#and there’s a general scarcity of goods people may keep what we see as trash

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

have you ever considered the wasteland is so dirty and full of litter bc in this universe America’s culture never touched on how horrible it is for the general populace. it’s kind of obvious to us now that littering is bad, the environment needs saving, but there’s been PSAs and Keep America Beautiful campaigns and italians crying in buckskin for us to get to this point. and lets not forget that your current environment may seem very clean, but a lot of that is not due to how well the average person tosses their trash, but because there are workers on a local level who pick up litter on highways, sidewalks. people come every week to pick up your personal trash. what would you do with everything you toss if someone did not come once a week to magically whisk it away? i know there are street sweepers sitting in disrepair in fallout 3, so there was at least some level of keeping things clean in the city. but I can’t remember seeing any posters or anything similar about picking up your trash, etc. on the individual level.

#also some of you are like ‘WOW the wasteland is SO DIRTY’ #and then post selfies w the dustiest ass baseboards ive ever seen in my life #meaning: everyone also has their own level of clean and clutter #and its not that crazy to imagine in the wastes where a lot of other things are more important #and there’s a general scarcity of goods people may keep what we see as trash #see: people who’ve lived through various depressions n recessions #i think though people do not give enough credit to how much cleaning is done by your local sanitation workers #like…. i wish my city would allocate some money to that public service #instead of banning plastic bags and making me have to go buy tiny trash bags :’\ #but LIKE that’s the point isn’t it. instead of giving us a service or hindering a business its pushing the brunt of it onto the consumer #but now im getting off on a tangent #btw if you come onto this post and even breathe a word of AKSHULLY FALLOUT DOESNT TAKE PLACE IN DUH NINETEEN FIFDIES #i will kill you full stop #fallout

[peterstestkitchen]

Circus Peanut Peanut Butter

Rating: 5/5 ~ 16 votes

Time: 5 minutes (omnivore, unhealthy version), 7 minutes (vegan, unhealthy version), 1 hour (vegan, healthy version)

Every Thursday when I was a kid, my mom would plop me and my brother down at the local library for children’s storytime. When it was over and the head librarian had dismissed us, I would roam the library in order to gaze upon my favorite library things: the model ships, the strange YA cartoon books, and the aisle where every book had a blue sticker of a man smoking a pipe. When mom showed up again and it was time to go, a video cassette—the Star Trek episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles,” usually—was clasped between my grubby paws. In my brother’s, the latest installment in the Hank the Cowdog children’s book series. Ahh… just thinking about the VHS section and I can smell the polypropylene-imbued air sure to be found when in close proximity to the clamshell case palisade!

Come spring, a box of circus tickets would appear on the library counter suspiciously close to the checkout machine. The circus was coming to town! ...And our parents would never let us go. ...Until the day they did.

In truth, I don’t remember much from the circus. It wasn’t in a tent, it was in the town’s hockey arena—and poodles took the place of elephants. In fact, I didn’t even eat circus peanuts while there! Get this, my dad bought a box of Cracker Jacks—for himself! However, this was the genesis of my love affair with the circus. Sorry, honey. There’s someone else… and his name is Barry Lubin! (Barry Lubin is a famous clown.)

Fast forward to the near present and after getting the quarantine spring jibblies, I finally snapped and declared, “If I can’t go to the circus, well, in fact, I’ll bring the circus to me!” (Side note: still to this very day I have only been to the circus once. It’s more about having the feeling that I could go to a circus if I wanted to, rather than the feeling of being barred from a yearly ritual. After all, circuses are generally banal and raise many animal treatment issues. Again, it’s the romanticized circus I like. The Idea of Circus.) So I decided to acquire some circus peanuts, having never actually tried them before.

“So, from where did circus peanuts first appear, even?” you ask. Well, it appears no one knows. They are believed to have come onto the confectionary colosseum sometime in the 1800s, making them one of the oldest continuously produced candies. Well, I shouldn’t say continuously produced, as they originally were a seasonal treat before better packaging techniques were invented! Thank you, science! :) My best guess is that they originated as an ersatz peanut product, similar to how the hazelnut was used as a filler with which to cut chocolate products during a cocoa scarcity in Italy during WWII. (More talk about hazelnut spreads below!) Whatever the case, this homemade recipe is on scale! :) Okay, so back to business.

