting our vending machines a wider release. We’ve targeted corporate wellness programs with the vending machines, but we plan to take a more mainstream approach in the coming years.
Convenience is a key to continued growth. A healthy diet doesn’t need to be expensive and taste bland — and it should be within reach no matter where you live.
About the Author
Laureen Asseo is only 27-years-old, yet she has become a pioneer in leading the nation’s organic food craze. She’s the CEO and founder of LA-based Fresh n’ Lean, the largest nationwide organic meal delivery service in the country. It’s her mission to make eating organic easy, affordable and accessible – reclaiming the phrase “fast food”. She was inspired by her father’s ailing health due to his eating habits, and started the company from her one bedroom apartment.
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Business Programs
Finding More Flexibility For Your Business
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenWe live in a competitive environment where the business is fueled by technology 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and because of this, we need to be flexible. The days where you could create business plans a year ahead of time and expect to be able to stick to them with nothing changing are long gone. While planning is a necessity to succeed in business, particularly for long-term vision, short-term activity and flexibility are just as important. You need to be able to move when needed and respond quickly to changes in the market.
Now that we have so much business data, there is an endless supply of information available regarding our customers, our competitors, and our business results. While this is so useful, and we have more insight than ever before, the minute you make an important decision, it’s highly likely that new data will come along and completely change your direction. Rather than seeing this as a bad thing, it’s important to see how great it is because it allows you to correct the course that your business is going and make sure that by changing strategy and adapting to new results that you get the desired results that you forecasted. This is a good thing and something to be embraced, so look at new data as a mountain of information and an endless stream of insight that will allow you to flexibly change your plan to ensure success.
Embracing these new customers from new generations who have been born with the internet and mobile phones as the norm in their lives means that you need to give them what they want and that requires flexibility in how we communicate with them. You need to be able to move flexibly with your audience and growing customer base to introduce them to your brand but on their terms, rather than how you think it should be.
Technology has also meant that there has been a huge shift in the traditional business model; just look at the number of brick-and-mortar stores which are closing each week. The way we do business has dramatically changed, so if your business isn’t flexible enough to keep up with the changing times, then it will get left behind. You need to be flexible enough to shift your business model as you need to, and you can do this by using your customers and their needs as your guide. As things change, you have to get used to the fact that your old habits probably won’t work anymore, so it’s important to change them in order to create new ways of driving your business forward. Again, this isn’t a bad thing, as a change in the business model just means a new opportunity for growth. To succeed in business, it is more important to be flexible right now than it ever has been and what this means is that you may just have to make newer and bigger decisions on a daily basis to keep your business fresh and up to date as you gather new information. It might seem like a lot of hard work, but at least it makes things interesting, and if you get used to this way of working then you will easily attract new customers, and find it easier each time you need to refresh your business model for continued success.
Flexibility in the way businesses operate can take many forms, but adaptability and agility are increasingly becoming key attributes in competitive enterprise scenarios. There is a real need for flexibility at a strategic level, both in terms of the way in which businesses operate and from the perspective of individual employees. Here’s a look at some of the essential ways in which businesses can look to make their operations and their workforces more flexible:
Remote working
Through technological advancements, remote working has been made increasingly possible over the past decade or so, and it’s now an accepted part of the way many organizations operate. Different roles bring particular demands on individuals, but virtually all businesses stand to benefit from giving members of their workforce the chance to function as normal from almost anywhere.
Deploying new solutions
Equipping staff with the smartphones, tablets, and laptops they need to operate seamlessly on the move or wherever they might be is vitally important in the context of enterprises becoming flexible. But new software solutions and cloud-based business applications can be crucial too in giving businesses the best chance to be flexible and more efficient in a variety of valuable ways. There are also more physical ways to ensure flexibility, for example, if your business manages a fleet of vehicles then look at getting a Watchcard which allows you the convenience and flexibility to fuel anywhere in the U.S. with the control and security to monitor and limit purchases, track suspicious activity, and access fuel data about your fleet. This flexibility means you can manage your fleet effectively while saving time and money and gives you the power to drive your business forward and save.
Flexible hours
The advance of communications technologies of different sorts has opened up the prospect for employees of working from home and in patterns that suit their individual needs. Businesses that embrace flexible working are seeing benefits in terms of employee morale and staff retention but also from the perspective of meeting customer needs. Companies of all sizes increasingly need to be operational around the clock and having resources’ out of hours’ has become an integral part of how service providers deliver what their customers want without disruption.
Cash Flow Options
As we all know, cash flow is the lifeblood of businesses big or small and ensuring financial flexibility can be the difference between a company remaining operational and biting the dust. For small to medium-sized operators, in particular, financial margins can be tight and unforgiving. So, being aware of, and having in place, a number of emergency financing options can often be essential in keeping companies afloat during times of acute pressure on cash flows and income streams.
