For us at ADX, leading by example means embodying three key principles: invest in great people, support our communities, and pursue self-reliance by trusting our decisions.

As a global group of companies in technology, entertainment and services, the coronavirus pandemic started to encroach on us from the first days of 2020. Our teams made an early decision to maintain full employment across the group, and to seek out new talent became available. As a result, we have added to our global headcount over the first seven months of 2020, growing our number of full-time employees by more than 9%, leading us to nearly double our 2018 headcount.

ADX’s second principle, to proactively invest in our communities, has been driven by the ADX Foundation. Since April 2020, ADX has donated more than $250,000 to relevant local and global non-profits through this charitable arm.

Over the last few months, we have contributed $100,000 to CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) to work towards the development of a vaccine against COVID-19, $90,000 to Second Harvest Heartland to fight food insecurity among families in Minnesota, $40,000 to Minneapolis’ Longfellow Business Association to help small local businesses recover from devastating riot damage in the wake of the tragic death of George Floyd, and $18,000 to fund a community bulletin board resource for members of the community who rely on those small businesses, found in the local publication, the Longfellow Nokomis Messenger. We are hopeful we will continue forward with additional philanthropic partnerships in the future.

ADX’s third principle, to pursue self-reliance and to trust our decisions, is best demonstrated by our return of a substantial federal government PPP loan within days of receiving the funds.

The first days of quarantine were as scary for us as they were for everyone. Like many businesses with substantial headcount, we accepted our bankers’ urging to apply for federal payroll protection assistance. However, only days after ADX Labs received those federal funds, it was clear to us that too many other businesses in need were unable to apply before the initial tranche of funds were exhausted. We bet on the excellence of our people and our products, and we made the decision to immediately return the loan. Our strong sales and growth through the second quarter of 2020 are evidence that ADX will continue to make the world a better place, through the power of technology, for decades to come.

ADX Labs is committed to making a difference throughout the world through the power of technology. As a globally focused company, we aim to ensure our charitable giving supports causes both local and worldwide. The current outbreak of COVID-19 is a global struggle, and in our partnership with CEPI, we have found a like-minded organization built on innovation and dedicated to preparedness and vaccine equity. CEPI’s new Call for Proposals to accelerate vaccine candidates against COVID-19 is a highly promising initiative, and ADX Labs is proud to help CEPI’s vaccine development partners increase their chances of success.

CEPI, which multidisciplinary science journal Nature called “by far the largest vaccine development initiative ever against viruses that are potential epidemic threats,” has moved quickly to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, and has funded a diverse portfolio of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, with the ambition of developing a safe, effective and globally accessible vaccine within a 12-18-month timeframe.

Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, said, “We are incredibly grateful for ADX Labs’ donation to expedite our work to develop an effective vaccine against COVID-19. This global pandemic has resulted in a devastating loss of lives, while also fracturing societies and shutting down economies. Investment in vaccines and other scientific innovations now is crucial to give us the best possible chance of ending this pandemic. We are therefore delighted to welcome ADX to the coalition.”

About Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) 

CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organizations to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. Before COVID-19, CEPI’s priority diseases included Ebola, Lassa, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Nipah, Rift Valley Fever, Chikungunya and unknown pathogens (Disease X). Learn more at http://cepi.net

My goals for these charitable actions are to provide equitable help to those in need, especially children.

I am pleased to say that in June, ADX donated $90,000 to Minnesota’s Second Harvest Heartlandnon-profit, to fund meals for children and families facing food insecurity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because we are headquartered in Minneapolis, it was important to me to provide to our local communities. Before the COVID-19 crisis, one in eleven Minnesotans, including one in eight Minnesotan kids didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Now, the scale of need is off the charts, and no child should ever be hungry.

Second Harvest Heartland’s CEO, Allison O’Toole said, “We are seeing a record demand for food, and it’s still growing. ADX’s donation comes at such an important time. As we move into the summer, ADX’s support helps us to help kids who are unable to get their school meals. We’re trying to ensure that kids don’t look back on summer 2020 as their hungriest summer ever.”

In 2019, Second Harvest Heartland fed 532,000 Minnesotans, with 97 million meals distributed. ADX based our decision to support Second Harvest Heartland on several factors, chief among which is the organization’s commitment to providing fresh, healthy produce.

More than 65% of meals distributed by Second Harvest Heartland are comprised of fresh, local produce. We want children to grow strong and healthy and to learn good habits so that they can raise the next generation of Minnesotans with confidence.

