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ralphlayton · 5 years

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How to Design Facebook Ads in GetResponse (New Feature Update)

Want to generate more sales revenue with your landing pages and marketing funnels?

Then look no further – read this post and start driving more quality traffic to your site with Facebook and Instagram ads.

Not sure if it’s the right thing for your business or maybe you’re worried that it’ll be difficult?

Don’t be!

In about 15 minutes, you’ll be ready to launch your first Facebook and Instagram ad campaign through GetResponse.

Yes, you read it correctly.

Once you connect your Facebook Page to your GetResponse account, you won’t even need to switch between different dashboards to reach your audience on social media.

It’s all been built into your GetResponse account.

But other than providing you with a step by step guide on how to do this, I’m also sharing some best practices and tips on how to run your social media ad campaigns effectively.

This way, your Facebook ad campaigns won’t strain your marketing budget, and you’ll feel more confident about managing your customer acquisition costs.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Update: On the 21st of August, we’ve added a new feature to our Facebook Ads tool that’ll allow you to target your website visitors – and those who abandon them without converting! It uses the Facebook pixel that’s automatically added to all your landing and sales pages created in GetResponse. Naturally, you can also copy and paste the pixel onto your own custom URL and later on use it in your Facebook ad campaigns launched from GetResponse.

To learn more about this new targeting option, click here, to be taken directly to the step 3 of this article where we’re discussing all audience types you can choose for your ads.

Step 0. Accessing the Facebook Ads in your GetResponse account

To access the Facebook Ads creator in your GetResponse account, all you have to do is click on the Menu icon on the left side of the navigational bar and then select Facebook Ads.

Note: As of August 8 this feature has been available in all GetResponse paid accounts. Please bear in mind that all ads are paid for in USD, regardless of the account’s payment currency.

When you click on it for the first time, you’ll be taken directly to the Facebook Ads creator screen where you can adjust all the components of your ad.

It’ll look like this:

Let’s move on to the next step and start setting up your campaign.

Step 1. Giving your campaign a name

The first thing you should do when creating a new ad campaign is to give it a good name.

Although it will only be visible in your account dashboard (your audience won’t see it), it’s important to choose an appropriate name that’ll help you quickly identify the following elements:

which Facebook Page the ad is related to

what’s the campaign about

who’s the target audience

what’s the ad placement

If you name it well, you’ll be able to understand and filter your reports more efficiently.

Here some examples of ad campaign names we would use if we wanted to promote our Chocolate Monster shop to specific audiences in Poland and the US:

GRShop Product X CA Young mothers 18-25 Facebook News Feed

GRShop Product X NY Young mothers 18-25 Facebook Audience Network

Step 2. Selecting the ad placement

Now, you’ll have to select where your ad will be presented.

To do that, select your Facebook Page or connect a new one if you haven’t done it before.

If your Facebook Page is connected to an Instagram account, it’ll appear like this:

Now if you don’t already have a Facebook Page connected to your GetResponse account, you can do add it through the Connect your Page button. Alternatively, you can access it by clicking the Integrations link in the main menu.

Once you’ve selected the page, it’s time to pick whether you’d like your ad to be presented on the News Feed of your Facebook Page, the Facebook Audience Network, the Instagram feed, or the Instagram stories.

If you’re unsure what Facebook Audience Network is, here’s how they describe it in their Ads Help Center:

Audience Network allows advertisers to extend Facebook and Instagram campaigns across the internet – onto thousands of high-quality websites and apps.

People spend a lot of their time on Facebook and Instagram. But they are also spending time on other apps and sites. Audience Network helps advertisers reach more of the people they care about in the other places where they’re spending their time.

Before you choose any of these methods, ask yourself this question:

Who am I targeting? Are these people on one of those platforms? And if they are, how likely is it that I’ll interest them with my content?

In some cases, you’ll be better off if you skip the Facebook Audience Network and only target those who are on Facebook. Other times, Facebook on its own won’t give you the level of exposure you’re looking for.

Whatever you do, make sure to test your hypothesis using only a part of your budget.

Once you’ve got the data, you can make a well-grounded decision and invest a bit more money in your ads knowing that they’ll drive you more leads.

Step 3. Pick your audience

It’s time to select the people you want to target with your social media ad campaign.

There are five main options you can choose from:

Existing contacts

Lookalike audience

Custom audience

People liking your Page

Website visitors

Here are short descriptions of all of these targeting options and how you can use them.

Existing contacts

Let’s say you want to run a Facebook ad campaign to reach some of your email subscribers.

For example, those who haven’t recently engaged with your email campaigns, so that you can reengage them, or those who have previously downloaded one of your ebooks because you’ve got a new product that they might be interested in.

You can reach them by using the existing contacts targeting option, which lets you direct ads to one of your email lists or segments.

This is a powerful way to reach your audience on Facebook, but there are two key conditions that you should keep in mind:

First of all, this option will work only if your email list or segment has at least 100 people in it. Otherwise, the group’s too small to create an audience on Facebook.

Second, you should understand that people don’t always use the same email address to access Facebook and sign up for products or services like the ones you’re offering. That’s why the size of your target audience on Facebook may be smaller than what’s stored in your email list.

Usually, Facebook is able to match 60-70% of the contacts from your list.

This is especially the case if you’re targeting people who have given you a work email address. The chances are that they’ve registered to Facebook using their private mailbox, which would affect the size of the audience for your ad.

So how can you use your existing contacts to run an effective Facebook ad? Here are some quick ideas.

Three ideas for using this targeting option:

Target those who have registered for one of your webinars or your newsletter but haven’t become active paying customers yet. Present them an offer they don’t want to miss out on.

Reach those who’ve become less active and haven’t opened your newsletters in the last 30 days. Reengage them and convince them to keep coming back for more.

Launching a new tool or service? Target existing customers and upsell those who’ve bought from your once or are currently subscribed to a lower-tier plan.

Lookalike audience

How about targeting people who aren’t on your email list yet, but share the same characteristics as your email subscribers? Enter: lookalike audience.

Imagine that you’ve identified your most loyal customers or the highest-spenders. Or some other segment that has a huge potential for your business. Lookalike audience lets you search for and target people who are similar to them.

To do that, you need to select an email list or segment. If your selected group has at least 500 people, Facebook will use it to look for people who share similar traits.

Additionally, you can narrow down the search to target only a specific subset of your audience by providing other characteristics – like location, gender, age, or interest.

For example: Let’s say you want to run your ads to entrepreneurs who are similar to your existing customers, but only to those located in California, because that’s where you’re organizing your next meetup.

In this case, all you have to do is select the list or segment that includes the entrepreneurs that should be used for comparison and add California, United States, as the additional characteristic.

Although this may not always be relevant, you can also choose your email list to be included in your Facebook ad target group.

Here’s a scenario where this solution could be useful:

You’re promoting a new online course on Advanced SEO tactics. A good bet might be to promote it to those who’ve previously registered for your SEO tactics 101 course and those who are similar to them. With lookalike audience, you can target both groups at the same time.

As you can see, this is one powerful option that lets you expand your audience and reach very promising leads.

Here are some other ways you could use lookalike audience in your ad campaigns.

Three ideas for using this targeting option:

Identify those who’ve recently converted and target those who might also be influenced by your current campaign

Target people similar to your influencers and those who’ve left a positive review on your site

Want to expand into a specific niche? Find existing customers who match your criteria and target those similar to them

Custom audience

Now let’s pick a different situation. You don’t have an existing audience to base your search on, but you have a good idea of whom you want to reach.

By providing characteristics such as the location, gender, age, and interests, you can reach your target audience with your Facebook ads.

The question is: how far should you go with providing these characteristics?

You’ll have to answer this one for yourself, but keep in mind that the smaller and more specific audience you choose, the more expensive it’ll be to be reach them.

Plus, sometimes it’s better to be a bit more flexible and target a slightly larger audience. You can never be 100% sure that someone’s not willing to use your services.

Three ideas for using this targeting option:

Want to launch a new product or enter a new market? Run a pilot program to a group of early adopters who’ll help you decide if it’s the right move.

Are you attending or organizing an event in a specific location? Target people who’ll be in that area and offer them a discount if they stop by.

Want to spend your ad budget more efficiently? Narrow down your reach by creating a custom audience that isn’t going to display your ad just to anyone.

People liking the Page

How about including people that like your Facebook Page into the equation?

This option is similar to the lookalike audience but instead of providing an email list or segment, you use those who already like your page on Facebook.

You can use this option to:

Target those who like your Facebook page,

Target people similar to those who already like your page,

Target both of the above groups at the same time.

