Marketing automation allows you to handle time-consuming, repetitive tasks with ease. This can be a lifesaver for busy business owners who don’t have the time to be running their business while taking care of all their marketing efforts.
With marketing automation, you can put important campaigns on autopilot, knowing that they will be covered. You just need to make sure that these automated campaigns are set up as optimally as possible if you want to achieve the best possible results and a great marketing ROI.
We’ve put together a list of 10 essential tips and strategies that you need to know when setting up your marketing automation. Follow these tips, and you’ll achieve much better results with each campaign.
1. Set Your Marketing Automation Goals
Before you start creating your marketing automation campaigns, you need to have clear goals that you’re trying to achieve. Without goals, you won’t be able to measure the success of your campaigns or achieve your business targets.
Start by understanding what you want the end result to be, and set this up as an actionable, measurable goal. Then you can start to develop your automation strategy around this.
2. Have a Clear Strategy
You need to have a clear strategy for each step of your automation process if you want to achieve great results. Know what you’re looking for and what you want to achieve with each aspect of your marketing automation strategy. From choosing the right software to tracking results, having a clear strategy will help you achieve your goals far more easily.
Every stage of your campaign creation needs to be strategically optimized. By having a clear strategy in place, you’ll be able to produce far more effective automation campaigns with each step. This includes things like writing the right messages or targeting the right prospects.
3. Align Sales and Marketing
Your marketing automation strategy is all about moving leads down your funnel, to get them to your sales team. Of course, you only want to send qualified leads to the sales team.
When putting together a marketing automation strategy, sales and marketing should work closely together to come up with the best practices for lead nurturing and lead scoring. This will help the campaign to result in more sales.
4. Use the Right Automation Tool
There are a lot of different marketing automation tools out there, and you need to make sure that you choose yours carefully. Different software solutions offer different capabilities, and the one you choose needs to align with the goals you’re trying to achieve.
Try to choose a marketing automation tool that allows you to create lead-generating landing pages, as well as create seamless email campaigns. The best tools should offer features like A/B testing, easy lead management, and email templates. Of course, this should all be able to integrate with the tools your business is already using.
5. Build a List Organically
Your automated marketing campaign is only as good as the email list you use. You need to make sure that this list is full of qualified leads, and that you’re able to send the right content to the right leads.
Firstly, you need to build this list yourself, and not buy it. This might take some time, but buying leads won’t do your business any favors. To do this, you’ll need to generate leads through landing pages, pop-ups, social media, email marketing outreach, ads, and more.
Your goal should be to have a list of leads who are interested in your business and will eventually end up as customers. By targeting qualified leads with the right content, you’ll be able to execute far more successful campaigns.
A good example of a banner to collect more leads
6. Segment Your Leads Properly
You might have built up a strong email marketing list, but now you need to make sure that this list is divided into the right groups. Sending broad, general messages across your entire email list won’t be nearly as effective as sending specific, relatable content to the right individuals.
Use your leads management platform to segment your list accordingly. This can include things like location, the lead’s history with your business, and what steps they took to become a lead. Now you can send personalized content to each lead segment, which will help you achieve far better results.
7. Understand Your Customers
On the topic of segmentation, you should also have a clear understanding of your different customers and leads within your different lists. Creating accurate customer personas for each list will improve your automated marketing messages in a big way.
Understand who these people are, what their pain points are, and how they want to communicate. Building detailed personas will help you to target the right customers with the content they want to see. This will help to move your marketing efforts along much more effectively.
8. Create the Right Content
In marketing automation, nothing actually matters if you aren’t delivering high-quality content. Sending out great content is the only way to attract attention and get your leads to take the right actions.
As mentioned earlier, this content needs to align with the leads you’re sending it to. Make sure that your content speaks to their pain points, offers insightful solutions, and educates your audience.
There are loads of different types of content that you can create. Always make sure that it’s original and of high quality. This will result in more interest and more conversions.
9. Don’t Let Your Automated Campaigns Seem Automated
Using marketing automation shouldn’t stop you from developing relationships with your leads. Just because you’re automating your marketing messages, it shouldn’t feel automated. Make sure that you set your campaigns up to still feel human and personal.
Make sure that your brand’s voice is clear with each message, and that you sound like a human. You want to develop a real connection with your audience. Marketing automation may save you time and effort, but it shouldn’t seem like this from whoever is receiving the content.
10. Start Small and Grow
Marketing automation can become incredibly complex, with many different steps involved. The best strategy is to start your campaigns small, with two or three steps, and add to these as you progress. Instead of setting up everything at once, automate a few processes and gradually build it up.
This is a much more efficient approach to marketing automation, and it can help you to avoid many common mistakes. You’ll also be able to access insights easier, which will help you to optimize and strengthen your campaigns.