About Second Harvest Heartland 

Second Harvest Heartland believes no one should ever go hungry, as our region produces more than enough food for everyone. Helping hungry neighbors find their next meal—so they can thrive at work, in the classroom and in their communities—is what drives Second Harvest Heartland, its partners and supporters. Second Harvest Heartland brings more than 44 years of history and experience to the fight against hunger. Learn more at http://2harvest.org

An intrapreneur by definition works at a large company but behaves more like the head of a startup. They usually manage a small team and have complete ownership over a product or initiative that’s separate from their organization’s core business. Conversely,  an entrepreneur runs their own company. They have complete creative control, freedom, and responsibility. While intrapreneurship is inherently less risky, the “in-organization” role means less autonomy, and that the pay-off from a successful product or idea is usually smaller.

Being an intrapreneur holds a lot of appeal to many. Intrapreneurs get some of the same benefits entrepreneurs do: visibility, money, power, learning opportunities, network connections, and maybe most importantly, the chance to innovate and change the game, without most of the risks entrepreneurs can face: bankruptcy, major failure, etc.

Successful intrapreneurs are incredibly valuable to their employers, so usually they receive high salaries, increased instances of benefits and perks, and a ton of leverage in the company.

Thinking about becoming an intrapreneur? Ask yourself these questions:

• Does having the resources and support of a large company outweigh the potential benefits of running my own company?
• How tolerant of risk can I be and how important to me is job security?
• Does having the responsibilities attributed to managing my own business scare me or excite me?
• Do I prefer to work within an existing culture, or would I prefer to develop my own?

Intrapreneurship Examples

• Gmail was developed by intrapreneurship. Paul Buchheit worked independently to build the first version of the tool.
• Facebook hosts hackathons for employees to work on projects they’re passionate about, outside of their normal work. A “Like” button prototype was developed at one of these hackathons.
• Apple’s original Mac was also created via intrapreneurship. Steve Jobs put together a group of intrapreneurs to work independently to develop the original Macintosh computer.
• Sony employee Ken Kutaragi spent hours trying to make his daughter’s Nintendo console more powerful and user-friendly but his idea for a Sony console was rebuffed by many higher-ups at Sony that were hesitant to join the gaming industry. A senior employee spotted value in Kutaragi’s innovative product and Sony went on to develop this product into the PlayStation.

This is still what most marketers are doing, but because content marketing has only continued to grow in popularity, it has become a much more complex type of marketing with nuance and purposeful thinking needed in order for your content to effectively reach and resonate with your audience. You can improve the outlook for your content marketing with these marketing techniques for 2019. Read on to add some new approaches to your content marketing arsenal.

A/B Testing

Each and every company has a different set of customers and companies need customized content to really reach that audience. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for designing a perfect website, crafting compelling copy, or creating the most effective product, so to find what website design, copy, or product feature will produce the most sales or conversions for your company, you need to determine what your specific customers prefer.

With A/B testing, you can run experiments between two variables, like different colored CTAs, to identify which one produces better results.

Shows

Researchers have proven that storytelling is the best way to capture attention, seal information into their memory, and resonate emotionally with them. Our brains are programmed to respond to narrative, and that’s a psychological phenomenon that’s not going anywhere soon.

Shows can encourage your audience to watch an entire series of videos,  subscribe to updates, and share videos with connections.

Email Subscriptions

Subscribing to online publications through email is the best way to keep up with the latest stories and news from your favorite sources. Persuading your audience to subscribe to your emails and, in turn, consistently view and read your content will generate more leads and revenue for your business.

Growing an engaged, loyal subscriber base also speaks volumes about the quality of your content and its emotional resonance. Even though hoards of content saturate the internet and most people’s inboxes today, people are still actively engaging with your content, which is a clear sign that they actually value it

The Pillar-Cluster Model

Google is relied upon to provide accurate and relevant answers for most questions today. With that being said, Google needs to understand the intent and context behind every single search to provide the correct answers. Google has evolved to be able to recognize topical connections across queries, look to similar queries that users have searched for in the past, and to produce the content that best answers those queries. As a result, Google can deliver content that is determined to be the most authoritative on the topic.

By creating a “pillar” page that provides a very high-level overview of a topic and links to “cluster” pages that delve into the topic’s subtopics, you can show  Google that your pillar page is an authority on the topic it discusses.

Hyperlinking the cluster pages to the main pillar page spreads domain authority across the cluster, so the cluster pages will likely get an organic boost if your pillar page ranks higher, and your cluster pages can cause your pillar page to rank higher if you’ve targeted your keywords effectively.

