Toyota Corolla on track to win 2015

FORGET Holden vs Ford. Fresh figures show the new car battle is Toyota Corolla versus Mazda3, and you won’t believe Toyota’s current lead with its arch rival.

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Best Life Insurance Companies for 2015

Life insurance can ease your loved ones’ financial worries if you die unexpectedly, but it’s just as essential for your own peace of mind. In short, life insurance helps replace your lost income after you pass away, keeping any beneficiaries you name insulated from major money troubles after you’re gone.

The Simple Dollar’s Picks for Best Life Insurance Companies

The best life insurance companies offer a wide array of coverage options, superior customer service, and their own financial stability as an incentive to give them your trust — and money. In my research, three companies came out on top:

• State Farm
• Transamerica
• Prudential

Read on to discover why these companies stand out from the competition. Further down, I’ll explain how I made my picks. I’ll also provide a primer on life insurance types so you can make sure you’re shopping for the right product. Once you’re ready to start your search for a life insurance company, the quote tool below can help you find the best deals in your area.

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Types of Life Insurance

Life insurance is among the more complex financial products on the market, but it’s also one of the most important. It’s essential to understand the different policy types before you buy.

There are significant differences between term, whole, and universal policies. Knowing the basics will help you figure out which type of life insurance is right for you.

Term life insurance

A term policy is life insurance at its most basic. It’s also the most affordable type of coverage. Just as the name suggests, you get a term life insurance policy for a fixed amount of time: 10 or 20 years, for example. If you die during your policy’s term, any beneficiaries you’ve designated will receive benefits.

Term life’s biggest downfall? If your policy ends and you’re still alive and kicking, the insurance company keeps your money — you get nothing in return. It can also be difficult to qualify for a reasonably priced term life policy if you’re older, have known health issues, or are at higher risk for health issues because of smoking or obesity, for instance.

On the flip side, term life can be quite affordable if you’re younger and don’t have any major health issues. Here are the quotes I received to insure myself, a 34-year-old nonsmoker in excellent health, with a 20-year, $500,000 policy:

Company	Monthly Term Life Premium
Protective	$18.86
Mutual of Omaha	$19.91
SBLI	$20.01
Transamerica	$21.07
Voya (formerly ING)	$23.19
Minnesota Life	$24.66
AXA	$24.82
MetLife	$25.99
Prudential	$28.80
State Farm	$39.60
Allstate	$49.72

Though term life policies are simple, there are still some finer points to consider, such as whether the policy is convertible to another non-term type of life insurance, or whether renewal is guaranteed (meaning your insurer can’t turn you down if you want to renew for another term, though they can bump the price based on your current health). To learn more about these policies, see Term Life Insurance: The Basics.

Whole life insurance

Whole life insurance is a bit more complex and comprehensive than term life insurance. Like term policies, whole life insurance pays a death benefit if you pass away. But, unlike term policies, whole life policies cover you for your entire life. You’ll pay the same bill every month, and as long as you’re paying, your coverage can’t be canceled.

There’s another benefit, too: Your insurer socks away a portion of your payments in an account that builds cash value tax-deferred, and you can actually borrow against this without paying taxes.

The major downside of whole life insurance is that it’s very expensive, especially when compared to term life insurance.

How much more expensive? Many companies don’t offer whole-life quotes online, but State Farm quoted me $521.55 a month — more than 10 times their quote for term life.

In a survey of major insurers, Wealthfront found that a 30-year-old male could expect to pay up to $800 a month for a whole life policy. This automatically puts whole life out of reach for many people.

Another consideration: Although a portion of your premiums will be invested, you generally have no control over how it is invested. Many financial experts warn that you’re unlikely to be impressed by the returns, which might be frustrating if you want to get more hands-on with your investments.

Universal life insurance

The basics of universal life insurance are similar to those of whole life policies. You pay your premium as long as you’re alive, and the policy is guaranteed to pay a death benefit when you pass away. Like whole life insurance, some of the premium is invested on your behalf and the same tax benefits apply.

However, with universal life insurance, you have more control over the particulars of your policy. You can adjust the amount paid out as a death benefit, and you can generally alter the amount of your premium and how often you pay it, too. Like whole life insurance, your policy will have a cash value you can borrow against, and you can even use this to foot the bill for your premiums. Variable plans even let savvy investors control where their money is going.

Again, cost is the major downside here. Universal life insurance is pricier than term coverage, though generally not as costly as whole life insurance. For example, a very healthy 40-year-old man may pay around $3,000 a year for universal life, but just $350 for a $500,000 term policy, according to CNN Money. (State Farm quoted me $493 a month for a $500,000 level death benefit policy.)  And as with whole life insurance, you might not be satisfied with the rate you earn on the invested premium.

Finally, universal life is the most complex type of insurance product, and you’ll definitely need a seasoned expert to help guide you.

What Kind of Life Insurance Do I Really Need?

The kind of life insurance that best suits you will depend on your unique circumstances, but here’s one pretty easy rule of thumb: Term life insurance is usually the way to go.

Why term life insurance is probably your best bet

Except in special circumstances, term life is probably going to make the most sense for most people. Why? It’s simple to understand and easy to compare across insurance companies. It’s much more affordable than whole or universal policies, and the death benefit gives you the most bang for your buck. Finally, term life insurance doesn’t lock you into an investment vehicle that may not give you the best returns.

There are rare cases where whole or universal policies might be worth a look. If you’re wealthy and looking for investments where you can grow your money tax-free, these policies can be a solid option if you’ve already maxed out your retirement savings.

Those who expect to owe a lot of estate taxes can soften the blow by transferring their paid-off policy to someone else, too. Finally, some financial experts recommend looking at whole or universal policies if you don’t have the discipline to simply buy a term policy and invest the rest of your money.

Remember, life insurance is meant to give your beneficiaries a financial cushion in the event of your untimely death. If no one is depending on you and your income, you may not need life insurance at all. This holds true regardless of age.

One thing to think about, however, is whether you want to leave family members on the hook for your funeral expenses or debts for which they’ve cosigned. In that case, you may want an inexpensive burial or term policy.

How much life insurance should I buy?

Your magic number will vary according to your circumstances, of course. For a rough estimate of how much life insurance you need, some insurance advisers simply tell you to multiply your income times 10.

However, that doesn’t take into account potentially crucial information, including how many dependents and the type of debt you have.

For a more accurate number, you’ll need to consider several factors, like how much your spouse and any children will need to maintain their standard of living without your income, whether any of your children will need help with college, and what your mortgage and other debts are.

To arrive at a number, consider using an online calculator such as this one from Life Happens.

The Best Life Insurance Companies

Now that you know the basics, here are a few companies that are worth getting a quote from as you search for the best life insurance policy for you.

Best Life Insurance Company Overall: State Farm

One of the largest insurers in the nation, State Farm is also consistently rated one of the best. In fact, it was the only company to earn the highest rating in every category of J.D. Power’s 2015 customer satisfaction survey.

It’s also on rock-solid financial footing, earning A.M. Best’s highest-possible A++ rating. State Farm also shines with a consumer-friendly business model that combines online convenience and, if you prefer, a more personal, agent-driven experience.

Who it’s best for: If you prize customer service, State Farm might be your best bet. Aside from its top-notch J.D. Power ratings, the insurer’s huge network of 18,000 agents all but guarantees there will be one near you if you want face-to-face service. State Farm also makes it easy to shop for a policy online. Their website is user-friendly, requiring a minimum amount of identifying information before getting quotes for different kinds of policies all on one page.

Who should skip it: If you’re on a budget, take note: State Farm offered one of the pricier term life quotes that I received. At nearly $40 a month, I would pay double for a State Farm policy over the cheapest quotes I received. Ouch.

Best Term Life Insurance Company: Transamerica

Many customers choose term life insurance because it’s their most economical option. Transamerica offered one of the lowest quotes I received: $21 a month for a 20-year, $500,000 term policy.

