"Favorite Interactive Marketing Tools" is the topic for the January meeting of the Cincinnati AMA Interactive Shared Interest Group on January 11th.
One of our most popular topics, once a year we have a meeting when we go around the around the room and everyone who attends spends five minutes describing their favorite Interactive marketing tool. What smartphone app, software program, website or web browser extension makes your job as an Interactive marketer a whole lot easier? Here is your chance to share it with the group and learn about new tools that you might be able to use! Please come to the meeting ready to talk about 2 tools with the group (one and a spare in case someone else chooses the same tool).
The meeting is on Wednesday January 11th from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm at Office Key Hyde Park in Rookwood Tower (3505 Edwards Road, suite 550). The meeting is free for American Marketing Association members, $15 for non-members and online registration on the Cincinnati AMA website is required.
Joanne Westwood of Westwood Virtual Associates and I are teaching a one-day Small Business Online Marketing Seminar this Friday at Indiana Wesleyan University in West Chester. Topics include:
Facebook Marketing
Social Media
Business Blogging
Online Video
Email Marketing
Website Conversion
Search Engine Optimization
Online Advertising
Google Analytics
This is a small class (capped at 20 attendees) in which Joanne and I will be walking folks through many of the most important elements of online marketing for small businesses. Joanne will be teaching the morning session from 9:00-noon, there will be a lunch break from noon to 1:00, and then I'll be teaching from 1:00 to 4:00.
If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur or marketer looking to get a hands-on "crash course" in the basics of online marketing, this is the event to attend. This is an "introductory" level course and prior marketing knowledge or education is not necessary, so if you're intimidated by these topics, don't be. We're here to help!
The price is $149 for either three-hour session or $249 for both sessions. Additional details and secure online registration through Eventbrite is available at: http://nov18class.eventbrite.com/
Recently I caught up with Ryan Clark of email marketing services provider Silverpop and asked him to tell me about some of the recent trends in email marketing and briefly outline the email marketing services Silverpop provides. Here is the clip and link to the video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ4GmSBHrHc
If you would like to learn more about Silverpop, including the email marketing and email automation services they provide, visit their website at www.silverpop.com. If you're in the Cincinnati area you can contact Ryan at 513-774-8784.
Recently I met with Dan Marshall, the President of email management software firm ListRocket to learn more about their product. In this video Dan and I discuss the benefits of using an email list management product like ListRocket and Dan reviews some of the more unique features of ListRocket, including the integration of social media management tools.
A couple of the cool features of ListRocket are the ability to post messages directly to social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn from the tool and track the interactions with the message via an IP-based geographical map so users can easily see where in the world their respondents are.
There are multiple pricing levels based on the volume of messages sent in a month and free trial accounts that enable a user to send up to 100 messages per month while testing out the system are available. To learn more or sign up for a free trial account visit http://www.listrocket.com
Here is a link to the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR99Cq1juIQ
There is a bad Internet marketing habit that had died down but seems to have made a comeback lately: companies and organizations flooding with me email I don't want and didn't ask for.
A personal case study: Over the past couple of months I've attended services at a number of churches near my home to find the one I'd like to attend regularly. So I've filled out the handy Information Card at a couple of them and have been getting emails...A LOT of emails.
I went to a church for the first time four weeks ago and filled out the card (including my email address) and marked I was a first time visitor and noted I am looking for a new church home. Since then each week I have received the pastor's weekly newsletter (which I never requested) PLUS about a dozen other emails from the pastor on various topics, one of which had the subject line "Random Thoughts". So I've gotten about 15 emails from this church in a month. Yeah, I did give them my email and thought they would contact me once, but I never requested to be contacted continuously.
Another church I've been to a couple of times has a "Men's group" so I got on their list and the two guys who run it keep sending me all kinds of emails, often they are about one specific topic and are 1-4 paragraphs in length. A couple of days ago they sent me 4 emails IN ONE DAY. Since they aren't using an email sending program like Constant Contact, Silverpop or Exact Target to manage their lists and there isn't an easy to use Unsubscribe feature (one of the requirements of the CAN-SPAM act by the way) I have had to block their addresses manually when I finally got fed up this week.
Other examples: --If you meet someone at a networking event and they give you a business card with their email address, that DOES NOT mean you now have the right to sign them up to your newsletter! If you think they might be interested in receiving emails from you, ASK them for permission to continue to contact them and tell them how doing so may benefit them.
--If on your website you solicit subscriptions to your MONTHLY newsletter, send folks who sign up just that, one monthly newsletter. Not two or three or four. As far as I'm concerned if you contact people more often than you said you would, you're spamming them.
Spam is defined as "unsolicited commercial email". If the recipient hasn't given you permission to send what you're thinking about sending, it's spam.
Now be a good marketer and eat your spam (just don't send it to someone else).
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