Archives for July 2020

Public Funds to Reduce Reliance on China Rare Earth Production

July 28, 2020 by Paul Hoffman / Managing Editor Leave a Comment

U.S. Capitalism and Public Funds to Reduce Reliance on China Rare Earth Production

What are Rare Earth Minerals?

Rare earth minerals are getting more attention these days. Rare earth elements are a group of 17 chemical elements that have a variety of industrial and defense uses. They include yttrium and scandium and 15 elements in the lanthanum series. Lanthanum is used to prevent corrosion in EV batteries and is used in optical lens treatments. While the actual elements may not be rare, it is often difficult to find them in sufficient concentrations for economical extraction, and they require extensive processing. Beyond rare earths, minerals that are becoming of increasing importance include cobalt, natural graphite, and lithium, many of which are critical elements in battery technologies and needed in the transition away from fossil fuels.

China is a Leading Producer

According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2020, China accounted for 63.0% of rare earth mineral production in 2019 and 35.4% of rare earth mineral reserves. Conversely, the United States accounted for 12.4% of rare earth mineral production in 2019 and 1.1% of rare earth mineral reserves. With respect to natural graphite, cobalt, and lithium, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Australia accounted for 60.2%, 64%, and 52.9% of production in 2019, respectively.

Reducing Reliance on Imports

The United States is increasingly dependent on imports. China now dominates the production of many critical minerals, including graphite and magnesium. China is the third-largest supplier of natural resources to the United States behind Canada and Mexico. While Australia is the largest producer of lithium, China has been increasing its influence in the global lithium market by making deals to secure future supplies. As part of its strategy to ensure secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals, the U.S. Department of the Interior identified 35 critical minerals, including cobalt, graphite, lithium, and the rare earth elements group. The U.S. Government is planning to fund rare earths projects to reduce reliance on China.

The Invisible Hand

On July 15, 2020, rare-earth minerals producer MP Materials announced an agreement to merge with Fortress Value Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC). Along with a New York Stock Exchange listing, the new company to be named MP Materials, will have a post-transaction equity value of $1.5 billion. Ironically, MP Materials owns and operates the Mountain Pass mine and processing facility, which opened in 1952 as a uranium producer, pivoted to become one of the largest suppliers of rare earth minerals, but closed in 2002 as environmental restrictions and foreign imports made it difficult to compete. The facility underwent various ownership changes and reopened in 2017 under MP Materials’ ownership. One can see some parallels to domestic uranium producers today. However, there appears to be an awakening among policymakers of the dangers of dependence on foreign sources for critical minerals, especially those that are adversarial to the United States. We anticipate more activity in the rare earths and critical minerals space as capital flows to attractive opportunities, including growing demand for rare earth and critical minerals, scarce domestic supply sources, and increasingly supportive government policies.

SEO for small businesses to increase profits & organic search results

July 28, 2020 by Peter Spoleti / Vertex Markets Inc. Leave a Comment

SEO Strategies to increase profits and organic search results.

SEO is be a big piece of the puzzle on how well your business performs during and after COVID-19.

People visiting your website will largely determine how successful it will be. You might have an amazing business and a beautiful website, but it doesn’t matter if potential customers can’t find you. If people can’t find your site within the digital crowd your growth will be an uphill battle. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. SEO summed up is the practice and science of increasing your profile through organic search results.

While certain SEO (search engine optimization) strategies, such as a fast-loading web page, will always be of benefit, other tactics continue to change from year to year. Google updates its search algorithms as many as 600 times a year. This means your goals of attaining great SEO isn’t a sprint it’s a marathon, a never-ending process which always has to be addressed.

To stay ahead of your competitors its essential businesses stay updated with SEO trends on the horizon. In the following paragraphs we will review SEO strategies you should consider implementing as you’re working through this pandemic and thereafter transforming your website into an efficient and effective SEO friendly machine.

Provide a positive user experience.

The fundamental objective of SEO is to drive more traffic to your website. But if you want that desired traffic, you need a reason for visitors to come to your site and, just as important provide them a reason to stay. Site rankings aren’t a result of raw clicks a large proportion of search engine ranking is determined by visitor activity and time spent on your website.

