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Marketing | Aug 16
Kevin Kononenko on January 31, 2018 (last modified on July 30, 2018) • 36 minute read
Even in 2018, email is still one of the best ways to grab the attention of potential customers. In fact, a survey from the Direct Marketers Association found that email still has a 122% median ROI, far greater than any other channel.
But, email volume is also expected to grow by 4.4% annually, according to the Radicati Group. The competition for customer and prospect attention is only increasing.
We surveyed our community of digital marketers to learn what tactics worked well in 2017, and what they expect to do in 2018 to stay top of mind. They shared all sorts of ideas, from better segmenting your list to personalizing the send time of each email to re-sending the same email again. Here is what they had to say.
It's 2018, and marketers still seem to fall for generic, bad send-time advice, like "Tuesday morning is the best time to send marketing emails." Instead, these marketers are sending emails at customized times to each member of their list. It ensures that their emails reach recipients at a convenient time for each individual.
Damien Elsing
CLCK Digital
My Top Tip: We've been using a third party email tool called Seventh Sense. This tool integrates with HubSpot and sends marketing emails in a window of time that you choose, rather than all at once. Then in that window, it sends each email to a contact based on their previous interactions with your emails or website. So if a person usually opens emails from you at 6am on a Thursday, it will send their email at that time, so it's more likely to be opened and clicked.
After using Seventh Sense for more than a year now, we've found this type of advanced personalization is improving our clients' open and click rates significantly.
Greg Moore
Pro Athlete Inc | JustBats.com
My Top Tip: At the start of 2017, we reinvented how we saw email marketing. Instead of huge blasts sent to everyone at 7 am, we analyzed everything. That led to us excluding people who didn't engage with our emails, making our segmented lists smarter, and employing SeventhSense.
SeventhSense allowed us to deliver emails to people at the optimized time for them. So, instead of everyone receiving our emails at 7am, a person who was more apt to open their email at 6:30pm now received their JustBats.com email at that time.
What we saw was extraordinary. For 2017, despite sending 44% less emails year-over-year, we grew our email marketing revenue by 11%. Additionally, our open rates and click rates doubled.
With better exclude lists and SeventhSense, we stopped guessing at times and engagement and, instead, let our customers dictate a lot more.
Doug Davidoff
Imagine Business Development
My Top Tip: Send fewer emails! A recipient's engagement tells you a lot about their mindset. Automating your email cadence using a tool like Seventh Sense enables you to stay in alignment with leads/prospects, avoid email fatigue, improve engagement and gain insights that support your sales strategy.
Beth Foulk
Axcet HR Solutions
My Top Tip: We use Seventh Sense to optimize email delivery times. By reaching our prospects when they have historically opened emails, we are re-engaging dormant prospects and minimizing unsubscribers. Additionally, we are seeing engagement patterns across the entire prospect database that we didn't previously realize and are adjusting our email timing accordingly.
This was the most popular suggestion. If you use a marketing automation system like HubSpot, Marketo or Active Campaign properly, you have plenty of hints about each individual contact's interests. If you use "smart" lists, you can automatically segment your database, and create variations of each email to appeal to different customer profiles or personas.
Stephen Plotkin
Indigo Inbound
My Top Tip: Set-up a regular schedule of emails and decide who of your personas should get what message – DO NOT send everything to everyone.
Dennis Dayman
Return Path
My Top Tip: The biggest thing you can do is proper list management.
Now, sure list management comes down to removing those that unsubscribe, those that complaint, or those that hard bounce because bad email address, but the type of list management I'm talking about is how you segment your list and use behavioral triggers to better pair up your offers to consumers.
Email segmentation is one of the best tactics to send personalized emails to your subscribers and is overlooked. Email segmentation allows you to send personalized emails to each individual. It classifies every lead into distinct groups based on the common interests such as customer personas, user demographics, onsite behavior, etc.
We've said for decades that you must send targeted and relevant emails to ensure quality over quantity when it comes to list management AND to ensure relevancy to the user base. You can take that a step further and use automated behavioral triggers in your email campaigns. Starting an email and then the conversation to the website, you might track every user interaction in real time on your site. After collecting the data, you can create richer profiles of your leads that enable you to send automated emails you know your customers will engage with.
Akshay Hallur
My Top Tip: Proper segmentation. Too many people offer the same freebie throughout the entire site. Make a list of most popular posts on your site. And create 3-4 lead magnets and include them in relevant posts in your blog/site. Right lead magnets attract right people. Make lead magnets helpful for people who already bought something, so that they likely open up their wallet in the future too after subscribing. In short, only get qualified, buying leads, that needs less nurturing to shell out money. By this, you get an audience that is really targeted, qualified, and segmented.
Joachim Koch
Books Tell You Why, Inc.
My Top Tip: Don't send emails to non-engaged contacts. Leaving them off your sends, improves your deliverability and gets you in the Gmail inbox (rather than promotion tab) more often.
Kelley Wrede
Revenue River
My Top Tip: The biggest success we've seen in email marketing efforts for clients has been focusing less on general email blasts (newsletters, etc.) that go out to the whole database. Instead, we focus more on highly targeted and specific behavior-based emails that go out to smaller, more segmented lists.
By focusing on targeting messaging and promoting pieces of content or conversion points that make the most sense based on that recipient's previous actions, we are seeing much higher click rates and ultimately users are taking the desired actions, nurturing them further down the funnel. This has been key in getting more sales-ready leads for our clients.
Additionally, we've coupled highly targeted messaging and list segmentation with AI for intelligent sends using SeventhSense, which has increased our open rates and email performance dramatically. Now we have the winning formula for getting emails in the recipients' inbox at the most optimal time so they'll open and engage with the email while also having the right content in the email to get them to convert.
MaryAnn Pfeiffer
108 Degrees, LLC
My Top Tip: List segmentation is vital to program success.
Segmenting your list by interest area, demographics, and most importantly BEHAVIORAL DATA is one of the best tactics to increase your response rates. We work regularly with clients to improve open and click performance through segmentation, and consistently we see improvements that surprise them and often us!
Most people are utterly inundated with email today (marketers worst of all!), so if something isn't completely relevant to the reader, it is quickly deleted, or worse… unsubscribed from!
You can best avoid this by working regularly to segment your list based on your readers' interests. Some of this data is easily determined by where your subscribers come from (or list source), but go beyond that. Think about what appeals, both visually and contextually to their demographic profile and offer a presentation and content offering that will keep them intrigued.
Even better, go a step further and examine their behavior with your website and past email campaigns to figure out what really piques their interest. If they regularly click on articles or links of a topic area, feature that in the subject line and preheader text to make sure they open your next email. If they have purchased items from you in the past, offer them information to support that purchase, or complimentary items that are of interest to buyers of that product.
If you want your email to be read, make it RELEVANT to your reader. Take the time to create thoughtful list segments and you'll have outstanding results.
Julie Ewald
Impressa Solutions
My Top Tip: Segmentation is key! We've had several clients who've felt that their email marketing wasn't worth it because they were getting low traction and no ROI. However, these same clients were "blasting" out information to their entire lists, regardless of whether the information was relevant or not. Of course, leads weren't going to bite on upsell offers, and people working in HR weren't going to want to read accounts payable productivity tips! By thoroughly segmenting lists by things like lead/customer lifecycle stage, persona, vertical, previous actions, join dates, and locations, we're able to put out more targeted emails that feel more personal, have more relevance, drive more action and yield better returns.
Shannon Gayton
Safety Marketing Services
My Top Tip: No one wants to have their inbox flooded with unwanted emails and offers. Make sure you're providing the recipient with value. Don't forget that their idea of value may look much different than what you deem valuable.
That's why it's important to spend time with segmentation. Get to know your customers and send them emails that are helpful to them.
Once you understand what matters to your customers, you can connect with them. And, that's when relationships begin.
Chad Lauterbach
Be Structured Technology Group
My Top Tip: Being an IT services company in LA–we are focused on small and medium businesses. With that in mind, we don't have a huge email list or even tons of web traffic. So we were always under the impression that email marketing was too big for us.
That really changed when we started using a more data-driven approach to sending emails. We performed a ton of persona research, and identified who we want to reach, and why we want to reach them. The persona process unlocked incredible insights for our team, and it allowed us to change the way we think about marketing as a whole, but specifically, email marketing. We've now taken our relatively small database, but are sending them more targeted emails with messaging that is specific to their needs and challenges.
Deepa Venkataraman
Vajra Global Consulting Services LLP
My Top Tip: Personalisation is the key to success when it comes to Email Marketing. There are several emails that flood your inbox. However, only a few get opened and clicked. Our objective is to offer a customized experience to our leads and customers to make them feel more connected to our brand.
Being a certified Hubspot partner, we employ smart and intuitive techniques to build powerful stories through our email campaigns. "How are you?" is definitely not as effective as "Hey John, how are you?" That's our strategy to capture the attention of our audience and keep them connected with us for a longer period of time.
Frank Isca
Weidert Group
My Top Tip: Pair list segmentation with contextual targeting.
A good example of thoughtful list segmentation is for a business's existing clients, which we'll segment based on which services they're currently using. So for their clients who are only taking advantage of their Employee Benefits brokerage/services, we can target them with specific content and messaging to encourage them to also buy HR services.
Todd Laire
Laire Group Marketing
My Top Tip: With our clients, we're using tools like Ontraport, Active Campaigns and HubSpot to automate our emails. With segmented lists integrated with our website content and forms, we can send personalized information to our contact lists. Did your contact fill out a form from a specific service page? Automate an email response that includes messaging around that service. Do you have your contacts identify themselves as one of your personas? Use that to your advantage by giving them the most helpful content based on their job role, industry and more. We use HubSpot's Sequences for ourselves and many clients to make sure the content we deliver to prospect's inboxes is the most relevant to their interests.
Jonathan Matz
Penguin Strategies
My Top Tip: Better list segmentation. We had a client who was sending everyone the same messages and it was eroding their engagement rates and the performance of their emails.
We helped better segment list and choose appropriate senders [VP Marketing, CEO, etc.] so that the right person received the right email and it helped improve their email marketing.
Alison Leishman
Spitfire Inbound
My Top Tip: We have successfully used lead scoring to understand how we should segment the list of prospects to receive the monthly special offer email from a client.
In the past, they were mailing all their Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) the same offer, but by using segmentation we were able to personalize the call to action to the segment. This personalization allowed us to expand who we wend the offer to leads and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) with a higher lead score. This resulted in shortening the time that it took for people to move from lead or MQL straight to customer.
Although they were still researching a variety of products, by receiving a mail with special offers that were time sensitive in their research phase, they made the choice to buy faster.
Every industry and customer profile has different preferences. Don't try and come up with the perfect marketing message on the first try! Instead, test multiple subject lines and email formats to get definitive data within a couple days or weeks.
Adam Wiggins
Palmer Ad Agency
My Top Tip: We saw a significant return on investment from our email marketing initiatives when we made the time to begin A/B testing email copy. Testing multiple versions of copy revealed the key messaging that resonates with our audience and drives conversion.
Mark Innes
Fifth Ring
My Top Tip: Always be testing. We grew a client's behaviour based email click-throughs by 25% over a period of 6 months last year by adopting a testing mindset to the email.
By using A/B tests on every email sent we were able to incrementally improve our client's results and most importantly, find out exactly what wasn't working!
Instead of relying on opinions or debating details endlessly, regular testing will often reveal the right headlines choices, image positions and calls to action.
After we get client and team buy-in for experimentation, we choose one thing to A/B test per email, like the call to action button colour, for example. Being able to identify through testing which parts of an email campaign are not performing allows a quick change of direction and helps avoid a lot of debate.
By around the 5th variation test you should have the perfect color for your client's industry. Think of all those extra clicks!
Alisa Nemova
Eastside Co
My Top Tip: Here's one single email marketing tip that would improve your open rate by an additional 7%-20%…
Try re-sending your campaigns to those who haven't opened the initial one. How to do it right:
1. Send original campaign
2. Duplicate it
3. Amend your subject line
4. Send it to those people who haven't opened the original campaign within the next 24 hours.
Additional tips: choose a different time for your second campaign; keep an eye on your unsubscribes and adjust accordingly.
Athena Bond
Evo Strategies
My Top Tip: Track and test email performance results to continually boost ROI. Testing subject lines, calls to action, headlines, offers, design, and so on is the only way to know for sure what works and what doesn't work for your target audience.
If your recipients don't like the subject line, they won't read the email. Take the time to test different subject lines. Here's some hard-won lessons you can include in your tests.
Tammy Duggan-Herd
Campaign Creators
My Top Tip: Cute, flowery, or vague email subject lines don't get your emails opened. Short and straight to the point wins every time. We have witnessed this across B2B, B2C and eCommerce clients. After 3 months of testing, our eCommerce client VitaCup improved their average open rate from 11.75% to 25.9 resulting in a 242% increase in email revenue. For example, in one A/B test the subject line, "30% Off Clearance" garnered a significantly higher open rate than ":coffee: This Coffee Gets You Ready for Action :clapper:." In the B2B space, our own email open rate has been significantly better when we include the exact offer we are promoting in brackets along with a very short description of the content.
For example, the subject line "Lead Generation [Guide]" outperformed, "Ready to fill that funnel with leads?" A few more examples of subject lines that garner high open rates for us are: Email Testing [Workshop], State of Marketing [Report], and Campaign Optimization [Webinar]. Our average email open rate on 79,836 emails we have sent in the last year is 30.54% – that's 12.73% higher than the industry average.
Jennifer Rae Schulman
Fortune Web Marketing
My Top Tip: We like to place interactive content inside our emails and let our readers know upfront, especially in the subject line. For example, if our emails contain a video or an infographic, we will use {Video} or {Infographic} in the subject line. We have seen our open rates and click-throughs increase by 30-35%.
Luke Severn
Kaufer DMC
My Top Tip: A/B test email subject headlines. And I don't mean employ two different headlines for a singular email. Go for four different headlines based on the content that you're pushing out. This strategy will not only provide you with insights into what headlines make people open your emails, it will provide you with more content ideas. For instance, one of my clients is a recruiting company. I can see from testing different headlines that people love resume and interview tips, so we've tried to increase the amount of content we put out that focuses on those topics.
Most of your contacts have seen THOUSANDS of marketing emails over the course of their lives. Most people do not batch up the new emails in their inbox and carefully inspect them over the course of a half hour. Instead, they are looking at your email while riding public transit or entering/leaving a meeting. It is up to you to make the content memorable and easy to digest.
Phil Wiseman
Analytics That Profit
My Top Tip: Defined Purpose and Defined Audience. Well, maybe those are 2 tips. The purpose of the email must be completely understood by the recipient. Preview text is a must! Tell them why you sent the email and what they should do about it. If you don't have a compelling Call To Action in the email, don't send it.
On the Technical side:
Stuart Arsenault
My Top Tip: Our merchants layer loyalty/referral data into existing email campaigns and build entirely new ones around this theme.
Optimizing a post-purchase email with a customer's unique referral URL drives the right action (advocacy), at the right time (when the customer is happiest).
Similarly, reminding a lapsed customer of an unused points balance is often drives dramatic (50%+) increases in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Merchants use our out of the box integrations with major Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Klaviyo, MailChimp & HubSpot (among others).
Adam Rowles
Inbound Marketing Agency
