New comment by csmp in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2023)"

Location: Romania, EU

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: C++, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Node, React, React Native, SQL, AWS, Azure, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, embedded

Résumé/CV: On request

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cosmin-pirvu

Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/527987/cosmin

Email: cosmin.stack@gmail.com

I have 15 years of experience in different roles and I am specialized in platforms and SDKs. Currently looking for an IC role.

Federal government rests its case in ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder's racketeering trial

The federal government rested its case Monday in former Republican Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s racketeering trial after presenting jurors with reams of financial documents, emails, texts, wire-tap audio and firsthand accounts of what prosecutors allege was a $60 million bribery scheme to pass a $1 billion ratepayer-funded nuclear bailout.

The prosecution completed its work in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati five weeks to the day after opening statements in Ohio’s largest ever corruption case. Their portion took a bit longer than projected because a spate of illnesses hit the courtroom, prompting Judge Timothy Black to pause proceedings.

Lawyers for Householder, 63, and co-defendant Matt Borges, 50, a lobbyist and former state chair of the Ohio Republican Party, went immediately to work to begin their defense, calling state Sen. Bill Seitz to testify on the merits of the bailout bill at the case’s heart.

FORMER OHIO HOUSE SPEAKER LARRY HOUSEHOLDER REMAINS OPTIMISTIC AS CORRUPTION TRIAL BEGINS

Householder, once one of Ohio’s most powerful politicians, could testify on his own behalf. He has said he couldn’t wait for his defense to begin.

It’s been two-and-a-half years since Householder, Borges and three others were arrested and charged in an elaborate scheme, secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., to secure Householder’s power, elect his allies, pass legislation containing a $1 billion bailout for two aging nuclear power plants, and then vex a ballot effort to overturn the bill with a dirty tricks campaign.

OHIO INMATE WHO HAS SPENT DECADES ON DEATH ROW MAY BE RELEASED ON PAROLE FOLLOWING RESENTENCING

The prosecution called two of those arrested — Juan Cespedes and Jeff Longstreth, who have both pleaded guilty — to the stand to give firsthand accounts of what they said are not ordinary political contributions, but bribes intended to secure passage of the bailout bill, known as House Bill 6. Householder’s attorneys have described his activities as nothing more than hardball politics.

Monday’s witness, political operative Tyler Fehrman, testified that Borges tried to bribe him with a $15,000 check to secure inside information about the referendum campaign on the bill that he was working for at the time. Borges’ attorneys have said the money was a loan for a friend in need.

“Matt’s requests to me were shocking,” Fehrman told jurors. “I felt like I was being taken advantage of by someone I trusted.”

New comment by andrestoga in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2021)"

Location: Guadalajara, Mexico

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: C/C++11, Python3, Robotics (ROS1/ROS2, Gazebo, FlexBE), Linux(Ubuntu), Embedded Systems, GIT, Code Review, Agile(Scrum), Unit testing(gtests, rostests).

Resume: (PDF on request)

Email: andrestoga [at] tutanota [dot] com

I’m currently seeking a Robotics Software Engineer position at a Robotics company/startup/institute. My research interests lie in Robot Algorithms, Navigation, Motion Planning and Autonomous Ground Vehicles(AGV). I’m open to all sorts of opportunities, so please reach out!

Best WordPress Booking Plugins

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Does your business book appointments online? Are you looking for the best WordPress booking plugins to help you streamline your workflow and increase customer satisfaction?

An effective booking plugin can be an essential part of your business puzzle. Once you find the right one, you eliminate the possibility of losing customers to faulty or less than ideal plugins that don’t do the job well.

In this guide, I share some of the best WordPress booking plugins to help you manage all your appointments with ease. Once you’ve read through my top choices, you’ll be able to make the best decision for your unique business needs.

Let’s get started. 

#1 – StartBooking Review — The Best for Service Appointment Scheduling

StartBooking offers a powerful WordPress booking plugin you can easily download and install to manage all your service appointment needs. 

They offer a clean customer-facing interface that allows them to choose from a pre-defined list of services with available times and dates. Once they’re ready to book their appointment, StartBooking effectively captures all their information, so they’re ready to go. This makes StartBooking an exceptional option for WordPress users in the service industry that want to offer their customers a clean and professional online booking experience they can rely on. 

If you want to capture online payments as your customers book their appointments, StartBooking integrates with Stripe for easy payment processing.

Some of their best booking features:

  • Offers a fully customizable booking plugin so that you configure it to book appointments exactly how you want
  • Easily integrates with Google Calendar
  • Manage how customers view their booking options and services from your WordPress dashboard
  • Book and manage an unlimited number of appointments
  • Get access to crucial booking analytics, so you always know how you’re doing month to month
  • Assign different staff members to different appointment offerings
  • Define booking times that prevent you from overlapping appointments
  • The ability to handle class and group booking

Pricing tiers include:

  • Individual — $12 per month for unlimited sites and appointments
  • Business — $28 per month for unlimited sites and appointments

Both tiers offer custom fields, blocking dates, and customizable emails. The Business plan is better for a team with multiple calendars and comes with advanced reported and priority support. Try StartBooking free here for 14 days. 