Here’s one example of when you could use this option:

Let’s say you’re just starting to build an email list, but you’ve already got an engaged community of brand followers on Facebook.

They like your posts, participate in discussions, and often ask about your future projects.

With the People liking the Page option you can start building your email list by targeting them and others that share similar characteristics.

It’s a quick and efficient way of reaching you target audience. And not just any audience, but those who have already shown interest in your offer.

Three ideas of how you could use this targeting option:

Just starting to build a list? Target those who’ve already shown interest in your brand.

Fed up by diminishing organic reach on Facebook? Move the conversation to email and convince your fans that it’s time to sign up for your newsletter,

or just target those who are similar to your existing fans.

Website visitors

How about targeting those who’ve visited one or several of your landing pages but didn’t take the action you wanted them to?

Thanks to the newly added Facebook pixel feature, you can do just that.

The process is even more straightforward if you’re using GetResponse to build your pages. Why? Because we’ve already added the pixel to all the pages you have or will create using our tool.

So you can just go ahead and select which pages the users have or haven’t visited in a specified number of days, and you’re set.

If you’re using another tool to host your pages, the process isn’t too complicated either. But you’ll need to install the Facebook pixel manually before you can target your website visitors right from GetResponse.

Here’s an example of how you could use this targeting option: Imagine that you’ve launched a new course and started promoting it across all your marketing channels.

The early-bird offer you’ve prepared is going to end soon, so you’ve decided that you’ll run a retargeting to reach those who have visited your page but who haven’t registered for the course.

You go into your GetResponse Facebook ads tool

Create a new ad campaign

Select those who visited the page course in the last five days and exclude those who saw the thank you page, meaning they already have registered.

Add your ad content

Select the budget and time-frame

And you’re good to go!

Step 4. Set the budget

Almost there! Now it’s time to set your ad budget.

In other words, how much in total you want to spend and for how long your campaign should run.

The daily spend can be anywhere between $5 and $100.

So, let’s say you want to run an ad for a week.

In this case, your minimum total budget will be $35 (7 days x $5).

The maximum, on the other hand, would be $700 (7 days x $100).

You might be wondering:

Why am I not able to also set an exact amount (other than the minimum or maximum amounts), that’ll be spent every day over a specific period of time?

The reason for this is that we let Facebook adjust your budget to help you generate a higher ROI. In case they notice that your audience is very active, they’ll spend a higher portion of your budget to deliver the best possible results. The opposite will happen if they see a slowdown in your target audience’s engagement.

Thanks to this, you’ll be able to spend your marketing budget more efficiently

Step 5. Add your content

Finally, it’s time to add content to your Facebook ads.

The words and images your target audience will see when they browse Facebook or other apps in the case of Facebook Audience Network.

Your ad will consist of the following elements. You can customize all of them so that they’ll meet your preferences:

Message introducing your ad (optional)

Image(s) or banner(s) that’ll be used to promote it (adding multiple images creates a carousel ad)

Link to the site you want your audience to be referred to when they click on the ad button

Headline of your ad

Button type, e.g. Sign Up

Link description (optional)

Note: Please note that Facebook may show your ad copy differently, depending on the device on which the ad is being displayed. This may affect how the text that introduces your ad is being shown to your audience.

This may look like a lot of elements, but the good news is that not all of them are obligatory.

You may choose to skip the optional ones, but before you do that, think twice whether it’s the right thing to do.

Below’s a blank Facebook ad image that highlights all of the above sections and fields you can provide when creating your ad.

If you’d like to see what your ads would look like when they’re published, you can check them out with this Facebook Preview Tool.

Keep in mind that there are certain requirements when it comes to what your ad content’s going to look like.

For example:

the dimensions of the image you provide must be at least 600 x 315px

Maximum file size is 8MB for GIFs and 10MB for static images

Aspect ratio must be between 9:16 to 16:9

GIF ads should be 15 seconds or shorter

You can’t add more images to the ad if you’ve already added a GIF

We’ll talk about this a bit more later in the last section on Facebook ad campaigns best practices.

Step 6. Submit the ad

Now that you’ve set you ad it’s time to hit the submit the ad button.

Once that’s done, GetResponse sends the information to Facebook so they can have a look if everything’s been set correctly.

Having said this, there might be some situations where Facebook will reject your ad and you’ll have to edit it before you can resubmit it.

There are, in fact, about 100 reasons why an ad could get rejected. Here’s an official list provided by Facebook, in case you’re interested.

Just to give you an overview of what these could be, I’ve summarized the ones that are quite common:

There’s excessive text in your ad images

Your ad is targeting personal attributes

Your landing page is not fully functional or doesn’t match your ad creative

Your ad content is not in line with the community standards

You’re advertising something that’s prohibited or restricted (e.g., adult products, alcohol, or cryptocurrency)

We’ll talk about the most important ones once again later, in the last section of this post.

Step 7. Managing your ads

Once you’ve submitted your ad, you can monitor its status in the Manage Ads section of your account.

There, you’ll see the full details for all the ads you’ve created.

This includes the thumbnail of one of the visuals you provided, the campaign name, the text introducing your ad, ad status, ad duration, budget, reach, and the number of clicks the ad generated.

In the Manage Ads section, you’ll also be able to edit, duplicate, delete, and of course – create new ads.

When it comes to the ad status, there are several types of statuses you’re likely going to see.

These are:

Draft

Completed – when the ad campaign finished successfully

Canceled – when the ad was canceled by the user

Failed – when the ad couldn’t be activated

Rejected – when the ad got rejected by Facebook

Inactive – when the user paused the campaign

Active – when the campaign is still running

Scheduled – when the ad has been successfully approved and is now scheduled to start at a time specified by the user

In Review – when the ad campaign is being reviewed

Note: When you hover over the status of your ad campaign, you should see additional information, e.g., why it may have been rejected.

The most important piece of information is that you’ll only be charged if your ad gets approved by Facebook.

How to create effective Facebook ads: best practices

To finish off this article, I’ve decided to provide you with a list of tips and best practices that’ll help you generate more bang for the buck with your Facebook ads.

That, of course, requires that your ads get approved by Facebook first, hence some of the tips that you’re about to read are directly related to match their ad requirements.

Minimize the amount of text in your images

Facebook found that ads that contain less than 20% text perform better.

That’s why they want their advertisers to meet these criteria when submitting their ads through Facebook.

To find out if your ad’s going to meet these requirements, you can use their Text Overlay tool that’ll evaluate your images.

Note that there are some exemptions to these rules (e.g. if your ad shows a book cover or an album cover).

That’s why it’s worth reading up more on these requirements directly on Facebook.

There, you’ll also find some useful ad examples with different amounts of text and explanation on how that element could affect their reach.

Make your ads personal

We see thousands of ads every day of the year. And we ignore most of them, too.

If you want your ads to stand out, you need to make them personal.

Rather than using stock photos, try using your own photos as often as you can.

Show your products in action. Make them feel natural, not like they’ve just been rendered out. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be high resolution!

Match the colors and fonts in your ads with the ones that’ll be used on your landing page.

Maintain the scent. Thanks to this, your audience will feel that they’re in the right place and the ad hasn’t mistakenly directed them to some random site.

Not sure what’s going to work well for you? You can start by gaining inspiration by exploring the Facebook Ad Library and searching for other companies in your niche.

Keep it simple

Like in all areas of marketing, in Facebook advertising, simplicity pays off, too.

Effective ad campaigns are not only personal, but also tend to be simple.

The reason for this is also simple, we only have a couple of seconds (if not less) to capture someone’s attention and explain what it is that we can do for them.

So think twice before you submit a complex image or text that’s hard to comprehend.

Although some studies in the past have shown that people focus and understand more when the things they’re reading are hard to read, it might not be the most optimal experience for Facebook.

After all, many of your users will be accessing this social network to relax and socialize, not to strain their brain wires.

Understand that Facebook advertising is a bit different

If you’re new to Facebook advertising then you might not know this, but advertising on social media is a bit different from anything else.

Unlike on Google or Bing, people are spending time on Facebook to socialize and entertain themselves.

Sure, they do also learn about the latest news and events from it, but they’re not usually actively looking for that type of information.

Having said this, your Facebook ads should be a bit different from what you’d usually use in Google or Bing.

Your ads have to be eye-catching, interesting, and engaging. But, they can’t be distracting.

Think about this when designing your ads and you’ll see that their performance will be positive, too.

Match the ads with your funnel stages

As you may have read in our guide to marketing funnels, a typical audience goes through several funnel stages before they actually convert.

Typically, marketers refer to the top (awareness), middle (consideration), and bottom (conversion) of the funnel.

