Tag: Marketing

Mortgage industry group predicts recession next year, expects mortgage rates to come back down from 7%

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A mortgage industry group is expecting a recession to hit the U.S. economy.

“We’re forecasting a recession for next year,” Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said Sunday during the industry group’s annual conference in Nashville, Tenn.

“The upside of that potentially for the industry is, that’s the thing that’s likely going to bring rates down a little bit,” he added.

Also see: Mortgage bankers forecast rates to drop to 5.4% in 2023. Here’s what that means for home prices.

In a statement, Fratantoni said the MBA’s forecast calls for a recession in the first half of 2023, and predicts the unemployment rate will rise from 3.5% to 5.5% by the end of next year.

“We’re beginning to see some significant signs of softening in the labor market,” Frantantoni said.

He expects companies to no longer be scrambling to fill job openings, and that hiring will eventually cool off.

On average in 2023, expect the economy to lose 25,000 jobs per month, he said, and end the year with employment at 5.5%.

That’s in stark contrast to the latest unemployment rate in September, which was 3.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“So a very, very different job market to today,” Frantantoni said. “I do expect the next couple of months are gonna be a pretty abrupt transition.”

With a recession on the horizon, expect mortgage rates to come down to close to 5.4% at the end of next year, he said, versus the 7%-plus rates that the market is seeing today.

“We are holding to our view that this is a spike right now, driven by financial-market dislocation, heightened level of volatility in the market and this global slowdown we’re about to experience, the likelihood of recession in the U.S. will begin to pull this number,” Fratantoni said.

Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist for the MBA, speaks in Nashville on Sunday.

AARTHI SWAMINATHAN

Given the massive rise in rates this year, with the 30-year fixed rate averaging 6.94% last week as compared to 3.85% a year ago, many potential home buyers have decided to wait as their projected monthly mortgage payments have become unaffordable.

Home sales have plunged, and are dragging down home prices. Sellers are also making more concessions in their attempts to woo buyers.

As a result of the slowdown, the MBA is expecting total mortgage origination volume to fall to $2.05 trillion in 2023 from the $2.26 trillion expected in 2022.

They’re also expecting purchase originations to drop 3%, and refinances by 24%.

Fratantoni also expects delinquencies to rise from 40-year lows.

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October 23, 2022
U.S. stock futures give up early gains after Wall Street’s best week since June

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U.S. stock futures gave up strong early-session gains overnight after Wall Street notched its best week since June.

After initially surging about 300 points, or 1% on Sunday evening, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures
YM00,
-0.02%
were last about flat at midnight Eastern, while S&P 500 futures
ES00,
+0.05%
and Nasdaq-100 futures
NQ00,
+0.16%
similarly gave up sharp early gains.

The U.S. Dollar Index
DXY,
+0.19%
nudged higher, while the British pound
GBPUSD,
+0.12%
surrendered much of an afternoon rally fueled by the possibility that Rishi Sunak will be Britain’s next prime minister, after Boris Johnson bowed out of the running. Crude prices
CL.1,
-0.55%
ticked slightly higher Sunday.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+2.47%
gained 748.97 points, or 2.5%, to close at 31,082.56. The S&P 500
SPX,
+2.37%
climbed 86.97 points, or 2.4%, to finish at 3,752.75, and the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
-0.81%
rose 244.87 points, or 2.3%, to end at 10,859.72.

The three major indexes scored their biggest weekly percentage gains since June last week. For the week, the Dow rose 4.9%, the S&P 500 gained 4.7% and the Nasdaq advanced 5.2%. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes
TMUBMUSD10Y,
4.156%
ended Friday at 4.228%.

Investors were heartened by reports that the Fed may back off slightly from its aggressive rate-hiking policy later this year.

The upcoming week is the busiest of the third-quarter earnings season, with 165 S&P 500 companies, including 12 Dow components reporting. That includes earnings from Big Tech companies Alphabet
GOOGL,
+1.16%,
Amazon
AMZN,
+3.53%,
Apple
AAPL,
+2.71%,
Meta
META,
-1.16%
and Microsoft
MSFT,
+2.53%.

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October 23, 2022
Scale Your SEO Content with This Top-Rated Tool

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Disclosure: Our goal is to feature products and services that we think you’ll find interesting and useful. If you purchase them, Entrepreneur may get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners.

Running an online business is all about competition. You have to stand out from competitors with your prices, with your branding, and, most of all, with your search engine optimization (SEO). A great SEO strategy is how you’ll rein in organic traffic to view your products and services without having to pay bundles for paid advertising.

Shopia

While SEO is effectively free, it’s far from easy, which is why it’s worth investing in an SEO writing tool like Shopia. This clever app has earned perfect 5-star ratings from Trustpilot, Capterra, and GetApp because it’s intuitive, yet powerful.

With Shopia, you can develop unique content in more than 25 languages with a built-in plagiarism checker and SEO tools to help you rank for the keywords you’re most interested in. You can get help writing on any topic of interest, and get articles in simple formats like blog posts, FAQs, case studies, or white papers to help you work off of templates. It includes a blog article writer, copywriting tools, e-commerce content, email copy, and more. Shopia also offers 24/7 customer support so you can troubleshoot your app in real-time with live chat and support.

With a Shopia Standard Plan, you’ll get support for 15,000 words per month, as well as 80 AI writers to assist you in content production. You’ll also get guidance for five topic clusters and ten article SEO lookups to help you research competitors and guide your long-term SEO strategies.

Building an SEO plan isn’t always easy, but with Shopia, you’ll get the help you need to scale content quantity and quality. Right now, you can get a Standard Plan in a few variants. Get a one-year plan for 48 percent off $192 at just $99, a three-year plan for 65 percent off $576 at just $199, or a lifetime plan for 77 percent off $1,344 at just $299.

Prices subject to change.

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Entrepreneur Store

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October 23, 2022
Drive Product Growth With A Metric That Guides You to Success.
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As China continues to crack down on how companies handle user data, it’s time for the business world to think about what exactly they’re collecting and measuring. The country’s strict data privacy laws make it more challenging to store and manage Chinese consumers’ data, but it could also have more wide-reaching ramifications if other countries decide to adopt similar regulations (much like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation). This will lead to a new digital marketing landscape when it comes to data and metrics.

Not long ago, marketing and growth teams relied on just a handful of metrics to analyze campaigns and measure business performance: revenue, expenses and profit. Then, the internet exploded, ushering everyone into the information age. The rapid proliferation of technology, product development and data-collection methods created a feeding frenzy of sorts.

Marketers and product teams began capturing and measuring anything and everything they could get their hands on. Their intentions were good: They thought if they collected every piece of data available, then voila, those metrics would reveal what was and wasn’t working in their products. In practice, however, they simply created a game of “find the needle in the haystack.” And unfortunately, there’s no winning that game.

When it comes to product growth metrics, more isn’t always better. Having too many metrics is as bad as having none at all. Simply look at the sheer amount of data people generate to understand why. Research estimates that humans collectively will create more than 180 zettabytes of data by 2025. To put that in perspective, that’s equivalent to the storage of 2,587 iPhone 13 Pros per second (1 terabyte model).

Imagine the resources and time it would take to track this much data. Plus, some of the information could be old or obsolete. Other metrics might be readily available but ultimately lack relevance and practicality. In the end, you’re data-rich but insight-poor — not a good position to be in.

Why do you need a North Star metric?

Rather than chasing down any metric that feels remotely related to your product, consider centering your product growth strategy around a singular guiding metric. Just as sailors used the North Star located directly above the Earth’s northern celestial pole to navigate oceans, you can use a North Star metric to align your team around the top-line goal of product growth.

Of course, the sales, engineering, product and marketing teams can still have their own subgoals and metrics. But having that North Star shining brightly overhead keeps everyone moving in the same general direction. Because a North Star metric is focused on overall product growth, there’s a built-in level of teamwide transparency and camaraderie not found in other team-specific initiatives.

However, what makes a North Star metric such an effective measure of success is its intrinsic relationship to users. By definition, a North Star metric is the number that best reflects the value your product delivers to users. Therefore, your teams will always be aligned and working together to grow your product.

Related: Customer Experience Will Determine the Success of Your Company

What constitutes a North Star metric?

So, what exactly is a North Star metric? It’s important to note that revenue isn’t a North Star metric. When you track your product’s revenue, you track how much money you made at the end of the month, quarter or year. Though this is a decent indicator of success, it’s not user-specific. For example, revenue alone can’t tell you how much the average user spends on your products and how long they remain loyal.

In general, there are five categories of North Star metrics:
1. Customer growth: Customer growth-focused North Star metrics include market share and number of paid users, among others.
2. Consumption growth: Consumption goes beyond mere site visits. Instead, think about this category through the lens of product usage, such as messages sent or classes attended.
3. Engagement growth: If your product is an app, you might use engagement metrics — such as monthly or daily active users — to track the number of unique users within a specific time period.
4. Growth efficiency: When comparing the value of a new user relative to the cost of acquiring one, you might leverage metrics around lifetime value and customer acquisition costs as your North Star.
5. User experience: User experience metrics, such as net promoter score, provide data that helps you measure user satisfaction and product experience.
Related: 4 Reasons Sharing Performance Metrics Will Accelerate Your Business

What’s your North Star?

