The TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business (Episode 15) | Jim Person

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The TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This newsletter and podcast provides a weekly compilation of curated information for small business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers to grow their business and online presence.

Get All the Tips, News and Tools in My TNT Report Newsletter

Hello, I’m Jim Person and welcome to the TNT Report Podcast: Marketing Tips, News, and Tools for Small Business. This is Episode (15) for the week ending April 15, tax day in the United States. And speaking of taxes, FreshBooks makes accounting painless for millions of small business owners. FreshBooks helps you thrive in all aspects of running your small business. Think of it as accounting software built for owners. Learn more at jimperson.com/freshbooks. That’s jimperson.com/freshbooks. And that, by the way, is an affiliate link, which means if you use my Freshbooks link – or any other affiliate link in this podcast – and purchase the product or service, I’ll earn a small commission. And another introductory announcement – all the links referenced in today’s podcast can be found online at jimperson.com/15.

TODAY’S CELEBRATIONS

Today is Friday, April 15 and as I said earlier, it’s tax day in the U.S. Hopefully those taxes have been mailed or you’ve filed for an extension. Today is also Good Griday, National Glazed Spiral Ham Day, Take a Wild Guess Day and American Sign Language Day. And on this date, April 15, 1947, at the age of 18, Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in Major League Baseball competing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years. Exactly 50 years later, on April 15, 1997, Robinson’s groundbreaking career was honored and his uniform number, 42, was retired from Major League Baseball by Commissioner Bud Selig in a ceremony attended by over 50,000 fans at New York City’s Shea Stadium. Robinson’s was the first-ever number retired by all teams in the league.

Saturday, April 16 is Husband Appreciation Day, National Librarian Day, National Bean Counter’s Day, World Circus Day, Save the Elephant Day and World Semicolon Day. And Sunday, April 17 is not only Easter, but it’s also International Ford Mustang Day, National Kickball Day, National Cheeseball Day, Go Fly a Kite Day, and Blah, Blah, Blah Day – seriously, I can’t make up that kind of blah, blah, blah!

Now, another interesting bit of history from the U.S. Census Bureau. For much of history, firefighting was an improvised voluntary activity. The ancient Romans had a permanent corps of firefighters, who were neither volunteers nor professional — they were slaves. But for centuries thereafter, volunteer units were the rule. The first professional fire department in America was established at the beginning of April in 1853 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Members of the company received $60 per year, with lieutenants earning $100, and captains $150. The real money was made by the pump wagon drivers — $365. Today, while trained volunteer companies perform firefighting duties across the country, there are some 350,000 professional firefighters and supervisors nationwide, with median annual pay of $71,000 and $95,000 respectively.

FEATURED CONTENT

Among Teens, TikTok Ousts Snap As Instagram Keeps Fading

A reported by Media Post, Piper Sandler’s latest survey shows plenty of shifting among teens’ favorite brands, with significant changes in spending, social media preferences and share of wallet. There’s plenty of shifting among teens’ favorite brands, with Piper Sandler’s latest survey showing significant changes in spending, social media preferences and share of wallet. Among them: TikTok finally pushes Snap out of first place as the preferred social network, with Instagram continuing to lose favor. Food is making a comeback, taking a great share of wallet. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine leaps into teens’ top political concern, closely followed by the environment and racial justice. But they are also worried about gas prices — and if that factor had been combined with inflation, that worry would have ranked in first place. The Minneapolis-based investment company’s twice-yearly survey includes 7,100 kids in its research, evenly distributed across the U.S. and by household income level. Their average age is 16.2.

Spending rose to $2,367 per year, a 9% increase from a year ago. That’s driven by girls spending more on fashion, with clothing purchases up 15% and footwear up 16%. Fashion spending also boosted digital purchases, with 95% of upper-income girls shopping online, versus 91% of boys.
The low unemployment rate translates into more job opportunities, with 39% of teens reporting that they’ve got a part-time job. That’s up from 38% last fall and 33% in the year-ago survey. And they’re thrifting more, with 46% of teens saying they’ve purchased used items and 56% saying they have sold something secondhand.
Amazon is still named the top online shopping destination at 53%, the survey finds that it’s fallen from a 47% share to 35% among upper-income girls.
Nike reigns as the No. 1 brand across the board for apparel and footwear. Converse pushes Vans out of second place. The preference for Nike among girls hit a new high, as did Lululemon. And 44% of all upper-income teens say they prefer “athletic” apparel, the highest since 2017.

If you’d like to read more on the research, be sure to check out the Media Post article – the link can be found at found online at jimperson.com/15.

