A note on privacy and targeted marketing

I must begin right away by saying how our Chamber and members feel about the Bowdoin College community following the loss of a student over the weekend. In a small, close-knit community like Bowdoin College's campus, the loss of life can impact an entire culture. Please know that our thoughts are with you during this difficult time.

This week, we will take a short break from reviewing the profiles of our chamber's award winners. I love sharing the stories of business leaders, so I find these articles to be of great value. But with Congress ending its session in a few weeks, there are special issues that must be addressed. We still don't understand the implications, but I feel a responsibility to share with you what I know so far.

I received some updates from people in industry groups I trust in Augusta about LD 1977, the “Data Privacy and Protection Act,'' which has passed the Judiciary Committee and will be sent to Congress for a vote. I did. This bill aims to protect people's private information. From what I've heard, this bill contains some very common sense parts. However, there is one area that can harm many businesses, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I would like you to pay attention to this point.

This problem has to do with targeted marketing. Targeted marketing is a commonly used technique in which organizations attempt to create and send advertisements and event invitations to specific new consumers that meet their consumer profile. To be clear, targeted marketing has been around for as long as marketing has existed. For example, if you host a monster truck event and choose to advertise on a classical music radio station rather than a hard he rock radio station, that is a type of target he marketing. Or, if your event is in the Portland area, you might be using a Portland radio station instead of a Bangor radio station because you're targeting consumers in that market.

Online targeted marketing is useful, for example, when a toy store introduces a new product line and wants its ads to be seen by parents who live within 50 miles of the store, or when a new hunting retailer opens and wants to invite used in case. A man who likes hunting and fishing videos comes to the ribbon cutting. Facebook boosted ads are commonly used and very affordable for businesses, especially those that don't have the funds to cover an entire region with TV advertising like larger companies. By paying a few pennies per view, businesses can ensure that their ads are a hit with potential consumers. Frankly, given the response rate of these targeted ads, the targeted people will attend the event and come to the store because it is such a product or event. they like

My understanding is that if this law passes, businesses will be able to use targeted marketing with boosted ads on Facebook to opt-in to these notifications and equivalent ads on Instagram, Twitter, and other socials. You won't be able to acquire new customers if you haven't already. media platform. As I explained, small businesses themselves are exempt from this law, but if they use large online technology platforms (such as Facebook) for marketing, targeted marketing and e-commerce will be affected by the restrictions imposed on its growth. That means businesses can still do targeted marketing online, but they can't use things like Facebook to do so. I'm not tech-savvy enough to understand how small businesses can target their market online without using social media. Perhaps building your own social media network.

For companies whose marketing budgets are shrinking due to inflation and who cannot afford to deploy a large amount of traditional media to flood the market with announcements, this can significantly limit new customer growth. There is. Sure, you can market to existing customers who have opted in, but how can you quickly and efficiently acquire more customers without social media in 2024? I'm concerned about new businesses and entrepreneurs just getting started, and how slowly their message will grow just by simple word of mouth if the fertile ground of social media is not available to pursue new customers. I have doubts.

Again, the complexity of this bill is 27 pages long so I don't understand it all and I haven't had the time to understand it all, but if this passes, it will be great for our business. It sounds like it could be quite expensive and cost a lot of money. It's a great tool in your marketing toolkit. If you are a marketing manager or business owner, we encourage you to contact your local senator or representative if you have any sentiments you would like to share or have questions about how this may impact your business. To do. To be fair, this is still in committee, so lawmakers may not understand the impact this will have or may not even be aware of the bill yet. Therefore, we recommend that you go after your legislators in a way that educates them about the implications, rather than forcing them to vote for or against it. That's because the committee that passed it is only about a dozen of the more than 170 members who pass the bill. I'll end up voting for it.

Our Chamber, like many chambers of commerce, believes in protecting information from wrongdoers, and we're seeing privacy bills passed across the country. But none of the other states' privacy bills go so far as to limit affordable and targeted marketing options on social media.

If your company is comfortable sharing your concerns about the impact of this bill with the BBRC, we will be happy to pass them on to your local legislator. However, now is the time. I'll probably send you a comment by the end of the week, so please email cory@midcoastmaine.com right away.

Next week, we look forward to sharing Presidential Award winner Jen Charbonneau's story.

Cory King is the Executive Director of the Bass-Brunswick Regional Chamber of Commerce.