Friday, January 12, 2024

MBUZE IN THE MUD: AGULU COMMUNITY SENTS BEN OBI (MBUZE AGULU) PACKING TO RESTORE SANITY TO THE TOWN

 



Strips him off his traditional title as a former Agulu chieftain 

Chief. Ben Obi (Mbuze Agulu) a notorious political nuisance who has bent on attacking the Anambra State Government and also causing serious chaos in Agulu community has been stopped by the Agulu people.

Ben Obi who's political position during the immediate past Government regime was supposed to be a blessing and a great influence to the people of Agulu, rather it was a havoc on the community.

In the early hours of today, we received a communique from the leadership and all the people of Agulu Union Nigeria taking drastic actions to end rascality in the community.

An undisputed developmental decisions and resolutions from the Agulu People's Union to shut Mbuze Agulu and his cohorts down and put a stop to thier evil acts against the community.

Mr. Ben Obi and his cliques earlier this year came up with a devilish plan to demonstrate against the State Government, the President General of Agulu People's Union Nigeria and the traditional ruler of Agulu.

This was how terrorism started in most war countries and states. 

Shame on Mr. Ben Obi for choosing the path of evil!!!

This new development from Agulu People's Union Nigeria is indeed highly commendable and I urge other towns in Anambra to do so to fish out and caution evil people amongst them.

Friday, July 7, 2023

The 7 Best Recurring Billing Service Software for 2023

We live in a world of memberships and subscriptions, which means many business owners find themselves billing their customers repeatedly ? weekly, monthly, or annually. As your business grows, handling these invoices, payments, refunds, and adjustments can become tiresome to handle individually, which can lead to errors.



 That's where recurring billing service software comes in. It handles all of the work for you automatically, so you can focus on the other aspects of running your company and ensure you never miss an important payment. Not only does it help you, but it helps your customers and employees too. With that in mind, we've put together a list of the seven best recurring billing service software for 2022.

1. Chargebee 
Chargebee is often considered one of the best recurring billing software services on the market for a few reasons. One, it has a lot of cool features. Merchants can choose from a variety of billing options and automate the entire process. It offers numerous international options, and it's great for business-to-business (B2B) operations. You can use it to focus on accounting services, recurring billing, taxes, subscription management, software-as-a-service (SaaS) reporting, and more.  It's also easy to use, both on the business and the customer's side of things. Best of all, there are both free and paid options if you're not fully ready to commit. 

2. Wave 
Speaking of free options, Wave is just that. You can use the software without any sort of hidden fees or need to keep a credit card or other payment option on file, although there are some higher-tiered products that do cost a monthly fee. It's ideal for small business owners, particularly those who are just starting out and don't need additional costs. Features include invoicing, banking, payments, payroll, accounting, and bookkeeping advising.  

3. FreshBooks 
If you're looking for a program that handles all of your accounting rather than just your recurring billing services and a few other assorted tasks, look no further than FreshBooks. The software is perfect for small businesses, and it's available at three fairly affordable rates. In addition to billing, you can offer discounts, charge late fees, generate estimates, and allow your customers to sign electronically so that all of your information is right there in the cloud. Chat and phone customer support are available, and you can work with the company to set up a custom plan if you feel you need one.

4. Stax Bill
Stax Bill is a bit on the pricier side compared to some of the other options on this list, but it's more suited for medium and larger businesses, so the pricing makes sense when you consider what it offers. The software is used across multiple industries as well. It allows you to simplify and automate subscription billing and management and streamline each customer's life cycle with your business. Training is available virtually and in person as well as via a library of videos. Support is also available through multiple outlets. 

5. Zoho Subscriptions 
Zoho Subscriptions is another great option for small businesses that offers both free and affordable rates. It's fairly basic, which can be both negative and positive, and it works with a variety of payment methods and international currencies. Use it to automate billing and manage your subscriptions and take advantage of features like subscription metrics and branding. 

6. Pabbly
Pabbly doesn't just focus on billing. It focuses on marketing as well, providing you with the best of both worlds. It's known for being affordable but also flexible. Only use the features you need and, even if you need something they don't offer, you can usually find a way to integrate it. From PayPal to paper checks, it accepts almost any payment method, and it integrates with programs like GitHub, Facebook, and Gmail. Pabbly is also known for offering great analytics. 