Podcasting

According to a study by Edison Research and Triton Digital, individuals aged 12 and up are listening to online audio content at unprecedented levels. That is to say, that on average, people are spending 17 hours a week listening to podcasts, audiobooks, and online radio shows. Research has also shown that there are now 14 million more weekly podcast listeners this year compared to last year.

Demand for audio content has skyrocketed, people won’t listen to a podcast just because it’s a podcast. They’ll only really listen to it if it is entertaining and holds their attention.

Social Media-based Public Relations

Over 30% of time spent online is dedicated to social media. People are spending more time on social media than ever before, and public relations teams are adapting their strategy from only placing their stories in news publications to concentrating on driving traffic to their social media profiles.

In order to successfully pitch stories to journalists and news outlets today, you need to account for content that will perform well on social media profiles and publications. So before you pitch a story, make sure it’s relevant and interesting to the social audience.

Audience Segmentation

In a world completely filled with digital noise, creating irrelevant content won’t catch anyone’s attention. To develop effective, personalized marketing campaigns for each slice of your target market, consider audience segmentation, which divides your target market into specific, groups of people based on personal attributes like behavioral information, demographics, and psychographics.

Brand Extensions

Large companies sometimes extend to develop new products in industries that they don’t have market share in. These are called brand extensions, and with them, companies can leverage their brand awareness and equity to create even more revenue streams.

In the past, the most successful brand extensions are ones that tied into the company’s core product. By entering markets that preserve their brand’s associations and perceived quality, companies can develop new products that consumers will intuitively understand the benefits of, even though they’ve never seen them on a shelf.

Conversely,  a company can also exploit its brand, which may damage it. If a product is developed in a market that isn’t closely related to their core product or brand, undesirable associations can be drawn to the brand, thus weaken existing associations, and hurting the established perceived quality of their products and brand.

Identify your business’ vision in order to set both long term goals and smaller, more readily attainable goals to track the progress you make.

Traditional goal setting measures what you do, but if you only focus on the results, goals can sometimes incentivize you to take actions that prioritize your business’ needs over what customers need. In order to focus more on purpose and process instead of just results, consider the vision of your business in the future while building a business strategy. Once you see that vision and set aspirations around it, you can add your goals to the equation, so that you can produce customer-centric work and hit your numbers all at once.

Decide which parts of your target market you really want to capture.

Pinpoint exactly which segments of your market benefit the most from your product or service. Customers that genuinely need or want your product or service are the customers you will retain longest which will boost customer lifetime value and lower costs for customer acquisition.

Get ahead of your competition.

Your customers won’t buy two of the same of any product or service, so to capture as much of your part of the market as possible, you need to show up top of mind for the majority of your target customers. Do this by defining your brand in a refreshing way, by differentiating your product or service from competitors, and by pricing your product based upon its perceived value.

Figure out which skills you need to beat your competition and sustain your success.

Talent and skill are crucial to getting to the top of your industry and beating your competition. Depending on your vision, goals, and target market, you need to determine which types of employees or teams you need to develop and recruit not only to rise above the competition but to also sustain your business’ success.

Determine which management systems you need to ensure these skills.

Think of your business as a team and your managers as the coaches. They’re in charge of developing, supporting, and inspiring employees to do their best work. Refined skills and discipline are necessary to compete and succeed, and that mindset among employees can bring more to the table than just raw talent alone, and in turn improve your business outlooks.

We live in a time where the internet is overloaded with advice on how to do just about anything. You can find countless tips and tricks that could maybe help you build a successful business. The caveat to this is that without the ability to think critically about if these tips and tricks will apply to your specific situation, your success may be limited. This is why strategy is so important. A well-executed business strategy will ground your business with a vision and principles, which will help your business achieve both its short-term and long-term goals.

Today, in our internet-focused world, your reputation is very dependent on reviews on social media and online review sites. It is estimated that consumers need to read, on average, 10 online reviews before they feel they have a real sense of trust in a business. Since your image is such an influence on someone’s decision to purchase, it’s critical to regularly monitor your online reputation.

A negative online reputation can have an impact on your company’s bottom line, according to this study, businesses risk losing up to 22% of their customers when users find even one negative article related to the business.

So what strategies can you use to manage your business’ reputation?

Reputation management refers to monitoring the way your brand is perceived and taking action strategically to control or improve your brand’s reputation (when necessary). Reputation management is primarily monitoring and managing your brand’s online reputation on Google search, customer review sites, and social media.

