The Importance of Education in Furthering Your Career

/in /by

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | The Importance of Education in Furthering Your Career | Online DegreeContinuing with your education can lead to a more thriving career and financial security. While job experience plays a vital role in the job market, furthering your education gives you better opportunities to advance your career and lead a more comfortable lifestyle. Apart from having a high school diploma, it would help if you had a college degree and skills development to secure a good-paying job.

Nowadays, thanks to accelerated online degrees, you don’t have to waste your valuable time to earn an extra degree or diploma. Many online courses allow students to cover the same curriculum as traditional colleges but within a shorter period. For example, instead of spending around two years to earn your associate degree from a traditional college setting, you can obtain the same degree from online educators within months. Here are the benefits of education in advancing your career.

Gain Knowledge

A good education can make you more competitive and enhanced. The education you get from online degrees will equip you with the skills you need at your business or workplace. For instance, with a business administration degree, your understanding of various accounting and financial aspects will become much better. And with a mechanical engineering course, you’ll never know what you can achieve in the engineering world.

A management-based program can make you a better leader capable of resolving conflicts at work. In other words, the knowledge you gain is both practical and factual. Furthering your studies broadens your skills and solidifies your experience.

Secures Your Future

Technological advancements have led to more downsizing trends in many companies across the globe. In the spirit of automation and making work easier, every tech-savvy brand wants to reduce human labor. So, if you haven’t positioned yourself strategically, you may become a victim of the next downsizing in your workplace.

Getting an online degree is one way of securing your future at the workplace. If it’s inevitable that your employer has to lay off a few people in your department, your degree may save your neck.

Makes Your Life Better

Unfortunately, society is prone to labeling people according to their educational background and financial status. If you want to earn more at your current job or and a more lucrative job opportunity elsewhere, you need to further your education.

A 2014 Pew Research found out that college graduates with degrees earn around $17,000 more than their counterparts with high school diplomas each year. The amount you make may be what is holding your lifestyle back. So, an online degree can earn you more respect, become more confident, and improve your lifestyle.

Boosts Your Soft Skills

Education can help boost your soft skills, such as teamwork, organization skills, management, and critical thinking. You’ll gain subtle ways of creating influential presentations and come up with effective management styles. Established brands are always looking for employees with sharpened skill sets in these areas. Moreover, once you find a way to boost your soft skills, it might become much easier to climb the career ladder.

Enhances Your Work Ethics

Pursuing higher education can pose a huge challenge to young employees in terms of planning or scheduling. It takes a lot of work, determination, and persistence to pursue a degree while doing a full-time job successfully. But, if you succeed, you’ll be able to demonstrate enhanced work ethics to your colleagues and employer at work.

If done right, you can attract the attention of your superiors at work and be rewarded accordingly. Every employer or manager loves working with employees who have the initiative and drive to expand their skills. It’s a sign that such an employee is willing to do something that will benefit the company as it gives the management hopes that you’ll perform better.

Aside from getting a lucrative job opportunity, a good education can improve your overall discipline. The unique skills you acquire from your training will eventually have an impact on your quality of life. The college academic setting is a great environment to help you expand your skills and gain the knowledge that’ll prepare you for a better career opportunity.

How to Create a Winning Referral Program That Works

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Referral Program|How to Create a Winning Referral Program That Works

There is a reason why big brands are using referral systems to promote their websites. It works. The best part is it continues to work despite all the search engine algorithm changes that happened. This means that you can expect it to work even in the years to come.

What’s a Referral Program?

Before you proceed to the creation of your referral program, you need to know what it is. A referral program is a system when you allow your customers to promote your brand for you. In doing this, they give you the contact information of their family and friends. But it doesn’t stop there. Their family and friends can also similarly promote your brand.

What Makes a Referral Program So Effective

There are several reasons why referral marketing is more effective than other methods. But it is essential to consider what makes it so successful. Out of all the reasons why you should launch a referral system for your business, here are the top three.

It Leverages Networks

Referral marketing works because it leverages networks. Unlike doing your marketing all by yourself, you allow your customers to help you. In this method, you are not doing all the marketing alone. You have an army of customers who can help you advertise your website.

It Spreads Through the Circle of Trust

When your customers promote your brand, they will do it to the people that they know and trust. This can either be their family and friends. These are people that the customers personally know and trust. Because of this relationship, they are far more likely to act on the recommendation. This is because the referrer is someone that they know, and they trust that he is giving him the right advice.

