Month: April 2020

15 New Video Tools for Creating, Editing, Sharing

For merchants who want to create, edit, and share videos, there are plenty of new innovative online tools for little or no expense.

Here is a list of recently released tools from online video platforms and social media applications. There are tools for advertising, editing, tagging, production, social commerce, analytics, distribution, and live-streaming.

New Video Tools

YouTube announces Video Builder to create ads. For businesses that don’t have the resources to make videos from scratch, YouTube has created Video Builder, a free beta tool that animates static assets (images, text, and logos) with music. Choose from a variety of layouts based on your message and goals. Customize colors and fonts. Then easily generate a short YouTube video (6 seconds or 15 seconds). To join the beta program, fill out a request access form.

Original Article Here.

Using Google Analytics to Respond to Covid-19

The coronavirus-induced shift in shopping behavior has been a boon for some online retailers and a bust for others. The impact depends on the products, geography, and marketing channels.

Google Analytics can identify pandemic-related problems and opportunities for your business. I’ll explain in this post.

Current Status

Most merchants are aware of daily revenue. Sales of groceries and other essential items have grown 50 percent or more compared to past years. Sales of high-ticket items, however, have likely contracted.

To measure your business’s activity, in Google Analytics go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels.Then choose a recent date range, such as the last 30 days, and select “Compare to” (top right, near the date range) and select “Previous year.”

Original article here.

How Business Owners Can Optimize Cash Flow During A Crisis

For small-business owners, fiscal management is the key to weathering the COVID-19 crisis. Cash flow issues associated with late payments are at the top of the list of concerns, as they can trigger a chain reaction: Companies that receive late payments end up making late payments themselves. Of course, empathy is key at this time. How you interact with your clients and suppliers now can affect your future relationships.

Watch the on-demand webinar now to learn how you can optimize your cash flow!

About the Speakers

Ben Richmond, U.S. Country Manager at Xero, the global small-business platform, will share some of the concrete steps business owners can take to better manage cash flow and late payments and outline options for funding for businesses in need during this challenging time. Ben will be joined by Amanda Aguillard, who decided to become a CPA when she was 16 and never looked back. She started Aguillard Accounting, LLC, in 2012, committed to running a cloud-based practice from anywhere in the world.

Original article here.

Six Healthy Ways to Lead in a Crisis

Here’s how to be the leader your organization needs right now.

“A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives a chance, an opportunity, to choose well or to choose badly.” – Desmond Tutu, human rights and anti-apartheid activist

Like millions of students around the globe, Daniel Goldberg was at home in mid-March, instead of at school. The California teenager and his siblings were following physical distancing instructions, but Goldberg wanted to help. He also saw his father, an emergency physician, working on the front lines.

Original article here.

Why Now — Yes, Now! — Is the Perfect Time to Create Something New

This is no time to stop, or to sit on the sidelines. It’s time to step up.

I didn’t shower today. I have an eye infection. I ate cake for breakfast. A few hours ago, I sat frozen, staring at the computer screen for a full two minutes, and then said aloud: “I can’t think.”

These may not sound like good things. But I’m telling you: They’re good things.

They’re liberating things.

They’re empowering things.

They should push you to take action, and produce something amazing and life-changing, and then have a second helping of breakfast cake.

This time is a good time — because it’s forcing us to rethink what time is at all.

Consider this: Back in our pre-coronavirus world, entrepreneurs always worried about when. When’s the right time to leave a job and start a company? When’s the right time to launch a product, or raise money, or reach out to a partner, or hit send on that email? When, when, when, when?

High-profile entrepreneurs often offer the same answer: Do it already! LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, for example, says that “if you aren’t embarrassed by your first product release, then you released it too late.” Square co-founder Jim McKelvey recently wrote in Entrepreneur that “there are really only two answers to this question: now and later. Now is often the right answer.”

People like Reid and Jim are fighting against perfectionism. They know that perfection doesn’t exist, especially not at the beginning. The greatest companies in the world started as duds, or half-baked concepts, or a goofy idea that nobody believed in. It is simply not possible to launch a perfect product. It is only possible to put an imperfect thing out into the world, learn from the response, refine it and then refine it some more.

Original article here.

