Ask a Marketer: Video Marketing

Posted by Andy in Ask a Marketer, Marketing and tagged with , , , , ,

In the last two segments of the “Ask a Marketer” series we covered Paid Search and Email Marketing. This week’s topic is Video Marketing, and we talk to Derek Merdinyan of Video Igniter.

Q1: Give me the 3 second pitch – Why should I spend money to add video into my marketing mix?
Video enables you to package up and present your message in a way that is educational, entertaining, engaging and easily sharable.

Q2: What are some examples of things I can explain better using video than if I just tried to write it in a blog or white paper?
Software, technology, systems, stories, anything that is complex and better explained through analogy. In almost every case, it is possible to explain things better with animated video instead of ‘filmed’ video because animations can be used to focus on the specific visual details that make it easier to understand new material.

Q3: What are some ways I can take the money I spend on video, and use it in other areas?
If you are speaking about animation specifically, be sure to ask your animator for a full project archive – odds are you can repurpose the visual images they created (i.e. characters, icons, charts, etc) and turn those images into image posts for social media.

Q4: How much should I expect to pay for a video? What’s the range and what determines that range?
If you go to a freelancer marketplace website, you can expect to pay $300 – $5,000 – the range varies by a few factors, notably the production quality, the number of revisions you can request, and the overall responsiveness, creativity and professionalism of the person you are working with. Hiring a full on animation studio can run you $5,000 – $50,000 or more. 2D projects tend to cost between $3,000 – $15,000/minute for visual quality you will be proud of. Quality 3D animations are easily going to be north of $15,000/minute.

Q5: A standard line is that on a project, there’s Cheap, Fast and Good, and you can only have 2 of the 3. Is that true for video as well?
100%.

Q6: Anything else we need to know about Video Marketing?
Most people think you just make a video, put it online, and promote it. Few people analyze and optimize their video – which for many companies is their largest marketing asset. When you first put your video online, you should host it with a service that provides you analytics to see what % of people click the thumbnail to play the video & how long people watch the video before they stop. Are only 10% of your landing page visitors clicking the play button? Maybe you need a better thumbnail for the video.  Do most people watch the whole video or are a large number of people dropping off around 14 seconds? If your video is animated, it’s much easier to revise and recreate part of your video to make it flow better for viewers; live action videos are harder and more expensive to optimize because it means bringing back the same film crew, actors and booking a location just to re-shoot an alternate segment. It would be wise, for both live action and animated marketing videos to create multiple alternate endings for your video to see which variation leads to more conversions (i.e. sign up here, call this #, download the app, join our newsletter, etc).

NCAA: Don’t Pay the Players – But Let the Players Get Paid

Posted by Andy in Big Businesses, Sports and tagged with , , ,

Full disclosure, I love Arizona Basketball. In fact, I think I actually ended up at Arizona because I went to the 1988 Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games at the Kingdome, and Steve Kerr became my favorite college basketball player.

And now the Arizona basketball program is in – shall we say – some turmoil. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t say SOMETHING. But since I know NOTHING, what can I really say?

Except this.

Any NCAA athlete should be allowed to profit from their likeness.

We don’t need schools to pay athletes. We should just allow people who want to pay athletes out of their own pockets to pay them. If that means the guy who runs Tuscaloosa Ford and Chevy wants to give an 18 year old kid $250,000 to be a spokesperson, who cares? If John L Scott in Seattle decides a good use of funds is paying $80k to a UW QB to be their official face of Instagram, why not?

What does it hurt to let 18-22 year olds get paid for the notoriety that 90% of them will never have again?

You could argue that we can’t let high school kids be corrupted by agents who want to take advantage of them. But that is a solvable problem. There are ways to create a licensing program where only people who properly qualify – and stay qualified – can gain access and negotiate on the behalf of a minor. It would actually lend legitimacy to an already existing corrupt system.

Now should the NCAA be paying the players? Thats a thornier question that begets a ton of problems. But in the meantime, let’s just let players get paid by people who want to pay them.

Ask a Marketer: Paid Search

Posted by Andy in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , ,

Last week we started the “Ask a Marketer” Series with Email Marketing tips from Elizabeth Case. This week we shift to paid search, with Local SEM Expert Rick Read.

Q1: Companies seem to be moving almost all of their Paid Ad budget to Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. What are you seeing from clients?

