Expecting Class-Action Cash for Cruise Line Robocalls? You Must Read This

Sail away, sail away, sail—

Not so fast, captain.

That cruise line class-action settlement we told you about last year just got a little more complicated.

Originally, if you received an unsolicited robocall between July 2009 and March 2014 offering you a free cruise, you may have been eligible to receive up to $900 as part of a class-action settlement against Resort Marketing Group, the company accused of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Turns out, more than 2.6 million people filed claims, causing concerns about fraud — oh, the irony.

The flood of claims meant that the $7 million to $12.5 million settlement fund would dwindle to a few dollars each for claimants, nowhere close to the $900 maximum previously established.

Now, claimants are being asked to complete one more step before receiving their class-action cut.

How to Get Your Slice of the Cruise Line Class-Action Pie

If you submitted a claim before the Nov. 3, 2017, deadline, you still need to submit additional documentation to prove you actually received one of those annoying robocalls peddling a free cruise.

You should have already received an email notice from Charvat v. Resort Marketing Group if you filed a claim last year. However, many of the notices bounced, so claimants may not be aware they have to complete one more step.

The notice asks claimants to submit documentation, like a phone bill or page from a phone directory, that ties them to their number during the July 2009 to March 2014 time frame.

Visit the settlement website for notices, details on documentation and questions.

Documentation submissions can be emailed to administrator@rmgtcpasettlement.com or uploaded to the settlement website.

Let’s just hope you’re a paper or phone book hoarder or can access your 2009 to 2014 phone bills, or maybe you have an old internet or cable bill with your digits on it.

The upside is if you happen to have the paperwork, you may get a bigger chunk of the settlement fund; but if you don’t, you may be left class-actionless.

Stephanie Bolling is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. Bruise rhymes with cruise, and this is a total “ouch!”

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Blake Lively Proves Drugstore Makeup Can Look Like 2 Million Bucks

On the first Monday of May, every year, hundreds of Hollywood stars get dressed up for a sort of celebrity costume party.

OK, so “costume party” may be trivializing the matter. We’re talking about the Met Gala — the annual fundraising event held to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City.

It’s a night of opulence reserved only for the elite (rumor has it Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, controls the guest list and hand selects about 600 people to receive invites), and tickets go for a whopping $30,000 a piece.

Guests show up in over-the-top, ornately decorated custom ensembles from the biggest names in the fashion world, and most of the outfits end up looking more like art than clothing.  

In fact, Rihanna, who co-chaired the event and may have worn the most on-theme outfit of the night (the theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” in case you were wondering), wore a dress that took 750 hours to sew and embroider by hand.

Some designer dresses will even run you as much as $35,000 — although that number is from 2013, so they’re probably only getting pricier as designers try to outdo themselves year over year.

Yeah, there’s not a lot of Penny Hoarding going on at the Met Gala.

So when we heard of one star who paired her $2 million Lorraine Schwartz jewelry with a budget-friendly drugstore makeup look, we were intrigued, to say the least.

Blake Lively Wore a Full Face of Drugstore Makeup to the Met Gala (and Looked Good Doing It)

Blake Lively, whose Versace gown needed its own party bus just to transport it to the event, was one of the best-dressed of the night. (OK, yes, there are like 25 people on my personal “best-dressed” list for this year’s event, but still.)

But what set the actress apart was her face.

To complete her ensemble, which included a custom-made halo featuring over 100 carats of diamonds, Lively turned to makeup brand L’Oréal Paris.

Like, the stuff you could walk into your local drugstore and pick up for a few bucks right now. Yeah, that L’Oréal Paris.

And the star didn’t just use a little eyeshadow or a swipe of blush so she could say she repped the brand; she wore nothing but the inexpensive drugstore line.

According to Allure, makeup artist Kristofer Buckle used everything from L’Oréal Paris’ Hydra Genius moisturizer to the line’s Colour Riche Shine lipstick to create Lively’s glowy, rosy look.

And sure, while the sheer perfection that was the star’s look probably had a lot to do with the professional makeup artist’s handiwork, it’s pretty cool to see a star wearing makeup that just about anyone could afford.

