Your LinkedIn Profile Mastered Book Release

your-linkedin-profile-mastered

After editing and publishing five books for my father-in-law Douglas M. Curran, I decided to publish my first book: Your LinkedIn Profile Mastered: 14 expert tips for instant impact.

Why This Book?
After 27 years at my previous employer, I found myself unemployed for the first time. Like many, I hadn’t kept my LinkedIn profile up to date. During my job search, I realized how crucial it was to make a great first impression on hiring managers, recruiters, and everyone’s favorite, the ATS software.

What’s Inside?
This book is designed to save you time and reduce the overwhelm during your job search. Each of the 14 tips includes clear instructions, examples, and easy-to-follow steps. LinkedIn changes often, and this book reflects the latest updates, ensuring the steps and examples are as relevant and helpful as possible.

Your Feedback Matters
I want this book to save you time so you can focus on the more important things in your life. To improve and refine this book, I need your feedback. Please send your comments to davenelsonutah@gmail.com. If you’re willing to provide a five-star review on Amazon, email me the link to your review along with your Venmo name, and I’ll send you $1 as a token of appreciation.

14 tips covered in the book:
1. Tip #1 Your Profile URL
2. Tip #2 Professional Headshot
3. Tip #3 Custom Background Image
4. Tip #4 Headline / Intro Section
5. Tip #5 Summary / About Section
6. Tip #6 500+ Connections
7. Tip #7 Experience
8. Tip #8 Education
9. Tip #9 Skills and Endorsements
10. Tip #10 Groups
11. Tip #11 Custom Profile Section
12. Tip #12 Applicant Tracking System
13. Tip #13 Job Searching? Why Profile Views Matter
14. Tip #14 Settings

Ready to transform your LinkedIn profile? Grab your copy of Your LinkedIn Profile Mastered: 14 Expert Tips for Instant Impact today!

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Satan and His Lies Exposed Book Release

I wasn’t able to meet my father-in-law. Doug had a lot of writings including poems, songs, children’s stories and religious books. His flagship undertaking is a book called Satan and His Lies Exposed which I had the opportunity to edit and publish during a period of unemployment. I am excited to announce that this book is now released and available digitally on Amazon Kindle or in paperback.

I am hoping this fulfills one of his dreams and perhaps can help his widowed wife with some financial assistance. If you are a Christian and want to better know our adversary and our advocate, or have questions about where we came from before this life, the purpose of our time on earth, or where we go after this life, you will love this book.

Please visit our Facebook page where we share more about the book.

Also, although this content is in the description of the Amazon book page, I thought it would be helpful to list the 15 critical questions that get answered in this book.

  1. What was the War in Heaven, what was it about, and who was there?
  2. How does understanding Jesus’ pre-mortal existence affect our understanding of the Plan of Salvation?
  3. How does Satan’s knowledge of our pre-earth existence give him an advantage in his efforts against us?
  4. Who was Satan in the pre-earth life and what was the significance of him being cast out of heaven?
  5. What is Satan’s ultimate goal and how can we protect ourselves from his influence?
  6. Why was the Fall in the Garden of Eden necessary and Adam and Eve’s decision not one of ignorance?
  7. What do Jesus’ parables teach us about the battle between good and evil?
  8. Who are Jesus’ “other sheep” mentioned in John 10:16?
  9. What happened to Christ’s church after the apostles were killed, what is the apostasy, and what is the significance of the Council of Nicaea?
  10. Why is receiving a physical body important to our eternal progress?
  11. Why would hell may be more of a state of mind than an actual place?
  12. What is the difference between the free resurrection (immortality) and eternal life?
  13. Why is it important we see ourselves as a child of God?
  14. How does the gospel of Jesus Christ help us overcome worldly identities?
  15. What is the significance of baptism and affiliation with Jesus Christ’s true church?
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100+ Must Know Business and Marketing Acronyms

marketing-acronyms

If by chance you are not familiar or just need a reminder of what an acronym is, I have 100+ of the most popular business and marketing acronyms listed below.

One of my favorite podcasts and best source for overall business guidance is Manager Tools, who often say communication is what the listener does. Regardless of communication medium, the goal is to be understood. So, unless you know for certain your audience is familiar with the acronym, your use of it may be causing confusion, requiring a pause while the listener/reader figures this out, or leading to frustration since they had to pause, think, figure this out, and then continue reading.

