Mediaboss Marketing

Jul 23, 2017

While it's impossible to predict with certainty the trajectory of any evolving technologyafter all, none of us has a crystal ball to gaze into the futurehere are a few thoughts about where the IoT market might be headed, based on an online survey that Ayla Networks conducted in March 2017:

IoT 2.0 is well on its way. The IoT has progressed a long way in its transition from a novelty to a mainstream tool. More than half of our survey respondents said they already have IoT-enabled products on the market. Among those who don't, more than one-third work at companies planning to start IoT projects within the next 12 months. And experienced IoT implementers are increasingly looking beyond simple IoT connectivity to concerns about what to do with IoT data and how to scale their connected product offerings.

The benefits of the IoT will be well understood, while risks and challenges will be reduced. Comparing those looking back from the perspective of having launched IoT products with those looking ahead from the sidelines, it's clear that going through the IoT implementation process leads to a more positive perspective. In general, we predict that jumping into the IoT will be a good bet for the vast majority of manufacturersas well as the customers they serve.

Do-it-yourself IoT might not be dead, but it will continue to lose steam for most IoT implementations. In our survey, few respondents planned to depend entirely on their own internal resources to build their IoT solutions, and even fewer planned to hand over 100 percent of their IoT implementation to an outside party. The vast majority chose a mixed implementation, combining home-grown and outsourced resources. This realization points to the fact that in the classic build-or-buy question, the answer is "both."

Another point that emerged from our survey is that IoT technologies and expertise delivered in a specialized IoT platform will continue to be important for the foreseeable future.

Who Took the Survey? A total of 355 people responded to Ayla's online survey. Slightly more than half (53 percent) fell into the IoT-experienced campanswering "yes" to the question, "Are any of your products already IoT-enabled?"with the respondents answering "no" or "I don't know" making up our IoT newbies group.

Respondents work in industries including telecommunications; consumer electronics; industrial automation; smart home; heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC); health care; utilities; lighting; automotive; financial services; aerospace; education ; and government. Their job functions spanned C-level and other executives through product management, hardware and software product development, IT, systems design, business development, technical support/service, marketing and sales.

Rod McLane is the senior marketing director at Ayla Networks, located in Santa Clara, Calif. You can contact him at rod@aylabetworks.com.

More:
The State of Internet of Things Product Development - IOT Journal

Email and mobile are still viewed as separate digital marketing channels, but email marketers need to increasingly begin thinking about mobile, as the majority of Americans now engage with their inbox via smartphones.

Email messages opened on a mobile device have nearly doubled over the past five years, according to a report released this week by data and email solutions provider Return Path. Return Path analyzed more than 27 billion email opens between May 2016 and April 2017 using the companys email tracking solution, Email Client Monitor, and geolocation tool, Geo Email Monitor.

Fifty-five percent of emails analyzed during the study period were opened on a mobile device -- an increase from 29% identified in a similar study in 2012. Almost 80% of mobile email opens occur on iOS, quadruple the number of mobile opens on Android devices.

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Emails opened on an internet browser, on the other hand, have dropped 26% over the past five years. Whereas webmail accounted for 37% of email opens in 2012, only 28% of emails are now opened on an internet browser. Almost six out of every ten webmail opens occur on Gmail, a significant increase from 6% in 2012. Gmails growth has come at the expense of Yahoo, according to Return Path, as Yahoo webmail opens have declined from 37% in 2012 to just 5% during the study period.

Desktop email opens have likewise declined as mobile engagement has increased, dropping from 34% in 2012 to 16% today. Interestingly, both desktop and webmail email opens increase slightly during the workweek. Similarly, mobile opens rise to 60% of all email opens during the weekend.

Mobile technology has transformed the way consumers engage with their email accounts, so it is imperative that email marketers consider this when developing their email strategy. Mobile optimization is critical to ensure messages display correctly on any screen theyre opened on, as is A/B testing.

Email marketers may also want to consider tightening up their email content so that it is shorter, more precise, and easier to read on a handheld device.

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Majority Of Emails Read On Mobile Devices - MediaPost Communications

Flintstone gummies have been a staple of every childhood. The candy that is supposedly good for you is a small nostalgic highlight. But the attitude towards supplements they develop far deviates from the health benefits they purport.

Unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration, vitamins among other supplements such as herbal extracts and weight loss supplements are easily available over the counter at grocery stores and pharmacies nationwide. And for most consumers, there is no hesitation in purchasing these supplements; after all, they might not look like Fred and Barney, but theyre pretty much the same thing right?

