Off to the Races: The 4 Coins Competing for Crypto’s Top Spot

coincentral.com

To date, there are well over 1000 cryptocurrencies in the market attempting to change every industry from bananas to finance. However, a few coins have consistently been on top in a race to be named the world’s number one cryptocurrency.

In this article, we’re going to analyze some of the competitors and outline why they have the potential to be number one.

Bitcoin/Litecoin

Our first competitor is actually a pair of teammates. Bitcoin has long been the leading cryptocurrency, but trends have started showing that this may not be the case for long. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin dominance is at an all-time low – just 35% of the market. This is vastly lower than the 85% market dominance it had at this time last year.

Increased interest in altcoins and a split Bitcoin community are just a couple of the reasons behind a possible fall for the king crypto. Recently, high fees and slow transaction times have caused many crypto enthusiasts to look into other coins for their day-to-day use.

Litecoin with the assist. Although a fork of Bitcoin, creator Charlie Lee has stated that Litecoin works best as a transactional complement to Bitcoin’s use as a store of value. As Bitcoin implements the Lightning Network and the two coins become interchangeable through Atomic Swaps, it’s possible for Bitcoin’s scaling issues to be a thing of the past.

If the duo successfully implements these second layer solutions in a timely manner, it’ll be difficult for the other competitors to overcome the Bitcoin brand and first-mover advantage held by the current champion.

Pros

• Bitcoin has a proven track record. It’s survived numerous attacks over the years and has shown to be a secure blockchain solution.
• Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency to a lot of people. Unless you’ve done some research, you’re probably not even aware that other options exist.

Cons

• The community controversy and constant hard forks are slowly chipping away at Bitcoin’s credibility.
• If the scaling solutions are ineffective or too slow to be implemented, people will continue jumping ship to other coins. More and more alternative coins are entering the limelight, and investors are realizing that there may be something better.

Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin with a simple change – an increase in block size from 1MB to 8MB. Supporters argue that this scaling solution is closer to Satoshi Nakamoto’s true vision of Bitcoin. Larger blocks can hold more transactions which generally lead to lower fees and faster transaction times even as the network scales.

Currently sitting at #4 by market cap, there have been a couple times since the fork that it looked like Bitcoin Cash may overtake Bitcoin. The closest “flippening” attempt occurred in November 2017. At that time, Bitcoin Cash reached ~35% of the Bitcoin price on a few pieces of news:

• Cancelling the SegWit 2x fork
• Mining power shifting from Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash
• More companies adding Bitcoin Cash support

If Bitcoin still has scaling issues even after the implementation of the Lightning Network, it could be likely that people switch over to next big coin with the Bitcoin name. By switching over, they get the battle-tested security of the Bitcoin network as well as the potentially low fees and fast transactions needed for everyday transactions.

Pros

• A lot of the technology that makes Bitcoin so great and secure is the same in Bitcoin Cash.
• Miner support is critical in maintaining network security. If Bitcoin Cash becomes substantially more profitable to mine, a shift in mining hashing power away from Bitcoin could be a major catalyst in the two currencies switching places.

Cons

• Larger block sizes tend to lead to more centralization around the large-scale mining farms that run the network.
• Some people view larger block sizes as a linear solution to an exponential problem. Bitcoin Cash may have to continuously increase the block size as the network grows.

Ethereum

Many people argue that Ethereum has the best shot at overtaking Bitcoin as the top market cap coin. Instead of daily transactions, Ethereum’s primary value is as a payment method to use the Ethereum network for functions such as smart contracts. Both Ethereum and Bitcoin can easily live in harmony.

Ethereum is currently the second largest coin comprising about 18% of the market. Several popular coins, called ERC20 tokens, are built using its network. Examples of these include OmiseGo, Augur, and FunFair.

There’s strong evidence to support an Ethereum market takeover. Currently, over 1 million transactions are taking place on the Ethereum network each day. That’s over 4 times the amount of Bitcoin transactions.

Also, Ethereum appears to have a much more unified community with a clear strategy to address scaling issues. Vitalik Buterin, the coin’s creator, has begun implementing solutions such as sharding and a shift to a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm to continue and improve Ethereum’s architecture.

Pros

• Ethereum has a community with strong leadership and an aligned vision. On top of that, the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance includes some heavy hitters with a vested interest in seeing the coin succeed.
• The network is already processing more transactions than Bitcoin, a lot more.