Your first step to beefing up and improving your brand’s online presence is an audit to ensure that all of your channels are updated with your current imagery, voice, and values or mission statement. Outdated logos, descriptions, and values are some of the key things to look for on your owned channels. It’s also very beneficial to regularly audit other places where your logo or brand might be in use that you may not fully control.

When auditing, be sure that you have placed clear language on your website to outline your trademarks and set guidelines for how others are allowed to use your brand assets. If a situation ever arises where you need to contact someone that has been using your brand incorrectly or without permission, this text is a helpful tool to reference.

Another part of reputation management that speaks to brand protection as well as the customer’s feedback, it is of the utmost importance that you respond to any negative feedback in order to ensure customer satisfaction. Responding to negative reviews will help grow and maintain customer trust and loyalty.

When you respond to a negative review offer actionable and helpful solutions whenever possible. Don’t get defensive or make up an excuse, and if there’s truly nothing you can offer to solve the problem, tell the customer that you’re sorry for their disappointment in the service or product your business provided.

To sum things up, when managing and protecting your online reputation, you’ll want to focus on the following:

• Check that any and all online information regarding your business is up-to-date and consistent. This includes your imagery, voice, and values.
• Outline your company’s trademarks and set guidelines for usage with clear wording on your website.
• Use customer feedback to improve business practices. Respond to negative feedback with actionable solutions when you are able.

Quality Over Quantity – But Pay Attention to Quantity.

The Internet is chock-full of tips on creating shareable content— however, you may find that much of the advice made widely available is so generalized and ambiguous it may not be helpful at all. Phrases that you may find are things like, “Posting good content guarantees shares and increased traffic!” That’s not false by any means, but what exactly is the proverbial “good content”?

Quality is a no-brainer. Audiences will share content that is relevant and of value to themselves and their social media network. Relevant content is built on audience research. Who is your audience? Who is your audience’s audience? Who do they follow? What do they already share? With the answers to these questions, you can start generating potentially shareable content.

By posting your content online, you’re just starting a conversation with your audience. The key now is to establish a back-and-forth rapport (you post, your audiences share; they post, you share). Ultimately, when done right, this can establish an ongoing relationship.

Titles- Not Just For Books

There’s a lot of content on the Internet. Millions of blog posts are published every day. Social media users and platforms are constantly increasing, and all of these writers and social media users are generating, liking, and sharing content, all the time. You need your content to stand out in the crowd. A good first step is to give them a title that really hooks your audience.

Start small. Use your general topic to come up with a few specific working titles, which are whittled-down, enough to guide the direction of your post.

Now make that working title, fun and unique. Test bold and strong language against more conservative and direct titles, and find the balance between the two. If you need to workshop your titles don’t be afraid to ask for second opinions. Having another opinion is valuable; don’t waste the chances you have to get one.

There are rules, guidelines, and tips galore on the web for you to find. Choose what works for you and your audience.

Note: People love to scan titles especially on Twitter, using an RSS reader or otherwise. Get them to take the next step and click-through with a title that is short, succinct, and interesting.

What Kind of Content Matters Too

Simple content is hands above more shareable. The way blogs and social media posts work is by making use of tidbits and clickbait. People generally respond very well to short form copy like lists and listicles. Your audience is busy, and the quickest way they can go through interesting and valuable content, the happier they will be.

SEO FTW

Although clarity and (sometimes) brevity is key to sharable content, making sure your SEO is well thought out can be a huge plus for reaching those that are maybe not already part of your consistent audience. Keep in mind that trying to over optimize your titles or posts can often sound awkward, and make your words sound like they were automatically generated for optimization by an SEO tool.

In order to effectively use keywords in your blog or social media titles and posts, research your potential customer base: What are they searching for? What problems do they face? How can you either help them directly or help inform them of other solutions? With the answers to these questions, you can choose and use relevant keywords, which will help you to become more searchable.

Note: Keyword rank isn’t the biggest barometer for success in search anymore. See this previous post to learn why.

A Picture Says A Thousand Words… (Infographics, Videos, and Other Visuals Can Too)

It takes more than a snappy title and intro for a post to be truly shareable. Images, infographics, videos, charts, tables, and block quotes can dress up and increase the influence of an otherwise text-forward post. Any visual you choose must, like everything else, be accurate and relevant. Use visuals to promote content that offers solutions to your audiences’ problems, in useful and creative ways, so that you can garner shares and valuable comments.

Tip: Don’t forget to read comments on your content. They’re an excellent measure of post success.

Marketers used to have access to a lot more information on the keywords people were searching to reach content. Google Analytics provided this information with a sense of transparency, and you could get more or less what could be called accurate search volume estimates from Google’s Keyword Tool.

