5 Ways to Reach Your Audience

If you’re like most business owners, marketing is a topic that you may regard as complex and overwhelming. You read a ton of information but find that you either experience paralysis by analysis or you just go round and round in circles. Even worse, if you do execute any marketing, you’re worried that you’re turning off your customers by marketing in the wrong way. We get it — it feels like a risk. But here’s the good news: when you have a website with iPage, you can market to your target audience in the right way — the way that attracts buyers to your site.

Here are some tips to make it happen:

1. 1. Know Your Target Audience

The first step in marketing is to review your website and make sure that it is crafted in a way that attracts the audience that is most likely to be interested. Tailor your content so that you use words that speak the same language as your audience. This means making sure that you avoid cliches and general statements. You may want to take a look at your customer list to see the demographics and measure the temperature of what may have changed in their approach or philosophy. This is an ongoing activity. As your audience grows and changes, your content must grow and change with it. When you evolve your marketing so that your message is always aligned with your customers, you end up “marketing without marketing.”

2.  Know that Guerilla Marketing Doesn’t Usually Work

In the past, some website owners have used the ‘guerilla marketing’ approach. This is the attempt to send your information and marketing out to anyone and everyone (and beyond) with the hope that, solely due to percentages and chances, someone will be interested and follow up. This approach is considered to be a numbers game: The more you send out, the more likely it is someone will be interested. While this approach can lead to some success, the truth is, it usually causes more harm than good as it can be annoying to those that value their inbox and their time (which is everyone these days). Therefore, you can end up losing potential customers … because while their interest in your product or service might be high, they’re too distracted by the dissatisfaction of the approach to even notice it.

3. Craft a Message that Resonates

We’ve briefly discussed the content on your website, now let’s think about your message. Whether it be sent via email, social media, or even snail mail, you need to make sure your message hits home. Begin by crafting a message that addresses the ‘pain points’ of your customers and then offers your business as the solution. However, if possible, try to avoid using words like “solution.” (Yes, we realize we just used it, but you should not when it comes to customer messages:) ) It’s an overused word that rarely makes a business stand out. So get creative! And come up with something fresh. Then, after you think of your unique selling point, make sure that you use a call to action so that your readers can learn more or make a purchase.

4. Analyze Your Website Growth

Your customers are often inspired by things that are happening in the news and by what is trending. When you use analysis tools such as Google Analytics and social media sites, you can easily keep your fingers on the pulse of what’s moving and trending. Do some digging to discover relevant topics that are being discussed and then use this information to drive your conceptual development for your content marketing.

Here’s a simple tip: On the left hand side of your Twitter homepage, you’ll see the top leading #hashtags circulating the web at the moment. Pick one, and tie it into your business offering!

Nothing in today’s internet world is static, which means mean that you need to constantly keep up with marketing trends. But when you take time to market your business to your customers in the right way, you can start to see business growth. With just a little effort, you can drill down to see what appeals to your customers so that you can start conversations that engage and lead to an eventual purchase. And that’s the best path to market to your target audience.

Good luck!

Empire’ Season 2 Recap

Last night marked Empire‘s midseason finale. Star-studded to the core, Fox proved they 

have what it takes to pull out celebrities at the drop of a hat.

The show’s 60-minute midseason finale kicked off with Jason Derulo appearing as himself 

as he announces the 2015 American Sound Award nominations live from Los Angeles.

 Please keep in mind, the American Sound Awards – or the ASAs – are not real, but in the 

interest of not paying to use the title of an actual awards show, Fox invented the next best 

thing. While announcing music’s hottest nominations from the West Coast, Lee Daniels and 

Danny Strong tapped Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club to simulcast ASAs contenders from

 New York. In fact, The Breakfast Club held their own nomination party, referred to as

 Charlamagne’s Nomination Party, on the show.

Performances are going on throughout the day, but Jamal and Skye Summers, played by 

Alicia Keys, make their musical cameo with the premiere of “Powerful,” it seems like the two

 did a little more than just kiss when things wrapped during last week’s episode. Lucious 

walks in on the two canoodling with one another, and asks Jamal point blank, “are you 

hitting that?” And with a smile on his face, Lucious finishes his statement with a simple, “She

fixed you!”