I may never get within 10 feet of $2 million in jewels without a layer of bulletproof glass between us (much less wear them), but I can totally re-create this makeup look with a YouTube tutorial and products I already have at home.

That way, if my invite to the Met Gala ever shows up in the mail, I’ll be totally ready.

Grace Schweizer is a junior writer at The Penny Hoarder. Her sister has heard and confirmed her “Top 25 Best Dressed at the Met Gala 2k18” list.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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This Company Gives Away Feminine Hygiene Products If You Pay For Shipping

The good news: Some states are finally eliminating tax on feminine hygiene products.

The bad news: The pink tax — a premium charge for women’s products simply because they are dressed up in pink and flowers — is still alive and well around the country.

Until the U.S. begins taking its cue from Scotland by giving out free sanitary products, all people who have periods can do is look for ways to save a few bucks on necessities.

Knotty Vibes, a startup co-founded by Sheila Oh and Courtney Davis, wants to give people who can’t afford feminine-hygiene products free access to the supplies they need to empower them to manage their reproductive health.

Knotty Vibes its offers customers free menstrual cups and reusable pads, no purchase required. Simply place your order through the company’s website, pay a small shipping fee and the discreetly packaged products arrive in about a week and a half (longer for orders outside the U.S.).

I caught up with Oh to learn more about the program and its products.

“Women already spend $18,000 a year on feminine-hygiene products, not including tax,” Oh said. “I don’t think it’s fair for anyone with a reproductive system to spend that kind of money when we’re already only making 80 cents on the dollar.”

Menstrual cups and reusable cloth pads are popular with Penny Hoarders.

People use them for a variety of reasons, like lessening the impact of discarded sanitary products on the environment, saving money and keeping chemically treated products away from their bodies.

At a glance, it may seem the cups and pads are more difficult to work with than tampons and disposable pads, but Oh said they are “pretty low-maintenance.”

“Using the pads is very, very simple,” Oh said. “Just wash it with cold water, rinse in cold water and throw it in the washer with everything else. It won’t stain or damage your clothes.”

Oh said menstrual cups should be rinsed after emptying and boiled after every few uses.

The pads are designed for medium and light flow, but Oh doesn’t recommend them for heavier- flow days.

“For heavy flow, I recommend the cup because it can handle it and be used for up to eight hours,” she said.

There are no restrictions on how many cups and pads customers can order.

“You can get as many as you want. We want people to give them out to their friends and family,” Oh said.

Shipping costs to a U.S. address begin at $7.99 for one of either product and $10.99 for any combination of the two. Customers outside the U.S. may have higher shipping fees because of shipping methods and customs costs.

If you’re comparison shopping, menstrual cups cost anywhere from $7.50 with free shipping at Walmart to $39.99 at Target.

You can find reusable pads at Walmart beginning at $5.94 with free shipping at Walmart up to $18.99 for a 3-pack at Target.

“Shipping is not free because it’s an extra cost that keeps us from giving back to organizations,” Oh said. “We want to stay as lean as possible so we can give back as much as possible.”

The company’s charity extends beyond giving away free products. In partnership with the social- activism nonprofit Pledgling, Knotty Vibes divides a portion of all proceeds between 12 women’s wellness organizations.

Lisa McGreevy is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She enjoys telling readers about affordable ways to stay healthy, so look her up on Twitter (@lisah) if you’ve got a tip to share.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

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Ohio National Financial Services Review

When you’re shopping for insurance, one of the biggest decisions you’ll need to make is which company you’re going to choose.

You can probably name about 10 carriers off the top of your head. Just because you know their name, doesn’t make them the best choice.

What should you look at when you’re comparing companies? There are a dozen different categories.

To save you time and trouble, we’ve done the work for you.

At Good Financial Cents, we pride ourselves on being able to give our readers the information they need to make the best decisions for their insurance needs.

For this article, we are going to focus on Ohio National Financial Services. If you haven’t heard of Ohio National, you might be missing out on the best insurance company for you.

History of Ohio National Financial Services, Inc.

Let’s talk about the start of Ohio National. They are over 100 years old. They celebrated their centennial in 2009, meaning they were established in 1909. They were originally opened as a stock company but was converted to a mutual company in 1959.