Each part of the funnel aims to achieve a different goal and you need to keep that in mind when you’re designing your Facebook ads.

If you’re running ads that are meant to fuel your marketing funnel at the top, i.e., drive traffic to your landing page, then your ad content should focus on generating awareness.

Naturally, if you’d be interested in retargeting those who’ve gone through your funnel, but haven’t converted yet, your ads should focus on the conversion.

To learn more about this, check out this article which provides further explanation on how to write ads for different business objectives.

Test different approaches

There’s not one single best way to reach your audience.

That’s why rather than betting big that your ad is going to convert like crazy, prepare several versions (including images, copy, and targeting option) to find the approach that works best for you.

Only when you know the potential outcomes, you should increase your budget.

Ready to take action?

Although this article turned out to be a bit lengthy, you’ll see that creating Facebook ads is not more complicated than sending out a newsletter to your email subscribers.

And if you want your marketing funnels to continually generate sales revenue, you should reach out to new audiences.

As you saw, there are at least several ways you can do this using the Facebook ads integration with GetResponse.

So, are you ready to give them a spin?

Go ahead and create your first Facebook ad campaign through GetResponse.

And if you have any questions, just let us know in the comments below

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The post How to Design Facebook Ads in GetResponse (New Feature Update) appeared first on GetResponse Blog - Online Marketing Tips.

How to Design Facebook Ads in GetResponse (New Feature Update) published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

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neprofesionalas · 5 years

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How you shouldn’t behave

I would say that this post will be related to the traits that investor should have not to make mistakes and get best results while investing. Well I have made many mistakes while investing to stocks. This is why I consider it more like hobby but not the stable monthly income for living while other areas where I am investing are more for getting not big but stable income. So investing to stocks requires to have much knowledge – it is not just buy and sell. You must know WHY and WHEN you need to buy and WHY and WHEN you need to sell. This is hours of analyzing market and particular stocks you are interested in. You have to know why the prices on the market is fluctuating. But today’s topic is about a cold mind. In my opinion you should forget such things like feelings and try not to make the so called panic sells and buys. Right now I want to illustrate one panic sell and panic buy episode. Everyone knows that biotechnology is rising as a branch of science and new treatments and cures for various diseases evolves. Therefore many companies appear in the scene. Some of them make their stock emissions and it is possible to support these companies and on the other hand earn some money. So there is a company called Avrobio. According to their pipeline they are working with the treatment (or cure) for 4 diseases. You may see it in their website www.avrobio.com/pipeline/ So I bought this company’s stocks for 15,50 USD on the 20th of February this year (you may see it in the picture below). What I have done that day is good because I thought it will demonstrate an increase in the next weeks or months. And after some good news (I will not get into details now) the price rose and I just decided to sell them: 30 stocks for 18,26 USD and 30 stocks for 18,95 each on the 20th and 22nd of March respectively. This made me around 100 dollars profit. The next weeks price rose to 27,29 USD per share what would have made me around 500 dollars profit in total. And then as you see I bought 30 stocks for almost the peek price which in the next two days made me more than 100 dollars loss. So if I sold them now it would be also a big mistake. I will better hold them until they rise again and wait for the good news for this company. So what to learn from this story is – don’t panic, stop and think, read the news and make only a brain-based decisions. And still – it is impossible to learn without making mistakes.

Šis įrašas apie savybes, kurias turi turėti investuotojas, kad nedarytų klaidų ir investuodamas pasiektų geriausių rezultatų. Investuodamas į akcijas padariau daug klaidų ir būtent dėl to investavimas į akcijas yra labiau hobi, o ne stabilios mėnesinės įplaukos. Iš tikrųjų investavimas į akcijas reikalauja daug žinių ir nėra vien tik pirkimas ir pardavimas. Turi žinoti KODĖL ir KADA pirkit bei KODĖL ir KADA parduoti akcijas. Analizuoti rinką ir konkrečias akcijas, mokytis investuoti užtrunka valandas, nes norėdamas investuoti privalai žinoti, kodėl kainos rinkoje svyruoja. Bet šiame įraše norėčiau pabrėžti, kad investuotojui reikalingas šaltas protas ir šalti nervai, kurie padės nepanikuoti ir neatlikti neracionalių taip vadinamų panikos pirkimų ir panikos pardavimų. O aš būtent ir noriu iliustruoti tokį epizodą. Taigi biotechnologijos yra sparčiai besiplečianti mokslo sritis ir šiuo metu atsiranda daug naujų kompanijų, kurios dirba šioje srityje ir stengiasi atrasti naujus vaistus nuo įvairių ligų. Kai kurių kompanijų akcijas galima įsigyti ir vėliau kompanijai dirbant pelningai, akcijų kainai kylant, uždirbti pinigų. Iliustracijai pateiksiu kompaniją Avrobio, kuri yra sukūrusi vaistus nuo 4 ligų. Šie vaistai dabar yra tyrimų stadijoje, tačiau tikėdamas tuo, kad kompanijos akcijų kainos turi kilti nusipirkau 60 akcijų po 15,5 USD vasario 20 dieną. Taigi čia buvo geras sprendimas, nes po šiek tiek laiko akcijų kaina pradėjo kilti ir aš nusprendžiau jas parduoti – fiksuoti pelną. Per du kartus pardaviau po 30 akcijų po 18,98 ir po 18,26 USD už akciją ir taip uždirbau apie 100 dolerių. Kitas kelias savaites akcijų kaina kilo ir pasiekė 27,29 dolerio už akciją. Taigi jei būčiau pardavęs tada, pelnas būtų gerokai didesnis, bet aš padariau priešingai – esant beveik didžiausiai akcijų kainai tuo laikotarpiu aš nupirkau 30 vienetų akcijų, kas per dvi dienas man atnešė daugiau nei 100 USD nuostolį. Taigi, mano manymu, geriausia dabar būtų tas akcijas laikyti ir laukti gerų žinių apie kompanijos rezultatus. Pasimokyti iš šios istorijos galima to, kad prekiaujant nereikia panikuoti, o sustoti, pagalvoti, paskaityti naujienas ir daryti sprendimus vadovaujantis protu, o ne klaidinančiais instinktais. Tačiau reikia turėti omenyje ir tai, kad neįmanoma kažko išmokti nepadarius klaidų.

#mistake panic sell buy stocks shares #investing

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cake-faceshawty · 5 years

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If you remember my first travel post (Bienvenido a Cuba!), I shared my promise to myself to visit at least one new country each year. And being the birthday diva I am, what better way to kick off twenty-nine twenty-fine than with a girls trip to somewhere new. And thus,

#DESTINATIONTWENTYFINE

was born.

Upon my return from Havana last July, I instinctively started searching for my next vacation spot, and was drawn to the beautiful beaches, exciting adventures and delicious food DR had to offer. I therefore had no doubt that #DESTINATIONTWENTYFINE would be in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

I know what you’re thinking – what is this chick’s obsession with Spanish-speaking countries? Honestly, I’m not sure either 😂 (aside from my love of Hispanic food), but keep in mind that my birthday is in the dead of winter, so travel options are limited due to the weather.

Being the lunatic that I am, by the end of July I had presented my closest girlfriends with a full on PDF document that had everythangggggg (I do my homework, okay!). I had decided on travel dates, given airline options from each person’s point of origin, accommodation options, a full on itinerary and a budget for the entire trip.

However, similar to my Cuba planning, I found limited information online. Even harder, was finding out anything beyond the confinements of all-inclusive resorts. Perhaps it’s because I’m from a popular tourist destination (so I know how it goes), but the thought of staying in a hotel and ONLY experiencing what they present to you at the resort does not excite me. I want to explore the cuisine that hasn’t been watered down to satisfy the palates of tourists; I want to interact with locals and explore beyond the resort walls. And while Punta Cana is known for being a resort town, I knew there was more to be seen than the hotel disco and food buffet.

Within three months, three girlfriends and I had booked flights (catch flights, not feelings okurrrrr), secured a beautiful bungalow via Airbnb and committed to a fully packed birthday getaway to D.R.!

We spent 6 days exploring Punta Cana, eating way too much rice, consuming wayyy too much alcohol and collecting memories to last a lifetime.

Of course I couldn’t limit you guys to just glam shots on Instagram! So, here are all my tips for planning a vacation to Punta Cana.

My follow-up post will have more on where to go, what to eat, what I wore (you know I love a slaycation) and things to do. I hope these posts will answer all your questions!

About Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a part of the second biggest Caribbean island, Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti. From a tourist’s perspective, the island would seem to be simply beaches and palm trees; however, they also have mountains, deserts and a rich history.