Now, fast forward to Skye and Jamal’s nomination performance. If you know Charlamagne 

tha God, you know he doesn’t hold anything back. So, after the two finish their debut 

duet, Charlamagne hits the stage. He commends the duo on their song, but quickly finds a

 way to erase the compliment by challenging Skye and her racial identity. “Powerful” 

addresses the brutality and civil injustice going on across the world, so Charlamagne 

seemed a little surprise to hear Skye lend her vocals to such a track since her career has 

thrived in the pop lane. “So you Black, now?,” he asks her. Skye may have built her career

 with a strong pop influence, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s Black

.

While Jamal is feeling the fruits of his musical labor, his father is busy illegally

 purchasing 

Swift Stream, “the fastest streaming service in the Universe.” As he’s explaining his plan to 

his business partner, Mimi, she’s recording the entire conversation with her pen. Lucious, of

course, is none the wiser. So when Mimi pulls Empire together for a staff meeting, the devil

 himself is totally caught off guard. Mimi moves to hold an emergency board meeting to 

overthrow Lucious as Empire’s chairman and CEO now that it’s a publicly traded company

 and all.

Andre, Thirsty and Lucious work to round up every board member they can to vote in favor 

of keeping Lucious on the team. The family needs one additional board member to vote with

 them, but Hakeem heats things up when he lobbies against his father. Thus, Lucious loses

 the empire he’s spent 15 years building, and Mimi Whiteman is named as Empire’s new 

chairman. However, Mimi’s battling breast cancer so she authorizes her wife to act in her 

place. Who’s her wife might you ask? Remember Hakeem’s ex-girlfriend Camila Marks?

 Well, looks like she’s back. And looks like this entire hostile takeover was orchestrated by

 her. Well played, Camila!

Everyone in the family clearly has their own problems, and during this round of familial 

drama, Cookie takes Hakeem and Laura to perform during Family Day at the prison she 

was incarcerated at for 17 years. Here, Da Brat finally makes her Empire debut as Jezzy, 

Cookie’s “family” in prison.

Cook always promised Jezzy should would make her a star after she was released, but it

 looks like Jezzy’s locked up for life. After Cookie got out, Jezzy thought she bounced and

 bailed on her, so she didn’t see a reason to fight anymore. Thus, Jezzy got life while locked

 up by offing her bunk mate over some toothpaste.

But before over-saturated celebrity drama could bid farewell to 2015, there was one last

 story line left to leave viewers cringing on their feet: Anika and Rhonda.

For weeks now, Anika has kept her pregnancy a secret. She’s befriended Rhonda, who’s

 having Lucious’ first, and only, grandchild, as far as anyone knows, and lets the jealously

 spill over instead of coming forward with the truth. Boo Boo Kitty asks to see the nursery 

one more time, not knowing Anika had ulterior motives up her sleeve. That same night,

 Anika sneaks into Rhonda and Andre’s home wearing all black and pushes Rhonda – and 

her baby – down the stairs. Talk about going out with a bang.

For all those rocking with anticipation for the next episode, sit back and take a breath 

because things don’t heat back up until Mar. 30.

Read More: 'Empire' Season 2, Midseason Finale Recap | http://theboombox.com/empire-season-2-midseason-finale-recap/?trackback=tsmclip

Off Top Blogs : Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands

Off Top Blogs : Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands: This is the second in a series of YouTube generation posts.  See the first one here . A couple of weeks ago  I wrote about Generation Ed...

Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands

This is the second in a series of YouTube generation posts. See the first one here.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Generation Edge – the under 16 millennials – and how they are driving an entire new subculture of YouTube stars that throw the traditional fandom rulebook out of the window. One of the intriguing paradoxes (or at least apparent paradoxes) is how a generation of native YouTube stars can create both vast audiences and revenue while for music artists YouTube is simply a place to build awareness and probably lose net revenue due to YouTube streams cannibalizing paid streams. So how can the model both be broken (for music) and yet buoyant for native YouTuber creators?