Your North Star metric should be the one that’s most predictive of your product’s sustained success and how users get value from the product. Therefore, it will vary based on your industry, audience, offering, etc. For instance, a fintech product might coalesce around the total assets under its management or daily active users. In contrast, streaming company Netflix uses total hours streamed as their North Star metric.

Of course, the metric you choose must be regularly measurable. It also needs to fulfill two other criteria to be considered a North Star metric: help generate revenue and mirror customer value.

1. Help generate revenue

A metric that doesn’t measure advancement toward goals in a way that informs your next steps won’t be useful at all. So, make sure you can directly tie your North Star metric to product growth. Airbnb‘s North Star metric, for example, is number of nights booked. This reveals platform growth and correlates with the value customers and hosts receive from good experiences.

Just remember that it’s important to balance this criterion with the other two. For instance, if you hang your hat on a money-centric metric to the detriment of customer satisfaction, you’ll ultimately drive users away. On the other hand, you can’t prioritize customer satisfaction at all costs, or you’ll run yourself out of business.

2. Mirror customer value

Your North Star metric needs to encompass what users find valuable about your product. If you fail to understand what they appreciate, then you’ll end up measuring the wrong thing. For instance, users disliked having to log in to Meta‘s virtual reality headset with a Facebook account. Meta was too focused on boosting its social media platform to realize that its audience wanted more flexibility and anonymity.

To define your North Star metric, gather key stakeholders to outline your company’s needs and the value your product adds to users’ lives. Determine whether a metric helps users achieve the intended results of your offering. Look at the external factors that might impact your North Star metric, as well as the internal ones within your control.

Related: How to Keep Leaders Focused on a Company’s Most Important Metrics

Long ago, sailors turned their eyes to the sky to determine where they were going and what adventures awaited. In the same way, you can use your North Star metric to inform your product growth strategy no matter what the future holds.
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Nick Chasinov

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October 21, 2022
4 Lessons That Can Help You Shift From Order Taker to Strategic Partner

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are partners who do the work and partners who create the strategies behind the work. As entrepreneurs, we tend to do it all because we’re establishing our business and building our revenue pipeline. But there are inherent problems with this approach.

Case in point: In my first full year working for myself, I landed a huge client. I had the experience, the knowledge and the skills for the assignment, but I was just starting out on my own and didn’t have a budget to hire help. Wanting to prove that I could handle the project, I did it all myself, serving as a marketer, copywriter and account manager.

What I didn’t leave time for was strategy. My desire to please the client took over, and I ended up throwing myself into the tactical work at the expense of my strategic expertise. As a partner, I was doing myself a disservice. When the client didn’t see my vision, they mentally put me in the “doer” category.

There are two inherent problems with being an order taker: Firstly, the work you’re ordered to do may not align with your vision and likely won’t earn the results they’re looking to achieve. Secondly, sooner or later, they’ll move the tasks in-house.

Related: If You Want Your Clients to Truly Value You, You Need to Be Their Trusted Advisor. Here’s How.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who has fallen into the people-pleaser trap. Women are apparently at greater risk of manifesting this self-sabotaging trait. According to a recent study, 56% of women are more likely than men to describe themselves as people pleasers.

The results of another study concur — 54% of female participants exhibited people-pleasing behavior, while the minority of men at 40% showed similar tendencies.

The pressure that women feel to please others is real. It’s a “gender norm” historically reinforced by society, making us more susceptible to related behaviors, such as difficulty saying no or arguing our case. As Caitlyn Collins, a professor of sociology at Washington University so aptly put it, “Women have been socialized into understanding that what is most important is that they be perceived as likable and agreeable.”

We’re more likely to nod in agreement and dive into the work than we are to disagree or say we know better. And by and large, we’re invaluable as workers because we want to please.

We tend to work harder than necessary to over-deliver, according to multiple studies, including Hive and Ponemon Institute. But just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. I eventually learned that establishing yourself as a strategic partner sets the stage for more rewarding work and greater profit margins.

Fortunately, I was able to break free from my people-pleasing ways. Fast-forward 30 years, I am a CEO and an award-winning marketer. I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have without learning these four critical lessons as a strategic partner to my clients along the way.

Related: How to Protect Your Career From Those Who Try to Undermine You

1. Set the stage

Your vision is what got you here, and while you have the know-how to handle a dozen tasks, your job isn’t to execute someone else’s vision but to create your own vision and teach others how to implement it. Set the stage upfront by kicking off every project with a discovery phase. This initial stage of the project allows you time to perform background research and gain an understanding of your client’s history, their competitors and their target audience so that you can plan your strategy. As simple as you think it might be, present your findings to the client along with your strategic recommendations and the metrics by which you’ll measure success. And don’t forget to include the hours you spend on this discovery phase in your estimate — you should absolutely be compensated for this.

Remember those research papers you had to write in school? You’d have to tell the reader what you were going to tell them, then tell them and then tell them what you told them. In this case, show the client where they are, then show them where they want to be and finally, show them how you’ll get them there. Position yourself as the partner that can empower their team to execute your strategic vision.

2. Create a mantra

Have you ever listened to a speaker at a professional event that just blew you away? The most prolific orators follow a simple mantra. Instead of trying to say too much, they focus on a single message. Think of your favorite consumer brand‘s tagline. They use it in every ad spot and every creative campaign. A mantra is your personal tagline of sorts that ties back to everything you do. That simple mantra can help steer your pitches and presentations and keep you on track.

Related: How Investing in Strategic Partnerships Can Help Grow Your Business

3. Be curious

Early on in my career, I suffered a great deal of imposter syndrome. What if the client asked a question that I didn’t have the answer to? What if I was just dead wrong? I watched veteran strategists seemingly breeze through pitches and presentations and wondered how I’d ever be that confident. Years later, I was offered a chief strategy officer role. I breezed through pitches and presentations, too. But it certainly wasn’t because I was always right. It was because I was always curious. Yes, I did my research, I questioned thought leadership, I studied statistics and prepared for every meeting, but I was also genuinely curious, and that gave me the power to listen, really listen, to the questions clients asked and the arguments they surfaced. Sometimes, they changed my mindset, and other times they solidified my resolve.

4. Get comfortable with passing up business

Not every prospect you talk with or present to will be the right fit for your agency. When you’re starting out, you might be keen to say yes to any and all work that comes your way to ensure revenue. But there comes a point where you’ll need to turn down work that doesn’t further your own purpose. Establish the goals, the metrics, how long you think it will take and what other work you have that will eat up hours of your day. Don’t agree to their timetable — and if you must, add rush fees in order to get it done.

Enterprise clients can be intimidating, but they’ve come to you for a reason, so make sure you get what you need from them to be successful.

Let that confidence drive you to focus on crafting your strategic perspective. Being a strategic partner doesn’t mean you can’t ever be wrong. What it does mean is that you’re willing to test new theories, question the status quo and offer a unique perspective. And that’s exactly what your clients will come to value.

These are the four lessons I learned (the hard way, in most cases) in my first three decades of business. I hope they inspire you to position yourself as a strategic partner.

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Beth Newton

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October 21, 2022
8 Things Every Business Should Do to Improve Its Online Presence in 2023

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Regardless of the kind of business you operate, there are many things you can gain from having a strong online presence. With a powerful online presence, you can boost brand awareness, increase leads and increase sales. So, as we are moving closer to 2023, every business must plan to take its online presence to the next level.

In this post, we will explain some important things every business should do to improve its online presence in 2023.

Build a user-friendly, attractive website

When creating an impressive online presence in 2023, the importance of having a website cannot be overemphasized. Your website can make it easier for people to know what you are capable of offering them. Additionally, it can tell people more about your work process, work hours, location, contact information and lots more.

But you shouldn’t just create any site. It must be user-friendly and visually appealing. This is because the expectations of consumers are high nowadays. As a result, they will not waste their time on a low-quality, hard-to-navigate website. So, you should hire the service of experienced website developers and designers to ensure your site meets the required standard.

Related: 4 Content Marketing Strategies You Should Use in 2023

Use SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy for increasing your brand’s visibility in search results. As your website ranks higher in search results, more people will be able to come across your brand. Therefore, SEO can make a big difference in your online presence.

To optimize your site for SEO in 2023, you should invest in finding the most relevant keywords. Afterward, use the keywords appropriately and naturally in your headers, meta description, blog content, social media posts, etc.

Also, you shouldn’t forget the three most crucial aspects of SEO, which are:

When done correctly, SEO will help you to reach more potential customers, thus, boosting your online presence.

Related: 6 SEO Tips to Benefit Any Business

Take advantage of local directories

Although it may seem that local directories are only meant for local businesses, all businesses can gain from them. With the directories aid, many would-be customers can check out your business without going to your site. So, as you are trying to boost your business’s online presence, you need to create profiles on local directories such as Google.

Invest in online ads

While a business can grow online organically without ads, online ads can make the job easier and faster. Therefore, if you want to improve your business’s online presence, you need to invest in online ads. Facebook, Google, YouTube and other platforms now allow users to pay for ads. These ads will showcase your offers, ensuring that more people know about your business.