Rick: Yes. Paid media dollars are being moved to Search (Google//Bing), Facebook, and LinkedIn. Search always seems to be a steady driver of clicks and usually if examining the whole funnel search usually plays a role in influencing end clicks elsewhere in the funnel. FB and LI, have great results because of their ability to deliver more engaging content/creative and have powerful targeting capabilities. For all channels I would recommend leveraging custom audiences and re-marketing where you can.

Q2: What kind of landing page work should you do before starting a Paid Search campaign?

Rick: We see best results with a Clear top of page/above the fold CTA. If you at driving to leads to gated content, I recommend testing that to see if it works with your audience and campaigns. Search works best with as few steps to an end action as possible.

Q3: What is the minimum budget you need to make a Paid Search program worthwhile? How much for media, how much to hire help?

Rick: This is a difficult question as it has a lot of dependencies. Vertical, Keywords, brand awareness, and competition. depending on your KPI. You can allocate your funds in equal proportion and as your campaign runs you begin to shift budgets to media that perform better. But avoid the “last click” measurement model, try to measure and take into consideration the value search has on a FB click, even if search doesn’t get the last click.

For search you can use Google’s keyword planner and get an idea of search query volume and average CPC and then project that over the QTR then year. initially you want use this figure and add an additional 10-20% to it and run for 3-6 months and measure the results. You may find you cannot spend the money, or it may not be enough and will require additional investment. As far as staff resources, depending on account size, you may need a minimum of two people. one for PPC and one for Social. One can do it but they are two different practices that are involved enough to be a challenge for a single individual. But there are plenty of Agencies that handle any size business, so that is an option.

Q4: What are some ballpark Paid Search CPC and CPM rates these days for different industries?

Rick: Again this is a difficult question to answer. You can find a lot of info here https://trends.google.com/trends/ . CPC is effected by brand/non-brand keyword mix, Brand power, competition and quality score. etc. We have $40 keywords and keywords as low as $1 on branded terms. so again these are hard numbers to pin down.

Have more questions for Rick? Shoot me an email or find him on LinkedIn..

Ask a Marketer: Email Marketing

Posted by Andy in Ask a Marketer and tagged with ,

Doing what I do, I have the privilege to engage with a number of marketing professionals who are among the best of the bunch. Upon reflection, I realized that some of the things we talk about may also be of interest to people who stumble upon this blog. Thus, I am starting a new series called, “What Marketers Need to Know.” And yes, I know we need a catchier title.  

Each article in this series will feature a semi-deep dive into a topic area marketers need to understand. The answers will come from an industry expert who speaks from real-world client experience. To start the series off, I asked my friend Elizabeth Case of Yellow Dog Consulting to give us some real-time thoughts on Email Marketing.    

Topic 1: Email Marketing – Elizabeth Case, Yellow Dog Consulting

Q1) As you look back at 2017, with what kind of strategies or tactics did your clients find the most success?

Elizabeth: Simple word – Newsletter.

I will forever be a broken record on this and I am OK with it! Consistency is key in email marketing. If I only ever hear from you when you have a product or workshop to sell me, that’s not going to work. I had one client who at the end of 3 months wanted to wrap up because they weren’t getting registrations for their workshop. I wasn’t aware that was the goal of their newsletter and if you read the newsletter, you wouldn’t have either!  I’m not saying don’t offer a product or service, you can do that on occasion, but you must earn the right to be heard first.

Also, make sure you have good systems in place. One successful client includes a simple “sign up for a free 30 minute consult” link in the end of her monthly newsletter. It goes to a page to schedule on their calendar. Not 15 steps back and forth for a prospective client – one click, two clicks, boom – new lead ready to talk to them. Every month they get a new (or returning) client from their newsletter.  

Another good system is automation…“Click here to download…” and then have that system automated. Don’t worry about it. I have 3 offers in the footer of my newsletter (yeah that may be too many, I’ll work on it) and they are automated so I don’t have to worry about it.

Q2) Now as you look ahead to 2018, what strategies and tactics will you change? What will you do more or less of?

Elizabeth: So far in 2018 I’m seeing a lot of folks automate their processes which is GREAT! You created an awesome program or free download on your website – let’s get that system working for YOU. Nurture and educate these leads so you can keep doing what you love each day.

One conversation I often have with clients is about frequency. Do I really need to hear from you once a week? I don’t have time for that. And I certainly don’t have time for it at 10 AM on a Tuesday when I’m in the middle of my work day. Depending on what you do, I may have time for it in the evening or weekends or over my lunch break. But if you’re sending me something daily or weekly it better be damn good or I will find that unsubscribe button really fast…

There are newsletters that I look forward to receiving each month and ones that I delete each week because it’s too frequent. You know your audience and if the open rates are there then fantastic, but if you’re hovering under 20% it’s time to reconsider if your schedule and frequency are really working for you.