Cons

• Ethereum’s scaling solutions are still unproven for the most part. A surge in network traffic, as seen with CryptoKitties, still causes significant congestion.
• Smart contracts are tough to write securely. The DAO hack and Parity wallet bug prove that even if the Ethereum network is secure, the DApps built on top of it may not be.

Ripple

Ripple may be the most controversial coin in the crypto community. This coin is a favorite of banks and other financial institutions, but opponents argue that its centralized nature is the complete opposite of what cryptocurrency stands for. Whichever side you’re on, it’s clear that Ripple is still a solid contender in this race.

Early this January, Ripple rose astronomically in price to an all-time high of over $3.20 to briefly overtake Ethereum as the second largest coin. Continued announcements of partnerships with banks and companies like MoneyGramlead many to believe that Ripple could eventually end up on top.

Pros

• Ripple has the support of several major banks and is the preferred choice for the financial industry.
• Ripple transaction fees and times are substantially better than Bitcoin.

Cons

• Companies aren’t required to use the Ripple token (XRP) when using Ripple payment technology. The technology could grow in popularity without the token following suit.
• The Ripple company holds the majority of the XRP tokens. This puts an unproportionate amount of control into the hands of just a few people.

Conclusion

With Bitcoin dominance slipping, it’s entirely possible that by this time next year we may see a new face at the top of the market. The coins mentioned here are just a few of the currencies that could establish market dominance, though. 

Because the cryptocurrency market is still relatively young, an unknown coin today could easily be the next big thing tomorrow. With the pace the market is moving, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a long-term champion that hasn’t even been created yet.

This article was originally published at CoinCentral.com: https://coincentral.com/top-cryptocurrency-race/

Five Essential Multichannel Marketing Tactics for 2018

marketingprofs.com

Many marketers double-down on two or three channels that they know will yield a positive ROI. But ignore other channels, and you risk missing wider audiences.

Your customer is everywhere—and often all at once.

But the multichannel marketing landscape is getting harder to manage. No wonder, according to Adobe, that only 14% of organizations are running coordinated marketing campaigns across all channels.

In 2018, multichannel marketing will be more important than ever, so here are five tactics to include in your your multichannel marketing and customer experience strategy this year.

1. Targeted, Personalized Content

Personalization must be present across all touchpoints of the buying experience, including your content.

Imagine visiting a close friend and being offered a choice of coffee, cola, or wine. If you don't drink caffeine or alcohol, you'd think this friend doesn't know you at all.

When visiting Amazon, you don't see the same front page as everyone else. You see a page tailored to your needs. If Amazon serves you the products you're most interested in, you have a better experience and the company is more likely to make money.

Zulily, an e-commerce store for gifts, also takes that approach with its home page, using purchase history to determine which products are displayed: 

Image courtesy of AddThis

If you don't have easy access to purchase history, you can take a similar approach by displaying unique content to different audience segments. Apply this approach to all marketing channels, and you'll likely achieve a higher rate of engagement.

What Is Personalized Content?

Different people have different objectives when they come to your site. It's your job to understand these intentions—AKA customer intent—and deliver the right experience to specific users.

For instance, a jewelry seller could segment her audience as illustrated below. She would then know how to create personalized messaging for customers with different behaviors:

Serve different landing pages, value propositions, and calls to action based on user variables, including the location of the visitor, keywords used to search for your content, time of day, customer history, the device being used, and more.

BedBathStore used that type of personalization to increase conversions. Its site displayed various products and ads based on the needs of visitors:

The result? Conversions rose 10%.

Personalized content shouldn't be exclusive to your owned media. It should also be a part of your distribution and advertising efforts. Gather insight into your customers so that you show them the right message wherever they may be.

How to Use Personalized Content

Implementing a good content personalization strategy begins with using the right tools. The solution you choose will depend on your industry and value proposition.

Begin by identifying which elements will inform each personalized message. Audit your current traffic and make a note of customer behavior on various channels.

Using your tool of choice, create a handful of different segments based on these conditions. Make this manageable by starting small, and scale up as you see results.

For example, you could create personalized messaging for your top five organic keywords or highest performing AdWords ads.

Analyze the results, and practice ongoing optimization. Keep auditing your traffic, and create more segments. The more personalized your content, the higher your conversion rate will be.

2. Notifications

As inboxes become more and more cluttered, marketers have had to find other ways to reach audiences.

This is where notifications come in. For the sake of this article, we'll split them into two types: Web push and mobile push notifications.

What Are Web Push Notifications?

In early 2015, Chrome released a feature to send Web notifications to users through their Web browsers.