Homepage link authority.

Your website’s home page will likely attract more links than any other page on your website, so make sure its appealing and inviting to your visitors. Make sure your homepage is linking out to your most important and frequently visited sub-pages. These pages may be relevant product information pages, shopping pages, landing pages to build your email list, or basic visitor information pages.

If you don’t have product pages, you may want to link to articles in the body of the landing page. Create prominent HTML links on your homepage in the body and at the top navigation will help with the link authority upfront.

Improve your voice search.

Typing your search queries today are only one of the ways people are searching the internet. In 2019 it was reported that half of American homes owned a digital assistant, of those 70% used them daily.

Make sure your website is optimized for all of those, Alexa, Echo, Siri, Bixby, and all the other voice searches being performed millions of times daily. Search engines must work harder when voice searches are used to gather the relevant information users are searching for at that time. This is making short, choppy words less important, and specific long-tail keyword phrased, the way people actually talk, all that much more relevant.

Since voice search is currently used so often, much of the SEO strategy you’re already using will still work with voice searches. But there are things worth paying attention to. For example, people have a tendency to use voice search for local internet queries, such as local small business owners or local restaurants. By providing all the necessary information on your Google business page can help make certain you’re not discounted by search engines in voice searches.

Create and post valuable content regularly and often.

The best content will rise to the top on Google. Search engines are a lot like people, since they have a tendency to pay attention to websites that have frequent updates, meaning those regularly adding content which will keep people engaged.

Either a blog post, video, educational information, or pieces of downloadable content. i.e. whitepapers. It’s important you try to make the content as beneficial to your target audience as possible. It will keep them engaged and increase the chance they will read your next piece of content. Don’t post purely for the sake of getting something out there. The more valuable your audience finds your content the more likely they are to share it and the greater the number of people seeing it, the better your site authority.

The regularity with which you add new content is an individual decision, though your not going to help your sites SEO if you let months laps without adding new content. A weekly or even a daily schedule to add content or updating old content with new links will add SEO value to your site. This posting methodology is beneficial to both your audience as well as the search engines.

Long-Form content will go a long way to help your SEO.

Last year, long form content consistently outranked short-form post. Many SEO experts define long-form as 2,000 words but testing on much longer content have also seen excellent results. Don’t just shoot for a high word count. Fill your content with rich dense information from reputable sources. Make it a good read, and however long it takes to cover a subject properly, even if that means it grows to twice the 2,000-word count.

In the current environment of short attention spans and the growing competition for eyeballs, this strategy might seem counter-intuitive. But the reality is as the content on the internet ripens, visitors are becoming far more experienced, and less tolerant to dedicating their time and not receiving the information they are seeking. Provide them relevant educational information and they won’t click over to your competitor, even if it takes them a few extra minutes to read your content, ROI extents to our investments of our time also.

Don’t psych out your reader.

An endless wall of text can intimidate the faint at heart. You’ve upgraded your content, now your visual readability and esthetics are more important than ever before. One widespread rule suggested by many is to keep everything as short as possible. Meaning short to the point sentences, and paragraphs of no more than five or so lines. This keeps the content visually intimidating, inviting and consumable.

We’ve all had the hairs on our neck go up when you acknowledge you’re about to start reading a paragraph which goes on for what looks like forever. Your reader should never encounter that experience when reading our content.

Keep in mind there are options to conveying information other than just text. You can achieve positive results by incorporating info-graphics, videos, images and other visual mediums into your content. If you do opt for the text-only approach, use section headers to break up your long pieces. Giving the reader a what to expect in the up coming paragraph, also introducing visually pleasing white space into the page.

White space is more valuable then you would think. It isn’t void or unused, it provides a useful sense of divergence which serves to accentuate the text or objects it surrounds. Experts have found an appropriate amount of white space increases user comprehension by 20%.

Create irresistible meta descriptions.

Everyone who writes content wants it read. That being said, you may be the Ernest Hemingway of content, creating the most beautiful and informative content ever written but your website content can’t be read if potential visitors never click onto your website. An effective and easy way to increase traffic to your content works of art and to your website is upgrade your meta descriptions. If you aren’t aware, the meta description is the text that appears below the title/link in individual search results. Google doesn’t use meta descriptions for ranking purposes, but they play an important role in driving the click through rates, (CTR).

