It's important to take time off from work in order to relax and clear your mind. It's equally important to unplug while you're on vacation in order to maintain healthy relationships with your friends and family, as well as ensure that you'll enjoy your time away from work as much as possible. With these simple tips on how to unplug from work when you're on vacation, you'll be ready to enjoy the full benefits of time away from work.

What does it mean to “unplug” from work?

There are different ways you can unplug from work, both literally and figuratively. Our recommendation is to start (literally) with technology.

While it may be tempting to peek at your computer on vacation, or comb through work emails (even when they aren't urgent), resist those urges! Leave your laptop in a safe place at home before you hit the highways on holiday. Ditching the computer at home will remove your direct line to work responsibilities and clear your attention span for new experiences. Plus – it'll help lighten your suitcase, too.

Although unplugging could be extended to ALL technology, we understand the necessity of bringing your cell phone on vacation for emergencies and convenience. However, you can still unplug from the work and personal social media platforms that you use on a daily basis. Challenge yourself this vacation — no Facebooking, no Tweeting, no Instagramming — and especially no endless scrolling on TikTok! What interesting things can you find around you? If you’re tempted to take a photo, try to save it on your camera or cell phone to post later. There’s no rush to share your daily adventures online!

Why should I do this?

Did you know that 21% of adults felt stressed during their time off, and 28% worked more than they thought they would on vacation (American Psychological Association)? Constantly being on work mode can leave a harmful impact on your creativity and productivity. The additional time you dedicate to work outside of rest hours can lead to prolonged exhaustion and create burnout – and nobody enjoys this experience!

There’s a reason your brain feels so different during and after a vacation. A change in your daily environment stimulates the senses with new smells, feelings, sights, sounds, and tastes. When you unplug from work mentally, your brain can rest from its usual routine and accelerate from sponging up all of the new experiences. But even if your job doesn’t require much mental strain or creativity (like an assembly line), your mind can still benefit from the change in the long run.

What are some examples of what I can do?

What concerns or worries enter your thoughts when you think about disconnecting from work while on vacation?

Many people worry about not being able to disconnect from their colleagues or clients when they go on vacation. Our suggestion is to start with writing out solutions and a plan to address your concerns with your team before you go. This way, you’re leaving your teammates with an action plan to pick up the ongoing tasks that you’re leaving behind.

This may require training employees or colleagues on certain aspects of your job, communicating your vacation plan in advance to colleagues and clients, working ahead on certain projects, and creating temporary processes while you're away.

While this may seem like a lot of work up front, the idea is to create plans that help your team, your clients, and yourself so everyone can succeed.

Do these things before you leave:

1. Write down your list of concerns about what it means to disconnect from work.

2. Create a plan of solutions for each concern.

3. Bring in team members, employees, colleagues, and external resources to help with action steps on executing the plan.

4. Work ahead on projects or requests so that you return from vacation to a milder workload.

5. Create temporary processes and communicate the processes to those who could be impacted by your time away.

6. Set your out-of-office message, turn off email notifications, step back from your desk, and breathe. It will all be ok.

Do these things while you're gone:

Breathe. Sit back in your comfy chair. That's it! Feel your feet connected to the ground. Hear that? It's vacation. This is your time to step away from work and give yourself some space to be present and in the moment. However, if you’re in a position where your team may need to reach out to you with questions, here are some helpful ways to handle incoming notifications while you’re away (if you absolutely positively must answer):

· If you are in a position where you must receive some work emails, set vacation alerts on your email so that even if you don't check it every day, you can still stay aware of urgent issues.

· Put your phone on airplane mode when you're away from work, so it won't distract you with unexpected calls or notifications.

· Set recurring time blocks throughout your trip for digital detox time—after all, relaxing is part of what makes a vacation so valuable! Be sure to stick to these time blocks. Don't make exceptions for things like checking in with family or friends via video chat.

Try something new while you're on vacation: food, activity, location, music, etc. Experience something a little different than what you're used to and open up a new world to yourself.

