Business and Marketing

Its new emphasis on direct response campaigns will pay off immediately, predicts eMarketer, while its value as a medium for social engagement will diminish.

Facebook seeks a direct route to top of ad sales list.

Facebook will grow ad revenues by more than 56% this year to nearly $11 billion and give the social network a two-point bump in share of digital ad spending, to 7.8%, according to an analysis released by eMarketer.

Fueling this surge, says eMarketer, is Facebook's recent strategic shift to serve as a platform for direct response advertising rather than as a medium for brands to drive social interaction and consumer engagement. The majority of Facebook's most recent ad initiatives are aimed at marketers with performance goals, the researcher reports.

“Companies still see Facebook as a platform for social brand interactions, but that's no longer the way Facebook is presenting itself,” says Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst of social media at eMarketer. “Facebook has moved on, but many brands are still marketing the same way they did two years ago.”

In the past five years U.S. advertisers have upped direct efforts at a compound annual rate of 16%, according to eMarketer's “2014 Digital Ad Spending Benchmarks” report issued last month. Over that time, marketers increased spending on direct response campaigns by $4.74 billion as compared to a $2.79 billion rise in brand campaigns. Nearly 60% of ad budgets are now devoted to direct methods, led by retailers (70%), financial services (62%), and automotive (60%).

Despite the sizeable one-year boom it envisions for Facebook, eMarketer is more conservative as to how soon marketers will master its capabilities for direct marketing. “There will be a learning curve,” Williamson says. “Facebook's targeting is getting very sophisticated and advertisers can segment audiences into smaller and smaller buckets, but many brand advertisers are more accustomed to buying ads aimed at mass audiences.”

Business Breaking News: Twitter Marketing: 4 Ways to Engage Customers

Are you tweeting or are you engaging? When it comes to successful Twitter marketing, simply tweeting about your business isn't going to cut it. Without a solid strategy to actively engage followers and customers, your tweets could easily vanish into the Twitterverse, where the sheer number of daily tweets reaches well into the hundreds of millions.

"Twitter continues to grow in popularity with more than 230 million active users and 500 million tweets sent per day," said DJ Muller, president and founder of WebLink International, a marketing and membership management software company. Such high-volume activity calls for businesses to create a strategic presence. Otherwise, average tweets risk getting lost in the fray. "Implementing a strategy around Twitter can be a cost-effective way to promote your brand and connect with your target audiences," Muller said.

Avoiding — or escaping — Twitter's black hole isn't easy, but a little bit of planning can go a long way. Muller shared the following tips on how to create an effective Twitter presence and implement a successful Twitter marketing strategy — one that increases engagement and yields measurable results. [19 Social Media Marketing Solutions for Small Businesses]

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Why marketers should focus on meaningful moments rather than the overall customer journey.

Photo Credit: Seth Casteel, Underwater Dogs

Marketers love to talk about the customer journey. From awareness all the way down to advocacy, marketers can't stop gushing about the various phases. But instead of thinking about the journey as a whole, marketers should concentrate on individual, meaningful moments, said Jeffrey Rohrs, VP of marketing insights for the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud, speaking at the company's Future of Marketing Tour in New York.

Take Seth Casteel, for example. Back in 2010, the photographer was snapping pictures of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Buster who couldn't resist diving into his owner's pool to fetch his tennis ball. Casteel wondered what Buster looked like plunging into the pool from an underwater perspective. So, he spent the last available credit he had on his credit card and purchased an underwater camera housing used by pro surf photographers. The result was this:

Casteel turned his collection of photos into a coffee table book called Underwater Dogs. The book became a New York Times bestseller and led to the creation of calendars and the soon-to-be sequel Underwater Puppies.

Rohrs acknowledged that pooches have been plunging into pools for years; however, he said that Casteel identified the moment as special and monetized it—something he encourages marketers to learn how to do.

“What are the underwater dogs in your business?” he asked “How are you going to find them?”

Here are three ways marketers can find their underwater dogs (no pool required) and cash in on moments that matter.

1) Optimize known moments


Marketers need to find ways to transform consumers from passive viewers to advocates through the moments they already experience, Rohrs said. For instance, he cited how department store Nordstrom is experimenting with feeding into people's constant need for validation by placing “popular on Pinterest” tags on select clothes, shoes, and handbags in attempts to boost sales.

Similarly, he talked about how Esurance took advantage of post-Super Bowl airtime and social media. The auto insurance provider featured a spot in which actor John Krasinski announced that the company was giving away all of the money that it saved by running its commercial after Super Bowl XLVIII—a whopping $1.5 million—to one lucky winner who tweeted #EsuranceSave30.

According to Leo Burnett, the agency that created the spot, the company received more than 224,000 mentions within the first minute after the commercial aired and gained more than 267,000 followers within 36 hours.

“All marketing is direct now because of this device,” Rohrs said pointing to his smartphone. “So why on Earth aren't you asking people to do things?”

2) Uncover hidden moments

Sometimes the best moments are right under a marketer's nose. “There's a lot of stuff hiding in plain sight,” Rohrs said.

For Super Bowl XLVI, Papa John's decided to capture America's attention before the game even started—during the coin toss, Rohrs noted. The pizza company asked Americans to vote on whether the coin would land on “heads” or “tails” via papajohns.com before Game Day. If the majority of participants made the right call, then Papa John's would give everyone in its reward programs a free large one-topping pizza and two-liter Pepsi MAX. Both the brand and the consumer were winners in this case. Not only did America correctly call the coin toss, and hence obtain its many free pizzas, but Papa John's also drove people to its website.

Delta is another company taking advantage of untapped moments with its newly launched Innovation Class, Rohrs said. Innovation Class is a “mentoring program” to which people can apply through LinkedIn to sit next to leaders in business, art, and technology on a Delta flight and utilize their flight time to pick their brains. The first Innovation Class flight took place on March 14 and featured Eric Migicovsky, creator of Pebble Smartwatch.

3) Create new moments because of technology

Today's technology allows marketers to seize opportunities they'd never even dreamed of before—but mobility, connectivity, social media, and data are helping turn those dreams into realities, noted Rohrs.

For example, Meat Pack, a small designer shoe store in Guatemala, needed to stand out against its big brand competitors in the mall and draw consumers into its store, he said. So, in 2012, the company launched the Hijack app, which used GPS technology to detect when one of Meat Pack's customers entered a competitor's store. Meat Pack then sent those customers an offer starting at 99% off, which decreased with each passing second. The sooner customers reached Meat Pack's store, the higher the discount they would receive.

According to 4 am Saatchi and Saatchi Guatemala, the agency behind the initiative, more than 600 consumers were hijacked in one week. Hijack also won several Cannes Lions awards in 2012, including a silver for the creative use of technology and a bronze for mobile applications.

But a single campaign wasn't enough for American Express. Rohrs cited how the financial services company partnered with global marketing agency Digitas to launch the first Small Business Saturday on November 27, 2010.

“American Express made an entire day matter,” he said.

Small Business Saturday is held the day after Black Friday to remind consumers to support local businesses during their holiday shopping sprees. According to Publicis Groupe, the parent company of Digitas, small business owners could take advantage of free marketing tools and geotargeted Facebook advertising to promote their first Small Business Saturday, while shoppers could post about their experiences and earn “shop small” credits.

The holiday has certainly gained momentum since its 2010 debut. Last year, consumers spent a total of $5.7 billion with local businesses on Small Business Saturday, according to the “2013 Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey” by the National Federation of Independent Business and American Express.

