Keith Coppersmith | Mike McRitchie | Resume and LinkedIn Profile Writer | Telecom Marketing Content Writer

Effective Strategies to Build a Successful Career

March 28, 2022 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Today, many people are looking for a way to develop a successful career for themselves. In addition, a lot of people simply don’t want to settle for every-day 9 to 5 office jobs. In fact, they want something more challenging and more exciting. Some people decide to start their own venture while others seek to improve their skills or learn new ones that will help them land a dream job.

In any event, building a successful career doesn’t happen overnight, unfortunately, and every individual must work hard to get there. However, getting to a point where you’ll actually have a successful career isn’t that hard, to begin with, but only if you have a clear goal in mind. Getting there will be difficult if you don’t plan the journey accordingly. With that in mind, here are a few strategies that will help you build a successful career.

Develop a plan

As mentioned before, developing a plan is crucial for building a successful career. The main reason is that by planning your career in advance, you’ll be able to determine the best course of action. Whether you’re planning a career change or you’re trying to determine what’s the best job for you, you’ll need to have a vision in mind of where you want to be in the next 10, 20 or 50 years from now. Having a plan makes the rest of the process more seamless and less challenging.

Furthermore, you have to define what a successful career means to you, in order to identify what to focus on. For example, to some people, a successful career means a good salary that’s more than sufficient to sustain themselves and their family. To other people, a successful career means making a name for themselves. On the other hand, there are people who consider a successful career to be an ideal cultural fit within some company that will make them happy to work there.

Learn new skills

Having an abundance of skills is always helpful when building a successful career. Whether you learn new ones or hone existing skills is a matter of personal choice. However, if you want to ensure you’re making the right decision, a bit of both methods will be quite beneficial. Therefore, take the time to research what skills are the most needed in your ideal career path and work on obtaining those skills.

For example, work on obtaining both soft and hard skills that will not only make you more proficient but also a better person in general. Nowadays, you won’t have to go back to school to gain additional education because you can find various courses and training programs online. The more you invest in yourself, the simpler it will become to finally reach your ideal career status. Of course, it will take some time for you to learn new stuff but it’s well worth the effort in the end.

Obtain new experiences

Today, work experience is almost as important as having the required skills when talking about ideal employment. The more work experience you have the more desirable candidate you become for companies looking to employ you. Truth be told, companies today prefer trained and experienced employees compared to having to invest in training employees themselves. If you wish to gain more experience, consider leaving your comfort zone and look for an experience abroad.

Working in other countries might give you a new perspective and even help you learn the new skills required for your ideal career choice. However, just make sure you plan for necessities, such as obtaining travel insurance or planning for a budget before you move to a different country for work. That way, you can focus on what’s important without having to deal with any inconveniences while abroad.

Engage in active networking

Networking is still very important not just for businesses or companies but for individuals looking for an opportunity to build a successful career. Even though we live in a primarily digital world nowadays, face-to-face networking events are still relevant. You should consider developing a personal and a professional network of contacts and acquaintances so you could progress in your field. What’s more, you should strongly consider attending any relevant networking events.

That way, you can explore various opportunities that may be quite beneficial to you in the future. For example, you might gain valuable advice from experts in the field or meet a mentor who will coach you and advise you how to advance in your career. Meeting new people on networking events, who may be of some value to you at some point, is always an advantage when building your ideal career. That being said, don’t be afraid to look for some help. After all, no one can manage on their own, especially in the business world.

Building a successful career isn’t easy but it also doesn’t have to be too difficult either. If you plan ahead and envision a path forward, you’ll be able to make the right choices and make the right decisions that will help you reach your dream career status.

Keith Coppersmith is a business and marketing expert who has experienced both the rise and fall of many businesses. He enjoys writing and providing insight based on both practice and theory.

