If 1,000,000 people friended your brand on Facebook, how much money would you make? Is social media really worth it? On January 21 at the January Austin AMA Power Luncheon, our special guest speaker Brian Carter discussed strategy, ROI, and how to get more bang for your social media marketing buck. Brian is Director of Search Engine Marketing (PPC), SEO, and Social Media at Fuel Interactive, an interactive marketing agency in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Social media promises to be the new frontier for marketers (we’re pretty sure, anyway—as Brian demonstrated, there aren’t hard numbers for social media’s ROI yet), and we’re all eager to get online and just tweet/post/blog/tag ourselves blue in the face. But without a plan we can’t know if our efforts are worthwhile. In fact, without a plan, we can’t even pinpoint what we consider to be a worthwhile outcome. So in lieu of hard data, Brian recommended starting out with quantifiable goals and educated guesses. We can continually refine and optimize our plan by measuring and evaluating the results we get.

5 Steps to Ensure Social Media ROI

1. Identify your goal.
2. Establish a metric (quantify your goal).
3. Get real about your current situation: what’s working, what’s not, what are your capabilities, do you need help, what is your risk tolerance? Make educated guesses at this point.
4. Plan your strategy and resources before jumping in with both feet.
5. Let results guide progress: Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

4 Phases of Social Media Campaign Development

Most companies skip phase one of the four-phase campaign development process Brian outlined. By jumping into a social media presence without planning what you’re going to do once you’ve begun engaging your audience, you may wind up unable to keep their interest for long or turn that interest into action (and profit).

1. Strategy and brand planning. Project your brand into social media. Plan your viral campaigns—games, contests, hooks, attention grabbers, excitement builders.
2. Establishing a presence on social media sites/increasing brand awareness. Set up your social networking profiles.
3. Engaging customers/developing brand affinity. Monitor the conversation, including mentions of your brand, your competitors’ brands, and relevant topics. Reply with information, offers, friendliness, and humor.
4. Engaging customers/pushing offers for ROI. This is where not skipping phase one really comes in handy. You need a steady stream of attention-grabbing, compelling incentives to lead your audience down the path to purchase.

The Golden Ticket to Social Media Success: Keeping Customers Motivated

Every step of the way, you have to give your audience sufficient incentive to keep paying attention and moving to the next step of your marketing plan. The Golden Ticket campaign shows how to create irresistible motivations that turn into purchasing momentum.

To qualify, customers will book a vacation and fan the Visit Myrtle Beach Facebook page.

Then customers will post a message to their wall (”I booked a vacation at X hotel in Myrtle Beach because I want to win a Golden Ticket”) referencing their golden ticket number.

Five lucky winners will find a Golden Ticket in their hotel room upon arrival entitling them to free show passes, VISA gift cards, and other prizes.

Specific benefits are defined for each step in the contest. By requiring a purchase just to qualify, this campaign ensures cash revenue from the outset. The Facebook posts generate positive word of mouth advertising for the hotels. The campaign will also build contacts for future email campaigns.

What’s the Verdict?

Social media campaign planning is more labor-intensive and expensive than search or email marketing, and its benefits have not been established. Your best bet? To move forward with a plan, learning from your data as you continually get closer to your social media marketing sweet spot.

Other Tips and Takeaways

1. Don’t be a victim of brand theft. Use knowem.com to check for and secure your personal, brand, or product name on over 350 social media sites.
2. In addition to your “2.0″ social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, etc, establish a presence on “3.0″ aggregator sites such as Friendfeed and Tumblr to add assets automatically via RSS, thus building links for SEO.
3. Use tools like CoTweet and Whos Talkin? to monitor and reply to social media chatter.
4. Make sure that your marketing is not only getting attention but inciting action—what are you doing to motivate your audience to do something?

On November 19, USPS Business Alliance Manager Mike Naples broached a subject many of us new-media-obsessed marketers don’t think about very much: direct mail. Direct mail, Naples asserted, is the work horse of direct marketing. It has measurable results, it’s affordable, and it’s easy to target your best customers.

Lest you think that snail mail has gone the way of the dinosaur and eight track player, consider the numbers: we spend 47 billion dollars annually on direct mail marketing—about 9% the of GDP. Compare that to the 6 billion dollars spent on internet marketing.