Business Breaking News: Summer Hiring: 4 Tips for Employers

Summer is an especially hectic time for many industries. Restaurants and shops frequently extend their hours of operation to accommodate increased foot traffic from students who are out of school for the season. Outdoor-based businesses take advantage of good weather and longer daylight hours to get in as much work as they can. This upswing in business means that companies in these industries often hire temporary help to handle the increased workload.

Smaller businesses that are just starting out may get inundated right at the beginning of the season, before they realize they need a few extra employees. Established companies usually know they'll require extra hands on deck months in advance, but might still find themselves a bit short-staffed as the summer rush picks up. No matter what stage of growth you're in, here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for short-term workers.

Worker classification is an incredibly important part of taking on any hired help. Depending on the type of business you run, you may have a choice between bringing in a regular employee and an independent contractor.

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Three quarters of global marketing chiefs see digital creating a new game in the years directly ahead. The same number, however, doubt they'll be ready for it.

With big change, will big failure also come?

Think the marketing game hasn't changed enough in the last five years? Well, hold on to your dashboards, because you ain't seen nothing yet. A survey of 581 senior marketing executives across the globe conducted by Accenture Interactive learned that 78% of them believe corporate marketing will undergo a fundamental transformation over the next five years as data analytics, digital methods, and mobile technologies ramp up to scale.

More than a third of the CMOs expect that, within that time period, at least 75% of their budgets will be allocated to digital methods. The reason: Effectiveness of their email, display ad, and search campaigns increased by 14, 10, and nine percentage points in just the past two years, they reported, while telemarketing's value dropped by 10%.

Yet one wonders whether these CMOs would have made such a bold prediction had they been privy to their colleagues' readiness postures ahead of time, for 79% of the sample also believe that their companies would not be fully functioning digital businesses within five years. Many of them will suffer the effects of a mobile generation gap. Marketers under 35 attach high significance to the use of mobile marketing methods (38%) than do their older counterparts (18%). And finding capable tech talent becomes ever harder: The survey reveals a 10% decline in customer and digital analytics capabilities.

Accenture consultants place the burden to overcome future hurdles squarely on the shoulders of the marketing chiefs themselves. “As marketing executives are increasingly embracing digital, they can be catalysts to help their companies take advantage of the wider digital opportunity and protect against broader digital threats,” says Brian Whipple, senior managing director of Accenture Interactive.

Accenture's recommendations to CMOs in working toward that goal:

• Reverse-engineer marketing initiatives around desired outcomes instead of sales transactions.


• Design campaigns to influence, engage, and stimulate customers rather than target, capture, and convert them.


• See customer experience as an ongoing dialog covering sales, service, retention, and loyalty.

Business Breaking News: Amazon Fire Phone: Is It Good for Business?

Amazon's new Fire Phone isn't just for online shoppers. It's also a solid business smartphone with a slew of new, productivity-boosting features. Sure, it's touted as the perfect device to buy and consume digital media from Amazon.com, and it features a unique pseudo-3D effect in some apps called Dynamic Perspective — but those aren't the features that will really interest business users. Instead, they'll benefit from handy interface tweaks in Amazon's Fire OS, integration with Amazon Cloud Drive, and live tech support at the push of a button. The Fire Phone is set to launch in July. Get a hands-on look at the device at our sister site Laptop Mag or read on for five features that could make it good for work.

Mayday tech support

If your small business lacks an IT department, the Mayday button on the Fire Phone could really come in handy. The feature, which is built right into Fire OS, lets you call a live Amazon tech support representative in just a few seconds. Tap the Mayday button to instantly connect to 24/7 support and video chat with a tech support expert to resolve any problem you're having with your phone.

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Ads make the digital world go 'round,

Digital consumers are happy with the current online media model. In fact, 59% don't currently pay for access to digital media content, and 46% are prepared to keep it that way through advertising, according to a recent study by CloudSense, a global cloud technology company.

Of the 2,000 U.S. consumers surveyed, 56% said they prefer to “pay” for content by seeing the advertising associated with it. About a fourth of consumers are content with pre-roll and other forms of advertising that precedes content. These numbers rise among younger consumers, with 58% of 16- to 24-year-olds accepting advertising as their preferred payment model for content. Only 12% of the survey participants said they prefer to pay for no ads. Overall acceptance of ads was higher in the U.S. than in the UK, according to the study.

Thirty-one percent of the sample said they don't mind ads as long as the ads don't intrude on their viewing of content and 30% don't mind ads if the content is free. At 78%, most respondents said their content consumption habits will stay the same so long as current advertising levels don't change.

The survey found that the average spend per week on content (across digital or print) in the U.S. was $1.61 with the UK spending £1.86. In the UK in particular 59% spend less than £1 a week on media content. In the U.S. 59% of respondents said they don't pay for digital media sites or apps.

“We're living in a multi-screen society where the younger generation is both tech savvy and multi-connected…. It's not surprising these consumers are not used to paying for content,” CloudSense EVP Rowley Douglas said in a statement. “That said, this generation doesn't mind seeing ads around the content they're trying to access.”

Business Breaking News: Selling Online: 3 Alternatives to an E-Commerce Website

It seems like a new e-commerce business is opening up its virtual doors every day. Whether they're hosted shops on sites like Etsy or full-fledged online storefronts, these businesses are showing the trend of conducting sales over the Web isn't slowing down anytime soon.

"E-commerce is projected to grow exponentially over the next decade," said Joe Palko, chief marketing officer for e-commerce platform provider 3dcart. "The growing number of similar products offered by a variety of different sellers will shift the e-commerce industry into a buyer's market. Customers will have the purchasing power to choose between multiple brands to fit their needs, and it's important that online retailers have a strong marketing strategy in place to remain competitive and relevant in their customers' minds."

While an e-commerce website is the most popular way to sell products online, it's certainly not the only way. If you want to try something different with your online business, here are three alternatives to enhance — or perhaps even replace — the traditional e-commerce model.

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The Data Trust, a provider of lists to conservative candidates, links with Targeted Victory to expand into online.

Data Trust expands online.

Direct mailers may not be pleased with politicians over their slow movement on postal reform, but nothing raises their spirits—and revenues—like a hotly contested electoral season. Direct mail has long led the way in lining up votes and donations for candidates, and now one of the top political list companies is electing to move its voter data into the digital sphere.

The Data Trust, a leading data supplier to “right of center” organizations, entered into a partnership this week with political marketing firm Targeted Victory to share its data on more than 260 million Americans for use in digital campaigns.

“We're striving to build the biggest data marketplace in politics, and our partnership with The Data Trust takes us one step closer,” says Michael Beach, cofounder of Targeted Victory. “Their inventory spans decades of election results, field data, voter files, and census information.”

Managers of The Data Trust say they plan further incursions into the digital space. “The partnership with Targeted Victory is a first step towards making the same high quality data used by our partners for offline targeting available for their online ad targeting as well,” says Data Trust President John DeStefano. “This announcement marks a significant advancement towards achieving our 2014 goal of creating a common data platform from which all right-of-center campaigns and organizations can make strategic decisions.”

Business Breaking News: How to Use a Windows 8 Tablet for Business

Using a Windows tablet isn't like using a Windows PC. Even if your business tablet runs the full desktop version of Windows 8, its touch-based design and relatively small display mean you'll have to find new ways to stay productive. That could entail using touch-optimized Windows 8 apps over desktop programs, but it doesn't have to. By linking your tablet to the right accessories, it can become almost as functional as a laptop computer. Regardless of how you choose to use it, here are seven ways to put your Windows 8 tablet to work.