Online ads are helpful for businesses in different ways. Firstly, it can be tailored to suit your target audience. You can use age, interests, location, gender, behavior and other parameters to determine who will see the ads. Secondly, the ads can be done in varying formats, such as images, texts, infographics and videos.

Focus on only the most important online platforms

You can explore numerous platforms when it comes to boosting the image of your business online. However, you must be careful, as being present on several platforms may not be advantageous to your business. Generally, you will have to spend lots of time online marketing your business through numerous platforms. This can be pretty distracting and even prevent you from offering quality services and products to existing customers.

As a result, you should only focus on the most vital platforms. If you can only maximize the use of your website, emails and three social media platforms, you should concentrate on them. You just need to select the best platforms that will assist you in getting the most from your online presence.

Post shareable and emotional content consistently

Another way to improve your online presence is to post content your audience can share with friends. By sharing your content, it will be able to reach more people, thus, boosting your online presence. Nevertheless, most users will only share content that resonates with them emotionally. So, creating emotional and shareable content from time to time on your website and social media pages is paramount.

Infuse emotional phrases and words into your headers, captions, blog posts, etc. Add exciting images, videos, stats and emojis to your content. Also, you can directly encourage the readers to share your post.

Use email marketing

Even though email marketing is one of the oldest means of digital marketing, it is still crucial today. Many internet users utilize emails and check their inbox messages regularly. According to Optinmonster.com, about 99% of email users open their emails at least once daily. So, if you can reach out to existing and would-be customers through emails, you will increase your online presence in 2023.

To optimize email marketing, you must build an email list and craft unique subject lines and content. Also, you must send emails regularly, but don’t spam your audiences.

Explore guest posting

As you continue to look for ways to improve the online presence of your business, you shouldn’t limit it to your platforms. For instance, guest posting can be a great way to let more people know about your business. Guest posting refers to the process of creating a blog post on another platform’s blog. You need to add a link to your website or blog in the blog post. When people engage with your post on the website, they may click the link and visit your website.

When choosing a platform for guest posting, ensure it is a platform with many audiences. Such a platform will allow you to reach more people.

After doing everything above, you should keep track of the progress of your effort with Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, etc. Keep updating these things until you have accomplished the goal of improving your business’s online presence in 2023.

Related: How to Enhance Your SEO Efforts by Guest Posting

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Gajura Constantin

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October 21, 2022
Snap investors, do you still trust Evan Spiegel?

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When Snap Inc. went public in 2017, this column boiled down the entire investment opportunity to one, simple question: Do you trust Evan Spiegel?

As Snap
SNAP,
-0.64%
stock heads toward its lowest prices since March 2020, and potentially even lower, that question is even more important, and answering “yes” should be even harder.

Three months ago, amid the beginning of a huge slowdown in the ad business, Snap initiated a unique dividend meant to ensure that the founders maintained control of the company, even if they sold their stock — protecting themselves. Then in August, news came that Snap was laying off one in five employees. As Snap again reported disappointing results Thursday and saw the stock plunge again, the company decided now was the time to initiate a stock buyback plan, promising to spend up to $500 million to offset the dilution from employee stock plans — in the past nine months, Snap has spent $937 million on stock-based compensation.

On the face of it, this seems like an investor-friendly approach — Barron’s pointed out earlier this year that investors were suffering while employees were faring better with the hefty stock-comp plans. But it’s also worth pointing out who the biggest investors in Snap are: Spiegel and his co-founder Bobby Murphy.

As the company’s largest individual shareholders, Spiegel and Murphy are among the key beneficiaries of Snap’s plans to buy back stock, which usually leads to a boost in the stock price. Those two still control over 99% of the voting power of the company’s capital stock, and as the parent of Snapchat reminded investors in its annual report, “Mr. Spiegel alone can exercise voting control over a majority of our outstanding capital stock.”

Shares of Snap tumbled an additional 25% to just under $8 in after-hours trading, putting them near the lowest prices since March 2020. On Thursday, the company ended regular trading hours with a market capitalization of around $17.91 billion, but that was headed toward $13 billion with the after-hours collapse.

Besides protecting themselves and their investment, Snap’s executives have shown little ability to head off big issues, nor offer any worthwhile solutions to the current ad downturn. In the third quarter, its revenue grew a paltry 6%, down from the most recent second-quarter revenue growth of 13%. Snap appears to be in a steady revenue slowdown, from its peak growth of 116% in the June 2021 quarter.

Snap has blamed both privacy changes that Apple Inc.
AAPL,
-0.33%
made to the iPhone that affected ad tracking, and more recently, the macroeconomic advertising climate, while avoiding one of the biggest factors — the rise of TikTok. Top executives didn’t seem to see any of those challenges coming early enough, and did not do enough about them once they did.

“The company was slow to react — or acknowledge — the significant headwinds faced by privacy initiatives, compounded by competition, and more recently macro headwinds,” Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Baird Equity Research, wrote in a note.

The competition factor, mostly from China’s TikTok, was addressed briefly on the company’s call with analysts, but was not really acknowledged by Snap leaders.

“We believe that the differentiated nature of our service is what’s contributing to the daily active-user growth, which grew 19% year-over-year to 363 million daily active users,” Spiegel said. “In terms of the content specifically, I think there’s a lot of headroom, of course, to continue to grow content engagement.”

In the company’s shareholder letter, Spiegel acknowledged that the results were “far from our aspirations,” and that Snap would use this time of reduced demand “to pull forward and accelerate changes to our advertising platform and auction dynamics that we believe will deliver better results for our advertising partner.”

Spiegel is known for going by his own instincts and not listening to other executives, employees or even market forces, as was noted in a Wall Street Journal report that detailed his push for an unsuccessful product redesign in 2018. While the company appeared to have snapped back from that debacle last year, it is now facing a fiercer rival for young people on social media in the form of TikTok.

Investors who still have patience to wait and see if this stock ever recovers will also have to stick around with Spiegel — and as our IPO column noted — Snap is unapologetically founder-controlled. No change at the top can ever come unless it is initiated by Spiegel himself. Investors have to make a leap of faith that Spiegel can turn things around, but they need to remember that Spiegel usually thinks about himself first.

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October 20, 2022
Snap stock plummets more than 25% as online advertising continues to struggle

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A bruising year for Snap Inc.’s shares worsened Thursday, as the stock plummeted more than 20% in after-hours trading as executives launched the company’s first major share-repurchase program amid revenue issues in a poor environment for online advertising.

Snap
SNAP,
-0.64%
executives revealed that revenue increased less than 6% year-over-year in the quarter — its slowest quarterly grow ever recorded — and said that the holiday season is shaping up similarly, with sales increasing 9% so far in the quarter. The social-media company, which laid off roughly 20% of its staff this summer in response to the issues, also declined to provide a full forecast for the important fourth quarter.

“Our revenue growth continued to decelerate in Q3 and continues to be impacted by a number of factors we have noted throughout the past year, including platform policy changes, macroeconomic headwinds, and increased competition,” executives said in a letter to shareholders, outlining the results. “We are finding that our advertising partners across many industries are decreasing their marketing budgets, especially in the face of operating environment headwinds, inflation-driven cost pressures, and rising costs of capital.”

“Forward-looking revenue visibility remains incredibly challenging, and this is compounded by the fact that revenue in Q4 is typically disproportionately generated in the back half of the quarter, which further reduces our visibility,” executives explained about the lack of guidance in a letter to investors.

The board did approve a $500 million share repurchase, a first for the young company. In a news release, executives said that the move was meant “to opportunistically offset a portion of the dilution related to the issuance of restricted stock units to employees as part of the overall compensation program designed to foster an ownership culture.”

Snap’s results — the first among the major tech companies who rely heavily on digital advertising — likely portend even more turbulent times ahead for Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOGL,
+0.34%

GOOG,
+0.24%
Google, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
-1.28%,
Twitter Inc.
TWTR,
+1.18%,
Pinterest Inc.
PINS,
-0.30%
and others in the grip of inflation, a war in Ukraine, foreign-exchange worries and a widening recession.

Snap’s desultory news sent shares tumbling in extended trading for Pinterest (-8%), Trade Desk Inc.
TTD,
+2.26%
(-5), Meta (-4%) and Google (-3%).

Deteriorating macroeconomic conditions have left advertisers with little choice but to delay or cancel buys. At the same time, intensifying competition from the likes of TikTok and others has deepened headwinds.

“As a smaller player, Snap is more susceptible but no platform is immune,” Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg told MarketWatch. “I expect more of the same results next week” when Google and Meta report, she added.

Snap reported a third-quarter net loss of $359.5 million, or 22 cents a share, compared with a loss of 5 cents a share a year ago. Analysts on average were expecting a loss of 24 cents a share.

Snap’s sales increased less than 6% to $1.13 billion, barely falling short of Street estimates of $1.14 billion. Daily active users rose 19% to 363 million. FactSet analysts had modeled 358.2 million.

Snap shares initially fell more than 20% in after-hours trading. They closed the regular trading session down 0.6% to $10.79. Shares of Snap have nosedived 77% this year, while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
-0.80%
is down 23%.

