Category: E-COMMERCE

Metrics: Deadly Traps to Business Growth + How to Get Off the Hook
Metrics are a double-edged sword. If you’re in a direct response business, you probably have a hard time imagining how metrics could possibly stifle your business growth. After all, aren’t metrics the only way to truly track progress and make sure your company is heading in the right direction?

Not exactly.

A poorly chosen metric can be a big liability and hurt your business growth. Not all metrics or KPIs are equal, and you may be following the wrong ones or at the very least misinterpreting them.

This can harm the growth of your business. In this post, we’ll go over how some of the biggest KPIs in the industry might actually be tricking you and what to avoid when measuring metrics.

Metrics, an Overview

Metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) are essentially the same thing. They’re both measurements of some aspect of a business or its growth.

Metrics can be useful in analyzing how a business is performing, and they can help you identify areas for improvement. However, too often, people get hung up on metrics that don’t matter, or they focus on the wrong thing. That leads to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

So, what’s the right way to use metrics? And which ones do you need to care about? Let’s start with the basics…

What are Metrics and KPIs?

A metric is a measurement of an aspect of your business. It could be as simple as “revenue” or “profits.” Or it could be something more specific, like “average order value” or “product return rate.”

You can measure nearly anything about your business. The real question is: what does it mean?

To answer that, you need to know how the metric relates to other aspects of your business — and how those aspects relate to your ultimate sales goals.

For example, if you own an e-commerce store, a low average order value might indicate that you need to change up your product mix or improve cross-sells.

For your direct response business, you need to understand which metrics are valuable and which ones aren’t in order to scale successfully.

The Problem with Metric-Driven Businesses

The problem with metric-driven companies is that they have a tendency to focus on the numbers, and forget about their customers.

For example, forcing customer service agents to keep interactions under 5 minutes so they can “help” more people. But the value of that help is most likely less than the high rate the performance metrics or quota would show.

That number doesn’t equate to customer satisfaction. And don’t you think providing a great customer experience is a more strategic objective than upping the numbers of a single metric?

Metrics are great for understanding your business, but when you start making company-wide decisions based on them, it can be dangerous.

Measuring the Wrong Things

The concept of a key performance indicator (KPI) has been around since the 1960s, when it was introduced by David Norton in his book “Financial Performance Measurement for Managerial Decision”.

KPIs are often used to measure business growth and development. But if you’re using the wrong KPIs, they can actually do more harm than good to your business, because they can distract you from achieving your business goals. The trick is to use the right kind of indicators that will help you achieve your objectives.

KPI Issues

Think about it this way: if you’re a professional boxer who’s aiming to win a fight, your goal is to knock out your opponent during the bout — not necessarily to land every punch you throw. But if every time you threw a punch and missed, your trainer turned off the lights and told you to go home, then you wouldn’t last long as a boxer. When it comes to growing a business, it’s similar — measuring every little thing that happens can be pretty demotivating if it doesn’t show positive results.

HBR’s (Harvard Business Review) September-October 2019 cover article (written by Michael Harris and Bill Tayler) expertly states, “The mental tendency to replace strategy with metrics can destroy company value.”

Manipulating Metrics

Metrics are an important aspect of business. They provide a snapshot of business performance that can be used to drive decisions. But metrics have limits: They represent one piece of a much larger puzzle and, if over-relied upon, can lead a company astray.

Why? Because metrics can be manipulated. Those who manipulate them are known as Surrogation Snares. They increase the risk of surrogation, allowing metrics to undermine the business with brutal irony.

In fact, in most organizations, you’ll find at least some employees who spend as much time gaming the system as they do actually working toward organizational goals. And that’s where the danger lies: Metrics are easy to manipulate because they don’t tell the whole story.

4 Ways Metrics Stifle Growth

You Can Use Metrics as a Crutch

We measure everything in business today. Sales, profits, ROI, engagement, productivity and more — if there’s a way to measure it, we do.

It’s a practice that can have great benefits. Metrics help you quantify your progress and underscore the need for change. But they can also be used as a crutch by business owners who are too afraid to make the necessary changes without the numbers behind them.

If you’re using metrics to hide from tough decisions, you’ll never grow your business beyond its current state.

You Can Ignore the Big Picture

It’s easy to get caught up in the little things. Without focusing on the big picture, we risk losing sight of our objectives.

In business, this happens all the time. Companies can get so caught up in the day-to-day operations that they completely lose sight of the big picture—what we call surrogation. This can hurt businesses and hold them back from growing in a sustainable way.

Metrics are great for helping you stay on top of your business — as long as you remember that they’re just tools for managing your business, not definitive indicators of success.