Through the years, they’ve hit a lot of milestones and experienced a lot of changes. They sold their first insurance plan in 1910. More than 40 years later, in 1954 they decided to start selling group life insurance.

4 years after that, in 1959, they officially reached more than $1 billion in active life insurance policies.

Shortly after, in 1961, they started selling disability insurance. They wanted to give their customers more protection beyond what was offered by their life insurance.

9 years later, in 1970, they expanded their products even further by adding variable annuities. In 2012, they had over $34 billion assets they managed.

Rates, Finances, and Grades

One of the best ways to look at the quality of a company is to review the grades from other sources.

You may not know this, but there are several companies out there which rate companies based on their own scales.

Before you buy an insurance policy, you should check out these companies to see the grades.

The three main companies are Standard & Poor’s, A.M. Best, and Moody’s. All of these companies have years of experience grading insurance companies.

Let’s look at the grades for Ohio National:

• Moody’s: A1
• A.M. Best: A+
• Standard & Poor’s: A+

As you can see from the grades, Ohio National has excellent rates from just about every third-party company out there.

Another source you should check before buying a policy is the Better Business Bureau (BBB). They are one of the biggest “watchdogs” out there, and they have reviews of millions of companies.

From the BBB, Ohio National has an A+ grade and they are BBB accredited. In fact, they received accreditation way back in 1938.

You can trust a company which has held accreditation for that long.

Products from Ohio National

One of the shining parts of Ohio National is all of the options they have. There are some companies out there which specialize in one specific type of protection.

Ohio National gives you dozens of options and products you can choose from. We are going to look at some of their key insurance plans.

Life Insurance

To start, let’s look at their life insurance options. Life insurance was one of their first products, and they have plenty of choices.

Life insurance is the best safety net you can ever invest in. Your family is going to be responsible for your debts, and life insurance gives them money to settle those debts.

Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance is the traditional type of coverage. These policies are the cheapest and most cost-effective way to get life insurance.

Ohio National offers term life insurance policies in 10, 15, and 20 years terms. Their plans come with either a “basic” conversion option or a “plus” conversion option.

With the basic option, you’ll have a window of opportunity to turn your term policy into the whole life option. With the plus plans, you can convert your policy into a universal life or variable universal life.

Whole Life

If you don’t want to ever lose coverage, then whole life insurance should be your go-to plan. Keep paying your premiums and you have coverage.

When it comes to whole life from Ohio National’s whole life, you’ll have four options:

• Prestige Value III – if you’re looking for the most affordable whole life plan from Ohio Nation, this is it. It gives you protection as well as the cash-value component.
• Prestige Max II – with this policy, it’s designed to be paid-up by the time you turn 65 (or 10 years after you buy the plan). The goal of this policy is to make the most of the savings and get the highest dividends possible.
• Prestige 100 – With this policy, you’ll pay premiums until you turn 100, but it gives you lifetime coverage. Regardless of how old you are, you’ll always have insurance.
• Prestige 10 Pay – If you don’t want to pay premiums for the rest of your life, you can cram them all into 10 years with this plan. Pay a level premium for the first 10 years, and then never pay another dime for your coverage.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance

Indexed universal life is another type of whole life insurance but has some extra perks a traditional policy doesn’t offer.

With the Virtus Indexed Universal Life plan, you can get flexibility death benefit as either a level sum or an increasing amount. You’ll build cash value, and you can use that value as a loan or withdraw.

Universal Life Insurance

The advantage of universal life insurance policies is the flexibility they offer. With these policies, you aren’t bound to any of the benefits of premiums. It allows you to change the plan as your life changes.

Ohio National sells two universal life insurance policies:

• V-Pro UL – this is policy gives you universal coverage at an affordable price.
• Virtus Basic – this policy is built for parents wanting to buy coverage for their children. These policies can give up to $100,000. These plans can be converted to a universal life insurance policy.

These policies let you choose when you pay premiums, you can use the money built up, and you can also either increase or decrease the payout from the policy.

With Ohio National, you’ll get a guaranteed interest rate on the cash value. You’ll earn at least 2.5%, but according to the past performance, you’ll get more than that.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

The Virtus VUL earns returns based on the market activity of the portfolio where you put the premium payment. Unlike the other policies, this plan doesn’t give you a guaranteed return on the cash value.