5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2020

The coronavirus pandemic will almost certainly be the top news story in May 2020 as it was in March and April. But there are still opportunities for marketers to publish content that will attract an audience.

Recall that content marketing is the act of creating or curating content, publishing it, and distributing it with the goal of attracting, engaging, and retaining an audience of customers and potential customers.

Content marketing uses the idea of reciprocity to nurture customer relationships. It also touches many other areas of marketing, including search engine optimization.

Here are five content marketing ideas that your business can try in May 2020.

1. The Coronavirus Pandemic

Even if it peaks in the United States in April 2020, the coronavirus pandemic is likely to remain an important topic in May. Savvy — and sensitive — content marketers can provide useful and informative articles, charts, videos, and podcast episodes that make sense in the context of current events.

This does not mean writing about death tolls or discussing the advocacy of various handwashing techniques — unless, perhaps, your business sells hand soaps. Rather, consider an example from outside of the ecommerce and retail industries.

The Bible Project, which is a religious ministry, launched a weekly “Church at Home” guide that included:

  • A 5-to-10 minute video,
  • A short audio message,
  • 3-to-5 Scripture readings,
  • 6-to-8 discussion questions.

More details and original article here.

Marketing in the Pandemic Creates Opportunities Afterward

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Retail shopping habits have been upended. Businesses that attract new customers and retain existing ones — right now — could recover or grow quickly when the economy reopens and moves forward.

After the Covid-19 lockdown, however, the United States and the world could still face a severe recession. On April 14, 2020, the International Monetary Fund released its economic outlook, which stated, “It is very likely that this year the global economy will experience its worst recession since the Great Depression.”

The IMF estimates that the world economy might contract 3.0 percent in 2020. “Advanced Economies” and the United States’ economy could contract 6.1 and 5.9 percent, respectively.

Original article here.

Ecommerce Product Releases:

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-April from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on automated product recommendations, social media toolkits, logistics, social commerce, and tracking the digital economy.

Got an ecommerce product release? Email releases@practicalecommerce.com.

Ecommerce Product Releases

Bringg raises an additional $30 million to expand delivery logistics platform. Bringg, a delivery orchestration platform, has announced a funding round led by Viola Growth aimed at helping businesses keep up with rapidly expanding delivery expectations. The latest round takes Bringg’s funding total to $83.3 million, enabling rapid global market expansion to both large and small-to-midsize businesses. Bringg recently launched BringgNow, a last-mile delivery management service for SMBs, releasing it early to aid businesses facing increased demand for delivery services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bringg is offering the BringgNow service for free.

Original article here.

3 Simple Steps to Start Your Side Hustle

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, many people are looking for side hustles or alternative revenue streams to help them earn extra money or cover expenses. But they often don’t know how to start their side hustle journey.

Join us as our expert Kim Perell guides you through her 3 SIMPLE STEPS to start your side hustle. Kim is an award-winning entrepreneur, bestselling author, tech CEO and angel investor. She loves to help aspiring entrepreneurs achieve success, and is a strong believer in paying it forward.

About our Speaker

Laid off from her first job at an internet startup, Kim began her journey as an entrepreneur from her kitchen, becoming a multi-millionaire by the time she was 30, and selling her last company for $235 million in 2014.

Kim has been named one of AdAge’s Marketing Technology Trailblazers, Business Insider’s Most Powerful Women in Mobile Advertising, is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and has been profiled by CNN Money, The New York Times, and Forbes. Kim’s passion to help aspiring entrepreneurs achieve success and is an early stage angel investor in over 70 startups, 14 of which have successfully been acquired by some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. Her first book, The Execution Factor, is designed to help entrepreneurs through mastering execution and will be released by McGraw Hill this fall.

Original article here.

Why Entrepreneurship Should Be Taught Before College

What would the world look like if kids grew up understanding the potential that entrepreneurship offers?

I wish I’d been taught entrepreneurship when I was young for lots of reasons. 

As a farm boy in Idaho, all I knew about my potential career was that I didn’t want to be poor when I grew up. My grandpa, who was a successful doctor, suggested I become an anesthesiologist, and I latched onto his advice as if it were gospel. 

But if I had found out I was wired to be an entrepreneur early on, I would have entered my college years with a stronger sense of who I was, and had a more deliberate plan.  

Original article here.