Writing effective meta descriptions isn’t difficult, but it might involve eliminating some bad habits. Most importantly, stop keyword stuffing. It’s obvious you need to feature relevant keywords in the meta, it shouldn’t just be a meaningless collage of keywords. Even if that may have worked in the past those days are over.

An effective meta description reads like ad copy. Make it compelling, enticing, coherent, and concise. To be concise, cap your meta description at 160 characters; longer descriptions are edited by Google anyway.

One more piece of advice, make it stand out from the crowd, make it unique. Sure, it’s easier to cut and paste, but Google, like your stricter educators in high school, will penalize you for duplicates, and taking the easy path. You’ve spent all that time creating your masterpiece take the extra steps to make sure it is seen. This small investment of time will deliver you a great ROI.

Your E-A-T reputation pay attention to it.

E-A-T is an acronym used by Google and the SEO community as a framework to ascertain which websites or web pages demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic. High E-A-T ratings are awarded to those websites that communicate expertise on topics that require accuracy, authority through quality content and credible awards, and trust through positive reputation and security.

Establishing and growing your E-A-T, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in Google quality guidelines will continue to be an important trend for the foreseeable future. A business with poor reviews, customer service, or similar trust issues can encounter SEO issues in the future.

For businesses to create that trust they will have to ensure their websites posses a strong E-A-T reputation. Achieved through exhibited expertise and credentials or respected sources and execution.

Small details matter.

There are many pieces to the SEO puzzle, keywords are definitely one of the bread and butter pieces, but don’t ignore the other puzzle pieces, you’ll never get the whole picture. Image optimization is one of those corner pieces. To often you may have a great photo of the most advanced fighter jet in your article about cutting edge military technology, but if it’s saved as “jet22798a” you’re not helping your SEO credentials with Google at all. Images on tags and ALT text are evaluated on search engines, so do everything to help yourself out.

H1, H2 and H3 heading tags are another overlooked puzzle piece. Google is mindful of these pieces of HTML code as gauges of importance and they have a significant impact on how your website is read by a search engine.

Value added is always good.

As we mentioned earlier, SEO is an ongoing process with many levels. The goal is keeping users on your site after they’ve clicked is arguably more important than initially getting them to your website, it’s no longer good enough to just give them what they want. You have to do a little mind reading to figure out their subconscious search intent.

To secure that top spot in the search results, you’ll have to anticipate what your visitor wants after you address the initial reason, they visited your website.

At the urge to fulfill a self-serving SEO goal. For example, a visitor who clicked on an article on “ways to modify their digital marketing during a pandemic” will likely have subsequent questions on how to improve their websites SEO, or how to improve their website security. Linking to articles on those subjects helps retain users even longer and tells Google your website is substantial and authoritative. That can only help your ranking.

Internal links are a key to better SEO.

If you believe your content is worth reading, then make sure your visitors get a chance to see it. Who doesn’t love links, including search engines? Including a good amount of links that send visitors to other pages or articles within your website will help with your SEO.

Now that we know Links will help your SEO stay on top of them, the last thing you want are your visitors to clicking a link and landing on the dreaded 404 page. Your links should be regularly checked to confirm their viability. It’s pretty easy to execute a crawl to check for broken links and will return a great ROI in your website’s performance.

CTR and dwell time should be watched.

No one likes waiting for a page to load, internet speed is getting quicker all the time. So, your CTR and dwell time spent on websites carry more weight in determining successful SEO efforts as well as effecting a positive user experience.

A visitor’s experience is negatively affected by a slow loading web-page, it also hurts your search ranking. Both CTR and dwell time, each a separate item, but both having a great impact on the satisfaction level of your websites performance and what it has to offer.

CTR tracks the number of visitors following a link based on what was found on the search engine results page (SERP) however, dwell time is how long visitors hang around after clicking through.

Slow-loading pages always produce higher bounce rates, by monitoring your website’s loading speed should be the first line of defense in preventing short dwell times.