Conclusion
Marketing automation is the easiest way to grow your business. It can save you loads of time and effort while helping you achieve awesome results. Follow the strategies listed above when setting things up, and you’ll be able to create amazing marketing campaigns that add more value to the customer. Now you can grow your business with far less effort.
WooCommerce has been a game-changer in the rapidly growing eCommerce arena. By strategically using the right WooCommerce product slider pluginyou can add extra functionality and that much-needed appeal to your website to boost sales like never before.
Are you new to WooCommerce slider plugins and wish to know their features?
Are you wondering how product slider plugins can enhance your sales?
If yes, here’s a list of the top 6 responsive and mobile-friendly WooCommerce product sliders for your WordPress website. So, read on-
1. WooCommerce Product Slider Pro
WooCommerce Product Slider Pro is one of the best WooCommerce product slidersyou will find in the market at the moment. It makes it easy to filter and display tonnes of products with sheer ease.
From best-selling to most-viewed, top-rated, up-sells, cross-sells, and related products; you can feature the products in various categories. Whether you want to display your products by their IDs, SKUs, or attributes, it is all easy with this amazing slider plugin.
More Salient features
Optimized for SEO-friendliness.
Responsive and mobile-friendly.
Numerous themes to choose from.
Seamless navigation through dots and arrows.
Compatible with all the latest versions of WordPress.
Autoplay On/Off feature.
Display or hide navigation arrows and pagination dots.
2. Woo Product Slider & Carousel with Category
WP Online Support’s Woo product slider and carousel with category is an SEO-optimized plugin that helps you create amazing sliders by leveraging easy-to-use shortcodes.
Add as many responsive sliders as you want and take your WooCommerce game to the next level with this Woo product slider.
Unlock a whole new world of possibilities by choosing to make the most of elegant and minimal design styles that make your product stand out.
Features of Woo Product Slider & Carousel with Category
More than 50 design templates to choose from
8 layouts
Sliders for regularly priced products and products on sale
Grid layout
Featured product sliders
3. PickPlugins Product Slider
Created by PickPlugins, this WooCommerce product slider plugin is one of the most popular plugins. If you wish to build a conversion-oriented WordPress website, this plugin is a must-have.
Create numerous product sliders according to your preferences and display them on a page or post simply by using a shortcode. Below are listed some more features of PickPlugins’ WooCommerce product slider WordPress plugin.
More Features of PickPlugins’ WooSlider
More than 30 themes are available including Flat, Flip-X, Flip-Y, Zoom-in, and Zoom-out to name a few.
Set different column numbers to suit different devices. For instance, choose 4 columns for desktop and 2 for mobile devices for impeccable responsiveness.
Control the slider functionality- slider speed, stop on hover, and hide navigation according to your preferences.
4. WP Online Support’s Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce
WP Online Support’s Product Categories Designs for WooCommerce is the next one on the list. This slider plugin has 2 slider layouts with more than 10 slider designs at your disposal. Whether you want to display products in grid or carousel view, this plugin allows you to do that responsively.
What’s more? This plugin with phenomenal capabilities facilitates seamless integration with your favorite page builders including- Gutenberg, Beaver, Siteorigin, and Elementor to name a few.
This feature-rich and robust plugin is compatible with all the latest versions of WordPress and owing to its compatibility with other plugins, you can enjoy a seamless web development experience.
It is astonishingly easy to create and use shortcodes to display products on a specific page, post, or section.
More Features of WP Online Support’s WooCommerce Product Slider
Showcase product count.
Show specific product categories.
2 shortcodes.
Customize the post order.
Display category, title, and description.
Much more.
5. YITH WooCommerce Product Slider Carousel
Enhance the interface of your eCommerce website and transform the way customers interact with your website in an unprecedented manner.
YITH WooCommerce product slider plugin adds a strategic value and aesthetic appeal to your eCommerce website and grabs the attention of your customers. Boost conversions of your eCommerce store by creating various sliders and showcasing specific product categories.
You can also show your slider in the sidebar and make the most of the plenty of features this plugin offers.
More Features of YITH WooCommerce product slider plugin
Various layouts at your disposal
Set the maximum no. of products in a slider
Autoplay
Seamless slider navigation
Show products from one or more categories
6. WPB WooCommerce Product Slider
WPM WooCommerce Product Slider is one of the most sought-after plugins out there. This reliable and simple-to-use WooCommerce product slider is lightweight and easy to use. It adds to the functionality of your website without weighing it down.
If need be, one can use more than one slider and place it on the sidebar.
More Features of WPB’s WooCommerce Product Slider
Product sliders for various categories
Easy to use shortcodes
Modern setting panel
RTL support
Responsive and mobile-friendly
Supports all major browsers
7. WooCommerce Product Carousel PRO
WooCommerce Product Carousel PRO is equipped with a variety of unique features. This is undoubtedly one of the most popular plugins you will find out there in the online space. Display multiple products simultaneously with seamless navigational facilities.