Though that’s not the absolute cheapest quote I received, I also liked that Transamerica offers flexible, comprehensive term coverage options. Their simple term life doesn’t require a medical exam, making coverage available sooner. Another plan offers an option to convert to permanent insurance later on, while a “living benefit” feature lets you use policy benefits for certain critical illnesses. And if you only need a little coverage, the company allows policies as low as $25,000.

Who it’s best for: Anyone who is watching their budget or wants the opportunity to choose a more flexible term life policy should check out Transamerica, which got 4.5 out of 5 stars for value in Insure.com’s most recent life insurance rankings. The company is also worth a look for anyone who’s unsure of what kind of insurance they need: A helpful “plan explorer” feature lets you answer questions about your family, finances, and health to receive personal recommendations.

Who should skip it: If you value service over price, note that Transamerica ranks in the middle of the pack in J.D. Power’s latest customer satisfaction rankings.

Best Whole Life Insurance Company: State Farm

State Farm can also be a particularly good choice for whole life insurance. You can actually receive a quote for whole life insurance online. This is a major plus, as many companies limit online quotes to term policies (if they provide online quotes at all — several major insurers don’t).

State Farm’s whole-life options are comprehensive, including limited-pay, single-premium, and final-expense policies. Low minimums and disability waivers are among other policy benefits.

Who it’s best for: A whole-life insurance policy is a whole-life investment, so if you want a guarantee of financial stability, it doesn’t get much better than State Farm’s A++ A.M. Best rating. And as I mentioned above, strong customer service rankings and an extensive agent network make State Farm a good bet for anyone who wants a better buying experience.

Who should skip it: Again, State Farm doesn’t have the best reputation for cheap policies — shop around if you’re watching your budget. However, note that current customers are still pleased with what they receive for the money: The company gets top marks for pricing and value in both the J.D. Power and Insure.com surveys.

Best Universal Life Insurance Company: Prudential

Prudential particularly excels when it comes to universal life for two major reasons. First, it offers online quotes for universal life insurance — most companies require you to call an agent. Second, it offers a comprehensive range of five universal life policies that are easy to directly compare online. Fixed, variable, and return-of-premium death benefits are available. Prudential also has strong financial ratings.

Who it’s best for: Like whole life, a universal life policy will be with you until you die, assuming you continue to pay your premiums. Prudential has an A+ financial strength rating with A.M. Best, so it’s a good bet if you want to be sure the insurer will be around when you need it. Prudential’s universal life offerings are also more extensive than most and easy to compare, so the company could be a good pick for someone who needs a more flexible or niche plan.

Who should skip it: If you’re still comparing whole and universal life policies, take note: Prudential does not offer whole life. And if you’re nervous about service, Prudential was in the middle of the pack in the latest J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey, notching below-average ratings for customer interaction.

How I Chose the Best Life Insurance Companies

I looked at several factors in my search for the top life insurance companies, including customer satisfaction surveys, the online experience, coverage options, and the insurer’s financial strength.

• Customer satisfaction: It’s difficult to pick an insurance company based on individual online reviews, which can trend positive or negative due to highly personal circumstances. It can also be hard to isolate customers’ experiences with life insurance versus other policies a company may offer, including car or home insurance. For that reason, I looked at the J.D. Power 2015 Household Insurance Study and the Insure.com 2014 Customer Satisfaction Ratings for a larger, more reliable snapshot of customers’ experiences with their insurance companies.
• Financial strength: I looked at each company’s A.M. Best rating to gauge stability. Ratings range from A++ (superior/most stable) to D (poor/least stable). A few special ratings below “D” denote companies that are under regulatory supervision, are being liquidated, or have had their ratings suspended. A.M. Best considers any company with a “B” grade or below vulnerable.
• Ease of getting a quote: While most life insurance companies make it easy to get a quote for at least a term policy online, some still require you to call an agent. In this day and age, I consider that a big downside. For those that do make quotes available online, I compared how quick the process was and how much information I had to input to receive a quote.
• Range of coverage options: I determined whether the company offered all major types of life insurance — term, whole, and universal — and checked how many plans were on offer. I also considered how flexible those plans were and whether they offered any unique benefits.
• Price: For term insurance, I compared quotes for each company’s most basic policy. I made sure to use the same details (female, 34, nonsmoker, excellent health, 20-year term, $500,000 in coverage) for as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as possible.

Beginning Your Search for the Best Life Insurance Company

Life insurance is a smart move for most people who need to look out for their loved ones. Now that you have a better sense of the different types of life insurance and what’s right for you, it’s time to comparison shop. Start by using our quick and easy quote tool, which will let you see offers in your area.

For more information on life insurance, check out some of The Simple Dollar’s past articles on the topic:

• How to Get Cheap Life Insurance in 2015
• Term Life Insurance: How Convertibles and Guaranteed Renewals Work
• The Heartbreaking Puzzle of Life Insurance
• Life Change? Update Your Life Insurance Policy
• Life Insurance Loopholes to Avoid
• How to Build and Borrow Cash From Your Life Insurance Policy
• Who Needs Whole Life Insurance Coverage?

The post Best Life Insurance Companies for 2015 appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Kill a cop ‘in the name of Allah’: SBS staffer’s joke

A JUDGE has slammed an SBS staffer’s “reckless” and “juvenile” Facebook post, which threatened to kill a police officer — and was meant to be funny.

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Obama’s $29.6 billion climate fail

WELL this is awkward. As climate enthusiasts meet in Paris, one of the world’s largest renewable energy firms is facing a record collapse.

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ANZ apologises for internet banking crash

YET another internet banking crash infuriated customers. If you lost out in the ANZ meltdown, here’s what you need to do.

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ANZ apologises for internet banking crash

YET another internet banking crash infuriated customers. If you lost out in the ANZ meltdown, here’s what you need to do.

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‘Predatory banking at its worst’

THIS Aussie mum lost her marriage and is about to lose her house too, thanks to a misstep by Australia’s largest bank.

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Want to be a retailer? Don’t be a Dick

DICK Smith is circling the drain. So what did the retailer do so wrong? And could this be a glimpse at the future of shopping?

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Business Briefcase: Tobyhanna Army Depot names new repairs, upgrades chief

Local resident Brandi with base since 2007 Tobyhanna resident Anthony Brandi has been named chief of the depot's Mixed Model Moving Line (M3L) Branch. . He supervises personnel who perform overhaul, repairs and upgrades on more than 200 Humvee– mounted shelter systems for Defense Department organizations annually. Prior to his current position, Brandi was a [...]

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Tim Tam makers in price war with Coles

A DISPUTE over the price of biscuits has prompted Arnott’s to cut the supply of some of Australia’s favourite varieties to supermarket giant Coles.

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What's in your mailbox? Holiday cards dwindling via snail mail

Josephine Paige is in a business where sending holiday cards are not only expected, but it would be a major no-no if she doesn’t carry through on the practice.Kate Burke said she believes the greeting card industry simply isn’t in tune with the times.But, to get a better sense of the growing suspicion about whether the traditional Christmas card is either dead or rapidly declining, the U.S. Postal Service offers this quasi-eulogy.“The [...]

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Tim Tam makers in price war with Coles

THE makers of one of Australia’s favourite biscuits has cut supply to Coles because the supermarket giant is refusing to pass price rises.

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American Energy Will Help Defeat Terrorism

President Obama has been ‎mocked for his ludicrous comment that the climate change summit in Paris will be a "powerful rebuke" to the terrorists. No. This summit is a powerful rebuke to common sense.

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10 Ways to Repair Your Retirement Finances

Try these last-minute strategies to boost your retirement income.

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How to Make Back Some of the Money You Spend on Cyber Monday — Without Leaving the Couch

It’s incredibly easy to spend money sitting in front of a computer screen, especially on Cyber Monday. No Black Friday lines, no painful exchange of actual cash — not even the depressing sound of swiping your credit card.

But it can be even easier to make some of that money back in the same sitting!