Acquiring circus peanuts in quarantine was a bit harder than expected. Every store I visited was sold out: Fleet Farm, Walgreens, Kwik Trip—all out! Alas, toilet paper wasn��t the only thing people were snatching up! Curse you, omnivores! (Side note: lest we forget this pandemic would have never happened had the world been vegan. I don’t think it’s wrong of me to suggest that everyone who consumes animal products from factory farms should have to pay the unemployed vegans an extra $600 a month. Why should I, a humble plant eater, pay for the mess of the omnivores yet again? Stop eating meat, y’all! Factually stated, 41% of all land in the United States is used for livestock! What a fuckin’ waste! And excusez mon français!)

So instead of continuing on a wild goose chase to find these golden eggs, I decided to take a radical approach and make my own circus peanuts. (Plus, I found out after Googling around that circus peanuts aren’t even vegan! For shame!) This is where things start to get a little tricky. You see, I’m a bit of a health nut. Well, maybe a little more than a bit of one... I may be a full-on health peanut! Peanuts like me would never eat something so processed anyway... But who’s to say I can’t have a taste of the circus in a healthy, vegan way? Why not make homemade circus peanut peanut butter? And better yet, why not use duckweed as a base instead of circus peanuts? You get all the goodness of the circus but in a spreadable way with all the health benefits of the most nutrient dense plant known to humanity. For yumzeez! :)

World’s healthiest food

For those who only know duckweed from smelly retention ponds, duckweed (also known as water lentils) is actually a great food for humans. It has more protein than soy, has many antioxidants, and is a natural source of B12. Get this, the bacteria that make B12 grow in a symbiotic relationship with the plant! Question: How neat is that? Answer: That’s pretty neat! And by the way, omnis, B12 comes from bacteria in the dirt that vegan animals eat. Given that most cows and chickens eat feed that’s been washed, these animals too have to be given vitamins—the meat you eat is trash :) 

So I finnicked for a long time to get the duckweed circus peanut peanut butter spread consistency right (we’ll save that process for a different post!), bought some peanut-shaped molds from eBay, found some food coloring in the back of the cabinet, and I was off to the races! Err, Circus! I had done it! I had made circus peanut peanut butter! Granted, it tasted more like an artificially flavored banana salad than candy, but it’s the thought that counts!

So… days go by and I get tested and find out I don’t have the coronavirus. Yipee! Time to see my folks! ...But I couldn’t serve that to my family. They’d think I’d lost my marbles! So instead, I came up with a more palatable, albeit less healthy, option. Instead of duckweed, I would use Trader Joe’s brand vegan marshmallows, dye them to the proper color, and mold them in shape. Then I could serve my folks organic, gluten free, non-GMO circus peanuts, or I could blend them to make totally delicious circus peanut peanut butter. Then maybe make a circus-y themed fluffernutter? Mmmmm!

And there’s even an option for the omnis among us: get real circus peanuts and follow the same procedure. (Just know if you do that, the gelatin you’ll be consuming will be from the bones, skin, and hooves of dozens of different cows or pigs.) For simplicity’s sake and also because I am collaborating with an omni for this post, we ended up going with regular circus peanuts. She had already purchased the circus peanuts before I could alert her that it had to be vegan. My bad! :^O “’Tis better to use the food you have than to let it go to waste.” Plus, they were Spangler brand, the classic choice for circus peanuts!

Aforementioned, I called in the big guns: food stylist, chef, event planner, and artist, Kendal Kulley. Check her out on Instagram! She assisted me as we made her favorite sandwich with the addition of my favorite ingredient: the Circus Peanut Peanut Butter and Pudding and Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich! First, take lightly toasted Whole Wheat bread (100% whole wheat works best). Then, slather a thick layer of homemade circus peanut peanut butter followed by a smathering of lemon pudding (Snack pack brand is my favorite, lemon is her favorite flavor (within the Snack pack brand family)). Next, add a sprinkling of hemp hearts for a bit of protein and roughage—not to mention polyunsaturated fats!

After that, Kendal likes to add a squidge of chocolate flavored peanut butter or hazelnut spread to thicken the whole thing up. Please note that I do not condone the use of most flavored peanut butters or products like Nutella as they often contain palm oil, a cash crop leading to rainforest deforestation. The same goes for cocoa. Instead, I propose we continue to advocate that the UN apportion monies to residents of poorer rainforested countries so they can live comfortably and keep our biggest source of oxygen intact. I’m happy pitching in a handful of dollars every year if it means I can keep breathing clean air :)

Then, simply close it up and enjoy! Buuuuuuut, if you’re feeling really ambitious like we are, you can make… wait for it… a TRIPLE DECKER! Just repeat the process over again with a third slice and add it on top! YUM. Cut it in half and there you have it! A perfect guilt-free (provided you followed the vegan duckweed version and omitted the peanut butter and used a more hearty bread) lunch item! Bon appétit!