7. Recurly 
Recurly is a program suited for medium businesses that supports nearly 20 gateways. It is a little pricier than some of the other options on the list, but the all-in-one software is worth it, and many business owners are starting to take notice. Optimize payments, keep your revenue stream flowing smoothly, and make your collection process seamless. Recurly promises to recover at least 70% of failed transactions.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

How to stop Spam Emails

How to stop Spam Emails: Keywords,Tutorials,Tools,Marketing,Affiliates

How can be done to stop emails entering the spam folder?

The problem many people encounters when it comes email sending, is their email ends up in spam folder. Sometimes the recipient could not check his Spam folder. In some cases the software deletes in from the spam making it not available to the recipient. For the beginners it will discourage them from going further as they might give up that it is not working.

How can be done to stop emails entering the Spam folder?

Capitalized Email subject

The email can enter the spam folder when the subject is in Capital letters as the most of the spam email had their subject in Capital letter. This makes it possible for the spider to locate such as a spam

Provide an unsubscribe link

Every email messages that can repeat itself or to be sent several times can be offensive to the recipient and as such a case it might be regarded as spam. It might be that the recipient is not interested on the message. This is why the unsubscribe link must be provided in order to avoid the repetition of such email without the authorization of the recipient. The received might decide to stop such email coming to his email box by using the unsubscribe link to stop the email.

Set up email authentication

When an email is originated from an authenticated source it will be trusted. The email had trace back to the sender, so the sender can receive response from the receiver. The source of the email plays an important role in determining how the email will be treated. And in some cases such email can be verified if they are spam or not.

Do not send more than one attachment.

One message might be seen as a spam if it contains more than one attachment. When an email is containing more than one attachment it might likely be offensive to the receiver as such email might occupy big space when received. There are some emails that sent some attachment that contained spam emails or virus in order to deceive the receiver in this case the sever might detect this as a spam email thereby relocating it to the spam folder.

Use trusted email hosting

Some hosting company that does not always comply with the regulations of the spam prevention can be flagged and regarded as an un-trusted. Some server had be used to send several spam emails and deceptive emails. This hosting sever had not integrity with the email server so any email been sent from the server can be suspicions.

Spam tag words

Avoid words that are considered spam , such as cheap, free, limited offer, and others
Many words had reports attached to it, because it had been used several times to send a fraudulent emails, therefore using such word can land the email to spam folder.

Special server

You can use a special server such as VPS, Dedicated server. If the server is shared server it means that you have no control of what will be going out or coming in to the server. That is why it advisable to use the special server, where can be in control of some activities of the server. You can control the server in sending authentic emails. The most important thing you apply is to use a special server for your email marketing. Because email hosting usually provides extra security features for email marketing.

The subject of the email

The subject of the email is relevant to the content of the email. The subject of the email is not related to the body of the email. This is also can be regarded as a fraudulent email because the subject maybe attractive the recipient but the message will be saying a different thing from the subject. Some subject like How to become a millionaire, Free Offers etc. Some subject might be deceptive, when an email had such a word it will be regarded as a spam as well.

Friday, December 26, 2014

Is Clickbait The New Face of Content Marketing?

As the Internet becomes more and more crowded with compelling content, it becomes harder and harder for one’s content to stand out. This is not a new theory, nor is it something that is particularly revolutionary. Marketers everywhere know that they have to adapt their content marketing strategy to reflect the shrinking amounts of time that people have to consume their content.





The problem is: many companies have adapted their content marketing strategies to lure–not entice–
viewers to click on a link. You’ve seen it before:

“You’ll never believe what happens when…”

“I wasn’t expecting this at all…”

“He should considered the possible results before he tried this…”

These are all classic examples of clickbait, and they are crafted to trick viewers into visiting a link, generating traffic for the site and spurring social shares.

Outwardly, the practice seems relatively harmless: the headlines themselves are compelling calls to action that speak directly to the consumer. The problems lie in the ambiguousness of both the title, and the quality of the content. More often than not, clicking on the link will bring the visitor to a nefarious content farm, populated by wide-ranging gimmick listicles generated for the sole purpose of catching roving web surfers in their respective tractor beams.


Curiosity killed the consumer
“The idea is both to share just enough that readers know what they’re clicking and to withhold just enough to compel the click.”
-Derek Thompson, The Atlantic

The success of clickbait is predicated on its ability to exploit the “curiosity gap.” By omitting a piece of information from the headline, the viewer is spurred by their sense of curiosity to learn more.

