Infuzer - Grass Roots Calendar Survey

Let me appeal to the readers of this post to help us create the best method for content marketers to give their audience a way to "Save the Date" or "Mark the Calendar" with their event or time sensitive content distributed through the web or email.

Infuzer is conducting a grass roots calendar usage survey to better understand how consumers of all types are using technology to set and remember appointments and events, please take a moment to fill out this 20 question mini-survey to help us learn more about features and functionality to consider in our future development.

Click this link to take the survey 

Please share this link with any of your contacts that can assist us in gathering results for this survey, and if you want to receive the results of our findings, just leave a comment below and we will send you the results once we have tabulated the final numbers.

Now for the boring part.

Calendar Survey Sweepstakes Official Rules

1.     ELIGIBILITY: Sweepstakes is open only to legal residents of U.S., Canada, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Russia, who are of the age of majority in their state/province/country of residence at date of entry. Employees of Infuzer.com, LLC. (“Sponsor”), as well as the immediate family and household members of each such employees, are not eligible to win. The Sweepstakes is subject to all applicable federal, state, provincial, territorial, municipal, and local laws and regulations. This Sweepstakes is void where prohibited or restricted by law.  

2.     TO ENTER: The Calendaring Survey Sweepstakes also known as prize draw (“Sweepstakes”) begins 12:00 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time (“P.T.”) on April 1, 2013 and ends once we have collected our target number of completed surveys. You are automatically entered when you have successfully completed one of the hosted surveys during the Promotion Period. Normal Internet access and phone/usage charges imposed by your online/phone service may apply and shall be the entrants’ sole responsibility, if applicable. The computer clock of Infuzer.com, LLC’s webmaster is the official timekeeping device of the Sweepstakes. There is a limit of 1 entry per person.

3.     RANDOM DRAWING: There will be a random drawing at the conclusion of the Promotion Period. All eligible entries will be included in the drawing. The drawing will be conducted by randomized computer selection and the result will be final and binding in all matters relating to the Sweepstakes. Odds of winning depend on the total number of eligible entries received during the Promotion Period.

4.      Notification of Winner: Potential Winners will be notified via e-mail. Allow approximately 30 days for confirmation of prize selection.

5.     GENERAL RULES: Potential Prize winner will be required reply within ten (10) days of email notification attempt or the Prize will be forfeited and alternate winner may be selected. Each potential Prize winner will be required to verify his/her mailing address via email prior to being deemed a winner. Applicable taxes or surcharges related to the prize are the sole and exclusive responsibility of winner. Return of any prize or prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification and alternate winner selected. Sponsor shall have no liability for any winner notification that is lost, intercepted or not received by a potential winner for any reason. Winning is contingent on fulfilling all requirements set forth in these Official Rules. Any fees, duties, or tariffs required to accept delivery of any prize is the sole responsibility of winner. Entries made by Internet will be deemed made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at the time of entry. The "authorized account holder" is deemed the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, service provider or other online organization that is responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. Sponsor is not responsible for any typographical error in the printing of these Official Rules, administration of the Sweepstakes or in the announcement of the Sweepstakes prizes. Sponsor is not responsible for damages to user’s system occasioned by participating in the Sweepstakes or downloading any information to participate in the Sweepstakes. 

Using Calendars for Externally Promoted Events

Traditional use of paper and electronic calendars has been for manually created event entries for personal engagements, but that has been changing with the advent of promoted "Save the Date" or "Mark the Calendar" links which add event details with a click or two.

With the penetration of electronic calendars (Outlook, Lotus Notes etc.) in the workplace now having reached 80-90% and the effectiveness of Internet advertising having fallen to click-through rates of less than 0.5%, calendar communication and calendar commerce offer a new and more effective sales and marketing channel for products and services with a time-based component.

But how do the users feel about it? The real estate in a person's personal calendar is a closely guarded commodity and users do not want irrelevant information cluttering up their calendar, so only the most important and committed appointments make their way into a calendar.

This is the reason marketers and event promoters want to get their events into your calendar, as it has be shown that 58% of electronic calendar users check their calendar more than 5 times per day and 86% of electronic calendar users say they are more likely to attend an event if it is in their calendar.

Two critical issues confront any company wishing to participate in this endeavor: trust and technology. Dr. Peter Collett’s research into the psychology of calendaring has shown that trust is critical to gaining access to someone’s calendar: “people who use electronic calendars don’t mind others looking at their calendar, but they seem to resent other people making entries in their calendar without telling them”

Companies must leverage the reputation of their brand to gain admittance to the prospect’s calendar and they abuse this trust at their peril. People have learned the lesson of email spam and will immediately deny access to their calendar to any party which abuses it.

The other challenge is how to gain physical access to the calendar. Currently there are very few ways to deliver messages to the calendar and conduct commerce within or from calendar entries. The manufacturers of electronic calendars developed a standard called vCal which was designed to provide a common interface for inserting entries into calendars, however, it is severely limited by the fact that communication is one way: entries can be made but cannot be updated, removed or changed i.e. no two-way communication and transaction channel exists between the user and the originator.

This is beginning to change and Infuzer is specifically designed to overcome these problems and provide a calendar commerce and communication infrastructure.

First Blog - What do you want from me?

What do you want from me?  I ask this not in a confrontational tone, I ask this in an inquisitive tone.  What is it that you can gain from reading what I have to say? Believe me, sometimes it is hard to get me to stop.

Here is what I am pretty sure you don't want:

• The down and dirty details of the technology - that is available on the Infuzer website and doesn't get too many people excited.
• My personal musings on popular culture - I have nothing nice to say about Bieber fever, Lady Gaga's medical issues or Manti T'eo's NFL prospects.
• A listing of selected events to add to your calendar.
• And you certainly don't want a sales pitch.

I hope I can provide interesting thoughts which can educate, empower and provide insight on what technology and event marketing is all about, how it keeps evolving, as well as the ways people consume information online and retain it on their electronic gadgets.  

With that perspective in mind, I plan on:

• Reviewing websites and email campaigns which promote a call to "Save the Date" or "Mark your Calendar"
• Commenting on new technologies which facilitate the transfer of date and time sensitive data.
• Promoting novel ideas on how information is processed and stored.
• Providing "Power Users" tips on the use of Infuzer with your calendars.

But, I am not writing this for myself, I am doing this for the readers. So, seriously folks, what do you want from me?