#2 – Bookly Pro Review — The Best for Use with Staff Members

A plugin like Bookly Pro is a top choice if you work with staff members and need plenty of assignable backend booking features. The plugin was downloaded over 34,000 times by businesses that want a strong handle on their booking workflow.

With Bookly Pro, you can enable your staff to stay on top of upcoming appointments with automated notifications and let them know when they’ve scored a purchase. Bookly lets you connect each of your employees and their Google Calendars to any number of services available for booking. 

This enables you to manage your team and multiple bookings without the potential confusion that can come with it. It’s the feature that makes Bookly an immensely effective booking plugin if you’re managing a growing team

Though Bookly offers a free plugin version, if you want access to support and advanced booking features, you’re better off making their one-time payment for full access to everything they offer. 

Some of its best features: 

  • Gorgeous booking forms and front-facing design
  • Fully responsive booking features that work on any screen size
  • Integrate with Google Calendars and WooCommerce
  • Accept payments through a variety of payment gateways, including Stripe and PayPal
  • Built-in analytics with plenty of booking stats
  • Offers the ability to connect to a number of third-party systems using Zapier

Bookly Pro costs $89, a one-time payment that includes future updates and six months of support. You can also pay an additional $31.50 to extend support for up to 12 months. Buy Bookly Pro now.

#3 – Booking & Appointment Plugin For WooCommerce Review — The Best for Use with WooCommerce

The Booking & Appointment Plugin For WooCommerce truly does it all when it comes to booking just about anything online once you integrate and use it with WooCommerce (a robust WordPress ecommerce store plugin). 

With it, you can handle hotel bookings, fitness appointments, party rentals, apartment rentals, and a ton more once you get it configured with your WooCommerce shop. 

The Booking & Appointment Plugin For WooCommerce lets you set up single-day or multiple-day bookings for equipment rentals or hotel reservations with just a few clicks. If you already have a WooCommerce shop set up through WordPress, adding the booking and appointment plugin can completely transform your shopping experience with a booking and appointment interface that’s easy to use in both backend and frontend views. 

Some of the Booking & Appointment Plugin’s best features:

  • Syncs with Google Calendar for both admin users and customers
  • Easily set up and automate SMS reminders
  • Enable time slots that configure to customer’s local time zones
  • Capable of multilingual displays in more than 60 languages
  • See all your penned in appointments in either calendar or list views
  • You can setup booking for multiple products on multiple dates

For a license, you’ll pay an annual subscription fee. The tiers are:

  • Starter — $119 for one store
  • Business — $199 for five stores
  • Enterprise — $249 for unlimited stores

All three licenses come with all of the core features, including flexible labels, exclusion dates, custom booking calendar, multi-language capabilities, and timezone conversions. Get started with The Booking & Appointment Plugin For WooCommerce here. 

#4 – Bookingo Review — The Best for Scheduling Training & Classes

Recent times have taken a lot of aspects of business remote. Whether you teach classes or lead training, you’re likely doing a combination of in-person and videoconferencing sessions.

That’s the situation that Bookingo is perfect for—maintaining and growing your teaching or training business.

This WordPress booking plugin from QuanticaLabs is tailor-made for anyone who offers courses on a recurring basis. It gives you everything you need to post classes and session easily, with customizable fields that allow you to adjust the plugin to your industry needs.

By default, you’re able to start and end dates, duration of each course and individual class, participant limits, recurring dates, location (or link to a virtual course), instructor contact details, and any additional information.

And, you get unlimited booking forms, courses, and course groups.

That makes it fantastic for companies whose whole purview is training or education. Segment course sets by instructor or topic and book as many as you’d like.

Better still, if your training service is growing wildly, you can even support payment in any global currency. So, your course on how to get ahead or add a skill can accommodate students from all around the world.

There are boatloads of other features already included in Bookingo and the devs at QuanticaLabs are constantly updating the plugin to add more and address user needs.

You can get Bookingo for $40 from EnvatoMarket, which comes with six months of support. You can easily extend that support by another year for an additional $13.13.

#5 – BirchPress Review — The Best for Easily Capturing Payments

BirchPress is a reliable WordPress booking plugin that works great if you want to capture PayPal and credit card payments hassle-free. This makes it easy to process payments without having to look for a third-party payment gateway that’ll complicate your life. 

If you’d rather not use PayPal as your payment gateway, you can capture payments through other available gateways with WooCommerce integration.

Especially if you operate in the healthcare industry, fitness, automotive, salon and beauty, or the health and wellness space, BirchPress helps make the process of scheduling and keeping up with appointments easy right from your WordPress dashboard. 

Even if you’re constantly taking appointments and collecting payments, you won’t always be available. With BirchPress’s holiday blocking feature, you choose which dates are unavailable for booking throughout the year. 

The straightforward features BirchPress offers, along with their ability to sync with more than one payment option, make them a top booking plugin for online appointment management. 