When you land on a website that has this feature enabled, you'll see a call to action that looks like this:

If you click "Allow," the website will be able to send you browser notifications when it has something noteworthy to share with you. Web notifications look like this:

Image courtesy of The Verge

Notifications constitute a tremendous opportunity for marketers.

By convincing people to subscribe to browser notifications, you increase the chances that they will revisit your site. Send these messages only when there's something truly worth sending, such as an especially useful blog post or feature release, to avoid spamming your users.

What Are Mobile Push Notifications?

If you're an avid social media and mobile user, you've likely seen these before. Push notifications are messages that appear on mobile devices and can pop up even when an app isn't running.

For example, a news app can send push notifications when breaking news occurs. Or a social media app can alert users when they've been mentioned or tagged in an update.

Mobile notifications work like SMS messages, but they are sent only if a user has downloaded your app. There are no spam filters for notifications, and the clickthrough rates can be higher than email's.

Image courtesy of 12 Minute Athlete

Businesses in any industry can use mobile push notifications. If you have brick-and-mortar locations, you can send push notifications when a user is nearby, offering them an incentive to walk into a store.

If you rely on time-in-app as a metric of success, you can use push notifications to increase retention. Give users a good enough reason to come back, and your app retention will improve over time.

Send notifications when customers have left the app in the middle of a process or during cart abandonment. Give them a discount or a reminder that they haven't completed their order.

To increase retention, Office Depot reminded customers of its next-business-day delivery policy, assuring them that they would get their goods in a timely fashion:

Retention is a constant struggle no matter what business you're in. Mobile marketing is now non-negotiable, and push notifications are an effective way to encourage customers to return to your app or site.

3. Social Media Retargeting

Regardless of the channel (e-commerce sites or social media), retargeting is usually a relatively inexpensive method of paid customer acquisition. Whether you're trying to amplify content or increase sales, now is the time to get on board.

A good way to get started is to target your existing audience using Facebook ads. When you set up a campaign through Facebook's custom audiences feature, you'll be given a snippet of code to apply to your website. After users visit your website, and subsequently visit Facebook, they'll be serve specific ads on the social network.

Serve different ads to different segments for the best results. For example, if a visitor reads a blog post but doesn't take further action, you can serve an ad for content further down the funnel.

Or, if someone spends time on a product page but doesn't buy, you can serve offers or a discount for that particular product.

It's easy to get started. Visit the Facebook ads manager,, click on the menu at the top of the page, and head to "Audiences" underneath "Assets." Once there, select "Create a Custom Audience":

Select "Website Traffic," and give the pixel a meaningful name. You'll then see the following screen:

As you can see, we've selected website traffic from a specific blog post, defined under the "URL equals" dropdown, allowing you to serve ads to anyone who visits this page and this page only.

Next, click on "Create Audience" and continue through the wizard. Doing so will generate a traffic code. Place that code on every page on your website using a WordPress plugin or the help of your developer.

Retargeting is effective because it targets only those who have already engaged with your brand. They are much more likely to act and move along your funnel, resulting in a higher ROI for your efforts.

4. SMS

Reaching your audience through SMS isn't new. Yet for such an effective platform, it's still vastly underused in many industries.

SMS is inherently permission-based, and therefore not spam. Your customers and users have requested that you send them messages. Moreover, most people read their text messages regardless of who sends them.

When sending SMS messages, the first rule is to include a URL (or even phone number) as a call to action. Your website should already be mobile responsive. You can't use flashy buttons, so a URL is the best way to get recipients to act.

As with most marketing, timing is key. Send SMS messages when a customer is about to decide whether to buy. They can also be used to reactivate lost customers. Glue Store did that by alerting customers about its latest sale:

Image courtesy of SL Interactive

As you can see, Glue Store not only made good use of timing but also included a (trackable) call to action. It was short and direct, and it gave a compelling reason for the recipient to visit the website.

5. Messenger Bots

We're still a long way from actual AI's being a scalable and affordable asset in business. Until then, messenger bots may be the next best thing.

The way we communicate online is evolving, and bots are getting attention. Facebook is getting things started with bots for Messenger. Amazon's Alexa is also leading in the AI field, acting as a virtual assistant for the home. For marketers, the most accessible opportunity is in the field of automated help.

This channel acts similarly to a telephone switchboard (e.g., press 1 for sales, 2 for customer service), only it's much more dynamic and faster to use.

