Will Legislation Limit Location-Based Tracking?

A recent survey by Pyramid Research has valued global location-based marketing services at $6.2 billion in 2015. According to the research, that figure is equivalent to almost 35% of total mobile advertising revenue. But while mobile-savvy brands are undoubtedly enjoying the benefits of this unique approach to reaching consumers, smartphone companies like Apple and Google may soon have to be much more transparent about the kinds of information sharing they do.

Did you know that many of your favorite apps are tracking you without your knowledge? A recent WSJ report found that 47 of the top 101 apps for the iPhone and Android platforms were tracking location data of their users without consent.

To better protect your mobile privacy, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have introduced the first locational privacy bill which would require companies to notify consumers when they collect location information and when they share it with third parties, like advertising networks. In addition, the bill would impose data security requirements for companies that have location information for more than 5,000 devices.

If passed, do you think legislation inhibit the success of location-based services?

Posted by Kate Patton
k.patton@abmmail.com

Supreme Court Hands Victory to Data Industry

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday gave the data industry a big win, by holding in Sorrell v. IMS Health that data collection and use implicates First Amendment protection, and by striking down, as an unconstitutional free speech restraint, a state law that had restricted certain sales and uses of data in order to silence a particular message. 
 
HOW COULD IT AFFECT ABM MEMBERS? 
Many ABM members collect, use and transfer valuable data collections. Prior to yesterday’s ruling, some courts had approved intrusive state regulation of such activities. One federal appeals court had even suggested that data could be as easily regulated as “beef jerky.” The Supreme Court, however, overruled those decisions, and noted the importance of data to the communicative process protected by the First Amendment, thereby considerably strengthening the data industry and protecting it from similar restrictions.
 
WHAT IS ABM DOING ABOUT THIS?
Through its amicus brief and other activities, ABM actively supported data-collection rights in this case. ABM will continue to monitor and fight attempts to prevent or inhibit customary business collection, use and transfer of data.

Click here for more detail.

Posted by Mark Sableman
msableman@thompsoncoburn.com

United States Postal Service and Elimination of Saturday Delivery

Good Morning All,

With the USPS being in such a dire financial situation, they are pursuing every possible means to reduce their costs.

One of those options is to eliminate the Saturday delivery of all mail.  They estimate they could save 3.3 billion dollars annually even though the Postal Regulatory Commission(PRC)  identified only about half that amount.

Postmaster General Donahoe has expressing their desire to customers and Congress on every possible occasion. 

    QUESTON TO AMERICAN BUSINESS MEDIA MEMBERS:

How would the elimination of Saturday delivery affect your business, and do you support or not support the idea?

Thanks,

Jack Widener
American Business Media Postal Consultant
jwidener1@aol.com

Outsell Studies Show Marketers' Frustration

Outsell studies show unprecedented advertiser frustration at the widening gap between what they are convinced is possible in reaching, engaging and converting prospects, and what they actually achieve day to day. The opportunity for publishers to provide and orchestrate solutions has never been greater.

Important Details: Outsell's sixth annual Advertising and Marketing Study shows a big jump in 2011, with 20-30% more b-to-b advertisers highlighting difficulties building an audience on their sites and engaging prospects as drawbacks in buying advertising. The 2011 increases in the percentage of marketers rating the following as problems and drawbacks in buying advertising are:

• Difficult to Convert: +19 points, 82%, a 30% jump
• Hard to Build Site Traffic: +14 points, 77%, a 22% jump
• Too Many Options to Manage: +21 points, rose to 70%, a 19% jump

In addition, Outsell's six years of tracking the factors determining marketers' allocations of their spending has revealed another milestone. Maximizing the Volume of Leads, which was the top ranked factor from 2006 through 2008, was surpassed by the Depth of Lead Qualification in 2009. Lead Qualification remained the most important factor in spending in 2010 and 2011, but for the first time in six years, Maximizing the Volume of Leads fell to third, passed by Tracking Data, now second in importance ratings.

Implications: Outsell has led the industry in identifying and quantifying problems and issues, and helping to guide publishers through the revolution caused by companies diverting more than 50% of their digital marketing and advertising spending to developing their own sites. The rise of greatly expanded marketing services now available from publishers springs directly from this mammoth shift in spending.