Do these things when you get back:

Coming back from vacation can be the hard part, but it doesn't have to be.

If possible, schedule an additional day off between traveling home and returning to work. This can be a day when you are home to unpack, catch up on laundry, or just take an extra 24 hours to rest. Jet-lag can be a knock-out, after all.

Make a plan on what is realistic to achieve the first day and first week back from vacation. Perhaps include reading and responding to X number of emails or calls each day, setting up meetings to touch base with your team or clients, or assessing how things went while you were gone and the next steps needed.

While it's crucial to success to take time away for yourself, it's just as important to plan how you will step back into work when you return. After all, you don't want to reverse the good things your vacation brought you by trying to do too much when you come back to work!

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Thinking about going on vacation this summer? We’ll handle your business’s marketing while you’re away. 5Points Creative is a full-service firm specializing in marketing, advertising, digital, communications, and branding. Visit 5PointsCreative.com/services for more information on how we can elevate your business!

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Wind4Lift

So many of our clients are using marketing and advertising to support their sales process.  Marketing and sales typically go hand in hand and, in fact, many companies have combined those departments.  When we engage our clients in an advertising program, it is often to help them with “direct response” results.

You know the kind of ads – call now, buy now, operators are standing by.

Even in those situations, we encourage our clients to see the deeper power of an ongoing outreach campaign.  There is a lot more behind advertising than simply delivering messages to the “now-buyers.” A critical objective in strong campaigns is the top of mind awareness created when a company consistently schedules their advertising over a longer period of time.

Those same companies who may be looking for instant gratification learn something else.

How2Leverage Your Advertising

Scheduled appointments with their prospects suddenly get a lot easier.  Their salespeople find the people they are meeting with are aware of their company or product and therefore are more interested, believe more of what they are saying, and are more agreeable.  Why is that?

Typically, the buyer has a greater awareness of the company, understands what is driving their success, and recognizes they are established and solid.  In other words, there is credibility. That credibility is a result of the ongoing advertising campaigns we are running on their behalf.

So, while the short-term benefit of the advertising is capturing that ready-to-buy viewer or listener, the exposure that comes from an ongoing advertising or marketing campaign generally provides that extra benefit.  

Advertising naturally builds trust with people.  As a business leader, with a strong program in place, you’ll have more time and energy to focus on the sales process with interested and excited prospects.  

That’s why sales and marketing really do belong together.

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Google Analytics has been giving companies and organizations vital information about their website users since 2005. While the world was listening to music on Apple's colorful iPod nano, Google released an innovative new tool online. It allowed marketers and business owners to see who went to their website and what they did once they got there. This tool provided insight on page views, sessions, and bounce rates. Now known as Universal Google Analytics, this powerful database gave viewers valuable information and reporting capabilities to make strategic marketing decisions. 

As technology is forever evolving, Google is now rolling out Google Analytics 4 (GA4)—a new platform that offers more tools than the already feature-packed Universal Google Analytics. In this article, we will cover what GA4 has to offer and what it can do for you and your business.

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Meticulous Viewer Reporting 

GA4 has changed the way Google structures and collects its data.  Previously, sessions (a group of user interactions that take place within a given period) and page views (the number of people viewing a webpage) were some of the key metrics used. Now the company has built everything around events (user interactions on your website that cannot be tracked as page views within a session) and users. This model processes each user interaction as a standalone event. The benefit of storing users’ interactions as separate events is to give you a more in-depth look at what your users are doing on your site. For example, as a business, you can track things like clicks, add to cart, file downloads, generate leads, page views, scrolls, video plays, and much more. You can still look at things on a broader session level, but also have the ability to see specific aspects of your user interactions on your website. The GA4 dashboard is now customizable and allows you to add or remove different metrics and graphs to create custom reporting.  

Cross-Platform Tracking 

GA4 also allows you to track your users across platforms using a unique ID code. This lets you follow your user from your website or application and store all the data in one place. Another major benefit, predictive metrics, enables you to use historical data to foresee user actions such as purchase probability or revenue prediction. This will help with retargeting your audience and understanding which users are more likely to make a purchase. These changes will allow you to better track your customers’ journey and ultimately predict their future actions. Business owners will find this particularly useful as they plan and target new users. 

