6 Best Email Security Services for Your Business

Why choosing the best email security services is important?

 

Are you looking for the best email security services? Not sure which email protection software is right for you?

Here are the best email security services, which I found out work best for businesses.

Having advanced DMARC protection can help You increase Your business authority and trust, as well as will prevent Your company from phishing and email impersonation.

I am going to tell You about some of the best email protection services which can step up Your business to a new email protection era. Before the introduction of email authentication services, I am going to tell You about email phishing.

According to the researches, 86% of businesses are using email as a primary mean of communication.

What is email phishing?

As per by researchers from 2017 and 2018 email phishing is the hackers most famous mean of stealing money and sensitive data from businesses in an effective and fast way.

In today’s fast-paced digital world business email protection is important for any user and organization in order to prevent business not only from email phishing, data breaches but also from money lose.

Email phishing is an illegitimate attempt to steal peoples sensitive information. For example, username, password, email addresses, and other important data for violating purposes.

To put it another way, Imagine, that some of Your sent emails can be Yours, and some of them can be also real looking, but not from the real source. In particular, email impersonation is one of the huge problems for businesses growth.

Stop worrying about money lose, start protecting You business with the best email protection services.

       1. Agari

The company was founded by thought leaders of Cisco’s IronPort solutions. Agaris has its unique mission, which is to build new internet scale data-driven security solutions that eliminates email cyber attacks and let businesses and consumers to communicate in a secure way. Agari is one of the markets leads having more than 1000 customers in their database. Significantly, their customers are huge corporates, banks, and world-leading social media networks

Agari has 2 main products:

Agari enterprise protects, is referred to as targeted attacks detection and identification. This prevents the phishing against Your brand. It finds email threads, provides actionable thread intelligence, visualizing and monitoring Your trusted email identity. Agari Customer protects: Agari Customer Protect Stops Phishing by Automating DMARC Email Enforcement.

Reviews on AGARI

‘’With the adoption of Agari, we are enhancing our employees overall trust level in their email, taking the safety and security of our members, clients, and employees to the next level’’.  CSO, Leading Healthcare Provider

          2. EasyDMARC

Email protection SaaS solution helps you consistently monitor Your send emails and protect your domain from being used on Your behalf, as well as it combats fraud and increases domain reputation.

Moreover, with EasyDmarc You can authenticate You email and achieve advanced email protection. You will get DMARC alerts and DMARC reports. EasyDmarc support team and technical experts help you implement DMARC reject policy in a short period of time. Above all, it keeps Your email infrastructure healthy.

In fact, in 2018 45% of businesses said that email phishing damaged their company reputation and authority.

EasyDMARC gives You advanced email protection solutions for Your business.

• Email Phishing protection– Use complex and advanced email protection mechanism to achieve email top security.
• Advanced DMARC reporting- Investigate all aspects of send email traffic.
• DKIM lookup– Validate and sign Your emails
• SPF lookup– Authenticate which IP addresses one can send emails from
• DMARC lookup– Advanced email security.
• Spam vulnerability – email checking opportunity.

The email protection software has easy to use platform which is convenient even for non-technical people.

3. Dmarcian

Dmarcian is one of the international DMARC platform providers which helps businesses successfully deploy DMARC. Their customers are banks, top internal properties, governments, marketing agencies, telecoms and other companies of all sizes.

Here are DMARCIAN`s tools which will help you protect Your email effectively. Together with Dmarcian, You can secure Your company from fraud successfully.

Dmarcian`s tools benefits

• Discover any issues of Your DMARC record
• Diagnose Your DKIM and SPF records
• Successfully add Your DMARC record
• Scan and test Your email security
• Data providers- it shows all top DMARC XML data providers

4. Ondmarc

OnDMARC is an email security product. It helps individuals and organization of all sizes to protect their emails, block phishing attacks and increase the deliverability of their authorized emails.

It has special solutions for each sector. For example, for the government, law, as well as for marketing agencies.

Tools

Reporting-You will get reports of fake and real emails sent from your domain.

Forensics– DMARC report for failed emails

Email survey-Which monitors the Status of the item in DNS, as well as the Status of an item from reports, and the Status of the item in Dynamic SPF.

Dynamic SPF– Unlimited DNS lookup

API-You can  Integrate reports and manage your domains directly from your applications via an intuitive RESTful API.

Because of email phishing, lots of companies are losing their trust, money, and customers.

 5. DMARC Analyzer

DMARC Analyzer is a SaaS solution which helps organizations to protect their emails. It provides businesses with user-friendly DMARC analyzing software which will easily move you towards a reject policy. This is one of the best email protection services which empowers organizations to easily manage complex DMARC deployment. The solution provides 360° visibility and governance across all email channels.

Tools

Analyzer– generate Your DNS record.

Record check– check whether You domain is protected or not.

SPF record check– send email authentication

DKIM record check– email signature

6. Postmark

Postmark is a free tool to monitor and implement DMARC.

It will help You get reports from major ISPs about your domain’s DMARC alignment. Most importantly, it turns them into beautiful, human-readable weekly email digests, absolutely free.

Postmark services

DMARC implementation allows You to generate a DMARC record and start monitoring.

DMARC Reports helps You get the visibility of Your email infrastructure.

Don’t wait for the phishing attack to happen. Even if it didn`t happen, it means You are the next.

Wrapping it up

DMARC is an email authentication policy and reporting protocol. DMARC, in fact, is the best solution to stop phishing attacks and email fraud in the most productive way. Putting it in a nutshell, DMARC stands as an email security officer which checks the senders and a receivers IP addresses origins. In other words, it checks whether they match each other or not. So, If it doesn`t matches with the senders or receivers keys, likewise Your message doesn`t deliver to the recipients.

With above-mentioned email protection best services You can ensure Your business email advanced protection.

DMARC is a short record which you can put on DNS record. With DMARC You can monitoring not only Your whole email traffic but also the third parties email traffic. Instead of this, You can collect reports and get alerts when phishing attempt happens.

Finally, who needs email authentication?

• Every physical person, mostly, with domain based email.
• The business doing email marketing, specifically, sending some reports, important analytics facts, and private information.
• Digital marketers for increasing email deliverability
• All types of SME`s, Huge corporates, Enterprises or other companies who believe that business reputation and trust are the best guarantees for business growth.

Additionally, besides all these benefits, email protection helps You increase Your email deliverability so that You can boost Your email Marketing ROI.

Start using the best email protection services and ensure Your business prosperity.

The post 6 Best Email Security Services for Your Business appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/security/email-security

Are Credit Cards a Better Option Then Start-Up Loans?

It is no secret that funding a new business is difficult. In fact, it’s easy to make the case that a lack of funding is the biggest obstacle to succeeding as an entrepreneur. From initial funding to the continued funding necessary to keep a business on track, the start-up entrepreneur is constantly walking around with his or her hand out. Perhaps business credit cards are a good solution. Or are they? That depends on how they are used.