Some useful BirchPress features include:

  • You can embed booking features on any page or post with their shortcodes
  • Integrates with Google Calendar, Outlook, iPhone, or Android to import and export appointment dates
  • Easily send reminders and emails when someone schedules, changes, or cancels an appointment
  • Customize their appointments to your needs by configuring sign up forms accordingly
  • Developer friendly plugin with advanced customization features

Once you make the one-time payment in the tier that suits your business budget, you can quickly start handling your booking needs. Here is the pricing tier breakdown:

  • Personal — $99 
  • Business — $199 
  • Business+ — $249

All plans come with one year of support and updates, automated email notifications, and holiday blocking. The Business+ package is the only one to support WooCommerce integration. Start using BirchPress today, or go through a live demo here.

What I Looked At To Find The Best WordPress Booking Plugins

Booking plugins come with lots of different features that can strengthen how you run your business appointments. Any booking plugin worth using will offer a great user experience, integrate well with your WordPress site, and streamline the process of accepting and organizing appointments.

Still, you’ll want to take it a step further and look into some key criteria to enable you to choose the best plugin that will deliver what you need. 

To choose a plugin that works for you, make sure you’re clear on your business goals to know exactly what you need a plugin for.

Are you booking online sales calls with prospective customers? Are you booking local in-person appointments? Will you need to capture payment information upon booking? Are you booking appointments or reservations?

Some plugins come with robust features like drop-down menus for multiple schedules, the ability to revise and re-schedule appointments, a dashboard that allows you to easily view and manage your calendar, or even automated appointment reminders triggered upon booking. 

Here are a few other things I considered when researching and choosing the best WordPress booking plugins. Use these factors when doing your research and selecting the best for you.

Online Payments

Some plugins are designed to accept online payment solutions without having to use a third-party payment gateway. This can be useful to you as a business owner if you require payment upon booking. 

Being able to capture payments within your booking plugin can go a long way in saving you time. This way, you don’t need to integrate additional plugins on your site that could potentially slow it down.

Calendar Views

Would booking appointments on your site be made easier if your plugin offered a calendar view for you and your customers? Using a plugin with calendar views can be a great option if you offer appointments over a span of time or if your business is service-based. 

Mobile-Friendly

Your booking plugin won’t do you much good if you can’t easily capture appointments from a mobile device. A vast amount of online traffic is generated through mobile as opposed to the standard desktop view.

You’re always better off with booking plugins that are up to date and offer mobile compatible views. Using booking plugins that haven’t been recently reviewed or updated to be compatible with the latest WordPress version can work against you if you aren’t careful. 

Conclusion

This might have been a ton of information to digest in one go. I reviewed a list of the top booking plugins for WordPress you can start using right now that go beyond the basics.

To help you choose the best WordPress booking plugin, here’s a quick recap of the plugins I recommend:

  1. StartBooking – The best for service appointment bookings
  2. Bookly Pro – The best for using with staff members
  3. Booking & Appointment Plugin For WooCommerce – The best for use with WooCommerce
  4. Bookingo – The best for scheduling training and classes
  5. BirchPress – The best for easily capturing payments

Now it’s your turn. Has there been a booking plugin that’s worked better for you than others? Let me know in the comments below. 

How to Build EIN Credit for Your Business

Do You Know How to Build EIN Credit?

Yes, it’s really possible to learn how to build EIN credit for your business.

But let’s start with some definitions and background on business credit.

Business Credit

This is credit in a business’s name. It is not tied to the owner’s creditworthiness. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

Business Credit Benefits

There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of business accounts. Business credit utilization won’t affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the business owner isn’t personally liable for the debt the business incurs. This can be true for you as you build EIN credit for your business.

Another advantage is that even startup businesses can do this. Visiting a bank for a business loan can be a recipe for frustration. But building business credit, when done correctly, is a plan for success.

Consumer credit scores depend on payments but also various other factors like credit utilization percentages.

But for company credit, the scores truly just hinge on if a small business pays its invoices timely.

Business Credit Details

Being accepted for business credit is not automatic. Building business credit requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.

Vendors are a big component of this process.

Doing the steps out of sequence results in repetitive rejections. No one can start at the top with business credit. For example, you can’t start with retail or cash credit from your bank. If you do, you’ll get a rejection 100% of the time.

Company Fundability to Build EIN Credit

A company must be fundable to lending institutions and vendors.

That is why, a small business needs a professional-looking website and email address. And it needs to have site hosting from a company such as GoDaddy.

Additionally, business phone numbers need to have a listing on 411. You can do that here: https://www.listyourself.net.

Also, the business telephone number should be toll-free (800 exchange or the equivalent).

A company also needs a bank account devoted strictly to it, and it must have every one of the licenses essential for running.

Licenses

These licenses all have to be in the identical, accurate name of the company. And they must have the same company address and telephone numbers.

So keep in mind, that this means not just state licenses, but possibly also city licenses.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

How to Build EIN Credit: Working with the Internal Revenue Service

Visit the Internal Revenue Service website and get an EIN for the company. They’re free of charge. Select a business entity like corporation, LLC, etc.

A small business may get started as a sole proprietor. But they absolutely need to change to a form of corporation or an LLC.

This is to decrease risk. And it will make the most of tax benefits.

A business entity matters when it involves taxes and liability in the event of a lawsuit. A sole proprietorship means the business owner is it when it comes to liability and taxes. No one else is responsible.

The best thing to do is to incorporate. You should only look at a DBA as an interim step on the way to incorporation.