Should your company or organization set up Google Analytics 4? 

Yes! 

Using the latest and greatest technology always has its pros and cons. Luckily, Google allows you to run both Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4 side by side. Your company can still use the older version while you learn and get comfortable with GA4. It is important to have GA4 set up and to collect data as soon as possible because it will not pull preexisting data to populate. GA4 is not the industry standard (yet), but using it sooner rather than later will benefit your business’s marketers as they continue to collect data. This tool will be a valuable asset in the future and provide your business a competitive advantage. Google will be sunsetting Universal Analytics starting July 1, 2023. While that may seem a ways off, making the switch now to GA4 would certainly put you and your team ahead of the process.

Have questions about GA4 or getting the most information out of your website analytics? We’re here to help.

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St. Patrick's Day observes the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Today, the holiday is celebrated with parades, special foods, music, dancing, drinking, and a whole lot of green. While many brands take advantage of holidays to create special promotions or campaigns, here are some ways to make your own luck with marketing!

Start Early

The best part about holidays, large or small, is that they are already scheduled for us on our calendars. Don’t get pinched for forgetting to wear green. Expert schedulers suggest planning your holiday marketing up to six months in advance to cover the messaging development, task delegation, and expenses for your campaign.

Do Your Homework

Do you know the difference between a shamrock and a four-leaf clover? The answer may surprise you. Research is the support that undergirds any marketing strategy. If your content is centered around a holiday you are not familiar with, don’t make assumptions – research all that you can to avoid sharing misinformation. Being sensitive to diverse cultures will help make sure your marketing isn't tone deaf or fails to resonate.

Limited Edition Products

It is likely that your products are already pure gold. But limited edition merchandise has the potential to increase your brand's awareness along with what you already have. It can provide sufficient value, improve connection, and increase demand. Commemorating dedicated events and holidays with limited edition memorabilia can leave a lasting impact.

Consider Interactive Content

As opposed to passive viewing, interactive content marketing engages users by requiring them to participate in the process. Eighty-eight percent of marketers credited interactive content for differentiating their brand from their competitors. Whether you are sharing digital surveys and quizzes, or mailing care-packages with branded games, you will want to leave your clients greening ear to ear!

Connect With Your Community

City-wide promotions are a terrific way to expand your brand’s visibility. Sponsorships and providing branded merchandise at events, like St. Patrick’s Day parades, festivals, and 5Ks, can be a fun way to get your business’s name out there. Research the events going on in your community and connect with local organizers to join the celebration!

And there you have it: 5 ways to start making your own luck with marketing. You don’t have to do this alone - 5Points Creative is a full-service creative agency based in Roanoke, Virginia, specializing in marketing, advertising, digital, branding, and communications for mission-driven organizations. For more information, contact us here.

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While it seems like it was just yesterday, I remember back in the ‘80s when my workplace was decorated with those motivational posters featuring a beautiful photograph and a strong statement intended to lift the spirits and inspire everyone. I bet you’ve seen those, too.

I called it: Breakroom Inspiration.

While I’m not sure it really worked, the photos were mighty pretty, that’s for sure. Often the sayings fell a little flat – especially if you were working in an environment that was less than ideal.  At least corporate leadership acknowledged the fact their employees had a significant need for inspiration.

That’s still the case. We all need to get a lift from something – no matter from where it comes.  I like to think it can come from a variety of sources.  When I get stuck creatively I often go back to a file where I keep creative ideas, and look for an approach that might get me unstuck. Or I might find an idea I used in the past, that can now be used to uniquely solve a new problem.

My friend Jim Link, a Minneapolis-based Consultant, wrote a book about this concept and called it “IdeaLinks”(link to book please).  The approach is to store up great ideas and use them to solve future problems you may face in business.

