Mediaboss Marketing

The first revolution of Internet, in 1995, involved connecting personal computers across the globe onto one giant web and make information available at the click of a button. The second revolution, around 2010, saw the emergence of social networks and enabled the human race to become one large family with everyone having the ability to connect with everyone else on issues of common interest. Now the third Internet revolution, led by voice, humanitys most used communication channel, is going to result in a screen-less omnipresent Internet.

Presently more than 20 percent of search queries in India are already done by voice. And by 2020, 50 percent of all global searches will be voice searches. In fact, India is seeing 270 percent year on year growth in voice searches, as revealed by Google. One of the reasons for the humongous growth is because voice is faster than typing. Also in rural areas, where people cant read or write in English, this technology comes handy. Since the Indian market is one of the biggest and fastest growing markets, big players like Amazons Alexa, Google Home etc, are now focusing and placing bets on Indian languages and the Indian market.

Some of the major players in the voice Internet market are:

There are fundamentally three ways in which consumers will engage with Internet using voices.

Our device of engagement remains the same, our existing laptop or phone. However instead of using a keyboard to input information, we use voice to input information. And the response (output) can either be displayed on the screen or the response can get called out by the machine.

This has an immediate impact on SEO. Google is the gateway to the Internet for any consumer and thus it is important for brands and businesses that they show up in a Google search. However search using voice is more conversational compared to search using a keyboard.

Eg : Keyboard search: Italian restaurant Mumbai

Eg : Voice search: Can you recommend a good Italian restaurant in Mumbai in my neighbourhood

Thus SEO strategy will need to be tweaked to include phrases rather than just key words.

Similarly website content will need to be more nuanced and conversational, akin to a chatbot engagement. Traditional websites are organised in the form of About Us - Our Services - Contact Us kind of linear structure. In a voice internet world, we need to envisage a consumer conversation with a brand website and create an interface that responds to a conversational question, assuming multiple possible paths in which the conversation can go.

The second and perhaps more revolutionary use of voice internet is the use of devices for interaction.

In the simplest form, these devices will be the likes of a Google Home or an Alexa. The market for these devices is now growing by leaps and bounds. Currently, these devices are being used to find answers to simple questions like What is the weather, Play some instrumental music and Which movies are playing in town. As these devices grow smarter, very soon they will replace the family dog. I envisage a voice device at some point becoming a part of the family, and actually engaging in conversations and providing inputs during a discussion.

As per Alexa, every day in the morning, thousands of people get up and say Good morning to their device showing not only how people are making an effort to be polite to a piece of technology, but also the fact that these devices are becoming a part of our lives.

From a brand perspective these devices pose a major challenge. Unlike screen-based internet, where a Google query could list a whole bunch of responses on the first page of the search result, a voice device wont call out so many results. It will call out a very limited number of results. In such a situation, how does a brand ensure that it figures in the results that get called out. Also brands will be forced to define a voice personality for their brand. When a brand responds via the Internet of voice should it be a male voice or a female voice. What should be the tonality of the voice? Should it be preachy, or should it be funny?

Additionally, how would SEM work in case of a voice device? How do ads get activated in a voice search? I am already seeing some initial examples of ads where before providing response to my query, the voice assistant runs a 15 second brand ad. While opportunity for putting out multiple search results and multiple ads may decrease substantially in a voice search, I think the number of queries (and thus opportunities) to engage with consumers will increase dramatically.

Voice devices are allowing brands to create the equivalent of apps that can be fired on the voice assistant. Just like we can create a brand app, and host it on various phone operating systems (like Android or IoS, etc), similarly, we can create brand apps and host it on voice assistant platforms. The next media war will be for brands to find space on the consumers voice assistant.