My Top Tip: Ask questions. Most e marketing emails are pushing information about their product/service or a pitch. It seems people have forgotten emails are a two-way communication.
Hang on a moment, before we send an email we should know their problems or desires. By asking a simple question such as "what's your biggest challenge" we can uncover their needs. Once you know their needs, you'll be able to nurture them down the sales journey more effectively.
For example, when a prospect downloads a whitepaper, most marketers send an email with more educational content. However, most marketers don't get a response because it didn't have a call to action the recipient was ready to take. Instead, I send a simple email the day after asking them, "Why did you download our whitepaper – any particular marketing challenge you wanted to solve? I schedule many more prospect meetings now that I do this.
Kristen May
Invoq Marketing Company
My Top Tip: The components of an email that most impact whether or not people will open your email are the subject line, sender name, and preview text. What makes them want to read and interact with it are:
A high-performing email has all of these components.
Andy Hoek
My Top Tip: At least in B2B email marketing, you should limit the amount of content and provide clear call-to-actions. Many businesses tend to overload their newsletters with content, but the result is a lack of focus. The poor person that receives the mail doesn't know what's important and what isn't by just scanning the mail. So (s)he decides that nothing in the mail is important, doesn't click on any of the links and maybe even unsubscribes.
Even worse is when mail doesn't have a clear call-to-action. Many newsletters I see still hyperlink part of a sentence instead of adding a big nice button with some good microcopy as a call-to-action. It should be clear what gets clicked more often!
So if you want to be more successful with B2B email marketing focus the content of your newsletters and provide clear call-to-action.
You can also approach email from a more conversational angle. Contacts are accustomed to HTML emails with a few images and call-to-actions. Even when you send a message to a specific segment of your audience, it still may feel impersonal. Plain-text email feels like a personal message from a colleague.
Drew Cohen
SmartBug Media
My Top Tip: While personalization is very common in emails–i.e. ""Hi [insert first name here]""–it's more important than ever to not overdo it.
Less is usually more–both in terms of content and personalization. A subtle, natural-sounding personalization token can grab the reader's attention and really make it feel like a company has gone the extra mile to reach out to them or their specific persona. I've also noticed with several of my clients that a simple, plain text email can really boost engagement. If you put your consumer hat on, you probably receive tons of marketing emails each and every week. With that said, an email that is lightweight, text-only, and gets to the point will probably grab your attention.
Chris Handy
My Top Tip: We stopped trying to make email an epic task. When we started writing email from a human perspective – remembering that there is another person on the other end of the send button – we started to get better results. We stopped relying on fancy templates and started making things shorter and easier to read. Most email from colleagues should be digestible at a glance, without a whole lot of scrolling. This is why so many corporate interoffice subject lines end in "eom" (end of message) signaling you don't even need to open it. If you can think about why someone needs to read your email, it makes it easier to write it concisely, and in only a paragraph or two.
Tim Watson
My Top Tip: Here is a recent example from B2B and B2C clients.
We switched B2B email from graphical format to plain white business email style with well written conversational, personalized and engaging copy increased response by 400%.
Your database is full of contacts with different personas and levels of awareness about your available solutions. Rather than trying to send an email that only fits one persona/awareness/use case, you can set up workflows that move each persona along the path to awareness of the solution right for them. Yes, you may need to develop more content to use this strategy, but you will be able to connect with many more subscribers.
Ian Evenstar
My Top Tip: One tip we've employed successfully to increase the ROI from email marketing is converting our client's graduate application process into a series of email nurtures.
One thing we've found across higher education is the lack of sales and marketing alignment. Two reasons this occurs: one, the lack of integration between the university's application platform and marketing automation tools, and two, the office of admission not being used to working with an agency.
To circumvent these obstacles, we converted the application process into a stepwise email nurture. Once a prospective student has prequalified for the program through a web form and expressed their interest in applying, we enroll them in an email marketing campaign. Each email in the campaign has a clear Call to action (CTA) and desired outcome.
The email campaign includes: an application timeline, a step-by-step process for requesting your transcripts (often the biggest contributor to late applications), a step-by-step process for requesting letters of recommendations, how to tailor your resume, how to write a statement of intent, instructions for paying for and submitting the application, and financial assistance information.
Through our effort of digitizing and automating the application process, we've observed an increased conversion rate from prequalified prospects to submitted applications.
We like this process because it allows us to track where our prospects are within the application cycle and target them with the right message at the right time.
My Top Tip: It's nowhere near a sexy a topic as listbuilding, subject lines or copywriting, but one reliable way of significantly increasing the ROI from your email marketing is simply to make sure your emails get through to more inboxes.
For example: according to email delivery expert Chris Lang you can get an immediate increase of 8-10% in opens and clicks to your emails simply by making sure they get to the primary inbox rather than the promotions tab in Gmail. That's the equivalent of growing your email list 10% overnight.
So how do you do it? The first step is to check where you have problems with inbox placement using a tool like G-Lock Apps. It'll tell you which services you're struggling to get into the inbox for and show some of the potential reasons why.
To get into the primary inbox you'll want to practice good email hygiene (reducing the number of emails you send to people who don't open or click – or potentially stopping sending to them completely).
You'll want to have a welcome email that asks people to whitelist your email address and gives them clear instruction on how to do it. And every now and then you'll want to email your Gmail subscribers and ask them to drag your emails out of the promotions tab and into the primary inbox to make sure they keep getting them. Sounds simple, but it can have a big and immediate impact.
Michael Rand
Market Veep
My Top Tip: Build email workflows for all of your segmented lists or marketing personas. Automated emails, in general, have had a huge impact on our ROI. We always recommend them to our clients.
For a while, we were only sending out a regular newsletter with links to our blog and eBook content. We did this manually. Sure, the newsletter got opens and clicks, but not as many conversions as we wanted.
We decided to create email workflows for each of our target personas. Contacts were enrolled automatically based on lead segmentation and how they responded in our forms. We filled each email with exclusive content that couldn't be found on our website. The last email in the workflow contains an opportunity for a free consultation.
It worked! All of our workflow emails have healthy open and click-rates.
With workflows, we gain qualified prospects, too. Email workflows are great for converting and qualifying leads.
They also represent a powerful service we can provide for our clients. They really help us demonstrate our ROI.
We still send out the regular newsletter, of course.
Darrell Evans
Yokel Local Internet Marketing, Inc.
My Top Tip: Done properly, email is a powerful tool that allows both marketing and sales team to be patient until a prospect is ready to buy.
Consumers are bombarded with sales calls from solicitors and have more power to block out sales messages than ever before. This requires us to think about the power and scalability of using email to increase ROI. You've paid the price of generating the content or running the ads to get them into your funnel, right?
Once they've subscribed, they've now raised their hand (digitally) and given you their name and email address (at the very least). But we can't assume they are not ready to buy and are ready to jump on a sales call with you. They might simply be at the awareness or consideration stage of the purchase process.
Let's say, as an example, you are a Bankruptcy attorney. You know that no one wakes up one day and just decides to file bankruptcy. Typically, it's the last thing someone ever wants to do. It's emotional. It makes people feel like failures. Let's say you've created a guide titled: "7 Things You Should Know About Bankruptcy That Most People Don't." It's a free report. Your lead downloads it. What next?
Well, we know they might be considering filing bankruptcy. If we've done our buyer persona work properly and understand what's going on in their mind, we'll know a few things:
Emails should answer the mental objections they have yet to voice to you yet. If they feel embarrassed, we should write an "empathy-based" email that lets them know they are not the only ones to have ever been in their situation. If they are scared, we should write an "assurance-based" email that reassures them that everything is going to be okay. If your market is crowded with professionals, then you may want to add in a "proof" email showing how many people you've help solve their financial problems. Any objection or concern they may have can be addressed in email that will help them see you as the authority in the field all before they pick up the phone to call for a consultation.
A properly sequenced campaign will address their concerns and conclude with a gentle call to action to take the next step. When taking this approach, we'll have "decision stage" buyers who are you ready to do business with zero objections.
Kayla Lewkowicz
My Top Tip: The best advice I can give about email marketing is to make it relevant and contextual for the user. To do that, you really have to know what your audience cares about and what they want to see.
For us, we know there's a lot of demand for education—many of our customers and prospects are just beginning their e-commerce journey. For Black Friday, we put together an email-based course called Black Friday Bootcamp. We had a specific sign up for the course and anyone who signed up received a conversational, "plain text" style email from one of us with the tip and blog post for that week of the bootcamp. Doing a specific campaign addressing a big need for our audience—crushing Black Friday—drove a ton of traffic to our site and a lot of new sign-ups, too, because we were speaking to a select group of our audience that really cared about what we had to say on the topic.
Roman Kniahynyckyj
My Top Tip: Shorten the time between lead nurturing emails. Many times when we build out lead nurturing campaigns for clients, they think they automatically have to wait 5 or 7 days between emails. This seems to be an ingrained standard that may not be right for the type of lead, type of sale or type of industry. Experiment with different time frames – 1 day instead of 5, 3 days instead of 7 or trigger emails immediately if a bottom of the funnel lead visits your site again. For sales cycles ranging from 3-6 weeks, we've seen better open and click rates for emails that are 3 or less days apart over emails that are 7 days apart.
Melissa Breau
Click and Repeat
My Top Tip: In my experience, it pays to remember that a subscriber is never more engaged than when they first sign up.
There are a few ways to use that to your advantage. The first is by asking them to engage MORE right off the bat — so in that first email you can include other things that might be useful based on where they signed up for your list (for example, if someone signed up for my list after reading this tip, it would make sense to send them my top 5 articles on email marketing).
Another option is to ask them a question in your autoresponder, and tell them if they email you back with their answer that you promise to read every response. I've seen this tactic earn clients thousands of dollars — asking what problem they're struggling with *right now* or what they were looking for when they found your site gives you insight into the problems your target audience faces in their own words…and gives you information you (or your sales team) can follow up. It's also great for blog post ideas!
Finally, remember to think about that moment after they sign up as a golden opportunity to delight them just a little more… so one tactic I recommend is to redirect them to thank you page with a video, from the person whose site it is, sharing something useful (and saying thanks).
The big takeaway here is to try and find a way to reward your subscribers immediately after signing up in a way that is personalized or makes them feel special, while also offering up another way they can engage with you.
Everybody loves hearing their name. So, use names and other personalization tokens to create a personal connection with your recipients.
David Freund
My Top Tip: Write for humans, not conversions.
In today's metric-driven world, it's easy for marketers to forget the human on the other side of the screen. If the list data is there, marketers should be using it to further personalize their content for their audience. From something as simple as using their first name to sending "happy birthday" emails on their special day. We should be using every and any opportunity to speak more genuinely to our audience, treating them less like conversions and more like humans.
Ryan Phelan
My Top Tip: First-Person Marketing and moving the needle from a one-to-many to a one-to-one relevant and personalized messaging strategy.
It's not easy. Generally, it means more work up front, more thought in the process and message, and more integrations of systems that may or may not talk to each other. But by using data in the right way and letting First-Person Marketing be your guiding light, the results can be phenomenal.
Our client NakedWines.com did just that and their results were outstanding. By bringing in lookalike modeling and rich data across their entire customer base, to give their customers highly relevant and personalized wine recommendations, the company achieved an increase of 8% in profit per customer and an astounding 40% conversion rate.
Ross Sibbald
My Top Tip: The value lies in your data. Implement data-driven, specifically targeted and highly personalized email marketing campaigns to rapidly improve ROI
One of our clients was a prominent financial services provider.
Email was the channel of choice for the client's campaign – which was aimed to help its customers manage their debt – because email enables highly personalized, targeted communications utilizing the rich customer data the client has on hand. The database was segmented according to this rich data by their risk category.
Each customer was addressed individually, while the subject line, tone of the message and the actual outstanding and installment values were all personalized and customized per customer. The personalized, responsive landing page and form offered the opportunity for immediate take up of the customized offer through the use of a strong call to action message. The trackability, individual level reporting and data available, following an email campaign, made email a great channel choice.
Customers could take up offers and give consent through the campaign, while the valuable data gathered based on these actions was secured and passed to the client for evaluation.
It was a success! There was a substantial drop (approx 50%) in the number of accounts defaulting in the 6 months following the campaign, which converted into a 6000% ROI – drop in defaulting accounts vs the cost of the campaign.
Molly Rigatti
Laire Group Marketing
My Top Tip: If you gather and input detailed client and lead information, personalization tokens will transform your email marketing. We've seen clients use the [FIRST NAME] token but you probably have more information than that stored in your CRM. We use tokens like [COMPANY NAME], [CITY] and more to hyper-personalize our and our clients' emails and subject lines so recipients automatically identify with your message. Imagine opening an email that says, Hi Joe! Here are 5 tips you can use to make sure potential clients in [YOUR CITY] see more of [YOUR COMPANY NAME]'s content on your website. How local, personal and actually helpful is that?!
Anyone who has been doing email marketing for awhile, knows that lists decay. Research from MarketingSherpa shows that lists decay at a rate of 2.1% per month. To avoid diminishing returns, you need to keep growing your list…
Damian Leonard
Roland Dransfield
My Top Tip: This may seem glaringly obvious, but it's something that marketing professionals seem to frequently omit from their email marketing – updating their database with relevant, interested parties.
We utilize email marketing for both our clients and our own purposes, so we're frequently trying to update our database to ensure maximum ROI. Regardless of whether you receive someone's email address from a business card at a networking event or from them filling in a form to get your latest eBook, you must add them into your database. They're interested in what you have to offer them, otherwise they wouldn't be engaging with you, so ensure they get all relevant collateral that comes with future email marketing campaigns.
No matter how good your email marketing campaign is, it won't matter if it's not going to anyone who may want it.
Isabel Delmas
My Top Tip: A successful Email Marketing strategy depends greatly on the type of company, area and the specific needs of the company. What is common to every company and should be implemented from the very beginning is:
We asked all of the marketers above about the top challenges they envision for 2018. Here is what they had to say.
The top three responses- deliverability, lower engagement rates and dormant subscribers- are all timeless email marketing issues I've written about at length.
To maximize the ROI of your email marketing efforts, use your email service or marketing automation provider to employ all the tips above. Most of our contributors above are "for-hire" if you want to tap them for more of their wisdom. And if you use HubSpot or Marketo, consider the advice from many of the experts above and use SeventhSense to automatically adjust the frequency and send-time of emails based on past engagement history.
Also, don't forget to track the impact of your email marketing on your top-line; monitor your email marketing's effect on your website traffic, leads and sales. If you use HubSpot, they track all that for you. You can use the dashboard below to monitor it in real-time on any device. If you use MailChimp, use a Google Analytics email dashboard too to get a full picture.
+ Get The HubSpot Email Campaigns Dashboard
What are you doing to improve your email marketing effectiveness? Got a tip? Submit it here or leave it in the comments.
Thank you!
Marketing | Aug 16
Marketing | Aug 14
Agencies | Aug 13