The official language of DR is Spanish, and while some might assume based on the popularity that Punta Cana is the capital of DR, it is actually Santo Domingo.

Their currency is the Dominican Peso, however, USD, CAD, Euros and GBP are accepted in most places in Punta Cana.

Punta Cana

Punta Cana is one of the most popular destinations in the Caribbean and therefore has tons of resorts and villa options. It encompasses Cap Cana, Macao, Bavaro, El Cortecito, Cabeza de Toro, Uvero Alto and Arena Gorda. From the picturesque beaches to the epic nightlife, Punta Cana has become a prime vacation spot if you’re looking for a luxury vacation, some kind of turn up or just want to slay relax on the beach all day – and of course learn a little about the country’s culture!

The beaches and surrounding area reminded me of Jamaica’s north coast – beautiful white sand, lush grass, palm and coconut trees, and warm locals willing to accommodate you despite the language barrier.

What you should know before traveling to Punta Cana

While US passport holders do not need a visa to enter DR, there are visa restrictions for some countries. Jamaicans can enter DR without any visa requirements, however, if you are travelling through the US, you will of course need a US visa. Multiple blog posts had warned of a $10 visitor fee that must be paid before going through immigration, however, we were not required to pay any additional fees. Perhaps that fee is now outdated or included in the ticket fee, but no cash payment was required at the airport from any of us – and we traveled from different locations on different airlines.

Arrange your transportation beforehand: whether you plan to rent a car or need a driver to take you to your accommodation, make these plans before you travel to avoid unnecessary airport stress and get the best prices possible.

About 90% of the resorts are all-inclusive: if you want that resort life and prefer to pre-pay for accommodation, food, alcohol and entertainment, one of these resorts may be your best bet.

Most places in Punta Cana accept USD, Euros, GBP and CAD, so there’s no reason to change your money to pesos. Major credit cards were accepted most places, however, I recommend you bring cash (mostly small bills) for some excursions, tips, and other small purchases.

You can book a lot your excursions in advance online, so you don’t have to worry about them getting sold out. We tried to book as much as we could beforehand in order to efficiently plan our itinerary.

The weather app isn’t always right. The day before we traveled, I was getting a bit nervous because all I saw were rain clouds and possible thunder storms on the Weather App. However, since this is a tropical place, occasional rain clouds appear for short periods. It drizzled maybe twice during our stay and none of our plans were affected by these rain drops.

As a mostly Catholic country, nudity is illegal! So save your topless tanning for elsewhere. If you really want to avoid tan lines, spend some extra dinero on a room with a private pool.

SIM cards with unlimited data for a week are available for $10 USD through Claro, so save on roaming charges and just purchase one at BlueMall (literally less than 10 minutes from the airport) to stay in the loop. Most public places also have Wi-Fi, so you’ll be able to instagram all your amazing pictures in real-time.

What to pack…

As previously stated in my Cuba post, I am not a light packer – I embrace the slaycation lifestyle completely and commit to the slayage – which you cannot do from simply a carry-on. I simply must check a bag when I travel! I’ll try to stick to the basics because I will have a follow-up post on how to pack for a slaycation, so stay tuned!

Passport. Duh, for any international flight this is necessary – but it always has to top the packing list. I can’t imagine driving all the way to the airport only to realise I left my passport on the bed.

Money. Get your coins ready – and whatever cards you’ll be carrying.

Bags. 1 carry-on, 1 checked bag, a backpack/tote, appropriate bags for outfits.

Toiletries. I’m a naturalista, so of course I have to pack shampoo, conditioner, styling products and a spray bottle. But, you’ll also need toothbrush, toothpaste, mouth wash, first aid kit, any necessary medication, deodorant, sunblock, tanning oil, lotion, tampons/pads, makeup, razor, bug spray and makeup. The good thing about this destination is that Supermercado Nacional in Punta Cana has most things you could possibly want: from Advil to Andrews to Herbal Essences. So if you forget any toiletries there’s no need to fret – you can get most of your necessities at the supermarket.

Electronics. Cell phone, iPad/tablet, camera, portable charger, charger cables for all devices, earphones, blue tooth speaker. I opted to leave my laptop at home to resist any temptation to work while on vacation.

Clothing. Underwear (my standard is 2/day plus extras), shorts, cool clothing (it is a tropical destination), swimsuits, a sweater/jacket, sneakers, sandals, flip-flops, heels/dress shoes, “fancy” clothes, sleep clothes and a hat. Once again, Punta Cana is a modernized island so if you need anything, you can probably pick it up at a mall. BlueMall has a huge Zara, Nike, Aldo, Levi’s, Under Armour, just to name a few. So if you forget anything or want to change an outfit, you can always go shopping 💁🏾.

Travel

We booked our tickets online through our preferred airlines. I use an app called Hopper where you can put in your destination and dates to see flight price predictions on various airlines. You can also watch the flight to know when the right time to book is in order to get the most affordable ticket. If you prefer to stay at an all-inclusive resort, you can find flight + hotel options on aa.com, Expedia, Travelocity, etc.

Traveling from Kingston, Jamaica, Justine-Renee and I booked on American Airlines (my preferred airline). The flight was from KIN (Norman Manley International Airport) to MIA (Miami International Airport), then to PUJ (Punta Cana International Airport). The flight from MIA to PUJ was about 2 hours and the entire travel time was about 7 hours. We left Kingston at 7:49 AM and landed in Punta Cana at 3:15 (DR is 1 hour ahead). The cost for my ticket was $715 USD, which is kinda pricey considering I booked it from October, but I digress…

Please note that the flight prices were probably higher than usual since it is a tropical destination and February is right in the middle of peak season.

My friend Tamara traveled on Jet Blue for less, but her travel time was longer as it went from KIN to FLL to SJU (Puerto Rico) to PUJ. Her return flight, however, only had a layover in FLL.

Christine traveled from North Carolina on Southwest Airlines; her travel time was a bit longer than ours and went from RDU to ATL to PUJ. Her return flight stopped at FLL instead of ATL.

Estimate the ticket price to be anywhere between $500 to $800 depending on your city of origin and when you book the ticket.

Accommodation

As previously stated, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of staying at an all-inclusive resort, plus based on the size of my group, it was more economical to stay at a villa/bungalow. However, there are a wide range of resorts to choose from, especially in Bávaro.

Cap Cana, which is less than 20 minutes from the airport, is a gated resort area containing luxury condos, resorts, beaches and entertainment options.

We rented a villa that was absolutely amazing! It was safe (you need a pass to get through the Cap Cana entrance and to enter Green Village where we stayed), spacious, beautifully decorated, and just perfect for our girls’ trip. It had an outdoor shower and bath tub, and our own private pool and barbecue patio with an expansive backyard (not to mention a beautiful view!). We were also close to the shopping mall, supermarket, restaurants and Scape Park so the location was perfect. Our host, Carlos, was very welcoming and checked on us often; he gave us wonderful recommendations for activities, beaches and restaurants, and replied quickly if we had any questions.

For 5 nights, our villa was about $1400 USD total, which wasn’t too bad when split 4 ways.

Check out our home in paradise (thank you Carlos) here:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/plus/23742780?guests=1&adults=1

How to get around

One thing that had us anxious when planning this vacation was transportation. While Punta Cana does have public transportation (taxis) and tour buses, we felt it would be easier on our schedule (and pockets) to rent a car. I can honestly say we found the least helpful information as it related to car rental.

First of all, you must know this: the people of Punta Cana drive like taxi men in Montego Bay, so if you can handle that, you can handle Punta Cana. As for people used to “safer” driving conditions, I can understand your reservation – you may want to stick to taxis or private tour operators. I’m pretty sure we only passed two stoplights around downtown Punta Cana; otherwise, it was just a bunch of roundabouts (they really love roundabouts) and wildness a bit of a free-for-all.

I highly recommend you reserve your car prior to your arrival. We reserved our Alamo rental a week before (no deposit required) through Expedia. While I did pay for the collision insurance through Expedia ($11/day that you pay upfront), I think you can pass on that. The insurance company offers a good insurance package and we opted to get all the recommended insurance since we were driving in unfamiliar territory.

Originally, in trying to keep within the budget, I had reserved a midsize sedan. However, we reached an agreement that the four of us AND our luggage would not be comfortable in a Tiida (A TIIDAAAA!?!) so we decided to upgrade to an SUV upon arrival. Fortunately, they were out of the immediate upgrade option, and for the same price as a Suzuki Vitara, we were able to rent a full-size SUV. For 6 days and the full insurance package, we paid $418 with no hidden fees or surprises. The only request was that we bring the car back with a full tank of gas.

