Online Marketing Blog

All marketers wish they knew how to better measure results, engage their audience, and measure ROI. Chuck Hemann opens up by warning that he won’t solve all of our problems but he will provide guidance on how to approach them.

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance

There are 5 key steps that each marketer must take to create a successful social media campaign.  What does this include?

• Listening to what is being said online
• Assessing the marketplace
• Engaging with current and prospective clients
• Measuring is a way for us to optimize
• Improving our strategy as we learn more

According to Hemann listening and measurement are the two most important ingredients for success.  You cannot successfully execute on one without the other.  Below are a few of the best practice approaches that Hemann shared with the audience at today’s session.

This post is one of a series of liveblogs from the 2010 MIMA Summit.

When you think of geotagging, or checking in, what do you think of? Probably GPS, FourSquare, Facebook Places or letting a photo site like Flickr know where a photo was taken. But it can also be done for blog posts.

Geotagging in blog posts is still relatively new, but it well on its way.

WordPress.com already supports geotagging on profiles and posts so that you can let others know where you are posting from. They will also soon launch a Geo Search feature that will allow people to find posts based on their location.

This post is one of a series of liveblogs from the 2010 MIMA Summit.

Web Analytics is an excellent way to ensure your marketing efforts are not in vain. However, looking at Analytics without understanding user behavior may leave you treading water instead of creating a wake your competitors will fear.

One way to take your methods of measurement to the next level is to combine Analytics with User Experience (UX) information. What you stand to gain can be great whether you dip a toe or cannon ball into blended analytic waters.

To make sure you don’t sink, first understand that Analytics will tell you what’s happening on the site. User Experience Research then helps you understand why it’s happening by gaining insight into the behaviors and motivation of visitors.

Jackie Huba, blogger at the popular Church of the Customer blog kicked off MIMA Summit 2009 with a moving presentation on the idea of 1%’ers – those influential people creating content on the web (similar to Jakob Nielson’s participation inequality).

Through the democratization of publishing content, the vocal minority, those 1%’ers (“sneezers” as Seth Godin calls them or “connectors” as Malcolm Gladwell refers to them as) are integral for your brand.

Why are they important?

New forms of most trusted advertising:

1. Recommendations from friends
2. Other people’s opinions online
3. Company websites
4. Editorial content (news articles)
5. Brand sponsorships

“1%’ers” fall into both numbers one and two.

What we are seeing is anonymous opinions are influencing the way people buy.  Word of mouth from both people we know and don’t know is impacting opinions and purchasing decisions.

2008 MIMA Summit at The Depot

UPDATE: We have a winner! Liz Giel was selected by a mysterious voting process contrived within the ranks of the TopRank staff and involving various secretive and hurried Account Managers. Suffice it to say, we appreciate all who ReTweeted, linked and commented.  Don’t worry, there will be liveblogging of the event here on Online Marketing Blog and live streaming of several sessions at MIMASummit.org. Congratulations Liz!

In just under a week the annual Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association Summit will be held downtown Minneapolis at the Hilton. With keynotes from Seth Godin and Jackie Huba as well as a collection of local and national subject matter experts ranging from Greg Swan of Weber Shandwick to Scott Monty of Ford, it should be a veritable vortex of interactive velocity.  I apologize, that alliteration was so bad.

The dust has settled, mountains of email have been sorted through and most of this year’s attendees of MIMA’s Summit, branded “FEED” are back into the swing of things.

As you can tell from the photo above, it was a sold out event and a very big venue. Both keynotes were informative and entertaining. Rebecca Lieb’s presentation was covered by TopRank’s Jolina Pettice and while we didn’t post on Ze Frank’s amazingly entertaining presentation, you can pretty much get a feel for it from his presentations at SXSW last year and from what he’s presented at the TED conference.

Those whose interactive marketing interests extend to the boob and penis humor category were likely satisfied by both keynotes as they touched on everything from jiggly French Maid “how to” videos to crowdsourcing creative phallic drawings.

I must say, of all breakout sessions at the MIMA event today, “The Changing Face of Email” session was the one I was most excited to attend as it ties into what I love to do – email marketing. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long to dive right in as it was part of the Summit Kick-Off Breakout session: Deep Dive Discussion Series.

Jamie Schissler, Strategy Director at Avenue A – Razorfish, the presenter for “The Changing Face of Email” session shared with the MIMA audience that as the role of email evolves, so too will its impact.

So why will the email marketing strategies of yesterday not work for email marketing success today?

Matt Wilson, the President of The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA), a networking and professional development forum for interactive marketing professionals, kicked off the 2008 Annual MIMA Summit this morning in grand fashion!

With a sold-out room full (600+) of Minnesota interactive marketers chomping at the bit to learn the latest and greatest, it is guaranteed to be a wonderful event.

As the introduction to the event, MIMA ’08 played an awesome & quite humorous MIMA theme song / video by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal that had flashbacks to the “old days” of the interactive – my favorite reference was a lyric that eluded to the good old days of interactive and the internet when you had trouble keeping up the monitoring of your 2 email addresses and posting to blogs a many times…a year.

On Wednesday October 1st, about ten of TopRank’s finest will be making the trek from the Western suburbs to downtown Minneapolis for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association’s (MIMA) “sold out” Summit.

As in years past, MIMA Summit will take place at The Depot with a new focus on the subject of “mutualism”. Mutualism centers on the open use of material in the online world, in which web marketers and users alike participate with one another and share information together. In that spirit, I’m going to take the information provided by MIMA about the Summit and share with our readers.

One of the fun things we get to do on Online Marketing Blog is interview interesting people we meet and get to know by being involved with the industry. This interview is with Rebecca Lieb, Editorial Consultant to ClickZ and former Editor for the past 7 years. In addition to previously offering sage advice on getting more out of marketing conferences here on OMB, Rebecca works as a consultant, is writing a book on search marketing and is often retained as a speaker for industry events.

In this interview Rebecca shares tips on selecting interactive marketing vendors, shares her insights into upcoming marketing strategies and talks briefly about her upcoming book on search marketing as well as the MIMA Summit here in Minneapolis where she’s the keynote speaker.

Your journalism and editorial background has taken you many places topically and geographically. What are some of your favorites?

Editor’s Note: Wednesday this week was the annual MIMA Summit held downtown Minneapolis. With our current workloads and schedules, I wasn’t planning on having TopRank staff attend, but received some last minute encouragement so I had Thomas and Dana attend the whole day and was able to slip in for the last 3-4 hours myself. The attendance nearly doubled over last year to 700+ attendees (an estimate I heard at the event). Hats off to MIMA members for a great job spreading the good interactive marketing word.

The following are wrap-ups from MIMA Summit veteran attendee Thomas McMahon and first-timer Dana Larson.

Thomas McMahon

Going to the MIMA Summit is always a treat. It’s amazing to see how many local people are in the industry and take the time to come out and enjoy a day of great food, networking and great presentations.

The local interactive marketing association I’m involved with here in Minneapolis, MIMA, has launched a new interactive marketing blog that covers some industry news and particularly the good things happening in the midwest interactive marketing space.

Yesterday we had the annual MIMA Summit which went off very well. There were great speakers, a sold out venue, great networking, the best bag of schwag I’ve seen at any conference-anywhere, super food, tons of giveaways from companies like Target and of course some drinking, a bit of electronic-performance art from Popular Front, more networking and libations. A good time was had by all and the feedback has been excellent.

Next year it may need to be a two day event and will certainly need to move to a larger venue. If you’re a marketer working in the midwest, I highly recommend checking out MIMA.