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Day 76: Together again
We've arrived at Panch Pokhari (Five Lakes) and the two groups doing the Tilman Pass/Langtang section have been reunited; Steve and Vince as clients, and the full compliment of guides, porters and cook staff are altogether. We took slightly different routes to get here so Vince could stay on the GHT and Steve could get a few days to acclimatise before Tilman Pass.
We had a rest day here and it was beautiful. The cluster of lakes is nestled in a group of high foothills and, standing above tree line at 4000 metres (13,500 feet), there are small patches of snow lingering from the last week of snow squalls.
Surprisingly, there were quite a few people here. It's the season when people search the mountains for Yarsa Gumba, what they call caterpillars, but are actually a small plant with a root that looks like a caterpillar which are collected and sold to China for medicinal use. The people can be seen searching the hillsides for the plant and many camped with us at Panch Pokhari.
The section of GHT trail we just covered was another little travelled section, with lots of up and down on trails travelled primarily by local herders; in other words, rough. There were areas with farming terraces and small villages. We are still in the area hard hit by the earthquake and reconstruction is happening but many villages still need help. Road construction is also rapidly advancing in the region.
Riding out the weather
I lay in my sleeping bag in a half dream state hearing the thunder roll around the canyon walls. Throughout the night the bells on the cows outside our tent rang, which combined with the sound of hard rain made for a restless sleep. Through half open eyes lightning flashes lit up the dim morning. The lightning seemed to be competing with the rising sun to see who can illume the day first. I wonder if we will pack up and hit the trail in this weather.
Yesterday was a relatively hard day with a plunge down a steep canyon wall to a river, crossing a swinging bridge, only to climb back to the same elevation on the other side. Today, we're looking at another big effort, pretty much straight up the side of the canyon for about 5000 feet.
I decide the best thing to do is get moving. The thunder is still rumbling but it seems to be fading and the steady drum of the rain is down to a light patter. The team have doubts about the weather, however, by the time breakfast is over there are patches of blue and it looks like another beautiful day.
The climb is mostly a joyless trudge up steep switchbacks through the jungle. Gradually, we make our way up through the climate zones into the still flowering rhododendrons and beyond where the views are spectacular. As the morning turns to afternoon the clouds are back. The tight formation of guides, porters and kitchen staff have spread out as the hard effort to reach our camp has taken hold. With only 30 minutes of climbing to go the clouds have opened up and snow pellets are coming down hard. We make camp and quickly set up tents to get out of the elements. The worst of the storm passes quickly and I burrow into my now familiar and cozy tent. Another successful day on the GHT complete.
Keep climbing
Coo-coo, coo-coo, coo-coo echos across the terraces and up through the forest. I can't see the cuckoos but they seem to be everywhere. It's a pleasant call but over time it kind of has a grating effect like kids playing Marco-Polo in a swimming pool.
One day, as we climbed what seemed like an endless series of steps through multiple villages on the side of a mountain, another call rang out. It has three notes that start rather softly with a little pause then they repeat a little more loudly and again a little more loudly. This goes on about five times until the call is like a scream. I couldn't help but feel like this call was directed right at me. This is another member of the cuckoo family. In my head, all I could think of were these three notes saying: "keep climb-ing, keep climb-ing, KEEP CLIMB-ING". Now, every time I hear that call that's what I hear and it makes me smile.
Up next
Once we've taken a rest we're headed up to Tilman Pass. We're ready for a mountaineering crossing, if need be, but we'll see what the conditions are like. It sounds like there hasn't been much snow this year so we'll find out in a few days. Everyone is in good spirits to have the group together with good weather and a day to relax in a beautiful setting.
Steve, Vince, Juddha, Pikass