The advantage of these policies is they can earn you much more than the other options, but you don’t have the guaranteed returns.

No risk, no reward.

Disability Insurance

Life insurance protects your family if you were to pass away, but that’s not the only thing you have to be worried about.

What if you were to fall and injure yourself? You’re out of work for a month or more.

If you can’t go to work, you aren’t going to get paid. This is why you should consider buying a disability insurance policy.

If you ever find yourself unable to work, this plan can help replace some of your lost income.

Ohio National sells disability insurance policies for individuals and small-business owners, and they are fairly competitive with other disability insurance companies around the nation.

Their individual plans work for just about any occupation out there.

They sell two personal plans:

• ContinuON Income Solutions Guaranteed Renewable
• ContinuON Income Solutions Non-Cancellable

In addition to their individual policies, they also sell the small-business plans:

• ContinuON Income Solutions Business Overhead Expenses
• ContinuON Income Solutions Business Buy-Sell

To help you understand the importance of disability insurance, we are going to outline each of these plans to you determine which one is best.

ContinuOn Income Solutions Guaranteed Renewable

This plan is targeted towards the working class. People who have manual labor jobs or skilled technicians.

One thing to be aware of is the premiums are not guaranteed to stay the same. There is a chance they could go up, but they can’t pick one single policyholder to raise rates.

These plans can give you benefits for 1 year to 5 years with a maximum benefit of up to $5,000 every month.

ContinuON Income Solutions Non-Cancellable

This policy is built for the “white-collar” workers. Unlike the other individual plan, the premiums are never going to go up.

You can get benefits for up to 5 years, or until you turn 70.

If you’re a doctor, then you’re going to get “own occupation,” definition. This means you can get the payout from the plan, even if you’re still able to work another job.

ContinuON Income Solutions Business Overhead Expenses

This plan will give your business the money to remain open if you’re ever disabled. If you’re the owner, and you can’t work because of injury or illness, you would probably have to shut the doors.

Not if you have a disability plan. If you have less than 20 employees, then you can get one of these plans which can provide benefits for up to 2 years.

ContinuON Income Solutions Business Buy-Sell

The idea of this plan is to give the business partners the money they need to keep the business open and fund a buy-sell agreement.

You can get benefits for up to 5 years or in one lump payments. If you buy one of these plans, you can get up to $2,000,000 in benefits.

Riders

Not only do you have several disability options, but there are several riders you can attach to your policy. They have a long list of additional coverage areas:

• Guaranteed insurability rider
• Cost of living rider
• Catastrophic benefit rider
• Recovery benefit
• Recurrent disability
• And more

Obviously, the more riders you have on your plan, the higher the premiums are going to be. If you’re worried about suffering from an injury and not being able to work, these policies can ease your fears.

Annuities

In addition to their insurance products, Ohio National sells a handful of different annuity options. Annuities can help fund your retirement.

They sell three different kinds:

• Fixed annuities
• Fixed indexed annuities
• Variable annuities

Each of them has different pros and cons you’ll need to consider when you’re planning your retirement.

Fixed annuities will guarantee you have a source of income in your retirement. A lot of seniors are worried about not having enough money as they enjoy retirement, these annuities can solve this problem.

Ohio National sells both single-premium annuities and flexible premiums. Each of these can help you enjoy your retirement without having to worry about your savings account.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ohio National

Every company is going to have areas where they excel and other parts where they lag behind. Ohio National is no different. To help you pick a company, here are some of the things you should be aware of.

One of the downsides of the carrier is their underwriting.

They underwriting seems to be stricter than some of the other companies out there. If you’re not in the best health, you might end up paying more for life insurance with Ohio National.

On the flip side, if you’re in good health and don’t have any major health problems, they do have good rates for life insurance and disability. For most applicants, their rates are very competitive.

Getting the Best Insurance

Regardless of what kind of insurance you’re looking for, it’s important to find the perfect company. Each company is different, they all have different plans, rates, coverage, and service.

You could spend months picking through companies until you find the best plan and carrier combo. Who wants to spend hours on the phone?