You can re-order the products according to your preferences and automatically select related products according to tags and categories.
More Features of WooCommerce Product Carousel PRO
More than 30 theme styles to pick from.
Display products with a slider, carousel, and filter.
Set number of products per slide.
Change the color of the background, hover, and add to cart button.
More than 8 navigation positions.
Final Thoughts
There is no dearth of WooCommerce product sliders in the market and each of them brings its own set of advantages. You are advised to use your discretion to choose the one that fits your needs the best. The eCommerce market is increasingly progressive and competitive. Choosing the right WooCommerce plugin will help you gain a leg-up in the ever-competitive market.
Hope the post made for a good read. For more information related to WooCommerce product slider WordPress plugins, feel free to get in touch with us.
HTTP Caching is a Superpower — Hugh Haworth covers how the Cache-Control header is an awfully potent ingredient in web performance. I mis-read the title at first and was waiting to read about HTML caching. Hugh covers it a bit (like how you’d need to be careful doing so on something like a forum, where the content on pages changes rapidly), but I find it something that’s generally under-talked-about. As in, generally, people just don’t cache HTML at all, because it changes the most and it’s risky being the parent of most other cache. I only do it now because Cloudflare handles it.
Why it’s okay for web components to use frameworks — I admit it rubs me the wrong way to think of web components as needing a framework at all, let alone being OK with a hogepodge of random frameworks. But Nolan Lawson digs into the nuance here. A couple of kilobytes that might be lazy loaded/code-split out is not that big of a deal, especially since the frameworks might be optimized for runtime performance.
Top 10 performance pitfalls — I probably wouldn’t have guessed any of the things Jake and Surma cover in this top 10 list. My guess is that the low hanging fruit of performance either becomes a bunch of non-issues through technological improvements, or it is generally handled by site owners and hosts and, thus, a new set of problems become the top offenders.
How to Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources: a Deep Dive — Sia Karamalegos: Render-blocking resources are files that ‘press pause’ on the critical rendering path. They interrupt one or more of the steps. You should be super aware of anything that is render-blocking and only render-block on purpose (like critical CSS) rather than letting it happen by accident.
How we reduced Next.js page size by 3.5x and achieved a 98 Lighthouse score — Colin Armstrong covers how dynamically loading assets, reducing the size of assets, and using responsive images goes along way. Fortunately, the tooling to diagnose performance problems and the tools for solving them are largely build into Next.js. The bit about PurgeCSS and Tailwind seems extra pertinant here. I think if you aren’t using PurgeCSS to remove unused Tailwind selectors (or the JIT compiler to only create the selectors you need), you’re basically doing Tailwind wrong. Shipping 350KB of CSS instead of the 10KB you need is not OK.
Improving responsiveness in text inputs — Nolan Lawson covers how to prevent blocking the input event with “expensive” main thread work, using requestIdleCallback to batch UI updates.
Vector? Raster? Why Not Both! — Zach gets the best possible file size by splitting a graphic into two parts: An SVG (vector) for the things SVG does well, and a super-optimized raster graphic (ideally AVIF) for the things it does well, then plopping them on top of one another.
Have you ever fretted that front-end web development moves so fast that if you stepped away for a while, you’d be lost coming back? Rachel Smith has:
The hectic pace of needing to learn one thing after the next didn’t bother me so much because when I was 26 because I was quite happy to spend much of my free time outside of my day job coding. I was really enjoying myself, so the impression that I had to constantly up-skill to maintain my career wasn’t a concern. I did wonder, though, how I would ever take enough time off to have a baby, or have other responsibilities that would prevent me from being able to spend so much of my time mastering languages and learning new libraries and frameworks.
And then, as is inevitable for most of us, she did take a break. And as you read in the title, it was fine:
What I’ve learnt through experience is that the number of languages I’ve learned or the specific frameworks I’ve gained experience with matters very little. What actually matters is my ability to up-skill quickly and effectively. My success so far has nothing to do with the fact I know React instead of Vue, or have experience with AWS and not Azure. What has contributed to my success is the willingness to learn new tools as the need arises.
I might be extra qualified to verify this claim, as I work directly with Rachel. She’s better than “fine” as a team member and technological contributor, both on the front-end and back. She’s extremely good. And you will be too if you heed Rachel’s advice: be a lifelong learner and be willing to learn new tools as the needs arise.
In the ever-changing and fast-moving world of digital marketing, brand storytelling carves out a niche for itself by building bridges between brands and customers.
In today’s digital-oriented world, people tend to feel the absence of human relations which leads them to attach importance to sentimental elements. By using brand storytelling, brands create a connection between their customers and get the chance to introduce their products. But how does that connection is established and what exactly is brand storytelling?
What Is Brand Storytelling?
