gdpr compliant©2018, Colleen Eakins Design

5 Steps to Make Your Website GDPR Compliant

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Colleen EakinsColleen Eakins is a dynamic and creative individual that possess a knack for great design. With over 15 years of experience in the field of graphic design, Colleen is able to effectively brand her clients with great design pieces. Her motto is: “Anyone can make a pretty picture, but is it effective? Will it […]

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privacy and security©2018, Colleen Eakins Design

User Privacy and Security Concerns Shake Up the Internet

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If you’ve been paying attention to recent news, the chances are good that you heard about all the controversy surrounding the ways that major platforms, such as Facebook, collect and share data with publishers, users, and advertisers.

In the wake of these disclosures to the public, and testimony before Congress, Facebook, Instagram, and many other high-traffic websites and mobile apps have had to update and make changes to their terms of service and operating agreements recently.

All you need to do to is check the email address registered with these sites, to find all the notices alerting you to these amendments to their operating agreements.

How Do These Changes Affect Businesses and Marketers?

On Facebook, changes to the terms of service could potentially affect how brands and marketers connect with possible customers and clients. Changes to API access could limit the information provided when making a query.

Additionally, all applications that use the events, pages, and groups API must go through an app review process to assure that they are compliant with the new terms and conditions of the platform.

New restrictions on the Facebook login could also affect third-party providers who log in to their services using a Facebook account. Recently, covert trackers were found to be collecting data transmitted through the login and measures were taken to prevent third-parties from accessing user data including relationship status, education, interests, work history and more. On the Instagram side, the old Instagram API platform is getting deprecated and phased out as part of their current changes to their systems.

Protecting Privacy and Security Online

Privacy and security are two severe pain points for platforms like Facebook. Brands and vendors who built custom Facebook apps or utilized Facebook’s login to manage profiles or provide client services could experience issues with core functionality and usability.

It’s worth noting that while you may not have built your own custom app that integrates with these API calls, many third-party tools used to help with social media profile management rely on API calls to do tasks such as content sharing, replying to comments or messages, and other everyday online communications.

With more oversights, audits, and inquiries into how user data gets collected, shared, and disseminated, companies and individuals who work with clients to help them maintain their digital assets and brands could face more challenges as they implement changes to safeguard user information and protect privacy.

How These Changes Affect Facebook Advertisers

Advertisers who use social media platforms to market to existing and potential new customers could experience some changes in targeting capabilities, and other ad controls that specifically target their preferred client or customer.

When combined with other shifts the company has made in how news and updates get displayed to users, advertisers are well-served to create a strategic content marketing campaign to boost virality and the share-ability of content on these platforms.

What Events Lead to These Changes?

In the last few years, the Internet has empowered people and organizations to share their values, beliefs, and opinions with anyone who is willing to listen. For that reason, more people than ever before began chiming in to try and influence others, especially during a particularly tense political climate.

Twitter revealed concerns over ‘bot activity’ surrounding US election meddling and responded by changing their API to limit or restrict API access.

These election bots were said to have been used to help mold and form the political opinions of users, as well as engage with others using the social networking application and website.

Additional scandal at Twitter includes employees getting caught on video making negative ‘off the record’ remarks about users and the internal policies. (Their comments were not representative of Twitter management.) As a result of these ‘off the record’ remarks, the platform has faced scrutiny from users who claim that they are being censored by the platform for their views.

Twitter politics aside, these API changes most likely won’t affect the average platform user, changes to the API could throttle usage for businesses and agencies who use tools not aligned with the updated terms and conditions of the platform.

Most of the mainstream social media management tools, such as HootSuite and others, are whitelisted so as long as you are following all the rules there should be very few issues with using them to manage clients’ social media pages.

Klout is No More

In the wake of the upcoming updates to the Data Protection Directive regulations, Klout, a site that tallied the score of the influence and importance in their social media circles announced they were shuttering the site on May 25, 2018.

As part of their scoring algorithm, users had to grant third-party access to all their social sites including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and others. Using all of this collated information, Klout issued the user a score from 1 – 100, with 100 being the highest score possible.

Now, all those scores are being set to zero as the site that was sold for $200M a few short years ago, is put into sunset mode forever.

Keep an Eye out for Terms of Service Updates

Changes to the General Data Protection Regulation, in effect since April 2016, will begin superseding the Data Protection Directive on May 25, 2018. Changes will be made to website’s Terms Of Service to abide by the updated specifications.

For companies who are updating their Terms of Service, this offers them the opportunity to ask users to agree to their terms, as well as verify their membership at their site.

As you can imagine, this verification process is helpful for platforms to identify inactive, fake, robotic, or unclaimed accounts. Active users who confirm their account will be counted accurately by management. Inactive, unverified, or robotic accounts will be scheduled for review or deletion, saving liability, space, and resources for the company.

The only thing that remains the same is change. If you are receiving numerous terms of service agreement emails, this is the reason why!