Thankfully, we’ve reviewed all of the best insurance carriers out there.

If you don’t want to take the plunge alone, feel free to keep reading some of our reviews. If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to let us know.

The post Ohio National Financial Services Review appeared first on Good Financial Cents.

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Leverage the Basic Concepts of Sponsored Content to Boost Your Reach

Today, your marketing strategy has become more important than ever before.

That’s because the Internet makes it easy for consumers to conduct research and discover new brands. With information and other resources so readily available, each business in every industry has competition to worry about.

You may have some successful content marketing tactics. That’s great, and you should continue using them.

That said, content marketing alone won’t be enough to reach the widest possible audience. If you want to create more brand exposure and gain an edge over your competition, you’ll need to do more.

Sponsored content may be the solution to give your company the advantage you’ve been looking for.

If you’re not sure what sponsored content is or how to use it, that’s okay. It’s not too late to get started.

I’ll explain how sponsored content works and how you can apply it to your branding strategy. Here’s what you need to know.

Understand the difference between native advertising and content marketing

The majority of your current promotions likely fall into the content marketing category.

Typically, content marketing is focused on the big picture and long-term goals. Marketers put emphasis on lead nurturing, resulting eventually in sales conversions. The conversion funnel is a great representation of how to tackle content marketing at each stage:

This is a continuous process. Take a look at some of the examples listed above you can apply to each stage of the funnel.

It involves things such as newsletters, guides, demonstrations, blogs, coupons, and videos. The list goes on and on. Sure, these promos raise brand awareness, but they also help drive the customer through the funnel.

Native ads are intended to increase brand exposure as well, but they differ a bit from your typical content campaigns.

We’ve all seen native advertisements before. Even if you haven’t realized it, you’ve definitely been exposed to them while browsing online.

Native ads are promotions mixed into headlines on a page. They are somewhat camouflaged to appear as though they are just another article.

Check out this example from the Yahoo homepage to see what I’m talking about:

I’ve highlighted the native advertising to make it obvious. If I didn’t, you might have missed it the first time you glanced at the list.

That’s because it follows the same format as all the other articles on the page. The title and subtitles are the same sizes. The colors and fonts replicate the content that’s not sponsored. The thumbnail picture is the same as well.

If it weren’t for the word “sponsored” written above the headline, you’d never know it was a paid advertisement.

With native ads, you pay for your space on the screen. Think of it as a virtual billboard.

These advertisements are intended to pique the interest of potential customers. Your native ads typically won’t be circulated through your distribution channels, which is different from your content strategy.

These two marketing strategies will work together hand in hand. A customer may initially discover your brand through a native ad, but your content strategy will drive sales.

Don’t be deceiving

You need to make sure your sponsored content doesn’t fool your audience. It needs to be clearly labeled as a paid advertisement.

In fact, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has laws in place that force businesses to disclose their relationship with brands that pay for advertisements.

In addition to being in violation of FTC regulations, you will be misleading your customers, which is a bad idea. You don’t want to get a reputation for being unethical.

This goes for the company displaying the ad as well as the brand being promoted.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say your company sells athletic sneakers. Plenty of websites rate sneakers.

You pay one of them to write a favorable review for one of your products. If that review isn’t clearly labeled as sponsored content, it’s in violation of the FTC endorsement guides.

There is no reason to be deceptive. That’s because the majority of consumers don’t have a problem with native advertisements.

Just because you’re buying an ad space on another website doesn’t mean you’re in control of their content.

Just make sure you stress the point that you want them to comply with the FTC rules. Even though it’s not your website, it’s your responsibility to make sure your ad is appropriately labeled.

Research your target market

To run a successful sponsored content campaign, you need to identify your target market. Figure out as much information as possible about this group of people and their consumption habits.

You’ll need to know things such as:

• what type of ads they are looking for
• the platforms they use the most
• which websites they visit
• what blogs they read
• their primary email service

This can help you properly display your sponsored ads.

For example, recall our first example of the Yahoo homepage. If you discovered the majority of your target market uses Yahoo Mail, it would be reasonable for you to consider displaying a sponsored ad on that website.

Sponsored content isn’t limited to just websites.