Closer to home, think about how direct mail affects you. I, for instance, am a Web developer. I haven’t had a printer hooked up to my computer in at least two years. I tweet. I also have one Harry and David’s catalog, two Coldwater Creek catalogs, and a brochure for the AMA Face to Face training series on my coffee table. A kitchen drawer is crammed with 20% off coupons from Bed, Bath, and Beyond. So even the techiest of the techies are touched by good old-fashioned hard copy, especially when it is targeted precisely to our needs and wants.

Direct mail also has a much longer shelf life than, say, a marketing email, which drops like a rock into the abyss of the overcrowded in-box in a matter of days. (How long have those catalogs been sitting on my coffee table? You don’t wanna know.)

Direct Mail versus General Advertising

The age of mass media advertising is over. Today’s marketing must be personalized and non-intrusive to break through the barriers of spam filters, TIVO, and our general self-trained indifference to advertising. Direct mail, though massive in scope, is not the same as general advertising, said Naples.

General advertising, such as a sign on the side of a bus, sells a product. Direct mail sells offers. General advertising creates sales. Direct mail creates customers—whom you can learn about and collect data from for better CRM and future marketing efforts. General advertising is short, appeals to the emotions, and maybe even tries to make you laugh. Direct mail can use lengthy copy that focuses on facts, and, Naples, says, it makes you money.

Tips for Direct Mail Marketing

• Use compelling offers in your mail: free trials, free samples, free information.
• Size does matter. A brochure tucked inside a standard size envelope outperforms a postcard.
• Make it personal. Send offers related to the recipient’s background, experience, and interests.
• According to the Direct Marketing Association, 42% of direct mail recipients like to respond online. Personalized URLs (purls) allow you to direct traffic to the Web in a highly targeted fashion.
• Direct mail can be used at any point (or every point) in the sales cycle.
• Add a magnet or a sticky so recipients can tack the mail piece to their refrigerator or wall.

On October 29, 2009, at the at the Texas e-Marketing Summit, Bryan Rhoads outlined Intel’s social media marketing roadmap and provided advice for companies that want to integrate emerging media into their own marketing programs. Rhoads, a Digital Strategist who pioneered Intel’s new media marketing strategy, is the curriculum architect for Intel’s Digital IQ digital education program and a founding member of the Intel Social Media Center of Excellence.

Rhoads identified four distinct phases of adoption: Grassroots adoption, Results testing, Operationalize, and Widespread adoption. Careful planning at every phase, as the acronym suggests, will help you GROW your social media marketing program in a smart, profitable direction.

Phase 1: Grassroots Adoption

Before Intel began using any kind of social media, its employees were already blogging independently. In launching its pilot IT blog in 2006, Intel leveraged the enthusiasm and knowledge of these trail-blazers. Rhoads characterizes the grassroots phase as the foundation of a formalized marketing plan:

• Led by the passionate few
• Fed by hype
• Feared by Legal and IT
• Efforts are not tied to a formal strategy or ROI
• Limited barrier to entry
• Personal brands often trump company brands

By observing and analyzing the efforts of the independent bloggers, Intel collected enough data about technique and the potential for audience engagement to make an informed decision about moving forward with a pilot program.

Phase 2: Results Testing

Grassroots activity gets the ball rolling. The pilot program is a testing and organization phase. It’s the ideal time to make mistakes and then use what you learn to build a compelling case for adoption and to allay the “what-if” fears of reluctant stakeholders.

• Pilot your ideas with a focus on business results
• Prime your business case
• Do it all wrong quickly
• Mitigate risks to placate Legal and IT fears
• Get ROI and measurement standards in place
• POST exercise
  • People: Assess your customers’ social activities
  • Objectives: Decide what you want to accomplish
  • Strategy: Plan for how relationships with customers will change
  • Technology: Decide which social platforms to use

Phase 3: Operationalize

The pilot program lays the groundwork for further formalization of a social media program. This is the time to get all stakeholders on board and build infrastructure for scalable, repeatable business processes.

• Be absolute on the business case—proof testing is over
• Establish governance and guidance
• Provide infrastructure
• Invest in tools and training
• Define metrics and tracking
• Establish clear roles and responsibilities within the organization
• Scale participation (what level of knowledge and active participation is required of which employees?)

Intel developed numerous programs to communicate its objectives, educate and align employees, and set goals and guidelines for its new media marketing program.

