Tag Archives: Privacy

How Do You Optimize Your Business Model? Six Points

Situation:  A company is in the process of shifting their business model to better address customer needs. They have three different models under consideration. Management is split between these models, but must arrive at a consensus. How do you optimize your business model?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Right now, you are considering three different potential models:
    • Tools – your old model
    • Data – produced by your old model
    • Service – your new model
    • These are different models with different prospects.
  • The money makers in marketing focus on data, not tools. Data is information, and this is what is valuable to clients. If you want to focus on the data component of your offering.
  • Currently, you are scraping data from social media and matching this to your client’s database on a real-time basis. There’s a model and value here because you are enhancing your client’s current database by making it more useful and actionable to them.
  • You have tools to enable and add value to existing client databases by allowing them to better segment their database. Again, there is value here.
  • Your core IP is the ability to correlate diverse data sources. Have you protected this IP? If not, this needs to be a top priority.
  • How much information that you scrape from social media sources can you share without violating privacy? This is something to think about because people are becoming increasingly sensitive about companies collecting their private information.

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Should You Put Privacy Statements on a Web Site? Five Thoughts

Situation: An early stage software-as-a-service (SAAS) company notes that a number of companies have privacy statements on their web sites. Is this something that is common, and should they consider their own privacy statement on their site?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • If your services include the collection of users’ personally identifiable information many users will want to know that the information that they put on the site is secure. Get legal advice on the handling and storage of personally identifiable information. You may want to qualify for TRUSTe or a similar service.
  • Others will be competing in your space, or close to it. Look at these companies’ sites for what type of privacy statement they use.
  • Research how important this is to your target audience. Get assistance from someone who is good at drafting surveys. Hire a summer intern or local college student to conduct the survey. This is a quick way to answer your question.
  • Determine your business policy regarding privacy. If policy considerations dictate that you should have a statement, then find a model statement that you like and use this. Model a statement after one that appeals to you from another company. Make sure that you cover anything that you feel is important, and retain any prerogatives that you feel are important.
  • Create a link to a separate page that contains a model privacy statement. Count the number of clicks that it receives. You may find that nobody clicks on this.

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What’s the Best Way to Target Your Audience? Eight Points

Interview with Peter Koeppel, President, Koeppel Direct

Situation: The media industry is increasingly challenged trying to reach its audience. Media choices are fragmented, and the proliferation of new devices makes reaching purchasing audiences difficult. How do you best reach your target audience in this environment?

Advice:

  • Historically placement of advertising and pricing of media ad buys were driven by calculations of audience impressions – how many eyeballs a particular ad would reach. With the media market now highly fragmented this measure is no longer as effective. Sophisticated marketers now seek ROI driven media buy models to justify their advertising purchases.
  • Two companies, Facebook and TiVo, are in the lead in terms of potential to assist marketers in targeting distinct audiences, because they collect rich data on individual consumers, but this information must be balanced with privacy concerns.
  • Non-conventional channels like TiVo or Google TV and other research services can selectively present marketing messages to specific customer demographics.
  • The mobile search market represented approximately $2 billion in revenue in 2010. As more people consume media through mobile devices, this market will grow. The leader in this market is Google.
  • A growing format is longer length spots. These include short-form infomercials which are typically seen for insurance, legal services, and spots that drive consumers to web sites or an 800 number. Long-form infomercials are typically 30 minutes in length, composed of three to four 7 or 8 minute segments separated by commercials, which serve as calls to action. Infomercial marketing is not for every product, but is most applicable to higher priced products where specific demographic information is worth the investment and where the consumer needs more education about the product,in order to make a purchase decision.
  • Cable TV, print and radio, remain an effective way to target niche audiences. Television, among the traditional media, still drives the largest number of consumers to online purchases.
  • For the future, we predict a convergence between TV and online marketing and purchases. Many HDMI TVs and current Blu-Ray sets are already configured for both cable and either WiFi or Ethernet connections. Google and Apple sell devices that combine TV and online access. Netflix and Hulu serve content through either TV or online devices.
  • We see the future of TV as a device which will consume all media. As access to rich databases of consumer preferences and purchasing proliferates we see growth in content which will be increasingly tailored to personal preferences and desires of highly fragmented consumer demographics.

You can contact Peter Koeppel at [email protected]   URL: www.koeppelinc.com

Key Words: Sales & Marketing, Media, Audience, Choice, Fragmented, Devices, Purchase, ROI, Targeted, Facebook, TiVo, Apple, Google, Data, Privacy, Mobile, Search, Pay-per-Click, Infomercial, Convergence

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