subset: commoncrawl


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Fun images from my research this week
July 27, 2011 § Leave a comment
Not as fun as the image suggests, this book published in 1970 presents itself as a warning against the downward spiral of sex and drugs. Laine, a freelance writer, encounters a woman screaming that she doesn't know who she is while running down a dark and rainy San Francisco street. He calls an ambulance, and through hospital visits gradually collects the story of a young woman's sexual and drug history as she deals with the psychological trauma of her alcoholic parents. Although it's a "warning," the book is full of juicy details about sex, drugs, and S&M. Laine says it is meant to be an accurate account of youth practices. The steamy narratives framed in the "safe" words of the older male add an uncomfortable layer of creepy misogyny. Interesting in terms of genre, one might compare it to Gifford's work on the so-called "Black Experience" novels as invented by Holloway House Publishers. Professor Justin Gifford writes about the complexities of racial representation in this article: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/melus/summary/v035/35.4.gifford.html
Issue #9 (1967) of Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary's Psychedelic Review
Important quotations:
The psychedelic movement is: "A million people looking for new ways to express, communicate, channel, integrate the revelations and visions of the interior journey." (2)
In a psychedelic experience "there is sensory bombardment and there is centering, so we have multichannel audio-visual inputs, and we have mandalas as centering devices. IBM had mandalas in its windows at Christmas. In a world of information chaos, heightened by psychedelics, the calm discs and bull's eyes that many of the light-composers are making serve as cool centers in a stimulus hurricane." (3)
"There is no uncertainty about what it means to 'turn on.'"
Issue #9 (1969) of Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary's Psychedelic Review
Considerably larger than earlier issues, this one was published by Sri Krishna Endeavors
It includes an article by Wilson Van Dusan entitled "Hallucinations as the World of Spirits" in which he compares patient hallucination to the visions of Emanuel Swedenborg.


text: |ICA dust collector, model 680-11, with (48) 5-3/4" diameter x 49" long cloth bags, less cages, approx. 430 sq. Ft. Of filtering area. Shaker type cleaning with 1 hp shaker drive motor. Collector has 5 hp motor and blower mounted on top of collector house. Blower rated approx. 1,000 cfm. Serial no. LAC7494.


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A Canadian study revealed in July has found that ladies who're depressed are more likely to develop coronary heart disease. It has been reported within the information and varied well being articles that women who drank two or three cups of Oolong tea a day have lost up to 15 kilos in just a few months. After Japan, ladies in Hong Kong ranks second with life expectancy 86.1 years, followed by France and Switzerland, 84.5 years eighty four.four years.
Justification being: turnover rate of employees will be minimized and extra nurses will potentially be drawn to the hospital due to the day care providers offered. A survey by a Sheffield charity has revealed the extreme impact on life for sufferers of the heart and lung condition, pulmonary hypertension.
In Australia, there have been plenty of circumstances of Buruli ulcers, an an infection brought on by a "flesh-consuming" micro organism. San Diego County declared an area well being emergency early Friday night time, including a new level of urgency to a hepatitis A outbreak that has hit the homeless population hardest, killing 15 people and hospitalizing tons of.
Benefit of flax seed oil for coronary coronary heart disease – Omega 3 helps reduce ldl cholesterol, blood stress, plaque formation and cardiac arrhythmia. Nonetheless, high ranges of triglycerides can be harmful to the physique, and more specifically, your heart.
One of the well-known purported makes use of for medical marijuana is to alleviate symptoms related to most cancers treatment, and a brand new examine finds that use of the drug amongst cancer sufferers is just not unusual. Dr. Eric McDonald, director of the county's Epidemiology and Immunization Providers Department, mentioned Wednesday that, based mostly on the number of cases coming in daily and the way different massive outbreaks have gone, it's unrealistic…