They Prevent You from Taking Risks

Metrics are all about removing risk. The deviation is the enemy – it makes things unpredictable.

So, when we follow a metric, we’re trying to find the path that will most likely lead us to an outcome with minimal deviation. We’re trying to play it safe.

But if we want our businesses to grow, we must take risks. We’ll need to try new things. We’ll need to break the rules and step outside of what’s proven to work.

You Rely on Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics are numbers that are easily tracked, but don’t actually matter much in the grand scheme of your company’s growth. Vanity metrics aren’t always bad, but they can be misleading if you use them as a stand-in for meaningful metrics.

A few examples of vanity metrics:
- The number of people who visit your website
- The number of people who subscribe to your newsletter
- The number of likes or shares on social media posts
Let’s say you run a podcast. You might be tempted to measure its success by counting the number of downloads it gets every month. But what does that tell you?

A high download count might mean that you have a great audience, or it could just mean that a lot of people subscribe to your show and automatically download it every week without actually listening to it.

Not Everything Can Be Measured

Metrics can’t tell you how to do your job, but they can tell you if you’re doing it right.

The kind of analytics you choose will depend on your industry, your product and your business model, but all metrics have a few things in common:
- Metrics measure what happened in the past, not what will happen in the future.
- Metrics quantify performance against a set standard.
- Metrics are backward-looking; they provide objective facts about what has already occurred.
By nature, metrics aren’t predictive; they’re observational. A metric might indicate that there’s a problem that needs addressing, but it probably won’t tell you why there’s a problem or how to fix it.

Your Business Is More Than KPIs. Become a Better Direct Response Business Owner by Learning When to Let Numbers Guide You.

Once your team understands that metrics don’t instantly translate into faster or better decisions, you can use them to guide growth.

Here’s how you can look beyond metrics:

Innovation. Innovation is fundamentally about discovering new things and adapting to them. This means that success depends on your ability to look beyond the past and see what’s happening around you.

Goals. To properly gauge your business’s health and growth, you need to understand your business’s goals. You should have goals for both short-term success and long-term growth.

Developing an incentive system or incentive compensation can create a balanced scorecard to coordinate behaviors between employee performance and sales culture.

Decisions. You need to also understand what decisions you are likely to make based on the metrics you are tracking. Tracking the right metrics will lead to better decision making.

Allowing metrics to make decisions every time will diminish the ultimate strategy of building long-term customer relationships and it can destroy company value (per the aforementioned HBR article).

Wrapping Up

Numbers don’t tell the whole story on their own, they just give a picture of what is going on.

One metric that doesn’t lie is the number of businesses shut down for using the wrong merchant account. As a direct response business, you’re high-risk. That means you need a high-risk merchant account and a payment processor that backs your business model.

DirectPayNet will set you up with the right merchant account. Get in touch with our team of merchant service experts to get started.
March 30, 2022
Become A SUPER Copywriter: Tips from The Experts

No matter what level, style, or area of copywriting you do, there’s demand for it.

If you’re a freelance copywriter, then you’re in luck. We’ve spoken to the experts to bring you industry-best tips to take your copywriting to the next level. Go from side gig to digital nomad with a life full of freedom and money.

To do it, you need more than writing skills. That’s the easy part. The hard part is knowing how to market your skills, finding your niche, and networking. Once you find your rhythm, you’ll know exactly how to hook your readers every time.

Read on for expert freelance copywriting tips, watch the episode on our YouTube channel, or listen on the go with our podcast. Step-by-step, we’ll give you the advice you need to become a professional copywriter, whether you have a formal education or picked up the career on your own.

1.    Get Clients the Easy Way

The easiest way really depends on your current standing in the freelance copywriting job space. Overall, Ning Li suggests:

Cold Outreach. Reaching out to potential clients can suck. A lot of freelance copywriters live behind the text, not in front of it, for a variety of reasons. Maybe you’re not very outgoing, maybe you don’t have the confidence, maybe it makes you nervous.

If you don’t send that cold email, then the answer is always no. Besides, it’s just an email. It’s writing. That’s what you do best.

Write for Free. Yeah, we know free copywriting work doesn’t pay the bills. But if you’re a new copywriter and looking for your first client, if there’s a company you really want to work for, or if there’s someone you want to shadow so you can learn from them, then offer free writing.

Ask if there’s anything you can write for this company/person for free. Usually, that turns into a job. And even if it doesn’t, you can learn a lot about what companies expect or how your copywriting idol works.

Attend Events. Networking is a key factor in nearly every market, providing opportunity to grow your skill, meet others just like you, and connect with potential clients.

