Author Archives: TristanLiu

Marketing in details – every color matters

When we start to design a blog or website, we tend to just find one that is pretty. What we need to investigate is that every color appeal to users in different ways so depending on the theme of your website, the colors used need to match.

Guide to the emotions that colors invoke

(Source: http://pamorama.net/)

The impact of colors is simply the result of our brain. There is nothing to do with the childhood or some tragic trauma of an individual. That means if you know to use color, you can appeal all the readers who browse your site.

Color decides the major theme of the site. It impacts readers emotion thus their decision making process. Kissmetrics created this infographic to explain how each color influences readers.

How colors affect purchases

Bottom line is that do not overuse many colors as it will not serve its purpose. Pick a theme of colors and focus on it. Use some a few other colors that serve your marketing goal only if needed.

 

Original content marketing vs curated content marketing: Why the latter is better

A lot of marketers, especially those new to online marketing, often fall into a thought that they should create new contents on their own if they want the best engagement rate. But when we look closer, original content often requires tremendous amount of time to create and deliver. It may not necessarily justify the effort. So here it comes curated contents.

Curated contents are those that you leverage from others to enrich the context of your posts. Most likely, these contents are in the form of video or picture.

Curated content marketing is well supported by strong evidence even though some of them are in contrary to the general belief:

Argyle Social data discovered curators link to third-party site 75% or more; balanced marketers link to third-party site 50%-75%; self-promoters link to third-party site less than 50%.

Content creation vs curation - Argyle Social

Put into it into perspective, balanced marketers achieve 10X conversion rate with a lot less effort than self promoters who generated their own contents.

In long run, curated contents also support your SEO if you link back to the original sources as shown by a research from Bruce Clay.

Content Curation and Search Chart - Bruce Clay

Bottom line, take advantage of curated contents while others think this does no good. You will achieve the results faster and easier.

 

Use numbers as it is needed – numbers are keywords

Reading takes time and does not promise benefit – let’s face it. So you want to make your point explicitly and give people expectation as to how much time it takes to read your posts.

Like HR skimming through a pile of resumes and cover letter, readers look for numbers too because numbers stand out among all the alphabets. Remember a time when you try to read a document or post in rush, what you do when you see a number. You pay attention around the number first as you think it may be important to know. That being said, do not use English words such as one, two, three. Use Arabic letters like 1, 2, 3.

Consider the following 2 examples: (Source: http://datacenterfrontier.com/)

  1. While supporting 19-inch servers, the racks are more compact around the perimeter, resulting in a narrower footprint that also contributes to higher density. This allows Intel to house 30 racks in the same amount of space previously used by 25 racks.
  2. While supporting nineteen-inch servers, the racks are more compact around the perimeter, resulting in a narrower footprint that also contributes to higher density. This allows Intel to house thirty racks in the same amount of space previously used by twenty-five racks.

Which one is easier to catch the key points. I bet my money that you pick the first one. People are psychologically programmed to look for difference. In the ocean of English words, you check for numerical values first. Indeed, this is right way to go because the numerical values tell the key points that the writer wants the readers to know.

Use lead magnet to increase user engagement 

Lead magnet is the “free” offering of contents and tips on websites. This is free because you will receive it in exchange of your contact information such as your name, email and phone number. Once you receive the offers, your contact information will be used for the website to send you all other information related to the topics on the website.

To reveal the power of lead magnet, you will need to prepare a consistent calendar to send material in both subject matter and marketer perspectives that potentially convert your readers to buyers (because the ultimate goal is to convert sale.)

So what would be some good ideas for lead magnet? Typical material such as daily tips and how-to guides on a subject are a decent type of content to appeal to users. Whitepaper is another idea for lead magnet but it requires a lot of effort to manufacture one (this is like a book.)

Toolkit is another good lead magnet as it is usually practical and ready-to-use. When users download it, they do not need to dive in for long before they understand. Toolkit then is a more promising lead magnet that generates recurring users, thus converts to sale.

Bottom line is that people have very little time. So all the contents of a lead magnet should be straight forward, specific, easy to understand and practical.  When people see the values by actually applying the contents, they are likely to become loyal to your advice.

The most common 5 cognitive biases to use on online marketing

Human psychology is always an interesting topic for virtually everyone as we try to understand the decisions behind your friends, family, partners, colleagues and the general public. When it comes to online marketing where we try to influence people on a mass scale, we should understand how people would be influenced by multitude of factors.

