The TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business (Episode 08)
February 25, 2022
The TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This podcast provides a weekly compilation of curated information for small business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers to grow their business and online presence.
Our lead story this week is “Marketing to Gen Z: A Fresh Approach to the Next Generation of Customers,” This week's tip is in fact seven tips for better LinkedIn leads. In news, 98% of Americans Will Buy via Social Media in 2022, Netflix's New U.S. Price Is Almost at Consumers' Limit, and 8 Ways to Use the Psychology of Color to Increase Conversions of Your Landing Page. Other headlines include stories on TikTok, Walmart, YouTube and Facebook. This week's tools are both Chrome extensions, PDF Candy and Voice in Voice Typing. The "Friday Freebie" is from LinkedIn -- “The Modern Recruiter's Guide.” And for our "bonus" content this week is the top 10 most downloaded apps for 2021 in the United States.
Find links to all these resources and stories at jimperson.com/tnt. Please follow, like or subscribe and leave a rating or review in your favorite podcast app. And sign-up for my weekly TNT Report e-newsletter for even more tips, news and tools at jimperson.com/tnt.
Hello, I'm Jim Person and welcome to the TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This is Episode (08) for the week ending Friday, Feb. 25. Let's get started …
TODAY’S CELEBRATIONS
Today is Feb. Feb. 25 and today is National Clam Chowder Day, perhaps my favorite soup, as well as National Chocolate Covered Peanuts Day (another favorite) as well as Let’s All Eat Right Day – quite a juxtaposition of those two I will admit. If you’re listening on Saturday, Feb. 26, it’s National Personal Chef Day, National Pistachio Day, Levi Straus Day, and International Sword Swallowers Day – guess it wasn’t good enough to just have a National Sword Swallowers Day huh? And looking ahead to Sunday, Feb. 27, it’s National Pokemon Day, International Polar Bear Day as well as National Protein Day and National Strawberry Day.
FEATURED CONTENT
Marketing to Gen Z: A Fresh Approach to the Next Generation of Customers. To virtually everyone reading this, Generation Z means young'uns. That's how we're used to thinking of them. But, of course, they're not children anymore. With the oldest Gen Zs turning 25 this year, their stock and spend in the public market is only rising. Generation Z is important to marketers not just because of the money it can spend, but because of its role on the cutting edge of trends and technology.
Future-focused marketers are asking themselves: How do we reach Gen Z? Turns out Gen Z isn't technology-obsessed in exactly the ways marketers imagine.
- Supply Chain: It’s more than just your own "behind-the-scenes logistics." It’s an essential part of marketing to Gen Z because, more than any generation before, they care about how things are made (and moved).
- AR, VR, and Emerging Technologies: Sure, they’re cool... but only if they’re being used in cool ways. Gen Z is likeliest to use these technologies if they truly enhance the customer experience, but with emphasis on the "if."
- Ad Avoidance: Gen Z might be the most ad-adverse generation living today — but on the flipside, they’re most receptive to value-oriented messaging and tactics.
- Customer Experience: Young Gen-Z consumers crave in-person experiences more than brands think. At the same time, whenever Gen Z shows up in person, they're expecting much more than just "the opportunity to buy something."
Check out the full report from CM Group with 10 big takeaways on how to reach this key generation with massive spending power! The link is in the newsletter show notes, or grab it at https://cmgroup.com/gen-z-report
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TIP
I’ve really been trying to get more active lately on LinkedIn. If you want to connect with me, check me out on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jimperson. And this week’s tip is in fact seven tips for better LinkedIn leads, an article from the Marketing Insider Group. When it comes to generating B2B leads on social media, LinkedIn is way ahead of the competition. No other social site gathers the volume of like-minded executives, professionals, and business owners in one platform in quite the same way LinkedIn does. With over 810 million active members, other social platforms are incomparable when it comes.
- Use Your Company Page as a Lead Generation Page
- Create Your Showcase Page
- Encourage Your Employees or Coworkers to Link to Your Profile
- Add CTAs (calls to action) to Your Content
- Form Groups on LinkedIn
- Search for People and Groups
- Keep Track of Who’s Tracking You
If you want to do a deep dive on all of these action items, visit the Marketing Insider Group webpage – or find the link at https://jimperson.com/tnt; the newsletter is dated Feb. 25. This tip by the way is just one of the tips provided each week in my TNT Report newsletter. Subscribe at https://jimperson.com/tnt.
IN NEWS
98% of Americans Will Buy via Social Media in 2022
Nearly all Americans, 98%, intend to buy something via social media this year and 68% have already made purchases through social, according to a Sprout Social study. In addition, 60% say inclusive content makes them more likely to buy from brands, and baby boomers and Generation X tend to buy from Facebook and Pinterest, while Generation Z leans toward TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. Source: MediaPost Communications
Netflix's New U.S. Price Is Almost at Consumers' Limit
In 2019, consumers said they'd ideally like to pay $12 a month for a streaming service with unlimited content and no commercials. Now, three years later, with more services to choose from, consumers' ideal price still hasn't moved, a warning sign for streaming services as they consider price hikes to help offset slowing growth.