Today, sponsored content has flooded social media. If you determine your target audience has certain social media preferences, you can use that knowledge to your advantage.

We know 70% of hashtags on Instagram are branded. But just because a hashtag is branded doesn’t mean it’s sponsored content. Here’s an example to show you the difference.

Ellie’s Table and Google used pro surfer and model Anastasia Ashley to promote this sponsored content on her Instagram page:

With over 1.1 million people following Anastasia on Instagram, this promotion will reach a large audience.

Instagram recently implemented a new branded content feature to help businesses and influencers follow the FTC regulations we discussed earlier. As you can see, this ad is clearly labeled with the “paid partnership” location tag and “sponsored” hashtag.

We’ll discuss social influencers in greater detail shortly. But for now, make sure you find out everything you can about your target audience.

This research will help make your sponsored content much more effective.

Mix up your strategy

Sponsored content comes in all shapes and sizes. As you can see from the examples we’ve covered so far, they are all very different.

But depending on the type of ad you want to run and the audience you’re trying to reach, you can mix things up in many ways.

Try as many types of sponsored ads as possible to see which ones work the best. You can even run a sponsored email newsletter.

First, find a newsletter related to your industry and your target market. Reach out to them directly to see whether they are open to running a sponsored ad.

Figure out what your goal is ahead of time. This will make it easier for you to communicate your ideas to the company in question.

For example, you can approach them with thoughts such as:

• repurposing your current content in their newsletters
• growing the reach of your own newsletter
• running direct response campaigns with their audience

There are lots of ways to do this. In addition to traditional newsletter writing, you may want to include images and videos as well.

Set up a unique URL so that you’re able to track all the leads from this campaign. You shouldn’t have to rely on your new partner to send you their analytics.

Think outside the box. What other types of sponsored campaigns would boost your reach? Have you considered podcasts?

Look at how ZipRecruiter used this strategy to promote their brand by partnering with Daymond John’s podcast:

Advertising through podcasts can be much more beneficial than you think.

Research shows that 75% of people who listen to podcasts take an action after hearing a branded ad. People listen to about 90% of any given episode’s length, which tells us the majority of them aren’t skipping through ads.

Don’t get stuck in the idea that your sponsored content must be in the form of an article on the homepage of a website.

There are plenty of alternatives for you to consider. I strongly encourage you to give them a try.

Stay within your budget

The name says it all. Sponsored content is obviously going to cost you money. But that doesn’t mean you need to blow a fortune on it.

Like the rest of your marketing campaigns, your sponsored ads need to stay within a reasonable budget.

That said, there isn’t a set price for sponsored content. It will vary based on the distributor and platform.

These are some of the top factors to consider when it comes to how much you’ll spend on different types of sponsored ads:

• time user spends on page
• word count of sponsored articles
• CPM (cost per thousand impressions)
• page rank of website
• lead capture
• engagement
• PPC (click-through rates)
• website traffic
• length of time ad is run
• quantity of ads
• email subscribers
• social media followers

It may sound complex, but it’s pretty straightforward.

For example, it’ll cost you more money to run an ad on a website that has a high ranking and lots of traffic. Social influencers with 100,000 followers can charge more than influencers with just 5,000 followers.

It’s up to you to go through these elements and decide how much you’re willing to spend to boost your reach.

Form relationships with social influencers

As I started to explain earlier, there are lots of different ways to run sponsored content campaigns. Social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, are all great places to start.

But since these social sites differ from traditional websites, you need to adjust your marketing campaigns as well.

The easiest way to do this is by leveraging relationships with social influencers.

Remember I said earlier that sponsored content should blend with the rest of the page it’s featured on? Well, the same concept applies to social media.

For a consumer scrolling through Instagram, the sponsored content should look like just another picture or video on their newsfeed.

For those of you who don’t have any relationships with social influencers, there are plenty of platforms on the web to help you get connected with these people. Some of my favorites include Buzzsumo and Klear.

These platforms help you manage influencers on multiple social sites. Here are the top platforms in terms of user engagement as a response to sponsored content from social influencers:

I suggest you find influencers on at least a few of these social sites.