Expert Gurleen Singh suggests attending in-person marketing events, using LinkedIn, or Facebook groups. It doesn’t matter. Start making connections now so you can build a network with people you genuinely want to work with you.

Find Clients Who Need Your Skill

The demand is out there. Whatever copy skill you have, whatever area of expertise, there’s a demand for it. Find the clients who need your skill via the three ways listed above. Soon, you’ll have a booming copywriting career.

2.    Use Emotional Storytelling

You’re not just writing words on paper. Sales copy isn’t only, “buy now, or else!” That tactic may have worked a few decades ago, but consumers are looking for connection. Look at how expansive each industry has become. It’s not just two products competing against each other. Now there are thousands, each reaching for the throne. How do you make sure the company you’re writing for takes its claim?

Create a Story Around the Product

Emotional storytelling is the way forward. Chris Haddad is the world expert on emotional storytelling when it comes to sales copy, and one of the best copywriters out there. He says creating a story is the best way to reach your audience.

This copywriting tactic is easier than you think. It’s the basics of understanding people. Afterall, that’s what turns a piece of text into a killer hook, right? Because that line understands and connects with the reader.

Let’s use an example: you sell an electric coffee kettle. Instead of going the traditional route of using lines about it being greener or simpler to use than the stovetop, create a story. Tell the reader this is about reinvigorating their love for coffee, enhancing their morning routine by bringing out the joy of coffee making. You’re not selling a kettle; you’re selling an experience. A way of life. A happier, more joyful life.

Abbreviate Your Own Experience

A lot of what makes a good copywriter is taking your own life experience and applying it to your work. You’ve spent years learning and understanding the world, why not use that to advance your freelance copywriting business? That’s what industry expert Rich Schefren believes.

Prospects are looking for a reason to buy your product. They need to know how it will better their lives and make a positive impact. The best way is by telling (in shorter terms) how that product or service benefited your life.

You know what you know through experience. Use it, apply it, take your freelance writing to the next level with value.

3.    Become Irreplaceable

As we’ve said, there’s demand for your level of copywriting. But that also means there’s supply. You aren’t alone, which means you need to find a way to become irreplaceable. In this industry, irreplaceability is how to become a copywriter full-time.

Don’t Aim for Regular Copywriting

In the copywriting world, it sounds like a fantastic idea to be a jack of all trades. Someone who can handle it all with ease. But that’s actually the opposite of what you should do, even if it means ignoring a skill. Unless you want to be an agency copywriter where your job is more secure than as a freelance copywriter.

We see this is so many industries: expertise in one skill reigns. If you spread out over too many markets or skills, you’re seen as replaceable. A company can either hire another jack of all trades since you aren’t providing any expertise in one single area, or they can hire an expertise for one area that you cover and leave you in the dark.

Troy Ericson gives a great example of this. Instead of aiming to be an email copywriter, aim to be an email list manager. You’re probably asking why. The reason is that regular copywriting is not viewed as strategic, whereas a list manager is.

When you’re not viewed as a strategist, you’re replaceable. Someone else is creating the strategy and you’re basically doing data entry. Flip the script and become a strategist. That’s what makes you irreplaceable, putting you in the arena with great copywriters, not just good ones.

Write Better Copy

That sounds obvious, right? But it is something you should constantly be working on. According to Stefan Georgi, proven writers get paid more.

You need to have a backlog of content like case studies, published work, proof of your expertise. That’s how you get ahead of the competition. Take a walk in a client’s shoes for a moment. Who would you hire: a) someone with zero testimonials, no samples, and seemingly with no experience, but a promising hook; or b) someone with 100 reviews, live content, and a presence (albeit small)?

You’d probably go with the latter option. It’s less risky. Which is exactly why when you’re just starting out, asking for free work is a great option. You can start building up a copywriting portfolio full of various types of content that will help you plant your feet in the digital marketing world.

Pick one or two types of copywriting and start producing material: SEO (search engine optimization) blogs, social media posts, landing pages, sales letters, white papers, offers, billboards, emails, etc. Having those examples will push your career forward.

Worry less about money and more about getting wins for your clients.

Get a Coach

It’s an investment, for sure. But don’t knock it. A lot of people ignore the opportunity to be coached because they don’t want to invest, but that’s a big mistake. Coaches are there for a reason and the right one will take your career to the next level.

As Andrew Contreras says, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” A coach will enlighten you, increase your copywriting skill, and give you the life of a copywriter you’ve dreamed of. Compare a few copywriting courses offered by industry-leading coaches and make the investment.