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October 20, 2022
How to Make a Company Blog That Turns Readers Into Customers
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Everyone is a blogger these days. While two decades ago, it was inconceivable that your local hardware store would be posting regularly, it is now impossible to think it would not be. How else would you know how to refit those loose cabinets?

Creating a blog is easy. Free and paid templates are plentiful. Set-up is done in minutes. This, however, is just the beginning. Everything on your blog, from layout to fonts to colors to image choices to topic decisions, should be purposefully selected to best support your brand and foster readership and conversions. So, where do you start?

Related: Here’s the Trick to Writing Blog Posts People Genuinely Want to Read

Why does your business need a blog?

First, clearly delineate a set of goals for your blog. Creating a blog just because it feels like you should is not enough. Blogging can be beneficial to businesses in several ways, and your goals may include:
- Improving SEO
- Getting customers to your website
- Producing leads
- Cultivating interest and authority
- Testing new ideas
- Building long-term loyalty
- Creating multi-use content
More than one of these goals may apply to you, or you may be able to name others that fit your business specifically. Narrow your goals to a realistic set, then pick topics that purposefully support those goals.

For example, a business in the legal services industry is less likely to have the goal of direct conversion from a blog than one selling a specific tangible product. Therefore, a law firm’s blogging strategy might aim to drive traffic, increase authority, provide useful information for those researching lawyers and foster long-term growth rather than direct client acquisition.

What information should you provide?

Once again, the answer to this question is highly dependent on your industry and goals. Generally speaking, however, your posts should either solve a common problem your customers have or provide original insights about your field — or both.

REI Co-op’s blog, Uncommon Path, is an excellent example of how topic selection can support a brand’s personality and mission while providing information that is helpful to a wide range of potential customers. Topics like national parks accessibility and the best places to see stars mingle with product reviews and recommendations, providing visitors with a way to find adventure and, of course, the gear to use while doing so.

While your business may not have the resources of a giant like REI, your team can put its heads together to create topic inspiration lists like:
- Common problems your customers face
- Common questions your customers ask
- Information not directly related to a product that would interest target audience segments
- Products you can review
- People within your industry you can interview
Remember, with the exception of breaking business news, your blog is about your customers, not you. Plan a realistic topic schedule in advance, and stick to it. If you can only post a couple of times a month, then make those posts count. Quantity is not always the winning strategy.

If you have relevant lead generation tools, like ebooks or resource downloads, include calls to action within your posts to maximize effectiveness.

Related: 6 Blogging Basics That Will Keep Viewers Coming Back for More

Are you publicizing your blog?

Posting regularly will help build out your stock of indexed pages and contribute to internal link-building, both of which provide an SEO boost. However, to get the most out of the time invested in your blog, you must also publicize your posts.

Using social media can help you maximize every piece of content while getting a promotional boost. Blog content can be repurposed into videos or chopped up into short infographics to be posted on social accounts. For B2B companies, LinkedIn offers a good platform for sharing links to recent pieces. A set or series of blog entries could also be packaged into an email newsletter or used to create an ebook download, both of which are lead-generation engines.

Always follow best practices when publicizing posts. Spamming and comment hijacking are annoying and potentially harmful to your reputation.

Does design affect conversion and readership?

You have articulated your goals, developed high-value topic lists and agreed on posting frequency. How should you present all this information to the world?

A blog’s design can affect readership and lead generation. Blog navigation should be straightforward, and visitors should be able to easily read articles. Layouts that are confusing and cluttered or copy that is hard to read will not deliver repeat readers or loyal customers. Be attentive to the following layout elements:

1. Fonts: Research on the most readable fonts is mixed, and there is no hard rule about the best fonts to use for headlines or body copy. In April, the Nielsen Norman Group published the results of a 2022 study on font readability that confirms this. Beyond its main finding that there is no single right answer about the best online fonts, it found:
- People read their fastest font an average of 35% faster than their slowest.
- Fonts that performed best for older readers, those over 35 in this study, differed from the best performers for younger readers. If your designers are under 35 and your target audience is over 35, what is good for one is not best for the other and vice versa.
- People are not good at picking their easiest-to-read fonts. Subjects read an average of 14% faster in their fastest font compared to their preferred font.
Don’t panic, however, readability best practices do still exist, which include:
- Set a minimum font size of 18 points.
- Pay attention to the amount of space between lines of text.
- Establish a text hierarchy between headlines, subheadings and body copy.
- Use consistent link colors and hover effects.
2. Segmentation: Here, I am referring to content segmentation rather than audience segmentation. On average, a visitor will read about a quarter of the copy on any given page. Visitors are scanning, and your job is to make scanning easy. You can do this by:
- Limiting paragraphs to one to three sentences
- Breaking up copy with headlines
- Using bulleted lists and images to support main points
3. Image selection: Image selection matters for several reasons. Consistent, quality images support your brand’s personality and culture and can even attract potential customers to your aesthetic. Businesses that use imagery consistently will cultivate a style that is recognizable in any setting.

Creating a mood board is a good way to ensure graphics are used consistently. A mood board is a collection of items, including but not limited to photos, that are representative of your brand’s style. You may also consider creating a list of things explicitly not allowed in blog photo choices. Once you have selected images for your posts, always remember to optimize them for web use so that they don’t slow your page load times.

Related: 5 Ways to Grow Your Business Through Blogging

If you have decided it’s time for your business to start blogging, make the effort to cultivate a blog that enhances and supports your brand. A little time investment can produce outsized results.
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Kristen Friend

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October 20, 2022
Netflix Adds a Better-Than-Expected 2.4 Million Subscribers

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Netflix

shares were trading sharply higher after the streaming giant posted better-than-expected subscriber growth for the third quarter.

The company added 2.41 million net new subscribers in the quarter, beating its own forecast of 1 million additions. Netflix (ticker: NFLX) said it expects to add another 4.5 million subscribers in the December quarter.

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October 18, 2022
United Airlines says travel demand is stronger than recession pressures; shares rally

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United Airlines Holdings Inc. stock rallied after hours Tuesday after the airline said it expected the travel rebound to weather a shakier economy in the months ahead and reported third-quarter results that beat expectations.

“Looking forward through the end of the year, the airline expects the strong COVID recovery trends to continue to overcome the recessionary pressures in the macroeconomic environment,” company executives said in a statement.

That backdrop — along with tighter flight networks and changes in how people work — helped justify the airline’s more upbeat forecast for the fourth quarter. United Airlines
UAL,
+3.19%
said it expected adjusted fourth-quarter operating margin of around 10%, the first time the figure would end above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

United also forecast adjusted fourth-quarter earnings per share of between $2.00 and $2.25, well above FactSet forecasts for 98 cents per share. The carrier also said it expected a 24% to 25% gain in total fourth-quarter unit revenue — a much-watched industry metric that measures sales as spread out across an airline’s flight capacity — when compared to the same period in 2019.

Adjusted fourth-quarter unit costs were seen up between 11% and 12%, and roughly 15% for the full year, when compared to the respective periods in 2019.

For the third quarter, United reported net income of $942 million, or $2.86 per share, compared with $473 million, or $1.44 per share, in the prior-year quarter.

On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2.81 per share, compared with a $1.02 per-share loss in the quarter a year ago and $4.07 in 2019. Revenue was $12.877 billion, compared with $7.75 billion a year ago and $11.38 billion in 2019.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected adjusted earnings of $2.28 per share, on revenue of $12.743 billion.

Shares jumped 7% after the market’s close. American Airlines Group Inc.
AAL,
+3.79%,
which reports earnings on Thursday, rose 3.6% after hours.

United, in its earnings release, also called out three demand trends that it said were “more than fully offsetting any economic headwinds.” It said that “Air travel is still in the COVID recovery phase, hybrid work gives customers the freedom and flexibility to travel for leisure more often, and external supply challenges will limit industry supply for years to come.”

The carrier said it expected total flight capacity, a measure of available seats on flights, to be down between 9% and 10% for the fourth quarter and down around 13% for the full year, when compared to 2019 levels.

United reported as analysts look for cracks in the travel industry’s rebound and holiday demand, after eager travelers this summer ran into flight delays and cancellations, insufficient staffing and severe weather. Airfares and fuel costs are more expensive — a function of strong demand and thinner supplies. Aircraft supply is tight, some executives have said. Airlines have also tried to bulk up flight crews, particularly pilots, after encouraging buyouts in 2020, as the pandemic left the industry without passengers and burning through cash.

Delta Air Lines Inc.
DAL,
+3.34%
last week said it expected fourth-quarter sales to grow from pre-pandemic levels, as demand for travel, after two years of pandemic-related restraint, holds up against rising prices.

“The travel recovery continues as consumer spend shifts to experiences and demand improves in corporate and international,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in its earnings release.

Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth, in a research note last week, said she expected United to see similar momentum, helped by corporate travel and international demand.

She said American and JetBlue Airways Corp.
JBLU,
+1.90%
should benefit to a lesser degree, “due to large corp and transatlantic exposure at the former and large coastal-city exposure at the latter.” JetBlue reports earnings on Oct. 25.