Perhaps the most significant impact of voice will be seen in IoT devices. With embedded chips in pretty much every device or gadget, which can be then linked to the Internet, one could actually talk to any device. So you could ask a light bulb to switch itself on or off; or you can ask your fridge to order supplies via your preferred e-grocery store; or you can ask you washing machine to place a service request with the manufacturer. And then of course, you could have a driverless car that not only ferries you from one place to another based on your voice command, but can actually have a conversation with you based on your mood, play music of your choice or book a spa for you on your way back from the office if you sound too tired. More and more companies are jumping on this bandwagon.Already, Ford lets you talk to your car, Huawei and LG let you talk to your phone and fridge and ADT lets you talk to your burglar alarm!

KidsMD, a voice-based application that runs on Alexa, helps provide parents answers to questions about childrens illness and also gets real-time information about drugs, procedures and how to treat their child. Parents find it more reassuring to hear the responses then seeing the responses displayed on a screen! Boston Hospital is attempting to use voice-based communication in the operation theatre. Doctors in the operation theatre take pictures of body parts during a surgery but labelling these pictures later becomes a challenge since the pictures look fairly similar. Using a voice assistant, the doctor keeps calling out the body parts as he keeps photographing them and the voice assistant does the image tagging. Or imagine pilots in the cockpit no longer referring to physical manuals or even their IPads. They can simply call out, and a voice assistant can provide the relevant answer in real time.

The Internet of Voice is truly the next big revolution, with some incredible possibilities.

(Edited by Suruchi Kapur- Gomes)

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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How Internet of Voice is changing the rules of digital marketing - YourStory

David Teten is an advisor to emerging investment managers and a Venture Partner with HOF Capital. He was previously a partner for 8 years with HOF Capital and ff Venture Capital. David writes regularly at teten.com and @dteten.More posts by this contributor

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our counterparts in the hedge fund world: were trying to automate more of our job.

When I was single, I registered for (a lot of) dating websites. When I met my now-wife, I realized that any technology that can find me a spouse is a killer app. Thats why 40 million Americans use online dating sites. But, most of use raise capital and source deals the same way people looked for dates 20 years ago: networking at conferences (or bars).

Most of us want one spouse and were done, but in business, you want a lot of partners. Id argue that the same type of technologies that have revolutionized dating can revolutionize our industry.

In liquid markets, most of the calories expended on technology and analytics are focused on trade selection, or origination. However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process. Below, Ill walk through how progressive investors are using technology and analytics throughout all of their operations. To learn more about this space, I suggest joining an online community I co-founded, PEVCTech.

Before you can actually invest, you have to manage your fund. This is harder than it sounds. In the private equity universe, most partners have primary training as deal-makers, not as managers. When I talk with junior personnel at private equity firms, the quality of firm management is a frequent complaint.

Ive used Asana extensively to manage activities firm-wide. I also use several living Google docs to maintain the minutes and the group agendas for my fixed weekly meetings. I use another live Google doc to maintain my database of companies Im marketing to other VCs. That Google document provides cut and pasteable text I can share with other investors, based on their stage, focus and appetite.

Other investors use Trello, Basecamp, and Monday for making sure that everyone at the firm knows each others long-term OKRs and short-term projects. Point Nine Capital uses 15Five for continuous employee feedback.

One aspect of management which merits attention is your own cybersecurity, which should not be left until a crisis to address. Small investment firms often have interns and entrepreneurs in residence passing through, each of which is a security risk. (See A comprehensive guide to security for startups by Bessemer Ventures.)

Kyle Dunn, CEO of Meyler Capital, says investors should focus on building a large audience within a CRM system (having the ability to categorize your different constituents); communicate consistently to that audience; and implement an automation platform that can leverage lead score to profile interest. It sounds simple; however, very few asset managers actually do it. I agree.

Many tools designed for B2B marketing in general are also relevant to investors. I know of funds using Constant Contact, Goodbits, Pardot and Publicate to create light newsletters for internal and external consumption. A major angel group uses Influitive, an advocate management tool, to track, activate and motivate their members. Other VCs use Contently* or Social Native* to create relevant content. Meyler Capital is taking the analytical rigor of modern internet marketing and applying it to fund marketing.