As implied earlier, there are many pieces to the puzzle required in maximizing your website’s SEO, but starting to connect those pieces is a great place to start. With a well-executed plan and some effort all business can improve the websites search ranking and help grow their business during these difficult times.

Take the long view.

We’ve previously stated that SEO is a long process, but it’s also a gradual one. Previously stated by a high-ranking Google employee, it can take up to a year for the full benefits of an SEO strategy to show up in your rankings. So, we hope we were able to motivate you to overhaul and implement an updated SEO strategy, but remember you’re running a marathon. Stick with it slow and steady wins the race, as time goes on and you’re over taking other runners eventually your work pays off and you’re the leader of the pack. The secret then is to keep up the work and hold on to the top position.

Robinhood Traders May Never Find the Next Apple

July 28, 2020 by Paul Hoffman / Managing Editor Leave a Comment

Why Robinhood Traders May Never Find the Next Apple

“I encourage people to educate themselves, but short-term trading is more risky than long-term investing and I do worry about this risk investors take…” Jay Clayton, SEC chairman, July 22, 2020

Are you growing weary of officials at different levels of government telling us how they think we should protect ourselves? In the first half of 2020, it seems a record number of authorities, at times, openly ignoring their own advice, told us what’s “safe” and what’s “unsafe.” The advice is all worth considering before determining if you agree or not, but when it involves risk tolerance, that’s a very personal choice. So, if you disagree with the advice, it may be that you know what’s better for you when it comes to your own risk/reward tolerance. One recent warning that is worth considering occurred on July 22 on CNBC Squawk box. The Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission discussed what he thought was risky behavior, and the precautions retail investors can take to reduce their risk. What was said involves self-directed investors’ choice of stocks. The SEC does restrict the sale of unregistered securities to accredited investors, but commenting on investor’s valuation methods and holding periods seems barely within the purview of the SEC’s Congressional mandate.

The SEC’s stated mission is threefold:

Protect investors
Maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets
Facilitate capital formation.

Based on the interview, it seems the activities of the latest crop of market participants are causing the SEC chair, Jay Clayton, to sprout some gray hairs. He’s concerned that individual investors are using assets for risky, short-term trades. These are primarily younger market participants, taking full advantage of free online trades. Recently, according to him, they’ve been causing the price of “certain stocks” to skyrocket. If his concerns are accurate, the SEC may further address it as part of one of the three stated roles they serve.

Protect Investors

The primary means the SEC “protects” investors is their disclosure rules and transparency requirements. These regs are designed so all investors, large institutions, or dabbling individuals will have access to basic facts about an investment prior to deciding whether or not they should transact. This is why the SEC requires public companies to regularly report specific financial and other pertinent information. The stipulation provides a base of knowledge for all investors so they may use it to judge for themselves whether to buy, sell, hold, or avoid an offering. It’s through the scheduled flow of timely, comprehensive, and accurate information that investors have a uniform basis for judgement.

Chairman Clayton seems to have concerns beyond company reporting requirements. His worry is with the investor side, not the issuer side. Clayton specifically expressed concerns for smaller investors with very short holding periods. His words during the July 22^nd interview are:

“What we are seeing is significant inflows from retail investors, and they have the hallmarks of short-term inflows. And does that concern me? Sure. Because that’s more trading than investing…”

He continued by expressing:

“Short-term trading is much more risky than long-term investing, and so I do worry.”

There will always be investors and traders looking to beat the market. This reality guarantees that there will always be people who find different methods than those that came before. Certain “styles” will seem to some to be unconventional, others risky, and to some just reckless. There seems to be a new “style” every few years. SOES trading, Japanese pairs, Tech funds, Bitcoin, Index funds, Leveraged CMOs, etc. Some of these blew up on participants while they were involved, others blew up later, and some methods, like many of today’s Robinhood traders, Bitcoin investors, and some Index fund buyers are still rewarding participants.

Should the Chairman of the SEC allow himself to be openly concerned for those involved so as to “protect investors?” Probably not under this part of their mandate. Should he be concerned because it impacts the commission’s second mission; to maintain “fair, orderly and efficient markets?” Let’s explore further.