At least in writing, my preference is to say the entire phrase and put the acronym in parentheses at first use and then continuing with just the acronym going forward.

How often has an acronym been used and you found it helpful compared to completely stopping you mid sentence to think and figure this out? Exactly.

What surprises me most about the list below, is how quickly I got to this many. Certainly a sign of how often we do this. I hope you find the list below of the most common business and marketing acronyms helpful and please, if I am missing any, please share below.

ABM – account based marketing
AI – artificial intelligence
AIDA – attention, interest, desire, action
API – application programming interface
AOV – average order value
B2B – business to business
B2B2C – business to business to consumer
B2C – business to consumer
BI – business intelligence
BOFU – bottom of funnel
BU – business unit
BYOD – bring your own device
CAC – customer acquisition cost
CBA – cost benefit analysis
CDP – customer data platform
CDN – content delivery network
CMS – content management system
COE – center(s) of excellence
CPA – cost per acquisition
CPL – cost per lead
CPM – cost per thousand impressions
CPP – cost per click
CRO – conversion rate optimization
CRM – customer relationship management
CSM – customer success manager
CSS – cascading style sheets
CTA – call to action
CTR – click-through rate
DAM – digital asset management
DBA – doing business as
DIKW – data, insight, knowledge, or wisdom
DM – direct message
EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization
EEAT – expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness
EES – extreme events solutions
ESP – email service provider
ETL – extract, transform, load
FAQ – frequently asked questions
FIFO – first in first out
FILO – first in last out
GDPR – general data protection regulation
GIGO – garbage in, garbage out
GPT – generative pre-trained transformer
GTM – go to market or google tag manager
HIPPO – highest paid persons opinion
HTML – hypertext markup language
HTTP – hypertext transfer protocol
iPaaS – integrated platform as a service
IPO – initial public offering
JIT – just in time
KISS – keep it simple stupid
KPI – key performance indicator
LIFO – last in first out
LILO – last in last out
LTD – lifetime deal
LTV – lifetime value
M&A – mergers and acquisitions
MAP – marketing automation platform
MAU – monthly active users
MMM – marketing mix model
MOFU – middle of funnel
MQL – marketing qualified lead
MVP – minimum viable product (not most valuable player)
MSA – master service agreement
NPS – net promoter score
P&L – profit and loss
PII – personal identifiable information
PDP – personal development plan
POC – proof of concept
POP – point of purchase
POP – points of parity
PPC – pay per click
PR – public relations
R&D – research and development
RACI – responsible, accountable, consulted, informed
RFM – recency, frequency, monetary
RFP – request for proposal
ROAS – return on ad spend
ROI – return on investment
QA – quality assurance
SaaS – software as a service
SAL – sales accepted lead
SEM – search engine marketing
SEO – search engine optimization
SERP – search engine results page
SKU – stock keeping unit
SLA – service level agreement
SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, trackable goals
SMB – small and medium-sized business
SMM – social media marketing
SOC – senior operating committee
SOP – standard operating procedure
SOV – share of voice
SOW – statement of work
SQL – sales qualified lead
SSO – single sign on
SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
TOFU – top of funnel
UI – user interface
UX – user experience
UGC – user generated content
UPC – universal product code
USP – unique selling proposition
UV – user experience
VC – venture capital
VOC – voice of customer
VPN – virtual private network
WIP – work in progress
WYSIWYG – what you see is what you get
WWW – world wide web
ZMOT – zero moment of truth

What am I missing? Please share in the comments and I will update this list.

Thank you.

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Marketing Operations Analytics

I have listened to more than 13,000 podcasts, mostly focused on digital marketing. I recently came across a podcast called DemandGen Radio. Dave Lewis is the host and was reading a chapter from his Manufacturing Demand book. Interesting that I have had this book in my want to read list in Goodreads since 2013. If this is really the #1 book on lead management as is stated on the cover, a gross error on my part for not getting to it sooner.

So far, I have only listened to two episodes, #260 and #261, that was a two-parter called Marketing Analytics: Keeping Score of Your Success. Rarely do I take notes listening to a podcast, but this was brilliant and so much value was shared. I am sharing my notes and thoughts in hopes it’s beneficial to others.

It seems like marketing is too often trying to prove they deserve a seat at the adults table instead of being at the kid’s table making arts and crafts. Perhaps that leads to oversharing when we finally get the opportunity, or sharing vanity metrics, or just not speaking the language of the boardroom. Instead of sharing marketing activities including impressions, likes, or our recent ribbon win for the prettiest booth, let’s share metrics that lead to financial outcomes. There are three major types of marketing analytics or key performance indicators (KPIs).