Passive income is a great way to bolster your discretionary funds any time of year, but particularly during the winter holidays, when Americans spend an annual $600 billion.

Here are some effortless ways to generate a little bit of extra padding for your wallet while you’re shopping on Cyber Monday.

Watch Videos on Swagbucks

I just earned a Swag Buck (SB) — equal to about one cent — by learning how to use a muffin tin to make prosciutto egg cups on Swagbucks.

I’ll even save money on brunch this weekend and get fancy at home without facing perturbed looks from the waiter when I order a mimosa, minus the orange juice.

Swagbucks’ video topics range from food to celebrity gossip and comedy. And, you don’t necessarily need to watch the videos — just run them in a background tab while you go about your Cyber Monday business.

You can even mute them if you’re not interested in lipstick color recommendations or what to make for dinner.

You can earn about 2 SB every 10 minutes. Once you accrue 100 SB, you’ve earned a $1 gift card to Amazon, Wal-Mart or Target (though you can only redeem rewards once you’ve banked at least 300 SB).

It doesn’t sound like much, but think about how much time you spend in front of your computer. Free money is free money — and it adds up.

I even ran two Swagbucks videos in two different background tabs — and doubled my earnings! Just make sure your computer can keep up, and be sure to click over into the tab from time to time to ensure the videos are still playing.

You usually have to watch a collection of three to four videos to earn an SB or two; I had some issues with getting them to play automatically.

Swagbucks can save you money in lots of other ways, too. Check out our primer on all the ways to put Swagbucks to work for you, and be sure to shop through Swagbucks on Cyber Monday!

Share Your Surfing Info with Market Research Panels

Free cash? There’s an app for that. Several, actually.

If you’re willing to share anonymous information about the way you use your computer and mobile devices, you could earn some significant rewards for absolutely no effort.

Smart Panel

Once you take a three-minute survey to ensure you qualify, you can download Smart Panel’s app, which runs quietly in the background of your PC, tablet or smartphone, collecting anonymous information about your surfing habits.

You’ll earn $5 for qualifying, $10 once you’ve had the app installed for two weeks, and then $5 for every month installed thereafter. You can choose to have your rewards paid out in Amazon gift cards — or cold, hard cash via Paypal.

Nielsen Mobile Panel

The Nielsen mobile app works similarly to Smart Panel, and is available for both Android and Apple mobile devices.

Once you qualify, install the app on your phone. You’ll earn up to $50 per year in rewards — some of which are Amazon and Starbucks gift cards.

Google Screenwise Panel

This one pays out varying amounts depending on how many devices you link.

If you regularly use a computer and a smartphone, you’ll get $4 to sign up, then $2 each week you use your device afterward. As long as you’re over the age of 13, you just need a Google account and can use Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Got a tablet, too? Lucky you! You get a $6 sign-up bonus and $3 in passive income every week.

Click here to get started. When you’re ready to cash out, you can choose from a number of super-useable gift cards, from Visa to Domino’s (which I might totally go for. Sometimes pizza is worth more than cash.)

Media Insiders Panel

Here’s another! With Media Insiders Panel, you’ll earn $5 per month, per device — and you can link up to three. Plus, you’ll get loyalty bonuses up to four times per year if you leave it installed.

MobileXpression

Take the survey to find out if you qualify for this market research panel. It’s available for iPhones, Android devices, and even iPads.

If you qualify and install it, you’re guaranteed to earn prizes, including Amazon gift cards and a chance to win $100 every month.

Let Viggle Listen In

Play music or watch TV in the background while you do your Cyber Monday shopping?

If you’re willing to share your info, Viggle pays you points when you allow it to listen in to your music or TV show. The app’s available for Android and Apple.

Users have cashed in their points for over $14 million in rewards to date, according to Viggle’s website. Choose from best-seller gift cards like Amazon, Best Buy and Sephora, or even once-in-a-lifetime experiences like a trip to see the finale of “The Voice”!

View Beautiful Ads on Your Android Lock Screen

Hey Android users: If you let any of these apps display ads on your smartphone, you’ll earn cash rewards just for using your phone. (Sorry, Apple fans; you can’t use any of these apps yet.)

They all work in about the same way: Install the app, let it populate your lock screen with visually appealing ads relevant to your interests, and rake in the cash.

Although your earnings are tied to unlocking your phone, these apps have algorithms to detect fraudulent usage — so locking and unlocking your phone all day won’t magically make you a millionaire.

Adme

Once you rack up $10, you can request your rewards deposit through Paypal. Check out the app here.

Fronto

This app rewards you in points, which you trade for cash — about 2,500 points for $1.

The app store description says Fronto is trying to pay $20 to each user each month — not bad for something you literally just set and forget!

Slidejoy

One hundred Slidejoy Carats equals $1, and you can get paid after you hit just 200 Carats. You can even choose to donate them directly to charity!

ScreenPay

Start earning rewards with ScreenPay immediately, and transfer your balance to PayPal as soon as you hit $7.

Search With Bing

Bing wants to pay you just to use their web search, instead of a particularly doodly one you may use by default.

So when you’re scouring the Internet for the best Cyber Monday deals, make sure to do it through Bing Rewards. You can get $5 gift cards to vendors like Amazon, Chipotle and Starbucks.

Your Turn: Do you know any awesome ways to earn passive income on Cyber Monday?

Disclosure: We have a serious Taco Bell addiction around here. The affiliate links in this post help us order off the dollar menu. Thanks for your support!

Jamie Cattanach is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder and a native Floridian. She’s passionate about learning, literature, chocolate and finding ways to live the good life as cost-effectively as possible. You can wave hi to @jamiecattanach on Twitter.

This post originally ran on our Cyber Monday blog.

The post How to Make Back Some of the Money You Spend on Cyber Monday — Without Leaving the Couch appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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Government pushes for cheaper household bills

Tom Wilson

household bills.jpg

Consumers could benefit from cheaper utility, banking and broadband bills as a result of a wide-ranging government push to drive down household bills through increased competition.

Consumers could benefit from cheaper utility, banking and broadband bills as a result of a wide-ranging government push to drive down household bills through increased competition.

"Today's plan from the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is to be welcomed," said Richard Neudegg, head of regulation at uSwitch.com.

Government pushes for cheaper household bills

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Consumers could benefit from cheaper utility, banking and broadband bills as a result of a wide-ranging government push to drive down household bills through increased competition. "Today's plan from the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is to be welcomed," said Richard Neudegg, head of regulation at uSwitch.com. "Improving competition is key to getting more consumers in control of their finances, cutting bills and improving customer service and choice. We take a look at the scope of the report and what it might mean for you below. Water bills Households in England could be free to choose their water supplier under plans being considered by Ofwat, the water regulator. They'll report back on the plans in April 2016, with a view to introducing the changes in this parliament. "Such a market in the water and wastewater sector could see customers become more engaged, push prices down, service up, and encourage more efficient use of an increasingly stretched resource," said Cathryn Ross, chief executive of Ofwat. Banking The government will look to increase competition in the banking sector by introducing a service to encourage challenger banks, as well as continuing its push to help consumers find the right bank for their needs. Earlier this year, the government launched a tool that helps people find the cheapest bank account based on their usage. In partnership with GoCompare.com, the Midata scheme lets people see what they've paid for their bank account over the last year, and what they would have paid with other providers. The report notably doesn't mention hidden charges, which are rife in the UK due to our resistance to pay for banking services. Arguably, the Treasury is as hoodwinked as we are, as the paper estimates the average household spends £35 a year on legal and banking services, but the report also claims the average consumer could save double this - £70 a year - by switching account. Broadband The Advertising and Standards Authority (ASA) is already investigating the broadband market as it 'often lacks transparency'. Specifically, it's looking at whether introductory rates are misleading, as total costs can be £240 above the advertised rate. Though there are no new actions announced in this area, the Treasury expects the ASA to 'act swiftly'. Dentistry Around half a million people are year may be being mislead about the availability of NHS dental treatment, according to the Office of Fair Trading. This could lead to them being pushed into expensive private treatment unnecessarily. The government is looking to make it clearer what people can receive under the NHS. Unfortunately, it looks like nothing is being done to improve transparency around private dental costs. Earlier this year Moneywise reported that some private clinics charge £185 for a check-up, almost four times the national average. Energy The government will continue its push to increase competition. It claims switching to the cheapest provider could save the average household £160 a year. As with banking products, the Midata initiative allows consumers to generate a personalised comparison of the cheapest suppliers based on their actual usage. Mobile phones The government has called for providers to automatically unlock phones at the end of a contract, which will let people freely switch to a cheaper service. There will be no laws to enforce this at first, but it will consult in 2016 to see if this is necessary. Consumers spend around £48 million a year unlocking phones at £20 a pop, according to the report. School uniforms A fifth of parents say they've been caused financial difficulty because of the cost of school uniforms. The government says that people who are free to choose between a range of suppliers are far less likely to find costs excessive, so it's looking at ways to increase choice of school uniform suppliers. Legal services Following recent changes that allow solicitors to share an office with other types of business, the government intends to remove restrictions to make it easier for the likes of supermarkets and estate agents to offer legal services in England and Wales. This could reduce the cost, and increase availability of legal services such as conveyancing, probate and litigation. A consultation will launch in 2016. Pharmacies The government is looking to make changes that reduce prescription costs and make it easier to buy online or use click and collect services. Asset management Though not mentioned in today's report, the Financial Conduct Authority independently announced it will investigate whether competition is working effectively between asset managers.