Market Research Industry Trends to Watch in 2022

February 20, 2022 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Market researchers are skilled professionals experienced in studying trends in an effort to predict the current and future needs and preferences of consumers. But many might be wondering about the tendencies within the market research industry itself as well. While perspectives might be unique and opinions could vary, some commonalities do emerge, giving way to new industry trends we will likely be seeing more frequently in 2022. With that in mind, here are some of the best predictions for the future of the market research industry:

User-generated content

Data privacy is quickly becoming one of the largest concerns for consumers, with many governments around the globe even introducing new laws and regulations aimed at data protection. Apple has also increased the app-tracking privacy on their devices, while Google has taken severe measures against third-party cookies in Chrome. As a result, market researchers can now only obtain data from the users who have explicitly opted in. A good way to achieve this is by encouraging audiences to share user-generated content. This enables consumers to voluntarily share their data with companies, while also having the freedom and creativity to create unique and interesting content such as stories, videos, etc.

Being the practice of observing and analyzing conversations about industries and brands on social media, social listening isn’t a new term in the world of marketing. However, it may become a widely-used approach for understanding customers as the average modern internet user spends nearly two and a half hours on social media each day. With billions consuming social media content regularly and the lines between virtual and real worlds beginning to blur, an abundance of new consumer behavior metrics and insights could be created. For market researchers, that would mean monitoring the relevance of phrases, search terms, and brands in an effort to create more relevant content for engaging target audiences.

Insightful decisions

The way market researchers share their discoveries with stakeholders and make decision might also change in 2022. A sequence of decisions based on insight will likely transform how suggestions are made. Using AI technology for synthesizing and connecting data points might become the norm, guiding professionals to drive implications, insights creation, recommendations, and even business decisions. Conclusions will be better and stronger, but they might also turn out to be more affordable and effective by leveraging the possibilities of sophisticated technologies.

Growth of new industries

As everything moves to the digital world, novel industries begin to emerge and a whole new world of opportunities appears. The esports sector is among the fastest-growing in the industry, presenting staggering growth rates, billions in revenue, and valuable sports team advertising options in recent years. As long as a company opts for an established game tournament management service, the marketing possibilities through esports tournaments will be endless. Much like conventional professional sports, esports teams also have franchises, owners, tournament cash prizes, endorsement deals, and more, all of which contribute to the value and profitability of the industry.

Empathy in focus

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to suddenly shift to remote work and reconsider their marketing strategies and priorities, empathy became the main focus. And as an increasing number of businesses now move to hybrid and in-person work models once again, empathy must still remain a priority. In fact, empathy in the workplace has been linked to increased happiness and employee performance, not to mention the positive effect on the company’s bottom line. As we move on from this unprecedented situation, organizations should focus on rebuilding teams and brands with empathy in mind, especially in terms of designing and delivering insight.

Sustainability and inclusivity

The growing environmental concern around the globe combined with shocking recent global events have set new demands for companies across the board. While marketing teams might have been considering diversity, inclusivity, equity, and sustainability for quite some time now, 2022 will be the year when these plans are truly realized. Consumers now have clear demands and organizations must take action, whether that means creating more accessible events at an industry level or simply focusing on enhanced research practices by asking more inclusive questions that better reflect the current state of the demographic.

Balancing tech and people

Automation, AI, and other cutting-edge technologies are already allowing market researchers to process large quantities of data, democratize insights, reduce project timelines, and make decisions. This technology can also provide the opportunity for driving the adoption of insights across functional areas, thus evolving into a more marketing- and insights-led culture. But developing consumer insights and applying them to businesses thoughtfully and strategically is still a manual process. This means companies will need to combine human capital with new tools and technologies for collaboration, sharing ideas, and optimizing business practices – that is the real value of democratizing knowledge.

From an increased focus on empathy and inclusivity to the adoption of sophisticated tools and technologies, new industry trends truly have the potential to revolutionize the field of market research. While we have yet to see what 2022 will bring, the trends mentioned above represent some of the most important tendencies to watch in the upcoming months.