But marketers are now frustrated to discover that that it's just not true that "if you build websites, they will come." They are increasingly frustrated that conversion rates are so low. The flood of research which shows that clicks and click-through-rates do not lead to results or revenue, or could lead you in the wrong direction, continues to grow, with one more by Collective in the last week.

Outsell's studies and data - the 19% increase in "Too Many Options" - reveal how the explosion of new options bewilders marketers and swamps their ability to target with precision and convert prospects. Our data also flags up the landmark shift away from decades of mass-market motivated reliance on maximizing the volume of leads toward receiving just the most qualified leads ready right now. 

Furthermore, our data and analysis show that, more than ever before, publishers have the opportunity to step up and compete to fill these voids. Advertisers are frustrated, and they're turning to publishers for help and solutions. Although much remains experimental in publishers' offerings and approaches, the call to action and calls for help have reached a crescendo.  

Posted by Vice President & Lead Analyst of Outsell, Chuck Richard 

Lockout at Canada Post

Canada Post has locked out the CUPW and closed down all operations as of June 15th. No mail is being accepted or processed as of this morning. One of the key questions is how long it will last? The last nationwide work stoppage was in 1997, lasting about two weeks and ending only after the Parliament passed mandatory back to work legislation. Though impossible to predict the length of this one, a bad indication is the lack of compromise up to this point.

Below is some detailed information published from Canada Post. We will update you as new developments are received.

Lockout at Canada Post – What It Means To Customers

Following 12 days of increasingly costly and damaging rotating strikes being carried out by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), Canada Post has suspended operations across the country.

The following is an overview of what the lockout situation means to you as customers:

Mail Deposit and Delivery

• All mail processing plants and letter carrier depots are closed and all facilities have been secured. No new mail will be accepted. Large volume mailers cannot deposit or receive mail.
• Mail delivery is suspended to all addresses served by letter carriers represented by the CUPW (Urban). Some mail delivery will continue over the first few days of the lockout to clear mail remaining in the system in suburban and rural areas where delivery employees are represented by a different bargaining unit.
• Street letter boxes, mail slots on community mail boxes and other Canada Post mail-receiving equipment have been cleared and sealed to prevent mail from being deposited.
• Through a previous agreement, Canada Post and CUPW will ensure that a number of socio-economic cheques will be delivered on June 20. Please visit canadapost.ca/cheques for more information.

Post Offices

• All post offices staffed by CUPW members are closed.
• Post offices located in suburban and rural areas staffed by members of the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants (CPAA) continues to be open but cannot accept new mail.
• Authorized dealer post offices are also open but cannot accept new mail. Some dealer post offices may be operating at reduced hours.  
• Post offices that remain open offer limited products such as MoneyGram and Money Orders but no new mail will be accepted. Many open post offices will also have parcels and other mail items delivered prior to the lockout available for customers to pick up.

Electronic Services

• Canada Post’s website, canadapost.ca, is fully operational and offers up-to-date information on the labour situation.
• The Electronic Shipping Tools and Online Business Center are operational, but some functions may be limited.
• Epost is fully operational and remains a recommended tool for consumers to use for important communications and to receive statements and effect payments to many financial institutions, utilities and retailers.

Service Guarantees

• Effective immediately, all service guarantees are suspended, pending resolution of the labour situation. Check product terms and conditions on canadapost.ca for more information.

Duration

• Canada Post cannot predict how long the current labour situation will last. They are making every attempt to reach a settlement and resume normal operations as soon as possible.

Posted by Jack Widener
American Business Media Postal Consultant

 

50 Social Sites You Need to Know

There's more to life, or social media for that matter, than Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Focus.com research has unveiled 50 social sites that every business should have a presence on or at least be in-the-know about. The list is divided into five parts: social-media/social-bookmarking sites, professional-networking sites, nice social-media sites, general social-media sites and job sites. Finally, a one-stop-shop for advertising, recruiting and networking resources!