Could you cut your bills with a smaller energy supplier?

There's never been a better time to switch banks

read more

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How to Get 10% Cash Back on All Your Holiday Shopping

The bedlam of Black Friday is behind us, Cyber Monday is here, and the holiday shopping crunch is officially on. The average American plans to spend about $806 on holiday gifts for the 2015 season, according to the National Retail Federation, and more than 121 million people will spend some of that online today.

But before you plow through your Christmas list on Amazon.com, check which credit card you’re using — because if you have the Chase Freedom® card, you can earn a whopping 10% cash back on purchases at some major online retailers — including Amazon, Zappos, Diapers.com, and Audible — for the duration of 2015. That amounts to a free $80 refund on the average holiday gift budget.

Here’s how it works: The Chase Freedom® card  — a no-annual-fee, cash-back rewards card — offers “bonus categories” that rotate each quarter. Normally, they dole out 5% cash back on your first $1,500 spent within a bonus category (versus 1% cash back on everything else). However, that bonus has been ratcheted up to 10% through the end of December in the year-end category, which includes Amazon.com. 

Now, this is important: Even if you have the Chase Freedom® card already, you’ll need to activate your card to take advantage of the quarterly bonus category (you can activate your card here).

Once your card is activated, earning 10% is as simple as using your Chase Freedom card for online purchases made through Dec. 31 on Amazon, Zappos, Diapers.com, and Audible.

How Much Can I Earn?

If you’re one of those average Americans spending upwards of $800 on holiday gifts, and you bought them all online this year — avoiding the crowds and tempting impulse buys that plague the mall experience — you could score an easy $80 in cash back using the Chase Freedom® Card.

However, the quarterly limit on bonus category spending is $1,500, which means you have the potential to earn up to $150 in cash back through this limited-time promotion. We don’t advocate buying junk you (or your kids) don’t need just to max out a 10% cash-back offer, but holiday shopping isn’t the only way to take advantage of this deal.

For example, if you have babies or small children, or expect to attend a baby shower anytime soon, it also makes sense to check out Diapers.com for special Cyber Monday and year-end deals.

Not only does the site offer discounts on diapers delivered directly to your doorstep, they also offer children’s clothing, baby formula, and baby gear like strollers and car seats. If you need to stock up on baby supplies anyway, buying them with your Chase Freedom® Card to tap into the 10% cash-back offer is one way to save money in the process.

• Related: The Cost of Raising a Child (and the Baby Checklist You Really Need)

Another Strategy: Bulk Up on Ultimate Rewards Points

If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card in addition to the Chase Freedom® card, you’re in even better shape. Since you can transfer points earned with your Chase Freedom® card to your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you can use these bonus points to score free hotel stays, flights, and more.

• Related: Five Reasons Everyone Should Get the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

Ultimate Rewards points can be used to book travel through the Chase travel portal at a 20% discount, or transferred to a slew of popular hotel loyalty and frequent flyer programs at a 1:1 ratio. Partners include airlines such as British Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and hotel chains like Hyatt, IHG, Ritz-Carlton, and Marriott.

If you don’t have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card yet, there’s no better time to sign up. Simply use your Chase Freedom® card for all of your holiday shopping on Amazon to earn 10X points through Dec. 31, and then transfer those points to your Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card account when you’re ready to book your next trip.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve got the Chase Freedom® card and don’t have your holiday list knocked off yet, you could do worse than earning 10% cash back on the rest of your online shopping at Amazon.com or Zappos. After all, it’s hard to beat Christmas shopping in your pajamas.

Once you earn 10% cash back with your Chase Freedom® card, you can choose to take it as a statement credit to offset the cost of your gifts or to redeem your points for merchandise, travel, or gift cards. And if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you could instead parlay this 10% offer into valuable Ultimate Rewards points that can be transferred to popular frequent flyer and hotel loyalty programs at a 1:1 ratio.

Are you doing your holiday shopping online this year? What strategies are you using to earn cash back?

Related Articles: 

• Our Favorite Strategies for an Inexpensive Holiday Season
• 10 Heartfelt Holiday Gifts for People Who Don’t Need More Stuff
• Six Simple Gifts to Make Between Now and Christmas

The post How to Get 10% Cash Back on All Your Holiday Shopping appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Nine Keys to Budgeting on a Fluctuating Income

Freelancers, the self-employed, and salespeople have one thing in common: They struggle to budget given their fluctuating, and sometimes unpredictable, incomes.

Imagine planning your monthly spending plan without a) knowing how much you’ll earn, b) knowing when you’ll get paid, and c) knowing how much you’ll make the following month. As crazy as it seems, this is a common scenario for people who are self-employed or working for commission.

Depending on the month and their sales or workload, they could absolutely kill it, just do okay, or fall flat on their faces in a moment of destitute failure. And the best part is, those with a fluctuating income almost never know what type of month it will be until the bitter end (e.g. when it’s too late to do anything about it or adjust your spending).

As a freelancer who enjoys this lifestyle, I’ve been riding the wave of a fluctuating income since 2012. And even though my income can double or crash at the drop of a hat, I rarely get stressed and I now save more money than I have at any other time in my life.

Budgeting With an Irregular Income: Nine Key Strategies

The thing is, there’s a method to my madness. While budgeting for a fluctuating income isn’t rocket science, certain strategies can improve your chance of success immeasurably. Through trial and error, I’ve found a process that helps take the sting out of the low months while also paving the way for optimal money management.

Here are the rules I follow when budgeting our family expenses on a wildly variable income:

Step 1: Know your baseline.

First things first: Before you can create a budget on a fluctuating income, you need to know your baseline – a.k.a. your bare-bones budget. Above all else, you need to know the bare minimum expenses you need to cover on a monthly basis.

For most people, this budget is comprised of expenses related to the absolute essentials – housing (rent or mortgage), utility bills, transportation, groceries, and childcare.

• Related: Unnecessary Necessities

When following this plan, it’s crucial to know what you absolutely need to earn to pay your bills and get by. Fortunately, this step won’t take much work or effort on your part. To create your bare-bones budget, just break out a pen and paper and create a list of your essential, ongoing monthly expenses.

While fixed expenses like your rent or mortgage are easy to figure, you may need to estimate ongoing expenses that fluctuate. Think utility bills, gas for your commute, and groceries. And don’t forget to include savings, investments, and debt repayments in your bare-bones budget. Even though these bills may not be essential to your survival, they’re still important!

Step 2: Calculate monthly discretionary expenses.