Efficient Ways Companies Can Support Working Parents

January 24, 2022 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Being a working parent is unbelievably fulfilling, but it is never an easy task. Attempting to juggle personal, professional, and family lives is a challenging endeavor, one that can rarely be successfully completed without adequate support. Because of this, companies are often reaching for extravagant solutions like motherhood coaches and “flying nannies” in an effort to do the right thing. But what if your business simply can’t offer the most groundbreaking benefits? Fortunately, there are many ways you could prevent employee burnout and stress, and improve the lives of working parents. Here are just some of the most efficient methods that might help:

Offer more flexible schedules

If there’s one thing a working parent always needs, it’s more time. Even though you can’t exactly change the number of hours in a day, simply offering more flexibility in terms of schedule can be quite helpful to your employees, as a traditional 9-5 workweek isn’t quite suitable for most parents. As the advancement of technology has also enabled other forms of working such as virtual teams and working from home, offering working parents a remote or hybrid work model could also be of great help. In addition, aim to provide maternal and paternal leave, as well additional personal time off, if at all possible.

Don’t negotiate vacations

It’s not uncommon for employees working in high-performance companies to voluntarily give up their holidays in an effort to catch up on missed work and complete all their responsibilities on time. This can be a dangerous practice for any professional, but especially a working parent, as it could easily lead to attrition, burnout, performance decline, and family issues. For that reason, you should find ways to encourage hard-working employees to take a break, such as sending emails as reminders to plan for holidays. Motivating your staff to take advantage of existing benefits is much easier than introducing new “work-life” programs, and it could help with employee engagement, efficiency, satisfaction, and retention as well.

Call attention to helpful apps

While flexible working schedules and some much-needed time off can be beneficial to all working parents, there are some forms of support that managers and leaders simply can’t offer. In those instances, it would be best to guide your employees towards helpful resources that might make their lives a bit easier and more balanced. For instance, you can recommend the wonderful Mumli motherhood app to all working moms. Made specifically for mothers who need some additional support, this application is great for sharing personal journeys, collecting and organizing important information, finding additional resources on parenthood, and even connecting with like-minded moms, thus offering encouragement throughout all stages of motherhood.

Categorize communications

A simple way to discourage the “always-on” mode and improve the work-life balance of working parents is to categorize communications, especially those outside of working hours. For example, you could include the words “Urgent”, “Not urgent”, “Information only”, “For Monday”, and similar into the subjects of your emails. These labels allow your staff to effortlessly sort through their responsibilities, immediately knowing what has to be done urgently and what can wait until after family obligations. Encouraging all managers and supervisors to do the same can have quite a significant impact on your employees’ perception of work and their overall satisfaction, without negatively affecting their productivity and efficiency.

Advertise existing resources

Many businesses will already have certain employee resources in place, whether that’s available in-office daycare, counseling opportunities, employee assistance programs, or HR teams trained in employee support. Unfortunately, most workers don’t know these resources exist or simply aren’t certain how they could improve their situation. Others might even believe accessing these benefits will come with certain consequences for their careers. To avoid this, make sure the existing benefits are accessible and visible to everyone in the company, such as through bulletin boards, newsletters, or company-wide emails. Ensuring that working parents utilize helpful available resources could aid in reducing common stress and strain, leading to happier, more motivated, and more productive employees.

Create a supportive space

Most employees shy away from discussing personal issues in the workplace for fear of appearing unfocused or unprofessional, particularly in high-pressure environments, and many managers might be hesitant to start personal conversations, worrying they might be inappropriate. But in companies where teams are tight and working hours are long, personal and professional lives can often become indistinguishable. You can easily avoid common work-life problems and make your staff feel more supported just by opening the door to personal conversations in a business-appropriate way. For instance, even asking about career concerns during performance reviews or checking in on your working parents outside of business hours could make them feel appreciated. And employees who feel valued at work are more likely to show loyalty to the company as well.