Posted by Brittany Agro
b.agro@abmmail.com

Going Global

Results from a recent study, commissioned by the Public Relations Global Network, show that marketing and communications executives are "going global," with seven out of 10 saying their organizations currently have, or will have in the next five years, a global marketing function.

The survey of 206 communications professionals at agencies, corporations and non-profits across six continents reveals that 43% say their organizations already have a formal global marketing function. Of those without one, more than half expect to have one in the next five years.

Half of the executives surveyed regularly develop relationships with marketing/communications professionals in other countries:

• 30% interact at least once a month
• 20% interact three to four times a year
• Similar percentages establish global connections with external clients or customers of their organizations, and with representatives of other organizations

The industries from which corporate communicators were most likely to connect globally were:

• Manufacturing (27%)
• Commercial and professional services; media; food/beverage; and tobacco (each cited by 20% of respondents or more)

Respondents who engaged in regular global contact said the benefits were:

• Increased awareness of their organization's brand (50%)
• A more positive attitude toward their organization (49%)
• Increased support of their organization's business objectives and strategies (44%)

The biggest barriers to global communication were culture and language, each cited by more than 40% of respondents.

Posted by Brittany Agro
b.agro@abmmail.com

Email Open and Click-Thru Rates

Even as email volume has grown dramatically over the past year, open rates and click-to-conversion rates also have been rising, according to a recent study by email service provider Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association. In response to this study, here are some thoughts on factors driving the recent growth in open and click-thru rates:

1. Smart phone adoption
2. Email client changes (images were blocked by default suppressing open rates though people were reading it. Now most users have added email addresses to the safe sender list which prevents automatic blocking of images)
3. Better segmentation (targeted newsletters) and best practices (subject line, abstract testing and preview pane optimization)
4. Text email formats (negligible portion of the subscribers requesting text)

Means to the industry: Email will continue to be a strong marketing channel after falling a little behind over the last five to six years because of issues including privacy and email client changes. The general population is also open to more emails given the ubiquitous access thanks to email on the go (smart phones and smart devices, etc.), which wasn’t the case even few years ago.

Impact on B-to-B: Combination of Behavioral + Demographic data will help drive engagement and make email a key growth asset for b-to-b companies. Email Optimization efforts are likely to move from product to customer centric (each person/group might get a different version of the newsletter based on click-thru patterns and interest expressed.)

Posted by Karthik Krishnan
Elsevier - Health Sciences
Senior Vice President & General Manager, Pharma Solutions

Home Is Where the Deal Is

Have you ever sold your home? Once you’ve lived in it for a while and it has all the comforts of home? If you’re like me, you imagine how potential buyers are going to admire the kitchen, the yard, even little things like the switch plate covers. You hire a broker, get your home listed on www.realtor.com or wherever, put the cinnamon apple pie in the oven and hold an open house. You’re ready to wow them!

And, every gawker has a subtlety – or completely – different view of the very same house. What they love or hate, what they’d keep or change. If you could see a mind-video of how each person imagined your home, it would be a disorienting experience. Then someone finally steps up, pays the highest price, and in return, has secured his or her dream house.

Have you ever sold your company? The one you’ve honed to top performance, with every competitive edge. We went through this process last summer with Canon Communications. The buyer, United Business Media, saw an opportunity for continued growth, but from a very different perspective, and they’ve remodeled the company to address that opportunity. For example, UBM has extensive trade show operations in China, Japan, India, and Brazil, all areas where Canon had or was looking to establish a foothold for its MedTech shows; UBM will grow these shows much more quickly.

So, now I’m one of those gawkers scouring the listings, knocking on doors, imagining my “dream company.” And in this period of rapid change, finding the most appealing features of a company isn’t the way it used to be. Imagine looking at a home during a period of rapid global warming – a waterfront property may be much less appealing than a house a mile inland! Those wood-burning-fireplaces may be worth avoiding! 

I’d like to keep you posted on my progress. Unlike homes for sale, the process of selling a company is often kept highly confidential. Therefore, I’ll have to keep pretty non-specific and talk at a fairly strategic level. But, maybe that will make the discussion more fun…

Posted by Charlie McCurdy
Apprise Media, LLC