Once you’ve created your bare-bones budget, you need to come up with a list that covers everything else. In your list of discretionary expenses, you should account for things like your cable television bill, any money you regularly spend on entertainment, cash for sports or hobbies, and money you spend dining out.

If you’re struggling to find your average spending on unnecessary stuff, break out your last few months’ of bank statements and credit card bills to take a look. Unfortunately, this step can be rather painful.

Sometimes, taking a cold, hard look at spending from previous month’s expenses is all it takes to discover huge, painful leaks in your spending. If you don’t like what you see, now is the perfect time to put yourself on spending diet and whittle those numbers down.

• Related: Money Management 101: Why You Should Track Your Spending

Step 3: Build your emergency fund.

If you already have some savings, you’re way ahead of the game. Most experts suggest keeping three to six months of expenses on hand, which will work in this case. Unfortunately, building savings when you have none can be difficult.

To come up with a plan, consider automatically socking away a certain percentage of your paycheck each week or month, selling stuff you don’t need, and allocating all “found money” (like a tax refund) straight into your savings account. For other great tips, check out How to Save Money: 100 Great Tips to Get You Started.

You’ll understand why this is so important in a minute, but suffice it to say that the key to living stress-free on a fluctuating income is having ample savings. Bad months will come along, and when they do, your savings will be there to fill in the gaps and keep you on track.

A zero-sum budget can help you ride out waves of variable income. Photo: Don Graham

Step 4: Live on last month’s income.

Once you’ve created your bare-bones budget and added up your unnecessary expenses, you’ll know exactly how much money you need to make it through the month without dipping into savings. So, on the first of the next month that comes along, deposit that amount of money into your regular checking account – and nothing else.

From now on, you’ll deposit all of your income into whatever long-term or short-term savings account suits your fancy. (If you don’t have a checking or savings account, now is the time to open one!)

This whole “living on last month’s income” thing is what’s commonly referred to as a “zero-sum budget.” The idea is this: By living off last month’s income, you’re budgeting your month based on realistic figures – not income projections or wishful thinking.

• Related: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget

Step 5: Pay yourself a salary.

Remember how I asked you to deposit what you need to live in your regular checking account on the first of the month (your bare bones budget + discretionary spending)?

That’s the same thing as paying yourself a salary, which is pretty darn amazing if you think about it. Where you were once struggling with a fluctuating income, you’re now paying yourself a steady wage on the first of every month.

Even better, this strategy can help you save more money! Where any income overages you had in the past might have been absorbed by unplanned spending, surplus income should theoretically start piling up in your savings account from here on out.

If it’s not, and your money is still draining instead, you’ll need to drastically rethink your bare bones budget and discretionary spending plan. Why? Because you’re spending more than you’re earning! It’s as simple as that.

Step 6: Pay your bills based on your zero-sum budget.

At the first of the month, you should theoretically have:

• the amount of money you need for bare-bones bills plus unnecessary spending in your checking account, and
• a zero-sum budget (spending plan) with your monthly expenses and bills listed.

Meanwhile, you’ll have been depositing your earnings into your regular savings account all along – not your checking account!

From here, you’ll pay your monthly bills according to the plan you designed, and that includes “paying your savings” and any debt repayments. If you want a separate savings account for these long-term savings, now is an excellent time to open one. Or you can simply allocate cash back to your regular savings account each month and watch the money pile up.

While some fancier folks use zero-sum budgeting software like You Need a Budget or create their own spreadsheet, you can accomplish something similar with a plain ol’ pen and paper.

I’ve been using a zero-sum budget for years now, and I still write mine out like it’s 1995. Whatever works, right? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter as long as you get the job done and meet your goals.

Step 6: Mark bills as paid and end with ‘zero’.

Since all of your bills won’t be due or payable at the beginning of the month, you’ll need a system that allows you to keep track and monitor your spending as the month ticks by.

Here’s what I do: I pay bills twice per month — at the very beginning and around the 15th.

At the beginning of the month, I pay everything I that is due or payable ahead of time – my mortgage and any bills due in the middle of the month. Then, around the 15th, I pay all bills that trickled in during the first few weeks, yet are due by the end of the month – our Internet bill, utility bills, etc.

Since you’ve estimated some expenses like groceries or entertainment, you’ll need to monitor spending in those categories to make sure you don’t go over. By the end of the month, you should have a zero-sum budget with all bills marked paid, all your projected expenses (groceries, gas for your car, etc.) bought and paid for, and very little money leftover in your account.

Remember, the goal is getting down to “zero” each month.

Step 7: Start the entire process over again.

If you followed my plan, you should have:

• paid yourself a salary based on your expenses on the first of the month,
• put all of your earnings into savings,
• paid your bills according to your zero-sum budget,
• paid your savings and debt repayments, and
• finished the month with all bills paid and almost nothing in your checking account.

Now that that’s behind you, it’s time to start the whole process again! In theory, putting your income into savings and paying yourself a salary should take the stress and uncertainty out your bumpy and unpredictable income.

By paying yourself the same amount each month, you’ve allowed your good months to balance out the bad – but without the normal stress that comes with self-employment.

Step 8: Work out the kinks.

Learning to use a zero-sum budget isn’t rocket science, but that doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing, either. Especially at first, you’ll likely need to tweak your estimated spending until you settle into a plan that works – at least most of the time.

If you haven’t lived with a budget before, it can be difficult to stick with the program. It might be hard to avoid impulse purchases, plan for biannual or irregular expenses like car insurance or home repairs, or tell yourself “no.”

At the end of the day, remember that it will all be worth it. Where you were once living with a fluctuating income, you’re now earning a salary, saving more than in the past, and doing it all on your own terms. That’s something worth celebrating!

Step 9: Find a place for your extra cash.

If you’re following all these steps to a T, you should have extra money left over each month. Not only are you saving money in your bare-bones budget, but your income overages should start piling up in your savings account.

While it’s smart to keep some of that money in an emergency fund, you may want to invest any substantial sums that build up. Remember, unless your savings account is paying a decent-sized interest rate, you’re losing money by letting too much cash sit idle.

• Related: Not investing Yet? Here’s How to Get Started

Another way to put extra money to use is to speed up your journey out of debt. Figure out how much extra money you’re accumulating every few months and start putting those funds toward debt repayment in your zero-sum budget instead.

If you don’t want to do it on a monthly basis, you can also pay down debts in a lump sum every few months instead. Either way, you’ll put those funds to use, save money on interest, and get out of debt sooner than you planned.

• Related: 11 Ways to Get Out of Debt Faster

Note: If you’re not accumulating any extra money, it may be time to rethink your bare-bones budget and discretionary spending categories. Because, if you aren’t saving anything, you’re simply spending every dollar you earn.

Final Thoughts

While a fluctuating income makes budgeting more of a chore, using a zero-sum budget and paying yourself a salary is the best way around it. Further, this strategy can actually help you become more in control of your money; by getting up close and personal with your spending, you might gain a new appreciation for the dollars you earn.

Personally, I’ve found that zero-sum budgeting helps me save more than I would otherwise. Thanks to my zero-sum budget, I am forced to look at my spending critically and pay my savings and investments as if they were an ordinary bills. And when I want to save more, I simply tighten my belt and look for expenses to cut out of the monthly spending plan I created.

I may not like it all the time, but I am always the one in control.

How do you budget on a fluctuating income? Have you ever used a zero-sum budget?

The post Nine Keys to Budgeting on a Fluctuating Income appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Cars We Remember: Car auctions and the muscle car era

Q: Hi Greg. I was just reading your response to a gentleman from New Jersey about car auctions and high performance cars. Well, you can’t find a bigger auction fan than me as my attraction to cars started back in the 1940s at a car auction. My parents moved to Odessa, Mo., in 1949 and owned a café there in the 1950s. Every Saturday morning after I finished my café duties, I worked at the local car auction where I rang the “opening bell” to start [...]