The first set of analytics metrics are Executive KPIs and they need to measure the entire demand generation spectrum.

Executive KPIs

  1. Marketing sourced leads and opportunities
  2. Marketing contribution to revenue
  3. Marketing’s influence on opportunities and revenue

The second set of analytics metrics are Demand Funnel KPIs and they measure the velocity and efficiency of our demand funnel.

Demand Funnel KPIs

  1. How many prospects at each stage of the funnel
  2. Conversion rate between each of these stages
  3. Average time in each stage – this tells us the velocity of the demand funnel
  4. Lead scoring distribution – how many A, B, C, D, and E leads and does this look anything like a bell curve
  5. Campaign performance – number of leads, what channel or lead source, opportunities, revenue

The third set of analytics metrics are Campaign and Asset Performance KPIs and they measure the success of our assets driving leads to a closed stage.

Campaign and Asset Performance KPIs

  1. Use of our assets – tracking downloads for PDFs or how much of the video was watched like 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%
  2. Closed/won asset utilization – what assets get read by prospects who eventually buy

The three most important things to track with any form submission are the channel, lead source, and offer. Probably the most common way to implement this tracking is to capture the UTM tracking parameters in the URL query string and make sure they are passed as hidden fields in the form submissions. That form submission is tied to the Salesforce campaign object or whatever makes sense using another CRM. It’s important to make sure you can track every stage and really everything from that first click to the close of the sale. Until you know you are accurately measuring from click to close, you have a leaky funnel and nothing should be shared until you have confidence in your data and know you won’t lost trust.

The closing part of the podcast shared the four Cs.
1. What you can count – This reminds me of two quotes. First by W. Edwards Deming who said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Second by Lord Kelvin who said “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it”. The last thought is one I hear often, just because you can count/measure/track it doesn’t mean you should.
2. What counts – Although the Executive KPIs clearly cover what counts, there are other metrics that we want to track within our marketing group like micro conversions. Not everything tracked needs to be shared.
3. What you can count on – how important it is to trust your data so others trust you. When trust is lost, just about all is lost.
4. How you communicate it – often marketing needs to do a better job at marketing marketing. We could learn something from our sales colleagues in sharing what is working and that we are critical to the company’s success.

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The A to Z of Paid Advertising

A is for Ad Rank: The position of your ad in Google search results, determined by factors such as bid amount, ad quality, and expected click-through rate.

B is for Bid: The amount of money you’re willing to pay for each click on your ad.

C is for Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of clicks your ad receives per impression.

D is for Display Network: A group of websites and apps where you can show your Google Ads.

E is for Extensions: Additional information that can be added to your ads, such as phone numbers, locations, or sitelinks.

F is for Frequency: The number of times your ad is shown to the same user.

G is for Geotargeting: The process of showing your ads to users in specific geographic locations.

H is for Headline: The main text of your ad that appears in search results.

I is for Impression: The number of times your ad is shown to users.

J is for Jargon: avoid acronyms and other industry/company terms that confuses or distracts your prospect.

K is for Keywords: Words or phrases that are targeted in your ad campaign.

L is for Landing page: The web page where users are directed after clicking on your ad.

M is for Mobile bid adjustment: A bid adjustment that allows you to increase or decrease your bids for mobile devices.

N is for Negative keyword: A word or phrase that prevents your ad from showing for certain search queries.

O is for Optimization score: A score that measures how well your ad campaign is optimized for performance.

P is for Placement: The location where your ad is shown, such as a specific website or app.

Q is for Quality Score: A metric that measures the relevance and quality of your ad, landing page, and keywords.

S is for Search Network: A group of search-related websites where you can show your Google Ads.

T is for Targeting: The process of selecting specific audiences or locations for your ad campaign.

U is for User-generated content (UGC): Content created by users that can be used in advertising.

V is for View-through conversion: A conversion that occurs when a user sees your ad but doesn’t click on it, then later converts on your website.

W is for Web analytics: The analysis of website data to improve the performance of your ad campaign.

X is for Adult content: Ensure that your ads budget dollars are not being wasted on these sites.

Y is for YouTube Ads: An advertising platform by Google that allows businesses to display video ads on YouTube.

Z is for Zero impressions: The number of times your ad has been shown without receiving any clicks or impressions.

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