Online Marketing Blog

On a sunny, warm day in Minneapolis, marketers gathered near one of the city’s best attractions – LakeCalhoun – to learn about “Search and the Connected Consumer”, a view of how people retrieve information online and what that means for the future online and search engine marketing.

Hosted by MIMA, the event featured Mike Grehan, Global VP Content, Search Engine Watch, ClickZ & Search Engine Strategies.

Mike started by educating the audience on the history of the World Wide Web and the Internet (note: they are not one in the same).

It’s difficult to find much value in content with no strategy behind it. Without a content strategy plan, your intended audience is unlikely to find your copy, let alone read it.

During the MIMA Summit last week, the importance of a content marketing strategy was the topic of a session presented by Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish.

For this week’s 5 Tips post, I’ve translated some of Rachel’s valuable points into actionable steps for creating an effective content marketing strategy.

1. Discover
In a nutshell, do your homework:

• Research competitors’ content. Whether you’re launching a blog, website or email campaign, determine what information is already out there and how it’s presented. How can you distinguish yourself?

The annual MIMA (Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association) event kicked off this morning with Rebecca Lieb as the opening keynote.

In a nutshell, the sessio

n was funny, insightful and not without the inevitable internet issues which seem to plague all search conferences (ironic, yes?).

Rebecca got Minnesota online marketers thinking about the following 3 items:
1. Informative (be the content)
2. Entertaining (let people play)
3. Viral (make something people want to share)

From Jerry Seinfeld to French maids to Sarah Silverman’s video about Obama, everything Rebecca shared with the audience centered on the above 3 items.

The first is be the content. It isn’t enough, and hasn’t been for awhile, to publish product or service content. Rather, content that is compelling to your audience needs to be created for them.
No one wants to read standard brochure information. No one.

Tonight interactive gurus from General Mills, Best Buy, Target, Fingerhut and Gage will convene at an event hosted by MIMA to discuss: Duality Reality: Who Controls Social Media in the Enterprise?

As a preview, I reached out to Douglas Pollei (left) of Social Media Club Minneapolis and VP of Internet Strategy and Corporate Development for IKANO Communications who helped get the panel created and panelist Jim Cuene (right), who is Director of Interactive at General Mills. to ask a few questions about tonight’s topic.

This dual interview offers everyman definitions of social media, common challenges in large organizations as well as tips and resources for companies trying to figure out how to get their arms around social media in their organizations. We also have reason for new nicknames: “Twitter Jim” and “Wiki Douglas”. Read on.

With the changes last year in the search marketing conference industry there has been disappointing side-taking and rumor mongering but also a healthy dose of optimism about what more competition will do for attendees. I would think the sustainability and success of any conference is in large part dependent upon attendees needs being met. Whether your primary business is interactive marketing, public relations, advertising or SEM, online marketing and PR oriented conferences offer a variety of benefits.

Because of Online Marketing Blog readers’ varied marketing and PR related interests, this week’s Poll aims to identify the top motivations for readers to attend marketing industry conferences:

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.

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association annual Summit starts in about an hour. This year’s event is sold out and there’s an excellent mix if speakers. With lots of sponsors this year, there are a ton of giveaways as well.

One of our pr firm clients, The Web Marketing Association and Web Award will have their CEO, William Rice start things off with the morning keynote presentation. Bill has run the Web Award competition for 10 years and the program has reviewed over 9,000 web sites in that time. His presentation will offer insight into what makes an award winning web site and he’ll also present industry vertical data compiled over the past 10 years.

That time of year is here again and the annual event held by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association called “The Summit” promises to be even bigger and better.

There’s a fantastic lineup of speakers and sessions including two keynote presentations: One from William Rice of the Web Marketing Association and Michelle Collins, a blogger for VH1‚Äôs, Best Week Ever. Other sessions include:

• Web Writing
• Web Analytics
• Brawny Academy
• Making the Grade
• Ask the Email Experts
• E-Commerce Opportunities
• Site Architecture
• Consumer Generated Media
• Paid Search
• Online Advertising
• Internet Marketing Toolbox
• Can Web 2.0 Change the World?

I would link to the session details, but the promo page was done entirely in Flash with one movie. It’s a very cool sitelet, but not too link or search engine friendly.

If you’ve been around the SEO game long enough to remember the I-Search discussion list, then you know how useful a resource discussion lists or groups can be. Several of the moderators and people involved with the I-Search list have gone off and started their own SEO and SEM discussion threads over the years.

In this age of blogs, RSS and social media, these lists can still be a very useful tool for staying current with the industry. Actually most, if not all are now RSS-enabled.¬† Below is a list of some of the SEO and online marketing discussion lists and their moderators that I’ve found to be useful:

Yes dear friends, I’ve said it. Paid search can be a pain in the rear. But no worries, search engine marketing guru Andrew Goodman of Traffick and Page Zero Media promises to shed some light on the subject in conjunction with a Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) seminar next week.

Goodman’s presentation, “IT’S NOT JUST YOU: PAY-PER-CLICK CAN BE A REAL BEAST” will cover examples of Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing challenges, SEM relations, click fraud, CPOs vs. market share growth, data privacy, auctions and more.

Spotlight on Search – Interview with Eric T. Peterson

When you think of authorities on web analytics, one person that should be on your list is Eric T. Peterson. Eric is currently Vice President with the Visual Sciences division of web analytics firm, WebSideStory, is the author of several books on web measurement and moderates several popular discussion lists on analytics. He also manages an excellent site on web analytics called Web Analytics Demystified. He previously worked as an analyst with JupiterResearch and has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Business 2.0 and others as an expert on the topic.
Eric will be speaking at a MIMA event tomorrow evening here in Minneapolis so I thought I would check in with him and do a little interview.

Members of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association and the local interactive community in the Twin Cities will be getting the lowdown on web analytics next week. Eric T. Peterson from the Visual Sciences division of web analytics firm, WebSideStory and author of several books on web measurement will be presenting, “Making Your Web Analytics Work. Hard”.

From the press release:

‚ÄúFew organizations fully realize the potential of their investment in web analytics technology,‚Äù said Peterson. ‚ÄúWeb analytics applications provide truly actionable data that can be used to positively impact an organization‚Äôs bottom-line but companies need to treat web analytics as a business process, not simply an ad hoc endeavor. My work at Visual Sciences, and my MIMA presentation, revolves around how companies can treat web analytics as a business process and dramatically improve the return on investment.”