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Silvio Calabi: The Zee is still Nissan’s Extrovert

Given the handcuffs of time and budget, a carmaker that has to choose between updating its niche model or its bread-and-butter vehicles is always going to focus on the ones that bring in the cash. Maybe that’s why the only change to the 370Z, Nissan’s middle-aged sports car, for 2016 is a new color of paint: blue. Deep Blue Pearl, actually. That’s nice, but where’s the year-over-year boost in power, preferably with better fuel economy? The new all-wheel [...]

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Got Wanderlust? 12 Cyber Monday Travel Deals You Won’t Want to Miss

Want to get away this winter? Look into Cyber Monday travel deals.  

We’ve already talked about Cyber Monday hotel deals, and in this post, we’ll cover sales from general travel websites and tour providers.

Whether you’re interested in a discounted flight or all-inclusive volunteer vacation, you may find a travel deal that fits your fancy.

12 Cyber Monday Travel Deals

Got wanderlust? Here are some travel deals you might like.

1. Cheap Caribbean

Dreaming of fun in the sun? Cheap Caribbean has some scorching deals on its trips, which include airfare, hotel and sometimes food.  

A three-night getaway from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the Gran Melia in Puerto Rico, for example, is on sale for $199. That price includes your airfare, hotel, a free fruit basket and 20% off food and beverages.

Or, you can use promo code CYBER150 to get $150 off any stay of five nights or more.

2. CheapTickets

Want to save on hotel stays or event tickets? Check CheapTickets’ Cyber Monday sale.  

Save 20% on qualifying hotel stays from now through March 21, 2016 by using promo code RIBBON. Starting at 12:01 CST on Nov. 30, you can also save an extra 2% by being one of the first 200 customers to use promo code SHIMMER.

You can also get 10% off event tickets — think college bowl games or Broadway shows — using promo code HOLIDAY10.

Lastly, an opportunity to stack deals: Spend $100 or more on an eligible flight, and automatically get $20 in CheapCash, which you can use on future hotel bookings.

3. Discover Corps

Have you ever heard of a volunteer vacation? It’s an opportunity to give back while exploring a new country.

Discover Corps is a volunteer vacation organization invites you to “choose experiences over things” this Cyber Monday.

To do this, it’s offering a double group discount on any of its all-inclusive volunteer vacations, meaning: If you join with a group of four or more people, you could get up to $700 off per person!

4. Expedia

Travel giant Expedia is offering a unique Cyber Monday sale through its smartphone app: 90% off hotels in four destinations, which change each hour from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST. Travel must be completed between now and March 31, 2016.

Here are the destinations included and the times their sales will start:

9 a.m.: Hawaii, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York City

10 a.m.: San Diego, Austin, New Orleans, Cancun

11 a.m.: Los Angeles, Vegas, Orlando, Punta Cana

12 p.m.: Cancun, Boston, Hawaii, Dallas

1 p.m.: San Francisco, Puerto Rico, Riviera Maya, Los Cabos

2 p.m.: New York City, Las Vegas, Orange County, Atlanta

3 p.m.: Jamaica, Miami, Puerto Vallarta, Seattle

Even if you’re not traveling to any of the regions listed, you can still save on your first hotel booking through Expedia’s app: $75 off any booking of $300 or more. Sign up for a coupon code.

5. Friendly Planet

Thirsty for adventure? Friendly Planet offers small group tours to over 35 countries — which include airfare, deluxe accommodations and a guide.

Starting at midnight EST on Cyber Monday, it’s offering discounts of up to $600, including $400 off their brand-new, air-inclusive tour to the Galapagos Islands.

6. G Adventures

Another small-group adventure tour operator is G Adventures. On Cyber Monday, use promo code 16GA100ADV12 to get $100 off any tour that costs more than $1,000 and departs before June 30, 2016.

Or, on 50 selected tours departing before June 30, 2016, you can get 15% off using promo code 16GA015DES05; sample tours include Belize Explorer, Best of Panama, Nepal Adventure and Absolute Peru.

7. Hotwire

Though Hotwire’s prices are already discounted, it’s offering additional savings when you book through its app on Cyber Monday.

You can save $20 off on Hot Rate hotel bookings of $100 or more, or $5 off car rentals of $25 or more.

8. Intrepid Travel

From Cyber Monday through Dec. 3, 2016, Intrepid Travel is offering 20% off trips leaving before April 30, 2016, and 10% off trips before Sept. 30, 2016.

Intrepid offers international small-group adventures; sample trips include Victoria Falls to Zanzibar, Central American Journey and Best of America.

9. Norwegian Cruise Line

If a cruise is in your future, Norwegian Cruise Line has sweetened the pot a little bit.

When booking a cruise that’s 3-16 days in length, you can select two of the following offers: a free Ultimate Beverage Package, Specialty Dining Package, four $50 shore excursion credits, or 250-minute WiFi package.

If you book a suite, you’ll receive all four special offers.  

10. Rail Europe

Traveling to Europe soon? Chances are you’ll take a train at some point on your trip — and if so, you might want a Rail Europe pass, which must be purchased stateside.

The company is offering a variety of Cyber Week deals between now and Dec. 4, 2015, including $100-$300 or 30% off specific passes and tickets.

11. STA Travel

Lucky enough to be under the age of 26? Or a student or teacher? You’re eligible for special travel discounts, many of which can be found at STA Travel.

It’s offering some Cyber Monday deals, too: up to $50 off flights with promo code BFCM2015 and 20% off adventure tours with promo code 16PA020DES02.

Or, if you call to book, you can get a $150 credit towards flights when you book a tour of $1,000 or more with promo code 16GA100ADV12.

12. StudentUniverse

Though StudentUniverse is technically available to anyone, many of its deals do require you to be in school or under a certain age.

For Cyber Monday, it has a small selection of discounts on flights and tours, including up to $802 off European tours, $856 off South Pacific tours, $1,104 on Asian tours and $200 off Qantas flights.

Your Turn: Do you have any travel plans in 2016?

Susan Shain, senior writer for The Penny Hoarder, is always seeking adventure on a budget. Visit her blog at susanshain.com, or say hi on Twitter @susan_shain.

This post originally appeared on our special Cyber Monday site.

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The 6 Key Skills of a Brilliant Content Marketer

Some jobs are easy to define and prepare for:

Want to be an engineer? Go to school and get an engineering degree.

Want to code for Google? Go to school and study computer science.

What do you do when you want to be a content marketer?

Go to school and study content marketing? Hmm…there doesn’t seem to be a program for that, please try again.

Sure, it wouldn’t hurt to study general business or marketing, but that’s not enough either. You’ll end up learning many things you don’t really need and not learning those you do need.

All the top content marketers I know have a wide variety of useful skills that closely relate to content marketing.

This is largely out of necessity.

Content marketing—the modern version of it—didn’t really become popular until the last few years.

And while the future looks bright for content marketers of today, who knows if the subject will ever make its way to mainstream education.

If you really want to be a great content marketer, there’s only one place for you to get your education:

The real world.

There is very little barrier to entry, which means you can jump in the deep end immediately and start learning.

You’ve likely already started your content marketing education but might be looking for information on how to take the next steps.

Well, there are 6 skills that I believe all great content marketers need.

I’m going to tell you what they are and go into detail about why they are important and how you can develop them.

1. A love for data analysis sets you apart

Many writers have transitioned to content marketing in the past few years.

They have many of the skills I’m going to go over, but they commonly lack this one.

Being able to tell a story is good, but it’s what you do with that story that really matters.

The content in “content marketing” needs to be created for a purpose. And the only way to know whether that purpose is being fulfilled and goals are being met (or progressed upon) is to look at the data.

A great content marketer is a lover of both content and numbers, which is a rare package.

A great content marketer is results-based: It starts with knowing that you need a way of measuring your results.

To do this, you need to understand the role of metrics in a business. These metrics are also being called key performance indicators (KPIs).

Metrics are a way of describing goals.