The full tank the car came with was sufficient for 6 days of driving all over the place! We didn’t have to get gas until we filled it right before the return time. The cost to fill the tank was about $75USD.

One thing to note is that in order to rent a car, the person renting must have a valid driver’s license and credit card with the same name. You don’t pay for the car when you first rent it: instead, the company will put a hold on the credit card for $500USD and upon return of the car (provided no damages or accidents), they will subtract the cost of the rental from the $500 hold and return the balance to your credit card. This was a relief for us as we were under the impression that they would be charging the rental fee AND putting the hold for $500 all at once.

Overall the rental experience was hassle-free with no hidden charges, and driving in Punta Cana wasn’t a bad experience. Plus, whether you are roaming or purchase a SIM card, you can use WAZE or Google Maps to get around easily.

The cost

It’s safe to say that Punta Cana is a pricey vacation spot. I mean let’s face it: it is an area developed for tourism. However, plane ticket and accommodation aside, it wasn’t too bad on the pocket. Grocery shopping is so affordable, we were actually in shock! During our first supermarket run, we bought food items, more alcohol, toiletries, and just so much stuff for the four of us, and somehow the bill was only $120!!! If you live in Jamaica, you can understand how cheap that is for a full cart of things for four people.

There are many affordable options for dining out. Depending on your budget, you can spend anywhere between $10-60 on a meal (sometimes including cocktails). Just do your research beforehand and explore your dining options. We were also happy to have a place to cook in so we could budget our meals efficiently.

I had initially placed our total budget (airfare, accommodation, car rental, food, excursions, “braffing”) at $1700-$2000 USD per person. And while we did upgrade the car rental, we stayed within that budget range.

My tips + thoughts

Get a Spanish dictionary app. Know the basics! I’m not going to lie, I felt like I experienced more of a language barrier in DR than I did in Cuba. Some do know English, but we did experience several service persons who did not speak a lick of English. Just because it’s a tourist destination, do not expect everyone to know Enlglish!!! You are in a Spanish-speaking country!!!!

Purchase the SIM card. I don’t care how much of a shella you are, once your phone is unlocked, purchase the $10 SIM card from Claro. $10 is so affordable and it’s unlimited data for a week. Like… where [else] dey do dat at????

Buy your alcohol in Duty Free when you land. If you plan on getting lit like we did, get your alcohol (especially champagne, Hennessy, tequila) in the duty-free store because it’s so much cheaper! They had some great deals (like 2 bottles of Moet for $120USD) and they had these delicious fruit-infused spirits. You can sample them literally as you step out of immigration. We bought the Papaya-infused Tequila and the Mango-infused Rum. The only downside is we did have to mix some Appleton in the cocktails because those spirits are only 20% alcohol and in Jamaica we’re used to 40% Appleton and 63% White Rum so you know how that goes…. 😁.

Drink bottled water. While the water is relatively clean, depending on where you’re from, you can still get traveler’s diarrhoea or some kind of stomach reaction. I prefer to keep it safe – especially after getting sick in Cuba 🤦🏾‍♀️.

Do not wait until the last-minute to buy souvenirs! We waited until the morning we were leaving and headed to Bavaro to find some souvenir shops. A lot of those places don’t open until midday, so we couldn’t wait and ended up with the limited (and overpriced – $9 for a shot glass 😒) airport finds. Try to actually visit some local stores outside of the airport.

Be open to new experiences – especially food! While you will find American chains such as Wendy’s and Pizza Hut, do not travel to a new country to only eat French fries and pizza! Try some local cuisine – explore the food options!

While it is disappointing, there is a chance you could experience some racism or prejudice while in DR. I don’t want to bash the entire island for 2 instances we experienced, but I do think it is 2 too many. However, if you’re familiar with how some Dominicans think about black people and people of Hispanic descent who don’t speak Spanish, you’ll understand why we weren’t exactly surprised; we were more taken aback that this could happen in a tourist area like Punta Cana, when so many tourists from all over the world come to visit year-round. Anyway, please don’t let those two incidents discourage from seeing all that Punta Cana has to offer. We had a wonderful time otherwise and were met with warmth and hospitality from the other locals.

Tips for planning a group trip

Plan your trip at least six months in advance. This gives people enough time to bail on plans to commit to everything.

Be cautious of who you invite on a group trip: personalities clash and nothing is worse than spending a ton of money to go see a new country only for a spoil-sport to rain on everyone’s parade. Take into consideration personality traits and rooming arrangements (don’t invite a neat freak and a messy Betty and have them room together – that’s an argument waiting to happen).

Plan your budget from the jump and set a reasonable timeline for that budget. A good thing to do is to mark up all costs, so there’s some wiggle room in case things come up or prices go up (or if you live in Jamaica, you can work with the fluctuation of the dollar). It’s better to come back with some extra funds than to have an insufficient amount while overseas.

Pay for things as you go along to avoid having to fork out a lump sum. Since the budget for this trip was kinda steep, I made sure we paid for things over the six month period, so that by the time the trip came around, any money spent would be on going out and other trip expenses. We started by paying for the Airbnb from September (you can pay 50% upfront and the balance 2 weeks before your trip), booked the flights in October, shopped for outfits between November and December, paid for excursions in January and by the end of January we paid the balance on the villa. By the middle of February our only costs were things paid for in DR. This was so much easier than forking out $2000USD one time! After all, my friends and I don’t have sugar daddies are not big ballers (YET!).

Try to make an itinerary beforehand: this way, you can have an idea of what each day will be like (what will the wake up call be? will the lunch spot be close to the activity we’ll do in the morning?), and you can efficiently plan your outfit options based on what you’ll be doing. I’m a foodie, so I also like to check restaurant reviews and menus before I go so I don’t waste money on bad tasting food. Not to mention, this will help you stay within your budget so you don’t end up going to restaurants with four dollar signs and have no money left in the budget for activities. But keep your options open: certain places may not pan out, so it’s important to have back-ups. I’ll be sharing my psychopathic PDF with you guys at the end of this post.

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Have you ever been to Punta Cana? Are you planning a trip there? Comment below and let me know. Feel free to ask any questions also ❤️

Be sure to follow me on my other social media platforms:

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¡DESTINACIÓN PUNTA CANA! If you remember my first travel post (Bienvenido a Cuba!), I shared my promise to myself to visit at least one new country each year. 3,648 more words

#black girls who travel #blog life #caribbean #Dominican Republic #DR #Lifestyle #lifestyle blog #Punta Cana #travel #travel blog #travel blogger #travel tips #vacation #vacation style

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roboticprocessautomationrpa-blog · 5 years

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Pam ChengWith 2020 right around the corner, what actions should healthcare professionals be doing today to lay a foundation of success for the coming decade? This Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association Q&A series provides executive insights for readers to shape their own career paths.

Michael Wong: Having been brought up in a proverbial Asian-American household (become a doctor, lawyer, or an engineer);1 how did you make the transition into a Fortune 500 C-Suite?

Pam Cheng: While I never had a specific goal to become a C-Suite executive, I was always up for challenges. I get a real satisfaction in doing the “impossible.” One of the main reasons that I had studied Chemical Engineering in college was because I was told “girls are not good in engineering…” It was good fortune that I had caring parents and supportive mentors who enabled me to pursue assignments that were interesting and tapped into my curiosity and capabilities. When I was asked to lead my previous employer’s China operations, it was very intriguing to me. After all, the assignment was to lead a strategic billion (USD) dollar-plus market with >5,000 employees. While I was confident of my capabilities, I was concerned that I lacked the deep commercial (sales and marketing) expertise, not to mention the challenge of leading a dynamic market in a different language and culture. But the trust that the company had in me as well as my curiosity led me to “do the impossible.” It turned out to be one of the most important challenges and defining moments in my career.

Wong: With Fortune's top three most admired firms (2019’s report identified Apple, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway) placing big bets in healthcare and emerging technologies (Machine Learning and Robotic Process Automation to name a few) gaining traction in the sector's C-Suites, what are the top three career recommendations that you have for readers as they prepare for the upcoming new decade?

Cheng: The speed of digital advances and the explosion of new technologies available will absolutely shape a very different future for the upcoming decade in the healthcare industry. The bio-pharmaceutical industry is making great progress in bringing new medicines to patients around the world, quicker and with more innovation than ever before. We will have five generations in our workforce by 2025. Leaders will need to constantly up their leadership and capability, the notion of lifelong learning is now critical to ensure continued success. Here are three questions that your readership should consider:

Am I adding value to the company? You don’t need to be an economist to realize how important new technologies are for Fortune 500 organizations.2 Digital transformation is occurring across all functional areas. Do you have the right skills and expertise to contribute to the company’s success? Do your efforts tie back to driving business value for the firm? And are they tied back to the C-Suite’s target goals? Do you need to up the game on your leadership and skills?