• The Social Media Center of Excellence is a team headed by Rhoads to create guidelines, processes, strategies, and skill-building programs.
• Intel’s Social Media Guidelines provide a framework for increased participation—easing management concerns, getting everyone on the same page about expectations, and ensuring transparency.
• The Digital IQ training program is an online university aimed at creating a vast digital marketing force. Employees take 100 through 400 level classes based on their roles and responsibilities. Digital IQ also helps the Social Media Center of Excellence identify and place new voices in Intel’s social spaces.
• Digital IQ 500 is a further level of training that licenses anyone to practice social media on behalf of Intel. These 30-minute online courses were developed by key SMEs and the Social Media Center of Excellence. They include company strategy, legal and security cautions, moderation policy, and recommended best practices.

Phase 4: Widespread Adoption

Widespread adoption occurs only after the entire company has been primed and a scalable, sustainable plan for implementation has been established.

• Social media is integrated into campaigns
• Social media is included in the strategy phase
• Practicing social media becomes second nature
• Easily replicated processes are in place
• Dedicated roles have been established
• Executive support is cemented

Key Take-aways

Most companies do not have the vast resources of a global company like Intel, but we can all benefit from lessons Intel learned as it adopted social media marketing:

• Learn which way the wind is blowing from your resident enthusiasts.
• Don’t feel pressured to act immediately. Take the time to figure out where your audience is before jumping into a new venue.
• Define success and find a way to measure it.
• Use the proof-testing phase to demonstrate the potential value of social media and to examine and head off potential pitfalls—all of which will help get reluctant stakeholders on board.
• Further reduce anxieties and ambiguity for everyone by establishing comprehensive training and guidelines.
• Find your social media marketing “sweet spot:” where along your business’s marketing funnel can you use social media tools for the most impact?

The economy has slowed and for many companies shrinking revenue means much smaller marketing budgets.  Shrinking marketing budgets can shrink results as well so what is the savvy marketer to do when looking for more results with drastically smaller budgets?  They recycle.

Five ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle:

1. Don’t throw out advertising too early - Redefine “worn out”.  Extend the schedules on which you would normally rotate your creative.  This turbulent economic climate leaves your customers and prospects seeking familiarity and stability.  When you find the effectiveness of your current creative waning, evolve what you have by introducing a new element rather than going completely back to the drawing board. For example, a sticker can take care of a change of address on a brochure. And when you do new things, plan with longer life and “refreshability” in mind.
2. Do something with that old bridesmaid’s dress you’re keeping - Reuse favorite advertising campaigns and direct mail pieces that worked well in the past.  Sure, a few things will have changed over the three years or so since you last ran an ad but editing is always less expensive than creating a new piece.  A few updated touches will create something new from something that might be old to you but thanks to audience turnover and poor long-term viewer retention, plenty of people will be enjoying for the first time.   For those that remember it, showing an old campaign can be a way to demonstrate that you are stable and give them a feeling of security.  Many large traditional brands have begun getting back to their roots and re-airing old campaigns for that reason alone.
3. Look in the trash pile - If you hired an ad agency for a project, chances are that they provided you with multiple concepts for earlier projects. Perhaps you can make use of one of the alternatives. There may be a charge to finish the piece, but it’s usually less expensive than starting over.
4. Car pool - See if anyone in your organization has unused seats.  Many organizations are siloed, especially around the area of technology.  Your IT department may have implemented a tool for Operations that might have marketing capabilities which are going unused.  A good example of a tool like this is Microsoft’s SharePoint. While your organization might be using it for internal collaboration, it is also an excellent tool to make external websites, secure micro-sites, promotional pages, and even to manage an electronic prospect dialogue strategy.
5. Switch to electric power - Marketers are still struggling to find ROI from broad use of the newest social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter but one thing is clear already.  The cost of reaching an audience using these tools is extremely low.  While they are not yet (and may never be) ready to carry the weight of a large portion of your marketing strategy this is a perfect time to replace some of the poorest performing media channels you pay for and add some inexpensive social media to your mix.

All of these ideas will be much more effective when used by a company with a well developed brand identity, and if yours doesn’t, there is no better time to focus on building your brand and taking bold brand actions.

