Online Marketing Blog » DM Days

DM Days Final and Dinner with Jim Boykin

Lee Odden — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 10:59:46 +0000

I was able to sit in on a DM Days site review clinic yesterday with Detlev Johnson and Amanda Watlington who provided great advice to the few audience members. The site owners literally received multiples of their conference admission price in consulting advice. One site had thousands of pages hiding content from the search engines (unintentionally) because of JavaScript. Another was submitting an incomplete sitemap file to Google.

I’d have photo for you, but the DMA representative in the back of the room said I could not take any photos in the session room unless I had a press pass. Being a speaker and the Communications chair for one of the DMA councils didn’t pull any weight. This was a bit ironic considering the keynote from the President of the DMA was all about social media, of which blogs and photos are a big part. It’s a long road ahead for the DM community in understanding search and social media I think, but we’ll keep working on it.

In the afternoon I metup with Jim Boykin and one of his link ninjas, Sarah. Jim came to the city from Upstate New York to shoot a little video with me for a very interesting project he’s working on. More on that later. We shot the video at the W hotel where I’m staying and with some highly skilled post shoot editing, it should turn out ok.

After the video, we scooted over to Bobby Van’s on 54th and had a great dinner. As a long time search marketer, Jim has some very interesting stories to tell. One of my favorites is from when he got started in search marketing. He won a free conference pass from Jill Whalen to a SES San Jose event. At the conference he met Matt Cutts who answered two pages (front and back) of questions for Jim and at the Google Dance, introduced Jim to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. On top of all that, he got a copy of “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine” signed by Larry, Sergey and Craign Silverstein which now hangs proudly in the WeBuildPages office.

Today, it’s back to Minnesota and hopefully less than two hours waiting on the runway.

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DM Days Keynote on Social Media

Lee Odden — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 23:17:07 +0000

The DM Days 2007 conference kicked off with a keynote presentation starting with DMA President and CEO, John Greco. The keynote was titled, “Next Gen Interactive: How Marketers are Optimizing the Power of Social Media to Connect and Deliver Results”.

With technology evolving, customer preferences changing and competition that is sharper than ever, the focus of this year’s DM Days event was on “What’s Next?”

Greco sees direct marketing as more than an industry, as a core process. Rather than “direct marketing” he sees it as “marketing directly”, which is the ability to engage individual customers with relevant and timely interactions that provide the information and offers they want using any of a variety of channels.

Internet and email will grow 3 times faster than direct mail, so direct marketers need to be involved with internet based marketing in order to survive.

It’s easy to see the growing opportunity with social media, the question is how to take advantage of it and understand how it can work within the marketing mix.

The power of web 20 is the opportunity to connect people of similar interests. Online marketing data collection from social media may replace traditional lists. I think that comment got the attention of quite a few audience members, because lists are at the core of the direct marketing business.

After the opening remarks, Aaron Kahlow of BusinessOnLine is to moderate the keynote panel. Instead, he brings the panelists onto the stage and does a 10-15 minute presentation. There was good info in the presentation, but that’s a long time for a panel to sit onstage waiting to participate. But hey, that’s just my opinion. Panelists included: Jennifer Juckett of Vmix, Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ, Leslie Reiser of IBM and Greg Verdino of Crayon.

A Wikipedia definition of social media is given and a study by BPT partners is cited indicating that marketers consider on/offline promotion as well as personalization as essential, but also that those marketers have not mapped out the touch points for implementing those tactics.

Audience poll: How many are using social media as part of their marketing? About 10% respond yes.

Direct marketers are not getting involved with social media because they don’t know how.

Why does social media matter? The conversation is happening with or without you. This cliche is new to the DM audience but it’s getting old to many search marketers.

There are also measurable reasons why social media matters such as the statistic that cites blog readers as more likely to purchase and the implications for usability and seo. In fact, Internet is more than double an influence on purchasing decisions than other media. According to a Forrester benchmark study that breaks down social media usage, gen y spends more time on the Internet than watching TV.

Kahlow says that social media marketing initiatives are not hard to start but can be difficult to maintain.

Now we’re onto the panel part of the keynote.

Moderator: Is social media real?

IBM: 50% of adults online are contributing content and the sweet spot for social media is 20 and below. The conversation is going on, if you don’t participate, you’ll be left out.
Vmix: Its changing from one way to a two way communication.
ClickZ: Remember this about social media, it’s not direct marketing. However, it is something to learn. It’s a conversation and if you’re not at least listening, you can be at a disadvantage.
Crayon: People’s behaviors haven’t changed with the popularity of social media, it’s just that people have found new ways to connect. Direct marketers already have many of the core skills needed for social media marketing. But there are bad habits such as the tendency for one way communication. We can’t just barge our way into communication anymore, there must be a conversation.

Moderator: Reinforces the “It’s not anything new.” statement.

ClickZ: John Greco put it well, it’s not new but it IS a new environment. The tone of communication must be different.
IBM: Manages many web sites where users are exposed to message on the site. With social media it’s happening elsewhere. You need to get your information out where the conversations are happening
ClickZ: One thing that scares direct marketer is the ability or difficulty in measuring the effect of social media. Direct marketers need to figure out a way to do that.
Several Panelists mention “engagement and influence as metrics.

Here’s a video expert from the Q/A dealing with how direct marketers can begin engaging in social media marketing:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was another 15-20 min of Q/A, but I had to leave for our session following the keynote.

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DM Days New York 2007

Lee Odden — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:33:50 +0000

After a few days home in Minnesota I’ve gone on the road again to the DM Days conference in New York. Just two hours sitting on the tarmac this time.