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Artist Anne-Francoise Couloumy
A solo exhibition of Anne-Françoise Couloumy opened this week in Mayfair.
Often described as La Hopper Française, Couloumy is an extraordinary artist whose talent and achievement have been acknowledged through the appointment to the rank of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. It was a real honour to meet her last Tuesday in London. You can read my article here


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13 ways to streamline your business
Once you realize your time is way more valuable than money you will be looking for ways to work more efficiently. Then you can put that extra time to the aspects of your business you love doing, not the ones you dread! Below are my list of 13 ways to streamline your business, or your work day, and in result save you valuable time.
1. Start your day feeling refreshed.
When you are well rested you work more efficiently and therefore get more done in a day. Go to bed an hour earlier to be more productive throughout the day and feel better physically and mentally. Not only will you work quicker but you will be thinking clearer and produce better work and ideas.
2. Create a strategy and a timeline.
You have a passion you want to turn into a business or a career. The dream is clear in your head, but the steps to get there are not. The first step after realizing what you want to pursue is to create a strategy for how to get there, and a timeline. Every step you take is moving you forward and time isn't wasted on tasks that do not push you in the direction you want to go.
Maybe your plan includes going back to school, or interning for a company one day you want to work for. What ever those necessary steps are write them out and a date you want to achieve it by. Long term planning can save you from spending time on pursuing paths that won't help you achieve your ideal career.
3. Make a to do list.
A to do list is a great tool for short term time management. After you determine your end goal and the strategy and timeline, you can break down those tasks into small manageable amounts of work to complete.
You will quickly realize your list of things to do can add up quickly, and feel a bit overwhelming. But now when you have a spare 30 mins you can look to your list and see what you can get done in that time.
A rule about using a to do list, complete what is most urgent and most important first. Also you know that task you are dreading to do? Get in done first thing in the morning and you will feel relieved to have that off your plate before you move onto the next task.
4. Cook meals ahead of time.
Grocery shopping, cooking and going out to eat take quite a bit of time to do and interrupt your day. One way to resolve that issue is to prepare meals ahead of time.
Set aside an afternoon to plan your meals and buy all your food for the week. Then prepare meals ahead of time. You can cut up produce, package snacks, or cook a batch of a dish to have left overs throughout the week. This is especially helpful when you work from home.
5. Create visual brand guidelines.
Once you have a logo, choose a selection of fonts and colours that represent your brand aesthetic. Stick with these and use them for any graphic media you put out for our audience to see. This keeps your branding consistent and you also don't have to spend extra time making daily changes and decisions.
6. Brainstorm blog content.
I've set aside an hour and brainstormed 30 different blog post ideas, then when I go to write I have a list to choose from. This allows me to write about whatever peaks my interest that day, and I don't have to wrack my brain trying to think of something useful and interesting to write about.
7. Create your blog graphics in a batch.
After you have done #5 and #6, this becomes very easy.
Combine your fonts and colours and maybe even a photo to create a graphic with the blog post title. I create a bunch at once when I know my topics.
8. Schedule your social media posts.
My goodness, this makes life so much easier!
Right now I only schedule my Facebook page, but I preplan my Instagram posts and have my photographs saved to my phone. A lot more thought goes into my social media now that I use it to connect on a professional level because I want the focus to be on my photography. This definitely helps save time by not having to think about your daily posts to social media.
9. Promote on best performing social media platforms.
How many social media platforms are out there? Too many to keep track of.
You won't be able to be active on every platform so instead select a few to focus your time and energy. Preferably choose the platforms where your target audience spends their time or where your marketing efforts are well received.
10. Limit time spent on social media.
Time easily slips away while on social media. There is so much content thrown our way it is hard to resist. An obvious way to save time is to limit your time spent on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc.
Go in with a time limit. Otherwise next thing you know, it is 4am and you were only planning on browsing briefly before going to bed.
11. Break up the day.
Ever sit in front of your computer screen trying to get work done, then a couple hours goes by and you have nothing to show for it?
I know personally I experience this feeling mid afternoon. What I find that works is to change up the task I am working on. Stepping away from the screen and doing something active, like errands or a coffee run, helps clear my head and then I can start fresh afterwards. This way I am still being productive during the day.
12. Set aside time to answer emails and return phone calls.
Answering phone calls and emails are short, frequent interruptions that happen throughout the work day. They cause you to loose your train of thought and stop working on the task at hand.
To prevent this from consuming a lot of your time I suggest setting aside an hour or so at the start of your day to answer any emails received from the night before and check it again in the evening before you call it quits for the day.
Answering your emails twice a day is plenty, for most entrepreneurs anyhow. Plus you don't want your clients getting used to an immediate response in case you are unable to be as attentive in the future.
13. Track your site traffic on Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a wonderful (and free!) tool to use for your website or online business. It allows you to track your most visited pages to see what your audience is interested in. For example, I can see which blog posts are most popular on Charuk Studios and I can write new posts about similar topics.
You can also see where your traffic is coming from. For example if you receive quite a bit of traffic from a referral website then you know to continue marketing through those avenues.
What are your tips to save you time while working?


text: New Dog Nutrition Products for 2015 Tony J. Peterson - September 01, 2015 Keeping a well-bred hunting athlete healthy is typically pretty simple; it just takes time, commitment and the right fuel. Proper diet and training regimen will have a pointer pointing and retriever fetching. But sometimes food and exercise aren't enough.Medicating pup properly keeps him in the game too...and birds in your vest. Check out the best new dog nutrition products for 2015:


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My buddy Jay and I headed out, and the water is moving up into vegetation that has grown up along the normal pool shoreline this year, but we could still walk along the shoreline easily.
We started out searching for carp to target with flies. We didn't see any in the shallows, but we decided to fish an area where the wind was blowing into shore, and there were some rocks and gravel in the water.
Jay alternated fishing with a fly rod for carp (he caught a couple carp on flies earlier in the week!) & spinning rod for anything. He caught the first fish (and the biggest of the night) on an inline spinner...a 26" Channel Catfish!
The wave action from wind and boats was substantial, and I was blind casting, there are a lot of small fish fry/fingerlings in the water right now...so I decided to use a beadhead woolly bugger under an indicator. The indicator would give the fly plenty of action and keep the fly off the bottom, plus make strike detection easier. I caught 2 Largemouth Bass while trying for carp, but finally got my target species. I was happy!
Not a huge carp, but it was a good fight. I imagined it probably spooked other carp in the area. I decided to put on a shad-imitating fly pattern and practice casting it with my 12' 5wt Allen Olympic switch rod. I wanted to determine whether this would be a viable option for the White Bass blitz later this Summer/Fall. I think it will be.
Here's the fly pattern I was using (I think it was the top one below):
I got 3 nice surprises while doing my testing. I caught 3 Channel Catfish...23", 24", and 25". (Corresponding weights according to a conversion table for catfish suggests these would be @ 5.5lbs, 6.3lbs, and 7.3 lbs.) GREAT FIGHTS!
I was worn out after that, so we left.
As we were walking out, we saw a lot of these big caterpillars...Hawk Moth/Sphinx Moth caterpillars, I think? I was sad to think that they will be drowned within the next day or so.
Edit: Turns out both caterpillars above are likely color morphs of the White Lined Sphinx Moth.


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DOVAL, Inés María. Universidad de Buenos Aires Facultad de Ciencias EconómicasAv. Córdoba 2122 Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires - Argentina E-mail:
We intend to consider on the implicit technology values incorporated into the organizations; taking Feenberg, A. in Alternate Modernity. The Technical Turn in Philosophy and Social Theory, where he presents the democratization of his technocratic thesis starting off from three matters: the distortion of the organizational consent formation process by "delegating" the understanding to normalize the devices. The role of articulating the action in that process. And the role of the operational autonomy in the accumulation of technocratic power. To democratize the technical change requires: the possibility to democratize the technological control; the legitimacy of involving the informal public matter; and the public intervention with rationality and the work autonomy of the technical professional. It is necessary to consider about the objections that are made to the theory: the management chooses and decides last; it is not trivial, there is an operator, an object (technical system or input) and a especially technical power that arises in the roles that are carried out by human beings. We try to explain how the technical elections presuppose election norms and they have normative consequences, how they work within the groups, and how the repetitive processes of the group can take qualities of own expansion.
KEYWORDS technology, to democratize, values, to delegate, consensus, and autonomy.
Read complete article...


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Live Comedy Slide Show Performance Celebrating Classic and Kitschy Holiday Life and Style
Curtis Theater
1 Civic Center Cir
Brea, CA 92821
Be prepared for your spirit to soar when Ambassador of Americana, Charles Phoenix, sweeps you away on a hilarious hi-octane adventure into his wild and wacky world of "flea-market found" vintage Kodachrome slides, and epic holiday inspired "test kitchen" edible party centerpieces.
This delicious deep-fried and dose of New Years, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, celebrating time-honored traditions and inspiring new ones, is sure to get you in the mood for the season like never before!
Festive holiday dress is encouraged but not expected!


