Crucially, Adobe has signed on a number of key launch partners for the product including Google (GOOG) and Research in Motion (RIMM). By the first half of next year, consumers can expect Flash on nearly every smartphone operating system including Google’s Android, Nokia’s (NOK) Symbian, Palm’s (PALM) webOS and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile.  (Hopefully iPhone will be soon also!)

This is GREAT NEWS for Digital Marketing Center customers.  The release of Flash on mobile devices will allow users of the Digital Marketing Center to send recipients video e-mail messages and interactive multimedia presentations using the E-mail Marketing Center and Presentation Generator capabilities.

Return Path, a New Media Gateway partner, has secured a deal with MySpace to ensure that the new social networking email service upholds the same high standard as ISPs.  MySpace will also be implementing Return Path Certification to make sure that MySpace members get the email they request.  That means that Return Path Certification partners (such as New Media Gateway) will receive VIP access into the inboxes of millions of MySpace users in addition to the largest and most respected whitelist program in the email universe.  Additionally, MySpace will contribute data to the Return Path Reputation Network, the cooperative database that powers Return Paths Sender Score service.  This announcement in addition to New Media Gateway's already leading social networking capability through its recent Sharethis integration continues to keep New Media Gateway at the bleading edge of marketing technology.

New Media Gateway continues to leverage its platform as well as integrated partner relationships to maximize return on investment for our clients. 

Americans reluctant to be tracked

Despite the concerns of some consumers and privacy advocates, marketers have defended behavioral targeting on the basis that Internet users would prefer to look at relevant advertisements and offers.

But a study from researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Annenberg Public Policy Center reports just the opposite.

“Contrary to what many marketers claim, most adult Americans (66%) do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests,” according to the paper. “Moreover, when Americans are informed of three common ways that marketers gather data about people in order to tailor ads, even higher percentages— between 73% and 86%—say they would not want such advertising.”

Respondents showed somewhat more interest in receiving personalized discounts and news, but still, less than one-half of Americans wanted any tailored Web content at all.

That was true of consumers in every age group—even young adults ages 18 to 24 were more likely to say no to behavioral targeting than to accept it, except for discounts.

Several earlier studies reached different conclusions. For example, ChoiceStream consistently found from 2006 through 2008 that at least 70% of Internet users were interested in seeing personalized online ads. And more than one-half of Web users surveyed by Q Interactive in March 2009 said they would prefer to receive targeted advertisements based on their personal data in order to enjoy free content. Most also said they would view an online advertiser favorably because of ads tailored to their interests.

More than two-thirds of respondents to the Annenberg/Berkeley study felt they had lost control over their personal information. At the same time, however, they believed businesses handled their data well and that they were already protected by current regulations.

Even so, marketers hoping to avoid regulation through industry self-policing may have an uphill battle, as most respondents were in favor of new legislation. Almost two-thirds (63%), for example, thought there should be a law requiring advertisers to immediately delete information about their Internet activity.

October, 2009
Emarketer: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007121

Small Businesses Get Social

Strength in numbers.

It is not just big businesses that are communicating with customers using social media.

According to a study by Sage Software and AMI-Partners, more than 260,000 small businesses in the US and Canada employ social networking tactics, too.

Most of them used professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn. General social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook were also widely used, followed by niche communities and job sites.

Less popular were microblogging services (such as Twitter and Yammer), forums, wikis and social bookmarking applications.

The reasons for adopting social networking tactics varied, but the most widespread uses of social media were for responding to customer questions, networking, and reference and educational purposes.

While few used the sites to influence purchases, this may be a strategic error. Direct sales are one way to leverage social media marketing.

An exclusive-to-Twitter promotion brought in 15% of the day’s business, Jeff Leach of Naked Pizza told Advertising Age. “Sure, there’s the brand marketing and getting-to-know-you stuff…but we wanted to know: Can it make the cash register ring?”

Ad Age offered five tips for marketing on social media platforms:

• Track sales made on social media.
• Don’t use Twitter as Facebook (and vice versa).
• Create a conversation with friends and followers.
• Sell last-minute inventory.
• Alert followers to changes.

These are the two primary drivers as to why New Media Gateway's DMC Multichannel Marketing Platform is in such high demand.  This article provides more insight into the conference.

Article: The Future of Digital Marketing -

The Future of Digital Marketing conference, presented by Econsultancy, is an annual fixture on the London marketing calendar. This year’s gathering again boasted a number of stimulating presentations, as well as heated discussion.