While the wide usage of the term brand storytelling in the marketing industry sometimes leads to confusion, its meaning is quite simple and literal. By using narrative, brands share their values and the important milestones of their journey with their customers. This exchange creates a connection between the brands and their customers, which strengthens the commitment between the two parties.
When executed properly, brand storytelling enhances the brands’ impact and profit as well as their recognition. In such a crowded marketplace, brand storytelling gives brands a chance to stand out and make a memorable first impression on customers.
The Importance of Brand Storytelling
Via brand storytelling, brands can reach out to their customers and give them insight into their business and the value of their products. Since the marketplace is more competitive and crowded than ever, proper and outstanding publicity will help brands connect with their customers on a trust-based level. By brand storytelling, businesses use their story as a marketing strategy, which helps customers to be a part of the brand’s community and businesses to connect with prospect buyers. Through this connection, brands get the chance to identify their target customers and get their attention with the help of their shared values.
Substantial Factors of Brand Storytelling
In brand storytelling, there are some crucial points every brand should consider before taking any action. Outlining a few baseline facts about their businesses before beginning is a great start for brands that are new to brand storytelling. Defining the company’s vision and history will make a remarkable start and give the customers a chance to learn about the values of the brand and its mission. Following the history of the brand with the introduction of their products or services, brands can now describe their products or services in detail.
At this point, it is of great importance for brands to add some anecdotes and share the interactions providing that product creates. These anecdotes and the stories of the interactions can be used to reflect the difficult parts of the company’s journey, creating a sentimental bond with the customers.
Giving examples of who does the brand help with their service or product and sharing customer success stories is another significant factor of brand storytelling in terms of guiding the target audience. Giving insight into the development and creation process of the product is also a substantial factor of storytelling that helps customers to understand the value of the product. Finishing off, explaining the future of the product and the company in general makes a great end to the story as well as informing the customers about upcoming events and products.
Successful Brand Storytelling Examples
Spotify’s original stories can be shown as one of the most successful examples of brand storytelling, differentiating the brand from others in the most fun and customer-oriented way. By collecting data about their users’ choices, Spotify creates original content for their Insights blog and provides unique stories as well as reflecting the company’s values.
Airbnb’s animated video for New Year’s 2015 takes its place as another remarkable example of effective brand storytelling. In the video, the company announced the number of travelers who chose Airbnb in 2015 and highlighted the most popular Airbnb choices. By telling the story of their company and sharing successful customer stories, Airbnb set a great example of brand storytelling.
When told effectually, stories can create a massive impact on the audience. Brand storytelling helps brands connect with their customers on a deeper level and create long-dated bonds.
It is a perfect way to bring human values back into the marketing world as well as creating important opportunities for brands. In a digital-oriented world like this, sentimental values can go a long way and brand storytelling holds the key to successful and valued customer relationships.
Static site generators are popular for their speed, security, and user experience. However, sometimes your application needs data that is not available when the site is built. React is a library for building user interfaces that helps you retrieve and store dynamic data in your client application.
Fauna is a flexible, serverless database delivered as an API that completely eliminates operational overhead such as capacity planning, data replication, and scheduled maintenance. Fauna allows you to model your data as documents, making it a natural fit for web applications written with React. Although you can access Fauna directly via a JavaScript driver, this requires a custom implementation for each client that connects to your database. By placing your Fauna database behind an API, you can enable any authorized client to connect, regardless of the programming language.
Netlify Functions allow you to build scalable, dynamic applications by deploying server-side code that works as API endpoints. In this tutorial, you build a serverless application using React, Netlify Functions, and Fauna. You learn the basics of storing and retrieving your data with Fauna. You create and deploy Netlify Functions to access your data in Fauna securely. Finally, you deploy your React application to Netlify.
Getting started with Fauna
Fauna is a distributed, strongly consistent OLTP NoSQL serverless database that is ACID-compliant and offers a multi-model interface. Fauna also supports document, relational, graph, and temporal data sets from a single query. First, we will start by creating a database in the Fauna console by selecting the Database tab and clicking on the Create Database button.
Next, you will need to create a Collection. For this, you will need to select a database, and under the Collections tab, click on Create Collection.
Fauna uses a particular structure when it comes to persisting data. The design consists of attributes like the example below.
Notice that Fauna keeps a refcolumn which is a unique identifier used to identify a particular document. The tsattribute is a timestamp to determine the time of creating the record and the dataattribute responsible for the data.
Why creating an index is important
Next, let’s create two indexes for our avengerscollection. This will be pretty valuable in the latter part of the project. You can create an index from the Index tab or from the Shell tab, which provides a console to execute scripts. Fauna supports two types of querying techniques: FQL (Fauna’s Query language) and GraphQL. FQL operates based on the schema of Fauna, which includes documents, collections, indexes, sets, and databases.
Let’s create the indexes from the shell.