How to Build EIN Credit: Getting Started

Start at the D&B web site and get a totally free D-U-N-S number. A D-U-N-S number is how D&B gets a small business into their system, to produce a PAYDEX score. If there is no D-U-N-S number, then there is no record and no PAYDEX score.

Once in D&B’s system, search Equifax and Experian’s web sites for the company. You can do this at www.creditsuite.com/reports. If there is a record with them, check it for correctness and completeness. If there are no records with them, go to the next step in the process.

This way, Experian and Equifax have something to report on.

How to Build EIN Credit with Starter Vendors

First you should build tradelines that report. Then you’ll have an established credit profile, and you’ll get a business credit score.

And with an established business credit profile and score you can begin to get credit for numerous purposes, and from all sorts of places.

These kinds of accounts tend to be for things bought all the time, like marketing materials, shipping boxes, outdoor work wear, ink and toner, and office furniture.

But first of all, what is trade credit? These trade lines are credit issuers who give you starter credit when you have none now. Terms are generally Net 30, versus revolving.

Therefore, if you get an approval for $1,000 in vendor credit and use all of it, you need to pay that money back in a set term, like within 30 days on a Net 30 account.

Details

Net 30 accounts must be paid in full within 30 days. 60 accounts must be paid completely within 60 days. Unlike revolving accounts, you have a set time when you must pay back what you borrowed or the credit you made use of.

To launch your business credit profile the proper way, you should get approval for vendor accounts that report to the business credit reporting bureaus. When that’s done, you can then use the credit.

Then pay back what you used, and the account is on report to Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, or Equifax.

Vendor Credit – It Makes Sense

Not every vendor can help in the same way true starter credit can. These are vendors that grant approval with a minimum of effort. You also need them to be reporting to one or more of the big three CRAs: Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian.

As you get starter credit, you can also start to get credit from retailers. Here are some stellar choices from us: https://www.creditsuite.com/blog/5-vendor-accounts-that-build-your-business-credit/ 

Uline

Uline is a true starter vendor. You can find them online at www.uline.com. They sell shipping, packing, and industrial supplies, and they report to Dun & Bradstreet and Experian. You MUST have a D-U-N-S number and an EIN before starting with them. They will ask for your corporate bank information. Your company address must be uniform everywhere. You need for an order to be $50 or more before they’ll report it. Your first few orders may need to be prepaid initially so your business can get approval for Net 30 terms.

  • How to apply with them:
  • Add an item to your shopping cart
  • Go to checkout
  • Select to Open an Account
  • Select to be invoiced

Marathon

Check out starter vendor Marathon. Marathon Petroleum Company provides transportation fuels, asphalt, and specialty products throughout the United States. Their comprehensive product line supports commercial, industrial, and retail operations. This card reports to Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. Before applying for multiple accounts with WEX Fleet cards, make sure to have enough time in between applying so they don’t red-flag your account for fraud.

To qualify, you need:

  • Entity in good standing with Secretary of State
  • EIN number with IRS
  • Business address- matching everywhere.
  • D-U-N-S number
  • Business License (if applicable)
  • And a business bank account
  • Business phone number listed on 411

Your SSN is required for informational purposes. If concerned they will pull your personal credit talk to their credit department before applying. You can give a $500 deposit instead of using a personal guarantee, if in business less than a year. Apply online. Terms are Net 15. Get it here: https://www.marathonbrand.com/.

Grainger Industrial Supply

Grainger Industrial Supply is likewise a true starter vendor. You can find them online at www.grainger.com. They sell hardware, power tools, pumps and more. They also do fleet maintenance. And they report to D&B. You need a business license, EIN, and a D-U-N-S number.

  • To qualify, you need the following:
  • A business license (if applicable)
  • An EIN number
  • A company address matching everywhere
  • A corporate bank account
  • And A D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet

Your business entity must be in good standing with the applicable Secretary of State. If your business doesn’t have established credit, they will require additional documents. So, these are items like accounts payable, income statement, balance sheets, and the like.

Apply online or over the phone.

Accounts That Do Not Report

Non-reporting trade accounts can also be helpful. While you do want trade accounts to report to a minimum of one of the CRAs, a trade account which does not report can still be of some value.

You can always ask non-reporting accounts for trade references. And also, credit accounts of any sort ought to help you to better even out business expenditures, thus making financial planning simpler.

Store Credit

Store credit comes from a variety of retail service providers.

You must use your SSN and date of birth on these applications for verification purposes. For credit checks and guarantees, use the company’s EIN on these credit applications.

Fleet Credit

Fleet credit is from service providers where you can purchase fuel and fix and take care of vehicles. You must use your SSN and date of birth on these applications for verification purposes. For credit checks and guarantees, make certain to apply using the company’s EIN.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Cash Credit

You must use your SSN and date of birth on these applications for verification purposes. For credit checks and guarantees, use your EIN instead.

These are frequently MasterCard credit cards.

Monitor Your Business Credit

Know what is happening with your credit. Make certain it is being reported and address any errors as soon as possible. Get in the practice of checking credit reports. Dig into the particulars, not just the scores.

We can help you monitor business credit at Experian, Equifax, and D&B for a lot less than it would cost you at the CRAs. See: www.creditsuite.com/monitoring.

Update Your Information

Update the info if there are inaccuracies or the data is incomplete.