After the opening keynote, four hour-long sessions were devoted to the travel, financial services, retail and publishing industries.

These were the themes of the day:

The Future of Digital Marketing Is the Future of Marketing

Digital channels are increasingly crucial for all advertising and other communications with consumers. In fact, the word “digital” is becoming superfluous.

The Future is Unknowable—But It’s Already Here

Few speakers were prepared to predict the future. But speakers and delegates seemed to share a sense of what it will be like.

Within a few years, one or two genuinely new technologies will burst on the scene. But most “innovations” in marketing will be new applications of technologies already available, such as using Google Earth more to provide local context for travel destinations online, or using augmented-reality programs in mobile phones to display full product and price information for items viewed in the physical world.

Respect Is Key

In a world of behavioral targeting and the mountains of information being amassed about Internet users, transparency is more important than ever.

Top tips:

• Relevance for consumers means respecting their declared preferences, the explicit permissions they give and their right to privacy. Take the high ground.
• Give people access to their own information. That breeds trust and will lower resistance to marketing messages.

Going Back to Basics

A recurring refrain in all the industry sessions. Marketers of all stripes, dogged by the recession and overwhelmed by the plethora of digital tools and channels available, need to get the essentials right.

Top tips:

• Website optimization. Know what’s working, and fix what’s not. Ease of use for consumers is increasingly important. Make sure navigation and content are efficient and up to date, and remove dead links.
• Consistent, end-to-end branding.
• Ensure your products, services and USP are crystal clear to consumers.
• Make simple, clear calls to action.
• Set deadlines and keep them. Work backward from where you want your business to be in six months to establish marketing plans. If you can’t see reaching the goal you set, rethink the goal.
• Concentrate on home markets first. Get those right before rolling out elsewhere.
• Search: It may not be sexy, but it remains “the lifeblood of marketing.”
• Don’t average cost-per-click data over entire campaigns. To see underlying patterns, you need to get granular.
• Make your money go further. Assess the media you own (content assets, Website and so on), the media you buy and the media exposure you earn (mentions in major newspapers or industry news sources, for example). Maximizing coverage of your owned and bought media in the press can multiply your exposure many-fold.

Basics Aren’t Enough

Somewhat paradoxically, this theme went hand in hand with hard advice on Web analytics, clarity, brand consistency and leveraging existing assets. Many speakers stressed the importance of getting beyond the predictable and the merely adequate to deliver an unexpected, higher-value consumer experience—aka “magic.”

Top tips:

• Think high value, not high volume.
• Avoid fake personalization. If you claim to act on your customers’ declared interests, make sure it shows. Tailor content to your site visitors and the recipients of your e-mail campaigns.
• Empower your advocates, and provide tools they can use to spread the word.
• Cool tools are best, such as iPhone applications or widgets that make key activities portable, easily accessible—and fun.
• Use an element of surprise to spark excitement and interest. If you run a travel site, delivering one unexpected, intriguing option in an otherwise predictable list of hotels in Florida can remind users of something often forgotten these days: Serendipity is central to the online experience.

Dennis Mortensen, COO of Indextools and author of the VisualRevenue blog, wrote a great piece this weekend entitled What and how to measure Online Travel and Hospitality websites.  Go read it immediately...you'll be glad you did.

Here's an excerpt:

Knowing your visitors is an extremely important consideration for the success of your Web site or online marketing strategy. Addressing your key audiences and providing them with relevant information is one of the key aspects of any travel and hospitality site. If your site does not speak directly to each of these audiences, you will lose most of them to the competition.

Link to full post.

The thoughts below may seem like basic ideas, but you might be surprised how many people forget these three little rules. It is always good to take the time to refresh your thoughts. It may help close your next deal.

1. Face negatives that come up along the way. It is always safest to tell your client "please let me look into that and get back to you." Have the client focus on priorities and let them know it's in their best interest for you to investigate appropriate information.  

2. Know how to "close" the sales call. It's a special skill to turn your conversation with a prospect into an action that takes the sales process to the next step. Do you end your call with a request for a follow-up meeting, or ask permission to submit a proposal?

3. Negotiating is simply part of the process. The sales manager needs to insure your client that you have the best product out there in order to begin any negotiation. If the sales manager enters the discussion unwilling to negotiate, chances are the deal will not happen and no one moves forward in a win-win situation.

 To read the full article click here.

