Email Marketers Love Email
Get a couple email marketers talking about their industry, and you would think that any marketer who doesn’t do email is an idiot. According to them, nothing works better for marketing than email, and “nothing is worth doing unless it is measurable,” as moderator and Inbox Marketing exec Barry Stamos told the crowd.
Oh great! All those campaigns I’ve created, but not measured, was for nought. And all those times that I didn’t attach an email follow-up to them, well, that was just the dumbest thing I could have done.
read more...Paid Search Rank Impact on Traffic & Conversion
The iPod. Ladybugs. Danny DeVito. Sometimes little is good. The ad: tech session “Paid Search Rank Impact on Traffic and Conversion” was certainly a testament to that fact, with a pared-down panel, minimalist audience attendance, and an uber-brief Q&A (as in two questions). No matter, ‘cause this proved to be a smart session with some great insights on the correlation between rank and conversion, the impact of cookies, and buyer latency.
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Successful Word of Mouth Requires Enabling Conversations
Word of Mouth Marketing Association CEO Andy Sernovitz opened the session, “Word of Mouth Marketing: Create a WOM campaign in five easy steps,” by suggesting five steps needed to make a word of mouth campaign successful:
- Find the right people
- Give them something to talk about
- Create tools to make it easy to talk about
- Participate in the conversation
- Track and measure
Sernovitz also clarified that word of mouth marketing can involve other advertising tactics (other than true word of mouth) such as buzz marketing, viral marketing, product placement, grassroots marketing, referral programs and brand blogging. read more...
‘Don’t Do. Be.’ … I Don’t Get It
With a title like “Don’t Do. Be.” I was intrigued enough to get a back-of-the-room seat to hear Ray Podder of a company called Grow do his thing. Most everyone else was flooding over into “What Blogs Are Teaching Us About the New Rules of Marketing” session next door. I should have gone with the herd.
What I got out of “Don’t Do. Be” I don’t get. It was a strategic branding session for no particular brand, and a presentation so full of esoterica that I didn’t know if I was at ad:tech or that Friday 8:30 a.m. anthropology lecture that I never seemed to be able to sit through.
read more...Achieving Balance in Your Search Mix (a.k.a. The Need for Feeds)
Moderator Dan Boberg, Senior Director of Partner Programs & Technology at Yahoo opened things up by sharing some quick user stats on search and shopping engines (no big surprises, lots of people are using both, conducting multiple searches, etc.) and went into a discussion of structured data feeds, one of the more neglected areas of search behind sponsored search and organic SEO. Benefits of feeds include an ongoing data link between engines and marketers with opportunities for continued optimization.
read more...Valuing Online and Offline Promotions (and Staying Crunchy in Milk)
Just as that plastic toy at the bottom of the cereal box isn’t going to cut it for today’s kids, neither are old-school promotional tactics. Dave Friedman, President of Avenue A/Razorfish opened the ad: tech session “Valuing Online/Offline Integrated Promotions” with an audience poll on cereal toys which set the tone for a lively speaker/panel hybrid session that managed to go over an hour without losing any momentum (or losing its crunch in milk).
Other participants included: Moderator David Herscott, Managing Director of MEA Digital; Megan O’Connor, Director of e-Commerce, Rodan and Fields; and Anthony Schneider, Co-Founder of Peersuasion.
read more...Blogs Provide a More Personal Medium for Advertisers
Led by Jupiter Media’s Gary Stein, the panel entitled “Blogevertising, RSS and Podcasting Opportunities for Marketers,” provided session attendees with an overview of how blogs can be used as an advertising medium. Weblogs Inc. President Shawn Gold began with a bit of blogging 101 explaining that blogs are an empowering and efficient means through which marketers can deliver advertising. Along with blog publishers, blog advertisers benefit from weblog’s propensity to climb high in search results for topics covered on a given blog thereby helping to insure increased, targeted eyeballs for blog advertisers.
read more...Blogs Add Valuable Conversation to Marketing
Led by Intelliseek CMO Pete Blackshaw, the panel, “What Blogs Are Teaching Us About The New Rules of Marketing,” provided the audience with a broad over view of the issues companies need to consider when debating the launch of a corporate weblog or marketing-related weblog. The recurring theme throughout the session centered on the need to stay true to the brand and to live within the company guidelines both legal and otherwise.
read more...Viva la Blombsicle
The Chicago Interactive Marketing Association teamed up with Leapfrog to offer the biggest open-access Ad:Tech party Monday night. By 7:30, the rooftop of Rock Bottom Brewery was packed shoulder to shoulder, soaking up the free food (the soft pretzel bites were a fun touch) and beverages.
Please, in the comments, send a line if you recall what was in the Blombsicle, the blue raspberry lemonade drink that also had Bacardi and vodka. Thanks to Ross Sandler of Revenue Science for the tipoff. His word of mouth had half the crowd downing ‘em. Meanwhile, Google “blombsicle” and not a single result comes up.
read more...Guide For Revolutionaries Is Good Schtick
Guy Kawasaki can hack it as a stand-up comedian if his job as director of VC firm Garage doesn’t pan out. This guy had the ballroom audience cackling with laughter at his snarky asides of Apple culture and astute jabs at the advertising industry.
Along the way, he introduced 10 Rules For Revolutionaries (well, 12 if you count 0 and a bonus rule) to the audience, culled mostly from two of his latest books: “Rules for Revolutionaries” and “Art of the Start.” Although it seems his directives may be better aimed at the start-up crowd, his lessons were equally relevant to marketers and interactive types who are looking for ways to break their business into Yahoo-land.
read more...Integrating Online into the Traditional Media Mix
By now, most marketers have moved beyond the question of Should I be marketing online? to ask more advanced questions, such as What are the latest and best ways to market online? and How do I build my online brand presence more efficiently?
Despite this evolution in thinking, the integration of online and offline marketing efforts remains an afterthought to most. The ad:tech panel Integrating Online Into the Traditional Media Mix takes a look at several tactics marketers can use to get these efforts in sync and by doing so, grow their business.
read more...Car Talk
In “Automotive Research Insights,” comScore Chairman and Co-Founder Gian Fulgoni and Vertis Director of Marketing Research Scott Marden shared their smarts on car buyers. Marden focused on car shoppers’ trends broken out by life stage, and he had so many stats that it’s hard to recount any here. One interesting notes: he says African Americans represent the greatest consumer opportunity.
Much of Fulgoni’s focus, meanwhile, was comparing car manufacturer sites against third party sites, and comparing how consumers search and shop for different car brands online.
read more...Creatives Kick Ass, Pat Backs, Toss Fluff
Preconceived notions that the session entitled “Kick Ass Creative” would be drenched in self-congratulatory praise for pet creative work and new age strategies were clearly confirmed. The session, led by Ad Age Publishing VP and Editorial Director David Klein, included panelists Carat Interactive EVP Creative Director Mike Yapp, Agency.com Creative Director Dorian Sweet, Avenue A/Razorfish ECD Brooke Nanberg and Organic Inc. ECD Colleen DeCourcy.
read more...Do the IMC Tango
This session presents the often complicated task of coordinating integrated marketing communications between multiple internal teams, outside agencies and vendors. It also boasted nearly as many panel speakers as participants.
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