Cognitive biases are psychological biases that we do not consciously recognize, thus they exist in everyday of our life. By avoiding them at our best, we can be a better decision maker and thinker. But it does require extremely seamless, conscious attentions to them at any moment. This is very difficult. But when we put into an online marketing perspective, we have a lot more buffer time to alertly avoid it – or even utilize it to achieve our marketing purpose. Research on this topic is quickly developing. Now, more than dozens of cognitive biases are recognized. But we can start with the most common 5 cognitive biases to see its strength on impacting our decision making process.Confirmation bias – It happens when you look for supporting evidence for your ideas and beliefs.

1. It limits your ability to look outside the support evidence. You dismiss subconsciously all the evidence that negates your ideas because of your passion and bias.

2. The bandwagon effect – We like to do what others are doing. As it becomes more popular, more people try to do the same.

This is the main contributor to group behavior. When something is seen on a small group of people, others would subconsciously build up the desire to do the same.

3. Loss aversion – It happens when you have already put a lot of time, money or effort into a thing.

This bias tricks you into a vicious cycle. Because you have already done a so much on it, you insist on completing it regardless even though the chance is slim or it is just not worthwhile anymore. It happens particularly in entrepreneurs.

4. Framing effect – How things are framed in a positive or negative way will impact the reception of audience.

Consider this scenario:

A) This investment offered positive return 7 out of 10 years.

B) This investment only exposed to negative return 3 out of 10 years.

Both statements imply exactly the same meaning. But most people would choose option A because of how it is framed to appeal investors.

5. Social proof – we tend to believe this is right to follow the patterns of majority, especially when we are undecided.

The fact that the majority does something does not mean to do it is right. But many people just follow it because we are social animals.

Mastering cognitive biases will definitely help you to make it to your advantage when preparing online marketing strategies. If you can master it in daily life, people will see you from an entirely new angle. (Do be devious though!)

 

The High-level How-to Guide

People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.

To plan your credit card applications, you need a travel purpose to guide the action plan. There are many different goals and many ways to do it. So having a strategy on mind is important. I will give some sample plans and show you how to do it.

Travel on international first/business class

Obviously, it takes a whole lot of miles to do this. However, this is a preference that gives the most value to each of your miles (oftentime 8-10% on the rebate scale, or $0.002 cent/mile “CPM” based on $150 cost). If this is what you want, you are exhausting your miles at the best possible way.

Canadians, unlike Americans, our options to earn miles and use miles are quite limited as Aeroplan nearly monopolizes Canadian airline loyalty program industry. Also, its mileage structure devaluates every year (it happens to all other FFPs in the world). Compared to others, Aeroplan Mile is still fairly competitive luckily. With Air Canada’s Star Alliance partners, Aeroplan is a gateway to many other major airlines such as United, ANA and Lufthansa.

That being said, Aeroplan is a good FFP to get tickets on its partner flight to Asia or Europe originating within Canada. The caution is that Aeroplan starts to charge expensive tax and fuel surcharge on some of its partner flights, namely, Lufthansa and Air Canada itself, so try to avoid taking with them as the value of your miles will diminish.

Asiana-A380-First-Class-001

Asiana A380 first class (Source: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/)

Travel within North America

Neither short haul nor long haul North American flights give good value if you travel on business class because you typically won’t have all the VIP service and classy seats and the price difference is not as huge after all. What you get is a wider seat and a bit more comfort. This kind of non-quantifiable measure is really subjective. More importantly, sometimes the tax and fuel surcharge with mileage booking already cost near $100 up front while the full price ticket is $700. The value of miles does not add up here.

Bottom line

The rule of thumb is the high class you travel on, the more value of each mile you get out of. Always set your travel purpose first then look for FFP(s) that give the best value of miles to the destination you travel to.

 

 

Points & Miles — The Currencies in Travel Hack

Think of points from different families of credit cards and miles from different frequent flyer programs as a currency that may or may not be inter-transferable.

Why is this important?

 

You want to travel on a specific airline but you have no way to earn their mile at a convenient way. Thank to credit-airline partnership, you can earn credit card points on that credit card and then transfer the points to the airline frequent flyer program. For example, there is no other way to earn Asia Miles than actually flying on Cathay Pacific in Canada. But now you can use American Express Gold Reward® Card to earn Membership Reward® which is transferable to Asia Miles.

There are a lot of ways to earn Asia Miles in Canada other than this way. But undoubtedly it enables conversion without losing the value of your points.

Travel point credit card

Travel points are usually rewarded with a travel point credit card that is issued by credit card company. You can think it as a fix-valued coupon. You credit $2000 to the card. That translates to 4,000 points. It equals to $40 travel coupon (2% rebate). Most travel point credit cards have 2-5% rebate scale.