Return Path, a New Media Gateway partner, has secured a deal with MySpace to ensure that the new social networking email service upholds the same high standard as ISPs.  MySpace will also be implementing Return Path Certification to make sure that MySpace members get the email they request.  That means that Return Path Certification partners (such as New Media Gateway) will receive VIP access into the inboxes of millions of MySpace users in addition to the largest and most respected whitelist program in the email universe.  Additionally, MySpace will contribute data to the Return Path Reputation Network, the cooperative database that powers Return Paths Sender Score service.  This announcement in addition to New Media Gateway's already leading social networking capability through its recent Sharethis integration continues to keep New Media Gateway at the bleading edge of marketing technology.

New Media Gateway continues to leverage its platform as well as integrated partner relationships to maximize return on investment for our clients. 

Earlier this wee, the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation approved S. 1023, the "Travel Promotion Act of 2009." The bipartisan legislation, led by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and John Ensign (R-NV) creates a public-private partnership with a budget of up to $200 million annually to attract international travelers to the United States by better communicating America's security policies and competing for visitors. According to an analysis by Oxford Economics, the program could drive $4 billion annually in new spending by international travelers to the United States.

Roger Dow, president/CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, was of the many travel industry professionals that praised the act. "Our nation's economy is struggling and international travel promotion is part of the solution. This much-needed legislation will help the United States to create thousands of new jobs and welcome billions in new spending by international visitors."

The Travel Promotion Act specifies that travel promotion would be paid for by private sector contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers from countries that do not pay $131 for a visa to enter the United States. The legislation requires no contributions from U.S. taxpayers. Similar legislation was introduced in the Senate and passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, but did not receive a vote before the Senate adjourned.

Overseas visitors spend an average of $4,500 per person, per trip in the United States.

For more information, visit www.poweroftravel.org.

How People Share Online Video

Digital WOM

In a world of continuous technological change, the concept of “new” can get old.

Take online video, for example.

A few short years ago, the term “online video” was wishful thinking. Clips could only be slowly downloaded. They had to be viewed in tiny windows on the computer screen. Sound and graphics were primitive. Video was hardly a killer app.

But then, in a rush came—sometime between 2005 and 2006—YouTube in the US, Dailymotion in Europe and Tudou in China, video-sharing sites that all had three basic elements in common:

• Flash Player technology that enabled instant viewing in the browser, without downloading
• Upload-ability that made file-sharing with friends (as well as viewers around the world) quick and easy
• Embedding code that allowed users to post video clips on Webpages and blogs

Suddenly video was an open, consumer-driven platform, with virtually no cost of entry. As a result, online video moved from niche to mass market, and in the process became one of the fastest-growing media platforms in history.

According to “The Global Web Index,” from Trendstream, with research conducted by Lightspeed Research, early this year 72% of US Internet users watched video clips monthly—making video bigger than blogging or social networking.

According to the survey, 62% of US Internet users watched at least one clip a week, a figure that Lightspeed analysts translated into 97 million weekly viewers.

By contrast, Nielsen Online pegged the number of US online video viewers in April at nearly 117 million.

That scale of usage would mean online video in the US is now as big as network TV.

“This research shows that in just three years we’ve reached a watershed in the way that consumers expect to watch, contribute and share video content,” said Tom Smith of Trendstream. “Web users want to participate at every stage, including the creation and sharing of material.”

The age of online video viewers trends younger: 82% of teens (16-to-17-year-olds) and young adults (18 to 24) streamed video, compared with 73% of Generation X (25 to 34) and 65% of older boomers (55 to 64) who said they watched.

Online video-sharing was less common, with only 46% of users participating. While teen, young adult and Gen X sharing percentages hovered around 50%, the older the Internet users, the less likely they were to send videos.

One-half of all respondents shared videos via e-mail to friends and family. Twenty-three percent sent video out to friends on social networks, 21% by instant messenger and 14% to their friends on video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Hulu.

The most widely used platform for discovering and viewing video online was YouTube, followed by e-mail, music sites, Yahoo! and news sites.

Sharing appears to happen mainly among close friends, as 72% of video-sharers sent to just one, two or three people.

“Those who access video are completely engaged in the content that they choose to watch,” concluded Mr. Smith. “It’s an impactful universe.”

What is the future of E-mail marketing?  Well, more than one study suggests that despite all of the Web 2.0 hype around social networks and other forms of communication wtih your clients and prospects that E-mail marketing is still the primary vehicle to connect and market to your audience now and in the future.