8 Options for Your Integrated Marketing Strategy©2018, Colleen Eakins Design

8 Options for Your Integrated Marketing Strategy [ infographic ]

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Colleen EakinsColleen Eakins is a dynamic and creative individual that possess a knack for great design. With over 15 years of experience in the field of graphic design, Colleen is able to effectively brand her clients with great design pieces. Her motto is: “Anyone can make a pretty picture, but is it effective? Will it […]

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direct mail©2018, Colleen Eakins Design

Direct Mail Directly Connects You to Customers and Clients

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When you are putting all of the pieces together for a successful marketing strategy, you want to consider all the various options that are available to you.

With the push to digital marketing, sometimes it’s easy to overlook how offline marketing tactics such as direct mail can contribute to a well-rounded advertising campaign. A finely-tuned digital marketing campaign and direct mail campaign can be an unbelievable combination when it comes to marketing success.

Connect with Clients in Their Mailbox

According to data provided by statista.com, the marketing spends on direct mail marketing in the United States was 46 billion dollars in 2014. Statistics for previous years going back to 2009 indicate that the spend on direct mail had increased over these years. 2009 had the lowest spend at 43.8 Billion and climbed to 46 billion by 2014.

Direct mail is straightforward, customizable, and something that recipients can hold in their hand. As a physical piece of marketing material, people are more likely to hang on to this marketing piece than they are an email which is quickly deleted and forgotten.

Further, when implementing a direct mail campaign, you get the opportunity to select and adjust your target audience to demographics who are most likely to respond to your offer. Depending on your offer, direct mail can be sent to marketing lists based on existing customer lists, zip code, public records, or other vital criteria that help match you with your ideal customer.

Existing Customer List – It should come as no great surprise that the most lucrative direct mailing list you’re likely to own is the one you’ve built from your existing client list. By sending an occasional postcard or a special offer for events like birthdays and anniversaries, you help keep your brand fresh in your client’s mind. Plus, it’s thoughtful! If you maintain an accurate CRM that’s complete with all of your customer data, this is a bounteous resource to tap into when direct mailing.

Targeting by Zip Code – Do you want to reach out to a general population? Targeting by zip code is the way to do it! This type of direct mail campaign is helpful for restaurants, shops, realtors, home repair and renovation businesses, landscapers, and other companies that only operate in a specific geographical area to connect with potential clients.

Public Records – Depending on the nature of your business, public records can be a helpful resource for building your direct marketing campaign. For instance, someone who sells insurance could use public records to find new homeowners who might be in need of additional insurance coverage or a review of their existing policies. Since public records document the names of all new homebuyers, this is an advantageous way to open up communication with the new family in the neighborhood.

Other Vital Criteria – For companies who sell digital products or services or don’t limit their sales area to any one geographic area other vital criteria can get used for producing a lucrative direct mailing campaign.

Direct Mail Design and Printing Services

With all of the technology available to companies, direct mail advertisers don’t have to settle for the mundane when arranging a campaign. Regardless of whether you send postcards or do printed inserts, direct mail solutions are strategic and can get carefully crafted with coupons, offers, QR codes, and other pertinent information.

Direct mail doesn’t face some of the obstacles that email does, such as opt-ins, opt-outs, unsubscribes, bounce messages, stringent email filters, and spam complaints. For this reason, it is ideal for reaching broad audiences who may or may not be familiar with your products, services, or brand. When delivered directly through the mail, your message is more potent. Out of habit, people have to look at it! Postcards and inserts sent directly to recipient’s physical mailbox could get instant responses or get put aside to respond later at a more convenient time.

As with any marketing campaign, you’ll want to assure that design of your piece is clear, concise, and professional. By using all available print space in an eye-catching way while providing all pertinent details including corresponding website URLs, contact phone numbers and coupon codes.

Tracking Results

Another significant advantage of using a direct mail campaign is that you can use these advertisements to track your return on investment for the ads accurately. For instance, if you are offering a coupon, you can use a special code that people must use to redeem the offer. Provided this ‘special’ code isn’t used in any other ad campaigns, you’ll know that anyone who used the unique coupon code came directly from the published ad.

For business owners with a traditional ‘brick and mortar’ storefront, you can gauge response rates based on physical coupon redemptions and other beacons that indicate the customer made a purchase based on a direct mail promotion or offer.

Other ways to track the results of a direct mail program is by setting up special phone numbers for people to call for more information. Generally, this type of market segmentation is conducted by larger marketing companies who may be testing new markets, tracking target demographics, or wanting to offer a local number in multiple markets.

Conversions and call volume could help when deciding what markets are most lucrative, and therefore deserve a higher ad budget spend. Additionally, specially allocated phone numbers can be used in other types of marketing campaigns including radio, different types of print advertising, as well as digital campaigns.

Designing A Direct Mail Marketing Piece That Works

Would you like to learn more about how a direct mail marketing campaign can help propel your business to the next level? If you answered ‘yes’ to this question, be sure to contact the experts at Colleen Eakins Design! With years of experience helping businesses with their design and marketing needs, you can rely on the team to boost your visibility and improve your results.

5 direct mail marketing ideas©2018, Colleen Eakins Design

5 Direct Mail Marketing Ideas [ infographic ]

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Colleen EakinsColleen Eakins is a dynamic and creative individual that possess a knack for great design. With over 15 years of experience in the field of graphic design, Colleen is able to effectively brand her clients with great design pieces. Her motto is: “Anyone can make a pretty picture, but is it effective? Will it […]

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