Be Different or be dead

October 17, 2020

How to recruit and keep your tech talent in simple easy ways

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How to recruit and keep your tech talent in simple easy ways.

The world as we know it is changing. Covid-19 has affected every aspect of society, including the workforce. As more employees began to work at home, more companies started to realize how many tasks could be streamlined and how technology could improve their business processes.

This change will inevitably lead to a heavier reliance on tech skills in the workforce. Those who boast the most versatile skills will have the best chance of landing a job in the future.

As this demand increases, it’s best to start recruiting that high-level tech talent ahead of time. Fortunately for potential employers, there is no shortage of schools that produce soon-to-be capable professionals.

Coding Bootcamps

As far as alternative education goes, coding bootcamps have been around for years and offer a reliable stream of students ready to tackle industry challenges.

As opposed to traditional schooling, coding bootcamps are open for anyone who has the desire to learn a new skill. They offer short-term but in-depth courses on different programming languages and provide students with industry mentorship.

As far as the field goes, Indeed discusses how members of this profession use skills such as language acquisition, attention to detail, and innovative skills to overcome any task given. Coders are an invaluable resource for any company as their wide array of skills can be helpful in a number of different up and coming occupations.

One of the best ways to acquire people who have learned these skills effectively is by utilizing the coding bootcamps that have popped up around the country and recruiting their graduates.

Vocational Schools

Perhaps coders aren’t the professionals you’re looking for. When it comes to more broad career paths that still require some intelligent tech talent, vocational schools are a great place to turn to for recruiting. Vocational, sometimes called trade, schools offer courses in a larger number of topics and typically take longer to complete than coding bootcamps.

As an example, General Assembly offers a myriad of courses ranging from digital marketing to data science. With campuses all around the world, it is easy to see the benefits of recruiting from a vocational school such as this one or a similar one.

Traditional education will always have its benefits, but the rise in the number of attendees to vocational schools provides a whole new group of capable workers who have the necessary skills and knowledge for a number of tech-related fields.

Retaining Top Tech Talent

With coding bootcamps popping up all across North America, the number of potential employees with tech talent will be on the rise.

This is where it gets a little bit more difficult. Naturally, a higher number of qualified applicants coupled with an increasing demand for those applicants means competition will be fierce in acquiring them. More importantly, you don’t want your employees to jump ship because another company can make their life far better.

Try to keep in mind some of the common considerations potential employees look at when coming to a company. The biggest of those considerations is most likely salary.

The trade school, App Academy has a completely different approach to tech education; they don’t even charge their students tuition until they land a job as a software engineer earning over $50,000.

Even though this new tech talent may be coming from non-traditional means, their skills and expertise warrant a high salary and dynamic workplace. Providing these two factors is a sure-fire way to keep your employees around.

An added strategy to retaining tech talent is by providing them with day-to-day tasks that are exciting and not monotonous. The rising tech talent the workforce is seeing is versatile and performs best when given challenging, but meaningful work.

By doing this, you can keep your employees interested in the work they are performing.

Conclusion

We are entering a non-traditional era in regard to the workforce and there is nothing wrong with it. More and more people have been able to acquire skills that were previously unreachable to them.

This has allowed the overall workforce to become more skilled and technologically advanced. As an employer, it is important to open your mind to the places where these skilled people can be found and recruited. Doing so will allow your company to bring on talent that will last.

— Artur Meyster is the CTO of Career Karma an online marketplace that matches career switchers with coding bootcamps. He is also the host of the Breaking Into Startups podcast, which features people with non-traditional backgrounds who broke into tech. Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Posted 10.17.20 at 06:17 am by Roy Osing
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October 3, 2020

How personalized marketing can boost e-commerce sales to astonishing levels

How personalized marketing can boost e-commerce sales to astonishing levels.

If you are not using personalized marketing for your business or company, you are definitely losing out in sales and revenue.

Offering a great customer experience through eCommerce is not enough; you need to devise ways to drive in more traffic to your platform which will help you stand out among your competitors in today’s competitive and challenging consumer market.

One of the ways through which you can achieve both increased customer satisfaction and drive more traffic to your site is through personalized marketing.

What Is personalized marketing?

Personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing is a strategy through which businesses deliver individualized content to clients. The content is based on the client’s personal data, past searches, history of purchase, location and interests.

The content varies depending on the services or products that a business is offering. However, the most basic content includes discounts, tips, topical articles, and product or service offers.

Why is personalized marketing important?

Despite personalized marketing being a huge eCommerce sales boost, few companies are using it. Most companies tend to concentrate on building a secure eCommerce platform, forgetting that this alone cannot help them achieve their desired goals.

Personalized marketing has these specific benefits which go well beyond simply having an efficient eCommerce platform.

— First, it saves customers time. Under normal circumstances, whenever they visit an online site, they receive numerous ads, videos and articles, most of which are irrelevant. But personalized content only feeds them relevant value-adding content.

— Second, it increases the time a prospective customer spends on your site. If customers find useful information on your platform, they are likely to spend more time there and they are more likely to end up making a purchase. Furthermore, an increase in onsite time reduces bounce rates, which is beneficial to your SEO.

— Last but not least, it increases your eCommerce sales. Valuable content brings about more customer satisfaction and enhances brand building. Satisfied customers are likely to come back for more purchases and also refer others to your site which, in turn further increases your sales.