In an article for The Daily Beast, Jake Beckman, the man behind @SavedYouAClick, a Twitter feed devoted to “saving you from clickbait,” summarized the dishonesty at the core of clickbait. “It’s social copy specifically intended to leave out information to create a ‘curiosity gap’. Some of it’s disingenuous. It’s not always, but the reader is always being manipulated.”

With the amount of well-intended, honest content being generated, the question of whether clickbait is just crooked, or outright pernicious?

The answer to that is dependant on the overarching purpose of the content that visitors are being sent to. Granted, the ultimate purpose is to generate traffic, using ambiguous titles to entice visitors can be as it seems: the evolution of a social media strategy. Beckman compared the practice to “shouty journalism,” a la the olden days where newsboys stood on street corners shouting “extra, extra read all about it,” as they harassed potential customers walking down the street.

In this metaphor, the newsboy is social media; ad libbing as best they could so as to sell more newspapers. While the newsboy cannot possibly be held accountable for selling a subpar product, social media managers can. But consider this: what if the content that is being hawked is actually worthwhile? Does that make the means to which the content is distributed justified?

A means to an end
Upworthy is one of the fastest growing media startups in recent memory. The site is dedicated to hosting content that does one thing well: it compels consumers to want to share it with others.

Upworthy has mastered the exploitation of the so-called “curiosity gap.” Unlike traditional content marketing, their focus isn’t on the content itself, but rather on the headline. The headline serves as the central call to action. “HERE IS WHY YOU NEED TO READ THIS ARTICLE,” it really doesn’t matter what the piece of content is. When you find yourself browsing Upworthy–even if it is for the purpose of writing an informative article on the role of clickbait–the consumer cannot help but be compelled by something on the site.

Upworthy’s calls to action succeed because they are compelling to a diverse audience. While good content marketing spends time and energy to assess which demographics would be most likely to consume the content they are developing, Upworthy instead casts a wide net, relying completely on their headlines to an audience with no real connection to each other.


What’s wrong with that? In the grand scheme of things, digital media is very much still The Wild West. “The bottom line for publishers is that digital media is still trying to find its footing in the revenue game, and revenue is largely dependent on how much traffic and how many uniques you get,” said Beckman.

Upworthy’s model has ensured that their content is marketable, creates a community of readers, and the content itself is built to be amplified; perhaps better-so than other types of content.

Is clickbait harmful?
As the clickbait method continues to garner results for advertisers, there grows a sense of resentment towards the practice, giving marketers fair-warning that it might not be a viable option for long. For those that are sick of the widespread adoption of the dumbing down of headlines from simple and informative to vague and ubiquitous, there are those sick of clicking on links that promise some grandiose battle wear good triumphs over evil, only to find a video of a bully sparring with his victim.

With anti-clickbait awareness on the rise, and sites like The Onion’s Clickhole becoming more viable, the sense of cynicism towards clickbait is growing rapidly. Though the popularity of sites like Upworthy know no bounds, questions of the sites’ purpose or legitimacy are furthered with every headline.

In the end, it might be the reliance on the Internet that grows the sense of cynicism surrounding sites that employ clickbait as a means to an end. As more and more people turn to the Internet for news, their patience for sensationalist headlines that guarantee nothing will inevitably turn outward, and those sites that experience great short-term ROI based on clickbait will lose readership.

For all the talk of the “dumbing down” of society, society sure is getting frustrated with the dumbing down of its sources.

4 Tips for Great Content Marketing

Content marketing is a vital component of any B2B marketing strategy. Savvy marketers devote time and money to developing various types of content, including white papers, webinars, tweets and blogs, which appeal to and engage their audiences. But are marketers getting the most out of their content? 
Not all content is created equal, so it’s up to you to determine what will deliver the most ROI. And, while each piece serves as a way to engage with a potential lead, content ROI is maximized when it is used at the optimal stage of the buyer’s journey. White papers, for example, support sales in that they provide helpful and in-depth information on a product or service to a prospect conducting initial research. They are often gated, requiring that prospects enter their name and contact information in order to access the material. This helps move prospects down the sales funnel and allows marketers to capture information they can ultimately pass on to their sales departments.  
However, while helpful, using content to obtain customer contact information only scratches the surface. Content that provides a deeper level of engagement with the customer and then allows marketers to monitor exactly how the customer engaged provides more value to marketers than a simple name and email address.
Webcasts are a great example of this. Attendees have multiple ways to engage with your brand during a webcast, and after the event you can get detailed information on how long audience members were engaged, what questions they posed in a Q&A, what documents they downloaded and what content they shared. The interactive nature of webcasts allows organizations to obtain more data and, as a result, paint a more detailed, clearer picture of their audience, obtaining a deeper understanding of their interests, what motivates them, and how they interacted with your content. This information then enables accurate ranking of sales leads and lets you follow up in a much more personalized manner based on how interested prospects are and where they are in the buying cycle.
How you distribute different forms of content depends on its type and intended audience. But what’s most important is that you take a strategic approach when building content and understand where each piece fits within that strategy. At ON24 we let four principles guide our strategy – analytics, consistency, recycling and timing.