Let us assume you have managed to arrange start-up loans to get your business off the ground. Everything has been humming along fine for the last eight months or so. Now you find yourself needing more money to keep things on track. What do you do? One person might recommend you take out additional loans to keep your business afloat. Someone else might suggest you use business credit cards.

A couple of business credit cards might actually be the best solution for you. But then again, they might not be. Credit cards have their pros and cons that have to be looked at carefully. Remember that credit cards are just a different kind of borrowing. A credit card is a piece of plastic that says you have access to an unsecured loan that acts like a revolving line of credit.

 

• How Credit Cards Can Help

 

There’s no doubt that credit cards can be a great source of funding for start-ups that find themselves facing a cash crunch. Anything that can be financed by way of credit cards frees up cash to address things that cannot be charged on credit. For example, a restaurant owner could use a credit card to purchase kitchen supplies. The cash he/she saves could go toward payroll, an expense that cannot be covered by credit.

Another helpful benefit of business credit cards is that they can be used to cover emergencies. In the same way consumers use their credit cards to handle the unexpected, a business owner can address emergencies on credit rather than having to drain the bank account. If the delivery van goes down, he can use a credit card to pay for repairs. If he needs some additional inventory to get through an unexpected rush, he can leave the bank account alone and put it on credit instead.

As long as the business owner understands that credit cards represent unsecured loans, those credit cards can be a very valuable resource. But they have to be used responsibly. Any form of unsecured credit that is not controlled can become a source of mounting debt that might eventually take the new start-up under.

 

• How Credit Cards Can Hurt

 

We have all heard horror stories of people overextending themselves with credit cards. Those stories do not apply just to retail consumers. There are plenty of business owners who have done the same thing. The reality is that business credit cards used improperly can hurt more than they help.

Interest is the biggest concern. Cards with high rates can end up costing the business owner more money than it is worth to borrow on credit. Hand-in-hand with high interest rates is the temptation to charge up a credit card and then only pay the minimum amount due at the end of the billing cycle. This is a good way to get caught in a never-ending cycle of credit card payments.

Lastly, there is always the temptation of using credit cards to keep a struggling business afloat rather than addressing the fundamental reasons the business is in trouble. At that point, credit cards become an inviable solution to much more serious problems.

 

• Shopping Around for Credit Cards

 

Any business owner hoping to use credit cards in lieu of start-up loans would do well to shop around. There are both good and bad credit cards, just as there are good and bad loans. As such, credit cards are only a better option if they offer better rates and terms.

Always bear in mind the annual percentage rate (APR) when looking for new credit cards. The APR represents, as a percentage of the principal, how much interest is paid over the course of a year. So an APR 12% on a £1,000 loan would mean repaying £120 over 12 monthly payments. The interest charged each month is 1%.

Why does this matter? Because credit cards often come with interest rates that are higher than standard loans. They are unsecured loans, after all. The entrepreneur is ideally looking for a credit card with a rate comparable to that of a standard loan. It is okay to accept one with a slightly higher rate if the chances are good that the card’s balance will be paid off quickly enough to keep the total amount of interest paid in check.

A slightly higher interest rate could also be offset by a credit card that allows the business owner to earn rewards. As far as rewards go, cash back is really in the best interests of the entrepreneur. Cash-back rewards can be used to offset future business expenses – including paying down the credit card bill.

• Wrapping It All Up

To wrap this all up, credit cards can be a very good option to start-up loans under certain circumstances. But there is no form of business financing perfect for every situation. Entrepreneurs have to assess every financial need on its own merits. Sometimes start-up loans will be the best way to go. Other times, credit cards will suffice.

The key with credit cards is to understand that they are short term, secured loans represented by plastic cards. If a business owner treats them more as an unending line of revolving credit, it becomes very easy to get locked in a cycle of debt that ends up costing the business more money than its worth.

Credit cards for business expenses should be used with the utmost care and respect. They should only be used out of necessity, and balances should be paid off in as short time as possible.

The post Are Credit Cards a Better Option Then Start-Up Loans? appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/credit-cards-vs-loans

How Customer Service and Digital Marketing Can Work Hand-in-Hand

A few years ago, when digital marketing was not as big as it is now, there was no need for a company’s marketing department and their customer support to collaborate. However today, a company cannot become that successful if both these departments don’t work hand-in-hand.
This is primarily because the channel where a company will market is often the same channel that their customers are turning to if they have concerns and issues about the company’s products and services.

To make it clear, let’s put it this way:

One of the biggest digital channels that a company can use to gain brand reputation and promote their products and services is social media. Social media platforms have immense traffic and it is just right for businesses to take advantage of this huge amount of traffic to market their services. In fact, these platforms are also what customers prefer and spend most of their time. Communication is almost instantaneous in social media and nothing is greater than having to drop a message to a business and receive an answer in no time.

What does this mean? This means that social media is both a marketing and customer service tool. Ultimately, the marketing and the customer support department will be using the same channels to go about their business operations. With this in mind, it has become a requirement that these two departments collaborate in order to create a consistent environment for the customers to see.

And, it is not just social media. There are a lot of ways that both these important teams of a business can work together. We have listed some of them below. So, grab your pen and a pad of paper and start brainstorming about how you can come up with a system that lets the staff from both marketing and customer support collaborate for better results consistently.

Content Creation

Many think that the customer service department has no say when it comes to coming up with ideas on the types of content that will be published on a business’ website or blog. Well, it is far from the fact. For what it’s worth, customer support can actually play a vital role in creating a stream of consistent content.

In every article that teaches you about digital marketing, one thing that is almost always included is that a business should understand who their target market is in the first place. The marketing department can only guess. Yes, there are tools out there that can let marketers know basic information about who is visiting their website but that does not really give away the real deal.

This is where customer support comes into action. The people under this department primarily deal with the queries, concerns, and issues of the customers themselves. They get to talk to those who actually matter to the business and they have a good idea about who their customer really is after having different kinds of conversation with real people.

So, during your next meeting, it would be great if you let the marketing department brainstorm with the people under customer support. Through their insights, the customer support team can give the marketers an idea of what topics would be more interesting and valuable to their target audience.

Setting Customer Expectations

 

One way that a business can tell if their marketing campaigns are effective or not is when their customers know what to expect with the business’ products and services. Often, when possible leads are clear on the products and services you offer, they have a higher chance of being converted as buying customers.

So, how can the customer support department help in this aspect? It is pretty simple actually. Remember that customer support always deal with customers. They interact with them regularly. Most of the times, they will have to answer questions from people who have come across the company’s products and services.

After the conversation, the customer service representative will then be able to judge if the customer actually understands what the offers are based on the questions they asked. After that, they can notify the marketing department if there was any misleading information about the product. And then, the marketing department can edit and create a better campaign to fix these expectations.