Maintain Fair, Orderly and Efficient Markets

The SEC oversees securities broker/dealers, exchanges, investment advisors, and mutual funds. A primary concern is “fair” dealing, protecting against fraud, and disclosure of important market-related information to investors. With this, they make rules, after all, fairness amongst all involved dictates that regulators act with clear guidelines, not arbitrarily.

“Orderly” and “efficient” speaks to the manner and speed in which the commission handles all of the items on its plate. The markets are continually coming up with new products. Over time each of the new products usually has variants. The variants eventually have offshoots. The broad spectrum of investment options the SEC oversees doesn’t just grow, it compounds. Similar to how investors are creative in their methods, those that serve buy and sell-side players also are inventive. Newly engineered investments require review. The SEC expedites these reviews for the benefit of all. An easy to understand example is their review of the Spyder ETF, which was a unique security in the 1990s. This product was quickly mimicked and also expanded to include many other specific indexes. After the SEC became accustomed to the product and quickly approving other transparent ETFs, they had to review and make determinations on novel ETFs such as the actively managed, non-transparent ETF. The SEC knows the markets work best if there are no bottlenecks to the approval of newly securitized offerings or exchange tools, but they must all be reviewed.

Are no-transaction-fee online trades a new invention. No. They seem to be an evolution of lower and lower fees that began since brokerage commissions became competitive in May of 1975. The same (or better) service has been offered at lower and lower prices since then. Do the no commission brokers impact the market? Not in as large a way as “program trading” did when it first began or the introduction of computers or the reduction of brokerage commissions from $100 to $10 by Charles Schwab and others. So this is not of much consequence to the SEC. It provides even more access to the markets.

Although he did not name companies, Clayton spoke of stocks far exceeding normal valuations, which make them expensive by historical standards. He’s concerned the stocks may be rising more on emotion than prudent valuation processes. In his discussion, Clayton added that the SEC had issued guidance to brokers and investment advisors on how to give individuals proper warning about the risks they face when allocating capital in select equities. He did not suggest which equities, it is presumed he was thinking about companies like Tesla, which is up 240% YTD and 521% over the past 12 months. Tesla is the 10^th most popular stock on Robinhood. Many renowned investors are short this stock (TSLA), in fact current short interest in TSLA is $28.5 billion. So this is a very real battle of well-known investors with huge short positions and tens-of-thousands of Robinhood accounts impacting price movement.

The guidance he suggested is a further explanation of risks to investors. This, of course, is within the mandate of the SEC, and is fair in that it may help the understanding of risk, while not setting guidelines that would directly impact companies or individuals.

Facilitate Capital Formation

When Congress included the consideration of “capital formation” in the SEC’s mandate, it did not define the term.However, it is not an unfamiliar concept. It is generally understood that capital formation is a macro benchmark that measures changes in productive capital available in the economy. This includes enhanced infrastructure as the economic base of capital formation. It is however, most often defined as the ability for entities to raise funds. If funds are more available for the same or an increase in purposes, this constitutes capital formation. To reiterate, it is not the act of raising capital as much as it is the availability of capital that is capital formation.

Surely individuals trading in their Interactive Brokers, Robinhood, or All of Us accounts are not creating more capital. At the same time, it is not hindering capital formation. So, as it relates to the SEC mandate, this is not adding to why SEC Chairman Jay Clayton is so concerned.

How to “Protect Ourselves”

Referring to the inflows of assets into accounts from investors and the holding period, Clayton said this during the CNBC interview:

“Here at the SEC, when we think about that investor, we think about someone who’s investing for the long term: investing over time, doing it on a monthly basis…”

As a result of the concern very short holding periods (trading not investing), the SEC has issued guidance to brokers and investment advisors on how to give individuals proper warning about the risks they face when allocating capital in select equities, and statistical risk to overtrading. The active trading language is not new; the language on specific equities is not defined but presumed to mean so-called “Robinhood” stocks.

“I hope people are heeding that,” he said.