The first major update that changed this was Google’s move to encrypted search and the appearance of “not provided” in Google Analytics. These changes mean you can no longer see which keywords are bringing organic traffic to your site.

Then came the decision to move search volume estimates within the Keyword Planner to only show estimates in broad ranges. Instead of seeing that a keyword has been searched for 1,400 times in a month, you can see only that it’s been searched between 1k-10k times per month.

These changes have forced marketers to adapt their search strategy to focus more on a topic-centric content strategy, instead of on individual keywords.

One major criticism of keyword ranking data is that it is very inaccurate. Industry leaders and providers of rank tracking data software have even admitted that this is the case.

Reasons for the inaccuracies can be identified, and mostly fit into these broad categories:

Personalization, Location, and Device.

Personalization basically means that Google delivers search results that are personalized based on a user’s search history. This means that if you were to query “smartphones”  and were previously browsing the Samsung website, Google might tailor the search results to show Samsung at or near the top. This wouldn’t necessarily happen to someone that hasn’t previously gone to the Samsung website, which makes it difficult to determine which site actually ranks at the top.

Location and device take into account the major advancements in search that Google has made in the last few years, including the ability to take into account aspects of a search query that aren’t explicitly typed. Take, for example, a query like, “Minneapolis restaurants”.

A search for “Minneapolis restaurants” a few years ago would generate a list of websites that either talk about restaurants in Minneapolis or maybe include an actual restaurant. Today, a search for will provide Google with more information than ever before. Google sees which device you’re searching on and where you are during the search, even if you’re moving.

So, a search for “Minneapolis restaurants” at noon on a Tuesday would actually look like this to the search algorithms: “Which restaurants are currently open for lunch within walking distance of my current location in Minneapolis, MN?” This means that every search is completely personalized, without the user having to do anything differently, which further complicates matters for marketers.

Keywords with strong rankings don’t always mean to high organic traffic, let alone increases in revenue. Losing a lot of the visibility of search volume metrics makes difficult to estimate the traffic you can gain from one keyword. Factor in the evolving appearance of the search engine results page (SERPs) and this becomes an even more intense challenge.

To combat these changes and to try to get a handle on your metrics, you may want to consider changing how you analyze the performance of your content. Topic clusters are a way to do this that can give marketers clearer insights on the types of content that should be focused on, rather than individual keywords.

Despite everything stated above, keyword rankings aren’t totally dead. Keyword data can be useful for diagnosing SEO problems with your site, and also can give you insight into the intent behind certain types of searches. Mostly it is important to be aware of this information and to use it to your benefit. As a marketer, you need to be aware that the data around your keywords is not going to be 100% accurate. Which means that using keywords as your primary performance metric may not be providing you with the right information that you need for your site’s success.

However, your target market may be so diverse that your marketing doesn’t hit home to anybody in it. There’s one way to change that, and this technique is called “Demographic Segmentation”

Demographic segmentation groups your target market into specific groups of people based on attributes like location, age, education, occupation, and income bracket. By using information from demographic segmentation, you can create personalized marketing campaigns for each part of your target market.

These more personalized approaches can lead to a better distribution of resources and more conversions because the specific messages resonate more than a non-direct generic message to your whole audience might.

There are 5 main demographics most businesses segment their audience with. This is how to leverage each one.

Age

Harkening back to Generational Profiling, segmenting by age allows you to change a campaign so it resonates with who you need it to. The thing about generational segmentation is that each age group, from Baby Boomers to Gen Z, have unique experiences and references that tie them together. Music, celebrities, movies and other pop culture references can help campaigns with the nostalgia factor for each generation.

Education

Segmenting by education lets you divide your target market by school, area of study, and degree. Successful campaigns that have done this generally play into the loyalty many have for their alma mater.

Occupation

Certain types of professionals have more value to certain marketing campaigns and occupations segmentation can separate your target market by job function, job title, and job seniority. This is particularly useful for B2B brands, as occupation segmentation makes it easy to target individuals with buying power at a company.

Location/Geography

Geographic location is an easy way to split your target market based on what they need and what they’re interested in. Landscape, distance from locations and climate can impact the messages you send. Advertising shorts or sandals in the middle of a Minnesota winter just doesn’t work for us here.

Income Bracket

Income segmentation divides your target market by income. Knowing how much discretionary income your base has, allows you to market to those that can afford your product or service, help you to set or your prices in accordance to how much is realistic to expect your target market to spend, and may inspire pricing levels for each segment of your target market.