If your goal is to increase readership, the metrics you’ll be concerned with are traffic and subscribers.

You can monitor metrics over time to see if you are making progress. If the progress is too slow, you can test different approaches and look at the metrics to see if they are working.

Although every content marketing plan has its own goals, there are a few metrics that are important in nearly every scenario.

You’ll notice that those metrics cover numbers both before and after a sale.

The most common purpose of content marketing is to improve sales, so you’d better see an increase in revenue if you’re doing it right.

Data collection and analysis are the basic skills a content marketer needs: The first step is realizing that metrics are a necessary part of business.

You don’t need to obsess over them, but you do need to make sure you know how to track and analyze them.

Tracking is very simple.

Know how to install something like Google Analytics or KISSmetrics.

Analytics software not only tracks your readers’ behavior but also provides you with a dashboard for quickly organizing and analyzing it.

The first big obstacle content marketers need to overcome is learning how to use the analytics software.

You can find tutorials online to help with this, but the simplest way is to simply play around with it yourself and look through different tabs and settings.

The second obstacle is much larger.

You need to learn how to analyze that data.

You can get the basics of this pretty quickly:

• choose your metrics
• look at them over a valid time period
• assess whether the metrics have improved or worsened

The hard part is knowing how to analyze data properly.

Really good content marketers know how to look at the situation, conduct very specific tests, and segment the analytics data to provide meaningful information.

Often, new marketers will make decisions based on analytics, but they don’t look at the right set of users.

For example, if you had two versions of a blog layout and saw that one had a better time on-page, you might conclude that it’s better.

However, it’s possible that it’s really not if you dig into things like:

• browser
• returning visitors
• time of week

It may turn out that the second page performs better in all browsers except Internet Explorer.

That would lead you to investigate why that is, and you’d probably find out that it’s not showing up correctly. Fixing the errors would change the results of your experiment.

By having more experience and knowledge, that content marketer may have just made his or her business tens of thousands of dollars. Repeat that over the course of several years, and you see why a good content marketer is worth a lot.

This is a skill that needs to be developed through experience or mentorship by an expert. There are no shortcuts, e.g., you can’t just read a blog post about it and become an expert.

Every marketer should be able to do basic A/B testing: I’ve already mentioned testing a few times.

While there are a few types of experiments you can run, the most basic is an A/B split test.

First, you should understand what split tests are and why they are valuable.

They allow you to test two different versions of content to see which one leads to better metrics.

Split-testing is very useful for gaining continual small improvements in metrics such as conversion rate.

These small improvements add up to impressive results over time.

Second, you need to know how to run split tests and analyze the results.

Fortunately, it’s very simple now with modern software.

If you want a more detailed look at running a split test, you can refer to my guide on conversion optimization. Otherwise, there are just a few main steps.

First, you’ll need to pick a piece of software to help set up the test and track the results. For example, you can use Optimizely.

Then, you’ll need to create a hypothesis for a test.

The best split testers know how to test something that is likely to have a big impact on the metric you’re trying to improve.

These aren’t usually pulled out of thin air. Instead, they are determined based on analyzing analytics and user behavior data.

Software like Crazy Egg can show you how visitors use your website. You can use that information to make an educated guess about how to improve the clarity of your content.

Finally, you’ll need to determine a significant sample size and collect data. Most types of software do this for you nowadays.

At the end, you pick the winner and start again.

It will be a big benefit to understand the statistics behind split testing to spot mistakes and set up useful tests.

If you’ve never taken a statistics class, you can take one online free.

There are many, but here are two popular classes:

• Statistics One by Princeton
• Intro to Statistics: Making Decisions Based on Data

It’s not mandatory, but it’s a nice asset to have.

2. Research is the key to any type of marketing

One of the most important but overlooked skills a content marketer can have is the ability to conduct research.

That’s a pretty broad term.

It covers everything related to discovering and understanding a topic.

With respect to content marketing, there are a few main reasons why your ability to research effectively is so important.

Reason #1 – To understand your customer: If you want to be a good content marketer, you need to understand the type of reader you’re trying to attract.

If you don’t, you can’t produce content that they will be interested in.

You won’t be able to write about the right topics, and you won’t know how your readers enjoy consuming the information.

If you don’t research your target reader and understand them, you’re basically just guessing what they might like.

It can still work, but be prepared to produce hundreds of pieces of content until you learn what works.

Or do some research, and get it right the first time. Clients don’t want to pay you for months on end while you figure things out by trial and error.

So, how do you actually research your reader and customer?

There are tons of ways.

And there are no wrong answers.

You might start by paying attention to what readers are saying in the comments of your, or your competitor’s, website.

Answer questions like:

• what do they like about the content?
• what don’t they like?
• what other subjects are they interested in?
• what kind of job/life do they have (readers will often tell you)?

Or you can hunt down small niche forums and spend time digging into threads:

This is a great way to find out about their problems, which make great content ideas.

Or you can research demographic data using sites like Alexa.

Demographics are a key part of building a reader profile.

These are three of many options.

Great content marketers keep digging until they have as clear of a picture of their reader as possible.

They do this before they ever start writing.

An hour of research here might save several hours of work in the future.

Research #2 – To understand your product: Selling products isn’t an accident. You need to have a plan to effectively sell anything with content marketing.

Many inexperienced content marketers will say, “I’ll worry about the product later,” and focus on just producing content.

BIG mistake. Why?

Because when you do that, you don’t ensure that your product matches your audience’s needs.

This is called product-market fit.

Instead, you need to figure out how your content should relate to and add to the promotion of any products you sell.

This is where research comes in.

There are two main scenarios that you’ll need to be comfortable in.

The first is when you’re hired by a company that already sells a product. You need to research the product and understand what it does (and sometimes how it does it).

Pretend I hired you to manage the Crazy Egg blog. How could you do it without understanding the product?

You wouldn’t be able to create product tutorials or content that features the software until you get familiar with it:

While that’s far from the only content produced on the blog, it’s a type of content that plays an important role in the sales process.

The other scenario is when you don’t have a product yet.

Research is even more important in this case.

You’ll need to find out which products your audience will pay for and potentially how to create those products as well.

Finally, and most importantly, a great content marketer knows how to research content topics.

You need to know what you’re talking about in order to write a high quality article.

This involves knowing how to look up high quality journal articles as well as other resources:

It also involves spending the time understanding those resources.

If you’re writing about advanced topics, this takes considerable persistence, and many weak content marketers will simply find a lower quality resource instead.

Great content marketers aren’t lazy.

Reason #3 – To solve problems independently: The final main reason why research is an important skill for content marketers to have is because without it, you’ll often get stuck.

Content marketers will always be faced with questions and problems:

• What should I write about?
• What’s the best format for this content?
• How do I create this form of content?
• I don’t understand this topic, so what do I do?

Let me give you a realistic scenario…

Let’s say you’re keeping up with the latest SEO posts, and you see this filter before a list of tools on Backlinko:

And you think: “A filter like that would really improve a piece of content I’m working on.”

Here’s the problem: there’s no simple plugin to do it for you.

So, what then? Most will give up. A great content marketer, however, will dig in and figure it out.

They will learn that the filter uses a simple Javascript script.

Now, most content marketers don’t know how to create one of their own. However, the best will find someone who can make one.

They’ll head over to Odesk or Upwork and create a job posting for a developer.

(That’s not a relevant posting to this problem, by the way.)

The big difference between a good and bad content marketer is persistence.

Great marketers will keep researching until they find the answer to their problem. That’s what makes them stand out from everyone else.

3. Content takes many forms; being able to create it starts with writing

Although content marketing is a niche of marketing, it’s still fairly broad.

Content can take many different forms:

• text posts
• infographics
• videos
• slide shows
• tools
• charts
• e-books

While it’s good to know how to create all types of content, they all, to some degree, involve writing.

Even making videos requires you to produce a script.

As you also know, most content marketing is done in the form of blog posts—typically text- and image-based content.

There are a few skills that go into being a good writer (and content marketer).