I hope you enjoy this recipe and let me know in the comments how it turned out! It shouldn’t take any more than five minutes if doing the omni method (grrrr!) and about one hour for the healthy vegan method. It makes one jar worth and will last three to five days in the refrigerator—but it never lasts that long! Oh, and if you do end up having sandwich leftovers, it works great for a morning hash! But again, I, for one, almost never have leftovers! :)

Peace!

Peter 

Omnivore version (unhealthy):

Ingredients:

1 package Spangler brand circus peanuts

4 tbsp water

If making chunky, set aside one circus peanut to mince in a food processor or with a knife. In a large bowl, add the circus peanuts and water. Microwave for two minutes on high or until the circus peanuts have expanded to twice their size. Serve immediately or add to an airtight container.

Vegan version (unhealthy):

Ingredients:

1 package Trader Joe’s brand vegan marshmallows

4 tbsp water

2 drops natural banana flavor

4 drops orange food coloring

In a large bowl, add the marshmallows and water. Microwave for two minutes on high or until the marshmallows have expanded and softened. Mix in the food coloring and natural flavor and microwave for another minute. Add to mold and set sit until at room temperature. When fully set, add to Vitamix and blend until desired peanut butter consistency is achieved. Serve immediately or add to an airtight container.

Vegan version (healthy):

Ingredients:

6 cups fresh duckweed

4 tbsp flaxseed meal.

4 drops natural banana flavor

12-18 drops orange food coloring

If making homemade duckweed, follow these instructions and skip the next step. If collecting from a pond, read on. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. In an Instant Pot or lesser pressure cooker, steam the duckweed for one minute on high pressure with the valve set to sealing. Do five minutes of natural pressure release. Blend in the Vitamix with food coloring, flaxseed meal, and banana flavor until it becomes a fine mush. Put in peanut mold. Place in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the peanuts have mostly dried out. Put back in the Vitamix and blend until you have the desired level of consistency. Serve immediately or add to an airtight container. 

Captions:

Oh look! An ant wanted to join us! Hello, little ant!

Comments:

Feel free to email me your comments and I will add them below :)

OMG this looks so goooood!

Thanks for the post, Peter! I just wanna say that I too used to go to the circus with my family every year and loved it! I will try this recipe ASAP.

[minnievirizarry]

How To Optimize Email Template For Better Engagement

Securing subscribers for your email list is great, but increasing engagement from your email marketing campaign (using clever email template) is the ultimate goal.

Increasing engagement leads to improved conversion rates at every stage of the sales funnel. Take the Taleo corporation as an example.

They reported an additional 30% of visitors converting to qualified leads, thanks to the power of lead nurturing emails.

It requires preparation and thought. Stagnant email campaigns won’t get you conversions. To increase your ROI, you must craft emails to trigger engagement.

Then you can watch the sales roll in. As Gartner Research reports, you can increase your revenue by at least 10% within 6-9 months of using automated email campaigns to interact with your subscribers.

Optimizing Email Templates

Here are some helpful tips, tricks, and proven best practices to persuade subscribers to get involved with your business by utilizing the below email template techniques.

Subject lines for your email template

All emails are judged by their subject lines. If the subject sounds spammy or uninteresting, your emails will be relegated to the trash. Worse, 69% of email recipients send emails to their Spam folders solely based on their subject line. It is no exaggeration to say: The fate of your email marketing campaign lies on the subject line.

Here are five email template tips to help write magnetic subject lines recipients love to open:

Keep it short and simple

Keeping subject lines to 40 characters or less isn’t just easier for your reader’s eye, but it also means the full subject line will appear on mobile devices instead of the annoying ellipsis (...).

A subject line that says “Thank God It’s Friday!” is less effective for getting an open than a simple “TGIF!” according to Constant Contact.

Use a familiar sender name

If your emails are displaying an authentic sender name, it is more likely to be opened. Receiving an email from “Frank at (name of company)” appears less like spam and more like legitimate correspondence.

If you are using an automatically generated sender name like “Jin Jo <[email protected]>,” you are asking to be labeled as junk mail.