Be Flexible With Flexibility
While many think of being flexible in business as offering flexible hours and working from home, there is actually a lot more to making a business a flexible one. Have a look at where you can make differences to your employees, for example; you could introduce secondments, career breaks, and volunteering opportunities. All of these opportunities will make you a far more attractive employer for the new generation of employees to work for. You have to be flexible in adapting to what prospective employees are now looking for in the workplace and take these needs and wants into account. If you are good to your employees then, in turn, people will be loyal to you as an employer. If you can be understanding that your employees need breaks; they might want to explore, volunteer and travel and shouldn’t have to lose a job they love and are good at just because of having interesting outside of work. If you are the employee then again, speak out and tell your employer what it is you want, they either want to lose you, or they don’t, but any career break or secondment will only be good for your career and experience so they’d be silly not to offer you the chance to come back.
Flexibility is something of a buzzword in business at present, but it isn’t necessarily worth pursuing its own sake. What flexibility really means and why it’s important is that it makes businesses more robust, more adaptable, more competitive, and better prepared for whatever opportunities and challenges the future might bring.
Digital Marketing Mantra for Advertisers
/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by StrategyDrivenDigital marketing is slowly, but surely growing from a “nice to have” to a necessity. With so many audiences, especially the younger ones, moving away from linear television, barely touching newspapers or magazines and with their heads down into their phones even out on the streets, it seems that the only sensible place advertisers can find their audiences now is in the online space. This is driving advertisers to adapt and form digital media strategies, but media practices from the offline world don’t translate well to the online world.
Out with the Old
Where you used to define personas and find the right publication or TV programme that fit your audience, it seems that these rules don’t apply to the online world. Your audience is out there on multiple places, consuming different media, sometimes even at the same time, with each moment of interaction you have just a small window of opportunity, sometimes even barely a second. To be successful in advertising in the online marketing space, you will need to connect all the dots and deal with the complexity (and maybe even ambiguity) of the online marketing world. Moreover, that’s asking for quite a bit, which most likely can’t be found in one person or advertising agency.
No Buyers, Only Specialists Here
The problem is the balance between the complexity of online marketing disciplines and the way the market moves on. Where you used to be dealing with media buyers (people who would take care of booking media buys, placing the advert, handle the back and forth between the publisher and the creative agency), you now must deal with channel specialists. These people are professionals in their field but usually are not trained to guide a client through connecting all the dots. Even channels that seemingly should be close to each other are, under further inspection, fundamentally different. Advertisers who have been dealing with digital agencies will mostly agree not to expect agencies to be able to provide a consistent overall media view, as you would have had with offline media agencies. The most practical way as an advertiser to take care of your digital marketing mix is to take the reins themselves. That doesn’t mean to do it yourself (although in-housing seems to be a trend of late) but to start speaking the same language as the digital marketers.
Measure Everything
This also means understanding and challenged its most hailed aspects of digital marketing, which inadvertently is also its downfall, the ability to measure everything. Traditional media would have panel data to provide some insight into what the effect the media buy would have had (by proxy), online media comes with the promise to be able to measure everything. In digital speak, we call this tracking, which relies on “pixels being fired” and “cookies.” Essentially this means that advertisers (and publishers that help the advertisers) try to provide the most complete of the consumer based on data they might have volunteered and data that can be inferred. Pixels and cookies provide a bread crumb trail to piece this all together. Apart from the ethical and privacy issues at play here, this sounds to most advertisers as the holy grail, to be able to pay for only those audiences and people that fit your audience perfectly.
Post-view
However, that attention to measuring everything can turn into an obsession. Take display and video ad formats, for example. On pretty much every publisher, these are ad formats that are offered up widely. Videos have taken a flight by being offered in-stream, which basically means its tacked in upfront or in the middle of a video that someone is trying to watch. You can have a skippable or un-skippable variant, and most publishers offer a cost-per-view model based on percentage or minimal seconds watched.
In most cases, the video is an unwanted interruption of someone’s flow, which in turn leads to very few people engaging with the advert and ending up on the advertiser’s website. Display ads have the same problem, although in a lesser extent (but just barely). The display banners show up as a distraction when someone is doing something else and might not be in the mindset to engage with an advertiser. Both video and display ads will usually have a lot of impressions (the advert was shown) but not many interactions. To still proof value, the industry has come up with a metric called view-through conversions. This essentially measures if a conversion has taken place after someone has viewed the ad, usually within a specific timeframe.