Point Nine Capitals website is now powered by Contentful it uses Unbounce for landing pagesand Typeform for surveys and other data collection. Were using TinyLetter for our Content Newsletter and Buffer to schedule social media posts. Last but not least, we still use MailChimp to publish our (in)famous newsletter. I also use Mailchimp for the teten.com and pevctech.com mailing lists. Point Nine Capital uses Mention for media monitoring. Teten.com is built on WordPress as my content management system.

I use Hootsuite to coordinate my social media activity, which consists of Teten.com, PEVCTech.com, Linkedin, AngelList, and (passively) Twitter and Facebook. I use Google Drive to host my conference presentations, which are all embedded at teten.com. I use Diigo, a social bookmarking tool, to keep a record of useful websites. I have also configured IFTTT to share on Twitter anything new I post on Diigo.

Qnary is one of numerous tools which can help build out your team members virtual presence. A tool like Quuu identifies relevant, shareable content to keep your social media channels active.

There are two crucial aspects of marketing that investors often overlook: automation and analytics, wrote Sabena Quan-Hin, Marketing Manager at Flow Capital. Automation allows you to spend less time on tedious tasks and will help boost productivity, especially within a small marketing team. At Flow Capital, we use HubSpots sequences and workflows functions to automate a bulk of our emails and internal tasks. This provides us more time to develop meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. We use Google Analytics, HubSpot, and LinkedIn Campaign Manager for the majority of our analytics. For our content creation, we use tools such as Canva (graphic design) and GoToStage (webinars platform) to create and share content for prospects to find.

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack, said, If I could offer one piece of advice to todays managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. Todays investors are allocating more to alternatives in an environment where there are record numbers of new funds; and seeking deeper relationships with managers via direct and coinvestments. The past few years have therefore seen a huge rise in the proportion of LPs using specialized tools to manage and understand their portfolios, including platforms such as Chronograph, Solovis, Allocator, Cobalt LP, eFront Insights, iLevel, Burgiss.

The proportion of LPs using technology to manage their portfolios will continue to increase, and GPs unable to provide quality data to LPs will find it increasingly hard to retain and attract LPs. We are also seeing technology evaluation as an increasingly important part of LP operational due diligence. Excel and Google simply arent going to cut it if you expect to build a high quality institutional investor base.

A more efficient approach to fundraising than haphazard networking is to mine the data exhaust from the limited partner universe to identify those LPs most likely to find your fund attractive and focus all your energy on them. I previously posted a detailed presentation with sales technology tools useful for B2B sales.

I always make a point of keeping firm records updated in the major data-trackers tracking the VC industry: AngelList, CB Insights, Crunchbase, Dow Jones VentureSource, Pitchbook, Preqin, and Refinitiv Eikon. LPs, coinvestors, and press use these tools, so I work for free for these data vendors to make sure that their data about our activities is correct. This is a great example of why data businesses have substantial moats.

Boardex and Relationship Science make it easier to understand and map social networks into potential limited partners. Cobalt for General Partners helps GPs to optimize their fundraising strategy. MandateWire and FinSearches provide leads on limited partners with new mandates which might fit your fund. Evestment is a platform for capital-raisers; Evestment TopQ automates private markets performance calculation.

I am a heavy user of DocSend, a secure content sharing and tracking platform that can be used to seamlessly share recurring materials with potential LPs. It provides analytics to track shared materials across target senders and improve the content for future leads. Point Nine Capital uses Qwilr to create modern, mobile-native collateral.

Most funds open data rooms to share previous reports, performance data, pitch decks, legal docs and other fundraising material with LPs. Ive seen funds using Ansarada, Allvue, Box, CapLinked, dfsco, Dropbox, Digify, Drooms, Google Drive, iDeals, Intralinks, Ipreo, Merrill Corporation, and SecureDocs for their Virtual Data Rooms. These same tools are used by companies raising capital.

Ive also experimented with using services which are marketplaces between LPs and GPs: CEPRES, DiligenceVault, FundVeil, Harvest Exchange, and Palico. Some funds are using technology-enabled intermediaries to help them sell to retail LPs, e.g., Artivest and iCapital Network.