4.    Understand Offer Owners

Equally important to writing copy that connects with consumers, your content should also connect with the offer owner. As well, you as a copywriter need to exude qualities an offer owner looks for in their employees.

A general rule of thumb, according to Chris Haddad, is to have:

–       Energy

–       Ideas

–       Emotional Intelligence

With these three things, you (as the freelance writer) will reflect what the business owner wants (the content). We are always selling emotion, not products. The product is secondary. First, you need to sell the pride or success or fear that will link the audience with the product.

Find Untapped Markets

Offer owners also put some reliance on you to find and target the right audiences. That also gives you plenty of opportunity to find new audiences (which can successfully transform you into a strategist).

Julian Reyes suggests doing research on your product within other demographics. For example, selling CBD to the Christian community. Some groups are looking for justification to use a product or service. If you can perform the right research, then all you have to do is connect the dots and write up some copy that opens the door for a new audience.

Be Careful with Your Word Choices

The last tidbit of advice comes from Pauline Longdon, and it’s one of the most important with regard to the actual content you type out.

Some words are taboo. Some are fads. Others are trendy. And then there’s a small group that have longevity. It’s okay to play around with your word choices, but it’s important to always remain cognizant of what you type.

Don’t use words that prevent you from controlling the emotion of the reader. For example, the word “trump”. Don’t use it. It’s a word that used to be use all the time in sales copy, but now it’s completely absent unless you’re targeting certain audiences. It acts as a divider: some users will love it; others will hate it. And that emotional extreme can seriously harm sales.

This applies to more than just sales copy and offers. It affects anything you writer, from press releases and whitepapers to ads and landing pages.

The Best Way to Become a Successful Copywriter Is Getting Payment Process That Backs You

You can’t make a sale if you don’t have a credit card payment processor backing your business. To make your mark on the job boards as a freelance copywriter and hone your content marketing/creative writing skills, you need to secure your small business first.

Since you sell a service with results that come after the purchase, that puts you in a high-risk merchant category.

Get in touch with us here at DirectPayNet for more insider tips and a merchant account that connects you with a processor that truly supports your business. We’re here to help you scale.

March 23, 2022
Telehealth vs. Virtual Health — What’s the Difference?
Virtual health is gaining traction in the healthcare arena, with more products and services being marketed as part of virtual healthcare – but what exactly is virtual health? How is it different from telehealth?

If you’re a business owner, the difference is more than just how your customers refer to you, it’s what regulations you have to follow and seek the approval of. You don’t want to claim the wrong MCC, otherwise you’d face serious judiciary sentencing.

The Difference Between Telehealth and Virtual Health

Telehealth, telemedicine, and virtual health are often used interchangeably because they all use telecommunication technologies. However, there are differences between the three. This can make it difficult to navigate a world where communication technology is rapidly changing how we receive care.

Telehealth is a broad term that refers to any use of technology to provide or support healthcare services remotely. It encompasses many different elements, including store-and-forward video consultations and electronic medical records.

Telemedicine is a subset of telehealth that specifically involves the remote healthcare delivery of clinical services, like a virtual doctor visit. Store-and-forward technology, where information is exchanged via email or a secure messaging healthcare system, is an example of telemedicine, but not of telehealth as a whole.

Virtual health refers to the use of digital tools to support patient engagement outside of traditional care settings. This includes at-a-distance monitoring technologies and online patient access to digital healthcare records as well as non-medical services like coaching and wellness. The prior can be attributed to telehealth whereas the latter is often what we mean by virtual health.

Examples of Telehealth

Telehealth is a broad term that covers any type of remote visit or examination. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, health care professionals are struggling to balance the need for social distancing with providing care to patients. Telehealth is one way to provide health education, screenings, and treatment remotely.

Under the umbrella term that is telehealth, there are things like real-time video visits, telephone calls, remote patient monitoring, and e-visits. Some examples include:
- A doctor using an app on their phone to check in on a patient who had recent surgery.
- A nurse calling a patient who suffers from chronic conditions.
- A therapist or clinician using Skype to see a long-distance patient in another city or country.
- Prescription refills.
- Online follow-ups to in-person visits.
- Remote patient care monitoring of vital signs (heart rate, blood pressure) and other data through sensors or wearables.
- Immediate treatment for common ailments online with no appointment necessary.
- Accessing patient portals for medical documents.
Examples of Virtual Health

The idea of virtual health services is to offer various accessible and convenient health and wellness services from a mobile device, computer or by telephone. These innovative wellness services offer you the ability to get advice, data, and more without the need of a doctor.
- Online and remote health coaching.
- Nutrition counseling and weight loss programs.
- At-home mental health meetings, like therapy over text or video chat.
Regulatory Requirements for Starting a Telehealth

The rapid rise of telehealth services in the United States and throughout the world has made it relatively easy for primary care provider to implement a telehealth program in their practice. However, before you start using telehealth services, there are some things you need to know about the regulatory requirements for starting a telehealth business.