Am I earning my keep? I consider myself privileged to be leading in a large organization that makes a difference. It is very important to me that I “earn my keep.” I think this sets the right attitude and mindset to ensure that we don’t forget why we are here. So, are you earning your keep by making things “better?” Are you adding value to your company’s value chain, tangible or intangible?

Am I taking care of my people? With the fourth-industrial revolution’s impact on the workforce,3 it’s not surprising that some employees are worried about job security. How might you coach your team to pivot their limited resource and time to understanding a new area and learn new skills? Digital transformation will automate and simplify existing ways of working, but at the same time, there will be more value-added jobs being created. Companies should provide training and new opportunities, managers/leaders can provide the right coaching and guidance, and very importantly, the employees should capitalize every opportunity to learn and upskill.

Pam Cheng is executive vice president of Operations, Technology at AstraZeneca.

Michael Wong is co-president of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association.

#rpa #robotic process uaotmation #roboticprocessautomation

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cryptnus-blog · 6 years

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"BTC to 10k. The Broken wedge of BTC." by trader Sherem — published October 15, 2018 — TradingView

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/10/btc-to-10k-the-broken-wedge-of-btc-by-trader-sherem-published-october-15-2018-tradingview/

"BTC to 10k. The Broken wedge of BTC." by trader Sherem — published October 15, 2018 — TradingView

Remember how I kept posting about the shifting channel we were getting in BTC represented by this Gold trendline? About this massive purple trend line keeping BTC down? About not having any volatility?

We just got everything in one evening.

1. Broken Trendline . Check. 2. Broken Wedge to the upside. Check. 3. Broken RSI wedge . Check.

USDT scare drove price up. Right now we are getting some disparity on different exchanges. On Bitfinex for example, we have BTC printing around $6,900, but on Gemini and Coinbase we are printing around $6,400. If this dispairty holds, this will be very good and will drive prices higher. Bots (and people) will begun buying cheap BTC from USD on Coinbase and GDAX and selling it higher to profit, or just holding knowing they can sell it higher. Think about a bot making a $500 tick every time they buy and sell almost instantly. Arb bots have been dormant for some time, I bet they get turned on agian. Ultimately, if we see this price disparity continue, we will see prices go higher substantially.

Volatility returning is great news. It will bring in more action, more buyers and attract people that have been on the sidelines.

BTC to 10k, looking a lot better after last night.

You all know where I am long from. Still holding.

-Sherem

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topicprinter · 7 years

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Hey guys so I've been selling on Amazon FBA for about a year now, and I wanted to share some things that I've learned on my journey and why I'm now looking at different business models.In the fall of 2015 I started looking into making money online and Amazon FBA seemed enticing. I started watching all of the Guru 0 to a million in a year type youtube videos and I got all excited about one day working on my laptop while traveling the world and hanging out at the beach everydayWhat did i do first?I started researching a niche with no big brand names, decent margins and something that I could customize and stand out with. I bought the Jungle scout light program to save me some time. I then ordered every product I could from all of my competitors, on page 1 from Amazon to see what they were like. Then what I did was go on Alibaba and order samples from like 6 different factories. What I quickly realized was that this was all the same stuff.All of these factories were making the same thing and guys on page one on Amazon selling for $39 and the guys selling for 19$ were basically selling the same thing, just branded differently. I didn't want to just sell the exact same thing so I found a factory I thought I liked with a good price point and had a custom sample made to set myself apart from the competition. When I got the sample it was terrible. I had to switch factories, found a way better one, this set me back a few weeks but I finally got an awesome product made, and placed my first order and had it shipped by air. I originally invested $4500 bucks, 7 bucks a unit x 500 + 1000 for air shipping.What happened next?My product went live last summer, I started out with a price point of 29.99, since competition was selling between 19 and 39. I wanted to jump into the middle and feel out where I fit in. I had some friends buy to get initial sales and by week 2 I had my first organic sale. I did a giveaway for 40 units in a facebook group to get some discounted reviews (This was before Amazon had changed its terms of service). After the first month I had over 30 reviews, I was on bottom of page 1 and I was getting consistent sales of between 3-5 units a day at 26.99 (I had lowered my price to increase sales).By end of November sales were growing due to the Christmas season and then in December I did close to 8000 in revenue at around a 28% profit margin which I thought was half decent since a year before I didnt even really know what Amazon FBA was. Now this was at the time that Amazon had changed its review policy saying that nobody could sell discounted products in exchange for a review. I thought nothing of this besides the fact that I had planned to give away more but couldn't now, oh well. What I didn't realize was that Amazon would take away almost all of my reviews in January leaving me with only 17 reviews from the 54 that I had and I dropped down to a 4 star from a 5 star. Also I had just placed a 1000 unit order because I had almost run out of inventory due to the Christmas rush. This combined with the fact that a LOT of chinese sellers were starting to take over my category my sales really slowed down a lot.Anyways. Here is what I have learned about selling on Amazon FBA:1) Competition is growing so fast on Amazon.com which means other sellers will copy your product – This is almost guaranteed if your product is selling well. They say you need a product that really sticks out to succeed. This is true but just expect other guys to move in and copy you. Within 4 months of me launching mine I had another guy selling the exact same product but for almost 10 dollars cheaper! (at my cost). The kicker is that he is selling around 10x more than me despite the fact that his reviews were similar at the time and his grammar and spelling on his listing are terrible as well but nobody seems to care, Price and keyword ranking are all that seem to matter2) Managing inventory can be hard - When you think you need a lot of product you place a large order and it won't sell or you place a small order and it sells too quick leaving you out of stock. Its a balancing act and its not easy3) It Is VERY difficult to get organic reviews – I finally figured out a way to get a small percentage of buyers to leave me reviews with a 3 part email sequence I send out with coupon codes in there etc. Seems to work well but took me a while to figure that out4) You need lots of Capital to scale – This is one fact I find to be very important that none of the so called "Gurus" ever seem to talk about. Oh Look I made a million last year on Amazon, yeah but what did you spend on inventory? I for example spent 4500 USD on my first order and then I had to re-order before that one ran out. I didn’t have quite enough in my account to cover my second order because it was larger so I had to shell out another 10,000 USD for my second order which included another SKU6) Amazon FBA Fees are High – 40 bucks a month for your account, FBA fees on every sale, Inventory storage fees, Inventory placement fees, PPC costs, etc etc. I would wager to bet that when 99% of guys that say they are making 40% profit margins are actually making significantly less than than because they aren't factoring in all of the costs and then taxes on top of that7) Don't take out a loan until your product is proven to sell - This business is very capital intensive and so its tempting to take out a loan to purchase your product. The problem is if your product doesn't sell well, you still have to pay back your loan. Prove your model first and then when you have consistent sales and they are growing, borrow money for inventory so you can grow your business faster.8) When you sell on Amazon, it is Amazon's business, not yours - You have to play by their rules and if you don't they can suspend you and shut you down. All part of how the game is played.9) Facebook ads do not work for a low price point physical product - You may break even at best, but scaling on Facebook requires a product with a good ROI and a high price point to cover ad cost10) Amazon makes mistakes - since their system is so big I have had to deal with them on the phone a few times when they started charging me higher fees on one of my SKU's although they are both the exact same weight and size. They have fixed it both times but has made me extra cautious in paying attention to my numbers11) Your margins will always be lower than you think - I originally calculated a profit margin of over 40% selling at a price point of 29.99, but have since had to lower my price point to 24.99, which is around 35% but then after taking into consideration PPC costs and placement fees etc my margin is actually under 30% now.12) To make good money you need to sell a LOT - if you have a product like mine that sells for 24.99 and I make 7 bucks profit on each one, I have to sell over 1400 units a month to make 10k in profit roughly. Or else I need WAY more products selling which requires WAY more capital. This is why I believe all of the Guru's build courses. Info products sell for way more, have a way higher ROI and can be sold unlimited times after being made once13) Don't follow the crowd - Everybody seems to be moving towards selling on Amazon.com these days because it looks like easy money and they get sold on the "passive income lifestyle" that all of the gurus are selling. In my opinion if you want to make a lot of money in business, DON'T FOLLOW THE CROWD, be smart about it. If you start selling a white labeled garlic press or whatever everybody else is talking about then you better have room for 10 boxes full of garlic presses that you can store in your garage because they probably wont sell. I followed the crowd with my product, had it customized which helped me out a lot, but I still have a hard time making money in this category due to that factFinal thoughtsSo this is just some of the stuff that came to mind when deciding to write this. I am now at a point where I have to run the numbers to see if its even worth it to keep selling these units or if I should move on to something completely different. Looking at my sales which are pretty sad (36k in revenue so just over 10k in profit in a year), I'm thinking I might just sell all of my inventory and start up something else, or sell the brand to somebody else.I'm not 100% interested in adding more products to my Amazon store due to the fact that there are so many chinese sellers entering the game every day making it harder and harder to compete. Also like I said above its Amazon's business, not mine, so ultimately its a risky business model. My goal at the moment is to make 5-10k a month working for myself preferably online since I live in a remote location. Right now I'm debating whether:I should pivot into another ecommerce business, except build a brand this time thats not reliant on Amazon for sales, (I don't love the physical product business model due to the fact that its capital intensive and has a lower ROI, but I would be willing to try it a second time since I'm familiar with it)Look into making an info product/service business with a higher price point / ROIStart upping my skills in another area and start a freelancing type business.If you guys have any question or if you have any ideas for me or you would love to share what your favorite business model is to make 5-10k a month I would love to chat. Cheers