This command will create an index on the Collection, which will create an index by the idfield inside the data object. This index will return a ref of the data object. Next, let’s create another index for the name attribute and name it avenger_by_name.
Creating a server key
To create a server key, we need to navigate the Security tab and click on the New Key button. This section will prompt you to create a key for a selected database and the user’s role.
Getting started with Netlify functions and React
In this section, we’ll see how we create Netlify functions with React. We will be using create-react-app to create the react app.
npx create-react-app avengers-faunadb
After creating the react app, let’s install some dependencies, including Fauna and Netlify dependencies.
Next, Let’s see how we can start with creating netlify functions. For this, we will need to create a directory in our project root called functionsand a file called netlify.toml, which will be responsible for maintaining configurations for our Netlify project. This file defines our function’s directory, build directory, and commands to execute.
[build]
command = "npm run build"
functions = "functions/"
publish = "build"
[[redirects]]
from = "/api/*"
to = "/.netlify/functions/:splat"
status = 200
force = true
We will do some additional configuration for the Netlify configuration file, like in the redirection section in this example. Notice that we are changing the default path of the Netlify function of /.netlify/** to /api/. This configuration is mainly for the improvement of the look and field of the API URL. So to trigger or call our function, we can use the path:
https://domain.com/api/getPokemons
…instead of:
https://domain.com/.netlify/getPokemons
Next, let’s create our Netlify function in the functions directory. But, first, let’s make a connection file for Fauna called util/connections.js, returning a Fauna connection object.
Next, let’s create a helper function checking for reference and returning since we will need to parse the data on several occasions throughout the application. This file will be util/helper.js.
const responseObj = (statusCode, data) => {
return {
statusCode: statusCode,
headers: {
/* Required for CORS support to work */
"Access-Control-Allow-Origin": "*",
"Access-Control-Allow-Headers": "*",
"Access-Control-Allow-Methods": "GET, POST, OPTIONS",
},
body: JSON.stringify(data)
};
};
const requestObj = (data) => {
return JSON.parse(data);
}
module.exports = { responseObj: responseObj, requestObj: requestObj }
Notice that the above helper functions handle the CORS issues,stringifying and parsing of JSON data. Let’s create our first function, getAvengers, which will return all the data.
In the above code example, you can see that we have used several FQL commands like Map, Paginate, Lamda. The Map key is used to iterate through the array, and it takes two arguments: an Array and Lambda. We have passed the Paginate for the first parameter, which will check for reference and return a page of results (an array). Next, we used a Lamda statement, an anonymous function that is quite similar to an anonymous arrow function in ES6.
Next, Let’s create our function AddAvengerresponsible for creating/inserting data into the Collection.
To save data for a particular collection, we will have to pass, or data to the data:{} object like in the above code example. Then we need to pass it to the Create function and point it to the collection you want and the data. So, let’s run our code and see how it works through the netlify dev command.
Let’s trigger the GetAvengers function through the browser through the URL http://localhost:8888/api/GetAvengers.
The above function will fetch the avenger object by the name property searching from the avenger_by_name index. But, first, let’s invoke the GetAvengerByNamefunction through a Netlify function. For that, let’s create a function called SearchAvenger.
Notice that the Callfunction takes two arguments where the first parameter will be the reference for the FQL function that we created and the data that we need to pass to the function.
Calling the Netlify function through React
Now that several functions are available let’s consume those functions through React. Since the functions are REST APIs, let’s consume them via Axios, and for state management, let’s use React’s Context API. Let’s start with the Application context called AppContext.js.
Let’s create the Reducers for this context in the AppReducer.js file, Which will consist of a reducer function for each operation in the application context.
Since the application context is now available, we can fetch data from the Netlify functions that we have created and persist them in our application context. So let’s see how to call one of these functions.
To get the data to the application contexts, let’s import the function getAvengersfrom our application context and pass the data fetched by the get call. This function will call the reducer function, which will keep the data in the context. To access the context, we can use the attribute called avengers. Next, let’s see how we could save data on the avengers collection.
The above newAvenger object is the state object which will keep the form data. Notice that we pass a new id of type uuid to each of our documents. Thus, when the data is saved in Fauna, We will be using the createAvengerfunction in the application context to save the data in our context. Similarly, we can invoke all the netlify functions with CRUD operations like this via Axios.
How to deploy the application to Netlify
Now that we have a working application, we can deploy this app to Netlify. There are several ways that we can deploy this application:
Connecting and deploying the application through GitHub
Deploying the application through the Netlify CLI
Using the CLI will prompt you to enter specific details and selections, and the CLI will handle the rest. But in this example, we will be deploying the application through Github. So first, let’s log in to the Netlify dashboard and click on New Site from Git button. Next, It will prompt you to select the Repo you need to deploy and the configurations for your site like build command, build folder, etc.