Bill Cutshall

Kirsten Cutshall

As an advertising and marketing executive, I have difficulty finding time for continuing education. However, the proposed topics of the BtoB’s Leading Edge: Demand Generation in the Digital Age online virtual conference motivated me to make time to attend.

This webinar had five tracks. Below is a summary of the key learnings and my personal review of each track.

Track 1: Social Communities and the Future of B-to-B Marketing

Patrick Crane, Vice President of Marketing, LinkedIn

• There are professional social networks and networks geared toward fun and entertainment. As you think about participating in a social network for professional purposes, consider the intentions of its community members. Both Xing and LinkedIn have a professional intent, whereas websites like MySpace and Facebook are more for socialization purposes.
• If you are an HR director or a job seeker, LinkedIn is tailored to fit your needs.

Review: Although not relevant to B2B or B2C lead generation, this track did open my eyes to how LinkedIn is emerging as the most important professional networking site for those seeking traditional employment or contract/consulting work. LinkedIn is also becoming a go-to resource for HR professionals.

Track 2: B-to-B Offer Strategies That Keep Your Sales Pipeline Filled with Qualified Leads

Russell Kern, President, The Kern Organization

• Your offer is the key driver for e-mail campaigns.
• When it comes to B-to-B demand generation, 13% of leads buy in the first 90 days. The other 87% buy within 91 days to 2 years.
• For B-to-B transactions, approximately 6–21 people are involved in purchasing decisions.
• In today’s economy, buyers do not want to talk to salespeople. Rather, they go to trusted advisors. Therefore, you should focus your time and energy networking with consultants and top advisors.
• Try to position yourself as a trusted advisor. 70% of B-to-B deals go to companies that are positioned as trusted advisors.
• B2B buyers are afraid to make mistakes, so they take a longer time than B-to-C buyers to make a purchase decision and have a longer sales cycle.
• When setting up an offer, the call-to-action needs to spark motivation in customers to engage.
• A compelling offer is
  • Valuable
  • Exclusive
  • Tangible
  • Relevant
  • Easy to deliver
  • Engaging/entertaining to the client
• Make offers simple.
• The title of the offer affects consumer response by 35%. Free information is the most powerful offer, and items like free brochures, whitepapers, DVDs, etc., outperform all other offers.
• The biggest snafu on offers for e-campaigns is not having the right offer for the proper sales cycle stage. If a sales cycle stage is more than 30 days and you have a plan of 20 touches, try to consolidate over six months instead of one year.

Review: I found the last tip to be the most insightful and relevant because it described the psychology of delivering compelling call-to-action offers.

Track 3: Lead Scoring: The Foundation of World-Class Lead-Management Programs

Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations, Silverpop Engage B2B

• 70% of leads generation during an e-campaign are considered to be long-term sales cycle (3–18 months). The other 30% consist of: 10–12% short-term buyers, 15–20% not qualified, mystery shoppers, or freebie-seekers
• Today, the biggest gap in CRM is failure to provide a lead-scoring mechanism.
• As marketers, we need to be lead-developers who score and route leads.
• Every sales and marketing organization should meet and collaborate to create a lead-scoring mechanism.
• Factors to consider and evaluate a grade to a lead include:
  • Time-frame for buying
  • Ability to make a decision
  • Purchasing power
  • Profile and demographic information
• Without lead scoring, you compromise your sales team’s ability to prioritize follow-ups based on highest probability to buy.

Review: Currently I am assessing the design of a lead-scoring mechanism into our CRM, so I found this information meaningful and right on target. The presentation was objective and insightful.

Track 4: Following the Leads: Identifying and Targeting Small Business Prospects

Denise Hopkins, Vice President of Marketing & Product Development, Experian Marketing Services

• We still require multiple channels to reach small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) as prospects. E-mail and search are the top tools Experian utilizes.
• Experian has developed profile information and provides specific messages and tones for each profile, expecting that some categories will perform better than others.

Review: When considering marketing to SMBs, look up the Experian profile categories, and the deck will suggest the tone and message to use toward your target.

Track 5: Lead Generation, the Cisco Way

Jere King, VP Field Marketing, Cisco

• Jere reiterated that when you start developing a campaign, you must know who you are marketing to. Then, position yourself accordingly.

Review: This specific track was pre-recorded and staged. This was the model for relentless self-promotion. The thirty minutes focused on sharing four video commercials that they thought were well done and represented the concept of understanding and knowing your customer.