It Elevates a Brand’s Social Proof

The third reason why referral marketing works is social proof. Since the method works through social networks and personal circles of trust, it can positively affect social evidence. Social proof plays a significant role in sales conversion. When a prospective customer is on the verge of buying, he only needs a slight push in a positive direction. Social proof is that ‘push.’ Positive reviews or simple recommendations can do a lot for your brand. It can help your prospective customers see your brand in the positive light, and this will encourage them to buy from you.

NOTE: Referral marketing is also great for eCommerce. The reason is its impact on cart abandonment. It is one of the keys to stop shopping cart abandonment and increase traffic and sales. This is the reason why referral software is often available for eCommerce platforms. It is quite useful for online stores.

Characteristics of a Winning Referral Program

Ideally, you’ll want a winning referral program. Any business owner can easily create a referral campaign. Even new business owners like Best Drums Set Labs have done this with success. However, you’ll need to implement some practices if you want to get the most out of referral marketing. Here are the characteristics that you’ll need to look for if you’re going to create a successful referral system.

The Program Can Be Easily Found

Your customers must see your referral system. It is useless to create this if it is just buried in your website’s sitemap. The link to the referral page should be prominent. It should be seen on the front page of your website, and your customers should be continuously reminded to advertise the website. You can do this in critical places in your online store. Some of the most common locations for referral program promotion are on the homepage, checkout page, and emails. This will allow you to personally reach out and tell your audience that you have a referral system that they can use to earn rewards.

It Gets Regular Referrals

If you are going to determine the success of a referral system with one factor, that would be the number of regular referrals. This means that references should not only come in when you have just created your referral system. It should also come in regularly. This shows how well you are promoting your referral system and how well your audience is responding to it.

Referrals Have a High Chance of Conversion

Aside from the number of referrals, the quality of references matter as well. This means that you should not only get a ton of referrals for your system. You should also get referrals that have a high chance of converting into sales. You can measure this by dividing the number of transactions with the number of referrals. This will show you the percentage of references that are converting into sales. This is also a useful metric to consider when you want to measure the overall effectiveness of your campaign.

How to Create a Winning Referral Program

A winning referral program is produced with the right processes. You need to ensure that every step in the process is executed well. In this section, you’ll learn the steps that you need to implement to have a winning referral program for your brand.

Start with Your Target Audience

A winning referral program starts with the right reward. How can you know if the prize that you have set is right for your business? That’s simple. You can ask your audience. Many business owners just skip this,.They usually resort to guessing the proper reward. This is a grave mistake, for it often results in a referral program that is ignored by the audience. The best path is to ask the audience about what they like and give it to them. Don’t assume. Always make it a point to ask.

Experiment with Different Rewards

There are times when you will not be able to know the right reward. This is when you have done your part of asking your audience, but they came up with mixed answers. They may have given you some answers, but it is not enough for you to make a decision. So what can you do? That’s simple. You can experiment. This is where you take the suggestions of the audience and experiment with them to see which will be received by your other customers. This is also good for testing the system. Some customers like to say that they prefer a particular reward but will not sign up when it is released. This is the best way to test these suggestions to see if the audience will act on them.

PRO TIP: One way to encourage the audience to sign up is the “rule of x3”. If your customer gave you a suggestion that you should give away a particular reward, always multiply that by three. By adding more rewards, it will also triple your chances of getting more signups. This is a strategy that worked for me, and I think that it can work incredibly well for you as well.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Referral Program|How to Create a Winning Referral Program That WorksExperiment with Different Rewarding Modes

Every referral system has 3 rewarding modes. These depend on who is rewarded. There is a mode where you choose to pay the referrer. There is another mode where you wish to reward a friend or referral. The best style is to reward both. This is where you give a reward to encourage the referrer to promote the system and pay the friend to help him to sign up. It eliminates all friction, so it is the best mode out of the bunch.

PRO TIP: There are three basic rewarding modes. But you can also create your way. If you are selling a unique product or service, you may want to consider using a different approach. Being creative can help you in promoting referral systems, so don’t be afraid to exercise that here as well.

Create Exclusive Referral Programs for Influencers

One of the best ways to promote your referral system is to ask influencers for help. Influencers are people who have gained a significant amount of followers in their field. They have a substantial amount of followers for a reason. This may be because they are considered experts in the niche, or they have established themselves as idols or inspirations. Because of this, they have a massive impact on their followers’ actions and decisions. This is the reason why influencer marketing is highly effective in promoting referral programs. This is provided that you create an exclusive system for each influencer.

Here is the reason why exclusivity is a must. Every influencer has a unique culture that he conveys. You mustn’t only sell or give away a product or reward. It is also vital that you appeal to that unique culture if you want the influencer method to be successful. You need to communicate with the influencer and look for ways on how you can help his target market. From here, you can select a proper reward for your referral system and create an exclusive referral campaign just for the influencer.