Q3) How important is a lead nurturing campaign? At what point do you move your clients from a standard newsletter to a customized drip campaign?

Elizabeth: Lead nurturing campaigns are awesome depending on the size of your company. It may not make sense for a solo-prenuer or a small business with just a couple sales folks to have a big drip campaign setup. But if you have systems in place, as you grow you can start to automate that nurturing.

You have to use your campaign software, it will tell you when to start dripping. If you aren’t reading reports after each campaign is sent, you’re missing out on the MOST valuable information about your content. What links do they continue to click? How many of the last 10 campaigns have they opened? What are their demographics? If someone is constantly opening and engaging with your content, it’s time to start nurturing that contact. You don’t want to leave low hanging fruit out their to dwindle away and hire the competition. Start to pay attention to frequency and build a plan around it.

And when that nurture is done – make sure they continue to hear from you on a regular basis so you stay top of mind for them to either hire you again or refer you to a colleague.

Q4) If a company is just getting an email marketing program off the ground, what tools or technologies would you suggest they invest in?

Elizabeth: I’m always a big fan of MailChimp, especially when you’re just starting out. They offer free automation and are perfect for a small and growing company (and your contact lists). If you’re a larger company you can’t go wrong with HubSpot. It will help you integrate and automate so your teams aren’t stepping on each others toes which is always a safe move!

Email marketing continues to be one of the best and most intimate communications you can have with a potential client. If you aren’t taking advantage of all those contacts in your CRM you’re missing out on a LOT of fantastic and low hanging fruit just waiting to be reminded, or introduced, to how awesome you are.

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If you’re struggling with your email marketing, you should chat with Elizabeth. And if you have some topics you’d like to see next, let me know. I’ll be asking my marketing friends to share their insights.

4 TED Talks on Bitcoin

Posted by Andy in Economy and tagged with , ,

Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies have joined the ranks of “Controversial topics with no clear answer.” Today, the average person has no need to use any sort of Blockchain transaction. But at the same time, in 1986 the average person didn’t need a cell phone.

So as all of the machines around us become connected to the Internet, maybe we need an independent way to transfer funds instantaneously without a central regulatory body in the middle. Or maybe not.

I don’t know the answers, but some people think they do. And four of these people have given TED talks. CNBC aggregated these talks together into one convenient page.

(WARNING – Annoying auto-play ads are enabled on this page, so check your volume.)

What I Learned – Scott Servais on the 2018 Baseball Season

Posted by Andy in Sports and tagged with , , , ,

My baseball season officially kicked off Tuesday night. I was able to join about 50 other fans as Art Thiel of SportsPressNW interviewed Mariners skipper Scott Servais.

So what did I learn/infer from listening to Scott’s answers to 45 minutes of questions from Art, and 45 more from the audience?

  1. Kyle Seager is on the trade block – One of two things will be true on July 31. Seager will have gotten off to a hot start, leading the Mariners to a respectable record and as the trading deadline approaches, The Mariners will be in a position to make a run. Or…… Seager will have gotten off to his customary slow start, and as the only real trade chip the team has, he’ll be dealt for prospects.
  2. This is the last year of the Cruz, Cano, Felix window – It was made clear that witht he amount of money tied up in the Big 3, there was no way to rip the team down to the studs, a la Houston and Chicago. But this is the last year of Cruz’ deal, and if Felix wants to be regarded in the same breath as Glavine, Maddux, Pedro, etc… he needs to pitch another 6-8 years. If 2018 goes poorly, I suspect you’d see Cruz dealt at the deadline and Felix redo his contract to be part of an overhaul so he can get another 150 career starts.
  3. You’re going to see a lot of Zunino, Segura, Haniger, and Paxton in the Mariners marketing materials –If you’re gong to trade any of the Big 4, you need some new guys to make bobbleheads for. The Mariners seem ready to phase out some of the old guard and put their promotional arms behind some new guys. I suppose this is meant to lessen the blow when our favorite guys disappear.
  4. “Performance” is going to mean something different – With the hiring of Dr. Lorena Martin as Director of High Performance, the Manager is going to have a few lineup decisions “strongly suggested” to him. Players will be evaluated constantly on aspects such as fatigue, conditioning, strength, mentality, etc… So while a 5 for 5 day may have previously earned you a week in the starting lineup, if you tired yourself out running all those bases, it may be highly suggested that you be given the day off.
  5. The Mariners decided not to look for new pitching, and are going to try to simply outscore teams – To their credit, they realized there weren’t going to be a lot of great pitching options to pick up this off-season. So as I wrote about last year, they built their 2018 starting rotation under the guise of competing for a 2017 playoff spot. They have accumulated average to above average throwers who they expect can give them 150+ innings. If those guys can get them through the 5th and only give up 3 runs, they will hand the ball off to the bullpen in hopes it gives up just 1-2 more runs. Meanwhile, they’ll try to bang out 5-6 runs a game on offense. Do that enough times and you make it to the playoffs. Now the downside is that if you try to do that in the playoffs, you’ll lose each game 8-3. But the team isn’t shooting for a World Series. It just needs to make the playoffs.