Top Ten Takeaways

Thanks go to fellow attendee, Maria Pergolino, who organized a list of the top ten tips from the webinar.

1. Website visitors need clear directions on what to do when they arrive at your website.
2. You can do a lot even with a small budget.
3. Social media is not going away and needs to be embraced by ALL marketers.
4. Direct mail may not be dead.
5. Offers need to be relevant AND appropriate for the prospect’s place in the buying cycle.
6. Testing can allow you to enter a new market with little risk.
7. Incentives can work really well.
8. It’s okay if people who will never buy your product consume your content.
9. An event doesn’t need to have to trend on Twitter to be great.
10. Demand generation is just a piece of the entire Marketing puzzle.

Overall Review

The webinar started with 5,000 registrations and 1,200 participants. By the final track, 650 people were still watching. I walked out with great insights from three of the five tracks, which made it worth my while. From a technology standpoint, the team that organized the event and logistics did an amazing job, with an interactive flash website that enabled you to feel like you were at a virtual trade show. See the Attendee Guide (PDF) for a complete rundown of the website’s features.

Instead of walking away with a bag of koozies, pens and pencils, I was able to download about 20 presentations and whitepapers that I can read at my leisure and share with my team. These supplementary materials will serve as “IV drips” of continuing education.

A Final Word on Webinars as Continuing Ed for Marketing Professionals

Webinars can be a truly great avenue for continuing education, but my advice is to always read the subject and curriculum a couple of times before attending. Make sure the information is relevant to the knowledge you are seeking. Furthermore, if your time is especially valuable, consider searching for reviews and ratings on the speakers and the companies speaking.

Robert Cowes is Sr. VP of Real Estate & Interactive Marketing at IF Marketing & Advertising. Robert leads IF’s interactive product development as it relates to web technologies, e-marketing, CRM and Search Engine Marketing. He has a BBA in Finance & Marketing from St. Edward’s University and an MBA from Texas State University. Contact him at rcowes@yourifteam.com.

On July 16, 2009, the AMA hosted speaker Shawna Coronado, who shared the story of her dramatic recovery from chronic illness and discussed the value of promoting health, green living, and community through our business practices and marketing.

As the author of Gardening Nude, Shawna Coronado’s approach to marketing is, as you might expect, down to earth and distinctly organic. Her recipe for personal and professional success is all about building and nurturing connections—between yourself and Nature, among your organization’s employees, and between your organization and the local community.

Coronado overcame chronic illness through greening her environment and nurturing personal connections in her life. In the process she also cultivated a highly successful landscaping business, and these days her enterprise has gone global thanks to social media.

She advised us to focus on bringing people together through community action and promoting a greener, healthier lifestyle within and outside of our organizations. Advertising a good message, practicing what you preach, and helping others, she asserted, is the kind of non-traditional marketing that builds your business while making a real difference.

Shawna’s 3 Key Ingredients to Energize Your Business and Your Life

1. Health. In the workplace, a wellness program can be a catalyst for profound change, not only teaching skills for improving health but also by demonstrating to employees that they are valued as individuals. When the organization sets the example of sharing information and empowering people to make positive changes, those people turn around and share the skills and knowledge they learned with others in their community.

2. Conservation. Greening your business makes financial sense, obviously. Send emails instead of snail mail and save on office supplies and postage. Xeriscape office property and lower your water bill. Other benefits are less tangible. Coronado noted that people exposed to an enhanced natural environment—even the sight of a single tree outside a window—are less prone to violence. Making positive changes, such as implementing a greening initiative, brings people together with a common sense of purpose, pride, and ownership.

3. Community. Coronado suggested that responding to the universal human need for community is a key component of business success. When people shop, for instance, they’re not just looking for a product.

• They crave a solution to a problem.
• They crave the meaning of life.
• They crave emotional gratification.
• They crave less isolation.

In short, customers are looking for personal satisfaction. All things being equal, you can stand out from the competition by recognizing and fulfilling that need (not just pushing a product at people). Use your company’s resources to educate and inspire others. Coronado, for instance, has shared her passion for gardening by partnering with a caterer to teach people how to prepare healthy and affordable meals.

The more people you touch in your community in a positive way, the more people you’ll be exposed to; hence, you’ll have more people to sell to. Doing good things for the community at large draws in people from outside your traditional customer base. You’ll also be contributing to the health of the local economy.