Deer Isle Group has built the D.I.G. Beacon technology system, which automatically outbound-solicits a universe of over 10,000 institutional investors, without requiring LPs to register for an online network of funds.

Crystal guides you in how to influence a particular person, based on their online presence. X.ai is a virtual assistant which can coordinate your fundraising and other meetings.

Originally posted here:
Progressive VCs and private equity are using tech and analytics to revolutionize investing - TechCrunch

Early indications show that food comas on Thanksgiving couldnt keep people from going online to do a little, or as data already suggests, a lot of shopping. Adobe showed online retail sales on Thursday will reach a record level of $4.4 billion.

The number would represent an 18.9% year-over-year increase compared to last years $3.7 billion. Thus far, sales have reached $2.2 billion with almost 50% of sales stemming from shopping on mobile devices.

Per a CNBC report, online retail shopping has become increasingly important for retailers in recent years as consumer trends have shifted from shopping at physical stores to buying products from their phones or computers. Companies such as Amazon, Walmart and Target have benefited from this shift.

The strong online sales performance to-date suggests that holiday shopping starts much earlier than ever before, said Jason Woosley, vice president of commerce product and platform at Adobe, in a statement.

What will be important for retailers to track is whether the early discounts will drive continued retail growth overall, or if they have induced consumers to spend their holiday budgets earlier, Woosley added.

Retail stocks are already shining stars as the major indexes have been reaching record highs amid optimism that a U.S.-China phase one trade deal will come into fruition.

According to the CNBC report, Amazona perennial darling on Wall Streetis up 21.1% this year while Walmart and Target have surged 27.5% and 90.5%, respectively. Others such as Kohls, Gap and Macys have struggled as shopping continues to move away from brick-and-mortar retailers in favor of online shopping. Year to date, Kohls shares are down 27.2% while Gaps stock has shed 34.4% of its value. Macys is the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 in 2019, plunging 48%

ETF Investors looking to play the heavy online shopping numbers can look at the ProShares Online Retail ETF (ONLN). ONLN seeks investment results, before fees and expenses, that track the performance of the ProShares Online Retail Index.

The index tracks retailers that principally sell online or through other non-store channels. The index uses a modified market-capitalization weighted approach, is rebalanced monthly and is reconstituted annually.

Retailers may include U.S. and non-U.S. companies. To be eligible, retailers must: be classified as an online retailer, an e-commerce retailer, or an internet or direct marketing retailer, according to standard industry classification systems; have a market capitalization of at least $500 million; have a six-month daily average value traded of at least $1 million; and meet other requirements.

This article originally appeared on ETFTrends.com.

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Early Data Suggests Online Shopping Sales Will Hit $4.4B - ETFdb.com

Waiting to be called into a job interview? Your resume is not enough. Job seekers increasingly need ... [+] these five additional things to land a job interview.

After hiring for thousands of jobs over 20+ years of recruiting, I have seen many different styles of hiring. Sometimes, a company looks at resumes (submitted in response to a job posting or via a recruiting agency), picks a few candidates to interview and hires one person from that process. This is the traditional job search to which too many job seekers tailor all their job search efforts. However, that traditional hiring process is less and less common.

Companies are strapped for time and hiring power, and looking at stacks of resumes takes a lot of resources. I received over 1,000 resumes for a recent HR Director search. Companies know that some of the best talent is gainfully employed and not responding to job postings or even recruiters, so companies need to change their hiring to attract this desired candidate pool. For the most competitive jobs, I am actively building a candidate pipeline even before an opening is finalized.

The net result is that more companies are not selecting candidates from a stack of resumes, but rather identifying them by other means. Relying only on job postings or recruiting relationships to find job openings will not account for all available jobs. Companies are also vetting candidates earlier in the process, well before the first interview. Assuming you only have to drop a resume to get seriously considered will take you out of the running prematurely.