Delta’s international-unit revenue growth outpaced that in its domestic business for the first time since the pandemic started. Leisure travel to Europe helped propel results, as did strong demand for Delta’s premium-class seats. Bastian said he expected Delta’s flight network to be fully restored by summer next year.

“Demand has not come close to being quenched by a hectic summer travel season,” he said on Delta’s earnings call. “At the same time, industry supply is constrained by aircraft availability, regional pilot shortages and hiring and training needs.”

Delta rose 3% after the bell on Tuesday.

United Airlines stock is down 15% so far this year. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index
SPX,
+1.14%
is down 22% over that time.

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October 18, 2022
Why Influencers Are the Perfect Marketing Strategy For Your Brand

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

At least 93 percent of marketers have included influencer marketing in their brand strategy. Additionally, In 2020, the average number of social media accounts for a millennial or Gen Z-er was 8.4 personal accounts, which means that it’s more important than ever for brands to embrace a cross-channel marketing approach to stay competitive. The influencer marketing industry is projected to reach $16.4 billion by the end of 2022.

Successfully connecting influencers and brands requires a specific list of criteria. When we hit upon the “perfect” influencer relationship, both the creator and the brands benefit tremendously.

It’s not always easy to find the right influencers for your brand. Still, these are a few of the key things we look for when establishing brand-influencer relationships at ConvertSocial, after analyzing our own experience with more than 20,000 influencers.

1. They’re from an industry-relevant niche

It doesn’t matter how high their follower count is or how viral their content goes; if an influencer isn’t relevant to a brand’s sphere, the relationship won’t be a great fit.

Creators within a specific niche of your industry tend to have a much more significant impact on the brands they work with because their audience, content and reputation are all built on a targeted passion. This means that content is more targeted, and every campaign is more impactful.

Related: What to Know About Influencer Marketing in 2022

2. Their voice and personal brand resonate with the company’s image and values

Remember that the influencers you choose are extensions of your brand. They are ambassadors of your core values and mission, so your company should only choose creators with similar values. Smaller-scale influencers who feel accessible to your audience and champion the same causes as your brand are the perfect ambassadors to maximize your company’s ROI.

In addition, it’s important to remember that new influencer categories are cropping up as the industry expands. No matter the brand niche, there are now influencers who are gaining a following in that sphere. From “finfluencers” (financial influencers) to “skinfluencers” (skincare influencers), there’s a creator for every niche, so hold out for the ones that resonate best with your brand.

3. They’re charismatic, trustworthy and know how to build emotional connections

Creators should have that “something extra” that makes them unique and able to establish a genuine emotional connection with their followers. When an influencer has charisma and empathy, it converts to the kind of loyalty and trust that will keep the audience coming back again and again.

Many brands are turning to micro-influencers (those with 10,000-100,000 followers) because they tend to have an aura of authenticity and credibility that differs from celebrities and macro influencers. They tend to feel more relatable and attainable, so followers feel they have a certain level of authority in their niche.

Related: Overcoming Language Barriers, Regional Influencer Marketing Boosts Brand Growth Exponentially

4. They can proactively produce balanced content that sells

It’s essential that creators aren’t advertising in every post. We usually aim for a goal of no more than 15 percent of sales-type content per influencer. This goal is based on thousands of in-depth interviews conducted with creators, which works well for us.

Influencers should be excited about creating quality content around your brand. The best ones will have natural selling skills that allow them to introduce the benefits of your product in a way that feels like a friend sharing their knowledge about something they love.

It’s often best to have a collaborative conversation about ad campaigns so that you and your influencer partner can craft highly relevant content to their audience and effectively introduce your product in the best possible light.

Related: 7 Steps to Becoming a Seven-Figure Influencer in Your Niche

Three more considerations when choosing influencers

First, remember that a high follower count is not the most critical metric. Creators demonstrating high levels of community engagement will be far more likely to have a higher ROI. Ask creators for their engagement statistics (e.g., likes, comments, shares, clicks, story polls, etc.), and double-check their numbers. It’s usually a red flag if an influencer hesitates to share their statistics with you.

Second, expertise and relevant experience can be huge boosters. The more authority an influencer has in their niche, the easier it is to convert that into audience trust and loyalty to your brand. For example, a fitness influencer who is a registered dietitian or physical therapist has a higher level of authority than someone who has been going to the gym for a few years.

Third, cross-platform content creation has a significant impact on revenues. An influencer having accounts on multiple platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube drastically increases revenues. For instance, our ConvertSocial statistics confirmed that a creator with 2-3 social media accounts could bring in up to three times more revenue than a creator with only one account. Four or more accounts increase revenues tenfold!

Leverage the influencer community to your advantage

Statistics show that influencer marketing ROIs are up to 11 times greater than banner ads, and 92 percent of consumers trust online word-of-mouth recommendations over other ad formats.

The influencer marketing channel is growing extremely fast and shows no signs of slowing down. This means that now is the best time to jump on the trend and capitalize on the success that partnering with the perfect influencer can bring.

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Ksana Liapkova

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October 18, 2022
The Metaverse Is the Future of Business. Here’s How to Prepare.
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Twelve years ago, companies didn’t hire social media talent — they didn’t think they needed it. But now? Businesses need social media directors and entire social media teams. The same is true for playing in the metaverse.

It is my belief that within the next three to five years, a minimum of 30% of business is going to come from a blend of metaverse experiences and implementations of Web3 technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, virtual reality and nonfungible tokens, or NFTs). It is essential for creative agencies (e.g. advertising agencies, marketing agencies, etc.) to prepare how they will play a role in the metaverse now so their customers will be able to find them.

Related: What You Need To Know About How the Metaverse Will Affect Business

The big three

The first step in preparing for the metaverse is for creative agencies to decide which of the three roles they will play — either the expert experimenter, the contributor or the activator. Making this decision now will help companies get ready for when their customers arrive in the metaverse, and it’s only a matter of time before they do.
- Expert experimenters. These are businesses that have an understanding of the metaverse already. To find out whether they are in this group, business leaders can ask themselves if their business strives to be the deep subject matter expert on all things in the digital universe, or whether it’s an early adopter at the vanguard of new technologies. In that case, they need to understand the technologies involved within the metaverse and how Web3 is speeding up evolutions and revolutions.
- Contributors. These are businesses that are still in their infancy in terms of embracing this new wave of technology and deep subject matter expertise is not required. Creative agencies in this group can introduce their client partner brands to the metaverse and converge their physical and digital presence in a way that is profitable and meets customer needs.
- Activators. This last group is made of businesses that focus on seeking ways to offer holistic experiences for businesses and audiences to have within the metaverse. Businesses in this group are like a hybrid between the expert experimenters and the contributors.
Nevertheless, whether you know a little or a lot about Web3, you can’t afford to be left out completely; defining your role is an essential first step in preparing for the integration of the metaverse. People are investing in the metaverse heavily. It’s expected to reach $5 trillion in value by 2030, and this number is exponentially growing each and every month.

Related: Your Brand Can Become Part of the Metaverse. Here’s How.

Next steps

After leadership at creative agencies decide which role they want to play, they need to develop a strategy and strengthen their online presence. To do this, they will want to hire people whose job it is to prepare the company to implement itself into the metaverse, in whichever role the company has chosen to take. Doing this will help them strengthen their brand identity — and thus, brand loyalty — before the metaverse fully arrives (and it’s coming sooner than we think).

Additionally, leaders and creatives should focus on user experience. What kind of experience do they want their customers to have with their business in the metaverse? This is essential for brands getting established in the metaverse because if they can think one or two steps ahead of what their customers will want when they emerge into the metaverse, brands will be there waiting, ready to give customers what they’re looking for.

Finally, it’s critical for creative agency leaders to remain adaptable as they learn more about the metaverse while it’s still unfolding. Staying adaptable and remaining at-the-ready for change will help agencies stay ahead and prepared to meet customers when they find them in the metaverse.

Related: Your Job as CEO Is to Make Yourself Replaceable. Here’s How to Create a Company That Can Thrive Without You.

The importance of Web3

Even if your agency isn’t embracing extended reality and other metaverse projects, experiences and communities quite yet, many of your client partners’ customers are. And arguably, meeting customers where they are is the single most important piece to building brands and businesses that grow and transform.

The metaverse isn’t just a probability — it’s inevitable. Throughout the evolution of the internet, waves of advancement emerged because of technological advancement. The internet went from simply being a new technology to sharing the world of information through web browsers to developing social media. Underneath all that were advancements in the programming language, faster internet speeds and, of course, the smartphone.

Now, we are in a new wave: the wave of augmented reality (AR), VR and mixed-reality experiences with the technologies to make them work even more soundly and profoundly. If you haven’t begun exploring immersive platforms and how you can approach conversations and tactics related to the metaverse with your client partners, the time has come.

Related: The Metaverse Isn’t Dying, the “Experts” Just Keep Getting It Wrong

The natural progression

If trends in technology really do repeat history, then it won’t be long before hanging out in the metaverse becomes more mainstream. We must watch where people go. An immersive virtual world in which customers socialize, shop, relax, work and play isn’t so far-fetched anymore.