Coronado began her presentation by asking, “What if your business could make a difference?” So now I am asking you, Austin AMA members: How can your business make a difference in the community? What talents, passions, and resources can you share with others to get the word out while enriching our local community?

If you missed the presentation, I highly recommend you watch the video. Shawna Coronado is a fantastic presenter, and by the end of her talk the room was buzzing with energy, inspiration, and many questions about gardening!

Hungry for more green wisdom? Check out Coronado’s blogs, http://www.gardeningnude.com and http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com.

Amy Gelfand (Gelfand Design) is a Web developer and writer. She is also an avid cyclist, SCUBA diver, and Web standards advocate. Amy specializes in designing accessible Web sites and spoiling her clients rotten. Contact her at info@gelfanddesign.com.

On May 12, 2009, hundreds of Austin marketing professionals gathered for Marketing Jam ‘09 hosted by The Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA). Marketer, Blogger and AMA Member, Darren Drewitz gives a recap of all the activities.

“I wanna rock-n-roll all night and practice marketing every day.” With apologies to the legendary rock band KISS, this was the adopted slogan for Marketing Jam 09. The Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association hosted a hybrid night of marketing best practices, networking and live music at the always hip Cool River Café in North Austin. With the VP of Programs Elect Simon Salt emceeing the way, AMA members were treated to a fun and informative meeting featuring some of today’s top marketing acts.

Simon introduces the speakers

The “opening band” was Pierpont Communications and the AMA groupies were treated to a duet presentation from Senior VP, Michael Russell and VP, Stacy Armijo. Michael’s set list included a situational overview of today’s business climate in a down economy and how to do more with less when achieving marketing success and new business. The “must haves” in today’s marketing world as sung by Michael are strategy, targets, messaging and differentiation. “Times are tough,” “capital is restrained,” and “we never have enough money or time for new business leads” were the catchy tunes belted by Michael Russell. But with each set of challenges comes a set of solutions and the SVP of Pierpont had a valuable list of low-cost tactics of developing new business. Ideas included hand-written letters, hosting c-level luncheons, power mapping and speaking at great events like Marketing Jam 09.

Stacy speaks to the crowd on the role of a Marketer.

Pierpont VP, Stacy Armijo struck a chord with every AMA attendee when with her anthem “Defending the Role of Marketing.” A veteran of corporate marketing, Stacy offered insights and real-world tips on how a professional marketer can defend their role and value in today’s uncertain employment world. Stacy’s insights and advice included speaking to your bosses on their level, marketing yourself internally, tracking and reporting progress and showing a direct correlation between your day-to-day efforts with the company’s success.

Check Pierpont’s rock’n presentation, for more on what Michael and Stacy had to say.

Next up, was TradeMark Media. A solo act lead by Nick Weynand, Nick’s hit song was “Stop Tweeting and Start Thinking.” Tweet, tweet, tweet is a catchy tune, but Nick was quick to point out that tweeting without strategy is a tune that falls a bit flat.

Nick asks everyone to think before you tweet.

Nick took the crowd through a step-by-step approach to identifying the building blocks of developing strategy for clients. Determine your goals, understand your audiences, use research, survey your customers, and develop appropriate messages to the appropriate segmented groups. Nick touched on the DISC personality test and profiling system, then he declared the room an “I” given that so many marketers were in the audience. We’re know as a bunch who is sociable, talkative, energetic and talks more than listens.

Jam through Nick’s power point below.

The next act was another duet. This time, it was Annie Williams and Jim Hitch with Emma. With a dose of humor in their set, Annie and Jim wanted e-mail marketing and social media to give each other a “hug.” Their presentation was aptly titled “Social media and e-mail marketing are friends. And not just on Facebook.” E-mail marketing expert, Annie Williams, politely asked social media to “drop your weapons” and then took the AMA groupies through a series of definitions of social media and industry statistics. It first hit Annie that social media was big when her mom’s friend requested her on Facebook. The AMA Marketing Jam attendees learned that if Facebook was a country, it would be the 6th most populist country in the world. Additional stats included Facebook growing by 600,000 users per day and receiving more daily searches than Yahoo.

Annie and Jim declare Email Marketing and Social Media are friends. Really!