PewDiePie And Taylor Swift

Compare and contrast the biggest earner in music with the biggest earner on YouTube.  Taylor Swift netted $39.7 million in 2014, compared to $7.4 million for PewDiePie. Seems like a slam-dunk for music right? Except when you start digging a little all is not quiet what it seems. Swift’s numbers are gross revenue so include the revenue earned by everyone else (record labels, promoters, ticket agencies, venues etc.). Let’s say she earns a third of that income which would equate to $12 million (and before anyone suggests it should be higher given her relationship with her label Big Machine ¾ of her revenue came from live in 2014). So suddenly the difference doesn’t look quite so big. Then consider that PewDiePie’s $7.4 million refers just to his YouTube ad revenue and doesn’t take into account his live appearances income or his merch revenue. And, perhaps most importantly, the cost of earning that income was negligible. PewDiePie’s audience is right there on YouTube and his videos are home made. The cost of production, distribution and marketing are close to non-existent. The exact opposite is true of breaking a release like Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’. It’s no secret that most big labels lose money on lots of their bigger front line releases, relying upon a few massive successes and the steady income from back catalogue to pay the bills.

10 Billion Views And Counting

PewDiePie just passed 10 billion views three weeks ago and has 39.9 million subscribers– that’s one for every (gross) dollar that Taylor Swift earned in 2014. Anyway you look at it, those numbers are big. Game Of Thrones, which can lay claim to being one of the mainstream media success stories of the moment, has clocked up around 700 million total views globally over the course of 5 series. And while traditional media apologists will argue that you cannot compare a PewDiePie view with a GoT view try telling a PewDiePie subscriber that their viewing is somehow less worthwhile because it is more than weekly and doesn’t come from a traditional TV set.

Taylor Swift of course also has a pretty hefty YouTube / Vevo presence too, with 16.5 million subscribers and 6.3 billion views. But while she has 20 videos available PewDiePie has nearly 2,500. And therein lies one of the key differences. PewDiePie lives on platforms like YouTube and Twitch. His focus is making content regularly for his audience and engaging directly with them. YouTubers typically make multiple videos every week and often multiply that across multiple different channels. Try squeezing that in around touring, recording, writing sessions, media work etc. Swift, unlike many big pop artists, also knows how to do the native YouTube thing too and has had her own, non-Vevo, YouTube channel since 2006, posting 136 videos there to date. But in stark contrast to her Vevo channel Swift has just 1.4 million YouTube channel subscribers. So even one of the most YouTube-centric of pop artists that also happens to be one of the biggest pop acts on the planet right now simply doesn’t have the time, positioning nor content to compete with a shouty gamer from Sweden.

YouTube Is Generation Edge’s Destination Of Choice

So where does all this leave artists and YouTube. Unless bands want to ditch the guitars and start doing Minecraft commentary videos, becoming a full-on native YouTube creator simply isn’t feasible for most artists. But there absolutely is middle ground between the dominant focus on seeing YouTube simply as a marketing channel for music videos, and the native creator route. Part of the solution is seeing YouTube for what it actually is. It is not a video platform, or a marketing platform, it is one of the most important destinations for Millennials of all ages, especially Generation Edge. It is at once a social network, a TV network, a fun place to hang out, a discovery destination, a place where they can simply be themselves and feel connected. YouTube is all of that and more. In fact the breadth and depth of content means that it is everything to all people.

The Value Of An Authentic Voice

Treating YouTube simply as a marketing channel not only underplays its potential but it also completely misses what it means to your target audience. PewDiePie, Zoella, Stampy, Michelle Phan are all so successful because they speak directly with their YouTube audiences in an authentic voice that communicates that it is the here and now that matters. That it is about the moment not simply an attempt to try to get the viewer to go somewhere else to do something else. Authenticity is a priceless commodity and native YouTube creators have it in spades. That is the currency of the YouTube generation.

Posted in Artists, YouTube | Tagged Ad Supported, Big Machine, michelle phan, PewDiePie, stampy,Taylor Swift, YouTube, youtube economy, YouTubers, Zoella | 9 Replies

Dressed in Code

Increasingly, the worlds of fashion and technology are becoming intertwined—from wristbands that track your heart rate to responsive fabrics that adjust to your temperature. And just like you can sew together different pieces of fabric to make a dress, or choose different items from your closet to create an unexpected outfit, you can also put together code to make something that’s never existed before.

Today, as New York’s Fashion Week kicks off, fashion and technology are coming together in a new way. Made with Code and ZAC Zac Posen are teaming up to show how computer science can push the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of fashion. A dress designed by Zac Posen and with designs coded online by teen girls will debut as the finale look of Zac’s show—and hopefully inspire young girls who have an interest in fashion to see what code can help them create.