Below is a list of the most common regulatory requirements for telemedicine and telehealth.

Licensure

Every state has its own medical licensure requirements for doctors and other healthcare providers. If you want to use telemedicine, you must abide by these laws.

Privacy Laws

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires all healthcare providers to keep the personal health information of their patients private and secure. While HIPAA does not explicitly require healthcare providers to use a secure video conferencing platform, they must ensure that any platform they use is compliant with HIPAA standards.

Malpractice Insurance

Doctors need malpractice insurance whether they practice in person or using telemedicine. Make sure your malpractice policy covers both traditional and virtual visits with patients.

Payment Processing

If you want to charge patients for virtual visits, you will need an online payment processing system that can accept credit cards, e-checks, ACH, debit cards, and possibly even crypto. It depends on your customers, but at a minimum you need to accept credit cards.

Regulatory Requirements for Virtual Health

Here, virtual health is not treated the same as healthcare. While your field might (and should) be specific, you may not have to go through all of the hoops and hurdles of a telehealth business. But that doesn’t mean you can freely start, say, a health coaching business with no credentials. There are regulations for virtual health, too, that aim to keep providers in check.

Licensure

Many online health businesses are subject to regulation by professional licensing boards or state regulatory agencies. For example, to practice as a registered dietitian or nutritionist you must be licensed, and in some cases, have an additional certification like a board-certified Specialist in Renal Nutrition.

If you want to offer health-related services and your state requires licensure, plan on spending time and money obtaining the appropriate credentials. Most states require completion of a degree program from an accredited institution. Many also require passing an exam and completing continuing education credits to maintain licensure.

The National Board for Health & Wellness Coaching (NBHWC) has created national certification standards for the health and wellness coaching industry. The NBHWC is recognized by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as the primary certifying organization for health coaches in the U.S.

Training Program

In addition to licensure requirements, many states require that health coaches, weight loss consultants, and others who offer nutrition or wellness advice complete training programs before they can advertise their services or apply for licenses.

Payment Processing

Just like with telehealth, you need a payment process to take care of your transactions. The main point with virtual health is to use a high-risk payment processor. Virtual health businesses are considered high-risk, as is anything that sells advice, digital goods, and digital services. This isn’t just a quick tip to make your business life easier, it’s a necessity. If you ignore it, you will likely see your business shut down by the payment platform you chose. A quick online search will prove that to you.

Tips for Virtual Health Businesses

The first thing to understand is that health coaches are not health care professionals, and they shouldn’t be giving medical advice. If they are, they could get into trouble with the law. The best way to avoid this problem is to position yourself as a “wellness coach” or “fitness coach.” That puts the focus on wellness strategies and exercise — both of which are important, but neither of which requires medical care training.

You should also be clear about what you do and don’t do. It’s fine to offer nutritional tips and weight loss ideas, but you need to make it clear that you’re not diagnosing illnesses or suggesting treatments for them.

Of course, you shouldn’t be diagnosing illnesses even if you have medical training, but that’s another story for another day. If you have any medical training at all, then you might be required to follow additional rules depending on your state laws. You may need to partner with other professionals like doctors or nutritionists in order to offer certain services legally.

Telehealth and Virtual Health Are Different. Both Are Industries of Business.

That means you need to run yours like a business. Marketing, creating a business model, utilizing a CRM, implementing consumer safety and security measures, and business registration are just a few of what you need to do simply as a business.

One thing DirectPayNet makes easy for you is getting a high-risk merchant account. Whether it’s telehealth, telemedicine, or virtual health, your business needs a payment processing willing to back your business model and industry. Surprise: not all of them do!

We connect you with one that fully supports your business so you can focus on providing great service to your customers. Call our team of merchant account experts today to get started.
March 9, 2022
Plaid Class-Action Lawsuit Reveals Open Banking’s Biggest Problem – Here’s How to Protect Your Customer’s Data

Privacy concerns are trending since before the pandemic–swirling around the topic of open banking. If you’re not sure what open banking is, it’s the concept of allowing third-party companies to use consumer financial data for additional services and features. There are two main companies that provide open-banking platforms: Plaid and Trustly.