Fix Your Business Credit

So, what’s all this monitoring for? It’s to challenge any errors in your records. Mistakes in your credit report(s) can be taken care of. But the CRAs usually want you to dispute in a particular way.

Disputes

Disputing credit report mistakes typically means you send a paper letter with copies of any proof of payment with it. These are documents like receipts and cancelled checks. Never send the originals. Always mail copies and keep the original copies.

Fixing credit report errors also means you specifically detail any charges you challenge. Make your dispute letter as clear as possible. Be specific about the concerns with your report. Use certified mail to have proof that you sent in your dispute.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

A Word about How to Build EIN Credit

Always use credit smartly! Never borrow more than what you can pay off. Monitor balances and deadlines for repayments. Paying on schedule and fully does more to increase business credit scores than nearly anything else.

Building small business credit pays off. Excellent business credit scores help a small business get loans. Your lender knows the small business can pay its financial obligations. They know the company is for real.

The small business’s EIN links to high scores and loan providers won’t feel the need to request a personal guarantee.

How to Build EIN Credit: Takeaways

Business credit is an asset which can help your small business for years to come. Learn more here and get started toward establishing small business credit.

The post How to Build EIN Credit for Your Business appeared first on Credit Suite.

What is Out-of-Home Advertising?

In our digital world, it might feel like all marketing is done online. But, that would mean ignoring an incredibly effective strategy—out-of-home advertising.

Out-of-home advertising (OOH) refers to the process of reaching consumers while they are, you guessed it, out of their homes.

While this may conjure images of NYC Times Square billboards, there are many mediums that qualify as out-of-home advertising.

The best news is, these methods are highly effective.

In fact, according to the Out-of-Home Advertising Association of America, 66 percent of smartphone users took action after interacting with an out-of-home advertisement.

Additionally, 74 percent of those who visited a business after interacting with an out-of-home advertisement made a purchase.

Those are some pretty compelling statistics that should make you think twice about adding out-of-home advertising to your campaign’s strategy playbook.

Not sold? Check out the below infographic that identifies which advertising mediums consumers trust the most. See number five? Out-of-home advertising comes in way ahead of search ads or sponsored posts.

out of home advertising as fifth most trusted mode

In short, if you’re not considering out-of-home advertising, you’re missing out on valuable leads.

Types of Out-of-Home Advertising

While we already mentioned the NYC Times Square billboard, there are less ubiquitous mediums for out-of-home advertising. These include:

  • local billboards
  • complimentary merchandise (t-shirts, cups at sporting events)
  • transit placement (bus stops, benches, kiosks)
  • point-of-sale displays (backs of taxi cabs, diner tables, flyers at the grocery store)
  • blimps

While it is unlikely your organization will opt to sponsor a blimp, there are many options for marketers looking to establish new sources for attracting new consumers.

6 Tips for a Successful Out-of-Home Advertising Campaign

Much like any advertising or marketing campaign, your execution is only as good as your plan. There are six must-have steps to help you get your out-of-home advertising campaign off the ground.

1. Research Your Location

Regardless of your out-of-home advertising campaign’s goals, you need to do some research on the location.

This information will not only inform the size and limitations of your ad but will also help you decide which locations are worth your budget and which are not.

Imagine you’re a local restaurant in a pedestrian-heavy area. Advertising your drink specials with a clever slogan on a chalkboard is going to be much more beneficial than a billboard with the same message.

Conversely, if you’re a car dealership offering end-of-the-year deals, a billboard is going to be a much better strategy than a sign outside of your building.

When it comes to location, you need to ask four specific questions:

  • Is this visible?
  • Who travels through this area?
  • What do those passing by want or need?
  • How can my product(s) solve this need?

After you’ve answered these three questions, you can start building your out-of-home marketing strategy around these answers.

2. Go Digital

Just because you’re advertising out-of-home doesn’t mean you have to go technology-free. Digital billboards are a great alternative to conventional billboards. In fact, here are three reasons you should consider opting for a digital billboard.

  • Save money: Digital billboards have fewer associated costs than traditional billboards for installation and removal. Additionally, if research shows people will be more receptive to your product during a particular time of day, you can opt only to display your billboard during that time slot.
  • Increased visibility: Digital billboards are always illuminated, whereas conventional billboards may not be. By going the digital route, you ensure travelers can see your billboard, regardless of the time of day.
  • Changeability: With digital billboards, you can change your content whenever, wherever. With traditional billboards, construction and deconstruction are time-consuming and costly, limiting your ability to swap out language, imagery, or messaging.

Here are three cool digital billboards.

The Economist created a clever digital board that turns a lightbulb on over the head of a walker, connoting the idea of wisdom shared through the publication.

Tips for Successful Out of Home Advertising Campaign - The Economist

Beloved US baseball team The LA Dodgers created enthusiasm for their upcoming games by using a countdown on their digital billboards that ticks down to the second.

Tips for Successful Out of Home Advertising Campaign - Dodgers billboard

Oreo took advantage of a current event by using the hashtag #oreoeclipse.

Tips for Successful Out of Home Advertising Campaign - Oreoeclipse

Whether your billboard is responding to current events or simply underlining your product’s main value proposition, getting creative is a surefire way to find out-of-home advertising success.