Transform Your Program into a Contest

Another way you can make your referral system more interesting is to transform it into a contest. In a conventional referral system, you ask customers or website visitors to promote your brand. This is where they input the names and contact information of their family and friends. However, this model doesn’t have a sense of urgency in it. It also doesn’t have a competitive factor. If you transform your referral system into a contest, you add that competitive and urgent element into your system. This means that your customers and website visitors will not only sign up because of a reward. They will also sign up because they have a chance to win a high ticket product.

PRO TIP: Did you know that you can combine contests with influencer marketing? If your prize is attractive enough, you can also encourage influencers to participate. On Instagram, a travel company launched a campaign where they give away free travel to 10 countries. The reward was so attractive that it encouraged influencers to sign up as well.

Use Referral Software

If you plan to launch a referral system, be sure to use the software. Referral software will allow you to configure and start your referral system in a few clicks. The best part is that there is always software that is compatible with your platform. There are WooCommerce affiliate plugins, Shopify apps, and Bigcommerce software that you can use. You just need to check the platform of your website and choose a referral system that will work for you.

Measure Your Results

Once you have implemented your referral system, you must know how to measure the results. More than the trends in your referral software, you should also link your website with an analytics app. This will help you see and track the incoming traffic and compare it with the numbers of referrals and sales that you are getting. Ultimately, you should measure the percentage of your website traffic that converts into sales, subscribers, and referrers. This will give you an overview of the success of your referral system.

Will Referral Marketing Work For You?

It is easy to become doubtful that referral marketing will work for you. However, you will not be able to see if it is sufficient until you try it. Referral marketing is one of the few methods that can work even for brand new websites. Unicorn brands have used them when they are just launching their products and services. PayPal has used it to get its initial members. Uber used it to get more drivers and riders. It is one of the easiest ways to introduce a brand to the public, and it can work for you too.

As you can see, it doesn’t take a lot for a referral campaign to become successful. The steps included in this article are easy to implement. You can quickly launch a referral system with software. This doesn’t require any coding or designing skills on your part. It is a click-and-go system where you can start a referral program by inputting a few details.

Air Safety Tips to Adhere to While Taking a Flight

/in /by

StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Air Safety Tips|Air Safety Tips to Adhere to While Taking a FlightRemember the times when you took a flight to your hometown or to Thailand for a long vacation? And remember all the air safety instructions that you were given on board or at the airport, the ones that you never thought of paying much attention to? They are quite important to pay heed to. It might not occur to you, but if you happen to find yourself in a situation where you are in immediate danger while flying or while you are within the confines of the airport, you shall understand the importance of these instructions. But it might have been too late by then.

Therefore, make sure that you are aware of what is happening around you so that in times of imminent danger, you do not lose your cool or act in a way that would only aggravate the situation. We have discussed a few points that you must keep playing at the back of your mind while you are on your way to catch that flight, so that you can be safe and sound. Awareness is the key to getting out of any tricky situation. Therefore, do not throw caution to the air (no puns intended); instead, pay attention to every detail around you and the instructions given to you.

The 3-1-1 Liquid Rule:

Not many of us know what the 3-1-1 Liquid protocol is. But it would be great if you did. You could save yourself from the hassles of packing unnecessary liquid items in your on board baggage. Because, according to the rule, you are only allowed a certain amount of liquid that you can carry on board. Anything that falls beyond the limit of the rule shall have to be discarded before you take the flight. Thus, there is no point in increasing your baggage when you cannot even take them through.

According to the 3-1-1 rule, you can only carry any liquid up to the measurement of 3.4 ounces in 1 plastic container, and each passenger is allowed only 1 plastic bag. This rule was made so that there is no spillage of fluids in the fluid while the plane is in air. Violating the rule can not only prevent you from taking the flight but could also put the lives of your co-passengers at risk.

The Briefing of Instructions by Flight Attendants:

Most of us would tend to put in earplugs or not pay attention to the instructions given by the flight attendants by chattering away with our co-passengers. We feel like we know everything already, and a feeling of invincibility takes over us. But you could not have been more wrong. Human brains are amazing but not all-encompassing. You might forget the details, and therefore, it is always advisable to listen to instructions each time you take a flight.

Thus, the next time you search or book flights with Jettly.com, acknowledge that you have a greater in-flight responsibility waiting for you, and that is of being aware.

Be Aware of Your Location:

You cannot just sit quietly with your seatbelts on (always have your seatbelts on) and think about landing. Of course, you will land where you are supposed to. But this should not make way for ignorance. You must always keep your ears open to the announcements being made by the pilot and understand your exact location. This will only enhance your knowledge and contribute to your safety.

