Bad Marketer, No Cookies for You!

What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself?

— George Orwell

Since Apple, Amazon and Facebook's recent admissions to eavesdropping, I interject blather into my phone calls, so marketers waste money targeting me.

For no earthly reason, I drop random nouns like "Kumquat," "Flag Day," "Jeggings," "Aardvark," and "PT-73."

As Orwell said, when the lunatic is more intelligent, what can you do?

In 2021 alone, digital marketers will spend over $455 billion on ads. With financial clout like that, we're powerless to stop them from targeting us.

Our phone calls are likely to become the primary tool they'll use in the future, because today's leading tool—cookies—are going the way of the dodo.

Data-privacy nudniks are taking cookies away, denying marketers the ability to track you on line. (Ironically, socialists in the EU are to blame.) 

Apple's Safari already blocks cookies by default. Mozilla's Firefox does so as well. Google's Chrome will begin to do so in 2023.

Bad marketer, no cookies for you!

But ubiquitous, AI-powered surveillance won't end simply because cookies go away.

 

Cookie-less, marketers will of necessity turn to phone calls for clues to our desires. 

Phone calls will provide our fingerprints.

There is, of course, a high road marketers could take to target you. 

It's called "consent management" (sounds like something an overworked lecher does.)

No—trust me—marketers will take the low road; they always do.

And Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google will be delighted to collect the tolls.

Bad Apple

Why does Apple seem bent on sinking your event?

In the past 13 months, the tech giant has taken shots at three activities vital to your event's well-being:

• In August 2016, Apple released Version 10 of iOS, which lays siege to your email marketing program. Version 10 begs users to opt out of senders' lists by displaying a mammoth unsubscribe banner above each incoming email. Opt-outs have soared ever since.
  

• In June 2017, the company announced its next version of Safari will block retargeting, so your ads won’t stalk prospects any longer. Safari will "sandbox" any third-party cookie after a day; and if the prospect doesn't revisit the site that dropped the cookie within that period, Safari will prevent it from dropping another, should she later return. Ad agencies are in a lather over Apple's move.
  
  
• In July 2017, Apple triggered "Appageddon" by prohibiting "white label" apps (built from templates) from its App Store. That includes the vast majority of event apps. Marketers must forfeit event branding in favor of the app developer's branding, or resort to paying for custom event apps.

Where Should a B2B Marketer Spend Her Money?

It's September. You're being bugged for next year's marketing budget.

Spending is an art form. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sure, year-over-year analytics tell you which channels have produced, but—like any investment—"past performance is no guarantee of future results." We'd all still be buying full-page ads in trade magazines, if that were so.

For my money, your mix next year (ranked by percent of total spend) should look like this:

1. Events
2. Telemarketing
3. Direct mail
4. Retargeting
5. Email
6. SEO
7. PPC
8. Social

Too many channels for your paltry budget? Then work the list from the top down. You can't go wrong.

Don't be tempted to lay all your money on low-cost channels (like email and social), just because they're low cost.

A handful of proprietary events or an exhibit in a couple trade shows, done well, can generate enough leads to keep you in the black for 12 months. A well-conceived telemarketing campaign can do the same. Even a regular stream of pretty postcards can.

Digital Indecency

I imagined the web as a platform that would allow everyone, everywhere
to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate.

— Tim Berners-Lee

Starfleet General Order 1, you'll recall, was the Prime Directive: all personnel should refrain from interfering with the natural development of communities.

Marketers, by cravenly ignoring the web's Prime Directive—to help users share and collaborate—are destroying the medium, says Kirk Chayfitz this month in Chief Content Officer.

Marketers "have failed to see that digital requires a creative approach that is diametrically opposed to the blunt-instrument sales messages of traditional ads," he writes.

As a result, users are demonstrating their "exponentially growing disgust with an industry that has admitted showing little or no regard for people's needs and desires."

They're blocking ads.

Chayfitz prescribes these six rules for restoring "digital decency" to web advertising:

Take responsibility. Marketers must stop blaming agencies; they write the checks.

Do no harm. Ads shouldn't fan users' frustrations. Keep data loads light, don't block content, and don't distract with needless video and animation.

Bust silos. Integrate all digital advertising under one officer.

White-list the sites you want to support. Don't fund fraudsters, charlatans and extremists by running ads on their sites.

Audit. Put the right to audit ad buys in your contracts with agencies. Insist on accountability.

Be useful. Provide users valuable experiences, not repetitive sales pitches. "The dream of digital was always to democratize communication and help make a better world," Chayfitz writes. "Take that to heart."

6 Last-Ditch Ways to Sell Out Your Event

If you're not gonna go all the way, why go at all?

― Joe Namath

When events fail to sell out, resourceful producers pull out all the stops.

EventMB recommends these six last-ditch efforts:

Social media buy. Take out ads on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook that target locals (drive-ins) with an interest in your topics. Cull your database for locals to help you target the buy, and be sure to keep using free social media to chat up your event. Take advantage of past attendees' testimonials. You'll motivate fence-sitters.

Personalized email. Cull from your database locals who haven’t registered and conduct a drip-marketing campaign. Focus on locals who click through and send them additional emails that concentrate on justifying the cost of the event.

Special offer. Email registrants an offer of a referral incentive, such as "Buy two, get one free." Registrants will feel appreciated and help you. Send sponsors and exhibitors the same offer, to pass along to their customers. Sister organizations may also help you spread the word. You can also promote a contest on social media with free tickets as the prizes. Create a hashtag and ask people to vote on line. Contests, well done, are buzz-worthy.

Streamlined registration. Identify any causes of friction in your registration process and eliminate them―even if it means slaying sacred cows. Last-minute registrations are impulsive, and you don't want to deter prospects in any way. And add prominent copy like "Last chance to pre-register and save" or "Only a few seats left."

Telemarketing. The best way to spur last-minute registrations is to call locals, particularly alumni of past events who haven't registered. They know the value you deliver. (If yours is a first-time event, concentrate on locals who have some relationship with you.)

Retargeting. Retargeted ads can influence sales-resistant locals by making your event top of mind. By becoming ubiquitous, you'll sell out.

Last-ditch don'ts. EventMB warns:

• Don't offer last-minute discounts rashly; you only signal panic, cheapen your event, and train registrants to wait for deep discounts the next time round. ("Loyal attendee" discounts are okay.)
  
  
• Don't go all-serious. Play up the entertainment value of your event (remember, last-minute registrations are impulse buys).
  
  
• Don't go into hard-sell mode across all marketing channels. Concentrate on the ones above.
   
• Don't bury your calls to action in your last-ditch promotions. Big, colorful buttons work.
  
  
• Don't refrain from giving free registrations away, if the recipients are influencers who'll add to the prestige of your event.

How to Refine Your Retargeting

Retargeting yields B2B marketers stronger results when linked to precise goals, says Demand Gen Report.

Retargeting experts insist the technique should not be considered a marketing channel unto itself, but a tactic that can reinforce other channels such as social, email, direct mail, telemarketing, and face-to-face.

An account-based approach to retargeting (limiting your ad targets to a list of prospects at specific companies) also boosts results.

"With an account-based approach, companies can identify the accounts that can have the biggest impact on their business and focus retargeting on those companies," says Peter Isaacson, CMO, Demandbase. 

That approach lets marketers personalize retargeted ads based demographics like industry and company size, and on product interests.

Retargeting should also be linked to speedy follow-up by salespeople.

"Too often, marketers focus on ads only," Isaacson says. "But to drive business metrics, you want to make sure there is triggering sales activity. This includes triggers to bring in sales development reps and account development reps to get involved and tie these initiatives to potential bottom line revenue."