Now, it might sound like a good idea to transparently share personal financial data with third parties so they can offer additional services and products. Except, there’s a big problem with this — it 1) doesn’t protect your privacy and 2) makes data more vulnerable to hackers since it’s released in a more centralized way instead of only through your bank.

Plaid is now the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit. What does this mean for the future of open banking? What about privacy? How can you protect your customer’s data while still offering them convenience?

Summing Up the Plaid Lawsuit

Plaid, Inc has taken more consumer banking data than necessary. The people who have filed a class-action lawsuit against Plaid also complain that Plaid’s login page called Plaid Link mirrors the login of individual banking establishments. Essentially, Plaid is accused of not only taking too much data but also tricking consumers into thinking they’re entering login information directly into their own bank account login screen or financial institution login credentials, when in fact they are logging in via Plaid, a 3rd party.

Plaid is an open banking platform, a financial technology, that links around 5500 different financial establishments together. That includes banks (Chime), credit cards (American Express), investment services (Acorns, Robinhood), P2P payment apps (PayPal, Venmo), and much more (Coinbase).

In the end, Plaid has agreed to pay $58 million to users of its service through a class-action settlement between a specific time period to halt the lawsuit against them. If you have used Plaid and want to fill out a claim form, you can go to the settlement website, www.plaidsettlement.com, and request your settlement fund payout. Only those with valid claims will receive funds, as well as those who are US residents, and will receive notification once funds are deposited later this year. They’ve also recently updated their Plaid portal site to include privacy controls that allow users to manage what information gets used and from where.

What’s So Great About Open Banking, Anyway?

Open banking is the new kid on the block in financial services and it’s bringing a lot of change. Although the roll out has been gradual, and we’re still only seeing the very early stages of what this will mean for the industry, it’s important to understand how open banking works and why it can be a good thing.

The customer is at the center of all things when it comes to open banking. It’s all about creating a better customer experience by providing you with more choice and control over your finances. It also brings a lot more transparency (or it should, at least) when it comes to your data, how that data is used and how much you’re paying for it.

Open banking gives fintech startups access to bank customer data. The startup can then use machine learning to create customer-specific solutions. It is expected that open banking will result in a financial system that is more efficient, customer-focused, and resilient.

Problems with Open Banking Revealed by the Plaid Debacle

Outlined above, open banking sounds incredible for consumers, merchants, and innovation. But apparently that isn’t the case just yet. As we can see, transparency should be at the core of open banking, yet Plaid has already proven companies aren’t ready to reveal everything they do with the data they receive. That’s a big problem for consumers in this decade where privacy is a big concern.

It gives the idea that Plaid doesn’t care about its customers’ privacy. But we also have to keep in mind that nothing is free. Using a service like Plaid, information is what they sell even if there are zero or very little upfront costs.

While open banking could eventually lead to a more competitive market for the “free” current accounts that millions of us use, we’ve seen in some countries where it has been introduced it can lead to problems.

In Australia, for example, the banks have used their new powers to downsize their existing customers’ credit limits when they move to new providers. So, people who have been with their bank for years and never missed a payment can be punished for moving if they aren’t careful about how they switch accounts.

And nearly a year after some governments introduced open banking as a way to improve competition in the finance sector, banks are still failing to share data with new rivals.

Tens of thousands of people have been blocked from opening an app-based financial account because their current bank refused to share full details of their financial history.

But for you, as a merchant, the biggest issue you face now is either supporting open banking or not. And if you do, how will you inform your customers of the risks? Would you push responsibility onto the customer, the opening banking platform like Plaid, or hold it yourself?

What You Can Do to Protect Customer Data

Privacy and security are key. Customers want to know their data is safe and, by extension, your business is safe. The open banking initiative in the UK and the PSD2 directive in Europe are bringing new opportunities for innovation by allowing third party providers to access banks’ customer data. But with more personal information being shared, consumers will expect greater levels of security when it comes to financial data. Those initiatives are being adopted slowly in other countries, as well. So, this applies to merchants everywhere, not just in the UK or those who use Plaid.

Protect Consumer’s Personal Information with Encryption and Tokenization

Encryption and tokenization are two ways that merchants can ensure that customer data remains secure at all times. By encrypting personal information at rest or in transit, merchants can ensure that information cannot be accessed if it happens to fall into the wrong hands.

Additionally, tokenization allows you to replace sensitive data with unique, random numbers called tokens. The tokens are stored on your servers instead of the sensitive data, so hackers can’t get at it. And unlike credit card numbers, which are relatively easy to steal, tokens are much harder to use for fraud because they’re unique and tied directly to a customer’s identity.

