Creative Data Networks
The Ultimate Guide to Performance Management: 5-Step Process and Best Practices
Peter Drucker once described customers as the “most important stakeholders.” While this may be true, your customers are dependent on one thing. No, it’s not your product (though that’s definitely important). It’s actually your employees. Without your employees, products won’t get made, customers won’t learn about those products, and there will be no one there to sell or deliver those products, or provide customer service to them after they’ve purchased. While your customers may be your most important stakeholders, in a business or organization, your employees are your biggest asset. Their performance, mindset, attitude, and loyalty can make or break […]
What Is An Email CTR? How to Calculate and Improve It
An effective email marketing campaign has the ability to strengthen your brand, engage existing and potential customers, and move them to action. At the very least, emails will keep you front and center in your audience’s mind. Since email is one of the more personal touchpoints you can use to build rapport with your customers, you have a greater opportunity to make your emails meaningful and successful. Email marketing has sustained its popularity due to its ease, low expense, and effectiveness. According to Litmus, four out of five marketers would rather give up social media than email marketing. But how […]
Plot Twist Story Prompts: The Ultimatum
Plot twist story prompts aren’t meant for the beginning or the end of stories. Rather, they’re for forcing big and small turns in the anticipated trajectory of a story. This is to make it more interesting for the readers and writers alike. Each week, I’ll provide a new prompt to help twist your story. Find last week’s prompt, Going Rogue, here. Plot Twist Story Prompts: The Ultimatum For today’s prompt, have a character give or face an ultimatum. The nice thing about an ultimatum is that it automatically creates tension for multiple characters (and the entire story as a result). […]
Karen Hamilton: On Cause and Effect
Karen Hamilton spent her childhood in Angola, Zimbabwe, Belgium, and Italy, and worked as a flight attendant for many years. Karen is a graduate of the Faber Academy and, having now put down roots in Hampshire to raise her young family with her husband, she satisfies her wanderlust by exploring the world through her writing. She is also the author of international bestseller The Perfect Girlfriend and The Last Wife. Karen Hamilton In this post, Karen discusses the “then and now” format of her new domestic thriller, The Ex-Husband, what she hopes readers get out of the experience, and more! […]
Google Says No Correlation Between Impressions And Search Volume via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller says the impressions your site receives for a keyword is not an indication of the search volume for that keyword. The post Google Says No Correlation Between Impressions And Search Volume appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Google Study: 90% Of Customers Will Share Their Email For An Incentive via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern
A study between Google and Boston Consulting Group shows 90% of customers will share their email address for a small incentive, such as a discount. The post Google Study: 90% Of Customers Will Share Their Email For An Incentive appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide [+ Free Blog Post Templates]
If you’ve ever read a blog post, you’ve consumed content from a thought leader that is an expert in their industry. Chances are if the blog post was written effectively, you came away with helpful knowledge and a positive opinion about the writer or brand that produced the content. Anyone can connect with their audience through blogging and enjoy the myriad benefits that blogging provides: organic traffic from search engines, promotional content for social media, and recognition from a new audience you haven’t tapped into yet. If you’ve heard about blogging but are a beginner and don’t know where to […]
The Quick & Easy Guide To Freezing Rows in Excel
Without freezing rows or columns in your Excel spreadsheet, everything moves when you scroll through the page, as shown in the gif below. This can be frustrating if you can’t always see key data markers that explain what data is what, like column headers or row titles. As with many things on Excel, there are tricks that help you make your spreadsheets easier to read, like the freeze function. In this post, learn how to freeze rows and columns in Excel to ensure that, when you scroll around, you’ll always be able to view the key data points that matter most. […]
Saraband: Poetic Forms
This week’s poetic form appears to have started in the Spanish colonies of South America as a type of music and dance (originally referenced as zarabanda) that crossed the Atlantic back over to Spain, before moving into France, Italy, and England. Apparently, the dance was originally considered so sinful that it was banned in 16th century Spain. Here are the guidelines: 7 lines Poem can have either eight or 10 syllables per line I found five different rhyme schemes differentiated by language (Spanish: aaabcbc; English: axabcbc; French: axabbcc; and Italian: aaabccb or axabccb) There are also poets who mention combining […]
4 Truths About Dealing With Grief All Writers Should Know
Writers, as those of you reading this know well, are artists. We have the ability to put into words what others feel but cannot convey—whether it is love, anger, envy, or, as it so happens, the heavy weight of grief and despair. According to existential theorists like Irvin Yalom, death is one of the “givens of existence” for human beings, and how we approach this “given” has a profound impact on the way we find meaning and lead our lives. (5 Ideas for Writing Effective Grief in Fiction.) As writers, we have a powerful responsibility in the words we serve […]