The age group most associated with online trading apps are “the millennials.” This generation takes a lot of criticism from the generations that are older than them. Their sanity is again questioned as they trade shares of stocks under $5, or load up on bankrupt companies like Hertz, and JC Penney, and when the online traders drive the price up on Tesla while Wall St. giants are short the stock. What is the right way and wrong way to invest is measured by results. Today’s lack of transaction fees eliminates what had been a very large drag on results in the past. Perhaps it is the veterans relying on past performance to indicate future results that have it wrong. Time will tell.

These disagreements as to value are what makes markets. Investing goes through regular incarnations and reinventions. The use of technology has provided an environment where one need not be a Wall Street professional to have access to information and top execution. This latest generation that is comfortable with technology now finds themselves with discretionary investment accounts. They will make good trades and bad trades and we’ll all learn from each other.

Paul Hoffman

Managing Editor / Channelchek

https://www.channelchek.com/aux/(expanded:news)

Modify your marketing plan, to reach your target market during the pandemic.

July 28, 2020 by Peter Spoleti / Vertex Markets Inc. Leave a Comment

10 Ways to Modify Your Marketing & Digital Marketing Plan During and after the Pandemic

By: Peter Spoleti, Jul 24, 2020

Modifying your marketing plan will increase your chance to reach your target market during the pandemic. By Implement these strategies they can help you achieve success during and after this pandemic.

The needs of your target market are always changing, so it’s important to stay on top of the trends and adjust your business plans appropriately. With the current environment far from “business as usual” some good ways to stay in touch with your customers is by modifying your marketing plan to address their needs. The following are 10 best ways to adjust your marketing & digital marketing strategy during and after the pandemic.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is the complete strategy on how you communicate with your target market, build your brand, educate, and motivate them to purchase your services or products. Your plan can be fundamental or extensive. It should be a road map for developing your brand and introducing and delivering your products and services to your target market. An effective marketing plan helps your company understand its target market, its competition, the impact of its marketing decisions, and offers insight for future initiatives. It’s important to follow your marketing plan during its implementation to present a consistent brand identity. Nevertheless, your company’s marketing plan is a living document which is subject to, and should be, modified to meet your customer’s needs. The current pandemic is a perfect example. The Corona virus’ economic set back and the civil unrest currently taking place have caused dramatic changes to consumer behavior, and your company needs to alter it’s marketing strategy to concur with your target markets needs and demands. Your marketplace and the economic conditions are uncertain and constantly changing, forcing your customers to adjust their purchasing habits, and how they find & communicate with your company. Have you adjusted your marketing plan to address those changes and meet your customer’s needs? Not listening to your customers’ needs during these times maybe perceived as insensitive or over-correcting. There are many great marketing strategies you can employ to address these changes.

The following are 10 ways to modify your marketing and reach your target market during and after the pandemic.

Highlight the true importance of your product or service.

As your target markets needs change the importance of your products and services may change to them. It is crucial to stress how your brand is still essential to them and why your products and services can still be beneficial to them. You may need to alter your product or services or highlight a new solution your current offerings can provide them. Take this opportunity to connect with your nervous customers and focus on how your products and or services can provide a solution to their current needs.

Address current customers’ needs.

Concentrate on identifying and meeting your customers’ needs and helping them deal with the current realities of the pandemic rather than shamelessly hawking your products or services. Offering helpful tools and considerate promotions can help build your brand awareness and loyalty with your customers. Implement ways to make it easier for your customers to consume your product, promote your online services by offering curbside pickup & delivery options, provide live chat, and stepped up customer support.

Increase your digital marketing efforts.

Your customers are online even more so during this pandemic, to meet their needs its essential you are where your customers are. COVID has moved more and more of the sales cycle online focus on your digital infrastructure and digital marketing to make sure you’re online to meet and help them. Increase your digital marketing efforts such as search engine optimization (SEO) and email & content marketing. Review and update your website to ensure you are providing a good user experience, evaluate your websites security make your customers feel secure and comfortable with making purchases while on your website, consider starting or increasing your paid advertising. Aim to establish yourself as a thought leader through blogs, videos, social media and other digital content. If you have the resources, consider hiring a marketing firm or social media influencers to increase your online presence.

Change your email marketing strategy.