Use a partial reveal of contents to tantalize recipient

For example: “The number one product of 2017 was…”

Use action verbs

A/B test subject lines to discover what works best for your demographic

Segment your subscription list and send the same email, only with a different subject line, to each list.

For example, send one email with the subject line “We miss you” and another with the subject line “Where have you been?”

Once deployed, you can analyze your data to see which email obtained the highest open and click-through rates.

Marketing email body copy

Second only to subject lines, email body copy plays a vital role in triggering engagement.

Smartphones have rewired brains to crave instant gratification and, according to some sources, have even diminished attention spans down to a paltry 8 seconds.

That is less than that of a goldfish.

Nobody has the patience for wordy, long-form email body. No one.

Write crisp, persuasive copy easy to scan with the eye

Break messages into subheadings and bulleted lists

Use italics and underlines strategically to highlight any important message

Like I just did there. Because no one has time for nonsense.

Here’s an example from Uncommon Goods.

Note how the copy uses various fonts, font sizes, and emphasis to grab your attention and make for easy scanning.

The sentences are short, to the point, and even include a bit of humor.

At first glance, email copy should be simple, easy to read, and visually appealing. Images should load rapidly.

And properly. No one is going to wait around for your picture to load. Literally. You have mere seconds to make an impression.

A staggering number, about 43% of people, prefer to access emails through mobile devices.

Triple-check to ensure your copy formats properly on all device types.

Not sure how to do that? Use a testing service such as Litmus.

Litmus allows you to input your email template into their system and, with the click of a button, it checks that it will format properly across different mobile devices, browsers, and operating systems.

If your copy fails the Litmus test, you can adjust your email according to their suggestions and re-test.

Once your email passes, you can send your email knowing it will be perfectly viewable for customers regardless of which device or browser they are viewing it on.

Incentives inside email copy

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Everyone wants something for nothing.

We’ve all heard these popular adages over the years. They are popular because they are pithy and TRUE.

When a subscriber opts in to your list, they do so because they are intrigued by your business. And also because they want something out of it.

They are likely expecting to see discounts, reminders, and valuable content in their inbox.

Give them what they want. That’s what they signed up for.

If you don’t meet their expectations, expect an unsubscribe.

A well-timed welcome email complete with discount code works exceptionally well.

The incentive and thoughtfulness will likely win you your first sale from the customer.

Check out these examples from Wistia. They do a fantastic job of grabbing attention, making the new subscriber feel welcome, and encourages them to return to the site without being pushy.

There must be a value exchange with every email.

Subscribers are spending their valuable time reading your emails. Compensate them for it.

In addition to traditional discount codes, consider offering eBooks, whitepapers, or other types of content which give value to your relationship.

Attractive offers lead to improved click-through rates of up to 34%, transaction rates by 27%, and general revenue by almost 50%!

Disclaimer: Don’t saturate your emails with offers. Maintain a high demand for your business by invoking scarcity and personalizing offers to subscriber needs.

Social sharing and email outreach

Social media is a prime way to increase engagement.

A report by Statista shows 81% of people in the United States alone have social profiles across various mediums.

You can’t ignore social media.

What you may not realize is that you can obtain peak social media engagement through email marketing simply by including active icons and incentives.

Be blunt and ask subscribers to share your email offers in their newsfeeds.

One idea: Send a 10% discount code to your subscribers, but increase that to 15% if they share a link on their newsfeed.

Sweeten the offer by throwing in free shipping if their followers subscribe to your list from the link.

Not only does this increase engagement rate, it also puts subscribers in a position of being a brand ambassador AND multiplies the size of your audience with ONE EMAIL.

Call-to-action (CTA)

An obscure call-to-action is the same as no call-to-action.

When creating call-to-action buttons for your email template, be sure they are:

Visually distinct from the copy

Action-oriented and clear

Short. No more than 5 words

Shaped and in contrast to the rest of the email

Effective CTA’s are clear, visible, and actionable.

They are a “fast pass” to take readers to your website instantaneously.

Without any distractions. Take a look at this prime example from Square:

The call-to-action used by Square is short, visually distinct, uniquely shaped, and action-oriented. Perfect.

One other piece of advice: make sure your landing page loads quickly.

No one is going to wait around for your information to appear.

Personalizing every email

Everyone likes to feel special.

This is the power of personalization.

When marketing email campaigns are done correctly, they address individual problems based on location in the buyer's’ journey.

If they are browsing, show them products they may be interested in.

If they abandoned their cart, give them an incentive (and link) to return and complete the purchase.