What they have in common is that they are all completely useless. A study from the International Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that multivitamin supplements (MVM)are completely unnecessary for ones health and stated that ...although in the long run MVMs may slightly increase the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, in the short run they produce little harm or no harm, and thus negative consequences will not be discernible by individuals taking them.

However, since the publication, one claim has drastically changed. Negative consequences in the short run have become discernible. More than 20,000 emergency room visits a year can be traced back to dietary supplements. Many of these visits include children taking adult supplements, likely due to confusing adult pills for their own pills. But these pills shouldnt be in peoples homes in the first place.

Pseudoscience and irresponsible advertising keep unwitting customers hooked. For example, at the first sign of a sniffle and a sneeze, many people reach for their nearest Vitamin C supplement, sold by companies with snappy names like Emergen-C. But Vitamin C has never been proven to have curative effects on the common cold. In fact, far from preventing a cold, overdoses of Vitamin C can cause diarrhea and nausea. But the damage of their initial marketing had already been done, and Vitamin C has become a staple ineffective home remedy for the cold.

And these dangers only encompass some of the most common types of supplements. The irresponsible marketing and lack of regulation propagate more nefarious supplements such as SARMs, Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators. The name itself is scary. The supplement is a muscle building, fat burning compound touted to be a legal alternative to steroids. But the health concerns of SARMs rival those of steroids. While the FDA has officially banned SARM compounds such as Oscarine from supplements, the volume of companies that evade the FDA by producing such supplements coupled with internet sales and grassroots marketing make them difficult to pindown.

Ultimately, the culture around supplements needs to change. America is one of the greatest users of unnecessary dietary supplements. Instead of eating a balanced diet, the convenience of a pill is appealing. But this convenience can come at a very real and grave cost. Supplement companies need to be more responsible about the manufacturing and marketing of their products. And while the FDA doesnt do much for the former, they can start to enforce stricter marketing standards. Hopefully, this will incite more personal caution in taking such supplements and avoid significant costs and risks to human life.

Batlanki is a neuroscience sophomore from Flower Mound. Follow him on Twitter @RohanBatlanki.

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If the FDA refuses to regulate supplement production, at least regulate their marketing - UT The Daily Texan

Jul 19, 2017 - (Newswire)

Jon H. Elder, a Sevier County native, has recently joined the team at Internet Marketing Expert Group (IMEG). He will serve as IMEGs Director of Marketing Strategy with a focus on research, strategy and analytics.

With over 20 years of experience in the tourism industry, he has become well known throughout the community. Prior to joining IMEG, he held positions with the cities of Sevierville and Gatlinburg where he worked in tourism development.

Elder is looking forward to continuing to promote the Smoky Mountain area with this exciting new opportunity and IMEG is equally as excited to have him on their team.

Elder holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications from the University of Tennessee and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing from Lincoln Memorial University.

Established in 2009, IMEG is a digital marketing agency that seeks to solve problems in tourism businesses while challenging business owners to think differently about how they grow their companies. For more information about IMEG, visit http://www.imegonline.com.

Original Source: https://www.newswire.com/news/internet-marketing-expert-group-hires-jon-h-elder-as-director-of-19761344

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Internet Marketing Expert Group Hires Jon H. Elder as Director of Marketing Strategy - WireUpdate

The dread of firing someone is especially intensewhen leaders have to let a well-liked employee go. Like many employers, Sam Borcia, CEO of CoFlex, has experienced this dread firsthand.

Related:How to Fire Someone So They'll Thank You For It

I 'connected' with our new client acquisition manager," Borcia told me via email from his law firm internet marketing consultantcy in Chicago."However, a week later when I asked about her first work tasks, she told me her laptop broke so she couldn't complete them. I was disappointed, but understood,

Weeks later, Borcia said, continuing his story, he realized this employee's work was still missing; reluctantly, he decided it was time to let her go.

Many business owners face some difficulty connecting with every employee on a personal level. So, when something doesn't click with a particular employee, the owner may find it challenging to terminate a likable team member.

Heres a look at how a few company leaders knew it was time to let employees they liked go, and the lessons that can be applied in similar experiences:

No matter how understanding and helpful a companys team is, they can be asked to pick up only so much slack before they begin resenting that lagging co-worker.