So those were my takeaways. I’m sure other people heard different things. But pay attention to the interviews Servais is doing all week on sports radio. Were his comments Tuesday off the cuff, or do they fall into some pattern of talking points?

 

The Quadrant of Happiness To-Do List Matrix

Posted by Andy in Human Behavior and tagged with , ,

It’s a new year. New resolutions. New plans. New ways to get everything done.

I’ve tried every to-do list, prioritization plan, productivity model, and 4-hour workweek on the planet. And whiel some work better than others, I’m still searching for the perfect method. To do lists are a personalized phenomenon – what works best for a Sagittarius will never work for a Taurus.

So I’m sharing my new model – a self-designed, structured but flexible layout for optimizing your time and energy. I call it the Quadrants of Happiness. If you share any of my tendencies, feel free to use it.

Overall theory: To-do lists are designed to make you do the things you don’t really want to do and make you feel bad about the things you do want to do. So, naturally they can’t work. So i said to myself, why not build a model where you are rewarded, not penalized for doing things you like to do, in the same way you are rewarded for doing the things you need to do?

Summary: In my Quadrants of Happiness model, we’re going to break our giant list into 4 overlapping quadrants.

  • In the Northwest quadrant, we have the things that make us money. This is our FINANCE Quadrant. This includes but is not limited to work related tasks, getting your taxes handled, reading about bitcoin, selling y9ur bitcoin, client pitches, updating your LinkedIn profile, etc…
  • In the Northeast, we have the things that provide us personal improvement and connections with other people. This is the GROWTH quadrant. This could be contacting old friends, reading a book, taking a class, going to a networking event, drawing a picture, writing a blog post. Anything that improves your mind, body or spirit.
  • Back over in the Southwest, we have the things that we need to do but seem like meaningless tasks. This is our RESPONSIBILITY quadrant. These things are as menial as folding your clothes, to taking the time to research and hire someone to look at your heating system. They aren’t fun, but NOT doing them causes more stress than just getting them out of the way.
  • Down in the Southeast, we have the area that is the most fun. This is the RELAXATION Quadrant. Now, in a normal list, it’s hard to justify watching 30 minutes of your favorite Netflix show when there are still 32 unchecked boxes. But a healthy and relaxed mind can help you get everything else done faster, and with a better attitude.

Daily Activity: Most normal people have about 16-18 hours of waking hours to accomplish everything in these quadrants. An ideal balance would be to break these quadrants into equal sections of time. Unfortunately, for most people, the FINANCE quadrant is the most time consuming.

Thus, once your tasks are listed in the quadrants, my model is to break all your tasks into 3 categories, “MUST IMMEDIATELY DO,” “MUST DO,” “WANT TO DO.” No matter how many tasks you have, you can only assign the 2 most important tasks in each quadrant to the “MUST IMMEDIATELY DO” section of each.

After that, you split the remaining tasks in half. One half to the “MUST DO” and one half to the “WANT TO DO” in each quadrant.

Now start your day and accomplish the MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s for each quadrant. If something in your top two falls out of a normal time line, then scheduling it and committing to it counts. For example, if going to the gym is part of your MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s but you can’t go until 7:00pm, you can schedule it. But if you don’t go, then you better start bringing your gym clothes to work and find someplace to go at lunch.

Once the MUST IMMEDIATELY DO’s are done, surf your way at your own whim and fancy through the MUST DO’s. You won’t get them all done, but it will make for easier list creation the next day, and you can promote the WANT TO DO’s if need be.