Businesses should rethink their email marketing strategy addressing the changing environment their customers are facing. Don’t send the same content and offerings you’ve used in the past, change your tone, your content and posting schedule to address your customers new needs and expectations. Keep your brand relevant but be mindful your audience’s new situations by providing thoughtful value-added content and offerings. Offer them some helpful tips; Many of your customers have been confronted with new challenges and including working from home, provide some helpful tips on how to manage their new challenges.

Step up your social media marketing.

In all likely hood many if not most of your target market is on social media, providing you a perfect opportunity to expand your conversation with them on the platforms your target markets are engaging on, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Also consider expanding beyond the most well-known platforms, do some research of some lessor know niche platforms where your target market is spending their time. Post relevant educational or entertainment content providing value added to your market, don’t always be selling.

Become a valued resource to your audience.

Everyone who runs a business knows about local and federal regulations and guidelines which they must adhered too. Try to enlist content contributors who can provide relevant beneficial content you can post to your social media and website, to help address those regulations. Each industry has their own unique set of regulations, keep your customers informed and how they can be impacted. Even if your business has been forced to shut down during this pandemic don’t stop the conversation with your customers or potential customers. They need to know you are still around, when you will be reopening, and (in the case of small businesses) they want to know how you are doing. Keep the conversation alive it create a stronger relationship between your business and it’s customers. And always remember, if you’re not talking to your customers someone else will be!

Make it a two-way conversation.

Don’t make it a one-way conversation with you doing all the talking. Bring your customers and target market into the conversation. Provide a comment section on your blog, send surveys to your customers find out whats on their mind, (any email platform should be able to perform that function). Invite your customers and target market to help guide the direction of your company. Not all your customers are going to speak to you when their unhappy with you, your product, or service, they may just talk with their feet by going elsewhere, provide them an outlet to vent. Let them know you value their insight and opinions on how to create a better customer experience, product, or service for them. The last words you want to hear from a customer is, “sorry I’m using someone else now.” Turn your customers in to fans. By proving to your customers, you’re listening to them and their being heard, it builds trust, strengthens customer loyalty, and turns them from customers to fans.

Show them you care.

During these turbulent times let your customers know you care, show compassion and empathy. There is a good chance you are experiencing similar issues as your customers, financial, emotional, and stressful issues. Offer empathetic content that shows you’re will get through this together and you really care.

Give back to the community.

Whether you donate, volunteer, or join forces with other business help your community in any way you can. If you are able, pivot your business strategy to better serve your community during these tough times, it will be remembered. Giving back will not only help your community but increase your goodwill, community support and brand awareness. By encouraging and making it easier for your employees to take part of giving back you make them part of the conversation and facilitate corporate social responsibility all your employees believe in and can get behind, building a positive corporate culture. While helping your community during these tough times.

Review your sales funnel.

Marketing strategies which were working pre COVID may not work now or post COVID. As the market changes and more of the sales cycle is taking place online it is important to systematically review your sales funnel and scrutinize the data. Most consumers have access to a tremendous amount of information on any product or service they are interested in purchasing, with an exceptionally large number of them doing research, extensively online, before contacting a salesperson. Make sure your website has updated information on your products and services, create whitepapers, post product information on social media. Make sure it’s as easy as possible for your potential customers to find the information they are seeking. This pandemic had a dramatic impact on the way the world shops, make sure your sales process is setup to meet those changes and fulfill their needs. Making that extra effort to re-evaluate your funnels and reacting to the data collected may mean the difference between gaining market share or losing market share. Editor’s note: Looking for the right email marketing service for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs.

What not to do in your marketing plan.

We’ve laid out some strategies to help you modify your marketing plan during and post pandemic. Now let’s talk about things to avoid during your marketing modification. You don’t want to continue sending out the same old marketing campaigns as though it was business as usual, but you also don’t want to overwhelm your audience with exhausting marketing and political material. Consumers are worn out and can see through PR stunts and bandwagon email campaigns. It’s important to acknowledge the current pandemic, but don’t talk about these issues any more than you need to. Instead of inundating your audience with generic information, provide them with an educational or entertaining marketing message that adds value and enhances your customers experience. Try to add some entertainment into your content, give your audience a chance to smile or forget about everything going on even if it’s just for a moment. Avoid being too pushy for the sale or over promoting your products or services. Your communications with your customers should have a purpose and value, whether it’s on your website, social media, or in your email campaign. The pandemic as cause a rapidly changing environment take notice of when the social and economic situation changes and continue to make adjustments to your marketing strategy accordingly.