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If I did not succeed I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not immediately. But there are others who believe in things that are true. Votes: 3Vincent Van Gogh
It's not long-term debt if the money is immediately paid back. Votes: 2Roy Blunt
A soft refusal is not always taken, but a rude one is immediately believed. Votes: 2Alexander Chase
A private railroad car is not an acquired taste. One takes to it immediately. Votes: 2Eleanor Robson Belmont
The history of nations shows that words are not always immediately followed by action. Votes: 2Gustav Stresemann
I read a script and I know immediately whether that role is for me or not. Votes: 2Jennifer Coolidge
I'm not feeling very well - I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course. Votes: 2Groucho Marx
I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian. Votes: 2Nicholas Lea
Each concession we make is accompanied by an inner diminution of which we are not immediately conscious. Votes: 2Emile M. Cioran
Art has to change things, and if it was immediately acceptable it would not be doing the job. Votes: 2Antony Gormley
Loyal and efficient work in a great cause, even though it may not be immediately recognized, ultimately bears fruit. Votes: 2Jawaharlal Nehru
I understood immediately that to get success I had to make for the front door, not for the back one. Votes: 2Jean Gabin
If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. Votes: 2William Kingdon Clifford
I tried immediately to have a baby because I was so afraid not to have a baby in my life. Votes: 2Roberto Cavalli
I think vestigially there's a synesthete in me, but not like a real one who immediately knows what colour Wednesday is. Votes: 2A. S. Byatt
I have a perverse attraction to risk. Not physical risk but emotional, financial risk - anything than can't kill you immediately. Votes: 2Scott Adams
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. Votes: 2Hermann Hesse
A women under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood. Votes: 2John Gray
Being a Southern person and a blonde, it's not a good combination. Immediately, when people meet you, they think of you as not being smart. Votes: 2Reese Witherspoon
The trick is always to write in pairs because if at least two people find it funny, you've immediately halved the odds of it not being funny. Votes: 2Steve Coogan
Privatization of the state-owned economy is not yet on the agenda. We cannot do it immediately; my colleagues would not agree to it. But we must put all forms of ownership on an equal footing immediately and let different types of ownership compete with the state firms. Votes: 2Vaclav Klaus
I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful. Votes: 0John Piper
A lot can be done, but not everyone immediately succeeds in everything. Votes: 0Vladimir Putin
Transformation can only take place immediately; the revolution is now, not tomorrow. Votes: 0Jiddu Krishnamurti
Words deserted him immediately. He could only speak when he was not asked to. Votes: 0E. M. Forster
Comedy is not something that had necessarily jumped out as something I'd immediately go for. Votes: 0Ed Speleers
The Bible says that the servant of the Lord must be patient. Not everyone believes immediately. Votes: 0Greg Laurie
It's essential that we do what's right - not necessarily what appears to be immediately popular. Votes: 0George W. Bush
There is no feeling so simple that it is not immediately complicated and distorted by introspection. Votes: 0Andre Gide
I think somebody who speaks the language is going to notice immediately that I'm not Russian." Votes: 0Nicholas Lea
If you have any image of what the Truth is, slay it immediately because that's not it. Votes: 0Adyashanti
It's hard not to immediately fall in love witha dog who has a good sense of humor. Votes: 0Kate DiCamillo
Not everything is immediately good to those who seek God; but everything is capable of becoming good. Votes: 0Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I'm not the president, so the president, has top secret clearance immediately. I don't. It takes time. Votes: 0Reince Priebus
To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive. Votes: 0Sol Stein
Now you'll have to wait for hours in line for medical care instead of immediately not getting any. Votes: 0Stephen Colbert
Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places. Principle #2: Do not defend your property. Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape. Votes: 0Sam Harris
If you believe that you're doing will positive results, it will - even if it's not immediately obvious. Votes: 0Sophia Amoruso
Creativity has to do with what came before you immediately, not what came before you a long time ago. Votes: 0Paula Scher
It is not humanly possible to gather immediately from it what the logic of language is. Language disguises thought. Votes: 0Ludwig Wittgenstein
As soon as you become aware that something is not working, immediately shift your focus to the desired result. Votes: 0Alan Cohen
The secret of forgiveness is not to procrastinate, but to free yourself immediately of stress by totally forgiving this instant. Votes: 0Gerald Jampolsky
When you hear tracks everybody immediately thinks that nobody is really playing or singing. That's not the case at all. Votes: 0Chris Johnson
As for kissing on the first date, you should never date someone whom you would not wish to kiss immediately. Votes: 0Garrison Keillor
If you believe that what you're doing will have positive results, it will even if it's not immediately obvious. Votes: 0Sophia Amoruso
The first time I was told that I had a brain injury, I immediately thought to myself, "I'm not crazy. Votes: 0Amy Rankin
All our philosophy is as dry as dust if it is not immediately translated into some act of living service. Votes: 0Mahatma Gandhi
Go tell your general for me that if he does not immediately withdraw his men, I will send them to hell! Votes: 0Sam Smith
Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; -from fear of its being abused. Votes: 0Samuel Johnson
There's always this assumption that you're going to get everything right immediately. And any professional understands that that's just not so. Votes: 0Anthony Bourdain
Is not the pastness of the past the more profound, the more legendary, the more immediately it falls before the present ? Votes: 0Thomas Mann
There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent. Votes: 0Jennifer Donnelly
People will endure their tyrants for years, but they tear their deliverers to pieces if a millennium is not created immediately. Votes: 0Woodrow Wilson
It is risky to order a boy not to do something; it immediately opens to him the adventure of doing it. Votes: 0Robert Baden-Powell
The conservative values that are emerging, it may not effect architecture immediately but it will effect society and that's what worries me. Votes: 0Zaha Hadid
The moment money becomes your motivation, you are immediately NOT AS GOOD AS someone who is stimulated by PASSION and INTERNAL WILL Votes: 0Sebastian Vettel
"¦we can not love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes along its own trajectory and immediately disappears. Votes: 0Italo Calvino
It's not like you get up on stage and you're immediately a genius. It takes a long time. So, don't be discouraged. Votes: 0Bill Hader
In this world we live in, racism is alive and well in all venues. We immediately categorize people, and that's just not right. Votes: 0Leigh Anne Tuohy
It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material. Votes: 0Francis Crick
Ultimate Reality is not clearly and immediately apprehended except by those who have made themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit. Votes: 0Aldous Huxley
It is no good hearing an inner voice or getting an inner prompting if you do not immediately act on that inner prompting. Votes: 0David Spangler
If God rewarded the righteous immediately, we would soon be engaged in business, not godliness...we would be pursuing not piety,but profit. Votes: 0Clement of Alexandria
A person God himself deems as wise is one who not only hears His voice, but immediately begins to act upon His instruction. Votes: 0Erwin McManus
What makes a strong female character is a character who has weaknesses, who has flaws, who is maybe not immediately likable, but eventually relatable. Votes: 0Tavi Gevinson
Our bodies are perishable, wealth is not at all permanent and death is always nearby. Therefore we must immediately engage in acts of merit. Votes: 0Chanakya
Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult. Votes: 0Thomas Aquinas
Don't be discouraged if the answer to your prayer does not come immediately. Study, ponder, and pray, sincerely having faith, and live the commandments. Votes: 0Joseph B. Wirthlin
A women under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood Votes: 0John Gray
Our soul is not united to our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately and directly united to God alone. Votes: 0Nicolas Malebranche
Buddha says: "Do not flatter your benefactor!". Let one repeat this saying in a Christian church : it immediately purifies the air of everything Christian. Votes: 0Friedrich Nietzsche
Entrepreneurs do not try and create new types of smartphone technologies now because they know it's pointless: They're going to get sued almost immediately. Votes: 0Charles Duhigg
Immediately after games, we're talking about what we need to do for the next game. We're not satisfied in the moment that we're in. Votes: 0Dwyane Wade
I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful. Votes: 0Sylvia Plath
Has creation a final purpose at all, and if so why is it not attained immediately, why does perfection not exist from the very beginning? Votes: 0Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
One of the trials of life is that we do not usually receive immediately the full blessing for righteousness or the full cursing for wickedness. Votes: 0Ezra Taft Benson
Good actors can sort of see into people and immediately you have a chemistry with them or not. It's like an affair with no mess. Votes: 0John Cusack
Two fairies were sleeping peacefully on his bed. Dinnie was immediately depressed. He knew that he did not have enough money to see a therapist. Votes: 0Martin Millar
The 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen. Votes: 0Donald Trump
Arrive at knowledge over small streamlets, and do not plunge immediately into the ocean, since progress must go from the easier to the more difficult. Votes: 0Thomas Aquinas
I think women look for that quality in a man of being a good dad whether they're immediately wanting to be a parent or not. Votes: 0Emily VanCamp
A realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably. Votes: 0Yann Martel
A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough. Votes: 0William James
Sometimes we look at a work of art and we immediately think that it is German art, but with some we don't, it's not so obvious. Votes: 0Michael Craig-Martin
Business men who are busy the whole day and immediately go to bed after supper, snoring like cows, are not likely to contribute anything to culture. Votes: 0Lin Yutang
You cannot, and will not, encounter a circumstance, or a single moment, that does not serve directly and immediately the need of your soul to heal. Votes: 0Gary Zukav
It seems to take a lifetime for us to learn that wisdom consists largely in a graceful acceptance of things that do not immediately concern us. Votes: 0Myrtle Reed
Not wanting anyone to pop my bubble by speaking to me, I immediately began reading Lesbian Nuns, and that did the trick. No one attempted small talk. Votes: 0John Waters
I was immediately smitten with an attraction to this culture, not in the sense of high culture but of the basic way people behaved towards one another. Votes: 0Harry Mathews
Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately. Votes: 0Sol Stein
The important thing is to strive toward a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit. Votes: 0Antoine de Saint-Exupery
If I were to go to heaven, and find that Christ was not there, I would leave immediately; for heaven without Christ would be hell to me. Votes: 0Thomas Goodwin
The institutions of Churchianity are not Christianity. An institution is a good thing if it is second; immediately an institution recognizes itself it becomes the dominating factor. Votes: 0Oswald Chambers
When actors go onstage, you know immediately if they can do their job. You can be a lawyer or an accountant for years and not find out. Votes: 0Patsy Rodenburg
If there's anything you're not happy about-in your relationships, in your health, in your career-make a decision right now about how you're going to change it immediately. Votes: 0Tony Robbins
Mexico will pay for it [the wall], because they are not doing us any favors. They could stop all of this illegal trade if they wanted to immediately. Votes: 0Donald Trump
The sciences throw an inexpressible grace over our compositions, even where they are not immediately concerned; as their effects are discernible where we least expect to find them. Votes: 0Tacitus
I hate the word proper. If you tell me a thing is not proper, I immediately feel the most rabid desire to go 'neck and heels' into it. Votes: 0Fanny Fern
Businesses are not just local or even national anymore - good ideas are immediately global. So the market opportunities are much larger than we've ever imagined or seen. Votes: 0Alfred Lin
The present is burdened too much with the past. We have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what is warm with life, and immediately around us. Votes: 0Nathaniel Hawthorne
Alyosha's heart could not bear uncertainty, for the nature of his love was always active. He could not love passively; once he loved, he immediately also began to help. Votes: 0Fyodor Dostoevsky
One does not, by knowing all the physical laws as we know them today, immediately obtain an understanding of anything much. I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians. Votes: 0Richard P. Feynman
I'Âm generally in favor of economic globalization. Having said that, it doesnÂt always work and does not immediately work in the interest of all. There are sufferers. Votes: 0Amartya Sen
Qhuinn gave in immediately, as he was categorically incapable of denying the female anything " most certainly not one of her hugs. They were even better than her lasagna. Votes: 0J.R. Ward
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Do not despair if the answers don't come immediately. Some answers are only revealed with the passage of time. Votes: 0Rainer Maria Rilke
If people see me having dinner with a beautiful woman, they immediately believe that I'm having a love affair with her. Of course that's rubbish. I'm not a playboy! Votes: 0George Clooney
In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases theyre not. Votes: 0Oliver Sacks
Not every one of our desires can be immediately gratified. We've got to learn to wait patiently for our dreams to come true, especially on the path we've chosen. Votes: 0Sarah Ban Breathnach
In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases they're not. Votes: 0Oliver Sacks
You will make a difference in the world, but not immediately. Your first obligation is to find something you like doing, because if you like doing it, you'll do it well. Votes: 0Condoleezza Rice
Daily hope is vital, since the "Winter Quarters' of our lives are not immediately adjacent to our promised land either. An arduous trek still awaits, but hope spurs weary disciples on. Votes: 0Neal A. Maxwell
Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear. Votes: 0James Thurber
Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask Him; for He desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to Him in prayer. Votes: 0Evagrius Ponticus
I have no rules on drinking. In your young days, you can play strong even if you are not healthy. If they want to get drunk and smoke, they can, but not immediately after a match when the body is weak and vulnerable.Felix Magath
Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts.Antoine Lavoisier
It is not those who commit the least faults who are the most holy, but those who have the greatest courage, the greatest generosity, the greatest love, who make the boldest efforts to overcome themselves, and are not immediately apprehensive about tripping.Saint Francis de Sales
The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage they did not know they had.Martin Luther King, Jr.
There's something not normal about you if you're writing a book about yourself, or about anything. And if you're the kind of person who can deal with being recognized by strangers and if that's tolerable or pleasing to you, and not immediately terrifying, that's not normal either.Anthony Bourdain
Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God. Votes: 3 Swami Vivekananda