Tokenization also makes it easier to share customer data across different departments. For example, after tokenizing credit cards, a department can use the tokens for marketing without exposing any actual payment information in their databases. And if the marketing department wants to send customers a reminder about an upcoming anniversary or other special offer, they don’t need to ask for or receive any sensitive information from their partners in order to do so.

Because tokenized data isn’t as useful for identity thieves, some payment providers only allow merchants who protect their customers’ information with tokenization to participate in their network.

Use PCI-Compliant Data Centers

PCI compliance refers to industry rules and regulations that were put in place in order to protect sensitive data. If your provider isn’t compliant with these rules, they might not be taking the proper security measures to ensure that your data is encrypted and protected from outside parties. This can lead to compromised credit card information, which can cause irreparable harm to your business.

Your payment gateway should absolutely be PCI-compliant no matter if you use open banking or not.

Inform Users Upfront When They’re Using an Open Banking Solution

Don’t fall into the same hole as this Plaid lawsuit. The best way to lose customers is to trick them into doing something, even if it’s something they’re already planning to do.

Be upfront about what opening banking protocols and connections they are enabling when using your service. Inform them of the risks, the benefits, and the liability. But, above all that, make it blatantly apparent that they’re using a 3rd-party open banking solution that is not native to your site.

Your Own Merchant Account Will Help You Keep Customer Data Safe

Merchants who take credit card payments should be aware of the potential risks that come with accepting a new payment method and integrating with open banking services. Many services can help minimize these risks and open up a number of new revenue opportunities.

Opening your own a merchant account, however, offers some extra security potential by allowing you to customize each portion of your storefront. From payment gateway to API integrations, you can add in 3DS, CCV, and other authentication methods on top of what we’ve mentioned above.

Contact DirectPayNet today to prepare your online business for open banking.

February 22, 2022
Tips from MARKETING MILLIONAIRES to Scale Up Your Business

Good marketing advice can cost thousands, if not more. Over the past year, we’ve spoken to many of the world’s best marketers about how to scale up your business, giving you an incredible opportunity for business growth at no cost.

With so much information thrown at you, it can get really confusing trying to utilize and organize all of it in order to scale your startup or growing business. Let’s close the flood gates a bit, get you out of the content rabbit hole, and sum up the most important pieces of advice that can help clarify your journey forward.

The tips we’re bringing you today are taken from interviews we’ve had with the world’s best marketers, who have collectively generated billions in sales. Even if you haven’t heard their names, it’s highly likely that you’ve bought from them in the past.

Here are the best actionable marketing tips you can use today to scale up your business. Read on, watch here, or listen to the podcast here.

Marketing Tips from Marketing Millionaires

We’re breaking down our best tips with this easy-to-follow guide, giving you all the advice you need to scale up your small business and become a millionaire business owner.

1. Focus on Your “Superstar” Quality – Chris Haddad

Spend your efforts focusing on the skill sets you’re good at and less on the ones you’re not. For Chris Haddad, that meant focusing on copywriting and leaving the traffic and management to hired pros.

2. Make Your Background A Selling Point – Stefan Georgi

One mistake many entrepreneurs make is trying to adapt to a role solely with material for that role. For example, reading only business books or watching video content about managing business. Instead, make your background something unique, something you can sell in that role. Use it to diversify your product.

3. Don’t Seek Out a Niche – Stefan Georgi

You don’t need to find a niche at the start of your career. It’s best to go into a standard position, one that’s easy to obtain, and then enhance your skills while you’re there. Of course, you should start out with a position or career path that does fit your skills and interest, but you don’t get too specific or picky at the onset.

4. Have an Email List with Automations Set – Troy Ericson

You can’t know the potential or reach of your new product if you don’t share it. Get an ESP (email service provider) and set up your most basic automations (repeatable processes for automatically contacting customers). This should include what happens when someone buys something, abandons their cart, shipping updates, etc. Setting this up right away helps you eliminate the minutiae of email marketing so you can focus on bigger projects while getting insight from your customers. There’s automation software available to help you out here that even integrates with your bookkeeping, CRM, and internal processes. But you can simply go in yourself and make it happen.

5. Don’t Pass Up Cold Traffic – Andrew Contreras

Cold traffic sources are things like social media platforms, Facebook, YouTube, and Google. Generally, it’s more attractive to put your offer on cold traffic sources instead of on a network. Networks limit your reach and the potential of that offer, whereas cold traffic is expansive and allows for fast changes. Plus, these cold traffic sources give you metrics and tools that significantly help small business owners with content marketing. On top of this, hire a good media buy—one who understands copy. They don’t have to be an expert, but they have to know enough to work well with creatives.

