Archive for July, 2011
Which do you prefer? In person or virtual events?
The Professional Convention Management Association, UBM Studios, and the Virtual Edge Institute released a joint report, revealing the business motivations and social behaviors of attendees and exhibitors when participating in physical or online events.
Michael Doyle, executive director of VEI, says that “…Too often the argument centers on how face-to-face or virtual best delivers on an event experience… there are significant similarities… (but) fundamental differences… regardless of format… this report will help… look at the combined effect of wrapping a digital event strategy around physical events and meetings… ”
Regardless of format, people have the same drivers for attending an exhibit hall, seeing ‘what is new’ is the number one motivation by far. Gathering relevant product and company information as well as gaining access to subject matter expertise are all clustered in second place. Demos and application education are highly sought as well.
| Motivation Importance For Trade Show Attendance (% of Respondents) | ||||||
| Virtual Exhibition Hall | In-Person Exhibition Hall | |||||
| Not Motivate | Possible Motivate | Will Motivate | Not Motivate | Possible Motivate | Will Motivate | |
| Get company/product solution for review | 10% | 51% | 39% | 8% | 47% | 45% |
| See how company can help | 9 | 52 | 39 | 9 | 54 | 37 |
| See demo or product | 10 | 44 | 45 | 7 | 48 | 44 |
| Talk to sales person | 63 | 33 | 4 | 51 | 40 | 9 |
| See what is new | 5 | 41 | 55 | 1 | 28 | 70 |
| Talk to expert | 13 | 47 | 40 | 9 | 45 | 45 |
| Source: PCMA, UBM Studios and VEI Study, July 2011 | ||||||
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Mojo Social: Meet, Mix & Match on July 20th, 2011
Email delivery up, opens down, response holds steady
According to the Harte-Hanks Postfuture Index 2009-2010, email open rates declined to an average of 17% last year, down from 26% in 2009. The report examined metrics for over 2.8 billion email messages sent by about 100 companies in nine vertical industries. The company says that “… changing patterns in use of text and imagery… is having an impact on open rates, without necessarily having an impact on response.”
The study indicates that:
- Delivery rates increased to 95% last year, up from 93% in 2009
- Click rates were steady at 3%
- Unsubscribe rates dropped from 0.32% to 0.19%
- Bounce rates declined from 7% to 5%
- The pharmaceutical and government sectors had the highest open rates, with both topping 25%
- The technology industry had the lowest open rate at just above 5%
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in E-mail marketing on July 14th, 2011
How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class
by Rex Nutting
A lot of people say they are deeply puzzled by the slow recovery in the U.S. economy. They look at the 9+% unemployment rate and the mediocre growth in national output, and they scratch their heads and wonder: Where is the boom that inevitably follows a deep bust, such as we experienced in 2008 and 2009?
But there is no mystery. What other result would you expect from the financial ruin of the once-great American middle class?
And make no mistake, the middle class has been ruined: Its wealth has been decimated, its income isn’t even keeping pace with inflation, and its faith in the American economy has been shattered. Once, the middle class grew richer each year, grew more comfortable, enjoyed a higher living standard. It was real progress in material terms.
But that progress has been halted and even reversed. In some respects, the middle class has made no progress in a generation, or two.
This isn’t just a sad story about a few losers. The prosperity of the middle class has been the chief engine of growth in the economy for a century or more. But now our mass market is no longer growing. How could it? The middle class doesn’t have any money.
There are a hundred different ways of looking at the economy, and a million different statistics. But if you wanted to focus on just one number that explains why the economy can’t really recover, this is the one: $7.38 trillion.
That’s the amount of wealth that’s been lost from the bursting of housing bubble, according to the Federal Reserve’s comprehensive Flow of Funds report. It’s how much homeowners lost when housing prices plunged 30% nationwide. The loss for these homeowners was much greater than 30%, however, because they were heavily leveraged.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Guest Contributors, The Economy on July 9th, 2011
Parents with iPhones (“iParents”) more social on Facebook
According to the Retrevo Gadgetology Report, an ongoing study of people to understand the changing role of parents in this new age of technology, today’s parents have a whole new world of social tools to consider when it comes to raising their children. Leading the way in most digital activities are iPhone owning parents, or “iParents,” coined by the report.
When compared with the general parent population, iPhone owning parents are more likely to be social on Facebook than the average parent. The study found that 13% of iPhone owning parents had more than 500 Facebook friends as opposed to only 8% of all parents who had more than 500 Facebook friends. Conversely, only 5% of iPhone owners were likely to have a small amount of Facebook friends, as opposed to 20% of all parents.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Facebook, Teen Talk, Trend Tracker on July 8th, 2011
Will Google Force SEO Companies to Ruin Social Media for Everyone?
By Matt Anton
Imagine the excitement when the internet was first created. Al Gore..err Tim Berners-Lee would be rolling over in his grave (he’s actually still alive) if he knew the additional game he opened up – online marketing. Ralph Waldo Emerson eloquently stated “Hitch your wagon to a star”, and that’s what we are doing. Google is the singular dominate gatekeeper to the internet, and therefore they are in large part the internet – do you hitch your wagon to Yahoo? Didn’t think so.
It wasn’t long before the first ever blog post went up that someone posted, “hey great post, check out my website”; better known as the dawn of internet spam. The Google Gods saw this spam and loved it. The more people that were backlinking (voting/talking) about you the better. SEO opportunists saw this and began to obtain backlinks from every blog and forum. The Gods had more links to find and all was well in the world, until a critical mass was reached.
Posted by eBrand Media Research Department in Facebook, Guest Contributors, Seeing Into the Future, Twitter on July 1st, 2011