New York SBDC Research Network

From the Federal Trade Commission : The Federal Trade Commission is mailing 2,711 checks totaling more than $372,000 to  people who paid American Business Builders and related entities for a home-based business opportunity . The defendants claimed that people would earn substantial income offering payment processing services, credit card terminals, and merchant cash advances to small businesses. Under a settlement with the FTC, the defendants – which include American Business Builders, ENF, Network Market Solutions, UMS Group, United Merchant Services, Universal Marketing and Training, and Unlimited Training Services – are banned from selling business and work-at-home opportunities and related services. The average check amount is $137.42. Recipients should deposit or cash checks within 60 days. The FTC never requires consumers to pay money or provide account information to cash a refund check. If they have questions about the case, they should contact the FTC’s refund administra...

From MarketingProfs : The appeal of some products is obvious. It's not hard to understand the attraction of an appetizing cheeseburger, a new action movie, or a revolutionary smartphone. Other products, however, have to work harder to explain the problem that they're solving. Moreover, some industries serve fundamental needs in society—but don't receive the kind of attention heaped on upstarts like Snapchat: Think Oracle, the second-highest earning software developer in the world; its name would likely draw a blank stare from the man in the street. There is hope, though. Here are 11 powerful steps for marketing products that, on the face of it, might seem totally unsexy. 1. Define the problem that you're solving Instead of telling people about the reasons that they should like your product, identify what your customers are looking for and frame your pitch around that.

From PR Newswire : Nearly one-half of Millennials (47 percent) believe CEOs have a responsibility to speak up about issues that are important to society, far outpacing the sentiments of Gen Xers and Boomers (28 percent each). An even larger six in 10 Millennials (56 percent) say that business leaders have a greater responsibility to speak out now than in years past. This is according to CEO Activism in 2017: High Noon in the C-Suite, a report commissioned by global communications and engagement firm Weber Shandwick in partnership with KRC Research. This study follows The Dawn of CEO Activism, among one of the first reports published in 2016 that identified the risks and rewards for companies when their chief executives speak out on hot-button issues. "Over the past 12 months, the climate in the United States has changed dramatically as business and policy have intersected more deeply than ever before," said Andy Polansky, CEO of Weber Shandwick. "When dozens of CEO...

From Businesss Wire : More businesses are realizing the importance of mobile apps, but are discovering deploying and managing apps in their business is not as easy as they had thought. To gauge the state of apps in the enterprise, Kony, Inc., the leading enterprise mobility and digital applications company, partnered with Wakefield Research. The global survey of more than 1,000 line-of-business executives revealed the majority of respondents are still unsatisfied with the apps they have due to challenges around user experience, cost, and ongoing maintenance. In addition, trust in IT is dismal with fewer than 1 in 5 of respondents saying they would work with their in-house IT department. “Enterprises recognize the importance of apps for their business,” said Carlos Carvajal, chief marketing officer at Kony, Inc. “Unfortunately, as this survey reveals, hurdles around app user experience, cost, and management are stifling innovation. The challenge is organizations that fail to innovate...

From MarketingProfs : Consumers say retailers and manufacturers of B2C products could most improve the post-purchase experience by offering better technical assistance, according to recent research from the CMO Council and LiveTechnology. The report was based on data from a survey of 2,000 consumers in the United States age 25 and older. Most respondents (60%) rate their post-purchase experiences with product manufacturers as underwhelming, and 56% say they are generally disappointed with the post-purchase service The CMO Council report, titled Product Ownership: Lasting Satisfaction or Painful Distraction confirms that the aftermarket ownership experience remains dramatically under-served by most retailers and manufacturers in a landscape in which chief marketers are more focused on demand generation, customer acquisition and product sales—despite the fact that the aftermarket has shown to be a lucrative area.

From MarketingProfs : You feel a ripple of nausea as your stomach falls. You just heard from the sales team that your company lost a hot prospect that you really wanted to add to your client list. You'd followed the tracking notifications as the prospect read your articles, downloaded your premium content, read additional articles, and checked out the case studies and bottom-of-the-funnel content that the sales team had sent. Your hopes were sky-high when your company's best salesperson was assigned to this prospect, and you just knew she would close the deal. But, no... And the worst part is, you lost the prospect to a competitor you've been enviously watching win again and again. What happened? Content is like a new baby: To the people who made it, it's perfect—even though there are hundreds of thousands of other babies out there that are arguably just as "perfect."

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics : The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is celebrating the first anniversary of experimental disease-based price indexes, which adjust expenditures on diseases for inflation. Statistical agencies have long collected price information on medical procedures, drugs, equipment, and services, but the cost of treating a patient is typically some combination of these goods and services. Many users of the Federal Statistical System have asked that medical care spending be reported on a disease basis.1 Creating price indexes on a disease basis helps provide a greater understanding of the cost of care for a given condition... Why report prices on a disease basis? Although health care statistics that are generated on a goods and services basis (i.e., hospitals and doctor visits) are important, we can learn more information if we add statistics on a disease basis. To get the fullest understanding of our healthcare economy, we need both sets of indexes. User...