The life of a working parent is undoubtedly a stressful and challenging one. Whether you’re a sympathetic coworker or the leader of a company, using the methods mentioned above for offering help and support to working parents is the most efficient way to enhance their work-life balance and lead to happier and more satisfied team members.

Reasons Why Content Marketing is Crucial to Your Success

September 21, 2021 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Content marketing has been around for more than two decades, and it is still one of the most powerful tools in any marketer’s arsenal. In fact, content marketing should be the foundational pillar of your digital marketing strategy, as it will allow you to achieve many sales, marketing, recruitment, and other goals. Without a shadow of a doubt, you need to invest in content marketing if you’re a small business leader or if you’re trying to get your startup on the digital map.

This is the year when you can nail your content marketing strategy, and take your sales and marketing efforts to new heights. Do it right, and you will have no problem finding new customers that will quickly become loyal brand advocates who will boost your word of mouth and social proof.

Let’s put all of this into perspective, and talk about the biggest benefits of content marketing and why you need it in your digital marketing strategy.

Content boosts brand visibility

Content marketing is the essential element of search engine optimization – which aims to boost your visibility across the web. If you want to rank as high as possible in the relevant search results, then you need to optimize your entire digital presence for the users and the search engines. While there is more to effective SEO than great content, it’s important to note that content is what will get your brand on the digital map.

By writing informational long-form articles with relevant keywords in mind, creating optimized website copy and landing pages, and by sharing your amazing content across the web, you will essentially tell Google that your brand is relevant to the online audience. This is how content marketing can skyrocket your visibility and brand awareness, allowing you to reach more potential customers.

Become an authority in your industry

There are many ways you can grow your authority in your industry and niche, but content marketing is the fastest way to build a loyal following and show the world that you’re the foremost expert in the field. Why? Because quality content travels far in the digital space, and the better and more educational your content is, the more it will get shared across the web.

People will start talking about your brand and recommending you to their friends and colleagues as the foremost authority in your field, further boosting your visibility and expanding your brand’s reach. This will not only generate new customers but will also keep the existing ones happy and coming back for more.

By dishing out quality content regularly via a content calendar, you will also create a loyal following that will know exactly when to expect fresh information from their favorite brand. The more value you provide in your content, the more leads and satisfied customers you’ll generate as well.

Drive lead generation forward

Speaking of generating leads, content marketing is all about boosting qualified lead generation. What does this mean? You see, not all leads are equal – some leads are cold (not interested in your brand) and some are warm (interested in what you have to say) – which means that you need to create as many qualified leads as possible. You need people who are interested in your products, services, and stories.

You can generate qualified leads in a number of ways, but ask any experienced content marketing agency and they will tell you that content marketing is the king of lead generation and nurturing. People are hungry for quality content that will help them solve a specific problem or learn more on a particular subject.

That’s why they search for informative articles and educational landing pages. When they do land on your page, you can use your informative, story-driven content to spark their interest, position yourself as a trustworthy expert, and entice them to continue through your website.

Content comes in many forms

The beautiful thing about content marketing is that you can diversify your strategy to encompass many types of content. This is a great opportunity to optimize your content for specific audience types and target demographics, various social media networks, platforms and other websites.

There is a need for every major type of content out there, and it’s important that you create:

Long-form, SEO-optimized articles.
Videos.
Short videos like reels.
Facebook and Instagram stories.
Impactful images.
Infographics.
Podcasts.
Quizzes.
And more.

You can also use automation to grow your business and streamline your content marketing processes by using video animation tools, image creation software, and various SEO tools.

Using content marketing for talent acquisition

There are many digital marketing techniques for your business that will generate qualified leads, improve sales, and help you achieve numerous other goals. But what about talent acquisition? How do you inspire the best of the best in your industry to join your business? With good content, of course.

You can create blog posts that directly target the talented professional you’re after, but you can also optimize landing pages, email copy, social media posts, and other content to reach this specific demographic. This will inspire the top talent to reach out and apply to work at your company.