Working with several influencers helps broaden your reach and will ultimately expose your brand to a wider audience.

Allow your sponsored content to enhance your long-term campaigns

We’ve already established that sponsored content is a type of native advertising. This is different from content marketing.

However, that doesn’t mean the two types of marketing need to be done in isolation from each other.

Your long-term marketing goals always need to be taken into consideration throughout your decision-making process. Don’t forget about these things when you run a sponsored ad.

The best types of sponsored ads will compliment your content marketing campaigns.

Refer back to the conversion funnel I discussed earlier. Your sponsored content can increase your reach and generate leads. As a result, your content strategy can drive conversions.

Analyze your results

How do you know whether your sponsored content is working?

You can’t just run ads and hope for the best. It’s absolutely necessary you take time to measure your results. That way, you can make adjustments.

Get rid of ads that aren’t working and continuing running ads that are creating leads.

For example, you can use tools like lead gen forms on Linkedin to measure the success of your native ads.

You can also do things like setting up an A/B test for your sponsored content.

The whole idea of analyzing your results will help you stay within your budget—an idea I’ve discussed earlier. You may discover that some of your least expensive ads are yielding the highest results.

You can potentially drop some of your pricier campaigns to save some money. The only way you’ll be able to figure this out is through analytics.

Conclusion

Taking advantage of free advertising is great. But if you really want to gain an edge over your competitors and boost your reach, you’ll need to spend some money as well.

Sponsored content and native advertising is a nice change of pace from traditional content marketing. Understand the differences between these strategies and try to make them compliment each other.

Don’t be deceptive. Make sure your sponsored content is in compliance with FTC regulations.

Research your target audience so you can figure out which types of ads they want to see and what platforms they are using.

Don’t stick to just one type of native ad. Use multiple types of sponsored content to mix up your strategy.

If you want to run sponsored content on social media, your best bet is to form relationships with influencers on those platforms.

Stay within your budget, and analyze your results so that you can make any necessary adjustments.

Follow these tips, and you’ll be able to reach a wider audience by using native ads and sponsored content.

How does your business use sponsored content to increase your reach and generate new leads?

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Good.

One podcast I really enjoy listening to is the Jocko Podcast, which is hosted by Jocko Willink, a former NAVY Seal. The focus of the podcast is on leadership and personal discipline – how to handle big challenges and getting through hard times.

As with most podcasts, I don’t listen to Jocko to agree with everything he has to say and parrot his ideas. The same is true with most websites I visit and books I read and so on. Instead, I listen to extract one or two core ideas I can build on in my own life.

One idea that has stuck with me for a long time is the idea of “good”:

To summarize, the core idea here is that when something in life doesn’t go the way you want it to go, don’t react with anger or sadness or frustration. Accept that it happened and recognize it as an opportunity to get better. In the process of getting better, other doors will open and you’ll be more prepared to deal with what’s behind them.

Let’s break that down into a few pieces.

Things Are Sometimes Going to Go Awry

Things are always going to go awry in your life – little things and big things alike.

Little things are overcome pretty quickly and often teach a really simple lesson. When I spill coffee or cut my finger, it’s usually because I was rushing through a task when I should have been taking my time and focusing on the task at hand. Lesson learned, right? No big loss, but it’s still a teachable moment for myself.

The big things that go awry, though – those can really hurt. Your car breaks down. Your business fails. You don’t get that job you want. You get fired. You get sick, or a loved one gets sick. Your house burns down in a fire. Those things are going to happen in life, and they’re going to have a negative impact on you.

That’s not easy. It never is. Sometimes the world just punches you in the gut and there’s nothing you can really do about it.

You Choose How You Respond to Those Events

The thing that’s often overlooked is you are the one who decides how you respond to such events. When an unfortunate event happens, it’s up to you whether you get angry or get sad or get frustrated in response to an event. You control your emotional response to things.

If you let yourself fall into a pit of anger or sadness or frustration and find yourself looking for things to blame for this bad event, you’re taking home the wrong lesson.

Instead, when something bad happens to you, stop and breathe for a second. Don’t let negative emotions drive you. Don’t start tossing blame around. Accept that it happened, then move on to the real questions that matter.

What Can You Learn? What Can You Improve?