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TIP

How to Create a Private Discord Server for Customers

Do you want to create an active community just for your customers? Want to take advantage of Discord without the overwhelm? What is Discord you ask? Discord is a social media platform that allows you to create a dedicated server for your business and community where people can message, talk, stream, and game together. As social networks pivot to smaller communities such as Facebook Groups and subscription services, this is a great time for businesses to establish a presence on Discord and build active communities. But before you get started, you’ll need to set some clear goals. There’s no point setting up a Discord server if you don’t know what it’s for. What are you trying to achieve? Some of the reasons that businesses use Discord are to:

Retain customers by creating a sense of community.
Get more direct customer feedback.
Showcase their expertise.
Share in their customers’ other interests and hobbies.
Release new products and updates to an exclusive group.
Test new ideas and marketing approaches.

In the article from Social Media Examiner, you’ll learn how to set up a private Discord server, automate moderation tasks, and keep the community engaged. You’ll find that link and more at jimperson.com/15.

This tip is just one of the tips provided each week in my TNT Report newsletter. Subscribe at https://jimperson.com/tnt.

IN NEWS

Study: Podcast Hosts Very Trustworthy
From The Podcast Business Journal, iHeartMedia and PMX, the investment arm of Publicis Media, have unveiled results of a study they conducted that focuses on audio influencers. The study was called “Exploring The Brand Benefits of Trust and Companionship in Audio.” The two companies say the study they conducted found that consumers perceive radio and podcast personalities as “highly relatable, trustworthy and authentic.” It combined quantitative and qualitative methods to highlight the role that different audio channels play in the lives of audiences when it comes to trust and companionship. According to the research, radio hosts rank high when it comes to their perceived authenticity and connections to the communities they serve. Podcast hosts are perceived as highly honest and trustworthy.

Study: Snapchat Beats Paid Search, Online Video

Adweek brings news that Snapchat beats out paid search for ad efficiency by 10.5 times, a study the platform commissioned from Neustar reveals, and reaches nearly 200% as many unique prospects as online video. The study showed the importance of multi-touch attribution compared to the last-click method, which reduced revenue attribution by roughly 3.2 times.

The Wildest Branding in the Skies
Meanwhile, Fast Company reports that the German leisure airline Condor just unveiled a brand-new livery for its 53 planes. The new look has stripes. Lots of stripes – like an airborne beach towel or a zebra – available in five colors that the airline describes as ranging from “sunshine yellow” to “island green.” Love it or hate it, the new design is turning heads, and that’s the point. And especially so because the global pandemic stifled the aviation industry and competition is tough.

In other news headlines of the week:

For links to these stories and more, visit jimperson.com/15.

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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED TOOLS

Screaming Frog
The industry leading website crawler for Windows, macOS and Ubuntu, trusted by thousands of SEOs and agencies worldwide for technical SEO site audits.
www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider

World Time Buddy
A convenient world clock! Want to know what time it is – anywhere in the world? World Time Buddy will show you your time – and up to three others – on the free version!
https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

Now that was just one of the tools I covered in this week’s email newsletter. See all of the tools in my newsletter 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” are five professional cover letter templates. These are professional, fill-in-the-blank cover letter templates provided by HubSpot. And the templates cover a range of jobs, or letters if you will:

Standard cover letter
Entry-level cover letter
Data-driven cover letter
Referral cover letter
Skimmablecover letter

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.

State of Search: Discover How the Web Changed in 2021
The State of Search 2022 from SEM Rush analyzes some of the world’s leading markets and contains everything you need to plan your post-pandemic growth strategy. For instance, did you know:

There were significantly fewer newly ranking URLs in the top 100 results versus 2020
The average drop in the number of newly ranking URLs per market was 7.4%
Traffic share by device saw an increase for desktop in 2020, which continued into summer 2021 even after many physical establishments had begun to open up again
Informational keywords made up 60% of unique search terms
Over half of all searches in 2021 were 1-2 words, while almost three quarters of ads shown by Google were 3-5 words
Organic traffic going to eCommerce sites decreased by 23.2% year-on-year
Amazon lost 37.5% of its organic traffic versus 2020, and appeared far less frequently in the Search Ads space across devices
The overwhelming majority of local listings shown to users were within two miles of the searcher’s location; only 6% of listings were more than 10 miles away

If you’d like to get more of these stats – as well as actionable advice on what to do with this information – download the free “State of Search” full report at www.semrush.com/blog/state-of-search.

Now if you’re listening to this podcast, there’s a good chance you also enjoy listening to audiobooks! Get your digital audiobook downloads for less with Audiobooks Now. Save 50% off your first digital audiobook. Go to https://jimperson.com/audiobooks. That’s https://jimperson.com/audiobooks and get half off of your first digital audiobook. I think that’s going to do it for this week’s TNT Report Podcast. You can find links to all the resources and news stories mentioned in this podcast on my website, jimperson.com/15. Thanks for listening – have a great weekend, and a profitable week ahead.

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* Some links in this newsletter are affiliate links. This means that if you click on an affiliate link and then decide to purchase the product or service, I will earn a small commission. However, it does NOT affect the price you pay. In some cases, using my affiliate link may even save you money or offer additional benefits. And by using my affiliate link, you’re providing support to me and The TNT Report Podcast. So, thanks in advance!

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