Jill Gugino Pante, director of the Career Services Center, in the University of Delawares Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics in Newark, Del., said she realized it was time to let an assistant go when no professional progress was made after two months.

While my assistant was well liked by everyone in the office, her work wasnt up to par. People eventually started to resent her, Pante shared with me in an email. I had to make the difficult decision, but it helped relieve tension and stress due to her unproductivity.

If this happens to you, listen closely to what employees are saying about an ineffective employee. At the first indicationthat there's an issue, create an action plan for the struggling team member. Let this personknow what needs to be improved, offer advice and extendtraining or tips to better his or her performance. Set goals. Impose a clear time line.

Its easy for companies to develop an attachment tonew hires. Unfortunately, Zachary Weiner, CEO of Emerging Insider Communications, a content relations agency in Chicago, had to fire one of the first employees he ever hired. Adding to the difficulty of the situation was thatthis person had also been at the company the longest.

Performance just kept falling and falling. However, we had an absolute great time working together. After two years of literally pulling up a company by the bootstraps, a deep relationship is easy to build, Weiner told me via email.

Related:6 Ways to Reinvigorate Your Team After Firing an Employee

To fix the situation, Weiner said, he set some clearmetrics. This helped employees understand what needed improvingand the time frame they had to make those changes.If metrics werent achieved in a certain time frame, it became a quantitative firing process, which closed the door to personal relationships providing too many chances, Weiner said.

At your company, once you've clarified performance metrics, set a schedule for evaluation meetings.

These meetings will give employees shorter deadlines to focus on, making goals feel more manageable. However, if these goals arent met within the allotted time period, terms should remain non-negotiable.

When considering letting an employee go, Dave Ramsey, CEO of Ramsey Solutions, suggests looking at the bigger picture.

I had a salesperson who was constantly struggling with his leader," Ramsey shared by email from his financial education company in Nashville. "Both of these guys were awesome and super talented. [The salesperson] made the mistake of sharing his frustrations with the sales support person in the group."

Unfortunately, he shared his thoughts with still more people. Because Ramsey Solutions is a gossip-free zone, company leaders felt they had to let him go.In the past, I struggled with keeping ineffective people too long. I thought that by delaying, I was being kind. I was not, Ramsey explained.

Many leaders, like Ramsey, feel that offering multiple chances is the nice thing to do. However, repeated efforts quickly demoralize the entire team and cause them to lose faith in leadership.

Consider your companys mission statement, values and how everyone is being affected. When just one employee isnt staying true to the core competencies and values of the company, others will feel unappreciated.

Letting go those who arent following the rules sends a clear message that leaders value those who follow the rules. Another message it sends: Those leadersare making decisions benefiting the overall good of the company.

Even the most competent entrepreneurs need the opinions of those around them to see a picture more clearly. Unfortunately, brutally honest feedback about employees we like isnt always easy to hear.

Bryan Clayton, CEO of GreenPal, a self-described"Uber for lawn care," headquartered in Nashville, was blinded by his own friendship with an employee. In fact, considering that this employee had been part of the GreenPal team for over five years, Clayton found himself wishingall other supervisors were as loyal and dedicated as this man.

Yet, he felt this way even as he received negative feedback about the employee.

Over the years, I continued to receive feedback from many of his teammates, but I always wrote it off as their problem, not his. I made up excuses for him, such as ignoring feedback coming from a problem employee, Clayton told me via email.

When you're deciding to fire an employee, one key red flag you should take note of is if multiple employees offer negative feedback. If leaders find themselves making excuses for employees, its likely there is a major issue -- even if the employee is a favorite.

Valuable feedback comes in many shapes and forms throughout an employees work-life cycle. One of the most crucial times to look to feedback is during the hiring process -- though it's not always simple or convenient to pull employees away for new-hire screenings.

Making better-informed hiring decisions greatly reduces the likelihood that employees will need to be let go. With a hiring tool like Vettery, candidates can be pre-filtered, through a rigorous screening process.

Related:11 Tips for Firing an Employee

On Vettery, candidates must apply just to be on the site, and only 5 percent who apply make the cut. That means that employers job choicesare initially easier because they have access to top-vetted candidates ready to be employed for the long haul.

Waldorf, Md.-basedHeather R. Huhmanis a career expert, experienced hiring manager and president ofCome Recommended, a content-marketing and digital-PR consultancy for job-search and human-resources technologies. She is the...

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Stop Holding on: It's Time to Let Employees You Like Go - Entrepreneur