The Result: If this works for you as it works for me, you’ll do all the things you really need, and you won’t feel anxious about writing thank you notes to your relatives instead of looking at Google Analytics and evaluating the nuances of a $100/day AdWords campaign.

I’ll add some visuals to this, but on the top of my quadrant today in “RELAXATION” I said I needed to do some creative writing. I forgot to add that I needed to generate images as well. Maybe tomorrow…

The Conspiracy Theorist’s Guide to the NFL Playoffs

Posted by Andy in Creative Writing, Sports and tagged with , , , ,

(This is a work of fiction. I do not believe there is an NFL conspiracy. At least, I’m pretty sure there’s not.)

It’s Playoff time! And our favorite team, the Seattle Seahawks, are seeded um,  wait a second?! No Seahawks in the Playoffs? So in order to keep these playoffs interesting, I’m going to make some predictions based on the ludicrous idea that the NFL is scripted by screenwriters in New York.

Overarching themes for the playoffs:

  • The NFL need some new and exciting matchups. And one of those is going to be a new Belicheck vs Brady rivalry, with Belichick leaving for New York after a disastrous 2017 post-season. So this year, no Patriots in the Super Bowl.
  • There a couple of new cool young QB’s. They’ll lose in the first round.
  • There’s one team left that needs a new stadium and new ownership.
  • The NFC is going to win.

Week 1:

  • Tennessee vs Kansas City: The NFL wants the young but not elite QB’s to do well enough to stay interesting. Mariotta fits that bill. He leads the Titans to victory over the coach that the NFL hates for some reason.
  • Falcons vs Rams: Goff vs the NFC West is the storyline in the division for 2018 and beyond. But Matt Ryan’s revenge is more compelling this year. Falcons win, but the Rams are going to be poised and positioned to be the NFC favorite next year.
  • Buffalo vs Jacksonville: Buffalo tried to lose this season, and yet the NFL needed them to be a playoff contender so the rich guys in Toronto would want to adopt them. A playoff birth is really all this terrible team needed to get. Now the franchise is worth an extra $250mm dollars. Jacksonville wins.
  • Carolina vs New Orleans: The NFL is still annoyed at Cam Newton. Saints make him look silly and he has a meltdown in his press conference.

Week 2:

  • Tennessee vs New England: Here’s the dumb upset of the playoffs. It’s inexplicable but the necessary plot twist to cause the Belichick/Brady breakup. Tennessee wins.
  • Jacksonville vs Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh has some of the most exciting players in NFL. Plus, I’m pretty sure the Rooney and Mara families have a deal with the NFL where one of them makes the Super Bowl every 3 years. Jacksonville is 2018’s team, this year Pittsburgh wins.
  • Atlanta vs Philadelphia: There is something about seeing Philly fans of any sport be miserable. But they’ll be more miserable if they lose next week. Philly wins.
  • New Orleans vs Minnesota: Best game of the playoffs. It goes down to the wire and New Orleans wins, because the NFL needs enough time to get Minnesota’s stadium ready for the Super Bowl.

Week 3:

  • Tennessee vs Pittsburgh: We can try to pretend this will be competitive, but Pittsburgh blows them out.
  • New Orleans vs Philadelphia: As we said before, it’s nice to see Philly fans miserable. And everyone in Pennsylvania would be hoping for an intra-state Super Bowl. So karma leans to the Saints.

Super Bowl

  • Pittsburgh vs New Orleans: Brees vs Roethlisberger. Ingram and Kamara vs Bell. Good WR’s on each squad. An exciting Super Bowl ends with the Saints getting screwed on a bad replay call, and the Steelers get the Super Bowl win.

Sounders Release 2018 Schedule

Posted by Andy in Sports and tagged with , ,

The Sounders 2018 schedule came out this morning. And it definitely has some interesting angles to it.