If it’s their birthday, send a gift.

People open emails appearing to be written with them in mind.

Sending one-size-fits-all emails to your list is a fast pass to spam.

Personalization is easy with list segmentation through email automation software such as Triggmine and Ninja Outreach.

Segment subscribers into lists by location in the buyer’s journey and regularly adjust based on purchasing behavior.

This information is easy to obtain through website analytics or data gleaned from pop-up forms tastefully embedded into your site through conversion rate optimization (CRO) software like Picreel.

Sense of urgency

When an emergency hits, adrenaline takes over.

There are mere seconds to make a decision, and one can only hope it is the correct one.

Creating a sense of urgency in marketing emails improves ROI by forcing conversion.

It incorporates basic psychology and applies the same principle used in successful infomercials.

Consider adding a deadline or product countdown in your next email.

Doing so forces the subscriber’s brain to act fast - or risk losing out.

Including a “buy one get one” offer for a limited time in your email template exponentially increases the odds of converting a lead to a sale.

Try it and watch your engagement rate escalate:

The company Edible Arrangments saw an 8% boost in same-day orders when they sent out an email with an embedded timer.

Credo Mobile sent two emails as an A/B test, one with a countdown and one without. The result? The email with the countdown timer received a 14% higher click-through rate.

Other email template optimization

Be vigilant that 53% of emails are opened on mobile phones as per a Litmus report.

With so many people checking their email on smartphones, it is essential that your messages are optimized for a wide variety of devices.

Even more alarming is according to Fortune magazine, within the next two years, there will be 2 billion iPhone users.

New Apple Mail updates place an unsubscribe link front and center of each email.

It is more important than ever to make sure emails are optimized for the mobile viewing experience if you wish to increase engagement.

Here are a few simple tips for mobile optimization:

Select simple images that will load quickly

Use responsive templates

Break up your text

Use bigger CTAs

Ensure your email template message can be seen in landscape and portrait formats

Always assume subscribers are viewing your emails on their phone.

They are in a hurry after all. Frame your content accordingly.

Branding cue

Offer a consistent look and feel to your emails.

You have a brand. A philosophy. A mission statement. So make sure your emails broadcast that image.

Maintaining a consistent design to your emails offers a sense of familiarity to subscribers.

They begin to recognize names, logos, and color schemes both within and outside of their inbox.

Brand consistency in email marketing goes a long way in nurturing your relationship with customers.

People respond best to familiar brands and products. Especially in post-purchase follow-up emails.

Over time, if the style of your emails is maintained, recipients will respond to the familiarity, making them more likely to open, click, purchase, and return.

Feedback

Surveys are a tremendous way to glean insights into your customer’s psyche.

There are many ways to gather customer feedback including:

Pop-up forms on websites

Survey emails to recent unsubscribes

Post-purchase customer satisfaction surveys

Surveys can identify weakness in email campaigns and marketing strategy so you can improve upon them in the future.

Email marketing should be in a constant state of progression and evolution.

Small tweaks and adjustments can make all the difference in keeping readers engaged.

Listen to subscriber feedback and make the requested changes. By reacting to your subscribers’ feedback, you are illustrating the value they hold in your relationship. Interacting with subscribers is key to ensuring a lasting relationship and increasing engagement.

Back to fundamentals

If your car won’t start, do you immediately assume the engine has failed?

No.

You first check the gas, fuses, and other small-ticket items before you assume the worst.

The same goes for email marketing. You can try all the tricks in the book, but first, check the basics.

Make sure to check analytics to see which subscribers are receiving emails and which addresses are dead ends

Examine the accuracy and efficiency of autoresponders

Confirm that you have a genuine sender score (Your sender score is a number from 0-100 that identifies your reputation and how well mailboxes view your IP address)

Ensure you haven’t been identified as a spammer

Crosscheck the layout, structure, and formatting of emails

Check all images and links to make sure they work and load properly

Analyze data and insights regularly from automation software such as conversion, click-through, and bounce rates to determine how you can continue to improve

Putting thought and preparation into your email marketing campaign will reap countless rewards. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and consider what attracts them to businesses in your industry.

With a bit of effort, you will see engagement (and conversions) steadily increase over time.

Tonya is a Content Manager at TriggMine, email marketing automation service. She believes that email marketing rules and content is the king.

The post How To Optimize Email Template For Better Engagement appeared first on Ninja Outreach.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://ninjaoutreach.com/email-template-for-better-engagement/