Social Media Customer Service

This is what we have mentioned earlier in this article. Social media has become like an all-in-one hub for the business to do their marketing, promotions, and customer support. If you are lucky, you may have hired a marketing expert that is also skilled at handling customer service. But, that rarely happens.

Marketing and customer service are really different arenas and each of these departments have their own set of training programs and strategies to master. This ultimately means that the staff in their respective departments is the best in their field. Social media may have been the key tool that marketers use to promote the company’s services and products. However, this is not to say that they are the only ones that can use it. It is important that both the marketing team and the customer service team collaborate and use social media efficiently.

This means that both teams should talk with each other in order to use the business social media account consistently. You do not want your customers to see a difference in how you post and talk to them, right?

Can Customer Service and Marketing Work Hand in Hand?

With all of these things mentioned above, there is one lingering question that many people still ask. Will their customer service serve as their marketing tool too?

The simple answer would be: YES.

Now, the longer answer would be: YES, but…

As we have mentioned above, you can have both the marketing and the customer service team work together to achieve a common goal. However, you cannot just leave it to one team to do everything.

Now, why should these two aspects become one? Let us first look at a few statistics:

• A little over 50% of unhappy customers talk about the poor customer service of a company to around 15 people including their friends and families.
• 72% of happy customers only tell around six people.
• 67% of customers say that bad service will make them go away from a company.

These statistics tell us one thing —customers will talk about how bad a company’s customer service is more than talking about how good it is.

So, aside from the usual posts, you do on social media or the quality content you create and publish on your website or blog, you need to also make sure that your customer support is perfect and seamless.

Because if it is, you will most likely benefit from a free and effortless advertising channel for your business called the “word-of-mouth.”

Marketing and customer service are both vital aspects of an aspiring business. They serve as key pillars that will provide success to your business. But, when these two departments are aligned and learn how to work together, it can give your business that much-needed boost to earn the trust of customers and stay ahead of your competition.

The post How Customer Service and Digital Marketing Can Work Hand-in-Hand appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/digital-marketing/customer-service

Why Is Search Engine Land De-Indexed?

Searchengineland.com seems to be de-indexed.

Bookmark this page for updates as they happen.

See twitter for realtime chaos…https://twitter.com/search?q=search+engine+land

The post Why Is Search Engine Land De-Indexed? appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/seo/searchengineland

7 Family Finance Tips Business Owners Should Adopt For Greater Success

The post 7 Family Finance Tips Business Owners Should Adopt For Greater Success appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/finance/7-family-finance-tips

How to Upgrade to a POS for Pizza Restaurants

No one will ever turn down a slice of pizza, regardless of where you are in the world. Pizza is a such a universal meal, and the demand for it keeps on going up. In 2017 alone, the pizza industry in North America earned over $50 billion, and analysts predict that it’s going to increase at least 20% in 2018.

So, it’s no shock that pizza restaurants constantly have customers at every hour of the day. How does one set themselves apart from the competition when everyone is asking for the same thing? The only way to do that is to make a delicious pizza, and effortlessly handle the checkout process.

Customers will always come back to order more pizza if they can order one without running into any problems.  

Benefits for Using a POS for Pizza Restaurant

The variety of POS systems available tend to work for either a pizza restaurant or a cafe. Small business owners recommended staying away from POS systems that aren’t made specifically for pizza restaurants. This is because those systems won’t come with particular pizza related functions, which defeats the purpose of incorporating such a system to your restaurant.

A pizza business that is generating a lot of money needs a POS that can cater to the demands on operating such a restaurant.

Customizable

A customizable POS for pizza restaurant is a must since, with a pizza order, there are hundreds of combinations to choose from. Customers come up with the strangest pizza topping combinations. In order to have a thriving business, you have to let the customer feel as if they have total control over the pizza making process.

Sometimes customers have a hard time figuring out exactly which pizza toppings they want. This is when the pre-customized menu comes into play, which is possible with a POS for a pizza restaurant.

Fast Service

With a POS system, you can handle both takeout and eat-in orders effortlessly without having to slow down service. Small pizza restaurants are in constant competition with pizza franchises, and one way to stay ahead of the game is to make use of the same technology, which means incorporating a POS system.

This system allows small business owners to have promotions and form a loyalty club, so your customers can earn rewards by coming back to order pizza from your restaurant.

In regards to deliveries, the POS system will keep track of all the addresses, so you can figure out which neighborhood prefers your pizza to others. You can also set a delivery perimeter, so a customer will know beforehand whether or not they can order from your restaurant.

If you don’t want to deal with customers over the phone, you can combine your POS system and website, so online ordering is a possibility.

When you remove the middleman delivery company, you increase your pizza sales while making a profit because a chunk of your order isn’t going to a third party.

Conclusion

The best thing you could do for your pizza restaurant is to set up a POS system tailored for a pizza business. The benefits we went into detail above are just a fraction of what advantages a POS system has to offer.

The post How to Upgrade to a POS for Pizza Restaurants appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/pizza

How Technology Will Change Future of E-commerce for Next Decade

New technologies are constantly entering the e-commerce market with new directions, dimensions, and promises. If you get an acknowledgment of all, you can shape a prosperous future for your e-commerce too by making the right decisions of integrations.

Gradual penetration of smartphones and tablets in our lives have made revolutionary changes the way how we perform the day-to-day tasks. On an average Americans are spending five hours in a day on the smart devices. Technological advancements in gadgets, Internet access, and other areas have made our life easy, comfortable, and highly productive.

Shopping is no more a daunting task to roam here-and-there spending fuel, time, and ending with limited options. We have a wide horizon to wander among hundreds of virtual shops on the web and compare the top products with the best bargaining options.

Until to date, we have tasted sweet fruits of computer and mobile revolutions for e-commerce. Now, myriads of upcoming technologies in diverse areas are waiting to shape an astounding future of eCommerce for next generations of human beings. Let me give a glimpse of tech sparkling briefly.

Active Shopping Experiences:

Previously, we were doing a passive shopping on the web where we surf the catalog, examine products through still images and texts, go through the checkout process and finally, done.

• Today, e-commerce merchants have real-time analytics software to know all possible details of online visitors of the shop immediately upon arrival.
• Artificial Intelligent powered Chatbot like assistance to provide in-person experiences to e-commerce visitors.
• Personalization engines to offer highly personalized product recommendations, personalized engagement through real-time popups, and marketing incentives based on a shopping history of repeat shoppers.
• Getting and collecting personalized feedback of shoppers in real-time as well as after accomplishing shopping via rating and review popups.
• Personalized shopping cart with cross-selling, upselling, and other shopping cart features for quick checkout, real-time shipping updates, and a lot of personalized advantages.
• Real-time social media access throughout the shopping process to leverage social sharing and other social media advantages like social chats, social recommendation, social opinions, and social payment. It is everything for deep engagement.