Airline (or hotel) credit card

This type of cards is co-issued by credit card companies and their airline or hotel partner. You earn miles or hotel points that are directly transferred to the partner loyalty program. This type offers slightly better flexibility than travel point credit cards. Certainly cards in this family allow point & mile transfer. In most cases, it is from hotel points to airline miles.

Hybrid credit card

You earn points on this type of credit cards too. But the points are transferable to partnered hotel loyalty programs or frequent flyer programs while you can choose to use the points like those you earned on a travel point credit card. This type of credit cards offer great flexibility.

My experience

I have 6 credit cards for travel hack. None of them is the travel point type because fix-valued points are terrible in comparison. When I want to fly YVR-HKG round trip on econ with Air Canada during Christmas, the cost is $1,500. I have 2 ways to get the tickets.

1) pay with 75,000 travel points (valued at 2% rebate)

2) pay with 62,500 miles (valued at $150).

In terms of points & miles, it’s about 20% difference. But taking flexibility into consideration, I can easily aggregate miles from cards from different credit card companies into one mileage account. But I can’t aggregate travel points from TD, RBC and CIBC.

That is why hybrid credit cards are my favorite, especially American Express Gold Reward® Card because it offers great value of points. But in Vancouver American Express is not as pervasive unfortunately. That leaves TD Visa Infinite Aeroplan® my daily card if I can’t use American Express Gold Reward®.

The Credit Game – How Does Credit Work?

There is a need to explain why get in the game with credit card signup bonuses while 4 other main sources of miles include actual fly, hotel stays, purchase & promotion and purchased miles.

The proportion goes like this: (US travel hack)

earn-miles

(Source: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/)

The main idea is credit card signup bonuses do not cost a lot — usually a couple hundred dollars , if not free at all. The dollar-mile ratio is ridiculous, it could be $1:200-400 miles easily. In contrast, the ratio in other ways to rack up miles is still good but not as ridiculously great.

Of course, the cost of credit card signup bonuses does not end here. It is just that the major cost comes from your credit score. Every new credit request, no matter it is successful, affects your credit score. In contrary to the public perception, new credit request is not as scary because it only makes up 10% of your credit score. That means your dream travel plan could only cost you some annual fees and 10% of your credit score at the most. When you are pushing your credit card applications in a short time frame, take the rejections as a sign of limit — you have applied enough of it.

(Source: http://www.moneyproblems.ca/)

As you may figure, new credit requests have a much smaller impact on your credit score than payment history and debt ratio. In fact, the key is to perform well in these two segments.

Payment history is essentially whether you pay your loan back on time every month. This is critical from a credit or travel hack perspective. Having overdue payments will have larger impact on your credit score than many new credit requests, and the interest incurred will greatly diminish the value of the miles you earn. (Some credit card companies such as American Express will withdraw the earned miles of the month if you fail to pay on time.)

Debt ratio is your credit balance of all cards divided by your credit limit of all cards. The lower the debit ratio is, the better it does to your credit score. So having 10 cards under your name while using 3 of them regularly is better than having 3 cards and using all regularly given that each card has the same credit limit.

That being said, after a “recession” on your credit score as a result of many new credit requests, a “recovery” and even “new height” will occur in a few months when you use your cards strategically.

Bottom line

Get a credit report before you start travel hacking. Know your baseline. Check up on it regularly. Don’t overkill. If you are planning to get a car loan or mortgage in the near future, it may not be a good timing for you to start travel hacking.

Welcome to travel hack

This is not about the kind of travel hack that makes your travel less uncomfortable, but a kind that help you achieve your travel plan at a minimal cost.

(Image source: www.LifeDaily.com)

It all started in my Miami trip in July. I had an opportunity to peep the world of travel hack and from then on, I was intrigued by the fascinate travels that I could do with it.

Now, with the cost of $250 and a few percent drop in my credit report, I have saved up $5000 (or 100,000 miles) on the book for future travel. My short-term goal with these and upcoming miles is 1.5 month long graduation trip to Europe next year.

Remember the one and only one point — I only paid fraction of cost for so much values.

In the following few entries, I will share my first hand experience in travel hack and tricks that I found during my extensive research or I discovered myself. Blogging from a beginner perspective will allow me to share insight that you may be able to take immediate actions with. After all, what it takes for you to reap the first dip of the benefit is some easy steps. However, before you do anything, it is important for you to understand some implications which I will spend a length of entry to explain.