How to authenticate and authorize functions by Netlify Identity
Netlify Identity provides a full suite of authentication functionality to your application which will help us to manage authenticated users throughout the application. Netlify Identity can be integrated easily into the application without using any other 3rd party service and libraries. To enable Netlify Identity, we need to login into our Neltify dashboard, and under our deployed site, we need to move to the Identity tab and allow the identity feature.
Enabling Identity will provide a link to your netlify identity. You will have to copy that URL and add it to the .env file of your application for REACT_APP_NETLIFY. Next, We need to add the Netlify Identity to our React application through the netlify-identity-widget and the Netlify functions. But, first, let’s add the REACT_APP_NETLIFYproperty for the Identity Context Provider component in the index.js file.
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import './index.css';
import "react-netlify-identity-widget/styles.css"
import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.css';
import App from './App';
import { IdentityContextProvider } from "react-netlify-identity-widget"
const url = process.env.REACT_APP_NETLIFY;
ReactDOM.render(
<IdentityContextProvider url={url}>
<App />
</IdentityContextProvider>,
document.getElementById('root')
);
This component is the Navigation bar that we use in this application. This component will be on top of all the other components to be the ideal place to handle the authentication. This react-netlify-identity-widget will add another component that will handle the user signI= in and sign up.
Next, let’s use the Identity in our Netlify functions. Identity will introduce some minor modifications to our functions, like the below function GetAvenger.
The context of each request will consist of a property called clientContext,which will consist of authenticated user details. In the above example, we use a simple if condition to check the user context.
To get the clientContextin each of our requests, we need to pass the user token through the Authorization Headers.
const { user } = useIdentityContext();
const GetAvenger = async (id) => {
let { data } = await axios.get('/api/GetAvenger/?id=' + id, user && {
headers: {
Authorization: `Bearer ${user.token.access_token}`
}
});
getAvenger(data)
}
This user token will be available in the user context once logged in to the application through the netlify identity widget.
As you can see, Netlify functions and Fauna look to be a promising duo for building serverless applications. You can follow this GitHub repo for the complete code and refer to this URL for the working demo.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Fauna and Netlify look to be a promising duo for building serverless applications. Netlify also provides the flexibility to extend its functionality through the plugins to enhance the experience. The pricing plan with pay as you go is ideal for developers to get started with fauna. Fauna is extremely fast, and it auto-scales so that developers will have the time to focus on their development more than ever. Fauna can handle complex database operations where you would find in Relational, Document, Graph, Temporal databases. Fauna Driver support all the major languages such as Android, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Scala, and Swift. With all these excellent features, Fauna looks to be one of the best Serverless databases. For more information, go through Fauna documentation.
Reflecting back on this time, I think there are a few key concepts that were vital to things finally all making sense and fitting together. These were:
• The Box Model (e.g. box-sizing, height, width, margin, padding) • Layout (e.g. display) • Document Flow and Positioning (e.g. position, top, left, etc.)
From 45,000-year-old cave paintings to 21st-century space rocket diagrams, illustrations have long played a significant role in human communication.
Pictures cross-language and literacy barriers, allowing people to understand and communicate complex moods and feelings that they cannot in words. When we were little, we could understand and appreciate E.H. Shepard’s illustrations of Winnie the Pooh and friends long before we could read A.A. Milne’s words.
The word ‘to illustrate’ has two main meanings: to create a picture of; and to demonstrate or provide an example of. In the context of the web, illustration is part decoration, part emotional signal, helping to create a particular impression to the user by painting a metaphorical picture.
Why Use Illustrations on a Website?
Illustrations provide a useful shorthand means to convey mood or tone, the voice of a brand.
You could argue that icons are illustrations because they are pictorial, but they are symbols. Icons may, and usually should, fit stylistically with illustrations, but they are not illustrations themselves. A symbol is a simplified representation of an object, idea, or action. For example, ‘search’ is usually represented by a magnifying glass shape.
Illustrations, on the other hand, are more complex. They transmit an underlying emotional quality that connects with the intended audience. Illustrations can create a narrative about the subject without the need to add more text. It gives even the most basic, functional website a sense of personality when used properly.
Popular Types of Illustration Online
Illustration styles are many and varied, ranging from simple outlines to detailed, full color, realistic images. And the amount of illustration used varies greatly across sites.
Different styles evoke different feelings and provoke different responses, so it is important to think carefully when choosing an illustration style. There are two major factors to consider: what the site is for and what sort of character do you want to give it.
It is possible to break things down into broad categories to see what works best in different areas. We’re going to look at how designers can use illustration to good effect across four categories…
Financial & Corporate
Financial services, fintech, enterprise software, and larger corporate sites tend to use illustration as a way to humanize themselves.
The style tends to be minimal, using simple shapes and sparingly. Acorns uses a simple oak leaf motif to go with its acorn logo. Other illustrations are tied in by keeping to shades of green.