In short, we are heading towards a future where a line between online and offline shopping experiences will blur. In coming years, we will fill in online shopping that a salesperson is standing in front of us and attending actively our all queries, our hidden expectations, and respecting our shopping habits carefully that we used to feel in real-world brick-and-mortar shopping.

Smart Predictions for Ecommerce Merchants

Inventory management for any online merchant is a headache and vital for the success of eCommerce business. If you invest in trendy items, you can get a quick and good return, but you make wrong decisions, chances are dead accumulation inventory in warehouses and mounting interests in financial loans or shortage of investment when the stock of an essential product is getting fast drain.

We can get smart predictions of market trends through multiple channels, such as consumer data, social media data, surveys, and from financial institutions. Our e-commerce store can collect customer data. We can aggregate those data coming from various channels and analyzed a heap of structured and unstructured data using the latest Big Data technologies.

Smart predictions through Big Data enable e-commerce industry to do effective inventory management, announcing precise incentives, and invest in right channels of marketing.

Superfast Delivery of Ecommerce Products

Once an online customer is finishing payment, the next step is to wait for the delivery. Most of the order and shipping management software/modules are trying to engage shoppers in order tracking and knowing real-time shipping status to save from the customers from to be impatience and cancellation of the order.

Considering this buying behavior, the majority of e-commerce giants including Amazon are in a process to advance their delivery technologies including implementation of Drones to provide delivery within one or half hour. Others are looking at various logistics options to gain competitive advantages of fast delivery.

IoT Phenomena

Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as a revolutionary technology for e-commerce too. To empower eCommerce for automated order collection from the non-human entities, IoT is an excellent way.

Recently, Amazon has introduced ‘Dash Button,’ and it is IoT-powered. Thus, your pantry will order the items depleting in the stock. The same is possible at a commercial level where a production/manufacturing unit can issue orders directly or ask the permission of the management electronically.

Also a lot of Drone authorities such as Half Chrome Drones are predicting drone delivery in the US by 2020

Cryptocurrency Payment

Payments and exchanges with fiat currencies are a bit longer and costlier option against fully digitalized Cryptocurrencies. The trends of e-commerce payment with Bitcoin like Blockchain-based technologies seem secure, straightforward and cheaper option for modern shoppers.

Shoppers are getting familiarity with Cryptocurrency usage, and e-commerce stores are showing great adoption for the payment. Thus, one-day it will become a norm in the future e-commerce industry.

AR & VR Aids in E-commerce

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are emerging technologies to help e-commerce in innovative ways. For instance, virtual dressing room eliminate needs of in-person visits for certain types of fashion and clothing e-commerce purchases.

Customizing products using various product attributes in AR environment can boost orders a lot.

Conclusion:

A lot of emerging technologies are knocking the door of eCommerce merchants to invest in, but what applies to your e-commerce and how much return is possible is a matter of investigation.

Busy eCommerce merchants hardly take risks of shooting in the dark whenever an integration of new technology is in question. They used to look for expert advice, and Magneto IT Solutions, a Leading Magento Development Company provide you with the right insights for the implementations of any emerging technology trend.

Would you like to step ahead for a new adventure on your eCommerce storefront? Let’s discuss it.

The post How Technology Will Change Future of E-commerce for Next Decade appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/future-of-e-commerce

IoT Drones Are the Future: Here’s What You Need to Know

In 2016, drone sales more than tripled, hitting $200 million and it is estimated to hit 13 billion by 2020!

Prices continue to decrease, and the demand for IoT connectivity means drones are constantly becoming better. They’re now being fitted with pressure senses, powerful processors, and GPS modules.

IoT drones are going to have a massive impact on our future. Read on to learn how drones are changing everything from how we build our houses, to how we go to war.

The Implications of IoT Drones and How it Disrupts the Market

To understand why these drones are a game-changer, it’s important to consider just what the IoT does.

The Internet of Things is the concept of connecting any device that has an on-off switch to each other and/or the internet. This includes everything from laptops, headphones, wearable devices, washing machines, coffee makers, and, of course, drones.

Here are some ways the IoT drones will change the future:

Agriculture

Drones are already being used to increase revenue for farmers. They can use drones to quickly find yield-limiting problems, and check their crops without needing to go out and check all of their acres on foot.

In the future, we can expect to see fleets of autonomous drones tackling monitoring tasks, while others collect crop data.

Asset Management

IoT drones will impact many sectors, including aviation, oil and gas, and railroads. Drones are excellent at gathering data and can be deployed to vantage points that humans find it difficult or impossible to get to.

Since the drones will be connected to the internet, they can immediately report back, providing operators with information in real-time.

Warfare

IoT and big data are transforming the way that wars are being fought. Taranis is an autonomous stealth drone. It can already fly along a programmed flight path, stop at a preselected area, identify any potential threats, and alert human operators that the target is identified. If the human operator approves the attack, it will destroy the target and then fly home.

In the future, there may not even be a human operator approving these actions. That’s why more than 16,000 thought leaders and researchers have called for the United Nations to ban the creation of semi-autonomous and autonomous weapons. These experts include Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Peter Norvig.

Delivery

Amazon, Domino’s and UPS are already rolling out programs which will allow delivery by drone.

Matternet and Mercedez-Benz have also unveiled their plans which will allow their vans to work with autonomous drones. This will revolutionize the way that packages are delivered.

Insurance

The insurance industry will be transformed by IoT drones. Imagine submitting a claim for property damage. Instead of it taking weeks to process, an IoT drone could have the claim processed within minutes.

Drones can get aerial views of properties, so they’ll be able to immediately survey the catastrophe or damage for insurers.

The Bottom Line

Imagine a world where drones zip in and out of traffic, swooping past your apartment window while on the way to deliver a package. This will be happening sooner than you might think.

Drone delivers the goods– stock image

The post IoT Drones Are the Future: Here’s What You Need to Know appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/iot-drones

6 Key Elements of a High-converting Opt-in Form

A study conducted by Sumo in 2017 revealed that the average email opt-in rate is 1.95%. So, if more than 2% of your website visitors subscribe to your email newsletter, you’re doing alright.

But did you know that HP managed to increase their sign-up rate by 186% by creating a high-converting email opt-in page?

Or that you need only five minutes to boost your subscription rate by 37%?

Of course, these are success stories, but when you know that the top 10% of marketers have an average opt-in rate of 4.77% (Sumo study), you get the motivation necessary to increase your subscription rates by that 3%.

Or you don’t, which is perfectly fine. If you want to stay where you are, you don’t need this article.

On the other hand, in case you want to create an opt-in form that will convert your website visitors like crazy, you have come to the right place.

Before we cover the essential elements of a high-converting opt-in form, let’s take a look at the most common mistakes marketers make when creating opt-in forms.