School Reopening Guidelines – New York

July 22, 2020 by Paul Scrom, Jr., Esq. Leave a Comment

School Reopening Guidelines – New York

Published on July 16, 2020

Paul L. Scrom Jr., Esq.

Partner at Jules Halpern Associates LLC

This week the NYS Department of Health issued a set of guidelines for schools that serve children from grades kindergarten through 12. The guidelines are aimed at informing school leaders as to how to conduct in-person instruction, while trying to protect all members of the school community from COVID-19. In order reopen in-person instruction, officials of every school district and private school need to submit documentation indicating that they understand and will comply with the guidelines.

School officials also need to submit a reopening plan with the NYS Department of Health and the NYS Department of Education. Charter schools authorized by SUNY need to submit their reopening plans with the NYS Department of Health and SUNY. These guidelines and information on submitting school reopening plans can be found here. Reopening plans are due by July 31, 2020, although there is an option for schools to apply for an extension if need be. The guidelines are broken down into People, Places, and Processes categories. Below we have highlighted some of the key sections.

People

Social distance needs to be maintained whenever is feasible, unless the activity or space does not allow for it. When participating in activities like singing or exercising, additional distance (twelve feet) must be maintained.
Students and adults need to wear face covering whenever possible, including during instruction. This is particularly important in areas with infection outbreaks. The guidelines state if students cannot endure masks to the point where it impacts their physical or mental health, they will not be required to wear them.
Ventilation should occur to the greatest extent possible and congregation in any areas needs to be prevented.
One-way foot traffic ought to be encouraged.
It is advisable to place students in groups that travel together throughout the day, also known as student cohorts, to diminish the number of people school community members are coming into contact with.
Remote staff meetings may be best to reduce congregation.
To maximize in-person instruction while minimizing contact, schools may choose to stagger start and departure times. This may result in longer school operational hours.
If members of the public are allowed to use school facilities, they must comply with school policies.
School leaders might consider expanding in-person instruction to other available facilities in the community if it would help facilitate social distancing and cohorts.

Places

Students can bring their own face covering (homemade, surgical, etc.), but bringing their own cannot be required; if they do not have their own, school administrators must provide it. In addition, there must be enough face masks for faculty and staff.
Students and staff are to be trained in proper handwashing techniques. Posted signs ought to reinforce proper methods.
Hand sanitizer needs to be available in common areas, preferably via automatic dispensers.
Trash bins should be widely available.
Custodial staff will take charge of facility disinfection practices. All surfaces should be cleaned daily at a minimum; areas that are frequently touched will need to be cleaned more.
If a school implements student cohort grouping, facilities should be disinfected between each cohort use. When a cohort departs that location, the area and surfaces must be sanitized.
Schools must have a designated COVID-19 safety coordinator who is responsible for ensuring compliance.
Communication plans are required to be in place to for students, families and community members. They can utilize social media, text messages, emails, etc.
Schools with residential facilities must have further procedures for residence halls, isolation, quarantine, and moving-out protocol.

Processes

All members of the school community coming into school facilities need to have their temperatures checked daily, optimally in their homes. If temperature checks occur at school, screeners need to have personal protective equipment.
Schools cannot record specific temperature data but can keep records of who was screened when and where.
Students will not be permitted to enter school facilities if they have had a temperature of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 14 days.
Procedures need to be implemented for how and where sick students will be isolated while awaiting pick-up by a parent or guardian.
Schools must have protocols to assist with contract tracing in the event of COVID-19 cases.
Officials are permitted to modify operations to help stop a local COVID-19 outbreak. This action is best done before being mandated by the State. In this instance, school officials need to maintain metrics of those who become ill, to help identify local spread.
Schools need to notify local and State Departments of Health if school officials learn of any COVID-19 cases within their school community.

It should be noted that schools are required to work with vulnerable populations and those that do not feel safe returning to the physical school community to accommodate their needs. Accommodations may include learning or working from home.