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As the saying goes 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', so we have a few recreational activities to consider when staying in an apartment in Milton Keynes. Business trips of a couple of nights or longer can be quite exhausting so to have a comfortable place to stay and a breath of fresh air can help to make you feel more alert and energised.
If you fancy a walk or have access to a bicycle, then the Grand Union Canal makes for a lovely place to go to stretch the legs and watch all the goings-on particularly during the Spring and Summer months. This vast canal is over 200 years old and gently winds its way up from London, through Milton Keynes and on to Birmingham. Although this is no longer a working canal it has been well-maintained and offers some great opportunities for leisure and relaxation.
The canal towpath takes in some lovely urban and rural scenery and is a great place for a walk. You can also cycle on the towpath if you are feeling more energetic and want to go further afield. The canal towpath covers over 1,500 miles and many of the best local cycle routes interlink at key points along the trail. There are bicycle hire services in Milton Keynes (Lakeside Cycle Hire: 0l908 691616) so you don't need to bring your own bike with you on your trip.
There are a number of cafes, pubs, bars and restaurant along the Grand Union Canal. This is a lovely way to relax and enjoy a meal in picturesque waterside surroundings.
Many people travel to Milton Keynes each year for business. Sometimes this involves staying more than just a night. The option of Milton Keynes serviced apartments rather than a Hotel stay means you can find a comfortable 'home away from home' accommodation whilst you are away on business.


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Mom and Dad met Willie from Duck Dynasty at the NRA conference and accused us kids of finally being impressed.
I have to admit, I love that Duck Dynasty has taken off like it has!
Who are your favorite guys on the show?
And, more importantly, should Dad grow a beard like that???
Read more on the Faith and Family Channel, fan me on Facebook and follow this blog on Twitter!