Skill #1 – Basic writing ability: There’s a common misconception about what it takes to be a “great writer” (at least when it comes to web content).

No, you don’t need to be able to write an essay like you were taught in school.

No, you don’t need to have an extensive vocabulary with tons of fancy words in it.

In reality, great writing for most situations is very simple. As long as you can write while following basic grammar and have enough of a vocabulary to express your ideas, you’re fine.

Basic writing ability also includes a few more things.

Research, as we talked about before, is one.

In addition, do you know how to use the writing tools at your disposal? Can you work in MS Word or Google Docs and know how to format your content?

Can you then take that post and format it in a major content management system such as WordPress and Drupal?

No, it’s not difficult, but you still need to know how to do these things.

If you don’t, spend a bit of time Googling and learning how to make the most of modern writing tools.

Skill #2 – Being able to write persuasively: When everyone has the same basic writing tools (that we just went over), how do great writers stand out?

Using the same words doesn’t mean you’ll have the same message. The words you choose will have a large effect on how interesting your content is to read.

You want to be able to write persuasively and conversationally:

Writing persuasively begins and ends with how well you understand your reader.

If you know exactly how they think, you can guide them from one thought to another until they reach a conclusion that provokes action.

This takes practice, and the more you write, the better you’ll get.

Additionally, you want to write conversationally.

It’s not complicated. There are only two main aspects:

• Use first and second person pronouns - e.g., “you”, “us”, “your”, “we.”
• Use the reader’s language – use the same words they do to describe their problems.

You can see that writing persuasively and writing conversationally overlap because to be good at both, you need to understand your readers’ language.

Skill #3 – Being able to come up with the right kind of ideas: There are some fantastic writers out there who make poor content marketers.

While they can write well when given a topic (or guidance on which topics are best), they struggle to see how it all fits together.

It’s not enough to come up with ideas to write about. You have to come up with content ideas that address readers at each step of the buying process.

In addition, you need to take interesting angles on each topic so that people actually would want to read them.

Let’s look at an example.

If you follow multiple marketing blogs, you’ve seen several posts on video marketing in the last few months.

These are typically along the lines of “X tips on using video marketing effectively.”

A post like that doesn’t have an angle to it. There’s no hook.

Instead, I wrote a post titled “4 Clever Ways Videos Can Help You Attract Customers”.

My readers are smart. They don’t want to do video marketing for the sake of it; they want to do it to achieve a result.

So, I took an angle on this topic. I showed how videos can be used to get more customers.

That’s something readers are actually interested in.

Skill #4 – Being able to write efficiently: Finally, it’s worth noting that the best content marketers are able to crank out high quality posts on a regular basis without burning out.

They can only do this by writing fast.

They’ve all developed a process that works for them, and it’s something that you’ll have to do as well.

If you’re a slow writer, read how you can double your writing speed.

One final note about this is that it will take time.

Everyone is a slow writer when they start. At that point, focusing on quality is most important.

Once you have a handle on that, then start focusing on producing content at a faster and more consistent rate.

4. The world of marketing will always change: those who adapt will survive

If you look at the great content marketers of today, you’ll notice something.

They were great marketers a few years ago although they might have had a different title.

All industries evolve over time and shift to new areas.

When a shift occurs, usually over a few years, everyone has a decision to make:

Should I adapt?

Some never make it and fall into obscurity.

There are still SEOs who are preaching tactics from the early 2000s that are no longer effective.

They never adapted to the changes in the SEO industry because they were afraid of losing what they had gained.

But the people you see who stay consistently at the top of their fields are always looking to learn about the “next thing.”

They adapt no matter what the circumstances are.

What this means to you as a content marketer: Content marketing, as we define it today, is still relatively young.

It’s only going to grow in the foreseeable future.

However, that doesn’t mean it won’t change.

Content marketing itself will continue to evolve. It’s up to you to always keep learning and improving your skill set.

Many poor content marketers know how to implement only one tactic or strategy successfully.

However, that’s not enough. A single tactic or strategy will never work in all situations. Also, it may not work in the future.

The best content marketers right now know how to use a wide variety of tactics and strategies depending on the situation (client, niche, resources, etc.).

They are also continually testing new ones to stay ahead of everyone else.

For you, this means that you need to keep learning.

When you find something that works, by all means use it. However, don’t think that you “figured it all out.”

5. No time should be wasted waiting, which is why you need to be a jack-of-all-trades

There’s one more area that I think will continue to become more important.

And it doesn’t contain just one skill, but a few different ones.

I’m talking about two in particular:

• coding
• design

These are “accessory skills.” You don’t need them to be a great content marketer.

However, they will help.

There are two main benefits of having some skill in either of these (you don’t need to be an expert).

First, it will save you time.

Instead of having to hire a developer to create a simple script (like that filtering example we looked at earlier), you could do it yourself.

Typically, being able to do something like that can save you days when producing a piece of content.

Add that up over many instances, and a content marketer who can code or design becomes even more valuable.

The second main benefit is that it will help you come up with better content ideas.

When you understand the role of design and coding in content, you start to see opportunities where they could be used to improve content.

Instead of just making a list post, you might think of creating a sortable list post where each item has its own custom icon.

But if you have no knowledge in these two areas, it’s never going to cross your mind unless something tells you to do it.

Helpful skill #1 – Coding: For the non-programmer, coding is very intimidating. It’s actually simpler than it looks (for most basic things).

In particular, for content marketing, you’ll want to learn three different languages:

• HTML5
• CSS
• Javascript

Yes, technically HTML and CSS aren’t programming languages, but to a non-coder, they all appear similar.

The first two are the simplest and affect how your content shows up on a page.

Javascript is an actual programming language that allows the visitor to interact with a web page (and run a script).

You don’t need to become an expert, but you should be able to sort out simple problems.

For example, if a picture isn’t showing up correctly on a page, what do you do?

That’s a simple issue. You really want to avoid having to find someone who can help you fix it because that results in wasted hours.

Instead, you can go into the page source, find the error, and then fix it (in this case, the image width was wrong):

That fix should take less than a minute.

So, how do you learn these?

Take them one by one, and start with the Codecademy track for each of them:

• HTML and CSS
• Javascript

If you complete each of those, you’ll be ahead of the majority of marketers.

Helpful skill #2 – Design: Design skills can be used for just about every piece of content.

Think of the number of times a custom image could improve your content. Probably at least a few times a post.

One option is to hire a freelance designer to create them, which isn’t a bad option.

However, it’s silly to be waiting for a freelancer when all you need is one simple picture.

You don’t need to be an expert, but you should have basic design skills.

I can show you 90% of what you need to know in a single post. And that post is my guide to creating custom images for your blog post without hiring a designer (like the one below).

6. Oh yeah, there’s one more thing that’s kind of important…

No, I didn’t forget it…

The final skill you need in order to be a great content marketer is a strong knowledge of content marketing.

Without that, you can’t put together a full effective strategy that produces results you want, no matter how well you write, research, adapt, etc.

This is where blogs like Quick Sprout and Content Marketing Institute come in. Short of having a great content marketer as a mentor, in-depth blog posts will be the best way to learn (along with paid courses if possible).

There are no shortcuts here either.

There are many areas of content marketing to learn about.

It will take continuous time and effort to learn all of these. I’d estimate at least three years for someone very committed to become an expert in all of these.

That doesn’t mean you’ll suck before you get to that point—you can still have a lot of success.

The important takeaway from this is that you need to make learning an integral part of your life, even when you get busy.

Conclusion

Being a content marketer is not easy.

You’re expected to wear a lot of hats and contribute to a business in a lot of ways.

While doing this, you need to be developing these 6 skills along the way.

If you do, you will see your value as a content marketer rising, and you will get to the top of the field in time.

If you stay committed to developing these skills, you’ll stay there too.

I have a few quick questions for you now: Which of these skills do you still need to improve? And are there any in particular that you need more detailed help with? Let me know in a comment below.

Source Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/1PW5t6G