Accessorize

A Windows 8 tablet is much more portable than the average laptop. But it's hard to be truly productive without the right accessories. Try these to unlock your tablet's full potential.

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SMBs get cheap access to landing pages, responsive design, and A/B email testing.

GetResponse's Grabowski

GetResponse has introduced Landing Page Creator 2.0, a tool that is designed to allow its users at small and medium-size businesses to save agency fees by creating landing pages themselves.

Offering more than 100 pre-designed landing page templates, users of the program can design landing pages in less than 10 minutes with no help from IT, claims GetResponse, whose new release also includes email, newsletter, and auto-responder features.

Templates can be customized with a drag-and-drop editing system that accesses video and image banks. Mobile-responsive designs can be automatically programmed, and up to 10 versions of landing pages can be created for A/B testing.

“SMBs now have everything they need rolled into one platform for drip marketing campaigns--lead nurturing, marketing automation, landing page creation, and blog and social media integration,” says Get Response CEO Simon Grabowski.

Depending on usage volume, SMBs can lease the program for between $15 and $50 per month.

Business Breaking News: Parallels Access 2.0: Remote Desktop App Comes to iPhone, Android

Parallels Access was already a good option for iPad users who wanted to remotely access their desktop Mac or PC. Now, with the release of Parallels Access 2.0, the app is available for iPhone, as well as Android smartphones and tablets. The revamped app retains all the functionality of the original iPad version, but expands the list of compatible devices.

Like any good remote desktop app, Parallels Access acts as a direct portal back to your desktop workstation, allowing you to access your work computer from your smartphone or tablet. To get it to work, you must install the app on your mobile device, and install an agent program on your desktop computer.

Parallels Access stands out from other remote desktop apps by including the option to "applify" your desktop programs. Once your mobile device is linked with your computer, you'll be able to select and launch full programs like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop or other desktop programs on your phone or tablet as if they were mobile apps, without launching the full remote desktop environment.

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Through Yahoo Gemini marketers can push Tumblr native ads across Yahoo's entire portfolio.

Sponsored Tumblr posts will now integrate with Yahoo Gemini

The Yahoo-owned blogging behemoth announced today that content marketers and native advertises can now promote their sponsored Tumblr posts to an audience of more than 800 million average monthly visitors across the entire suite of Yahoo and Tumblr Web content.

Sponsored Tumblr posts will now integrate with Yahoo Gemini, Yahoo's mobile search and native ad marketplace that the company announced in February.

Yahoo is looking to monetize Tumblr, Marissa Mayer's biggest acquisition, by going big on its native ads. http://bit.ly/1smT14Z

— Mashable (@mashable) June 17, 2014

Hence native/content ads RT @digitalshields: Read btwn lines, Yahoo CEO is saying banner ads stink for creativity http://bit.ly/1r4kOmi

— todd sawicki (@sawickipedia) June 17, 2014

Yahoos Mayer pushing Tumblr and native ads hard at NewFront

— Mike Shields (@digitalshields) April 28, 2014

Yahoo's Mayer says users exposed to native brand content are 3.6 x more likely to do a brand search. http://bit.ly/1r4kOmk via @mediapost

— Tobi Elkin (@TobiElkin) June 17, 2014

@marissamayer Native Ads have existed in TV and print for years. Even search is Native... but digital display is not #yahoo #CannesLions

— Jason Xenopoulos (@JasonXenopoulos) June 17, 2014

Business Breaking News: Top 5 Presentation Apps for Android

A good business presentation may be the quickest, most concise way for you to present a lot of information to your clients. And by combining your Android smartphone or tablet with the right apps, you can ensure you'll always have access to your presentations when you need them. Some apps even let you create and edit slideshows from scratch, right on your mobile device. When it's time to present to an audience, just hook your device up to a monitor and go. But picking the Android presentation app that's right for you depends on your individual needs. Read on to learn about five of the best.

Quickoffice (Free)

Quickoffice, Google's mobile office suite, offers a full-featured presentation maker for Android smartphones and tablets. The app lets you create slideshows from scratch. You can select from a variety of layouts when adding new slides, and add text with formatting options including the ability to change colors, fonts and spacing. The app also lets you insert photos, shapes and charts so you can illustrate visual concepts in your presentation. And it integrates with Google Drive, Google's cloud storage platform, so your files will be synced across all your mobile and desktop devices. That means you can access the most recent versions of your Quickoffice files from anywhere. You can also use the app to play your slideshows right on your mobile device, or link it to a larger monitor to present to a group.

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Ad exchanges displayed marked increases in reach, efficiency, and user quality in the last quarter, a Neustar study says.

The rise of the ad exchange

The stock of ad exchanges and the demand-side platforms (DSPs) that provide access to them is rising precipitously among marketers, according to a study of some 28 billion ad impressions and 1,300 billion inventory providers conducted by Neustar in the first quarter. Exchanges performed 121% above the indexed average for high-quality users (consumers who engage more than once) and showed a 386% efficiency improvement in reaching new users.

While gains posted by exchanges were in part due to advertisers scaling back social and portal spending in the post-holiday period, their new prominence in digital marketing is noteworthy, says Neustar SVP of Media and Advertising Rob Gatto, who oversees the company's quarterly Media Intelligence Reports (MIR).

“When we started these reports only five quarters ago, exchanges used to have horrible inventory. But they've made constant improvement quarter over quarter,” Gatto says. “One of the things you're seeing here is that marketers are buying audiences instead of context, so a lot of upper funnel activity is moving to the exchanges. When doing retargeting, everybody's fighting for the last touch, and so we're seeing higher frequencies across exchanges.”

Gatto interprets the shift as a sign that marketers are using more offline, first-party data to influence media choices, though the phenomenon remains early-stage. “I'm amazed at the number of advertisers who are still buying media on a contextual basis, not going where their audience is but where they think they are,” he says. “Any time first-part data is used, the performance goes up dramatically.”

The Neustar report found that entertainment and retail clients using CRM information to target their ads registered performances that were 32 to 107 times higher than competitors that didn't call upon first-party data. Companies that accessed third-party data such as demographics, life events, and location to influence media choices also scored well above their industry averages. Consumer packaged goods companies that did so outperformed the average by 28x, education companies by 26x, and telecommunications brands by 10x. (Performance was based on conversions as defined by clients, and could be transactions, video views, page opens, etc.)

There are added benefits to introducing first-party data to the mix, Gatto says; one being advanced personalization for current customers. “There are times you might not want to advertise to them,” he notes, “like a cell phone company that made the sale or a department store looking to get people in twice a month. You don't want to advertise to them the day after they bought.”

It's also a boon to efficient deployment of dollars and, by extension, ROI. “You may go into your CRM data and identify 10 attributes that have been key drivers of delivering the user actions you're looking for,” Gatto says. “But then you find you've been buying only 20% of that audience.”

The MIR indexes the most prevalent digital advertising channels by cost, reach efficiency, user quality, and funnel attribution. It also examines campaign types that drive the most impressions and actions, plus the effect of data usage to target top-performing audiences.

Business Breaking News: Samsung Galaxy Tab S: A Super-Thin Business Tablet

Samsung's new business tablet features a stunningly thin design, great security features and one of the best displays around. The new Galaxy Tab S tablet comes in two sizes: 8.4 inches and 10.5 inches. It improves on Samsung's value-priced Galaxy Tab slates with a variety of features from the company's flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone, including a fingerprint reader and KNOX, a suite of secure applications for business users. But the centerpiece of the new Tab S is its super-sharp and colorful AMOLED display, the first of its kind on a tablet. Check out a full hands-on look at the Galaxy Tab S tablet at our sister site Laptop Mag, or read on for five features that make this slate good for business.