Made with Code started with the mission of inspiring girls to try coding and to see it as a means to pursue their dream careers—regardless of what field those careers are in. For this project, girls from organizations like Black Girls Code, the Flatiron School, Girls Who Code and Lower East Side Girls Club, coded designs for an LED dress using an introductory coding project online. Fashion engineer and Made with Code mentor,Maddy Maxey, coded and fabricated the LED technology of the dress, working alongside Zac as he designed. When the dress goes down the runway, it will displays girls’ patterns in 500 LED lights, using a micro controller specially tuned to match Zac’s Spring Summer 2016 runway collection—from Catalina Blue to Acid Yellow. Meanwhile, 50 girls will get seats at the show to see their designs light up the runway.

In the past year, we’ve seen many encouraging signs that more girls are exploring computer science. More than 5 million coding projects have been tried since Made with Code began a year ago. And Googlers, teen girls and partners like Girls Inc, Technovation and Girl Scouts have thrown 300+ Made with Code parties across the U.S., reaching tens of thousands teen girls in person. But with less than one percent of high school girls still expressing interest in computer science, it’s obvious we have so much more work to do—so, let’s start now. After today, girls all over the country can also head to madewithcode.com to create their own design. We hope the digital dress inspires more teens to discover what they can make with code.

House Republicans pull Confederate flag vote

 U.S. House Republican leaders have yanked a controversial vote on keeping Confederate battle flags in national parks, following a reversal and a firestorm.

The vote would have put Southern lawmakers, in particular, in a tough spot, on record as to whether they support allowing the flag to be placed by graves in some limited. House leaders decided today to cancel all votes on a spending bill for the Interior Department and other agencies.

“That bill is going to sit in abeyance until we come to some resolution on it,” House Speaker John Boehner said at a news conference.

Democrats had spent the morning bashing the GOP. Rep. David Scott, D-Atlanta, told us the vote was “a shocking development.” He added:

“Hopefully at the end of today this mess will be cleaned up here and we’ll be able to take the knife out of the wound.”

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Monroe, said this morning he planned to support the amendment:

“From what I understand at this point the amendment that’s coming to the floor now simply codifies existing law that’s been in place for five years, which allows the states to recognize the historical significance on dates of their choosing, while at the same time recognizing sensitivities that many people have with the flag.

“I’m just glad that Georgia dealt with this issue [with the state flag] years ago and in the right way, and so you know this law, this amendment would allow Georgia and the states to dictate it. And Georgia’s handled it right.”

A series of voice votes Tuesday night had added language to the spending bill banning all Confederate flags at National Park Service cemeteries. That went too far in the minds of many Southerners, according to a GOP aide, and they wanted an up-or-down vote on the issue and could have sunk the whole spending bill if their concerns were not addressed.

The controversial amendment would have kept the limitations on Confederate memorabilia at gift shops mandated by the Obama administration, but would have allowed small Confederate battle flag displays at certain times at graves — consistent with current policy, but overturning the earlier vote to ban them completely.

After the political firestorm erupted, House leaders decided to scrap the vote and regroup.

Fireworks cause a toxic brew of unhealthy air

The thousands of Fourth of July fireworks celebrations across the nation bring a toxic brew of air pollution to our atmosphere, according to a recent study from federal scientists.

The exploding fireworks unleash tiny particles — about 1/30th the diameter of a typical human hair — that can affect health because they travel deep into a person's respiratory tract, entering the lungs.

The tiny particles are known as "particulate matter" and include dust, dirt, soot, smoke and liquid droplets and are measured in micrometers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter.

The fine particulate matter in this study — which was led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — were 2.5 micrometers in size.

Both long- and short-term exposures to fine particles are linked to a range of health effects — from coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath, to asthma attacks, heart attack and stroke, to even premature death in people with heart or lung disease, according to the study.

On average, the air is at its worst from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the holiday, the study found. But levels drop back down by noon on July 5.

"These results will help improve air quality predictions, which currently don't account for fireworks as a source of air pollution," said NOAA scientist Dian Seidel and study lead author.

"The study is also another wake-up call for those who may be particularly sensitive to the effects of fine particulate matter," she said.