Over to you

In the end, there is no denying that content marketing is a crucial element of success in the modern business sector. Now that you know how content marketing can take your brand forward, go ahead and start creating content that will dazzle your audiences and the search engines.

The Importance of Maintaining Cybersecurity in Your Business

August 25, 2021 by Keith Coppersmith Leave a Comment

Protecting your business, your sensitive data, and your income is one of the most important things in this day and age. Becoming a target of cyberterrorists is never fun, no matter what you do, how big your company is, and where you’re located, which is why avoiding this scenario is simply a must. Doing that might not always be easy, but if you know what to do, how to act, and what to focus on – protecting your business will turn out to be easier than you’ve anticipated. However, once you set up a defense system against cyberattacks, maintaining it and making sure it’s working is another issue you’ll have to take care of, so if that’s something you need to do as well, here are a few reasons why investing time and energy into this process is a great idea.

Protecting sensitive data

This is probably the most important thing you have to take into consideration when dealing with cybersecurity in your business. The amount of sensitive and private data you’re possessing is massive, and keep in mind that every member of your staff needs to be protected at all costs. This is why investing in security makes a lot of sense, especially if you wish to boost your staff’s enthusiasm and make them more motivated and productive than they’ve ever been.

The same goes for your clients’ and customers’ data as well. This is particularly the case with companies that deal with selling different products and services because these are the companies that hold lots of valuable information from lots of different people. From their names and addresses to their birth dates and credit card numbers, these are all the things that could become dangerous in the hands of cyberterrorists. That’s why protecting data is so important, and it goes hand in hand with cybersecurity, so start checking out these things before it’s too late.

Protecting your money

Another thing that might worry you when it comes to cybersecurity is the amount of money you hold in your possession. From your investments to your income, this is the money that might be stolen before you know it, and that might ruin your entire financial future, which is why protecting this money is so vital.

Unfortunately, with the development of cyber technology and the rise of people who are trying to steal your money this way, protecting your finances against cyberattacks is getting more important than ever. This is something you need to be doing 24/7, every single day of the year, whether your company is open or not – in short, all day every day! In addition to that, you need to update your cyber protection from time to time, particularly if you notice that your money might be under threat.

Protecting your cloud

Lots of companies all over the world are moving to cloud-based services and using them to make their everyday functioning easier, simpler, and more efficient than before. However, using these cloud services also means being under more threat than ever, especially if you’re not using proper protection protocols that are meant to help you remain safe and secure no matter what’s going on.

The best way to do that is by checking out professional security companies and experts who can help you get more protected in a matter of minutes. These people know how to keep you safe and encrypt all the data you’ve uploaded to your cloud account, so looking into their comprehensive IT security services is always a great idea. From the protection of your physical network and your Internet security to your cloud security and data protection mentioned before, these all-around protection solutions will keep you safe and you won’t have a problem with cyberterrorists ever again.

Protecting your reputation

When you’re attacked by these terrorists, you don’t just lose your money and your sensitive data, but your reputation as well. Becoming a victim of cyberattacks will tell the world that you’re vulnerable and sensitive, and, even worse, that you’re not to be trusted. All your employees, your investors, your business partners, and your collaborators will be disappointed, while your clients, users, and customers will start doubting you and your ability to run a company without interruptions.

Therefore, protecting your data also means protecting your reputation and your position in the business world. This might not seem like the most important thing in the world at first, but once you think about this issue and understand the connection between the loss of data and money with the loss of reputation, you’ll realize that this is something worth protecting. So, no matter how many years or decades you’ve invested in building your reputation and how much time and energy you’ve spent protecting it, doing this is a smart move, so start checking out security ideas that might work for you the most.

As you can see, cybersecurity and the protection of your data in today’s world are crucial, so don’t be afraid to check these things out as soon as you can. Investing energy in this process right now means your company will be safe, and that’s something all entrepreneurs love to hear!