Design

The Tab S is one of the thinnest tablets ever. Both versions measure just 0.26 inches thick, compared to 0.29 inches for the iPad Air and iPad mini. These Samsung tablets are also exceptionally light; the 8.4-inch model weighs just 0.87 lbs., while the 10.5-inch version is 1.02 lbs. By comparison, the iPad Air weighs 11.7 lbs., even with a smaller, 9.7-inch screen. That makes either Tab S device a good pick for commuters and frequent travelers looking for a device that won't weigh them down.

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The tech is there to ensure that the customer rules.

It wasn't so long ago that digital began to completely disrupt marketing. Indeed, digital has permanently reshaped the business of marketing, from creative and content to metrics and measurement. But the changes the digital revolution has wrought aren't in question; rather, the question is whether marketers are making the most of these tools to engage customers.

“We're passed the point of digital marketing meaning getting a site or an app. It's more about how we take all of that technology and develop a more customer-centric experience,” says Michael Lummus, corporate strategist for digital markets at Teradata.

As technology has evolved and transformed business and the customer experience, customer centricity has become one of marketing's central pillars. Experts have professed the need for customer-centric strategy and structure for years now, but obstacles to true customer centricity persist. “Organizational hurdles are still a huge problem and departments haven't gotten around to working collaboratively,” Lummus explains.

But collaboration is table stakes for digitally enabled customer centricity. “With all aspects of a company aimed at addressing customer needs, marketers will have the support [required] to offer customers seamless experiences across all channels and at the right moments,” says Glen Hartman, global managing director of digital transformation for consultancy Accenture Interactive.

Silos aren't the only thing standing in the way of truly customer-centric marketing. Many marketers have played it safe, bringing “old-world” marketing practices online—in some cases placing more value on the quantity of messages they send than quality and relevance of those communications.

“Marketers have known for a long time that frequency has a high impact on performance, but you can't move to digital and just bombard customers with messages,” Lummus notes.

Instead, think personalization. “As you employ digital tools that make it easier to reach customers, make sure it's not just convenient internally,” adds author and consultant Steve Yastrow. “Don't look at digital tools as more mass marketing, look at them as a way to cater to the customer.”

The tools are there to enable true customer-centric marketing. It's up to individual businesses—and the marketers supporting them— to align company goals and structure around the customer. “It's imperative for marketers to fully understand their customers' needs and desires, and the expectations they have for their brand, so they can then take the appropriate steps to deliver an effective and loyalty-generating omnichannel consumer experience,” Accenture Interactive's Hartman explains.

Business Breaking News: 5 Reasons Creative Professionals Will Love the Surface Pro 3

The Surface Pro 3 is a great tablet for professionals in any line of work, but professional artists could end up getting the most out of Microsoft's new business slate. When you add it all up, the Surface Pro 3 could be the best tool around for graphic designers, illustrators, photo editors and other creative professionals who want to work away from their desk. Simply put, no other device on the market can match the new Surface's combination of portability, power and design. It runs on Windows 8.1, so it supports the software that professionals use, and it boasts a pressure-sensitive display that working artists depend on.

As an amateur artist who has had the opportunity to test-drive the Surface Pro 3, I think it's close to being the perfect mobile workstation for creative people. Here are five reasons why.

Pressure sensitivity

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It partners with 360i to help brands forecast what content is about to go viral using its proprietary predictive engine.

360i's Hofstetter: "Forging new marketing technologies."

Mashable announced today that it had formed a partnership with 360i to help brands predict viral phenomena using its Velocity predictive analytics engine. The media and technology company says this is the first time it has allowed outside access to Velocity.

“We're combining Mashable's revolutionary tech-driven forecasting model with 360i's deep understanding of marketers' business challenges and how to forge new technologies and platforms, to help brands break through in a very cluttered and fragmented universe of content,” said 360i CEO Sarah Hofstetter in a statement announcing the deal.

Velocity scours the social Web, collects behavioral data of people engaging with digital media, and feeds it into the company's predictive engine to forecast what content is about to go viral. Mashable credits the system with helping Mashable reporters break stories hours before competing outlets.

360i—a digital agency whose clients include companies such as Coca-Cola, HBO, and P&G—will initially have access to the same Velocity dashboard used by Mashable content creators. “The only thing that is certain for marketers is change, which is why we are constantly testing and building new technology innovations that can advance our clients' business goals,” Hofstetter added.

Business Breaking News: Modern Motherhood: The Truth About Being a Working Mom

For decades, women who choose to work while raising a family have struggled with work-life balance. Many working moms pursue the ultimate goal of "having it all" — a fulfilling home life, a rewarding professional career and the energy to keep up with the demands of both while still finding time for themselves.

But is this really an attainable goal? According to a recent survey by author and career strategist Megan Dalla-Camina, most women don't buy into the myth.

"While women have made great progress on the career front, 70 percent of them think it's just not possible to be successful at work and home," said Dalla-Camina, who surveyed 1,000 female professionals for the 2014 U.S. release of her book,"Getting Real About Having It All" (Hay House, 2012). "Add to this the fact that the majority of women surveyed are really struggling with their well-being, and we have a scary picture of the reality of being a woman today trying to make it all work."

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The data collection firm heralds its new name by introducing the Open Data Platform.

Signal CEO Mike Sands

Cross-channel data collector BrightTag has changed its name to Signal, reflecting its rebranding as a company that focuses on “helping marketers strengthen the signals between brands and consumers.” At the same time, it has introduced Open Data Platform that incorporates its Fuse product, which reports customer data from sources such as mobile devices, call centers, and physical stores.

Signal President and CEO Mike Sands says the new corporate identity is built around a marketplace need for coalescing disparate data sources into one easily managed platform. “Leading brands tell us they've typically invested in about 17 different marketing technologies to the tune of tens of millions of dollars,” Sands says. “But few technologies are able to talk with one another.”

A company release likens the Open Data Platform to an always-operative power grid that allows brands to wire together data collection points with technologies and vendors in their marketing stacks.

Business Breaking News: Facebook to Target Ads Based on Internet Browsing History

Starting soon, Facebook will use member's Internet browsing history to better target them with the social network's advertisers' ads.

Currently, the ads a user sees on Facebook are primarily based on the things they do on Facebook, such as the pages they like. Soon, the company will also be able to target marketers' ads based on the websites Facebook users visit and the apps they use when they are not on the social network. A Facebook spokesperson told Business News Daily that the company will not be sharing this customer browsing habit information with advertisers, despite earlier reports, including in this story, that it would be doing so.

"Enhancing interest-based advertising with information from websites and apps people use will improve performance for marketers by making sure your ads go to people who are the most interested in your products and services, and those who are the most likely to respond," Facebook wrote on its company blog. "These signals will improve our existing ad capabilities and be built into our existing interfaces."

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The deposed House Majority leader hoped to rescue highway funding with savings from moving to five-day delivery.

Cantor's defeat throws yet another variable into postal reform.

A funny thing happened to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on his way to pushing an aggressive June legislative agenda that included a modified postal delivery schedule. He lost his Virginia House seat in yesterday's GOP primary election to economics professor Dave Brat. The surprising defeat led the Washington Post to opine that House legislative activity would now cease, as Republican members would “avoid doing anything—literally anything—that could be used against them” in their mid-term reelection bids this summer. Today, Cantor stepped down from his House leadership position.