Given there was a time when people thought the idea of online dating, smartphones, social media and real human connection online was scary and too futuristic, it makes sense that agencies might be facing those same fears about the metaverse. The popular movie Her may have seemed sad and dystopian, but there were some interesting predictive themes being provoked in that film. Concepts like love, connection, relationships, identity and community will evolve as they always have over time.

However, knowing what we know now, we understand that embracing new technologies is far better than avoiding them. And for creative agencies, it’s much more profitable. The metaverse is becoming so much more than a buzzword, and the reality is that advertisers and marketers will be doing business in a virtual world at an exponential rate as seamlessly as they advertise on social media — and very soon. Blending our real and virtual lives has already begun, and the sooner you get on board, develop a point of view and experiment, the better.
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Trevor Hubbard

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October 18, 2022
“King of NIL” Rayquan Smith on How to Market Yourself with Hustle

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Takeaways:

Rejection is Not “No” – Rayquan Smith doesn’t care about “rejection”. After companies initially denied the opportunity to partner with Smith, many of them changed their tune once he proved his branding and marketing value.

“The King of NIL” Origin Story – Social media is more than a place to post fun content. Rayquan Smith found his moniker, King of NIL, on Twitter and instantly leaned in. Now, searching “King of NIL” on Google will lead you to articles about Rayquan Smith.

The Right Partner is the Best Partner – Norfolk State is not a “Power 5” conference school. However, student athletes like Rayquan Smith that attend smaller schools are hungry, hard working, and willing to do what it takes to execute on a plan, making them the perfect NIL representatives.

***

Labeling yourself the “King” of anything is ambitious, to say the least. For Norfolk State student athlete Rayquan Smith, being the “King of the NIL” was earned through an relentless belief in self and the ability to deal with hearing “no” until you hear “yes.”

“I don’t really care about rejection,” Rayquan “King of NIL” Smith says on the Restaurant Influencers podcast hosted by Shawn P. Walchef of CaliBBQ Media. “Everybody gets rejected. And rejection is not a no.”

That perseverance and determination is what has led Rayquan Smith to nearly 80 deals with various businesses ranging from local companies to big ones like Eastbay and Champ Sports, and the restaurant company Bubba’s 33. That’s all despite being an athlete at a small college with an enrollment just north of 5,000 students.

NIL stands for Name, Image, Likeness. It refers to the ways student athletes can now profit from their personal brand.

The NCAA passed a rule saying that college players, notoriously unable to monetize their personal brand as student athletes, were now able to earn money based on endorsements using any of the three NIL elements: Name, Image, Likeness.

The question is how did the NIL master manage to land such a large number of sponsorship deals being a student athlete at a small college?

As Rayquan simply states, “the big time athletes ain’t always the good people to partner with.” He views the small market as an asset for athletes and encourages them to take advantage of it like he did.

Rayquan Smith is probably not a name most know upon first hearing, but it is one you should get to know. At an early age, he has found an effective way to market himself, and help others do the same. He definitely doesn’t plan to stop here.

As he grows and moves on past college, he is eager to pass the torch to the next King of NIL.

***

NOMINATE A RESTAURANT INFLUENCER — Do you know someone who is killing it on social media? Let us know by emailing influencers@calibbq.media or sending the @calibbqmedia team a DM on social media.

ABOUT RESTAURANT INFLUENCERS:

Restaurant Influencers is brought to you by Toast, the powerful restaurant point of sale and management system that helps restaurants improve operations, increase sales and create a better guest experience.

Toast — Powering Successful Restaurants. Learn more about Toast.

Restaurant Influencers is also supported by DAVO. Never worry about sales tax again. Try DAVO and get your first month free. And AtmosphereTV – TV to Enhance Your Business. Try AtmosphereTV.

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Shawn P. Walchef

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October 18, 2022

These 11 stocks can lead your portfolio’s rebound after the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and a market bottom next year

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This may surprise you: Wall Street analysts expect earnings for the S&P 500 to increase 8% during 2023, despite all the buzz about a possible recession as the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy to quell inflation.

Ken Laudan, a portfolio manager at Kornitzer Capital Management in Mission, Kan., isn’t buying it. He expects an “earnings recession” for the S&P 500
SPX,
+2.78%
— that is, a decline in profits of around 10%. But he also expects that decline to set up a bottom for the stock market.

Laudan’s predictions for the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and bottom

Laudan, who manages the $83 million Buffalo Large Cap Fund
BUFEX,
-2.86%
and co-manages the $905 million Buffalo Discovery Fund
BUFTX,
-2.82%,
said during an interview: “It is not unusual to see a 20% hit [to earnings] in a modest recession. Margins have peaked.”

The consensus among analysts polled by FactSet is for weighted aggregate earnings for the S&P 500 to total $238.23 a share in 2023, which would be an 8% increase from the current 2022 EPS estimate of $220.63.

Laudan said his base case for 2023 is for earnings of about $195 to $200 a share and for that decline in earnings (about 9% to 12% from the current consensus estimate for 2022) to be “coupled with an economic recession of some sort.”

He expects the Wall Street estimates to come down, and said that “once Street estimates get to $205 or $210, I think stocks will take off.”

He went further, saying “things get really interesting at 3200 or 3300 on the S&P.” The S&P 500 closed at 3583.07 on Oct. 14, a decline of 24.8% for 2022, excluding dividends.

Laudan said the Buffalo Large Cap Fund was about 7% in cash, as he was keeping some powder dry for stock purchases at lower prices, adding that he has been “fairly defensive” since October 2021 and was continuing to focus on “steady dividend-paying companies with strong balance sheets.”

Leaders for the stock market’s recovery

After the market hits bottom, Laudan expects a recovery for stocks to begin next year, as “valuations will discount and respond more quickly than the earnings will.”

He expects “long-duration technology growth stocks” to lead the rally, because “they got hit first.” When asked if Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
+6.14%
and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
AMD,
+3.69%
were good examples, in light of the broad decline for semiconductor stocks and because both are held by the Buffalo Large Cap Fund, Laudan said: “They led us down and they will bounce first.”

Laudan said his “largest tech holding” is ASML Holding N.V.
ASML,
+3.79%,
which provides equipment and systems used to fabricate computer chips.

Among the largest tech-oriented companies, the Buffalo Large Cap fund also holds shares of Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+3.09%,
Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+3.88%,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+6.63%
and Alphabet Inc.
GOOG,
+3.91%

GOOGL,
+3.73%.

Laudan also said he had been “overweight’ in UnitedHealth Group Inc.
UNH,
+1.77%,
Danaher Corp.
DHR,
+2.64%
and Linde PLC
LIN,
+2.25%
recently and had taken advantage of the decline in Adobe Inc.’s
ADBE,
+2.32%
price following the announcement of its $20 billion acquisition of Figma, by scooping up more shares.

Summarizing the declines

To illustrate what a brutal year it has been for semiconductor stocks, the iShares Semiconductor ETF
SOXX,
+2.12%,
which tracks the PHLX Semiconductor Index
SOX,
+2.29%
of 30 U.S.-listed chip makers and related equipment manufacturers, has dropped 44% this year. Then again, SOXX had risen 38% over the past three years and 81% for five years, underlining the importance of long-term thinking for stock investors, even during this terrible bear market for this particular tech space.

Here’s a summary of changes in stock prices (again, excluding dividends) and forward price-to-forward-earnings valuations during 2022 through Oct. 14 for every stock mentioned in this article. The stocks are sorted alphabetically:

Company	Ticker	2022 price change	Forward P/E	Forward P/E as of Dec. 31, 2021
Apple Inc.	AAPL, +3.09%	-22%	22.2	30.2
Adobe Inc.	ADBE, +2.32%	-49%	19.4	40.5
Amazon.com Inc.	AMZN, +6.63%	-36%	62.1	64.9
Advanced Micro Devices Inc.	AMD, +3.69%	-61%	14.7	43.1
ASML Holding N.V. ADR	ASML, +3.79%	-52%	22.7	41.2
Danaher Corp.	DHR, +2.64%	-23%	24.3	32.1
Alphabet Inc. Class C	GOOG, +3.91%	-33%	17.5	25.3
Linde PLC	LIN, +2.25%	-21%	22.2	29.6
Microsoft Corp.	MSFT, +3.88%	-32%	22.5	34.0
Nvidia Corp.	NVDA, +6.14%	-62%	28.9	58.0
UnitedHealth Group Inc.	UNH, +1.77%	2%	21.5	23.2
Source: FactSet

You can click on the tickers for more about each company. Click here for Tomi Kilgore’s detailed guide to the wealth of information available free on the MarketWatch quote page.

The forward P/E ratio for the S&P 500 declined to 16.9 as of the close on Oct. 14 from 24.5 at the end of 2021, while the forward P/E for SOXX declined to 13.2 from 27.1.

Don’t miss: This is how high interest rates might rise, and what could scare the Federal Reserve into a policy pivot

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October 17, 2022

Current FDA oversight of vaping industry likely to have minimal impact

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Newswise — Current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight of the vaping industry in the US is likely to have minimal impact, suggests an analysis of the regulator’s warning letters for marketing violations, published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

The regulator is failing to target the key players or the products most popular with young people, the analysis suggests, with over 90% of warnings sent to small online retailers rather than leading tobacco companies, and a focus on refillable devices.

