1. Keep your money safe – Certain parts of Europe are known for their thieves and pick-pockets that target tourists. Consider bringing along a money belt which you can fasten beneath your clothing to keep your money safe. You should also budget accordingly so you never carry more cash than you need in a single day.2. Create an itinerary – Leave it with friends and family members back home. It should list your flight information, the address and phone numbers of the hotels or hostels you’ll be staying at, and your travel plans once you’re in Europe.3. Compile contact information – This includes all important phone numbers such as your credit card companies and where you’ll be staying throughout the trip. In the event you needed to report a lost credit card or call your hotel in advance, you have the information you need.4. Plan how you will travel within Europe – If you’ll be traveling between various European countries, you may find flying point-to-point saves you time and money. If you’ll be traveling within a specific country or region, traveling by train may be more practical.5. Know common words and phrases of the language – Knowing a few simple words such as “train” and “bathroom” may be all you need to get around. Also, in many places if you simply say “English” you can find natives who speak English.6. Make and confirm all your lodging reservations – When making reservations, make sure you include all key information in your reservation requests including the type of room you want, how many nights you’ll be staying, and any special requests you may have. A few days before your scheduled departure, call ahead to confirm your reservations.7. Know the weather – What’s the seasonal climate like where you will be traveling? Make sure you pack accordingly and consider packing in layers so you can easily dress according to the weather once you’re there.8. Know the U.S. Embassies – If your passport is lost or stolen, you’ll need to get a new one through the U.S. Embassy so make sure you know where it is located in each country you will be visiting.9.Do your homework – If you don’t have much time and you’re not sure which cities and sites you should visit, read up on your destination online. Reviews written by other travelers can be a valuable source for your European travel planning.10. Create a route and time-line – Determine a logical geographical order of the places you will visit and when to ensure you make the most of your time in Europe.
Are You Practicing Attraction Marketing or Pushy Marketing?
That is the question.And you’re not practicing attraction marketing if you go around thinking your way is the only way.This blog post and accompanying video were spawned by a post I saw on Facebook that hit a nerve. In fact, it’s one of my pet peeves when it comes to any kind of marketing, online or offline.And that’s when a marketer is approached by a possible new prospect because they’re looking to make more money, and after the business owner explains the business, the prospect says, ‘Not interested.’And the marketer automatically assumes that this person is not going to make any money anywhere because they didn’t sign up with them.I can’t tell you how much this aggravates me hearing this from marketers today!The Scenario
Okay, you’re in business “A.” Your business is not the only business out there to make money. And your business is not the only way to make money. And just because someone passed on your business doesn’t mean that that person is going to fail or that that person isn’t interested or that person isn’t serious about making money.What it means is that your program – or you – are not a good match with that other person. And it happens!Stop thinking that if I don’t sign up with you, it’s my loss; I’m the one who’s not going to make any money, I’m not serious.No! It’s because not every program is for every one. If it was, there would only be one business in the entire world and everybody would have to do it.There are thousands of ways to make money.
There are also people that don’t want to make money real fast. There are some people that don’t want to earn a full time living. There are some people that don’t want to make $15,000 a month.That doesn’t mean that they’re losers. That doesn’t mean that they’re failures. That doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in making money.That just means that they’re in a different mindset than you. Not that they’re in the wrong mindset; they’re in a different mindset from you.That’s what competition, the free market and marketing is all about! Get over yourself!Personal Branding
You’re supposed to be marketing YOU and you are not the only person who can teach everybody how to make money. And if people move away from you then they’re not serious.I signed up a new guy in my business and inside of 24 hours he sent me an email and he said, ‘After going through the program, I realize that I really don’t want to devote that much time; I really don’t have the time to devote to market this business properly.’And I responded, ‘That’s fine. If you change your mind, we’re always here.’If I did that to some of these other marketers, which I have; I dropped out of a program or a I declined an opportunity, and the first thing I hear is, ‘Oh, well, your loss. I guess you’re not really serious about making money.’No, it’s not that I’m not serious about making money. I didn’t like your program! I want to do something different. I’m allowed to do that.No, I’m not interested in making $50,000 a month, and if I can’t sign up 100 people in a month to your business then I’m not serious.Wrong!We are all individuals.
We each have our own way of doing things. Not everybody is cut out of the same mold. And that doesn’t mean that if I don’t sign up with you, I’m an idiot. If I don’t sign up with you, I’m not serious about my life. If I don’t sign up with you, I have flawed dreams.No. If I don’t sign up with you, it’s because we’re not going to be a good match, because your program isn’t going to be a good match, because whatever you’re program is, it didn’t light a fire, it didn’t say anything to ME.It might say something to you and you’re all passionate about it, but it didn’t sit right with me.Does that mean I’m a failure? No. It means that it’s just not what I want to do.You marketers out there that get all so full of yourselves that, ‘Oh my gosh, well, after I spent all this time talking about the business and they don’t want to sign up, I guess they’re just not willing to make money. They’re not willing to change their life.’Get off your own pedestal! Be real!You are not the be-all end-all of marketers and you’re not the be-all end-all of marketing programs.I even say this with the businesses I’m with. I’m with SFI and I’m with womBoost. Those are my two primary programs. They are not for everybody. I can’t get up on a high horse saying, ‘Well, if you don’t sign up with ME, you’re not going to do anything with your life.’Wrong! Because look at how many other businesses and programs there are out there!Everybody’s way of doing things is going to be different.
