April 28, 2020 6 min readOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The following excerpt is from Dan S. Kennedy and Kim Walsh Phillips’s No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing, Second Edition. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound There are just a few plain and simple direct-marketing rules to follow, and by committing to them, you’ll reap the long-term benefits you desire and develop a long-lasting business foundation. These basics are skipped by most businesses using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as their primary sources of communication. Realize you have choices,…

The Covid-19 crisis has hit employees and employment across sectors quite severely. With government employees, and private sector employees taking a salary cut, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has relaxed account withdrawal norms to help employees who are facing fund crunch during these tough times. The new non-refundable advance facility introduced by the EPFO allows subscribers to withdraw up to 75 per cent of their accumulated corpus or “Basic + DA (dearness allowance)” component up to three-month’s salary, whichever is lower. The usual advice is that one should not withdraw from their EPF account because…

The six wound-up debt schemes of Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund (MF) have concentrated exposures to certain companies belonging to sectors such as non-bank financial companies (NBFCs), asset reconstruction companies (ARC) and renewables, closely tying up fortunes of investors with how these companies are able to weather challenges thrown by lockdown and coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. At an individual scheme-level, three of the wound-up schemes — have 9-10 per cent exposure to Shriram Transport Finance (STFC) — which saw its long-term issuer rating downgraded by Fitch Ratings recently, to factor in the asset-quality risks the company faces as…

April 27, 2020 5 min readOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. In March 2020, IHS Markit Chief Economist Joel Prakken announced a popular consensus among economists that the financial stress stemming from the coronavirus epidemic will inevitably weaken 2020 economic growth. In just the past four weeks, over $4 trillion in household wealth has been wiped out in the public markets in the United States alone. As retail investors and institutions brace for further volatility, there has been a consistent rise in the number of people looking to have more control over the situation. This includes personal…

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a prolonged lockdown. We are to stay in the confines of our homes and practise social distancing. Given the stern guidelines, you would have very few reasons to drive your car. If you are working from home, your car is likely to be used only for the weekly or biweekly trips for grocery shopping, or maybe not even that. However, this long period of hibernation and limited usage can have a negative impact on your vehicle. Estimates suggest nearly 30 million vehicles will lie idle. To ensure that your car…

Investment in companies which attempt to follow environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards are likely to be in focus, even as markets swing wildly amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. An analysis of an index which tracks the performance of such companies versus the broader market shows wide outperformance. The MSCI India ESG Leaders Gross Total Return USD Index has done better than the MSCI India Index over one-month, three-month, and six-month periods as well as over longer time periods. The difference in returns has ranged between 0.5 per cent and 6 per … !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');fbq('init','550264998751686');fbq('track','PageView');…

April 22, 2020 6 min readOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The following excerpt is from Robert W. Bly’s The Content Marketing Handbook. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble  A conversion email series typically sends recipients to a landing page that offers more in-depth content or sells merchandise. Depending on whether you’re selling a product directly from your landing page, asking visitors to download a free white paper, or promoting a webinar or demonstration, conversion rates can range from less than 1 percent to more than 50 percent. Here are 10 keys to creating…

My sister-in-law texted two photos to our extended family on March 31. One was of a sign installed on the lawn of the Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, a 183-bed not-for-profit hospital in Woodbridge, Va. It read “HEROES WORK HERE” in big, colorful letters. The other was of my nephew, wearing scrubs, gloves, and goggles, in the entrance to the hospital’s emergency room, where he’s been working 12-hour shifts. We’re all worried about him. We’re also damn proud of him. The daily stream of reports detailing the brave work of medical professionals around the world these past few weeks has…