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.

Fight of the Century

Tradeshow versus Digital is going to be a slugfest, says event-industry consultant Francis Friedman in his new, 287-page book, The Modern Digital Tradeshow.

Nimble contender Digital could handily clobber the out-of-shape champion.

Digital has already driven Tradeshow from marketing's "center stage" onto a "specialized side stage," Friedman says; and, unless the latter regains its magic, Digital could win by a knockout.

Friedman prescribes a rigorous, three-legged regimen to help Tradeshow get back in trim:

• Redefinition. The tradeshow industry's "analog" business model is passé. "Our industry must change from its static 'show' industry self-concept," Friedman says. "We must view our future as a branded content and experience provider, and integral omni-channel member of a target community." Unless the industry rediscovers a purpose—its raison d'être—it will be excluded from the b-to-b marketers' club.
  
  
• Transformation. Organizers need to embrace event tech—now. There's simply no more time to debate the topic. "The tradeshow industry must now play catch-up to the changing digital marketing landscape through a fundamental shift in its historical business model and product configurations," Friedman says. Event tech that "animates" events and enables exhibitors to verify ROI will matter most—gizmos like VR, AR, AI, beacons, bots, holograms, and drones.
  
  
• Rebranding. The event industry needs to discover and express a new and dynamic "personality," or its transformation into a digital player will go unnoticed. "In the current tradeshow organizer model, 'the show' is inanimate, occupying a specific date and time on the calendar of its marketplace and unable to 'act.'" Friedman says. "'The show' per se has no arms or legs, no voice and no ability to act or interact with its market. 'The show' is just booths on a tradeshow floor at a given time and in each place."

Friedman for years—via keynotes, articles, books and white papers—has been prepping tradeshow organizers for the coming match. With The Modern Digital Tradeshow, he's provided the playbook they need to go the distance.

NOTE: The Modern Digital Tradeshow is available free on the author's website.

Uncle Sam Should Damn Spam

US anti-spam law hampers marketers, says email marketing expert Chad White.

The feds agree, and are moving to reform CAN-SPAM.

The problem with the law?

It's lax.

That laxity makes "deliverability overly difficult for legitimate senders," White says, because email providers have to police inboxes.

"If a brand only clears the low bar set by CAN-SPAM, they are pretty much guaranteed to be blacklisted and blocked by inbox providers," White says.

"While on the surface, lax regulations look like an advantage to American brands, it’s really setting them up for failure."

White urges these seven reforms:

• Tighten the deadline for honoring opt-out requests. Marketers, by law, can now stall for 10. But customers want them to honor opt-outs immediately.
  
  
• Dictate how unsubscribe works. Customers struggle with marketers' inconsistent practices; as a result, one in two resorts to clicking the “Report Spam” button.
  
  
• Loosen the definition of "transactional" emails. Marketers should be allowed to send post-purchase emails (such as receipts, thank-you notes, and renewal notices) without be being flagged as spammers.
  
  
• Require CAPTCHA on signup forms. "Unprotected open email signup forms allow spammers, hackers, and other bad actors to use bots to weaponize email," White says. Only 3% of marketers use CAPTCHA on their forms today.
  
  
• Mandate authentication and encryption. Email personalization makes customers vulnerable to phishing. CAN-SPAM could protect them by mandating that senders authenticate and encrypt emails.
  
  
• Require permission. That requirement would harmonize CAN-SPAM with other countries' tougher laws, and keep US marketers out of hot water. Permission is defined as "an expressed or implied consent or existing business relationship."
  
  
• Stipulate that inactivity equals opting out. " CAN-SPAM should recognize that permission expires," White says. "CAN-SPAM should require senders to stop emailing subscribers when they haven’t opened or clicked an email in the past two years."

Hustle

In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, Disrupted author Dan Lyons slammed Silicon Valley's work ethic.

Under the rubric "hustle," Lyons says, the Valley worships workaholism.

"You hear it everywhere," he writes. "You can buy hustle-themed T-shirts and coffee mugs, with slogans like 'Dream, hustle, profit, repeat' and 'Outgrind, outhustle, outwork everyone.' You can go to an eight-week 'start-up hustle' boot camp. You can also attend Hustle Con, a one-day conference where successful 'hustlers' share their secrets."

Angel and hero Gary Vee (Vaynerchuk) tells hustlers to work 18-hour days, seven days a week, according to Lyons. So do employers like Uber and Lyft. They've fetishized hustle, and made hardship a mandate.

While too busy to read books, Valley dwellers would do well, in my opinion, to read the last pages of Steve Jobs, the entrepreneur's authorized biography. They recount Jobs' deathbed interview.

Jobs tells his biographer he permitted the posthumous book not for the public's sake, but as a memento for his children. "I wanted my kids to know me," he said. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why, and to understand what I did."

Asked whether he cared much for children he never knew, the multi-billionaire said they were "10,000 times better than anything I've ever done."

The More You Lie, the Less We Buy

After 10 years as a user of Kaspersky anti-virus software, I'm switching brands, due to the treatment I received by an offshore sales rep.

My credit card was stolen a few months ago, so to allow my subscription to auto-renew, I contacted Kaspersky (which doesn't permit users to change the credit card numbers it keeps on file).

The rep who finally took my call refused to stop reading from a script of "security" questions that were blatantly meant to upsell me. 

Each time I asked her what her questions had to do with security, she insisted they were for my own good.

None of them were.

After 10 minutes of this, I told her I'd switch to the leading competitor, unless she helped me update my credit card info.

She wasted another 15 minutes of my time bumbling around with this process, to no avail.

I politely thanked her for the help and hung up. Now I'm moving on to the competitor.

Walk a mile in your customers' shoes, CEOs. Try a quarter-mile, if you have no time for customers.

The more you lie, the less we buy.