3. Use Eye-Catching Displays

While the out-of-home advertising market is nowhere near as saturated as that of the digital advertising market, you can use the same principles to ensure your advertisement stands out from the crowd.

Below, we discuss five strategies that can make your billboard outperform its neighbors.

  • Use bright colors: To get attention from drivers, you need to use all of the tools in your arsenal. Using bright colors that elicit a reaction is a great way to score billboard views.
  • Countdowns: Counting down to a product launch or an event, or the end of a sale is a great way to drive viewers to take action. Consider using this strategy on your billboard, driving would-be consumers to take action.
  • Simplicity: Don’t try to incorporate multiple images or messages into your billboard. You want to be succinct while being direct.
  • Designs with high contrast: At large distances, being subtle does not pay off. Take this opportunity to use contrasting colors to make your ad as visible even from far away.
  • Be short and sweet: You have a limited amount of time to make an impression, so be sure your message is short and to the point.

4. Make It Shareable

The true litmus test of a successful marketing campaign is action. If your out-of-home advertisement drives people to talk about or share your advertisement, then you can consider the ad a success.

To garner maximum audience interaction, brainstorm ad ideas that encourage a response.

Looking for inspiration? Check out these out-of-home advertising ideas that had people talking.

CVS made a big splash with their #BeautyUnaltered campaign.

The digital billboards encouraged viewers to upload their unfiltered selfies as a tie-in with the companies’ dedication to using unedited photos of models.

Tips for Successful Out of Home Advertising Campaign - Digital billboard CVS

In the Ad Council’s Out There for Us campaign, the organization featured out-of-home ads that thanked front-line workers during the COVID-19 pandemic through real quotes.

The ad asked viewers to Tweet their thanks using the hashtag #OutThereForUs, encouraging interaction and then further sharing those quotes.

Tips for Successful Out of Home Advertising Campaign - Ad Council billboard

5. Research the Competition

Before wedding yourself to a location, see if your competitors are using similar strategies in similar locations. What works in their ads? What are they missing?

Use these answers to capitalize on what they missed.

Keep in mind that placing an out-of-home advertisement close to your competitors’ sharing lower prices or better quality could work for you, but it could also have unintended consequences. (Like a price war.)

6. Set Quantifiable Goals

As you wade into the world of out-of-home advertising, be sure to follow the basic tenets of any marketing campaign.

Regardless of digital or conventional, your campaign must have clear, quantifiable marketing goals to assess success.

Do you want to:

  • Increase brand awareness?
  • Deliver on a call to action?
  • Share knowledge with your viewers?
  • Market a new product line?
  • Reach a new demographic?

To confidently determine if your campaign is reaching its aim, be sure to establish SMART goals. This acronym refers to concrete goals, achievable over time. These goals should be:

  • specific
  • measurable
  • attainable
  • relevant
  • time-bound

By fitting your goals within these constraints, you establish aims that are quantifiable, rather than nebulous.

3 Examples of Great Out-of-Home Advertising

Great out-of-home advertising doesn’t happen overnight. It takes strategy, research, and a true understanding of your audience. Below, we share our three favorite out-of-home advertising campaigns of all time and break down what made them so successful.

Pepsi

Pepsi wanted to make a splash at the 2019 Super Bowl. However, Super Bowl LIII wasn’t held just anywhere—it was held in Atlanta, Coca-Cola’s home turf.

By going all-in on an out-of-home advertising campaign, Pepsi was able to grow three percent in Q1 of 2019, not to mention scoring tons of social media reactions and interactions with their hashtag #ColaTruce.

Examples of Great Out-of-Home Advertising - Pepsi bus kiosk
Examples of Great Out of Home Advertising - Pepsi bus

While your budget may not be quite as large as Pepsi’s (the beverage brand’s budget was $1.7 million), you can still draw inspiration from this campaign that made out-of-home advertising work in their favor.

Dallas Cowboys & AT&T

2019 was a good year for out-of-home advertising.

In September, The Dallas Cowboys took out-of-home marketing to the field, launching interactive “Pose with the Pros” kiosks at their stadium.

Through this interactive campaign, fans could snap pictures with virtual likenesses of the players.

After taking the photo, users could choose to share the image on social media or email it to themselves or others.

While on the surface, this campaign was simply a treat for Dallas Cowboys fans, it also had another motive.

Fueled by AT&T, the out-of-home advertising campaign allowed the company to demonstrate their 5G technology prowess.

The result AT&T CMO claimed: “We were able to create experiences that let people know how fundamentally different 5G is from LTE.” Not to mention some pretty happy Cowboys fans.

Examples of Great Out of Home Advertising - dallas cowboys pose with the pros

Reebok

When you think of running, you don’t necessarily conjure the Reebok logo.

But all that changed when Reebok ran an out-of-home advertising campaign in Sweden that challenged passersby to run at a speed of 10.5 mph in exchange for a free pair of the brand’s ZPump 2.0 shoes.

Examples of Great Out of Home Advertising - Reebok sneaker kiosk

The campaign took off, earning 300,000+ views on YouTube and 30,000+ shares on social media. Invariably, next time anyone who interacted with that billboard thinks of running, they’ll think of Reebok.