How2Get the Best Answers

There was a time when a member of our creative team saw a sign he liked outside of a restaurant. That particular sign was designed to draw pedestrians into dine. Well, he stashed that idea away. A few years later it was retrieved and became the foundation for one of my favorite marketing campaigns created by our agency. There was also the occasion when I was dealing with a prospect who had gone quiet on me. Remembering the power of coffee, and using our 5Points Creative branding, I sent her a customized bag of java, along with a clever note, to jumpstart the sales process. It worked.

Great ideas are often right in front of us, but sometimes we don’t see them.  Other times they’re tucked away in a folder waiting to be used. Occasionally, when you open that file, there’s an idea in there that perfectly fits the challenge you’re currently facing.  So, if you’re solving a business problem or creating a new campaign, seek inspiration.  Also, be open to finding old ideas that can be used to solve new challenges. No matter what the source.

Perhaps old motivational posters aren’t the answer.  Being open minded, storing good ideas, and giving yourself room to dream, think, and process is usually inspiration enough.

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Your business website is designed with your customer in mind. But have you also considered the possible jobhunters who will navigate your website?

If recruiting new employees is important to the success of your business, the first step is making a good first impression with the job candidates you’re hoping to engage. While it’s essential to attract and convert customers, creating a presence on your website specifically for jobseekers is just as important – especially since most candidates will research your company online before applying or reaching out with questions. If you have an open position at your business, here are five website features that will help fill your web forms with quality applicants.

Start With “Why”

Why does your business exist? It may seem like an unusual question, but your answer is one of the most powerful assets when attracting new talent. It’s the core of shaping every decision you make as a business leader, from hiring to strategy. The concept behind starting with “why” is simple: Applicants really care about why your business is needed and how it is impactful to see if their own values are compatible with yours. Statistics show that 79% of job seekers will consider a company’s mission statement before applying. To attract new employees, start with positioning yourself as a leader in your industry by providing your business’s mission and values on your website. This will help viewers establish a personal connection to your business, and drive applications.

Bring Your Company Culture to Life

Whether you’re a small-to-medium sized business, or one of many large corporations, your company culture is what makes it unique. For most organizations, your website serves as the “windows” through which visitors peek to see what your company is all about. Although being authentic is highly valued by job seekers and potential employees alike, you want to make sure your website represents your business in its truest form. Coming across as too casual, or overly polished and formal, can do more harm than good.

While there's a delicate balance between what your customers and applicants experience through your website, a dedicated company culture page can help target the right candidates. This is a great opportunity to give applicants a transparent look into what future employees can expect. If you’re not sure what to say online about this, an internal deep dive into how your company culture is working (or not working) may be the best first step.

Separate the Experience

Many company websites have a general “contact us” form, but do not have a specific landing page or email address for job candidates. When customers, partnering businesses, and job seekers are all using the same contact form, the data your website collects can be affected negatively. When job candidates need to contact your HR or recruiting team, having a separate experience on how they engage with your company will help to keep customer conversion data separate from job applicants. By creating a separate landing page or form for job inquiries, you’ll be able to gather more accurate data about the people reaching out to you, especially if they’re hunting for an open position at your company.

Simplify the Application Process

According to CareerBuilder, 60 percent of job seekers stop filling out online applications due to their length or complexity. Think about ways you can make the online application process easier for users. Consider including an option for users to save unfinished application forms for later. It is also helpful to offer more than one way to apply, whether it’s on a specific landing page on your website, through a third-party network (like LinkedIn), or in person, etc. The overall goal is to attract and engage job candidates. Making sure their on-line application experience goes well, adds to the success of your recruitment process.

Regularly Update Content

It’s important to update content frequently enough so it’s still relevant, but not so often that you overwhelm candidates (or yourself). Typically, hiring managers will recommend having three to four key pieces of information on your website at any given time—this way people can quickly learn about your company’s open position, and apply for the job easily and efficiently. Having too much information on your website can actually deter candidates from applying because they may be overwhelmed by how complicated it seems to apply for a job. Keeping things simple is always key when trying to attract new talent!

Eager to learn how you can make improvements to your website to attract new talent? Let’s talk!