Conclusion:

Being unaware of what you are signing-up for can lead to disasters and traumas of a lifetime. Therefore, it is essential to have holistic information about whatever it is that you are taking up, even if it is something as simple as taking a flight. This is for you own safety; do not roll a dice over it!

The Dos And Don’ts Of Automation In Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Automation in Business|The Dos And Don’ts Of Automation In BusinessAutomation involves using robots and software to take care of tasks. In recent years, it’s become a popular way of improving efficiency in business – by no longer having to manually complete tasks, you can free up a lot of time and energy. Most tasks nowadays can be automated. However, just because you can automate every task doesn’t mean you should automate every task. There are still some processes that benefit from a human touch and automating them could do more harm than good. To help you determine when you should use automation, here are a few dos and don’ts.

Do automate long, repetitive tasks

Long and repetitive tasks can be tedious. These are the types of tasks that are perfect for automation. Robots are able to handle long, repetitive tasks for hours if not days. They won’t get tired and won’t lose concentration like humans (which leads onto the next point of precision).

Do automate tasks that require constant precision

Humans aren’t able to offer the reliable constant precision that machines can. If you’re mass producing a product and need to apply a specific amount of glue to a specific spot, it could be worth looking into automated dispensing technology to do this task. Automation could also be useful for tasks that require precise calculations such as working out complex scientific formulas.

Do automate dangerous tasks

Some tasks could be particularly dangerous. Putting them in the hands of a robot could save you or your employees from getting harmed. Robots are already used to assess burning buildings, clean up nuclear sites, dispose bombs and inspect pipelines. While these tasks are still often manually controlled by a human from a remote location, certain routine tasks that involve dangers are starting to become automated.

Don’t automate user testing

The whole point of user testing is to test a product on a real-life user. While software can be used to simulate some testing, some of your testing will need to be done on humans to get a genuine reaction. This could include everything from tasting food to trialling out software.

Don’t automate marketing

Effective marketing relies heavily on appealing to human emotions and requires a lot of imagination. While there are automation tools out there to create social media posts, send out emails and generate ads, you could find that you get poor results by relying wholly on automation. Exciting marketing campaigns require human ideas – although once these ideas have been established, you may be able to automate certain processes (such as scheduling pre-written emails to get sent out at certain times).

Don’t automate tasks that require empathy

Robots suck at empathy. Any job that involves empathising with other humans should be handled by humans. A noteworthy example of this is handling complaints on the phone – getting a robot to answer complaint calls could end up frustrating most callers. Automated phone answering should only be used to direct people to the right human contact.

4 Tips to Help You Plan Your Corporate Event

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Plan Your Corporate Event|4 Tips to Help You Plan Your Corporate EventIf the task of organizing a corporate event for your company has fallen onto your desk, then you might be wondering where you should begin in the planning process. It can be a challenge to plan the perfect event, especially if you know that attendance is meant to be high.

If you are looking for how to start planning your corporate event, here are a few tips to help get you going on the right path.

1. Get Organized

The first step to planning the perfect event is to take the time to get organized. There are so many moving parts that you will have a handle on throughout the planning process, so in order to set yourself up for success, it is critical that you plan accordingly.

Make sure that you surround yourself with the right people who share your vision and who you can trust to get tasks done in a timely manner. Set realistic timelines for yourself and your team and take measures to ensure that everyone is aware of important dates and deadlines. With everyone on the same page from the starting line, you are more likely to avoid common mistakes later on.

2. Set and Stick to Your Budget

As with anything involving business, one of the most important things that must be kept in mind is the budget. It can be very easy to go overboard with spending when it comes to corporate events and seminars.

There are so many different things that must be kept in mind in regards to how much you invest in your event. Primarily speaking, though, you want to be sure that you aren’t setting yourself up to lose money through your event.

3. Find the Perfect Keynote Speaker

It is critical to the success of your event that you find and hire the right keynote speaker. If you secure the right person, then you will be able to generate good buzz during the lead up to your conference and ensure that those in attendance have a positive experience.

If you aren’t sure where to look, organizations like Saxton Speakers have many speakers to choose from. You are able to search for the perfect speaker using the exact criteria that you’d like so that you can better tailor the type of speaker you hire to the event you are planning.

4. Book an Appropriate Venue

Once you have certain particulars of your event nailed down, it will be time to search for and book an appropriate venue. The venue should be able to accommodate the theme and size of the conference without going over your budget.

Keep in mind that the price of the room rental is only a portion of what it costs to book a venue. Other expenses can include insurance as well as parking for your guests. The security deposit for the place you book is one of the upfront charges that you should be prepared for.