Having a good resume is not enough for todays job search. Here are five things job seekers also need to land a job interview:

1 - Back door references

Most companies conduct a reference check before they hire someone. Even if you get a job offer, your offer letter might state that is conditional upon receipt of satisfactory professional references. Many job seekers are familiar with this reference check process and prepared to share a list of past supervisors and other professional references (though job seekers are not as prepared with their references as they could be!).

Back door references are different from this reference check process, in that these references are checked before an offer is decided (sometimes even before a first interview is decided). These references are also not supplied by the candidate, but rather dug up by the employer. For example, you list Company X as a former employer on your resume, and I contact a recruiting friend over at Company X to say, John Smith was referred to me as someone whos great at branding, and apparently he worked at your place. Did he do well there? This is clearly not an in-depth reference, but its a pulse check on whether to go any further. I have been involved with searches where my hiring clients would not move forward with any candidate where we couldnt get at least one positive back door reference.

How would you fare in a back door reference check? Will former colleagues say positive things about you? Will former colleagues even remember you?

2 - Online profile

Even when I worked with Fortune 500, brand-name employers who had a large candidate database in-house, I still relied on LinkedIn research to identify candidates. Remember that employers love passive candidates who are not necessarily looking. These candidates surface because someone recommends them, they are well-known in their industry or they are found online.

Your online profile is not just your LinkedIn profile. It also is your activity, and everything the comes up when you do an Internet search on your name media mentions, publications, social media activity. I once saw an executive search almost derailed because an internet search brought up a controversial comment by the candidate on a common online community (think Quora or Reddit). Some employers dig deep into your online activity. In addition, if your job or industry entails online activity e.g., marketing, technology, media your own online profile and activity is a reflection of your work.

Have you run an Internet search on yourself? Do you have a Google alert on your name? Is your online profile optimized?

3 - Work sample

Your online profile may already include work samples, such as a website you worked on, a report you wrote or a presentation you delivered. If you dont want to broadcast these so publicly, you should at least have them readily available upon request. More and more employers are asking for a sample of work related to the job opening at hand.

This is partly to shave off time in the hiring process by looking at samples in advance, employers can make even more cuts before the interview process. Asking for work samples also differentiates candidates who are willing and able to go the extra step to land the job. Candidates unwilling to provide a work sample might not be that interested in the job. Candidates unable to provide a work sample might not have the experience they claim. Better to find out now before investing any more hiring resources into that candidate.

Do you have tangible samples of your work? If you dont yet have a portfolio of projects you have worked on, start curating now.

4 - Skills test

For a digital marketing job, candidates were sent two sample emails from a direct response campaign and asked to evaluate which was stronger and why. This gave a window into how they might design a direct response email. For a fundraising role, candidates were asked to write an introduction letter to a large donor asking for a meeting. For an executive role to lead a regional office, candidates were asked for a letter of intent to outline their particular interest in the organization.

Unlike the work sample which is something you have already done, the skills test is something completed during the hiring process and directly related to the job opening. Over the years, I have found more and more companies including a test of some kind. Many companies give a test after an initial phone screen, but some companies start with the test before any interviews. Most of these tests dont take a lot of time, but similar to the work sample, they are effective in weeding out candidates unwilling or unable to go the extra mile.

How would you fare in a skills test for a job or company you want? Do you have the skills to do the job right now? Career changers, you cannot present like you need to learn on the job (a common mistake that career changers make!). Do you know enough about the company to write a letter of intent or outreach to its key customers?

5 - Recorded interview

Even if a company doesnt ask for any of the above and jumps right to the interview, it still might not be the person-to-person interview you are expecting, but a recorded interview using an online service, such as Big Interview or InterviewStream. With these online services, companies pre-record screening questions and candidates conduct the interview remotely. While this simulates a first-round interview, it still requires extra work on behalf of the candidate.

Video interviews are not the same as live or phone interviews and require different preparation. You will have to learn how to use the specific technology for whatever interview recording platform the employer decides to use. Like a skills test or work sample, you have an extra step to complete before any chance of meeting someone at the company.