Last click wins
On the other side of display and video ads, you have many pay-per-click possibilities. One of the key ones here is paid search ads. It’s dominant in such a way that most people refer to paid search ads as PPC ads, although the concept of PPC refers to the method of publisher payment (for example display ads can be on a CPC model). This is, for most advertisers, the absolute darling of digital marketing. PPC in 99% of all cases all the way down in the marketing funnel, i.e., likely the last interaction before a consumer makes a purchase.
Even more so, those display and video adverts could very well have been earlier in the process and led to a PPC click. Paid search ads are usually measured on the last click wins method, which is standard across most advertisers. The last click wins will not add up with a post-view conversion, attributing all value to PPC and making a post-view conversion meaningless. Therefore, especially when marketing budgets are getting the squeeze, display, and video ads lose out.
The Mantra for Advertisers
The risk you run of this principle is that all the attention is going to PPC and none is given to display and video. In other words, all the attention goes to the bottom of the funnel and none to filling up the funnel. Advertisers who do this find themselves with diminishing returns over time and a drying up supply of new users to the website. The savvy advertiser understands the value of harvesting the low hanging fruit but always ensures that consumers keep coming through the funnel, by smartly filling it up from the top.
How To Make Sure You Hire The Right Person For The Job
/in Talent Management/by StrategyDrivenThere are steps you can take to help ensure you achieve this goal and aren’t wasting your time or anyone else’s. Remember that it’s never a bad idea to reach out to current employees when you’re on the hunt to fill positions to see if they have any suggestions before you go out looking elsewhere.
Work with A Specialist
There are companies such as Devonshire recruitment whose job and desire it is to help you fill positions at your workplace. They have a pool of candidates who are prepared to speak with you and will be a good fit right from the start. You can make sure you hire the right person for the job by being specific and transparent with your job description, and only bringing people in for interviews who align with your objectives and specific position requirements.
Invite Candidates to Take Psychometric Tests
There are dozens of psychometric tests such as The PI Behavioral Assessment Test, which help employers to filter out the best candidates for the benefit of their business.
These kinds of tests measure a candidate’s skill level in relation to problem-solving, ability to do the work, behavioral traits, and patterns and etc.
Contact References
It’s good practice to ask for several references from candidates on your final job application. Not only should you look to see who they are, but you should also take the extra step and time to contact them. You can learn a lot about an individual by how they’ve previously performed and what their strengths and weaknesses have been in the past. Ask the right questions and encourage the other person to be as candid and open as possible in their responses.
Hold Multiple Interviews
One interview isn’t going to give you enough time to figure out if the person you’re speaking with is right for the job. Therefore, it’s important to hold multiple interviews and in many different forms before hiring someone. For instance:
These are a few ways for how you can mix up the interview process and evaluate a candidate on their various skills and abilities to make sure they’re a good fit at your workplace. It’ll be helpful to get feedback from other people at your company as well to hear what they have to say about a potential candidate so you can compare notes.
Take Your Time
What’s going to help you out the most in your search to find the right candidate for the job is to go slow and take your time. Rushing through the interview process and failing to write a detailed job description is only going to hurt you and your company in the long run. Instead, take advantage of these suggestions for how you can make sure you’re hiring the right person for the job, and this way, they should also be more likely to stick around for the long-term.
4 Big Benefits of Using Managed IT Services
/in Managing Your Business/by StrategyDrivenMore and more businesses are utilising managed IT services to assist with their tech infrastructure. But is this the right move for your business?
Big IT problems have huge financial repercussions and can waste a lot of time and resources if not dealt with quickly and efficiently. Out-of-date or badly maintained technology is more likely to fail, and it can be difficult for a small IT team to keep on top of the latest trends.
But managed IT service companies make it their priority to stay on top of the most cost-effective and efficient tech to fit your needs, and to keep the operation running as smoothly as possible.
So if you haven’t considered switching to managed IT services, here are a few reasons why it might be time to give it a little thought.
Return on Investment
Frequent IT problems take up a lot of time, break concentration, and can cost your business a lot of money.
Slow computers, lost files, poor security – these are commonly occurring inconveniences that arise from a poorly managed IT service. And every second that your system is down, your employees aren’t working and your business is not operating at its full capacity.
More than this, a small in-house IT team can struggle to keep up with the needs of a larger company. And whilst they are dealing with everyday issues, they can’t focus on big-picture strategies which could really make a difference to your business.
Managed IT services focus on the everyday maintenance of these issues to limit the costs of small inconveniences, and avoid big disasters. This improves the reliability and efficiency of IT operations in a way which will inevitably save you money.
It will also free up your IT talent to focus on more important tech strategies, the wider benefits of which we’ll come back to in a moment!
Keeping Up With Tech
Technology is evolving faster than ever before. The ways we communicate, the ways information is analysed, shared, and protected – if you’re not in the loop you can get left behind and struggle to catch up.