While the prevalence of vaping among US adults remains low, at just under 4% in 2020, it is four times higher among young people.

In 2016 the FDA announced plans to regulate the vaping industry, including a requirement for the manufacturers of e-cigarettes to obtain pre-market approval (PMTA) to ensure that their products protect public health.

In 2017, the regulator began sending warning letters to manufacturers, retailers, and distributors for potential violations, such as advertising to young people, selling to minors, packaging or labelling that contravened regulations, and failure to apply for a PMTA.

But little is known about who received these letters, the types of product they concerned, or details of the violations and their consequences.

To try and find out, the authors from non-profit tobacco control organisation, Truth Initiative, assessed the content and recipients of publicly available FDA warning letters issued in 2020 and 2021. In total, the FDA issued 303 warnings:126 in 2020 and 177 up to 9 September 2021.

The analysis revealed that in 2021, over 98% of all the targeted companies fulfilled all three roles (manufacturer, distributor and retailer).

But nearly all the letters (97%) were sent to small online retailers, none of which was a large company with measurable market share, as evidenced by sales data.

Companies were cited for between one and three infractions. Most involved failure to obtain a PMTA. In 2020 and 2021, respectively, 56% and 99%+ of the infractions concerned a PMTA violation.

And more than 90% of the products cited–880 different ones in total–were flavoured refillable e-cigarette liquids, rather than the disposable vaping devices (‘pod mods’) which the evidence indicates are most popular with young people.

Penalties ranged in severity from product detention to product seizure and fines. But loss of tobacco distributor licence and criminal charges appeared less frequently in both years than these other consequences.

At the time of the review, most (72%) of the websites cited for 2020 infractions were still operating, as were 29% of websites cited for 2021 infractions.

And as the authors note, it was impossible to find out how the targeted companies responded, and whether the FDA followed through with the consequences cited in the warning letters, because that information isn’t publicly available.

“While current research estimates that online sales comprise around one-third of the marketplace, data tell us that most young people get their products from friends (32.3%), buy them from another person (21.5%), or purchase from a vape shop (22.2%),” note the authors.

“Prioritising the products most accessed by youth which are made available from a variety of sources will be important to curb youth use,” they add.

And they emphasise:“Strong, impactful and transparent consequences need to be in place to prevent the sale of products that violate regulations necessary in protecting the health of adult users of e-cigarettes and preventing youth use alike.”

“The FDA should use its enforcement powers to target the manufacturing, distribution, and sellers of the tobacco products that have the greatest impact on youth and products that provide no public health benefit,” they conclude.

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BMJ

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October 14, 2022
Kroger and Albertsons Say Their Merger Will Cut Prices. Their Shares Are Tumbling.

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With inflation still an untamed threat, Friday’s announced merger of the grocers

Kroger

and

Albertsons

will spur debate about whether the consolidation will raise food prices, or lower them.

The Biden administration’s antitrust regulators are scrutinizing mergers more closely than did predecessors, and an old argument against combinations is that they lead to price-gouging.

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October 14, 2022
Boost Your Brand Using Social Media Platforms That Are Often Overlook

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Did you know that there are at least 133 social media platforms in existence? Clearly, with so many, it’s not practical to be on all platforms. Therefore, it’s key for you to choose the networks that make sense for your brand strategically.

Instead of focusing on the most common social media platforms out there (think Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram), we’re going to discuss some extremely invaluable social networks that brands quite often overlook. Let’s discuss their benefits and how they can assist you in connecting with your customers, boosting brand awareness and increasing leads and, thus, sales.

1. What type of business do you have?

Are you a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) brand? You want to establish a social media presence where your core target audience is. A B2B business, for example, fares better with networks like LinkedIn, where you can establish a digital relationship with key individuals within organizations you wish to enter into business with. B2C companies (especially those with physical products) can thrive on a picture-based site like Pinterest or Reddit, where super fans can start discussion threads.

Related: The Business of Harnessing the Power of Social Media

2. Which channel best fits your social goals?

Knowing your audience is essential, but so is being aware of your social goals. Are you looking to interact with customers and get feedback? Do you want to showcase your offerings? Or are you simply looking to sit in chat rooms to hear what the masses want? There’s a unique platform for each of these needs. Below are five such platforms and how each can align with your social media strategies.

3. Which channels are competitors using?

You know how the saying goes: Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. An easy way to see which platforms could work best for you is to simply research which networks your current competitors are active on. You’ll be able to see their engagement, the type of content that’s popular and how often you should post. Instead of trying to acquire as much social media real estate as you can, focus instead on what’s working for others.

Now, onto platforms that brands often overlook and why they should be considered to help increase your brand awareness, reach your target audience and drive sales.

Related: How to Succeed on Social Media By Using Your Competitors

The world’s largest professional network: LinkedIn

Most professionals use LinkedIn, but are you using it to boost your brand awareness? As of July 2022, there was a whopping 849.6 million worldwide users — its top users being boomers, Gen X and millennials.

The platform gives you a powerful search engine to conduct market research and learn who’s who in your industry. It enables you to link up directly with peers you wish to collaborate with. It also acts as a lead generation funnel through features like the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program. Here you can learn and gain resources, such as how-to guides on building a robust newsletter list and guidance on developing content ideas to grow your audience.

You also have the opportunity to build your brand by becoming a thought leader when you publish authoritative niche content. The best part about using LinkedIn is that you can build a massive network with just their basic free service.

The leading local business connector: Nextdoor

As of July 2022, Nextdoor boasted 69 million users. With a user demographic consisting of boomers, Gen X, and millennials, this B2C platform is best used by those seeking to boost brand awareness and desire to market locally.

Founded in 2008, Nextdoor is a social networking platform explicitly designed to help people from different neighborhoods stay up to date on the latest neighborhood news and find local service-provider recommendations.

The best way to connect with buyers is to claim your free business page. This helps you establish a presence within your local community. Secondly, you can ask loyal customers to leave recommendations to help rank your page, so your business appears in neighborhood search results.

Stay in touch with the community through business posts where you can share news and press releases. Lastly, advertising your sales and promotions via Nextdoor Ads is a cost-effective way to generate leads and convert them into willing buyers.

Related: Are Nextdoor Ads the Best New Way to Gain Local Customers?

The biggest visual discovery engine: Pinterest

Pinterest is like a storehouse of pictures. It’s a repository where you’ll find images to draw inspiration for your own campaigns. 85% of people on the platform use it as the starting point for new projects.

The platform’s global reach means it has a strong following, with 433 million worldwide users as of July 2022. It’s a popular site among millennials, but Gen X, Gen Z, and boomers also command a strong presence.

Pinterest is B2C-focused and can be used for brand discovery. Use it to establish and curate your brand through visual means. You can successfully leverage this social media platform by investing in quality product/service pictures and optimizing them as you upload them to Pinterest. Moreover, by ensuring your pictures link back to your website, Pinterest becomes a vehicle that drives your sales and traffic. Just look at the numbers: 80% of active Pinterest users claim to discover new products and or brands while browsing the platform.

That’s not all, however. Thanks to Pinterest’s high domain authority, any published content on the platform has greater visibility on different search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

The new kid on the block: Clubhouse

Clubhouse was all the rage in 2020 when the platform first launched. The audio-only app’s biggest marketing hack had been its elitist “invite-only” strategy.

However, as the platform moved from its iOS-exclusive offering and more people joined, the hype died down. That’s not to say B2B and B2C companies can’t use it to engage the mostly millennial user base. With a strong user base of at least 10 million and a plethora of virtual discussions taking place in different rooms, there’s no shortage of places where you can learn from other professionals within your industry and the needs and wants of your consumer.

You can also take advantage of the platform to hear reviews directly from your consumers in real time. Host live discussions, Q&A sessions and different types of virtual events. Participate in relevant conversations by joining industry-specific rooms and collaborate with peers by engaging in their conversations.

You can gain insight into new campaigns and even products by paying attention to different niche conversations. By actively listening, you can easily identify gaps in your industry that you could potentially meet based on what people are complaining about.

When it comes to drawing attention to your brand and generating leads, you can do this by hosting brand-affiliated interviews, fireside chats and panels. In addition, you can also sponsor room events. Team members can engage in these events if needed. Otherwise, most hosts are happy to give sponsoring brands a shoutout to promote your product or service during the session.

Related: 5 Foolproof Ways to Generate Leads Through Social Media

The go-to social news site and forum: Reddit

Reddit is nearly as old as Facebook, having been founded in Medford, Massachusetts, in 2005. And like most social media apps, it is free to join hence its 48 million monthly U.S. user base. The platform is a news website-slash-social-forum making it great for both B2B and B2C brands. With 64% of Reddit’s users being 18 to 29-year-olds, the site positions itself as a powerful marketing tool if your products or services have this demographic as a target audience.

Growing your brand on the platform can be done in various ways. You can interact with customers by asking them to share pictures of themselves for shoutouts or to win prizes, start sub-Reddit threads to discuss features of your products or answer troubleshooting questions, create sub-Reddit threads with brand-loyal super fans who’re willing to monitor and curate threads, and announce your latest news and any upcoming conferences, webinars and events.