That could well include postal issues that divide House members along political and geographic lines on issues like labor and rural delivery. Highway legislation, meanwhile, is legislation that must be passed soon, during repair season, or lack of needed construction will end up costing more in the long run. Cantor and House GOP leadership devised a plan to institute five-day mail delivery as a way to finance a short-term extension of the highway fund--a plan supported by Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe, who is eager for the opportunity to secure one of the planks in his five-year plan to rescue the Post Office.

Last week GOP leaders circulated a memo declaring that no bill for highways this summer would negate funding for ongoing construction projects. Cutting Saturday delivery could put $10 billion back into USPS coffers over 10 years, the memo claimed, and avert the necessity for a Postal Service bailout.

Whether or not Cantor remains involved in light of his diminished status, House Republicans will continue to play the postal card in pushing their highway bill, if only to be able to lay blame on the floor of the Senate when they reject the double deal, as expected. “I think there's still a good possibility they House may pass this, even though what they're doing is using one broke institution to finance another,” says Peggy Hudson, SVP of government affairs for the Direct Marketing Association. “But it's a non-starter, because it will never go anywhere in the Senate.”

Hudson's analysis was supported by the reaction of the office of Democratic Senator Tom Carper's office to the GOP's memo. The sponsor of the Senate postal reform bill noted that:

• Two Blue Ribbon commissions already identified solutions to the highway funding problem not involving postal issues. “We just need to stop kicking the can down the road…and get it done,” read Carper's analysis.


• The combined bill takes no money away from the Postal Service, as the GOP memo claimed, “because the Postal Service has no money to take.”


• User fees currently being discussed in the Senate to fund highways “are widely supported,” by truckers, manufacturers, motorists, and state highway departments.

Carper's camp concluded that the Highway Trust Fund-Postal Delivery proposal is nothing but an “accounting gimmick” that assumes a hypothetical Postal service bailout, and that such piecemeal efforts are not what's needed to right the Post Office. “Only bipartisan, comprehensive reform can put the Postal Service back on solid financial footing,” the Carper analysis maintained.

Hudson thinks there's still a possibility that postal reform could get passed this year if the proper spheres fall into alignment. After all, if a political neophyte can topple the House majority leader by 12 percentage points in a primary, anything can happen.

Business Breaking News: Modern Motherhood: The Truth About Being a Working Mom

For decades, women who choose to work while raising a family have struggled with work-life balance. Many working moms pursue the ultimate goal of "having it all" — a fulfilling home life, a rewarding professional career and the energy to keep up with the demands of both while still finding time for themselves.

But is this really an attainable goal? According to a recent survey by author and career strategist Megan Dalla-Camina, most women don't buy into the myth.

"While women have made great progress on the career front, 70 percent of them think it's just not possible to be successful at work and home," said Dalla-Camina, who surveyed 1,000 female professionals for the 2014 U.S. release of her book,"Getting Real About Having It All" (Hay House, 2012). "Add to this the fact that the majority of women surveyed are really struggling with their well-being, and we have a scary picture of the reality of being a woman today trying to make it all work."

Commodity Online News: LME Inventory: Nickel gains the most by 126 tons

Instead of replaying an ad, viewers will now be able to press a "Learn More" button to deliver them to more brand content.

New end-of-video option for marketers

Facebook announced enhancements to its video marketing programs on Thursday that promise marketers better reach, frequency, customization, and audience management. It is also introducing a call-to-action feature for videos.

In the coming weeks, marketers whose primary objective is driving views will be able to push the “Video Views” button on the social network's Power Editor campaign tool. Facebook will then automatically target ads to the people most likely to view videos, taking into account preferred devices and audiences. Marketers with account reps at Facebook will have the added ability to direct additional ads to people who have viewed specific videos.

Especially notable for direct response marketers is a call-to-action feature that can be added at a video's conclusion. The “Learn More” button accompanies the “Replay” option and invites viewers to visit one of a menu of Web destinations provided by the advertiser.

“With these new enhancements, marketers can take people on an even deeper journey with their brand, by encouraging people to take an action right after they've watched a video and sending them a targeted brand message later on,” says Facebook product manager Fidji Simo.

Business Breaking News: What to Do When Your Best Employee Quits

In a small business or startup setting, every employee is an essential member of the team. It's hard to imagine how the business would keep functioning if one person had to take a short leave of absence, let alone if that employee quit altogether. But the departure of key employees is an ever-present risk for any company, and it's important that employers be prepared for the loss.

"You have to have a talent pipeline in place," said C.J. Reuter, senior director of global client success at social recruiting solution Work4. "You can get hit with someone's [resignation] notice at any time, and if that happens, you need to have two or three people ready to step up."

While no company wants to see its best workers leave, to make the transition go smoothly, it is important that employers handle resignations in a professional and legally compliant manner. Here's how to proceed when an important employee decides to quit. [5 Ways to Keep Your Best Employees Happy]

Commodity Online News: LME Inventory: Nickel gains the most by 126 tons

Consumers aren't as reluctant to receive marketing messages on the run as some think, a new study shows.

Mobile users may actually be happy to hear from you.

Surveys, activists, and government officials who warn that location-based marketing campaigns are a form of stalking are off-base, according to a study by mobile marketing provider Urban Airship maintaining that marketers can safely reach half their mobile customers with location- and proximity-triggered messages.

Analyzing some 4 billion push messages from more than 1,000 apps, Urban Airship found that an average of 62% of consumers agree to share their location with app providers. Mobile users must also opt in to push notifications to receive location-based messages, and more than half of them did, said the study.

“Our data analysis shows that assumptions around consumers being reluctant to share location are false and massively short-sell mobile,” says Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton. “Users obviously value the location-based functionality of apps.”

Urban Airship's campaign analysis showed that the location opt-in rate among individual apps in the study ranged from 60 to 80%.

Business Breaking News: Focus on 'Family' Is Key to Long-Term Family Business Success

According to Family Enterprise USA, 5.5 million family-owned businesses operate in the United States. What's the secret to their success? It just might be the "family" aspect that makes these organizations thrive.

"The business world knows that if you take care of the customer, the bottom line will take care of itself," said Paul Gentilini, owner and dealer principle of third-generation car dealership Gentilini Motors. "Family-run businesses take it a step further — if you take care of your employees and treat them like family, they will take care of your customers and treat them like family. The business will thrive with loyal patrons and employees, and continue to grow and be profitable even during tough times."

What truly drives many family businesses is the sense of connection and identity the owners and their family members feel with the business, said entrepreneur Allen Fishman, founder and executive chairman of business coaching services provider The Alternative Board (TAB). [5 Survival Tips for Family Businesses]

Commodity Online News: Chana trading range 2752 2846 gains at 2799

When marketing and technology converge, everyone's happy—including the end consumer, says AOL Platforms CEO Bob Lord, speaking at the ARF show today in NYC.

There's no dearth of data—but there is a marked need for quality data that adequately reflects what consumers are actually doing. (P.S., they're doing it on their mobile devices.)

There are several issues facing the measurement industry today and these numbers, from a recent Advertising Research Federation survey, certainly paint the picture. Seventy percent of marketers say that they're held to a higher standard of accountability than ever before. To that end, there's been a 72% increase in marketing analytics spending as part of overall marketing spend, which itself is set to hit more than $1 trillion. Clearly marketers are willing to shell out cash for good info—but right now, only 10% of marketers actually feel like they have the data they need.