Conclusion

Whether you want to add to your existing digital marketing strategy or go fully OOH, there are many mediums you can use for innovative advertising.

From billboards to park benches, the out-of-home advertising opportunities are endless.

However, OOH advertising should be viewed as a long-term campaign—it’s unlikely that you’ll see the same immediate success experienced with your digital campaigns.

But don’t get disheartened. The return on investment for your OOH campaigns is definitely worth the wait.

What’s the best OOH advertisement you’ve ever seen? 

Best WordPress Cache Plugin

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Three seconds. 

That’s all your visitors give you when they come to your website. If your website takes any longer to upload, 40% of people will abandon it. 

What’s worse, a one-second delay in page response can cause a 7% reduction in conversions. You’ll end up losing 40% of your website traffic, out of which 80% of these people won’t return—ever.

I could continue talking about these scary loading time statistics, but the bottom line is your website needs to be fast if you want to boost your traffic and conversions. If you don’t work on improving loading times, you’ll end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year.

Luckily, there is a solution: Installing a WordPress cache plugin.

These plugins are designed to improve your website’s speed by instructing the server to store some files to disk or RAM, depending on the configuration. After that, the plugin remembers and duplicates the content it’s served in the past.

The result? Faster web page loading.

#1 – WP Rocket – The Best for Speed Optimization 

WP Rocket is a premium WordPress caching plugin that many agree is the best in the market. 

It’s simple and beginner-friendly, which helps users who aren’t familiar with the typical jargon associated with different caching options. It has been specially designed to boost your website’s speed and performance.

Instead of waiting for someone to request a page to save it to cache, WP Rocket builds the website cache automatically. It also turns on recommended WordPress caching settings like cache pre-loading, page cache, and gzip compression by itself.

Precisely why you see an instant boost in your website’s performance after installing this plugin.

You can also activate other features offered by WP Rocket, such as DNS prefetching, lazy loading images, minification, and CDN support. They can help improve your web page’s loading time while simultaneously reducing bounce rates.

Plugin Features 

  • Cache preloading (two methods)
  • Browser caching
  • GZIP compression
  • Database optimization
  • Minification and concatenation
  • Defer JavaScript loading
  • DNS prefetching
  • Lazy loading

Pricing 

WP Rocket offers three subscription plans:

  • Single – $49 annually for one website
  • Plus – $99 annually for three websites 
  • Infinite – $249 annually for unlimited websites

Learn more and get WP Rocket today.

#2 – Swift Performance – The Best for Multi-Site Compatibility

Swift Performance is a WordPress caching plugin with excellent performance-optimizing capabilities that transforms caching as you know it. Although it’s a relatively new WordPress plugin, it has gained tremendous popularity among users in a short span of time.

It has all the necessary features to take your website performance and speed to the next level without breaking a sweat. The plugin has a unique database optimizer that cleans duplicated metadata, expired transients, and spam comments.

Additionally, you can optimize the delivery of static resources via its minification feature that lets you combine or minify CSS and JavaScript—all with a single click. It’s compatible with bbPress, Cloudflare, WooCommerce, and Varnish, among several other platforms too. 

I also like its Async Execute feature that allows users to run scripts individually as they upload. It’s super helpful to improve speed sites, deliver a better user experience, and boost SEO scores. 

Swift Performance’s schedule database optimization is another time-saving feature—provided you use the pro version. Lastly, you can also enable/disable plugins on certain pages thanks to its plugin organizer.

Plugin Features

  • Page caching
  • Pre-set optimization templates that you can quickly apply
  • Code optimization, including minification and combination.
  • Browser caching
  • Database optimization
  • Plugin organizer to disable plugins on certain pages

Pricing

Swift Performance offers three subscription plans:

  • Single – $39.99 per year for one site
  • Multi – $99.99 per year for four sites
  • Developer – $199.99 per year for unlimited sites

#3 – W3 Total Cache – The Best for Experienced Developers

W3 Total Cache is hands down one of the best open-source WordPress caching plugins that offers an out-of-the-box and advanced caching mechanism. While it’s packed with features, it’s also slightly complicated, especially for users who lack technical skills.

The plugin is compatible with most hosting plans, including shared, dedicated, and VPS server hosting. Since it’s free, you can use all of its features after installing the plugin—no upsells for you to worry about. 

It can improve your server performance by caching every aspect of your site and integrating with several content delivery networks. 

Developers, in particular, like this plugin as it can offer up to 80% bandwidth savings thanks to its minification feature that reduces the size of your HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and feeds without compromising other website elements. 

What’s more, this cache plugin works for both mobile and desktop versions of your website. I‘d recommend W3 Total Cache for WordPress ecommerce sites as it has tons of features that make it useful for sites with SSL certificates—something that most ecommerce sites have.

Plugin Features

  • Minification
  • Opcode cache
  • Database cache
  • Object cache
  • Browser cache
  • CDN integration
  • Fragment cache

Pricing

W3 Total Cache is an open-source plugin, and it’s available free of charge.

#4 – WP Super Cache – The Best for Customization

When a plugin has more than two million active installations, you know the developers are doing something right. 