Common opt-in form mistakes

These are the mistakes that can prevent you from increasing your opt-in rate:

–        Too many mandatory fields

Asking for too much information will make your visitors skeptical and hinder their user experience.

Instead of having too many mandatory fields, reduce them to a few and then use surveys to learn additional information after users have already signed up.

–        Too much animation

Just like with the number of fields, excessive use of animation will have a negative impact on users, distracting them and leading to exiting the form.

–        Unoptimized for mobile

Since most of digital media time is spent on mobile devices, you should design your opt-in forms with mobile visitors in mind.

–        Only single opt-in forms

Double opt-in forms are much better in the long run, helping you build a higher-quality list and immediate communication with subscribers, as well as send confirmation emails.

Now that you know what steps to avoid, we can jump straight to the best practices for building opt-in forms.

Create lead magnets

If you just ask people to subscribe to your newsletter, you won’t see much success.

Email is by far the most intimate type of online communication, so you can’t just ask people to give you their email addresses.

Instead, you need to give them something in return ‒ a free but valuable resource called lead magnet.

Lead magnets are also known as ‘freebies’ or ‘opt-in bribes’. When you think of it, the second term is very true to its purpose.

Your lead magnet should be:

–        Highly relevant to your ideal customers

Even though it is great to have a high number of email subscribers, this is true only if they are your ideal customers.

Having a list of people who will never buy your service or product is counter-productive.

That is why you need to attract the right kind of email subscribers by offering them a highly relevant lead magnet.

–        Easily consumed

Human attention span is getting shorter and shorter, which is why you need to create a resource that is easily consumed.

–        Helpful and specific

Your lead magnet is supposed to help your visitors take a very specific step.

In other words, try to provide a set of tools, information, or a skill set that your audience can apply toward achieving their goal.

If your lead magnet can create a noticeable improvement in someone’s life, you will build a lot of trust, manage your leads with more success, and eventually convince your customers to buy your products or services.

–        Instant

Even this is not always a good thing, people love instant gratification.

Therefore, your lead magnet should be something that you can deliver instantly, such as an audio MP3, a video, or a PDF.

Here are some of the most effective lead magnet ideas:

–        template

–        checklist

–        cheat sheet

–        web app

–        recipe

–        toolkit

–        tutorial

–        infographic

–        video

–        audio

–        email course

Use CTA wisely

The first thing you should do with your call to action is to make the CTA button stand out.

It is essential that your visitors can easily differentiate your CTA button from other elements in your opt-in form.

This trick will help you grab the attention more easily and encourage your potential leads to click.

In this case, it is usually simple things that make a great difference. The color, contrast, and size of your CTA button can make or break your lead generation.

And while we can debate on the most effective color, one thing is for sure – your CTA button needs to pop in order to increase your conversions.

Also, you need to increase the contrast between the button color and the background color, as well as to make the button large enough for mobile users to tap with their fingers.

Besides the CTA button design, the copy on it is also important. Does ‘Sign up for our newsletter’ sound enticing?

Instead of using worn out call-to-action words like ‘sign up’ or ‘subscribe’, try to come up with an original, benefit-driven phrase that tells your visitors what they are getting out of the deal.

Always ask yourself what your visitors will get from the action you want them to take.

Here are some examples of compelling and benefit-driven CTA phrases:

–        Get 15% off today.

–        Increase your opt-in rate by 5%.

–        Make $10,000 in the next week using this marketing trick.

Benefits all over the place, right?

CTAs are extremely important for converting website visitors into leads, so make sure yours are irresistible.

Choose the best location for your form

If you want your sign-up forms to capture qualified leads, you need to put them in the right locations.

If you fail to put your forms in the right places, you could lose hundreds or maybe even thousands of subscribers.

To get the most out of your opt-in forms, try the following places:

–        Splash page

More and more marketers are now using splash pages to make their opt-in forms noticeable to their website visitors.

You can easily structure your splash page by placing the main navigation at the bottom of the page instead of at the top.

After that, make sure that the rest of the page displays your incentive to opt-in and your email sign-up form so that they are the main focus of the page.

–        Welcome gate

A welcome gate is very similar to a pop-up contact form. It allows your visitors to take a quick look of your content before they are shown a full-screen call to action.

Creating a welcome gate is easy. However, it requires a simple headline and a call-to-action button (or subscribe form) on the background which can be either plain or colored.

–        Blog post

Including your opt-in forms at the bottom of your blog posts is a common practice.

If your content is helpful and your visitors are enjoying it, they will most likely opt in to your email list.

However, you can also include opportunities to sign up within your posts ‒ just make sure they are relevant to the blog topic.

–        Sidebar

If you choose this location, it is important to include an email sign-up form at the top of your sidebar, which is the most common and most expected solution.

Moreover, you can also create various ads and additional forms further down the sidebar.

Placing your opt-in forms in these locations will increase your opt-in visibility and, eventually, your sign-up rate.

Social proof

Using social proof in your opt-in forms can be a very powerful marketing strategy.

Below are some great tricks you can use to effectively show social proof:

–        Show the number of subscribers

In case you already have a high number of subscribers, why not boast about them in your opt-in forms?

Let your visitors know how popular you are by indicating the number of your subscribers.

This way, you will show that subscribing to your email list is a common behavior and, in a way, ‘expected’ from them.

You can also use phrases like ‘Join 20,000 other email marketers receiving our weekly emails’, letting them know that a large number of people like them have already subscribed to your email list.

–        Show the number of downloads

When you show how many consumers use or have downloaded your offer, you add value to your business and practically say that you have helped a number of people.

–        Add customer testimonials

This is a tried and tested method for adding social proof to opt-in forms.

Short quotes from happy customers are a great way to increase your conversion rate, so it is only natural that this is one of the most common uses of social proof.

You can place the quotes below the form or under the image on your form and boost credibility by including the person’s name, photo, company and job title along with the quote.

–        Add testimonials from influencers

Testimonials from regular customers are great, but testimonials from influencers are irresistible.

If you have a relationship with an industry influencer (or more of them), don’t hesitate to get a testimonial from them about your product or service.

This can make your number of subscribers explode in a matter of days.

Use different types of opt-in forms

Not all opt-in forms are created equal. One opt-in form can work at one specific moment or target a certain group of people, but it will be useless in other situations.

Before you choose your opt-in form type, make sure you know your goals and your audience, but also choose your lead magnet and the annoyance level you are willing to evoke.

–        Exit intent

This is a pop-up box that appears when the user moves their mouse pointer to close the page or tab.

It grabs attention, gives you the last chance to convince people to stay in touch, and reduces churn rate.

However, make sure you don’t overuse it, as it can be very annoying.

–        Light-box

Similar to exit intent, this form also pops up. However, this one appears when a certain amount of time has passed since the user entered a website.

It instantly grabs attention and drives user action, but like the exit intent form, it can easily cause annoyance if overused.