Are you prepared for a recorded video interview? For which jobs and companies are you willing to go the extra step?

Companies are asking for more upfront, and you decline at your peril

I once interviewed a marketing candidate who refused to take an Excel-based marketing test that would have taken less than 15 minutes. She said she was insulted to have to take it given her years of marketing experience, but since she initially asked me to send her the test, I wonder if she didnt think she would do well. Regardless, she didnt move forward in the process because my client only wanted to look at candidate resumes, along with their marketing test score.

I once recommended a friend to a consulting job, and the hiring company was using a video interview platform and also asked for a letter of interest and work sample. Thats three extra steps, but none of these were particularly hard or time-consuming. Video interviews typically have fewer than 10 questions, if not five. A letter of interest is a cover letter but focused on interest for that job and company you should have a template that can be tweaked in short order. Job seekers should always have work samples. Yet my friend refused to comply, stating that if the company were serious about her they would be willing to consider her on her resume alone.

Thats a dare that could cost her an interview. Yes, extra steps take time, but not that much time if you really know the job and want the company which is precisely why these extra steps are becoming more common. If you are unwilling to go the extra mile, you may not move forward to the interview process.

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A Good Resume Is Not Enough Five More Things Job Seekers Need To Land A Job Interview - Forbes

Instagram users may love memes, but the tide of internet opinion has started to turn against the platforms most famous content thieves. The backlash means that most brands attribute their borrowed jokes in some way. Not Pot includes Twitter users handles and avatars in the screenshots it posts on Instagram, as do Beyond Yoga, a sports-apparel company, and Ritual, a vitamin start-up. Drunk Elephant sometimes tags a jokes author in the caption of its Instagrams, but sometimes those links go to other meme aggregators who clearly didnt write the jokes themselves. Other times, the jokes have been recycled through the internet meme cycle so many times that divining their original source is impossible. Whats far less common is asking for permission to reuse someones work, according to Walia.

Kelly Collette, a stand-up comic from Ohio, says she wasnt contacted by Drunk Elephant before it posted her recent viral joke (I love when you hand a dog a treat and theyre like, thanks, Ill be having this in the other room. Excuse me), but it did tag her Instagram handle in the caption. I was flattered because I love their brand, Collette says. But then nothing happened, even though the Drunk Elephant account has nearly 800,000 followers. I really didnt get anything out of itI didnt get followers, I didnt get moisturizer. For people trying to make a living in creative fields or find an audience without many resources, posting their work online is an important part of getting by. But the idea that comics or writers might find fans or work because of the exposure brands provide them is mostly a fiction, and one thats very convenient for companies looking to keep their copywriting budget low.

Read: Memes are getting harder to monetize

Collette emphasizes that she isnt mad that one of her jokes made it onto the Drunk Elephant Instagram account, but that she just wishes the company would be a little more generous with credit when using others work, and that it would ask permission. Its not great that they took the joke, reformatted it into a different font, and presented it kind of like they wrote it, Collette says. She takes particular exception to the hashtag the brand uses on all its memes, #DEsays: They actually didnt say that. I did. I said that.

The larger question, of course, is why the people steering a high-end skin-care brand want to market their products with jokes about dog behavior, among other seemingly random topics. Walia says that beyond simple engagement, brands want to seem more human. It helps them as a thought exercise to think about who their brand would be as a person out in the world, Walia explains. But when that exercise turns outward and companies start what she calls cosplaying personhood, things can get awkwardor exploitative. Theres a lot of cases where rooms of marketers think something is just slang but it has a deeper history on the internet, she says. Walia cites Peaches Monroee, the young woman who invented the phrase Eyebrows on fleek, as a prime example of how companies mine the humor of marginalized people to bolster their own authenticity. The joke from Monroee, a black teenager, was quickly repurposed by beauty brands worldwide, almost none of which ever paid its de facto copywriter a single cent.

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Meme Thievery Goes Corporate - The Atlantic