The point is there are more social media platforms besides Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. So take time to develop a social media strategy for each new platform. Curate your presence within the different subcultures and communities existing online.

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Adebukola Ajao

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October 13, 2022
Transform Your Social Media Will These Content Marketing Practices

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Content marketing has become one of the mainstays of most brands’ digital marketing strategies. Relevant, relatable content draws users in and persuades them to visit a website, download an eBook or share their personal details. Social media channels are among the most popular outlets for content marketing across the U.S. But is your brand maximizing the power of your social media pages?

The rise of social media marketing

Over the last two decades, social media channels have transformed from platforms designed purely for entertainment and personal connections to powerful marketing tools. According to Statista, more than 90% of marketers in United States-based companies with 100 or more employees use social media as part of their content marketing strategy.

While the platforms had been designed to connect people to others, marketers quickly realized they were the perfect places to connect people to brands. At this time, more than 80% of the entire population of the United States has at least one social media networking profile, and social media usage continues to grow. Worldwide, more than four billion people are using social media channels.

Related: 10 Social-Media Marketing Strategies for Companies

As a result, content marketers cannot afford to ignore social media channels. The importance of this outlet is reflected in the marketing spend associated with social media. In 2021, U.S. marketers were expected to spend $17 billion on social media marketing. This marks an increase of ten billion compared to 2014.

This increase is a clear indicator of the growing importance of social media marketing. However, these digital marketing channels are not without challenges. Judging the effectiveness of content marketing on social media pages remains a concern for brands.

What makes social media content marketing effective?

Whether on social media or other channels, high-quality content marketing works by drawing an audience toward a brand. Rather than interrupting potential customers, as an advert would, great pieces of content solve a problem, offer users information they were looking for in a search query, or are otherwise helpful and relevant.

What effective content marketing on social media means in practice can vary from brand to brand. A compelling piece of content helps the brand achieve the goals set out in its content marketing strategy. Goals could include growing the subscriber numbers for a YouTube channel, generating white paper downloads, or increasing website traffic. If a brand’s content marketing helps achieve these targets, it is effective.

Related: 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

Measuring effectiveness

Clearly defined, smart goals are a prerequisite of effective content marketing, but measuring effectiveness is equally important. For marketers, that means connecting pieces of content with outcomes and starting to isolate the factors that influence these outcomes.

Regarding social media marketing, many brands find that releasing content on specific days of the week or at set times influences their results. The reason is simple — consumers have preferred times for engaging with social media content. Without knowing what these times are, it is impossible to optimize campaigns for effectiveness. Measuring and reviewing the performance of each piece of content is critical.

How to improve the effectiveness of your social media content marketing

Timing content launches correctly is one aspect of improving the effectiveness of content marketing on social media. But there are several other factors that marketers can use to enhance the performance of their content marketing campaigns.

First and foremost, brands need to provide engaging content. Storytelling is one of the most effective ways of connecting with users and potential customers. Authentic stories touch their audience emotionally and build a deeper connection between brands and audiences than a simple list of facts can do. They also have the potential to inspire long-term customer loyalty.

The power of stories has been proven scientifically. By using storytelling to share a brand’s story, marketers are using one of humanity’s oldest traditions. Look closely, and it becomes obvious that the entire network of social media is built on the attraction between people and stories. Utilizing storytelling for content marketing is extremely useful to make a brand’s content marketing more effective.

Second, avoid focusing on your brand. This may sound wrong, but content marketing is not about what brand marketers try to promote. Instead, it is all about providing value for the audience. Marketers can provide value by sharing expertise or insights through their content. Focus on content only this brand can provide, and do not shy away from sharing opinions or viewpoints.

Related: 5 Steps to Creating a Killer Marketing Strategy

Third, it is important to be consistent in any content marketing efforts. When consumers or users choose to follow a brand, they are investing emotionally in that brand. With investment comes an expectation of a return on investment (ROI). Regular, relevant, helpful content that provides information not available anywhere else provides this kind of ROI.

Consistency applies to the regularity with which a brand publishes its content. Marketers must ensure their content creates a consistent image to establish a brand’s voice and values. Most brands have clearly defined brand values. The audiences of your content marketing should be able to recognize those principles through your content marketing on social media.

Fourth, remember that content includes more than words. Images, links, and videos are only three examples of media that can enrich a brand’s social media content marketing strategy and deliver stronger results.

Social media channels lend themselves to content marketing. These channels are excellent places to share brand stories, offer expertise and insights, and create a deeper connection with audiences. Measuring the effectiveness of existing social media content marketing is the first step toward increasing it through storytelling, focusing on the audience, being consistent, and enriching content.

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Jessica Wong

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October 13, 2022
OPEC+ supply cut threatens to tip global economy into recession, IEA says

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An oil supply cut from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries threatens to deepen a global energy crisis by sending oil prices higher at a time of already elevated inflation and weak economic growth, the International Energy Agency said.

Last week’s two million barrel-a-day reduction in the group’s output targets, which incurred sharp criticism from the U.S. and its partners, will tighten the oil market further at a moment of extreme vulnerability with few additional sources of supply available to compensate, the Paris-based agency said Thursday.

The cut’s impact will be to exacerbate a mix of high oil prices and weakening global growth, both of which would undermine longer-term demand for oil, the IEA said, as it slashed its oil-demand forecasts.

“With unrelenting inflationary pressures and interest rate hikes taking their toll, higher oil prices may prove the tipping point for a global economy already on the brink of recession,” the IEA said in its monthly market report.

The IEA cut its oil-demand growth forecasts by 470,000 barrels a day for 2023, to 1.7 million barrels a day. It also lowered its 2022 oil-demand growth forecast by 60,000 barrels a day, to 1.9 million barrels a day. Oil demand growth has steadily fallen throughout the year and is forecast to contract in the fourth quarter by 340,000 barrels a day, the IEA said.

OPEC has said higher oil prices are necessary to spur fresh investments in oil production but the IEA said constraints among oil producers meant additional supplies would be scant. U.S. shale oil producers facing higher costs are withholding investment, while most Western nations are consciously moving away from fossil fuels. OPEC’s own members are struggling with a lack of spare capacity.

The cut has undone a trend of steadily recovering oil supply following the Covid-19 pandemic “with the resulting higher price levels exacerbating market volatility and heightening energy security concerns,” the IEA said.

The IEA’s report characterizes the supply cut as a lose-lose situation for both oil producers and consumers, as buyers of oil suffer from higher prices in the short term, while oil producers stand to see weaker demand as a result.

The cut also comes ahead of an EU embargo on Russian oil and a plan by the Group of Seven wealthy nations to cap oil prices, both of which analysts warn could further undermine global energy supplies.

Russia has said it would cut production and withhold supplies from nations participating in the price cap mechanism. Meanwhile, time was running out for EU states to find alternative sources of energy to compensate for the still-high levels of oil currently imported from Russia, the IEA said.

Russia’s oil exports to the EU fell by 390,000 barrels a day in September, to 2.6 million barrels a day, the IEA said. The EU has just two months until the embargo on Russian crude imports comes into force, but still needs to find an alternative source for 1.3 million barrels a day of Russian oil, it warned.

OPEC has said its production cut is aimed at stabilizing oil markets and countering declining oil-demand growth. On Wednesday, in its own report, the group sharply slashed its forecasts for global economic growth and oil demand.

For 2022, the IEA now expects total oil demand of 99.6 million barrels a day and 101.3 million barrels a day in 2023.

The agency cuts its forecast for global oil supply next year by 1.2 million barrels a day to 100.6 million barrels a day and by 200,000 barrels a day to 99.9 million barrels a day for 2022.

Write to Will Horner at william.horner@wsj.com

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October 13, 2022

Tag: Marketing

Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist for the MBA, speaks in Nashville on Sunday.

Why do you need a North Star metric?

What constitutes a North Star metric?

What’s your North Star?

1. Help generate revenue

2. Mirror customer value

1. Set the stage

2. Create a mantra

3. Be curious

4. Get comfortable with passing up business

Build a user-friendly, attractive website

Use SEO

Take advantage of local directories

Invest in online ads

Focus on only the most important online platforms

Post shareable and emotional content consistently

Use email marketing

Explore guest posting

Why does your business need a blog?

What information should you provide?

Are you publicizing your blog?

Does design affect conversion and readership?

1. They’re from an industry-relevant niche

2. Their voice and personal brand resonate with the company’s image and values

3. They’re charismatic, trustworthy and know how to build emotional connections

4. They can proactively produce balanced content that sells

Three more considerations when choosing influencers

Leverage the influencer community to your advantage

The big three

Next steps

The importance of Web3

The natural progression

Takeaways:

Laudan’s predictions for the S&P 500 ‘earnings recession’ and bottom

Leaders for the stock market’s recovery

Summarizing the declines

1. What type of business do you have?

2. Which channel best fits your social goals?

3. Which channels are competitors using?

The world’s largest professional network: LinkedIn

The leading local business connector: Nextdoor

The biggest visual discovery engine: Pinterest

The new kid on the block: Clubhouse

The go-to social news site and forum: Reddit

The rise of social media marketing

What makes social media content marketing effective?

Measuring effectiveness

How to improve the effectiveness of your social media content marketing