So, it's an opportunity and a challenge at the same time.

If you ask AOL Platforms CEO Bob Lord (below), the answer lies in the convergence between technology, media, and creative. When those things come together, top-notch customer experience is the result. That's why measurement is key—if brands really understand the people they're trying to market to, they'll be able to create a brand story that dovetails with consumer need.

“Right now it's about a lot more than just creativity, content, or technology—or how technology will solve all our problems,” said Lord, speaking at the ARF's Measurement Mandate conference in NYC. “But it's also about a lot more than just media and data.”

Technology may not be the ultimate panacea, but it is fueling brand experience in a big way.

“More creative ideas are coming from the technology organization than ever before, both in how we access data in new ways and how we use it in real time,” Lord said. “Technology, media, and creativity operating within the context of business strategy can transform a marketing problem.”

What it all boils down to is using data in the service of consumer experience. Here's how you get there:

Put the consumer at center. Organizations need to be structured around the consumer, which means really understanding his or her actual journey. Delta's a good example. The airline used to operate around silos. The email guy took care of email. The mobile guy took care of mobile. These days, Delta has product managers in charge of different aspects of the experience. One person looks after the pre-check-in process while someone else manages the overall booking process or the in-flight experience. In that way communications are consistent and the customer's experience is considered at every touchpoint.

Think of your brand as a service. Brands aren't just selling stuff these days, they're meeting customer need. Look at Nike and its often-lauded FuelBand. Nike's doing more than hawk sneakers—it's promoting health, overall well-being, mindfulness. It's going beyond the sell. (But if someone buys some Nike gear as a result, that obviously doesn't hurt.)

Reject silos. Customers don't care if you're having interdepartmental problems. They want what they want. Silos = bad. Enough said.

Act like a startup. Simpler said than done, sure—but if you're agile, embrace flexible tools, and keep iterating, your business will thrive, and that is simple.

Embrace diversity. “Sameness will lead us astray—diversity will always exceed your expectation,” Lord said. “Companies with more diverse teams have seen their ROI rise quantifiably.”

Business Breaking News: ASUS Transformer Book T300 Chi: Top 3 Business Features

A new laptop/tablet hybrid from ASUS is a stunningly portable business machine. In fact, the Transformer Book T300 Chi looks to be the world's thinnest 12.5-inch hybrid. The Windows 8.1 tablet boasts a large display, a fast processor and a detachable keyboard that's easy to snap on when you need it. Specific pricing details have yet to be announced, but reports indicate it could fall into the same price range as the highly affordable ASUS Transformer Book T100, which starts at $349. Read on for three features that make the Transformer Book T300 Chi good for business.

Keyboard dock

A tablet is a great tool for checking email and running productivity apps when you're away from the office, but a laptop computer is better when you have real work to do. The Transformer Book T300 Chi is a hybrid device that bridges the gap with a sturdy detachable keyboard and a roomy touchpad that will make it easier to navigate your Windows desktop, and use applications that require precision pointing, such as Microsoft Excel.

Commodity Online News: Silver may trade 39931 40871 range support at 40219

LINE to bring group SMS and other features to ExactTarget

The Salesforce-owned ExactTarget Marketing Cloud recently announced its partnership with LINE, a free communications app for both mobile and desktops that recently topped 400 million global users.

The partnership enables ExactTarget Marketing Cloud's 10,000 clients to interact with their followers and opted-in customers by sharing coupons, offers, and other content through group messaging. These responses are personalized based on either the brand's or ExactTarget's data. Marketers will be able to segment and target LINE followers according to profile data such as language and location. This data is stored within the ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.

The LINE capabilities will be available through private beta only until Q3, when the features (and pricing) will be officially announced and generally available.

Business Breaking News: Top 5 Cloud Storage Apps for Android

A good cloud storage service is essential for business people who use their smartphones or tablets for work. Since these Android apps back up your files and documents to the cloud, they ensure you'll always have the most up-to-date versions of the files you need, right when you need them. But not all cloud storage platforms are created equal. They vary widely in pricing, features and compatibility. Before you pick one for your small business, read on for five of the best cloud storage apps for Android.

Dropbox is a reliable and easy-to-use cloud storage platform that lets you drag and drop your documents to sync them across all your Web-connected devices. It's also a good way to back up your files to the cloud, since you can recover deleted files and revert to previously saved versions by signing into your account on the Dropbox website. When you need to access a document on the go, just launch the app on your smartphone or tablet to view all the files you've stored in the cloud. The app also lets you designate individual files as your "favorites" to cache them for offline viewing. For business subscribers, Dropbox allows you protect your files in secure folders, and lets you alter file-viewing permissions on the fly. You also get two-step verification for added security, as well as an activity log so you can see which team members edited which files.

Pricing

2 GB: Free

100 GB: $9.99/month

200 GB: $19.99/month

500 GB: $49.99/month

Unlimited business plan: $15/month (five user minimum)

Commodity Online News: Buy MCX Aluminum Zinc on dips sell Copper Nickel on pullbacks: Karvy

Savings Catcher automates price comparisons in an app that returns the differences to shoppers through Walmart electronic gift cards.

Savings Catcher loads price differences onto gift cards.

Walmart, which for years has been toying with potential loyalty programs and mobile strategies, has landed on a solution that addresses both issues. Savings Catcher, set to be rolled out nationwide this summer, uses rewards that aren't technically discounts—a longtime problem for the everday low price retailer. At the same time, it figures to catalyze mobile engagement, give Walmart access to more customer data, and integrate its e-commmerce and brick-and-mortar businesses.

During a seven-city beta test this spring, the shopper engagement tool ranked first among all such concepts tested to date, noted Walmart in its announcement of the rollout at last week's shareholders meeting. Savings Catcher employs a third-party tracking firm to identify locally advertised deals on comparable items from retailers such as Aldi, Target, Walgreens, and HEB. Within 72 hours of purchase, price differences are automatically deposited into the accounts of Savings Catcher members, who can at any time request the accrued amounts in the form of a Walmart eGift card.

The program involved 80,000 grocery and consumable items during the pilot program, in which consumers initiated the process by entering receipt numbers via Walmart.com. During the summer expansion, general merchandise and produce items will be added and shoppers can use a mobile to scan their receipts.

“Walmart now has a CRM system that doesn't involve discounts. As people continue to engage with the system, they're creating a relationship with Walmart via mobile and emails,” says Tim O'Connor, VP of RetailNet Group, a retail research company. “This is also a significant joint project between Walmart e-com and Walmart stores.”

Coming soon to the program will be features such as eReceipts, eCoupons, and automated shopping lists. “We are going to win by integrating digital and physical,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer of Walmart U.S. in a statement. “Savings Catcher and its expanding capabilities are just one example of that. We are well-positioned to innovate and lead in the tech space, and you'll see more of this.”

Business Breaking News: OS X Yosemite vs. Windows 8.1: Which Is Better for Business?

Apple's new operating system update is packed with productivity-boosting features. Dubbed OS X Yosemite, the update includes a revamped notification center, a new way to search from the desktop, and new options to connect your iPhone or iPad to your desktop computer. But how does the new version of OS X stack up to Windows 8.1? Read on to see how the new and updated features in OSX Yosemite compare to the latest release for Microsoft's desktop operating system.

OS X Yosemite: One of the best new additions to OS X Yosemite is a slew of features that help your MacBook or iMac work together with any iPhone or iPad. That includes the ability to take an incoming phone call from your Mac computer – even when your iPhone is charging in another room. That's because your computer can now leverage your iPhone connection and use your computer's microphone and speaker to act as a phone. When you receive an incoming call, you'll get an alert right on your desktop, and can answer it with one click. You can also place outgoing calls.