–        Slide-in

This sign-up box appears from the side or bottom of the page after a visitor scrolls down to a particular part of the page.

It is shown only to users which are highly engaged, which is both an advantage and a drawback.

–        Shake box

Shake box is a neat web form that pops up on the screen and shakes.

It is engaging and attention-grabbing, and it hasn’t been used too often. But it may not appeal to each of your customers.

–        Embedded sign-up form

This is a good old form embedded onto your website, which can motivate people to sign up if it is designed well, fits the overall design, and has a good copy, clear benefits, and a CTA.

However, it may not be enough to catch attention if your visitors are not actively looking for a newsletter sign-up.

Final thoughts: Make it visually appealing

Humans are visual creatures and there is not much you can do about it. However, you can use this to your advantage by making attractive opt-in forms.

And while prettiness of your forms is important, your primary goal should be to make your forms stand out from the rest of the content on your page.

You can achieve this by using:

–        subtle shadow to add a little popping effect

–        directional cues to show your visitors where to focus in your form

Finally, never neglect privacy regulations. Make sure that you respect customers’ privacy by using some of these GDPR-compliant plugins to create opt-in forms.

When you use all the tips we listed, you will see the number of your subscribers grow and your opt-in rate go way above that 1.95%.

Showing Communication Options– stock image

The post 6 Key Elements of a High-converting Opt-in Form appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/e-mail-marketing/opt-in-forms

5 Ways IoT is Revolutionizing the Call Center Industry

In today’s technological world, wireless technologies have paved different ways to increase the trends of IoT, or internet of things. This can be described best as, when your internet will be connected to multiple physical objects, you can render them as the “smart objects” with an efficient ability to process, sensor and act upon the data.

There are different household objects that are already equipped with large sensors and promoting safety and alert to the problem. But the internet of things always take this technology to the next level by providing solutions to the problem and even solve issues before they arise.

Customer support services will be more proactive:

IoT can simply enable different smart objects that can help you communicate several essential problems to the company directly before the issues actually arise. It turns all the turning customers much more proactive and diligent. Brands would also be poised to deliver smart customer support services when the smart objects are properly addressed or analyzed. And the companies or customers are no longer need to spend some time in troubleshooting the issues; that could have been prevented beforehand. Companies should also tend to analyze significant data to proactively monitor multiple devices. It can prove problematic and demand reliable customer service after enabling businesses to diagnose problems before they actually arise.

Call center agents would be more specialized in a variety of tasks:

Call center agents would be efficiently trained in customer support skills and will completely understand the products & services of businesses, but in the near future, the IoT will demand that they should develop highly specialized knowledge. So, call center employees will need to be efficiently trained for some specific situations, like the malfunction of any kind of industrial appliance. For instance, an IoT will significantly demand that they must offer solutions to some advanced and technical issues.

IoT may add multiple layers to the Omnichannel approach:

Today, there are many customers which tend to utilize the options to contact businesses on various channels according to their ease. So, IoT may become a challenge for the call center industry to consider while integrating the smart call center solutions for providing the best customer service experience. Businesses will be required to explicitly define how clients can be able to experience such exceptional customer services on their favorite channels; when their IoT services/products will make contact with the call centers agents on their behalf.

Call centers would be able to acquire significant data for efficient services:

One of the most reliable benefits of the internet of things is the perfect volume of data call centers which are simply set to gain the efficiency of brand products and user habits. So, if technical issues are stilling rising for the same products, businesses might be able to enhance their worth and analyze what is not working well, and then increase the levels of customer satisfaction. So, as for the products that reveal a real consumer behavior, like the health, household products or electrical devices- businesses can easily reach out to the customers with several marketing tactics that are efficiently aligned to user’s behavior as well as for better and more proactive service which can help users to utilize their services and products easily.

Self-services will be more main-streamlined than ever before!

Internet of things is simply one of the best ways in which we can utilize the self-service options to expand our presence in customer service. With the help of these smart objects that are diagnosing little issues by their own, customers would be required to communicate with the call center agents less frequently and can lower the expensive call volume on their voice channels.

Therefore, when the potential customer will feel the need to call, it’s more likely that the detailed nature of technical concerns might increase the average handling time call center agents would be able to understand the maximum details of all the issues and then provide a thorough response.

According to the research conducted by a reliable organization in the US, there will more than 80 billion efficient devices would be connected wirelessly to all the physical objects by 2020. Experts have already predicted that the sensor market would also worth $49 billion by the end of 2020. So, IoT could possibly have a lot of interesting implications for the call centers that may enable the brands to effectively provide proactive solutions and to be already prepared at the time of engagement. The step to the more proactive and reliable approach would also large companies provide various levels of help and support- and might offer an amazing business opportunity that can add a significant value to the standard service offerings.

The IoT might even transform call centers enabling them to get more control of customer services by offering them with different new streams of information which are simply integrated into the current business infrastructure. This will have the huge impact on the customer services. Not only this, but IoT has a vital role in financial services as well, and according to the latest research, the Internet of things is changing the whole financial service industry.

and changing the with its huge impacts.

By doing this, customers will not be able to wait long hours; they won’t be able to go through the time-taking security questions or tend to explain some difficult faults to their call center agent. From the business perspective, the standards of customer support services are greatly increased, and agents become proficiently knowledgeable; as well as the business would also experience high-cost savings with the help of more streamlined and efficient ways of working. These companies can efficiently integrate the internet of things to proactively help into the customer journeys. Thus, when the users will be able to expect efficient and quick customer services, the organizations would be able to realize the potential for investing in IoT in their call centers as a tool to deliver best customer services.

Final thoughts:

In today’s business world, where excellent customer service is setting up a brand apart from the others in the competition, the internet of things will be able to predict to offer businesses the best ability to provide additional value to its potential customers. So, business owners who will be able to capitalize on IoT will efficiently integrate the IOT to their customer support care and take their businesses to the next level.

The post 5 Ways IoT is Revolutionizing the Call Center Industry appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/customer-service/iot-call-center

How to Start a Hunting Business

More than 15 million Americans are involved in hunting activities every year, spending millions of dollars in the process. If you’re a landowner, particularly if your land is in the rural areas, you stand to make some tidy bucks if you exploit the hunting potential of your unused land. And what better way to go about that than starting an actual hunting business?

 

Types of Hunting Businesses

Before we touch on the requirements and procedures for starting a hunting business, it’s imperative to note the main types of hunting-related activities you can engage in. Basically, you can get into the business as a:

•  Distributor or seller of hunting gear and equipment
• Land lessor
• Intermediary between hunters and gear sellers or landowners

Each of the above ventures has its pros and cons which you should make a point of finding out before making a decision. Also, deciding on a niche is the first step towards establishing a successful hunting business as you will be in a better position to determine your exact requirements. Hunting businesses, as with other types of business, require some market research or feasibility studies to establish just how viable the particular business is.