Source: Morning Consult
8 Ways to Use the Psychology of Color to Increase Conversions of Your Landing Page
Did you know that over 50% of users spend fewer than 15 seconds viewing a page? In fact, you have just around 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression on your landing page visitors. During this time, your prospects are viewing the content, imagery, and web design of your page. Very few will read through the entirety of your content copy, in fact, most will only look at the imagery and color of your webpage. Color psychology can have a huge impact on the way your potential customers react to your products!
Source: Mention
And in other news headlines this week:
- TikTok Wants Longer Videos – Whether You Like It or Not
- Walmart’s Ecommerce Sales Grow 11% In Fiscal 2022
- Porsches, Lamborghinis Lost at Sea May Cost VW $155 Million
- YouTube Reveals New Monetization Tools for Creators
- Facebook Rolls Out Short-Form Video Format Reels Globally
- Small Businesses Still Struggling Financially, Fed Survey Finds
SPONSOR AD
This week’s podcast is brought to you in part by the Postcard Program. What’s the postcard program you ask? Create influence and connection by celebrating people in your life by sending unlimited photo postcards, stamps included, anywhere in the world for one low monthly price. Send these physical postcards from your computer or easily right from your smartphone! As a business tool, this is more powerful than most online marketing systems that cost $1000/month or more – and you don’t have to become an expert. And with photo postcards, you’ll enjoy a 100% open rate. Think about it, when you go to your mailbox and receive a stack of mail, the postcard will stick out because it is already open. Get more details on the postcard program at https://jimperson.com/postcard. Again, that’s https://jimperson.com/postcard.
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TOOLS
Two tools this week, and both are Google Chrome extensions. The first is PDF Candy. PDF Candy is a versatile online PDF solution. Compress, merge, split, convert, re-arrange pages and much more. Increase your productivity by adding PDF Candy extension to your Chrome browser! Get instant access to all 44 online PDF tools.
Voice in Voice Typing (Chrome extension) Use your voice to type across many different websites. Voice In enables voice typing --- it makes it easy to type in the browser using voice-to-text. Whether it is writing emails in Gmail, answering assignments in Classroom, responding to customer tickets, replying to chats or learning pronunciations, Voice In Voice-To-Text capability lets you do them all using your voice.
Again those are two of the four tools I covered in this week’s email newsletter. See all of the tools at https://jimperson.com/tnt.
FRIDAY FREEBIE
If you’re a subscriber to the TNT Report, you know it’s more than just tips, news, and tools. Since the newsletter is published on Friday afternoons, I also include a “Friday Freebie.” And today’s “Friday Freebie” is
“The Modern Recruiter's Guide.” Your success as a recruiter and as an organization is directly linked to your ability to hire the right people, fast. And yet, you don’t pick talent. Talent picks you. It’s a candidate’s marketplace, where talent has more access to information, more channels to find opportunities, and the luxury of being in high demand even for low-skill roles. Traditional recruiting tactics simply won’t cut it anymore. The key to success is to build a relationship with candidates long before they become applicants. This guide will help you do just that. Learn how to:
“The Modern Recruiter's Guide.” Your success as a recruiter and as an organization is directly linked to your ability to hire the right people, fast. And yet, you don’t pick talent. Talent picks you. It’s a candidate’s marketplace, where talent has more access to information, more channels to find opportunities, and the luxury of being in high demand even for low-skill roles. Traditional recruiting tactics simply won’t cut it anymore. The key to success is to build a relationship with candidates long before they become applicants. This guide will help you do just that. Learn how to:
- Create a profile and career page that stand out.
- Reach the right candidates at the right time.
- Write job descriptions that make an impression.
- Turbo-charge your employee referral program.
Retain and motivate the talent you’ve worked so hard to recruit.
Source: LinkedIn
If you’re enjoying this podcast, please subscribe at jimperson.com/tnt-podcast. You can also find this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart and numerous other podcast apps.
BONUS CONTENT
Now for some “bonus content” for you as a podcast listener. This is something not included in the weekly TNT Report newsletter.
The 10 Most-downloaded Apps of 2021
In 2021, life was less COVID-constrained than it was in 2020. What did that mean for apps? Were people less interested in the digital world? Sort of! They were definitely less interested in Zoom, according to Apptopia data. TikTok was 2021’s most downloaded app in the U.S. by a huge margin — downloaded 30 million more times than second-place-finisher Instagram. The biggest momentum losers were Zoom and Meta. Zoom is still on the top 10 most-downloaded list, but Zoom downloads fell by more than a third YoY, making it 2021’s biggest momentum-loser. Meanwhile, Facebook Messenger and Facebook were downloaded less in 2021 than they had been in 2020, which tracks: Facebook lost users in 2021, too. The Top 10 downloaded apps in the United States were:
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- Cashapp
- Zoom
- Messenger
- YouTube
- HBO Max
Looking at the U.S. market, it's a similar set of apps but what's different this year is that HBO Max is the only video streaming subscription app making the cut. Last year both Netflix and Disney+ were on the board.
Alright. I think that's going to do it for this week's TNT Report Podcast, Thanks for listening – have a great weekend and a profitable week.
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