1. First up is analytics, which should be attached to everything when possible.

As I mentioned, delivering useful content to potential leads is only the first step – the analytics on how they interacted with that content can be a marketer’s most powerful ammunition. Audience behavior can be transformed into data that is fed into CRM and marketing automation tools that then enable marketers to follow up with customers in a personalized manner. In fact, the combination of webinar and marketing analytics, for example, can significantly improve lead qualification and inform every facet of your marketing program – including content marketing, demand generation and social media.

2. Businesses should also deliver a consistent message to their audiences.

While content should be personalized and customized depending on the channel, it is important that the core message remain unchanged. Clear goals, a central narrative and a distinct voice as a campaign is launched provide the foundation for a successful ongoing effort. 

3. Next, organizations should recycle what they’ve created.

Content is expensive to create; therefore, it is foolish to only use it once. Repurposing content can be the easiest way to increase its value and ROI. For example, a marketer can take a webcast video and redistribute it across various channels. It can be posted in its full form on the company’s YouTube channel, and snippets of the video can be tweeted, added to a website and included in an executive’s blog post. In this example, we have one piece of content, distributed across four distinct channels. This increases views of the video, broadening the brand’s reach and the content’s value 

4. Finally, timing is of the utmost importance.

This will determine exactly what type of content you serve up to your prospects and when. Marketers need to understand where the customer is in the buying cycle and deliver appropriate content accordingly. From the level of engagement and overall interaction with different pieces of content, businesses can accurately qualify leads. For example, if they have downloaded a white paper that gives a brief overview of a company, they are in the beginning of the buying cycle and should be nurtured. On the other hand, if a lead is attending various webinars and asking specific questions on functionality and pricing, it is safe to assume that it is a “hot” lead. 

Fundraising Tough on Hedge Funds

Today’s market poses a difficult fund raising environment across all hedge funds.

Executive search firm, Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) recently hosted an industry event, examining the current state of play for hedge funds.

Hedge funds are seeing a continued trend towards more capital inflows as a whole; estimated at $2.25 trillion by year-end, according to the firm. Ninety percent of flows went to managers with more than 5 billion in assets.

“It’s arguably, the most challenging fund raising environment,” said Lynn Tidd, managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates. Tidd specializes in the recruitment space for hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative firms. “People need to have a different approach today, to get above the noise. Whether you sit in the front office, in an investment role, or in a back office role, you will interface investors.”

Tidd noted that she recruits for the larger, established hedge fund community.

“Investors are encouraged today to invest broadly, not just within hedge funds. The L.P. community is a lot more cautious about where they place alternative strategies,” she said. “It might be a year or two before allocations come, whereas, in the past, it might have been three to six months.”

The next generations of hedge fund managers are also coming to market with the help of the hedge fund seeding community. Nearly 300 new hedge funds launched in the first of quarter of 2011; launch rate of 3.3 percent, according to a statement from the RRA event.

“Hedge funds will succeed if they produce more than alpha, and run like a true business…it’s the professionalization and institutionalization process,” Tidd told Markets Media. “You need much more than operational capital to launch; it’s more than just traders, and portfolio managers that contribute to the business structure.”

Apart from attracting seeders, hedge funds today are still employing traditional methods of capital raising, noted Tidd. Such methods include the use of “friends and family” money to build track records, and eventually branching out to three to five institutions.

“My take away from the trends that came out of the event is around succession planning,” Tidd said. “It’s a question of if these hedge founders have passed on a good legacy to the next generation of leadership.”

The “next generation” of hedge fund leader will also be across the gamut, versus past eras of hedge fund management—which largely came from proprietary traders smoked out by financial regulation on banks.

Of the trend to go from prop trader to hedge fund manager, Tidd remarked the phenomenon is “played out. There’s no one left considering regulatory schemes have already forced people to jump ship.”