How to create personalized content

Creating personalized content requires you to collect specific data regarding your clients. Such data include name, contact, email address, location, viewed products, purchases and wish lists. Ensure that you inform the clients that you are collecting their data and how you intend to use it. Additionally, make sure that you get a go-ahead from them.

How to use personalized marketing to boost sales?

Here’s a few suggestions on how to implement a personalized strategy in your business.

    ▪️ Banners for new clients — Your site’s first impression is crucial for any new user. Ensure that you have a welcoming shopping theme to attract more clients. A small welcome gesture such as a discount goes a long way in attracting new customers. A banner containing a welcome discount for new customers prompts them to register and purchase products from your site.

    ▪️ Personalize pages based on search history — Once a customer registers in your site, ensure that you track their search or browsing history. This search history offers a basis for the products you will display at their pages upon their next visit to your site. The personalized lised page display saves customers time since the platform already knows the products they want.

    ▪️ Retarget your clients and offer them personalized ads — Retargeting is made possible through pixel codes, which sets a cookie in your client’s browser. If a client visits your site and leaves without making a purchase, you can follow them to their next browsing sessions. Here, your ad pops up based on their browsing history and captures their attention. This retargeting technique helps turn potential clients into actual buyers.
 
    ▪️ Display recently viewed items — Showing recently viewed items reminds customers of their interests. You can create a wish list on your site, allowing customers to save their most preferred items. Based on the items in the wish list, you can send clients coupons or emails if any of those products have an offer.

    ▪️ Personalized emails — Emails are the most personal form of online contact. Sending personalized emails aims at informing customers when a product they had shown interest in has a discount. Ensure that you include the client’s name in the subject of the email to capture their attention.

Conclusion

To derive the most from your personalized marketing techniques, you need to keep up with digital marketing trends such as social media marketing and SEO.

Personalized marketing is a useful competitive tool in the world market today. If you are not sure about applying personalized marketing strategies, the tips mentioned above will significantly guide you. Implement them today to give your business a new twist, boost your eCommerce sales and remain different from your competitors.

— Monica Lee is a passionate writer and content creator. Her interests include outdoor activities, fitness, technology, entrepreneurship and everything in between. Say hi to Monica on Twitter @monical_lee.

• Posted 10.3.20 at 04:00 am by Roy Osing
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September 26, 2020

How genuine personal branding can be used to market yourself to success

Source: Pexels

How genuine personal branding can be used to market yourself to success.

In today’s workplace, personal branding is essential to stay ahead of your competition. But what is personal branding, and how can you use it?

Below, I detail the best ways to market yourself with personal branding as well as tips from the most successful examples of personal branding.

Personal branding is the combination of your skills, image, experiences, and personality that makes up how people view you. Because of this, personal branding is a fantastic way to make your mark at work.

Whether you’re a salesperson looking to become the best or a graphic designer wanting to showcase your work, personal branding is a strong place to start off from to succeed.

There are numerous benefits to building a personal brand. From being able to convey your value to recruiters in a way that your resume can’t build trust with your audience, creating a stellar personal brand is a sure-fire way to stand out amongst the rest.

It’s clear that your personal brand can help supercharge your job search. To learn everything you need to know to make your mark with personal branding, check out this infographic by Resume Now.

— Michaela Wong  is a content creator and graduate of San Diego State University who covers career development, personal advancement, human resources, and more. 

• Posted 9.26.20 at 08:09 am by Roy Osing
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September 19, 2020

How amazing results can be achieved from email marketing by using video

How amazing results can be achieved from email marketing by using video.

Connecting with your customers where they are in compelling, memorable ways has always been at the heart of great marketing.

Moreover, finding thoughtful and engaging forms of messaging puts you one step ahead again.

Right now with budgets shrinking and significantly fewer opportunities to connect with your market face to face, you need to get savvy to make an impact. To do this, it’s essential to understand more about human behaviour and then connect the dots to hit the mark.

What marketing could work right now?

One thing we know without question is that people are spending seemingly exponential amounts of time watching video online: the projection for 2020 is 84 minutes per day.

While people are normally watching online video out of habit and preference, due to the pandemic it’s also their only truly safe gateway to the world outside their own four walls.

One interesting data point that’s emerged in line with this is an upswing in qualitative email engagement.

While we know that customers are now more likely to engage with a brand on digital first, it’s the shuttering of businesses and the shift to remote work, study and life that’s made a difference.

In line with the beginning of regional lockdowns, Forbes reported on Iterable research from March-April 2020 that recorded email open-rates and click-throughs jumping up by 21% and 14% respectively.

Furthermore, the data also recorded an 8.5% increase in purchases from emails for the same period.

So now truly is not only the best time to amp up your customer emails, it’s also essential that they have a highly engaging call to action. In this uncertain market and based on trends in customer preferences, that absolutely means video! The beauty of it is that it can be as simple or complex as you like.

To help you get started with sharing videos in your marketing emails — regardless of your game whether you’re a small business, start-up, or solopreneur — this infographic outlines everything you need to know.

As Bethany Stechanfeld accurately says, “Especially as the world is shifting towards remote, online video provides a human-to-human lifeline for marketers to engage customers, show value, and drive more business online.”

In their infographic below ‘Video In Email Marketing’, One Productions explains more about the no-brainer of inspiring, connecting, informing, and helping your customers with video.

— Tom Hopkins is the Managing Director of One Productions, a video production company based in Dublin, Ireland

• Posted 9.19.20 at 06:41 am by Roy Osing
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