This creates a feel typical of newer companies (Acorns was founded in 2014), especially those that are primarily web-based.
Longer established, more traditional organizations use illustration for the same purposes, although they may be restricted to certain areas only, where they want to emphasize approachability. Danske Bank, for example (founded in 1871), has illustration on its corporate site in the ‘About’ and ‘Sustainability’ sections.
Visa also limits illustration to a specific area, the section on Visa Direct. This has the effect of separating this particular (newer) service from the rest of what Visa offers.
Another increasingly popular approach in this category is abstract graphics. This is particularly useful when it is difficult to show what is being promoted. For example, Instabase adds arrangements of geometric shapes for visual interest, using the same color palette as the site icons.
One of the key points with illustration in these types of sites is getting the balance right between friendly, human and approachable on the one hand and serious, trustworthy, and secure on the other. Get too cutesy, and potential customers won’t take you seriously. Github’s enterprise page does have some illustration, but the color is less vivid, and Octocat is only alluded to, unlike the home page which is illustration-rich.
Food & Drink
Things get a little freer when it comes to food and drink. Styles vary much more, and the personality conveyed can be stronger and more individual. Some still go for a light peppering of illustration, with aspects such as color and type made stronger, while in other cases, the illustration becomes much more prominent.
Palais Kitchen and Caleño both do the former, with brand-appropriate line drawings.
My Drink’s vintage-style animated illustrations take the place of photographs to balance the text on its home page.
Melopeion Honey doesn’t use very many illustrations, but what it does use is large.
Monkey47 could be described as a concept website, and the illustrations play a key role. (The social media menu is really rather charming.)
Hospitality & Leisure
In this category, what users really want to see is photographs, but illustration can help too. A photograph can only show what something looks like, while illustration can add the extra emotional dimension connected to an experience.
At the minimal end of the scale, Protos Car Rental uses some nice, simple illustrations to emphasize the holiday aspect of its business.
Comptoir Libanais blends photographs with illustration to create a very distinct identity.
Hotel Frida is also about character, and the victorian-style fantastical animal illustrations help create a quirkiness.
Highcourt uses simplified and stylized layout illustrations to give a complete overview of the building’s interior than photographs could.
The Neverlands doesn’t just use illustration; the whole site is an immersive experience based on illustration.
The Responsible Web
Sites promoting ethical and or sustainable companies, natural skincare, natural and/or organic food and drink, vegan products, social responsibility, and so forth tend to rely heavily on illustration, particularly if they are reasonably new.
Quite often, this is in the form of plant drawings that make a lazy allusion to nature, but it can also involve conveying information in a way that doesn’t come across as lecturing.
Wild Souls steers clear of any hint of hippiness, with a sense of randomness to its illustration placement.
Superfood Gin does the plant thing, but it is in reference to the botanical ingredients here, so it is very relevant.
Capsul’in’s main company page is a fairly standard offering, but for its Zero Impact product, it has a separate section with illustrations to help explain the product’s features.
Donate Responsibly uses illustration to explain how well-meant action can be inadvertently damaging without appearing to scold or patronize.
A variety of children’s brands will use illustration — even when it is parents or guardians who are really the target — and Little Yawn Collective combines the child-friendly, and natural product approaches with its sleepy animal illustrations.
Using Illustration on The Web
Illustration can be a powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal, but it can be difficult to get right because it invokes emotion, and emotion is subjective.
Just like type or color, it needs to be used appropriately and with care. Sometimes less is more, and sometimes getting the placement absolutely right can make the difference between a successful design and a flop.
This is just a selection of the wide range of illustration styles and usages out there on the web, but we hope it will give you a starting point when you are considering whether and how to use illustrations in your next project.
The perfect cross-platform serif and sans-serif font stacks — Daniel Aleksandersen has lots of details about pre-installed fonts across operating systems, like: Mac and iOS also come with Helvetica Neue preinstalled. It addresses some of Helvetica’s legibility issues … On Windows, you might find a more modern version of Arial called Arial Nova. Arial Nova makes much the same legibility improvements and compromises as Helvetica Neue.
Pairing fonts – 3 ways to find great typeface combinations — Oliver Schöndorfer says it’s an artistist decision so don’t be afraid to try stuff. But also, do you even need more than one? If so, have a reason. Repeat your font choices as often as you can, and only when something does not work in a given situation, add a new style.
Twitter thread about Really Sans — Riley Cran gets into optical sizing and how Really Sans[…] is a sans serif typeface with two optical sizes. The small optical size works for text. The large optical size revives the tone of the 1970s headlines. I see Riley is using the pricing model based on # of employees rather than pageviews which I love.
Helvetica® Now Variable — I think having major fonts like Helvetica, that a lot of brands rely on, is the kind of thing that pushes the needle on variable fonts forward.