I cannot stand these marketers that are so full of themselves that they think they are the only ones that can teach you how to make money, and the program that they’re in is the only one that’s going to work for everybody.They don’t realize just how many people they push away with their attitudes. I don’t want to work with people like that. The people that I work with don’t want me to be like that.This is something that a lot of marketers need to understand – when you sign up with a company, if you have the passion and the wherewithal to get out there and make all that kind of money, fine. Don’t push it into the faces of people that approach you to find out what you’re doing.That’s not attraction marketing. That’s not magnetic marketing. That’s PUSHY marketing.That’s a turnoff to some people.And when I saw this post on Facebook, I’m thinking, there’s a lot of people that are either going to go, ‘Yeah! You’re right! They don’t care! They don’t want to change their lives!’And you’re going to have other people that are going to look at that and go, ‘Boy, they’re really full of themselves, aren’t they?’ Like, is this the only person that can teach me?As marketers, we have to find our middle ground. Your business might be perfect to you and the members who are in it, but to others, not so much.You can claim, ‘We have XXX amount of people signing up every day!’ But how many are staying with the program?And that’s for just about any network marketing company out there. Not every MLM is for everyone, or we would have one world company that everyone would have to be in, because everybody would be cut from the same mold.And it’s not that way.Everybody’s vision is different.
Everybody’s plans are different. Everybody’s path to success looks different. Everybody’s reasons to be in business for themselves is different.So keep that in your head when you’re marketing. If somebody drops out or if somebody says no to your opportunity, let it go. You don’t have to post it on Facebook or tweet about it or Google+ it that this person isn’t serious.Just move on, because that kind of an attitude isn’t going to help your business.
Brainstorming The Ideas for Influencing Your Mobile App Audience
Once the app is downloaded, you have little time to take a sigh of relief, and then again start focusing on making things easier for the them till their goal is achieved.
According to the AppsFlyer, an app marketing company, the global uninstall rate for apps after 30 days is 28%. Entertainment apps are most frequently deleted, whereas apps based on Finance is least frequently deleted. No matter which app category you belong to, your strategy should be to remain in the mobile phones of users for a long time, and not just sit around but to fulfill your purpose as well.
If we analyze the encounters of users with an app step by step, it can help us unveil the critical factors that influence mobile app audiences, so that we can work upon those and achieve our purpose. Here are the details:
Step1. Finding Your App in Appstore
For this, we have to first find out what exactly users type to search an app. Based on a research, it has been found that 47% app users on iOS confirmed that they found the app through the App Store’s search engine and 53% app users on Android confirmed the same.
What have been their search queries? Interestingly, as the per the data provided by the TUNE research, 86% of the top 100 keywords were brands.With little scope for non-branded categories, most of the keywords were either of games of utility apps. Common keywords in the non branded category are: games, free games, VPN, calculator, music, photo editor, and weather.
Leaving brands aside, if we analyze the user-type of a Non-branded category, we will get two types of users:
1. Users are informed, and they know what they are search
2. Users are exploring possibilities, have no precise information in mind.
If you are a mobile app development company, targeting non-branded users, then your efforts must be directed to creating apps that compel these two types of users. To do so, we have to analyze once they are on an app store, what keywords they use to search. Regina Leuwer, with expertise in marketing & communications, bring some light to the subject. She reached out Sebastian Knopp, creator of app store search intelligence tool appkeywords, who shared with her the data of unique trending search phrases. And according to that data, in 2017, there were around 2,455 unique search phrases trending in the US.
Now, if we study these data to get information, we will find that name of the app is critical to attract the attention of the users.
If your app belongs to non-branded category, then make sure your app name is similar to the common search queries but also unique in comparison with your competitors. So that when your app name is flashed, they click it on to it, finding it purposeful and compelling both.
Step 2. Installation
Remember your users are on mobile devices has limited resources, from battery to storage and RAM to Internet. Everything is limited. So better create an application that is easy to download or say get downloaded with 5 minutes. One critical advice here:
1. Keep the application file size small.
If you are a developer, use APK Analyser to find out which part of the application is consuming maximum space. You can also reduce classes.dex file and res folder that contains images, raw files, and XML.
Step 3. Onboarding
After the user has successfully downloaded your mobile application, don’t leave anything on assumptions. Guide them properly. This you can do through an onboarding process, where users can learn the key functionality and where to begin with the mobile app. Below are the 3 things you need to keep in your mind when creating an onboarding process for your users.
Short and Crisp: The entire guidance of features and functions should be completed within few seconds, with easy options loud and clear option to skip.
Precise Information: Don’t introduce them to the app. They already know what they have downloaded. The objective to inform about the key functions and features.
Allow Users to Skip: Let the tech-savvy users skip the intro. Your app is to meet their requirement and not to have a friendly session.
Step 4. Purpose and UI
Here, the stage is set for your app and it is the golden chance for you to impress your users. What is needed here is the collaboration between purpose and UI of the app. It totally depends on the problem-solving capability and ease of use of the mobile app. Interface design plays the critical role, allowing the users to access features of the apps easily and quickly to perform the task for what they have downloaded the app. When it comes to interface design, make sure that the design is interactive and task-oriented. Here are some factors that you must take care off while creating mobile app interface:
1. Usability: The Mobile phone is an epitome of convenience and if your users find it difficult to use your app, then there is no way there are going to make the space for it in their mobile phones. From screen size to the color of the app, there are many factors that are equally critical and need attention.
2. Intuitive: To create an intuitive User Interface, you have to read the mind of the users, and develop a model based on that. The next should be precise, clear and ‘obvious’ in an interface.
3. Availability: Key features should be hidden in the drop down menu or even if so, it should be obvious for the user to look into the drop-down. An intricate work of design and research is required to make essential features available for the customers and they don’t need to navigate here and there.
If you need more help with the user-interface and innovative ideas for a mobile app, write to me [email protected] and I promise to get back to you with interesting mobile app designs.