Setting up a business involves spending a considerable amount of money just to get things running, and you wouldn’t want to throw your hard earned cash into an investment that’s doomed to fail. Failing to plan is planning to fail, they say. Coming up with a plan before investing in a business will increase your chances of success!

That said, below are some additional tips on how to start a hunting business, whatever the niche:

1. Have a Game Plan

Whether you plan to lease land to hunters or sell equipment, it’s important to zero in on a specific type of game on which your business will be based. Currently, the most popular game animals in North America are caribou, cougars, wild boars, rocky mountain elks, and grizzly bears. That these animals are not commonly found in most regions means that people will be willing to pay more for the experience which means higher returns. While at it, consider the hunting laws in your state, particularly the ones protecting particular types of animals. Getting into legal tussles with the authorities does not exactly bode well for your enterprise.

2. Identify a Suitable Location for a Hunting Business

Your location determines to a large extent the success, or failure, of your ventures so you need to be careful when identifying your base. Ideally, you should base your operations in states that are easily accessible, have great weather, a wide variety of game and most importantly, established game hunting pedigree. States such as Texas, Kansas, Mississippi, and Alaska are renowned for their hunting culture and consequently receive tens of thousands of hunters every month. If you intend to venture into buying and leasing land, you will also find better deals in these states as opposed to other urban areas such as California and New York.

3. Conduct a Survey

The next logical step after identifying a strategic location is to carry out a comprehensive market survey to give you a clearer picture of the business outlook. Pay attention to the particular state laws on hunting, licenses, and approvals required and the projected costs of operations, including initial marketing expenses. Also, look at the numbers of people, local and visitors, who practice game hunting in your selected area. Additionally, take a look at the number of businesses offering similar services to yours, their locations, client bases, and revenues as you wouldn’t want to get into a saturated market. Your survey findings should guide you on the subsequent steps to follow, and just as we’ve mentioned earlier, you will be increasing your chances of success if you do the market survey (or feasibility study) before investing in the hunting business.

4. Organize Your Finances

Presumably, you have all the data on capital and cost estimates from your market research. The next step is to look for the necessary resources, whether from your savings account, borrowing from friends and family, or bank loans. We recommend funding your business through your savings and soft loans from friends as opposed to bank loans as the latter puts you under undue pressure due to stringent terms. If possible, seek to minimize your expenses by leasing property or buying already existing businesses. It makes more sense to, for instance. Go for an existing hunting outfitting business for sale that already has a customer base rather than starting from scratch.

5. Sort the Paperwork

Hunting is regulated by both federal and state governments, although licensing is primarily done by the states. Some states allow license applications only once a year while others have more flexible procedures. Similarly, some states have mandatory training requirements for some hunting specialties so check on that too. Whatever your niche is, make sure to get all the necessary paperwork sorted out before you start your business.

6. Start Your Business

You can now launch your business and look towards your first clients. Make sure to place some ads on your local newspaper and give out some fliers in your neighborhood to create awareness. A bit of online marketing won’t hurt either.

Conclusion

Hunting is a fun hobby and if you play your cards right. It can also be quite a lucrative business venture. Hopefully, our guide on how to start a hunting business is of help to you in your endeavors. Take your time in making preparations but act decisively once you’re ready!
Have any questions or concerns about the article?

Kindly let it out in the comments, and we shall address it to the best of our ability.

Hunter– stock image

The post How to Start a Hunting Business appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/hunting

Use E-Books To Drive Thought Leadership

The concept of thought leadership originated in the C-suite, and indeed, if you were to look up some of the most prominent thought leaders today, you’re probably going to see a lot of big names and large companies. However, marketing professionals have probably heard a lot about different people in different industries trying to start their thought leadership initiatives, as well as a pocket industry helping people to become better-thought leaders.

Why is this the case? Thought leadership is probably one of the best ways for a business to expand its base over time because rather than focusing on a quick sale or quick conversion, it’s trying to get people to trust a company as a significant authority in its niche. However, this does take a lot of time and investment to become a full thought leader, as well as using the right tools. An e-book is one of your best options in this regard.

Thought Leadership’s Content Problem

Before getting into e-books specifically, it’s important to understand how thought leaders end up reaching this point with their audience. There’s natural altruism about thought leaders in the sense that they are regularly putting out information that could be beneficial for those in their niche, not necessarily hoarding it or trying to sell it off. This doesn’t mean that thought leaders can’t charge for content, but they need to prove themselves first.

There’s a reason why digital written content has been the baseline choice for thought leaders, and it’s not all about price and accessibility. Sophie Miles, the CEO, and co-founder of elMejorTrato.com notes that “through reading, we efficiently acquire information, a key element to maintain perspective and look for opportunities, two fundamental skills of a leader. It also improves our ability to analyze, especially concerning value judgments and problem-solving.”

Thought leadership marketing is like any marketing in that you need to reach your audience via the platforms they like. Sometimes this means using alternative digital mediums like podcasts or videos. Sometimes this means going outside the digital realm completely, like with speaking engagements. However, digital written content is always part of the strategy.

Part of the issue here, though, is that these days, every business website of any size has some sort of blog with your primary 500-word content. In essence, this has diluted the power of written content. Being a thought leader is about rising above, and e-books are a way to reach the audience that wants written content while soaring above the norm.

Thought Leadership and E-Books

So e-books seem like a good solution on paper, but do they work in practice? Dave Kustin of ContentBacon mentions that he has seen three main areas of success from his e-books:

• Driving traffic
• Generating Leads
• Positioning his company as subject matter experts

This shows the multi-purpose nature of e-books. Yes, like any other form of digital content, you can optimize them to try and get more traffic, as well as use them for outreach to work and create potential leads. However, it’s the third piece here that is the most important as far as thought leadership goes. Part of being a thought leader is finding a way to cover topics either at a different angle or in a new light to try and provide that added value.

Jason Patel, the founder of Transition, has put out three e-books from his company and says that trust is the main reason why he kept coming back to it as a medium.

“What goes into trust? Customer service, expertise, and brand awareness – ebooks cover all three bases in one sitting. Your cover page demonstrates customer service by showing all contact information and your company information; the entire book demonstrates expertise. Once you gain customers who love you, they’ll talk to their friends and, thus, grow your brand awareness.”

Authority and trust—these are probably the two most important tenets of thought leadership, and an e-book is perfect for meeting both.

Creating An Effective E-book

With these things in mind, though, it’s important to remember that none of these benefits will pay off if you don’t take the effort to create a useful e-book. This starts with the topic that you choose and what goals you have in the end. James Pollard, a marketing consultant at TheAdvisorCoach.com, cautions people against trying to go over broad with their problems in an attempt to reach everyone. “Many people try to get more downloads and more opt-ins. I think that’s the wrong strategy because the true goal is more sales. If you’re selling an SEO service, your downloadable content should be about SEO. In that sense, you’re qualifying your prospects based on their interest in SEO,” he explains.