Developed by Automattic, the same people who gave you Jetpack, Akismet, and WordPress.com, WP Super Cache is as popular as a plugin can get, and not without reason. 

The plugin generates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress content. Plus, it saves you a ton of bandwidth and decreases page load times since it makes the web server serve the lighter HTML files instead of the heavy PHP scripts.

You also get three caching modes with WP Super Cache: Simple, Expert, and WP-cache caching. 

Out of the three, the Expert mode is the fastest, but you have to modify the .htaccess file, which requires coding and web development experience. But if you do have the technical know-how, you can customize the plugin settings to make it more functional.

You can use the WP-cache caching mode to cache content for known website visitors. Due to this, the caching mode is ideal for websites whose users are typically logged in, can leave comments, or see customized content.

Don’t have web development experience? No worries, you can use the Simple mode, where all you need is a custom permalink. As the setting is easier to configure, you won’t have to change your .htaccess file.

Plugin Features

  • Page caching
  • Support for content delivery networks (CDN)
  • Caching for visitors using a mobile device
  • Browser caching
  • Scheduler to manage deletion and re-caching at given intervals
  • GZIP compression

Pricing

WP Super Cache is available free of cost.

#5 – WP Fastest Cache – The Best for Access to a Wide Range of Tools

According to the official WordPress directory, WP Fastest Cache is the highest-rated cache plugin. It has limited configuration settings, which makes it user-friendly and appropriate for beginners.

This plugin can create static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress site and also minify HTML and CSS files, which, in turn, reduces file sizes. What’s more, it combines these files to make your code cleaner and web pages leaner.

You can schedule to delete the CSS and JS files at a specific time later.

WP Fastest Cache implements WordPress broader caching effectively to reduce page load time for repeat visitors. It also combines several CSS files into one in a bid to reduce the number of HTTP round-trips. If needed, you can also disable emojis on your website.

The premium version of this WordPress cache plugin offers tons of unique features that boost your page speed by optimizing images, cleaning up databases, caching mobile devices, among several other features. You can purchase the premium version directly from your WordPress dashboard after installing the free plugin.

Plugin Features

  • Auto-deletion of cache files whenever a post or page is published
  • Supports CDN
  • Enable/Disable cache option for mobile devices and logged-in users
  • Block cache for specific page or post
  • Code minification
  • GZIP compression

Pricing

While there is a freemium version available, you can upgrade to the premium packages too. There are four subscription options:

  • Freemium 
  • Bronze – $49.99 per license
  • Silver – $125 per three licenses
  • Gold – $175 per five licenses 

What I Looked at to Find the Best WordPress Cache Plugin

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Choosing the best WordPress caching plugin won’t be the most straightforward task on your list. 

In addition to similar-sounding names, you’ll find most of them offer similar features in different ways, which is why they may end up conflicting if you use two or more at once. The fact that caching is technical also means you practically need to be an expert to make the right choice.

I’ve already listed my top five picks for the best WordPress caching plugins, but I want you to know how I reached this decision. 

Let’s take a look at the factors worth considering when researching caching plugins for WordPress.

CDN Support

CDN stands for content delivery network, a network of data servers that renders cache data to web users from a server nearest to them.

Whenever there is an increase in traffic on your website, there is also a simultaneous increase in your web hosting server’s processing activity. This causes a decrease in your website’s page loading speed.

This is the exact point where CDN comes into the picture.

Hold on. Things are about to get a bit technical here.

If you’re using a CDN, then static data from your website will get cached on every server in the CDN. As a result, whenever a user requests a page on your website, they’ll receive a cached copy from a server nearest to the user, preventing any delay.

This is why you should ensure your prospective caching plugin supports the CDN you use. If not, you might end up losing visitors.

Browser Caching Ability 

Browser caching means saving your CSS, logo, and other resources that would typically download whenever a visitor opens your webpage. This feature lets you decide how much of your webpage would be cached on the user‘s device, which, in turn, makes you independent of the user’s browser cache settings.

Look for options that allow you to set the time period for which you want the downloaded content to be saved on the user‘s system. 

That said, I wouldn’t recommend setting the time for the content to be cached for more than six months as it may result in the user getting web pages that aren’t updated. 

Asset and Page Exclusion

While many WordPress websites are purely static content, some also include dynamic content. This can include a membership website, an ecommerce site with WooCommerce, a website selling courses, and so on.

The catch is that dynamic content doesn’t play well with browser caching and page caching. Therefore, it’s wiser to look for a caching plugin that enables you to exclude specific pages and assets from being cached to prevent glitches.

Customer Support

If you’re new to the world of caching, chances are you might be hearing most of the terms we explained above for the first time. 

That’s why you should make sure the plugin developers offer efficient customer support that can help you whenever you get stuck with the daunting caching setup. If you find that a premium caching plugin offers better support, I‘d recommend choosing that over a free option.

After all, your peace of mind should always have top priority.

Conclusion 

Site speed is incredibly important for your website’s success. So if you aren’t using a caching plugin now, you’re already a step behind your competitors.

Go over customer reviews and do thorough research before choosing a plugin for your website. I’ve done my best to include options that come packed with features and ensure optimal results, but you can always opt for other caching plugins that you think will deliver better results.

In the end, the aim is to get those loading times short and your website super fast.

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