Fonts in the Twilight Zone — John Boardley looks at some rather unclassifiable fonts: Among my favorite kinds of typefaces are those that don’t fit neatly into predefined or existing categories; those that dip their toes into more than one genre, or take their cues from disparate historical periods.
Coding with Character — Doug Wilson looks at coding typefaces: If you spend all day looking at code, letters, and characters—why not make it fun?I’m down.
Despite the roughest year in recent memory, employers and employees can pat themselves on the back. Most remained resilient in the face of minute-by-minute changes.
In fact, figures from a 2020 study from online payroll provider OnPay reveal a general sense of optimism as the pandemic took hold. About three-quarters of workers and executives felt good about their initial handling of pandemic-related concerns.
However, a substantial number of employers who completed OnPay’s survey said they received PPP or CARES Act dollars. Yet those federal funds were meant as a short-term bridge, not a long-term solution to revenue challenges. Consequently, businesses needed to look at ways to trim costs without trimming internal or external customer service.
So if you haven’t moved toward more streamlined operational workflows, protocols, and tools, now is the ideal time. The more your company can trim the fat and scale up (or down) as business fluctuates, the easier it will be to run profitably and take advantage of new opportunities. Here are a few steps the most successful growing businesses are taking.
1. Let machines handle repeat tasks.
Just about every big task is made up of countless little tasks. But is it necessary for your people to do all those little tasks manually? Or could they be automated to save time, resources, and headaches?
According to a 2019 Fortune article, AI-focused researchers believe automation could streamline 30% of most workers’ daily tasks. For instance, the software could automatically populate spreadsheets. Or, chatbots could quickly lead customers to find their own answers without human intervention.
Once thought of as a “job killer,” automation has now risen as a way to free up human capacity. The less your top performers have to repeat mundane tasks, the more time they have to complete high-level assignments.
2. Reevaluate your supply chains.
Every organization deals with some kind of supply chain. Yours might be complex, as in the case of a manufacturer that buys everything from raw materials to finished widgets. Alternatively, your company’s procurement involvement might end with regular office supplies and furnishings.
Though you may be happy with the flow of your supply chain, take a look at the overall numbers. Are there places where you could save money? Could a different supply chain system shave off valuable time, allowing you to make and ship products faster?
Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions when it comes to your supply chain needs. Your vendors may be willing to give you discounts to keep your business. They may also have recommendations to bring down your overall costs, such as placing orders at different intervals. As the saying goes, every little bit helps.
3. Move your company partially or fully remote.
It costs a bundle to operate a brick-and-mortar office. In addition to a lease or mortgage, you’ll pay for utilities, upkeep, taxes, and myriad other things. You may be able to eliminate all those bills by transforming your team into a remote-only workplace.
This isn’t as radical as it sounds, especially if you spent a lot of time in 2020 operating as a WFH crew. A 2021 piece from the Washington Post indicates plenty of leading tech companies are embracing telework for their people. Take Microsoft, for instance. The giant software provider is allowing workers to go remote half the time.
Even if you don’t want to pull the plug on renting traditional office space, you might be able to get by with less square footage. Let’s say your team members only come in three days a week. You could rely upon hot-desking to ensure everyone has a private workstation. At the same time, workers’ schedules could rotate, meaning you’ll always have fewer employees in-house.
4. Remove communication roadblocks.
The faster your employees can communicate with one another and customers, the better. Chances are strong, though, that you have some communication obstacles here and there. Those obstacles aren’t just eating away at efficiency, though; they’re eating away at morale, too.
Consider the case of a customer service employee who can only make minimal service concessions without approval. The time it takes to ask a manager for approval and get back to a customer can seem like ages. Wouldn’t it be better to give the service agent the authority to make decisions up to a certain dollar figure? That way, the agent could resolve customer issues faster and without communication delays.
Even if you think your organization has communication down to a science, conduct a thorough review. Find all the places where communication breaks down or goes into a stall. Then, brainstorm ways to move everything through the decision-making process quicker.
5. Elicit feedback from employees.
Your workers already know exactly where the “fat” in your company lies. Unfortunately, most won’t bring up their concerns because they don’t want to rock the proverbial boat. Rather than waiting for them to give you their insights, ask for ideas.
For example, why not send out quarterly, bi-annual, or annual surveys to your team members? Ask them where their processes and tasks get gummed up. Then, request their solutions. You might be surprised at how innovative their answers may be.
Of course, you have to be willing to both listen to and follow up on any recommendations you receive. This helps keep an open line of dialogue between you and your colleagues. It also fosters a better sense of trust and transparency in your organization as you all “get lean” together.
The bottom line
You’ve made it through one of the most challenging social, economic, and political years on the record books. And you’re almost on the other side. Chances are, you had to adapt and make operational improvements over the past year. Keep that spirit alive by looking for more ways to keep your operations lean. It will make you better prepared for whatever the future holds, and you’ll be well-positioned for more profitable growth.