And there's a second new way OS X can connect to your iPhone or iPad, thanks to a feature called Handoff. It lets you seamlessly send an in-progress document or email from your Mac to your mobile device – or vice versa – with a single tap. When you're at work on your desktop computer, just swipe up on your iOS device to beam your document over to your iPhone or iPad. And if you're tapping out an email on your mobile device, just click on the Handoff icon on your computer desktop to make the switch in the opposite direction.

Commodity Online News: LME inventory update: Aluminium stocks decline the most by 7600 tons

A market share grab for smartphones and tablets has computer and electronics marketers devoting half of their digital ad dollars to direct-sales vehicles.

Mobile and direct-response pick up in electonics ads.

Digital advertising spending on the part of marketers of consumer electronics and computing companies will hit $3.8 billion this year, and 54% of their spends will be devoted to direct-response vehicles, according to eMarketer's recently released 2014 Digital Ad Spending Benchmarks report.

That projection, as well as one that has these companies devoting a third of their spending to the mobile channel, is based on stiff competition for smartphone and tablet sales, the report says. The direct marketing focus industry-wide is also fueled by increased spending among B2B players as IT departments shift infrastructure to the cloud.

Advertisers in this space are steadily upping their mobile investments to maintain a presence in the medium where they see customers spending most of their time, according to the report, which quotes a Millennial Media study that showed worldwide mobile spending in the tech sector increasing by 132% in Q3 2013 alone.

Emarketer forecasts steady double-digit increases in digital advertising for the vertical and predicts its spend will surpass $6 billion by 2018.

Business Breaking News: Top 5 Cloud Storage Apps for iOS

This week, Apple announced iCloud Drive, a major upgrade for the company's cloud storage platform that lets you save and sync your files with a simple drag-and-drop interface. The upgrade improves upon the existing iCloud platform, which already lets you back up your contacts, calendars, photos, music and apps to the cloud. The new system is set to debut with the release of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite later this year — but why wait for great cloud storage on iOS? There are already a slew of solid services available for the mobile platform to help you back up your files and access them from anywhere. Read on to learn about the upcoming iCloud Drive, along with four alternatives.

This fall, Apple will launch iCloud Drive, a cross-platform service that will let you access files and documents on your mobile devices. The feature is built right into the Finder in the new version of OS X, Apple's desktop operating system. Just drag and drop a file into your iCloud Drive folder on your MacBook or iMac computer to make it available on any iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows PC. When you're on an iPhone or iPad, however, there's still no way to view all the files stored in your iCloud Drive folder in one spot. To find files stored in iCloud Drive, you'll need to open a compatible app. For example, when you open the mobile version of Apple's Pages word processor, you'll have access to all the documents you've stored in iCloud Drive. Once it launches, the best reason to pick iCloud Drive could be its integration with both iOS and OS X. That could make this service the obvious choice for Apple devotees.

Pricing

Commodity Online News: Sell MCX Copper Nickel on pullbacks: Karvy

Nickelodeon is all about fun content—but when it comes to understanding its audience, there's nothing the TV network takes more seriously.

Nickelodeon goes where its audience tells it to go. That may sound like a recipe for chaos, but what is actually does is allow Nick to market from a position of power—because consumer insight is the foundation of solid marketing strategy.

If you don't know who your target audience is and where they play, the quality of your content is akin to the proverbial tree falling in the woods—it doesn't matter because no one is consuming it.

Considering the growing platform agnosticism of consumers in general—and of Nickelodeon's core target of 6- to 11-year-olds in particular—that might seem like a tall order, but Nick's CMO Pam Kaufman has these words for marketers who might fear the plunge: “It's not complicated. Start with great content, know where the consumer is, and create activations across platforms.”

Omnichannel marketing might feel complex because of the continually evolving tech landscape, but it's really just a matter of being smart and picking your battles.

“Be on the platforms that make sense as they become available; if consumers are there, we've got to be there,” says Kaufman, who took a few moments to chat with Direct Marketing News before her keynote presentation at the Brand Activation Association's Marketing to the Omnichannel Shopper conference in NYC.

“To be a meaningful brand today you need to have a mobile strategy and a social strategy, which also has to connect to your overall digital strategy,” Kaufman says. “But we can't be everywhere all the time, so it's about listening for the drum beats and seeing if they're worthy of making some noise around.”

Pam Kaufman from @NickelodeonPR to deliver an amazing session on revival of Ninja Turtles #omnichannel #marketing http://bit.ly/1kEc5WR

— BAALINK (@baalink) June 5, 2014

The fluidity of Nick's content is no accident. There is no expression of Nickelodeon's TV presence that doesn't make its way, in some form, to other platforms, particularly digital, social, and mobile channels. And throughout it all, Nick tracks consumer behavior on an ongoing basis.

Nick's omnichannel footprint is impressive: 40 million unique visitors a month over 15 websites; 25 million U.S. TV viewers every month; and 500 million viewers around the world—in addition to events, apps, and hundreds of related consumer products and retail tie-ins.

Why those numbers are so high is because Nick actually listens to its audience, and when the network sees an opportunity, it pounces. When Nickelodeon realized that nostalgia-driven millennials were hungering for classic 1990s programming, for example, it brought back hit shows like Hey Arnold, Rugrats, and (personal favorite) Doug in a special block dubbed “The 90s Are All That.” And before spearheading the relaunch of the now hugely popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2012—the show currently has more than 100 million viewers worldwide, a feature film in the works directed by Michael Bay, retail products, CPG, etc.—Nickelodeon did serious background research and outreach to make sure its vision for TMNT would resonate with existing super-fans and new young fans alike.

But the biggest secret to Nickelodeon's success is its laser focus on the post-millennial generation. Nick, which Kaufman says conducts extensive research into the consumption habits and cultural reference points of the 0-to-10 age group, is a brand that really knows its target. “A couple of years ago we lost sight of the fact that we make content for 9-year-olds—that's who we make content for and who we want to sell to.”

Nickelodeon tracks relevant data from a variety of third-party sources, including comScore and Nielson, of course, as well as data coming from social channels, of which Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube top the list. The network also collects a good amount of first-party data through its own direct marketing efforts. One example is the Nick Jr. Birthday Club; when parents sign up for it, their child receives a personalized phone call from his or her favorite Nick Jr. character. Parents can also access birthday party planning tips, free printables, and other handy birthday-related information.

Insights ladder up to overall omnichannel strategy.

“Listen to your audience,” Kaufman says. “If you do that, your insights will resonate in your marketing and in your content.”

Business Breaking News: 4 Steps to Finding Your Workplace 'Soul Mate'

People often talk about searching for their dream job or career, but what about your dream workplace? For every individual, there's a company out there that's a perfect cultural fit based on his or her personality, and finding that fit is important: Sometimes your work environment can affect your job satisfaction more than your day-to-day tasks.

"There is a substantial correlation between good cultural fit and job satisfaction," said Kerry Schofield, whose company Good.Co matches employees and employers based on personality. "A better fit leads to greater satisfaction, more engagement with the organization, and greater commitment to the organization and job."

Finding the perfect workplace match for you requires really figuring out your individual personality and work style, Schofield said. She outlined the following four steps to help job seekers find their workplace "soul mate." [3 Keys to Employee Happiness at Work]

Commodity Online News: LME Inventory: Nickel gains the most by 564 tons

O3b Networks, whose cofounder heads Google's satellite venture, brings real-time connectivity to ships and drilling platforms in remote sea locations.