  1. The 1st round of the Concacaf Champions League matches are the week before the MLS season starts. So you can travel down to Santa Tecla, El Salvador on Feb 22 for Leg 1, or just wait until Thursday, March 1 for Leg 2 at home.
  2. MLS Opening Day is Sunday, March 4 vs the newest entry into the league, Los Angeles FC.
  3. After that, you have to wait 27 days for the next home match, a 3/31 7:00pm tilt vs Montreal.
  4. If you’re ready for more soccer, grab your patience pants. It’s 22 more days before you get to see Minnesota United come for a day game on Sunday 4/22. So if you are counting at home, that’s just 3 home games in the first (and rainiest) 9 weeks of the season. That seems like a good deal for us fans.
  5. Things don’t get too much busier in May. Dates on the 5th vs Columbus and the 26th vs RSL is all we get. So we enter June with just 5 home matches under our belt.
  6. That means things start to get busy in June. 6/9 vs DC United, 6/23 vs Chicago and then the big one. 6/30 vs Portland.
  7. After a 3 week break, we really get into the meat of the home schedule in late July and August. Hope you didn’t have vacation plans.  7/21 vs Vancouver, 7/29 vs NYCFC, 8/12 vs Dallas, 8/18 vs Sigi and the Galaxy, 9/1 vs Sporting KC.  That’s 5 home games in 7 weeks.
  8. As the kids head back to school, we close the season on a pretty regular cadence of home and away matches. 9/19 vs Philly, 9/29 vs Colorado, 10/6 vs Houston and the finale 10/28 vs San Jose.

That’s 17 MLS home matches and one Concacaf match, with 14 of them coming in May – October. There will be more Concacaf matches, likely against a Mexican League squad, if they progress past El Salvador.  So I suspect no friendlies will be officially scheduled until we see what happens in the Champions League.

If you’re looking for good excuses to get out of Seattle, a couple of away matches stand out: Sunday 4/29 in LA is a good time to escape the rain. July 4 in Colorado could be a lot of fun.  And July 15 in Atlanta would be a fun excuse to see their new stadium, especially since it’s indoors.

Happy 2018. Go Sounders.

10 Things To Do On New Year’s Day

Posted by Andy in Creative Writing, Personal and tagged with ,

The New Year is upon us. For many people, New Year’s Eve means staying up past our normal bedtimes, drinking champagne past a reasonable hour, and awaking the next morning thinking that the year can only improve from there.

But the good news is that you have the day off from work. You could turn on Netflix, find a show, and spend the next 10-15 hours between your couch and kitchen. But you could also be a little productive with your spare time and dead brain. Here are some suggestions.

  1. Take a walk around the block: Yeah it’s going to be cold. Probably rainy. One walk around the block will get your blood moving and lungs working. Plus it will get your brain going again – not much, but just enough to accomplish the rest of the stuff on the list.
  2. Remember your successes from 2017: It’s easy to get hung up on what you want to do better in 2018. Be in better shape, lose weight, make more money, etc… But you did some things really well in 2017. You did some things other people admire. Remember those wins.
  3. Backup all your photos: Oh some of you are really good at doing this on the fly. But the rest of you have hundreds of photos on your phone that you haven’t put in a safe place for awhile. Sure, I know they all get uploaded to the cloud, but why not save yourself the heartache of wondering if Apple is hack-proof? Just get all your photos on a backup hard drive. It takes very little effort.
  4. Clean up your phone: While you’re backing up your photos, why not take a spin through the 346 apps on your phone and clean some out. That new cool app you read about on FastCompany or Geekwire probably isn’t even in business anymore. Take an hour and wipe out the clutter.
  5. Read your LinkedIn profile: Remember that profile you updated the last time you needed a job, or got a new one? Yeah, the world has changed since then. Probably a good time to go in and make sure your professional internet presence reflects who you really are.
  6. Call some old friends: Hey guess what your friends are doing on Jan 1. Lying on the couch! Give them a call.
  7. Put all your gift cards in a stack by the front door: Maybe you aren’t like me, but I often receive gift cards that I never remember getting, then have them scattered around the house, so I forget to use them. I like to find them all and put them in one place next to my keys, so I can’t miss them when I’m leaving the house.
  8. Cook something delicious: Are you hungry now? Debating the prospects of leftovers vs a pizza? The internet makes it easy to find recipes. You can type in something like, “Easy things to cook on New Year’s” and I bet you’ll get a variety of chili and crockpot recipes that are awesome. Spend 20 minutes off the couch, go to the grocery store in your sweats and baseball hat, and then slow cook something that makes you seem like a culinary genius.
  9. Clean up your bookmarks: You have 100 articles stores somewhere that you meant to read at some point during the year. Either read it or delete it or both. Get a fresh palette of reading material.
  10. Write down the gifts you wanted and didn’t get this year: In a few months people will ask what you want for your birthday. And you won’t know. But if you have a list of “Xmas Didn’t Gets” in Evernote or GoogleDocs or whatever, you can just email it to them.

Happy New Year everyone. Whatever you do on your own New Year’s Day, I hope it leads to a prosperous and happy campaign.