As stated in the article by eMarketer:

"Far from being eclipsed by Web 2.0 and other emerging communications methods, consumer expectations suggest that e-mail will be the workhorse channel around which future online communications will revolve," said Des Cahill, CEO of Habeas, in a statement.

That is not to say that consumers are ready for random, untargeted e-mail. Opt-in is still key. Consumers are even willing to help marketers custom-tailor their messages. More than 88% of respondents said they would like more choices in e-mail content and frequency, including options on advertisements and special offers.

Follow the money.

Economic recessions tend to hurt budgets of all stripes, and the advertising business is no exception.

According to data gathered from an eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, the budgets of more than 54% of marketers worldwide have been negatively affected by the recession.

More than 6% said it had affected their budget positively, meaning a few CMOs are extremely brave.

During tough times, more marketers are adopting digital marketing techniques.

Over 90% of marketers polled by eMetrics said they would increase or maintain their spend on e-mail advertising, and more than 83% said the same about paid search.

The largest decreases were planned for social media and general online advertising, but even those paled in comparison to overall online spending increases.

In addition, many marketers are realizing the need for increased digital intelligence. One-quarter of the respondents said they planned on increasing their Web analytics budgets, and over 60% planned to maintain spending.

Other research also shows that marketers are moving dollars online.

A 2008 McKinsey & Company survey found that 55% of global marketing execs planned to cut spending on traditional media in order to fund increased online efforts.

The move to online has become so steady that Laura Desmond of Starcom MediaVest predicted that the advertising industry is headed toward a “50%-50% world,” where one-half of spending will go to online campaigns.

Article Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007073

The Situation: Many CVBs/DMOs are leveraging social marketing and mediums like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the like. In total, there are about a dozen channels through which Marketers can communicate their messages.
 
The Challenges: While there’s no doubt these social mediums represent a great opportunity for CVBs, implementing a successful strategy faces three major obstacles:

Amount of Staff Time: When a CVB has something to broadcast out to these “channels”, a staff person must go into each individual interface to post the content. This takes a significant amount of effort for someone to “cut and paste” the same content over and over again, sucking that person’s time and therefore ability to work on potentially more important items.

Ability to Track/Measure Results: Once content is posted out to social mediums, the ability to track the effectiveness of those messages is diminished if not lost completely. This makes it difficult to see what’s working and adjust your marketing strategies based on the results.

Enabling “Portable” Content: From a social medium perspective, CVB sites are becoming more like convenience rather than department stores… people come in, grab an item, and then go somewhere else to consume it. Here’s an example. A user views a CVB’s events calendar, and finds a couple of concerts of interest. What does that person do with that information? With the rise of social mediums, they’re increasingly taking that information away from your site to share it in the medium of their choosing.

The Solution: ShareThis buttons would appear in two places… One would be within your back-end CMS for admins to use to push content out to others sites. The other would appear on the front end of your Site for users to access. These will enable CVBs to do the following:

Consolidate Content Uploading: ShareThis has already built-in integration with all major social mediums, AND a “universal interface” which automatically formats the CVB’s content per how each medium requires. So, instead of requiring a staff person to dedicate a huge amount of time to upload content individually, each message broadcast a CVB/DMO wants to publish out can be done ONCE, in a fraction of the time.

Google Analytics/Search Marketing Tie-Ins: ShareThis (and NMG’s know-how) can enable detailed tracking and analytics Tie-Ins, providing key information so you can act intelligently and improve results. An example would be: The CVB broadcasts a message about a new event taking place in the destination (Palm Beach maybe), with the goal of selling packages and/or room nights via Booking Engine on www.palmbeachfl.com. Special coding embedded in those messages will allow you to track things like: How many total packages did we sell? What was the dollar value of those packages? Which medium sold the most? How many “forwards-to-a-friend” did the message generate?

ShareThis Button on Site Front End: There would be a ShareThis button on the front end of the Site for items like articles, pages, listings, coupons, and other content types. When users click the ShareThis button, they can then forward on that content to their social networks. This makes the CVB Site content portable, increasing the “word of mouth” value in social mediums.

At eMetrics today, Google unveiled several enhancements to its free analytics software.  Among those is native support for outbound link tracking. This should please many NMG clients, as I think the number one request I get from marketers is the ability to track the number of times a member listing link was clicked.  With these new features, CVBs will be able to see exactly how many visitors linked from the CVB website to a member's website from the member listing page.  Cool, huh?

Once again, Google comes through with a great product update.  What's that old saying...if it sounds to good to be true, it's probably a Google product.  Where else can you get these types of reports for free?