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For most people who want to start a WordPress blog, I recommend you stick with shared hosting. But, if you're a self-hosting kind of person, like me, then this post will show you from start to finish how to install WordPress on Ubuntu Server 18.04.
Get A VPS
The first step is to get a VPS, or Virtual Private Server. If you already have a server to run WordPress on, then you can skip this step. Otherwise, you'll need to sign up and purchase a VPS from an IaaS(Infrastructure as a Service) provider. I recommend you use DigitalOcean because, from my experience, they offer one of the best balances between pricing, features, and simplicity. As an added bonus, if you use this link, you can get $100 worth of credit for 60 days(i.e. 2 free months). You can also check out Linode, Vultr, or any other IaaS provider; all you need is a VPS with a public IP address.
FYI, the link to DigitalOcean is an affiliate link. If you sign up by using my link, you'll get $100 of credit which expires after 60 days. I also get a commission for referring you, at no extra cost to you of course. I currently use DigitalOcean myself and I don't have any complaints.
If you do decide to go with DigitalOcean, then all you need to do is sign up, then log in. Once you're at the dashboard, simple click the blue "Get Started with a Droplet" button:
Now, all you need to do is slide over to the $5 VPS, like so:
You can change any other options you like(I recommend setting the hostname to your domain name), then click the green "Create" button:
Now, you have to wait for the VPS to be created, then check your email for the root password. Once you get it, copy it into your clipboard, then SSH into your server with the following terminal command for Mac or Linux:
ssh firstname.lastname@example.com
If you get asked
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)?, then just type
yes, followed by pressing the enter key.
If you're on Windows, then you can either use the DigitalOcean console:
or install an SSH client such as Putty. Once you're in, you'll be prompted to change the password for security reasons(emails can be intercepted among other things). Choose a secure password, and continue with the tutorial.
All Other IaaS Providers
If you decide to use a provider other than DigitalOcean, then what you need to do is create a VPS and SSH into it. As much as I would like to create a tutorial for each IaaS provider out there, I don't have the time. However, chances are someone else has a tutorial on how to do it, so Google is your friend here.
Actually Installing WordPress
Now we get into the "hard" part, which is mostly copying and pasting commands.
Update Your VPS
Right after you get into your VPS, it's important to update all the software. Luckily for you, Linux has a much simpler approach for updating all the packages on a system than other OS's, especially Windows. For the case of Ubuntu, all you need to do is run two commands:
apt update
apt upgrade
You'll see something similar to the following:
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libuv1 linux-headers-4.15.0-39 linux-headers-4.15.0-39-generic
linux-image-4.15.0-39-generic linux-modules-4.15.0-39-generic
The following packages will be upgraded:
apport bind9-host dnsutils gettext-base git git-man grub-common
grub-efi-amd64 grub-efi-amd64-bin grub-efi-amd64-signed grub-pc-bin
grub2-common kmod libbind9-160 libdns-export1100 libdns1100 libglib2.0-0
libglib2.0-data libirs160 libisc-export169 libisc169 libisccc160
libisccfg160 libkmod2 libldap-2.4-2 libldap-common liblwres160 libmspack0
libnss-systemd libpam-systemd libpython3-stdlib libpython3.6
libpython3.6-minimal libpython3.6-stdlib libsystemd0 libudev1
linux-headers-generic linux-headers-virtual linux-image-virtual
linux-virtual lxd lxd-client open-vm-tools openssh-client openssh-server
openssh-sftp-server python3 python3-apport python3-distupgrade python3-gdbm
python3-minimal python3-problem-report python3-update-manager python3.6
python3.6-minimal shim-signed sosreport systemd systemd-sysv ubuntu-keyring
ubuntu-release-upgrader-core udev update-manager-core update-notifier-common
64 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 66.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 165 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Just type
y, press enter, and let Ubuntu do its magic. If you get any prompts, it's safe to just press enter on the default option.
Install Required Software
Now that you have an up to date VPS, the next thing to do is install the required packages to run WordPress. In order for WordPress to work, you'll need to install a web server, PHP, and MySQL on your VPS. We'll be using Apache as a web server, and we'll actually use MariaDB instead of MySQL. To install these packages, we'll again use
apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-php7.2 php-mysqli mariadb-server
Again, press
y when prompted, and wait for the packages to install. If any prompts pop up, just press enter with the default settings(if nothing happens, press tab then enter). Next, it's good practice to secure the MySQL install, so run
mysql_secure_installation, leave the current root password password blank, set a new root password, verify it, and just press enter without typing anything for the rest of the prompts.
Install & Configure Postfix
If you want WordPress to be able to send emails(e.g. for password recovery), you'll need to install postfix. All you need to do is run:
apt install postfix
Then, press tab and enter on the first screen:
Just press enter on the next screen:
Lastly, enter your domain for the last screen:
Configure Apache
Now that we've gotten everything installed, it's time to configure all of the packages, starting with Apache. Apache uses something called virtual hosts which allows for multiple websites to be hosted on a single public IP address. Even if you just plan on running one website on your server, it's still a good idea to create a virtual host.
First, let's disable the default virtual host by telling Apache to remove it from the
sites-enabled folder:
a2dissite 000-default
Now, go into the Apache configuration folder, and make a copy of the default configuration:
cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
cp 000-default.conf 000-wordpress.conf
Edit the file using
nano 000-wordpress.conf
And edit the file to match the following(use the arrow keys to navigate, and press Control + X, then
y when you're done editing):
<VirtualHost *:80>
# The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
# the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
# redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
# specifies what hostname must appear in the request's Host: header to
# match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
# value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
# However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
ServerName example.com
ServerAdmin firstname.lastname@example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/wordpress
<Directory /var/www/wordpress/>
AllowOverride All
# Available loglevels: trace8, ..., trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
# error, crit, alert, emerg.
# It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
# modules, e.g.
#LogLevel info ssl:warn
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
# For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
# enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
# include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
# following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
# after it has been globally disabled with "a2disconf".
#Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf
# vim: syntax=apache ts=4 sw=4 sts=4 sr noet
You can leave out all the lines that start with
# if you want because they're just comments and ignored by Apache. Also, replace "example.com" with your domain if you have one. Apache doesn't know that we want to actually use the new configuration, so run the following enable it:
a2ensite 000-wordpress
The last thing to do with Apache is to enable some required modules:
a2enmod rewrite
Now, restart Apache to make the changes live, and move on to the next step:
service apache2 restart
Download WordPress
Once Apache is configured, we need to download and unzip all of the WordPress files. To do this, we move into the webroot, then download and decompress the
tar.gz file, all of which can be accomplished by running the following:
# Move into the directory
cd /var/www/
# Get the WordPress zip file
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
# Decompress the file
tar xf latest.tar.gz
# Set proper permissions
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wordpress
That's it, you now have WordPress downloaded, and we're almost done!
Create a Database
The last step before visiting your site is to create a database for WordPress. We'll also need to create a user and password that WordPress can use to access the database we make. All of this can be accomplished by running the following commands:
# Go into the MariaDB shell
# Create a database
CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
# Create a user, password, and grant access to the database
# You should probably change the password :)
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'wp_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
# Update privileges
# Exit MariaDB
Remember the password you used, as you'll need it for the WordPress install.
Install WordPress
To install WordPress, go to the IP address of your server, where you'll be greeted with the WordPress install page.
Click on "Let's go!", and fill out the database information from the previous step. The only thing you'll need to change from the screen shot below is the password:
If all went well, you should see this screen:
If you don't, double check your database password. The next screen is where you set up your site and admin account:
After WordPress finishes installing, you'll be redirected to the login page, where you log in with the credentials you just set.
After all that work, you are now officially in the WordPress admin panel, congratulations!
Basic Server Security
Now that you have WordPress installed, it's important to lock down your server a bit. The first step in doing this is to set up the firewall to only allow web and SSH traffic. Doing this is easy, just run the following commands:
# Enable the firewall(you'll need to press y and enter when prompted)
ufw enable
# Limit 22/tcp
ufw limit 22/tcp
# Allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 80/tcp
The commands above simply enable the firewall, rate limit SSH(to help prevent brute force attacks), and allow HTTP access.
Don't Use Root
In this tutorial, you've been using the root account to do everything. This is generally not recommended for security reasons. To create your own account(highly recommended), simply run the following commands:
# Create the user
# Enter your new password and verify when prompted
# Press enter for everything else
adduser user_name
# Give yourself sudo access
adduser user_name sudo
You now have a non-root account! To run root commands, simply prefix each command with
sudo. You will be prompted for your password, after which the command will run as the root user. To access the root shell, just use
sudo su.
Remember To Update!
Since you're managing this server yourself, it's up to you to remember to update it. All you need to do is run the following commands every now and then:
# Update package indexes
apt update
# Upgrade without prompting
apt -y upgrade
You now have a fully self-hosted WordPress blog.
You can just host WordPress on Cloudways. You can choose to host your WordPress site on a DigitalOcean VPS for as low as $10 a month! This also comes with the added bonus of free SSL, no need to worry about updating your server, and blazing fast load times.


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Transformers Doesn't Disappoint
As many of you know I have a few new projects going on, which I am still waiting to announce. However one of my older projects, Movie-Stop has taken a temporary or possibly permanent hiatus, still trying to figure it out. However that is besides the point because I had the privledge to see Transformers on the 4th of July. The last time I saw a movie on the 4th of July was Independence Day and let me just say Transformers does not disappoint at all. I will admit I didn't know a lot about Transformers going in, other then being extremely enthused by the trailers. After seeing this two and a half hour blockbuster action flick I can do nothing but praise this movie. It was by far the most enjoyable movie I have seen in theaters this year and will definitely be making it to my buy list when it comes on DVD. If you haven't yet seen Transformers, I would highly recommend it. Disappoint
Two Thumbs Up!
Two Thumbs Up!


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It's ok to change after a difficult thing has happened
One day I called my best friend from high school and asked him –
"Can you tell me who I was? … Remind me how you remember me, please… I can't remember who I was, who I really am, who I'm supposed to be."
I experienced a trauma. It changed me in ways that made me unrecognizable to myself. I struggled with these changes, resented them, and ended up resenting myself.
I had to learn that that going through difficult things can change us – and that's ok.
Here are some things I wish I knew and hope to always carry with me when I have to move through difficult moments in my life.
Your capacity might change and that's okay.
After my trauma, I did very little. I didn't go to class. I didn't talk to anyone. I barely ate. I never cleaned. I didn't go to work. I rarely left my dorm. I failed all my classes, lost my job and most of my friends. When I started to emerge from that space, I experienced intense guilt. How could I let this happen? How could I let my life fall apart like this? How did I let things get this bad?
This meant that in addition to addressing the trauma I also had to work through my negative feelings around how I coped with the trauma. My therapist (bless her) gave me words that I hold always. She reminded me that coping with trauma takes so much more energy and life-force than you realize. It can look like you're just sleeping or not doing anything, but internally you're doing so much work.
It takes energy to heal. It takes energy to survive. It takes energy to cope. This means you'll probably have less capacity to do the things you usually do – socializing, working, cleaning, cooking, etc. Be soft with your shifting capacity.
More Radical Reads: "We All Deserve to Heal:" Making My Way Beyond Survivor's Guilt
Your coping mechanisms might change and that's okay.
Perhaps in an ideal world, when bad things happened, we would all cope in 'healthy' ways – meditation, journaling, therapy, reaching out, etc. But that's not how it always goes down. Real world coping can get messy. Real world coping can get murky.
So yes, if you can, please find ways to cope that are not harmful. And if they are harmful, try and access support in order to shift to less harmful ways. However, beloveds please, try and forgive the ways your spirit and psyche use to protect you during and after a trauma.
I found myself coping in ways and with behaviors that were unfamiliar to me. I felt like a stranger – a stranger I did not necessarily like. However, as time has passed, I have learned to be grateful for all the things that brought me through. Survival sometimes requires change and often demands it.
Your interests might change, and that's ok.
Maybe you found religion. Maybe you lost religion. Maybe you can't watch the same shows anymore. Maybe you need to move out of the city you've been living in for the past several years. Maybe you've become more introverted.
Again, seek support if you feel you aren't handling stress of trauma well, but also try to be open to the multiple ways you shift.
What you need, what you desire, what you can tolerate, what you seek out might change. Taking care of yourself is most important.
Relearn your (new)self
Make peace with your (new)self
It's okay
There was a point in my life when I became obsessed with the idea of getting back to who I was, who I used to be. I equated this 'return' with healing. I was convinced that all I had to do was untangle the mythical 'real' me from what I felt was a tainted traumatized version of me. I saw any change in me as evidence and artifact of something I had to move on from. It took me a long time to not only let go of that idea of healing, but to also find gratitude for the fact that I had taken care of myself in the best ways I knew how to. And even though I still mourned what I sometimes still imagine as parts of me lost, I had to learn to accept and cherish who I had become.
Please don't mistake healing with not changing.
Getting through difficult things is by its nature – difficult. Changing is not a sign of weakness or flaw.
We shift, we change, we heal, we move on, we get stuck, we get stuck in the pursuit of moving on, we adapt, we falter… Making peace with yourself through all these journeys is so very important to loving yourself – to loving all of yourself.
[Feature Image: A light brown skinned individual with long black hair is pictured staring up. Pexels.com]