"DOM" by Domino's Pizza is one example of a brand's using messenger bots to engage with customers:

Image courtesy of Buzz

When customers install the bot, they can order and track pizza deliveries right from Messenger. The bot gives prompts and helps guide users, which are best-practices across all messenger bots.

E-commerce brand Spring offers another example. Its bot guides users through a series of questions, finding clothes that match their fashion tastes:

Image courtesy of Forbes

There are two ways to get started with Messenger bots: hire a developer or use a tool to help you build one.

Flow XO and Chatfuel are promising solutions. Both are easy to use and quick to get started with, and they offer multiple integrations. You can even offer human intervention if needed.

Messenger bots take customer experience to a new level. You're creating a scalable customer service team on a platform that consumers use daily. And right now, it couldn't be easier to get started.

Conclusion

Multichannel marketing means getting in front of your customers wherever their attention is. The organizations that do so are generating great results.

The technological hurdles are getting even lower. By investing in these technologies now, you're setting yourself up for greater success in 2018 and beyond.

With the Rise of Self-Care Apps, Here’s How Marketers Can Respectfully Join the Space

adweek.com

A new era of apps catering to help people with their mental health is here. And boy, do we need it.

Social media apps have gotten a bad reputation; even Facebookrecently admitted it might be bad for you. But with the continued expansion of our reliance on technology, perhaps then it’s not entirely surprising that there’s been a mini-boom in the self-care app ecosystem over the last couple of years. These self-care apps want to turn your phone into a force of good that’s less about likes and filters, and more about you and your actual happiness.

Such apps cater to a variety of issues and ailments, including Mend, that helps you get over a breakup; Moodnotes, a mood tracker rooted in clinical psychology; and Shine, a daily motivational text service.

While most of these apps don’t currently offer ad opportunities, nonetheless, marketers have begun to take notice.

Shine's co-founders Naomi Hirabayashi and Marah Lidey.

“By tapping into this uncrowded, but highly scalable space, marketers and advertisers can identify and better understand these unique consumers and find specific ways to distribute a brand’s message when they appear most receptive to hearing it,” said Lauren McAndrews, director, mobile marketing at Havas Media’s Mobext.

That’s already begun, with some brands creating effective, brand awareness partnerships in what most would consider an ad-free space. Take Headspace, a popular meditation app, collaborating with JetBlue; the airline includes more than a dozen of the app’s guided meditation sessions as part of the inflight entertainment (IFE).

“We decided to partner with Headspace as we saw a unique opportunity to provide JetBlue customers with fun and entertaining guided meditation sessions to elevate their well-being on board,” said Caroline Kelly, head of content and partnerships, IFE, JetBlue.

Kelly said that Headspace’s mission aligns with JetBlue’s “goal of inspiring humanity.”

While the self-care app category is relatively small, a number of marketers and agencies see its growth potential and are jumping on board now—especially since the apps zone in on the individual.

“I expect more [self-care apps] and it will be a continuing trend on focusing on the individual and one’s mindfulness and one’s individuality,” said Pehr Luedtke, svp of Valassis Digital, a marketing and advertising company.

That said, the nature of this particular space means that marketers need to exercise caution and proceed with sensitivity around the topic (without over-commercializing it). It’s such a personal experience, said Luedtke, that the advertising needs to be just as personal—and relevant.

“The bar for quality is ever increasing,” he added, noting that marketers need to focus on the quality and relevance of any message that’s shared, as well as figure out how to reach consumers in both a physical and behavioral environment.

He may be onto something. After all, as Edrick Dorian, co-founder of Thriveport, the parent company of Moodnotes, explained that before apps, there were CDs, books and videos proffering self-help—with the category generating an estimated $9.9 billion.

The new technology just offers consumers a new delivery system. “These kind of apps allow people to have ready access to the tools and knowledge to help them achieve their well-being goals and do so in a way that’s discreet,” said Dorian.

THE APPS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Shine 
The app helps instill positive habits through a daily text with inspirational content and tips to handle anxiety or boost self-confidence.
Subscriptions: $7.99 monthly, $59.99 annual

Moodnotes

The mood-tracking and journaling mental health app uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help users cope with upsetting situations.
One-time fee: $3.99

Mend 

This app offers ways to help you get over your breakup. Users go through an average of about six sessions a day.
Subscriptions: $9.99 monthly, $59.99 annual

Headspace
LeBron James and Gwyneth Paltrow praise this meditation app that’s designed to bring a sense of calmness to your life.
Subscriptions: $12.99 monthly, $96 annual, $399.99 lifetime