After something bad happens, ask yourself what you can learn from this negative event. Focus mostly on yourself. What did you learn about your preparation for this event? What did you learn about how you handle yourself in difficult situations? What did you learn about how such events should be handled? Where did you fall short of where you could have been?

Take the answers to those questions and turn them around. What can you improve? What skills do you need to get better at? What personal characteristics can you improve? What can you do to ensure you have the resources you need next time?

Yes, other people may be at fault when things go bad, but you can’t change the faults of other people. You can only change your own faults. You can only improve what it is that you bring to the table for next time.

Every time you fail, you’ve basically given yourself a list of things that you could have done better. Take advantage of that and make yourself better, even if it wasn’t wholly your fault.

This is called an after action report, and I find that an after-action report is an incredibly valuable practice to add to your life as something to do when things go awry. I do them regularly in my personal journal when I’m reflecting on something that didn’t go right.

A good after action report consists of four pieces. First, describe what actually happened in sufficient detail. Next, describe what I wish had happened in sufficient detail. Then, list the things that are different between those two pictures. Finally, transform that list of differences into actions that you can take in your life to make those differences become a reality.

Be Ready for the Next Door

If you take that concept to heart, you’ll spend time improving your situation. You’ll improve your skills. You’ll improve your strengths. You’ll find ways to cover your weaknesses. You’ll collect the resources you need for the next time.

Eventually, another disaster will happen. Another door will open. When that happens, you’ll be ready for it.

Example: A Personal Finance Disaster

That kind of talk sounds good in theory, but what does it actually mean in practice? I’ll give you an example from my own life.

Several years ago, before my finances were in good shape, I went out to my car to go to work and the thing just wouldn’t start. I kept turning the key and nothing – the starter had failed.

My credit cards were maxed out. I had some money in checking, but I needed it for bills. I knew I would have to call someone to come and get this car and get it fixed, but I wasn’t even sure I could pay the tow truck.

I was frustrated and angry and I blamed the car. The car was junk! Why would it do this to me? I sat there angry at the car, angry at my job because I had to go into work, angry at everything. I was looking for things to blame besides myself.

I didn’t have the maturity then to stop and put my emotions in check. I didn’t reflect on the pieces that were actually my fault. I didn’t do any kind of after action report.

At least, I didn’t do those things right away. As time passed and I began to turn around my financial life, I started looking back at things that had gone wrong in my recent past and I remembered my car not starting.

I reflected on it. What did I do wrong? Well, I probably didn’t keep up with maintenance on that car as well as I should have. I also didn’t have an emergency fund to handle minor crises like that one. I also responded to the failure of the starter with a big emotional outburst that just wasted a bunch of time and energy to no good end.

How could I actually achieve those things? I could stick to a strong maintenance schedule with my vehicles – this might not prevent everything, but it’s definitely going to reduce the likelihood of breakdowns. I could build up an emergency fund to handle these kinds of situations. I could learn how to get control over my emotions by studying things like stoicism and learning how to meditate, which would enable me to handle such crises much more calmly and smoothly.

I started doing those things. I started sticking heavily to the maintenance schedule on our vehicles. I started building an emergency fund. I studied stoicism and started practicing meditation and journaling.

What happened next? Our next vehicle ran and ran and ran for more than a hundred thousand miles thanks to good maintenance. When it finally didn’t start in our driveway, I handled it calmly and just paid the bill and got it fixed as efficiently as possible.

As bad as it was that my car didn’t start that day before work, it was actually a good thing. It gave me the opportunity to learn and to improve myself and to be ready for the next thing that would happen. By learning from that crisis (and from other things in my life), I built an emergency fund and started practicing better vehicle maintenance and started building better emotional control in frustrating moments.

Was that initial car breakdown my fault? No, not really, but there were still things I could have done to reduce the likelihood of such an event and to make the impact less devastating. While the initial car breakdown itself was bad, it did teach me some lessons that put me in a better place so that such breakdowns were less likely and that I would handle them much better.

I’d call that good.

Related Reading:

• The Power of ‘Good Enough’
• Your Money Missteps Don’t Define You
• Breaking the Cycle of Repeated Financial Mistakes

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