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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alisonfloresus · 7 years

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A Different Kind of SEO: 5 Big Challenges One Niche Faces in Google

Regarding the fronts of brick and mortar, local businesses often struggle to compete with big brands nearby. Statistics show that, even for a well-known local store that has established a strong relationship with its customers and builds community through the years, having a neighbor can be detrimental. But what is a newly opened business? Does he have a chance to compete with popular brands? My experience led me to believe that there is only one way a local business can overcome great competition: it needs to take advantage of local SEO. Recently, in collaboration with Accuranker, I conducted a survey that touches the difficulties local businesses face when trying to become visible in the offices of Google results. We analyzed more than 300,000 local SERPs across multiple industries (beauty, medical, automotive, legal, commercial, etc.) to get a clear understanding of what are the chances for a local site look attractive to Google. One of the most curious ideas of our research revealed is that the legal services niche is among the most competitive. Of course, this finding is not rocket science. In fact, I bet on some level you were aware of this (or at least you had a gut feeling). However, this issue is much more complex than it seems. The niche legal services far exceeds other niches in terms of competition and prices. Does that mean that the legal niche services is radically different rules and requires unique SEO tactics? This is exactly the question I set out to answer, and you are welcome to follow me on my little survey! Gathering the data for this article After reading this article, you will understand the greatest challenges that any legal website faces trying to become visible in the SERPs. The information here will help you ensure that your future strategies are based on informed decisions. In addition, you will be able to streamline your creative process and find non-standard approaches that cement your success in the legal sector. To conduct their own research on what SEO strategies employ local companies in niche areas of legal services, I took the following steps: I made a list of keywords unrelated to any brand (which could hardly be classified as local). I identified the most competitive places in the United States for this industry to analyze how the legal site to build a presence in this extremely aggressive environment The first step was simply to do the keyword research, which involved a bit more manual work than usual – I tried my best to filter keywords and those that are not relevant for local searches brand. With the help of Statista I could get a list of the states in America have the highest rate of employment in the legal Niche:

This chart shows the US states with the greatest number of employees in the legal profession in the United States in May 2014. Source: statista.com You can see that California, New York and Florida have the largest number of employees in this sector, where these places are the most “densely populated” by companies and attorneys of law, and accordingly, competition in these countries should be higher than in other states. After making a list of the most competitive places, I am ready to take the next step – analyze areas that appear in SERPs for keywords that I had selected. Now let’s see what my results revealed. Top 5 SEO challenges for legal Niche The extreme competitiveness of the niche legal services can be explained by the fact that this market generates over $ 248 billion US in revenue (according to a recent report provided by Statista) with only a small number of searches. To give you a better understanding of the size of the legal services industry in the US, we will compare with a larger market: for example, if the e-commerce we look, we can see clearly that the income generated the two niches in question are about the same (e-commerce sales in excess of $ 256 billion USD), despite the fact that the e-commerce traffic share figures are four times higher than in legal services. It is safe to say that the legal niche turned out to be a ridiculously competitive market because it is an outrageously profitable. I am also certain that the success of any SEO activity depends on a deep understanding of how the industry and its key players working. In the next section, you’ll learn about the main challenges companies face legal. # 1. Legal online business dominate local SERPs Statistics IBISWorld report confirms that legal services in niche line has been able to generate $ 4 billion in 2015. In addition, in recent years, this market has been steadily growing due to the fact that consumers are interested in obtaining legal services online. That’s why it does not come as a surprise that a company called Rocket Lawyer generates over 30,000 searches per month (according to Google Keyword Planner) by helping users meet their legal issues online. This body of research shows that online legal services are slowly becoming popular, and people do not want to spend their time planning a meeting with a lawyer more. Now you are probably wondering how this trend affects local SEO, right? Knowing that New York, Miami and Los Angeles are among the most competitive locations for legal niche, I decided to find out which sites are most visible in local search results there. I considered over 500 different keywords related to legal services and has compiled a list of the areas that most seemed most often to those keywords. And here are the three main areas that remain visible in local search results in three cities:

Findlaw.com Avvo.com Lawyers.com After making this list, I double-checked those sites to ensure that each of them belong to legal services niche online. I also decided to dig deeper and manually checked the first twenty areas that were most visible in all places I analyzed in order to understand what kind of legal services they provide. I discovered that 55.6 percent of the sites I analyzed belong to the online legal services niche. This means that local companies must now compete not only with global companies, but also with the online legal businesses which, by default, have better positions in SERPs, as the main purpose of their business is to increase their presence in line by getting more organic traffic from Google. # 2. Google does not give priority to local legal firms in the organic search results Apart from the strong presence online businesses in local organic SERPs, I was struck by the constant visibility of the top twenty sites that appear in local search results in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. The shocking truth I discovered on Google Local SERPs is that less than 20 percent of the sites were unique across all study sites. This means that search results are occupied by companies worldwide and online in 80 percent of cases. In addition, the three most visible areas remain the same in the three cities, and they are: Findlaw.com, Avvo.com and Lawyers.com. I also discovered that all three of these sites belong to legal services niche online, and, despite the SEO visibility, have lots of backlinks. I believe that local businesses have no chance to compete with them whatsoever. As I studied the 20 percent of websites that are unique, curious case of two local firms caught my attention – and Injurylawyers.com Cellinoandbarnes.com. Let’s take a look more closely at these two sites. In “Contact” page of Injurylawyers.com, I learned that it works most of the time in Florida. However, I do not think why it ranks so highly in the local search results in Miami is because of his physical presence there. Even at a quick glance, it becomes clear that Injurylawayers.com is so high rankings in local results due to the overall performance of its website. As you can see from the screenshot below, the site has a number of referring domains, and a good amount of organic traffic:

Source: ahrefs.com Another site that caught my attention – Cellinoandbarnes.com – has a branch based in New York. The history of this company began legal there over 50 years, and no doubt Cellino and Barnes is his well-known and trustworthy. Also, Google recognizes as a brand. The very fact that its brand name is searched for 6,000 times per month speaks volumes about the reliability of the legal society All these facts show that the visibility of Cellinoandbarnes.com New York SERPs is because of the overall performance of the US organic Google search results area in:

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fuzzystrawberrydream-blog · 7 years

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Microsoft BaaS To Help Blockchain Builders

The Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, higher identified by its acronym MIT, has announced the creation of the Bitcoin Improvement Fund to cover salaries, travel and work costs of Gavin Andresen, Wladimir van der Laan, and Cory Fields, the three leading builders of the Bitcoin Core undertaking. Within days of its publication, the first blocks signed by Bitcoin XT were recorded to the blockchain I think there's a very good likelihood XT will finally attain 75% of miner help,” Andresen wrote, including that he expects this to take six months or extra. On this lecture we'll add the forex identify, currency image, decimal factors etc within the currency constructor and ensure this may get stored in state variables. Nice story Markus I started to discover ways to commerce and I will attempt arbitrage trade in the close to future. BONUS: Be a part of our secret Fb group with 5000+ members where you can get the newest online arbitrage hacks and see stories of other common individuals from novices to experts all making an extra revenue from arbitrage on Amazon. Paper and powerful proponent of the notion of good contract”); Hal Finney (a well-known cryptographer who was the recipient of the primary Bitcoin transaction); and Dorian Nakamoto (an unlucky case of homonymy). It comes from losers that do not have superior tools like our Bitcoin robotic and hold making an attempt their luck with previous outdated handbook programs. Bitcoin still has no public face and no actual establishment that may signify it. But, folks proceed to make use of it, to maintain its protocol, and to depend on its technical infrastructure for an increasing variety of business (and non-business) operations. He then took off two years to be at home together with his new twins, earlier than leaping into the fascinating world of Bitcoin. In an article titled Bitcoin's Cosmic Menace: Beware the Magnetic Discipline ” printed on Bitcoin News by risk management skilled Julio Gil-Pulgar, there are quite a few threats outlined which point out that no matter how a lot hashing power is put into to the Bitcoin blockchain to secure it, a drive of nature might cause the entire thing to go completely darkish. Bitcoin, being universal and decentralized with low remittance, is steadily drawing in additional users in such international locations. Contract selling factors would be their high quality, how customizable they're, and their ease of use. Because of an off-by-one error in the authentic Bitcoin implementation which have to be preserved for compatibility, OP_CHECKMULTISIG consumes yet another worth from the stack than indicated by m, so the checklist of secp256k1 signatures in the signature script must be prefaced with an additional worth (OP_0) which will likely be consumed but not used. People say ‘let's try it and see what we can do.'” Ethereum builders are experimenting with numerous other ways to improve the expertise, and successful experiments are more likely to be integrated into the core Ethereum software program. To work efficiently latency arbitrage robot have to knowledge feed agent and sluggish foreign exchange broker the place information feed laq. The customized transactions are broadcasted to the Bitcoin blockchain by the platform's notary nodes. Disclaimer: Trading or investing in stocks & commodities is a excessive risk activity. And bro forex broker price's (feeds) differnce's 1 to 2 pips only … i'm making an attempt many time… please explain me how am i able to place trianguler arbitrage in heaps on my mt4 …. In his December interview, Hearn mentioned that when individuals realised that the bitcoin community was at breaking point, the worth would fall. Additionally, having more developers does not make issues go any faster by default. bitcoin core developers would purchase Pepsico stock as soon as the divergence is recognized. Glidera presents a easy API to simply integrate on-ramp services into your wallet. Initially the scaling debate appeared to be one among block dimension but recent occasions show that that is extra a power struggle over Bitcoin governance and control. Buying and selling text books at all times talk about cross-forex arbitrage, also called triangular arbitrage. Lee, who claims that his bots shifted 10% of the market's complete volume in the early days, started utilizing his strategies when the value sat at $2-$four per bitcoin. Other firms (together with Lightning, Blockchain and, again, Blockstream) fund development of lightning networks, which is technically not Bitcoin Core, but is carefully intertwined as it really works towards the same imaginative and prescient and mission for Bitcoin. Stellar can facilitate b2b and p2p transactions, as well as transactions — akin to service provider funds — between businesses and other people. Virtually all desktop wallets can affiliate with bitcoin: URIs , so spenders can click on a hyperlink to pre-fill the cost screen. He figured this out by typing distinctive phrases from Nakamoto's bitcoin paper into Google, to see if they were used wherever else. Most of all we advocate that you simply make sure to choose a regulated bitcoin broker in order that your money can be safe at all times. There are a variety of companies and organizations which offer E-books, DVD's and different stuff which is supposed to show you all that it's worthwhile to find out about sports betting arbitrage. In nations where monetary infrastructure is proscribed, Bitcoin has the potential to provide a protected place to retailer capital and send cash all over the world with out change charges and costs. Below Tutorials menu, a series of movies clarify how the software program works in the actual life. Individuals were trading it like an asset, using it like a forex, and downloading it like open-source software. In the monetary markets, this will involve shopping for a commodity or financial instrument in one market and simutamously promoting the same commodity or monetary instrument at a better value on one other market to make sure a danger-free-profit. The protocol uses Bitcoin's UXTO model of storing transactions, whereas also supporting oracles and two varieties of good contracts. Core contributors who have made substantial contributions might apply for maintainer status by writing the challenge leader. When that happens chances are you'll find yourself with just another my developer disappeared” story. Our award profitable magazine, unlimited access to our story archive, special reductions to MIT Expertise Assessment Events, and unique content material. The foremost barrier to it going mainstream anywhere is there needs to be some way of getting Bitcoin as a part of your regular exercise. In accordance with a latest report by Research and Markets, the blockchain technology market is skyrocketing: it estimates that the market will develop from $210.2 million in 2016 to $2,312.5 million by 2021, at a Compound Annual Progress Rate (CAGR) of 61.5 p.c. Ultimately, it's utterly intolerable that a serious part of the Bitcoin ecosystem is held hostage to the State. Once the shopper gives us with their Bitcoin tackle, we course of the refund mechanically. Occasion Pushed Investor Limited, the owner and operator of and , is a publishing firm and its software program, investment and trading techniques, portfolio update alerts, cease-loss suggestions, indicators, methods, reviews, articles and all different features of its merchandise are offered for informational and academic functions solely and should not be construed as customized investment recommendation. With this in thoughts, many of them started adopting blockchain to satisfy the growing want for this tech. Specifically, he gave the example of a wise contract that will run on a relatively decentralized change” where users could make provides and bids on a multi-asset network. As in comparison with other countries just like the US, the UK and China the place the total Bitcoin trade worth is round Rs. 10,000 crore per day, India still lags at Rs 500 crore (per yr) with 700-800 Bitcoin traded each day. Possibly it feels such as you've tried everything to show this right into a sustainable enterprise, and now you're wondering if online retail arbitrage is even worth it. Thus BitUSD is meant to track the worth of USD, BitBTC the value of BTC and so on. The peg is maintained by way of a Contract for Distinction (CFD) type market the place speculators and traders go lengthy on or short assets relying on how out of sync the present value is, and their prediction on the way forward for that asset. I did dabble inside Arbitrage in my early days and sports buying and selling is effectively arbitraging the markets so I thought this would be an awesome chance for readers to search out out more in regards to the world of arbing. We are able to know this intuitively as once we shop on-line we regularly don't see the acceptance of bitcoin. Thus LTCM failed as a hard and fast earnings arbitrage fund, although it is unclear what sort of profit was realized by the banks that bailed LTCM out. The one situations that are considerably nonetheless accessible from a arbitrage standpoint are merger or buyout related. For the sake of completeness, the following paragraphswill describe the initial distribution of BTS tokens in the afore-mentioned BitShares 1.0 community from PTS and AGS. It's indisputable fact that Bitcoin usage is directly proportional to web usage, and this is applicable to all countries. It is a very complicated piece of kit with over one hundred eighty different bookies feeding it. Should you're an arbitrage geek, you will like it. Legalese that protects both you and your developer have to be combined with the English language to be able to understand what is going on on. Generally that requires time to create. Of New Tech & Enterprise Development for Ideas By Nature, a Denver, CO primarily based artistic and know-how company. With a variety of installation choices, coupled with our totally upgradeable custom imaginative and prescient testing software program, Smart System can combine into each exam room. Apps which are simply a ebook or game guide must be submitted to the iBooks Retailer. The next Excel workbook accommodates an arbitrage calculator for the examples above. Already today, a Bitcoin trader tweeted that he removed his money from one of many affected exchanges. There's a fourth sort of dividend proposed for all holders of Bitshares and BitAssets referred to as inactivity charges but I believe that is easy to avoid (someone will simply create a pockets that does one transaction robotically when time elapses). So Gavin and myself created a fork of Core referred to as XT to provide people and miners the option that Bitcoin Core had determined to refuse them. Please enter your e mail deal with beneath and we'll email you a link to a web page the place you can easily create a new password. These core committers are selected by the venture leader based on their earlier expertise and challenge involvement. The perfect factor is you could browse the internet, watch videos or hang around with associates on social websites while ready for the arbitrage alternative. We talked to everybody and anyone who would listen to us on the Bitshares neighborhood: Committe Members, Chinesse whales, Bithsares-Munich, programmers, fans and even trolls. The best way to think of the Pockets API is a Set of Public Addresses to Query Collectively” API, but that name refused to fit into any of our advertising materials. There are so many directions this software program can go and it's thrilling eager about potentialities. In other phrases, the builders of those coins that failed in all probability wished to make some cheddar on some fast coin creation and did not wish to work at growing the forex for the long term-something which doomed them from the beginning. All things considered, blockchain expertise is still at an early stage of development however it's undoubtedly gaining traction in Eastern Europe. Until you have a technical cofounder who's keen to take a bulk of compensation in the type of equity (thought-about unicorns these days), hiring a developer might be price prohibitive.

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