Google's final frontier?

Google's new satellite venture could eventually deliver marketers real-time connectivity with potential customers--no matter where on Earth they're located.

Greg Wyler, who heads up Google's space project, is the cofounder of O3b Networks, a company whose satellites allow oil company drilling platforms to be in touch with the mainland, cruise ship passengers to be in touch with home, and governments to be in touch with its agents in real time. In addition, O3b claims the quickest connection times due to the closer proximity of its satellites.

Most geosynchronous (GEO) satellites operate about 36,000 kilometers away from Earth, and their round-trip data transmission times exceed 500 milliseconds. O3b's broadband orbiters skim the Equator from an altitude of only 8,062 kilometers, reducing transmission times to about 150 milliseconds. Some other facts about O3b satellites:

• Their improved proximity allows Web users to download pages four times as quickly as they can via GEO connections.


• They use parabolic antennas suited to handle large chunks of data.


• They fly an equatorial orbit to widen planetary reach. Just six satellites are needed to achieve global coverage.


• Space is not yet crowded at 8,062km, so expansion of satellites and coverage into that orbit is faster and easier.

That orbit figures to become more crowded soon, as Google adds satellites to balloons and drones in its mission to cover the globe. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Google's aim is to reach the two thirds of the world with no Internet access and add hundreds of millions of users. It noted that Google, an early investor in O3b, intends to eventually launch numerous satellites weighing only about 250 pounds. Currently, the average O3b satellite weighs about 1,500 pounds.

Business Breaking News: HP Pro X2: Top 3 Business Features

HP's new laptop/tablet hybrid packs a stylus and great security features. That makes the HP Pro X2 a good pick for business users in the market for a versatile new work machine. The 12-inch, 2-in-1 device features a sharp display that snaps onto a full-size keyboard dock. That means you can use it like notebook when you have real work to do. The new HP is heavier than some other 12-inch hybrids, such as Microsoft's Surface Pro 3, but that's the tradeoff for the Pro X2's sturdier keyboard and numerous connectivity options. And it offers decent specs, including an Intel Celeron processor, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB hard drive. Get a hands-on look at the HP Pro X2 at our sister site Laptop Mag, and read on for three features that make the HP Pro X2 good for work.

Security features

The HP Pro X2 packs professional-level security features, including a Smart Card slot. A Smart Card is like a key for your laptop; when activated, this feature prevents the device from functioning unless the right card is inserted. A fingerprint reader located on the lid of the device provides an extra security boost, since it lets you lock and unlock the machine by sliding your finger over the reader.

Commodity Online News: Fresh buying seen in Nickel open interest up 8.51%

Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo

How can marketers make cross-channel attribution a reality?

Cross-channel attribution is a major challenge for marketing organizations. We've all had our share of setbacks. Here's a 12-step program to help you recover:

1. Admit you are powerless

The truth is there's no right way to do attribution. There's only good enough. Accepting that is the first step toward making cross-channel attribution a reality.

2. Believe in a higher power

Mere mortals cannot crunch all the data required to make precise calculations about the impact of each ad along the consumer path to conversion. Only sophisticated technologies leveraging dynamic models and predictive analytics can accomplish this Herculean feat.

3. Turn your will over to the higher power

How can a machine possibly know your business better than you can? It can't. And that's why you still have a job. But, you have to trust the outputs of the machine. If the algorithm tells you to give 23.4% credit to Facebook for its contribution to a sale, do it.

4. Make a fearless inventory

Ensure that you have handle on (or at least a list of) all campaigns across all channels. Every consumer touchpoint must be considered, and the value of that interaction must be calculated.

5. Admit your wrongdoings to others

Reach out to stakeholders within your organization and apologize for using the last-click model all these years. Explain that it seemed like the only conceivable way to dedupe between channels. Or, if you're already using a multitouch attribution model (MTA) but applying static rules that treat every conversion the same (e.g., time decay or U-shape), confess that it's an imperfect approach leading to imperfect results.

6. Ask the higher power to remove defects of character

Make sure your attribution platform can account for the nuances of your business that may impact the model's outputs—seasonality, customer lifetime value, competition, margins, etc.—and remove any bias from the model that may not account for these variables.

7. Humbly ask the higher power to remove your shortcomings

Give your attribution platform time to do its thing. Many months and cycles are required to suss out the signals from the noise and make proper evaluations of the marketplace dynamics. Be patient and focus on the long-term results.

8. Make a list of all persons harmed

You're likely to make a few enemies as you carry out your agenda. Some bottom-funnel channels like affiliate and email may not be happy when you start apportioning credit for their conversions to upper-funnel channels like social and display. Make sure there's buy-in from above to help you with these conversations and, ideally, adjustments in KPIs and incentives to get everyone aligned and working toward the same overall goals.

9. Make amends, except when doing so would injure others

If your attribution platform is telling you to cut out an entire channel that's been a staple of your marketing program from years, think twice before doing it. There may be hidden benefits that the attribution platform is not taking into account and, if those benefits are tangible, find a way to update your MTA model accordingly.

10. Continue to take personal inventory and when wrong, promptly admit it

Attribution, like any facet of marketing, is not “set it and forget it.” Continue to seek out new ways to improve your approach and tailor your model to reflect business realities. Consumer habits are always changing. Technology is always changing. Stay vigilant and ahead of the trends.

11. Seek to improve conscious contact with the higher power and pray for knowledge

Leverage your attribution platform to derive key insights that can be applied to other parts of your marketing plan. For example, if you dig into the data and see that generic search keywords are getting a lot more credit for starting conversion paths, consider shifting budgets from brand terms to improve your impression share. Better yet, seek out attribution solutions that automatically connect to media bidding platforms to activate these insights in real-time.

12. Having achieved spiritual awakening, practice and evangelize these principles

Once you have “good enough” cross-channel attribution in place and are seeing improved results, shout it from the rooftops. Let everyone in your organization know about the progress you've made and ask them to recommit to providing the inputs needed to continually feed the MTA beast. Recognize that the landscape is continually changing and attribution must remain a priority. This is the best way to avoid relapse.

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Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo

CMO and head of freestyle rap at Kenshoo, Aaron Goldman has been running the digital marketing rap game for more than a dozen years. The author of Everything I Know About Marketing I Learned From Google founded digital marketing consulting and matchmaking firm Connectual prior to Kenshoo. Before Connectual Goldman was VP, marketing and strategic partnerships, at search marketing agency Resolution Media; earlier in his career he managed U.S. Midwest sales for ad network MaxOnline. The self-proclaimed marketing junkie earned his bachelor's degree in advertising from the University of Illinois. When he isn't busy Googling himself, Goldman enjoys running around Chicago with his family.

Business Breaking News: 4 Labor Laws You Might Be Breaking

Legal compliance is an important part of running any business. Federal regulations govern numerous aspects of business, and labor and employment laws are among the most carefully scrutinized.

Larger corporations can hire dedicated HR professionals and keep attorneys on retainer to help the business stay up-to-date and in compliance with labor laws. But a lack of resources doesn't excuse small businesses from dealing with these important legal issues.

"Many small businesses think they can fly under the radar with some of the bigger federal labor laws," said Ashley Kaplan, senior employment law attorney for the HRdirect family of brands, including PosterTracker.com. "But the truth is, the labor law umbrella covering businesses is extensive, and every employer needs to be aware."

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