The DMA Search Engine Marketing Council has quite a bit going on between sessions on search marketing, informational events and there will be presentations on the DMA search marketing certification program as well by the coordinator of that program, Dr. Amanda Whatlington. There’s also a one day seminar here in NYC after the DM Days event, “Search Engine Marketing – The Basics” on June 27th from 9-3:30.

My session is tomorrow am right after the keynote which is all about social media, “Next Gen Interactive: How Marketers Are Optimizing the Power of Social Media to Connect and Deliver Results”. It’s an interesting idea, a keynote presentation about social media to a group of direct marketers. We’re just making great headway with search engine optimization with this community, so helping everyone get up to speed on the notion of social media should be a great experience.

The biggest challenge the DMA’s Search Engine Marketing Council faces in this regard is how to best provide insight and actionable information in a context direct marketers can relate to. The good news, is that we have several long time search marketers on hand to help with panels such as “Popularity Online: Winning Search and the Social Media Contest“. The session includes includes Heather Lloyd Martin, Detlev Johnson, Mike Moran, Jeanette Kocsis and myself.

My small part of this session will deal specifically with social news and bookmarking services as one thing direct marketers can do now, to start exploring social media channels. The SEO sessions we did at last year’s DM Days went pretty well, so I would expect nothing different this time around.

If you’re in New York this week and going to the DM Days event, contact me via the form on this blog, I’d love to meet some direct marketers or search marketers with an interest in social media.

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June Search Marketing Conferences

Lee Odden — Mon, 07 May 2007 11:38:00 +0000

Wow, I just checked my calendar and June is one heck of a month for conferences. Regrettably, I’ve had to turn down two regional/private speaking gigs due to time conflicts and those really are the best for generating new business. However, the two events I will be speaking at are:

Bulldog Reporter’s Media Relations Summit, “Media Relations Unbound: How SEO and Social Media Have Revolutionized Our Reach” Washington, D.C. June 10-12, 2007. I will be speaking with fellow PR, Social Media and Search Marketing enthusiasts, Jamie ODonnell from SEO-PR and Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus. This looks like a fantastic event for the PR industry and I’ll be bringing one of our new account managers, Mike Yanke to fill up on all the PR and marketing wisdom being shared.

DM Days Conference, “Popularity Online: Winning Search and the Social Media Contest – Marketing with Social Media” New York, New York. June 19-21, 2007. Introducing the integration of social media and search marketing to the DM crowd will prove to be very interesting but we’ll be up to the task with a great lineup of marketers presenting. Heather Lloyd Martin, Detlev Johnson, Mike Moran, Jeanette Kocsis and myself will give a SEO/SMO 101 along with case studies and specific tactics that should whet the DM industry’s appetite.

Additional search marketing events in June 2007 include:

Internet Retailer, San Jose, CA June 4-7. If you’re involved with online retailing and ecommerce, this is THE show to be at.

SMX Advanced, Seattle, WA June 4 & 5. This is the inaugural Search Marketing Expo event and Danny says he’s added a “You & A” with Matt Cutts session and also that May 8th is the last day to get the early bird discount.

SES Toronto, June 12 & 13. Goodman is programming this one and with Seth Godin doing the keynote, he must be doing something right.

SES Latino, June 18-19, Miami, FL. I heard this one was hot, hot, hot last year.

High Rankings Seminar and Workshop, June 28-29, Denver, CO. I wish I could have made this one, but Jill, Christine, Karon, Scottie and Jennifer will have it all covered.

OMMA Video, NYC June 28. All about video advertising, production, delivery and syndication.

OMMA Mobile, NYC June 29. Learn about the latest trends in mobile marketing.

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Search Marketing Events

Lee Odden — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:02:06 +0000

If you’re looking for sources of information on search marketing, conferences can be a great resource. Or. if you’re a conference junkie like me, then you’ll find the SEOBook “Must See SEO Events” calendar exceptionally useful.¬† Some disclosure here, I am editing the calendar along with Aaron.

Some of the conferences listed include:

Search Engine Strategies

WebmasterWorld Pubcon

ad:tech

DMA conferences

MIMA

eMetrics Summit

eTail

Shop.org Summit

Search Insider Summit

OMMA

Affiliate Summit

SEO Roadshow

SEO Bash

And more

If you know of a conference that deals in some way with search marketing (SEO or SEM) then drop a comment. Regional events are welcome as well.

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Speaking at DM Days New York

Lee Odden — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 02:42:20 +0000

Monday morning I’m off to New York for the DM Days conference. I will join several other members of the DMA Search Engine Marketing Council including: Heather Lloyd-Martin, Amanda Watlington, Detlev Johnson, Kevin Lee, Mike Moran, Jeanette Kocsis and Matt Bailey as well as John Marshall in presenting two sessions that provide a wide range of specific recommendations for a DMA member site.

Topics include: creating a business case for search marketing, web site evaluation, technical optimization, user-experience, content optimization, web analytics, pay per click, online pr and integrating web marketing with other media. I guess it’s sort of a SES “pimp my site panel” but without the hats and it occurs over two sessions.

More info:

The DMA Search Engine Marketing Council (SEMC) will provide an in-depth search marketing consultation for a leading list management and brokerage DMA member web site during two sessions of ‚ÄúSearch Engine Marketing: Basics and Beyond‚Äù in New York on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 10:15am EST. Registration info.

I am looking forward to the event and also to spending a few extra days in New York. This time I am brining my wife and we’re going to do a little sightseeing and some birthday celebration. It should be fun.

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DM Days NYC

Lee Odden — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:33:26 +0000

In about two weeks the DM Days conference will be held in New York June 20-22 at the Jacob K. Javits convention center. The theme of this event is “Managing your message the customer is in control”. I will be speaking on a panel on search marketing that includes everything from SEO to paid search and online PR called “Search Engine Marketing: Basics and Beyond“.

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