And whilst your small in-house IT team are wasting time recovering lost passwords, locating lost files, and trying to work out why the system has frozen, they aren’t keeping on top of the latest technology or concentrating on how to integrate it into your business.
But one of the biggest advantages of managed IT services is that they are always on the cutting-edge of business technology, they know what will work for your system, and can implement upgrades quickly and efficiently.
Security
How much of your critical data is stored on tech devices? Computers, tablets, smartphones, servers? Do you live in constant fear of a security breach?
IT security is absolutely critical and should be a major priority for every business. Unsurprisingly, out-of-date software, old passwords and unmanaged email accounts are some of the biggest risks to the security of your data and information.
So if you’re not up-to-date on the latest security risks, making sure your staff are informed, and constantly updating software, you could be more vulnerable than you think.
But managed IT services conduct research with multiple companies, and make it their business to keep track of security issues and their solutions. They will dedicate the time and effort needed to maintain these security protections so that you don’t have to worry.
They will also have a full grasp of compliance standards to minimize the risk of related to client data, credit card numbers and sensitive information.
Free Up In-House IT Staff
Another huge advantage to utilizing a managed IT service company is freeing up your in-house IT staff and applying their talents to the right areas.
In the same way you wouldn’t waste a Michelin star chef by asking them to wash dishes, you don’t want your most creative and innovative IT talent taking the elevator three floors to restart a frozen laptop.
If your in-house team are forever wrapped up in small technical issues that aren’t necessarily their specialism, they are not excelling in what they’re best at. And these smaller issues are unlikely ever to find a permanent solution if the inhouse team are too thinly stretched to focus on big-picture tech development strategies.
Outsourcing the maintenance of your IT service to a company who specialises in the small details will give your inhouse team the freedom to elevate the whole operation.
So there we have it. There are just a few of the benefits of outsourcing IT maintenance to a specialist company, and freeing up your in-house tech team!
4 Principles Guiding My Company’s Mission to Make Fresh Organic Meals Accessible for Everyone
/in Strategic Planning/by Laureen AsseoSince I launched Fresh n’ Lean in 2010, I’ve been committed to breaking those stereotypes while getting affordable, pre-made organic meals to as many people as possible.
Those who need healthy meals the most, whether for medical issues or convenience, are too often left with heavily processed and unhealthy food choices. More than 50 million Americans live in food deserts, areas without access to high-quality or affordable fresh food, according to USDA research. But better knowledge about healthy eating has sparked national discourse about what we put into our bodies, and evolving consumer habits are making people less beholden to insufficient local food options.
Four principles have helped me lead my company forward: family, discipline, humility and vision.
My mission began with family in mind.
My father was facing life-threatening health issues — we didn’t know if he would be around in six months or a year. He made drastic changes to his diet and lifestyle, and his health rebounded. Seeing his success was proof that it could work for others, and that there was a greater need for fresh, healthy food options.
Discipline fueled the company’s growth.
I started Fresh n’ Lean when I was 18 years old. While my friends were out partying, I was waking up at 4 a.m. and working 16, 17, 18 hours a day, seven days a week.
That discipline carried over to the company’s financial wellbeing, where we sustained steady growth without relying on outside capital. We’ve always run a pretty lean operation, in part because we didn’t have a lot of excess funds to fuel unrestrained expansion. We had to be thoughtful in how to approach growth opportunities, because one mistake or one wrong decision could derail the whole company.
A dream since Day 1 was building our own kitchen and manufacturing area, a custom space to fit our needs. It wasn’t feasible during our early years, but in time it became a necessity. I never dealt with such a big construction project before, and it was a huge learning experience — I worked with contractors, city officials and architects throughout the permit process. There were setbacks, but we had to keep powering forward. Failure wasn’t an option.
Humility means respect for everyone’s role and impact.
I’ve worked every job the employees work, so I understand where they’re coming from and recognize the obstacles they face. I used to wash dishes and pack boxes. I’d go into the warehouse and pack boxes tomorrow if needed. We’re each a piece in a puzzle that fit together to reveal the mission and character of this company.
My vision for the future
As horrible and disappointing as it is that millions of people don’t have regular access to healthy food, I’m encouraged that our society is paying more attention to what we eat and that the rise of direct-to-consumer shipping provides additional options for people living in food deserts.
Ultimately, we want everyone in the United States to have access to a fresh organic meal within five miles of where they are. While direct-to-consumer is a big part of our business, we’re also looking to increase our offerings in grocery and retail on-the-go stores and getting our vending machines a wider release. We’ve targeted corporate wellness programs with the vending machines, but we plan to take a more mainstream approach in the coming years.
Convenience is a key to continued growth. A healthy diet doesn’t need to be expensive and taste bland — and it should be within reach no matter where you live.
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