If you’re struggling to pick a topic, or maybe you are in a niche already crowded with e-books, it’s best to use your expertise to put a novel spin on the traditional. Always make sure that you can back up any unique points you state with scholarly research. Also, an e-book also requires a lot more attention to format and organization than your typical post. You want to make sure that as you are creating your outline, that each section has a natural flow and link to the next, without being repetitive. Padding an e-book for a more significant word count is a quick way to lose your readers.

Even after creating your e-book, that doesn’t mean the work is over. Because an e-book is a more significant investment of time and resources, you want to set aside some time to promote it. That can mean sharing it across your social media channels or creating an email campaign revolving around it.

As a final note, naturally, keeping all these levels of quality is inherently more demanding than writing a few quick posts in bulk then scheduling them for the next month or so. That is why it’s okay to try and recruit outside help for editing or even ghostwriting your e-book. Putting together written content that is deep enough to provide value while being accessible for the layperson is a tight balance, and the greater complexity of an e-book versus a blog post raises the difficulty here exponentially.

The post Use E-Books To Drive Thought Leadership appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/ebooks-thought-leadership

The Complete Guide to Insurance for Freelancers

Starting out as a freelancer is a fun and exciting rush. All the gear you need is shiny, brand-new, and ready to go.

Why do You Need to Get Insurance?

The truth is, no matter how well you earn, as a freelancer you won’t have many of the perks regular employees do. One of those perks, though we don’t always realize it, is insurance.

This complete guide to insurance for freelancers will help you navigate what you might need to keep you, your family, and your business safe.

Costs of Health Insurance for Freelancers

Let’s start with the basics. Nothing gets more basic than health insurance. As a freelancer, you are your own best asset. No one else, can do what you do. Every leave you take is unpaid. Bottom line? Go for health insurance first thing.

First things first: Know the type of health insurance you need.

There are many different types of health insurance. Knowing what to get and where to start is not easy. The best place to start is to see what is offered in your state. For example: Live in Pennsylvania? Simply start by doing an online search for health insurance to see that, you have the following options:

• Receiving health insurance through an employer (as a freelancer, it would most likely be a spouse’s employer)
• Applying directly with a private health insurer
• Applying for subsidies based on your income, age, and household size
• Insuring only your children with the Children’s Health Insurance Program
• Seeing if you qualify for Medicare or Medicaid

Knowing which one of these you’re trying to enroll in goes a long way to ensuring you are covered when it comes to your health.

Know your privileges: Use special enrollment

If you were employed before you decided to assert your independence as a freelancer, check first with your company’s health insurance provider or HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) about health insurance. Depending on your state or your company or your coverage, the open season for enrollment is a few short months.

Usually, there is a special enrollment period where you can enroll out of open season. Often, this is good for 60 days after your end date with the company. Better not to wait for open season.

Know your options: The Affordable Care Act

If you are looking for other health insurance options, you may find a health insurance provider under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Usually, it’s pretty hard to find a health insurance provider who will cover you if you have certain preexisting conditions, such as asthma or diabetes. A higher-risk disease often makes us higher-risk clients.

Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurers only need your age and your smoking background to provide insurance for you. This goes for your family as well. Depending on your income, you may even be eligible for financial subsidies through the Act.

Know your opportunities: Financial assistance

If you would rather go with a private health care organization, there are some that offer financial subsidies based on your income level, age, and the size of your household. It’s better not to miss an opportunity to save on health care; it literally might save your life.

Know your additional needs: Cover every base

Sometimes, a health insurance plan is so thorough it covers your dental, disability, and life insurance needs. However f it doesn’t, it’s a good idea to look into getting insurance for these. Dental needs never go away. If you travel a lot on two wheels, you might decide disability insurance should be high on your list; and life insurance is your way of making sure your family will be provided for no matter what.

After making sure you’ve secured your best asset–yourself–take a close look at the other kinds of insurance plans that could protect your livelihood.

Liability Insurance for Freelancers

Many kinds of insurance required by freelancers fall under liability insurance. (Funny, isn’t it?). It’s important to choose what’s best for your business.

What is liability insurance?

In the same way that health insurance covers costs incurred by sicknesses, liability insurance covers expenses incurred by legal claims concerning your property, personnel, or products (see what we did there?).

Let’s look at the different kinds of liability insurance you might want for your business.

Product liability insurance

If your business is related to manufacturing products for sale, you might want to consider this. If your product is somehow caught up in or related to any injury or (knock on wood) death, and legal claims are brought to your door, you will have the means to defend yourself.

Indemnity insurance

Indemnity insurance is a bit hard to define, but that’s because it’s supposed to cover you for legal claims that are equally hard to define. For example, you are a freelancing private tutor. You tutor the student in math, but he or she still fails the final exams. Should the parents, legal guardians, or school decide to lay down a legal claim for your head, you can draw upon your indemnity insurance to cover legal fees, settlement claims, and all that jazz.

Media liability insurance

Does your business have a Facebook page or a website that promotes its products? There is a light but scary possibility that you may announce something (or forget to publish something) that causes distress or injury to a customer. To cover legal fees related to claims of slander or making misleading or false statements, media liability insurance can be included in your plan.

Umbrella liability policy

Apparently, umbrellas can save us from rain, snow, and losses due to catastrophic events (usually referred to as “acts of God”). From movies or experience, we know that natural disasters are the best destroyers of property and insurance plans. Insurance companies shy away from covering those kinds of losses, just because they can both unpredictable and devastating. That’s fair. And that’s also why umbrella liability policies were designed just for those kinds of events. Depending on where you live, you may want to get this kind of insurance.

Business Interruption Insurance for Freelancers

Not under liability insurance, but related to it, is business interruption insurance. It pays for any loss of business income you incur while getting back on your feet after a natural disaster or related event stops your business from running.

Now let’s look at the other kinds of insurance you might want to get.

Home or Contents Insurance for Freelancers

If your home is your main base of operations, it’s probably wise to get a home insurance plan. But if that’s a bit too general for you, or you move around a lot, you might want to opt for contents insurance, which covers very specific things like your laptop or sewing machine.

Auto Insurance

If you make a number of house-to-house calls, or your livelihood is absolutely tied to your car, auto insurance should probably be part of your package. Engine trouble and flat tires hit the best of us at the worst of times, and insurance is there for exactly that reason–to cover for what we can’t anticipate.

The Complete Guide to Insurance for Freelancers

The idea is not to get absolutely everything–that might be more than your business can handle. It’s getting just the right package of insurance that will cover you for the most likely challenges you will face as a self-employed individual.

Thinking about growing your practice from a freelance shop to a small business, check out 7 Types of Insurance You Need for Your Business.

young freelancers – deposit photos

The post The Complete Guide to Insurance for Freelancers appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/soloprenuer/freelance/insurance