Reducing consumer friction may be an obvious trend. But it ranges from the quite literal elimination of steps taken on a website to making a variety of everyday tasks easier for the consumer.
The less obvious is the amount of time, attention and resources being given to the creator economy. It’s growing massively and companies, non-profits and organizations across the board are looking to help assist a growing market segment.
Even The Smallest Changes That Help Consumers Can Make A Big Difference
According to an Experian/Atomik Research study, consumers are actively taking steps to cut costs with 56 percent of survey respondents revealing they’ve nixed unnecessary expenses within the last three months.
As consumers continue to seek new ways to keep money in their pockets, Experian is a resource offering various services that could make saving a reality. With a CreditWorks™ membership, consumers compare auto insurance policies, find the right credit card and lower recurring expenses.
Consumers can comparison shop to potentially find a better rate on their current policy and save big on auto insurance, sifting through tailored rates from up to 40 leading and well-established auto insurance carriers. The free credit card marketplace matches consumers’ financial information against lender’s requirements to match them with the tailored offers.
And members can stop overpaying and start saving by getting help with negotiating lower rates on eligible monthly bills. The company claims it achieves an average savings of $263 for its members. Experian negotiates the cost of eligible bills directly with many providers like Spectrum, AT&T, DirecTV, and SiriusXM.
Small changes can make a big difference. Regpack, an automated billing platform that also enables onboarding has found that their users saw an average of 30% more revenue and a drop of 35% in account receivables by using their advanced billing features made for the service industry.
With the rapid advancement of billing and payment technologies, customers now expect their checkout process to be seamless and include a variety of options for easy check-out.
The same principles are true in lending. Today’s consumers expect a quick, simple digital application and decision process. If a financial institution, their client, is hesitant to invest in the complete transformation of core banking systems, they recommend taking an incremental approach.
Any steps toward improving the lending process yield immediate and long-term gains for your business and they offer an entire suite of products to get them there.
ibml, made a major acquisition of IntelliScan to help the global market leader in high-volume, mission-critical digitization and intelligent document processing (IDP) solutions, expand service coverage to meet high-volume digitization needs of customers. The addition of the IntelliScan portfolio allows ibml to grow the combined business and serve its combined customer set.
The real growth for a lot of companies right now is in helping to reduce or eliminate the friction caused by the acceleration of data on the backend or the acceleration of consumer expectations on the front end.
Major Investments In The Creator Economy
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.4 million new business applications were filed in 2021, outpacing any other year on record. Wave, the leading provider of financial software for small businesses, is particularly focused on meeting the after-effects of the pandemic – the disruption in traditional in-office 9-5 jobs and a rise in creative entrepreneurship. A Wave report shows that 51.1 million people in the U.S. work independently today, and creators are one of the fastest growing segments of side businesses.
People are getting creative and using technology in new ways to start entrepreneurial side hustles to boost their incomes, work more flexibly, and create a lifestyle that works better for them. Wave and The Shorty Awards have partnered to create the Elevate Creatives Fund which will provide a financial boost to creators looking to grow sustainable businesses.
The fund of $100,000 will be distributed among five recipients, each receiving $20,000, along with personalized bookkeeping and accounting coaching from Wave’s experts. The recipients will be selected based on the merit of their work, creative aspirations and contribution to their communities.
Adobe is also focused on giving voice to creators big and small with both their Creators to Watch list and their new Changemakers series working with those that work on important causes. To mark Mental Health Awareness month, a Changemakers video partnered with Ayushi Chhabra, senior producer and co-host at Showbiz India, who is using Adobe technology and the show’s influence to open up conversations around mental health in South Asian communities.
Then there are those helping creators maximize revenue. PJ Taei, founder of Uscreen, is a college dropout turned success story that has become an authority and expert in video monetization strategy using his platform to help creators gross over $500 million in revenue.
“Video-on-demand, combined with a monetization option like a subscription or one-time sales of videos, is the next generation of e-commerce. And the same way e-commerce completely restructured our everyday lives – video is here to further that monopoly over our attention,” said Taei. As the creator economy booms and sees more high level support the growth of edutainment will continue to increase.
Finally, with a rise in entrepreneurship and creators comes an ever more tangible need for better education around the subject. Sarah Hernholm, a former educator, created WIT as the only college credit social entrepreneur and leadership course in the country for high school teens. There are now thankfully more and Hernholm asserts the mission is to eventually not need to exist because there are so many opportunities out there.
Their hackathons nationwide with partners like Google and Toyota create exposure and help teens and tweens start businesses. But they are also coupled with real-life advice so needed for aspiring entrepreneurs. They also have college-credit courses focused on financial literacy teaching Financial Life Cycle, Credit & Methods of Payment, Budgeting & Financial Statements, Insurance, Taxes and Investments.