6. Optimize the Offer – Julian Reyes

It’s foolish to move on to another offer if you’ve just launched one and it isn’t performing well. Spend the time and the money to optimize it. If it has strong split test, then it’s absolutely worthwhile to optimize. And that doesn’t mean nitpicking each part of it; it means finding the one thing that ends up doubling the conversion just once. When this happens, you suddenly have a profit.

7. Work with Your Affiliate Partners – Amber Spears

A lot of companies create a calendar for the year, pinpointing product launches and marketing campaigns for their brand, and then releasing it to their partners. Don’t do that. Work with your affiliate partners on your calendar. Go to them with ideas and questions, telling them you want to have a contest on this date but you don’t want it to interfere with their business plans. The point is to avoid directly competing with your partners and setting up the mechanism to successfully cross-promote.

8. Put Valuable Material in Your Front-end Products – Rich Schefren

Don’t skimp out on your front-end products. That’s a sure-fire way to lose conversions and send new customers far far away. Customers need to see the value of your product. If you’re not willing to get a piece of that value away for free, then customers will assume there’s no value at all. Why buy a product that promises a lot but showcases nothing? Put your best material in your front-end products and you’ll see a huge impact on sales.

9. Test New Marketing Opportunities – Rich Schefren

Opportunities arise every so often that live outside the trend and are worthy of second look. Getting on-board with trendy marketing tactics is good for the short-term, but all trends die. If you pay attention, you can become one of the pioneers of a new trend that outperforms the last.

10. Value Yourself – Pauline Longdon

Pauline was speaking out to female copywriters, but her advice can apply to anyone. Don’t undervalue yourself. Get ballsy and see what happens. You won’t know what sticks until you try. And the value you place on yourself affects company culture and workflow. Keep it positive.

11. Don’t Rely on a Single Traffic Source – Justin Goff

Trying to build a website that only relies on a single traffic source is like putting all your eggs in one basket. What happens if that channel dries up? By working with multiple channels from the start, you’ll prepare yourself for the future when you may need to shift gears or even replace certain avenues of marketing altogether.

12. Hire an Affiliate Manager – Alex Gunoe

An affiliate manager’s sole purpose is to make and solidify connections. Those are the connections you need to have a successful product. Just because you made something, doesn’t mean customers will come. You need to be willing to invest in a scaling strategy in order to improve the scalability of your business.

13. Stick with What Sells – Ning Li

It’s great to diversify your offers, especially when marketing to multiple demographics. But when you know something works and it work really well, you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you try to change it.

14. Don’t Overpromise – Brennan Hopkins

Work within the confines of what’s possible in your business. If you’re a relatively small company with a team of just one person or team members that cover multiple roles, then don’t take on projects you know full-well require a lot of attention and a lot of handles. Opportunity will still come in the future, so don’t try to tackle too much at once. And as you scale up, get some new hires. Those new employees will cost you something, but the potential for scaling is exponentially higher.

15. Be Able to Pivot – Eli Cohen

You, as a marketer or business owner, cannot control the policies of the platforms you advertise on. That’s the job of Facebook and Google and whatever platform you use. Your job is to be able to adjust strategies and tactics that fit those platforms whenever the rules change. You need to be able to pivot to other marketing opportunities as well. Web ads aren’t the only media space. There’s print, TV, radio, mobile, and IoT. You have so many ways to reach customers, don’t get stagnant in your ways.

16. “Test the Things That Scream, Not the Things That Whisper” – Jonathan Boyd

Consider this: you can either optimize the headline of your offer for a 30% boost, or you can launch a new offer that appeals directly to your target market. Which method is better? Before, we said you should always optimize your offers before replacing them. But if no one is biting, then leaving it live for too long will only harm your business. Take the time to zoom out and look at the big picture. Who are you selling to? What do those people need? How can you provide it? Is your offer in line with the answers to those questions?

We Have New Marketing Tips for You Every Week

We hope that you enjoyed this roundup of marketing tips and that a few of them will help you with your own marketing efforts. It can be hard to read every blog post and article, but luckily, we’ve done the work for you and are constantly exposed to new and innovative ways to market your business.

The tips above are our top picks we know will help companies scale and can be incorporated into any business strategy or business model. Whether your’e homing in on a new market or you’re a new business getting their footing but looking for rapid growth, these are the top tips to help you scale up and increase cash flow.

No matter what industry your in nor which marketing tactic you choose, you absolutely need a merchant account to make those sales happen. Get in touch with us here at DPN to open your and be connected with a payment processor who supports your sustainable growth.

February 11, 2022