Jim Hitch joined the set half-way through and together, the duet from Emma demonstrated how companies can utilize e-mail marketing to send their clients relevant, targeted messages and create an online community for branding purposes in the social marketing medium. Marketing is a team sport, so said Jim and Annie and they demonstrated how e-mail marketing and social marketing can and should work together with real world case studies with Southwest Airlines and the New York Times.

For more on what Jim and Annie had to say, careen their groovin slide deck.

And with that, the Marketing portion of the evening was completed and it was time for the AMA crowd to get to the Jam portion of the evening. AMA members and guests were treated to fun, networking, food and spirits while the band Lip Service played our favorite hits from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. The vibe was all Austin - casual, fun and energetic. The AMA attendees had ample time to hang with each other, network and enjoy a Tuesday evening in Austin with good tunes, friends and marketing discussions. Check out some additional pics from the event from our FlickR stream.

Photos from Marketing Jam 2009

“I wanna rock-n-roll all night and practice marketing every day.” Let us know what you thought about this year’s Marketing Jam. I had a great time and learned something new along the way. See you at Marketing Jam 2010.

About Darren Drewitz

Darren has 16 years of strategic and integrated marketing experience on both the client and agency sides. He has experience in both B2B and B2C marketing, including the multi-location, food, logistics, building & construction and tourism industries. Darren specializes in developing year-long strategic and integrated marketing plans designed to align business objectives with marketing initiatives. Darren lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Melissa and their two sons. Darren serves as an account director for MQ&C Advertising, a 25-year-old, full-service marketing and advertising agency.

Did you like the programming you just read? It’s always better in person. Visit the Austin American Marketing Association website (www.austinama.org) for upcoming events, membership information and volunteer opportunities.

From Stacy Armijo, Vice President, Pierpont Communications. Stacy will speak at the AMA Marketing Jam on Tuesday, May 12^th.

Some days, it feels like marketers are in the fight of our lives. Budgets are being cut, expectations are being raised and we must deliver more than ever with fewer resources.

Too often, we become insulated and assume our organization recognizes our value. We discover our mistake when budgets shrink and marketing is the first to be slashed.

Like the cobblers’ children with no shoes, we realize we’ve evangelized ardently for the brand, but done nothing to advocate for our own value internally.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that tumultuous times can present some of the best opportunities for communication professionals.

Now is a great time to go the extra mile and show your value. At Marketing Jam ’09, I’ll share tips for achieving this, such as:

• Creating outcomes, not implementing strategies;
• Speaking in the language of executives; and
• Learning to love metrics.

Our organizations need us now more than ever.

Join me at Marketing Jam ’09 to help them recognize it!

At Marketing Jam ’09 we will rock out and share new ways to grow your business and make the most of your marketing dollars. Attendees will learn from some of Austin’s leading marketing experts, including: Pierpont Communications ; TradeMark Media; and Emma Email Marketing. Following the presentations, attendees will enjoy networking, appetizers, cocktails and live music from Austin’s own Lip Service. Let’s rock!

Stacy Armijo is a Vice President for Pierpont Communications and leader of the firm’s public relations practice in Austin. A specialist in communication planning and media relations strategy, Stacy’s expertise lies in creating practical, effective communication programs that make the best use of every dollar invested. Learn more at www.piercom.com.

When John Ellett, owner of local advertising agency nFusion, speaks in front of college groups, it’s an Anheuser-Busch account that gets the most attention. Using interactive marketing, nFusion created a Bacardi Silver brand campaign, The Pick-Up Hall of Shame. The interactive campaign launched in January 2007 and is still running and pulling in viewers.

Yes, you have to be 21 to enter the website featuring all the flavors of Bacardi Silver. So, many of those college students have only heard of, not sampled the brand. After skimming through the over 1500 entries made by site visitors, the real list of Pick-Up Lines is surprisingly small. My favorite line was:

I wish I was a tear, that way I’d be born in your eye, live on your cheek, and die on your lips.

Many of the pick-up lines referenced advertising slogans:

When I studied advertising at Syracuse University, I chose a Bacardi ad for a critical analysis assignment. Through that exercise, I learned my first rule of advertising: Men like to look at women in ads. Women like to look at women in ads.

Bacardi often sells the social aspect of its product. So it was natural to continue the “fun feature” of the branding in nFusion’s campaign. The “Worse Pick-Up Line” feature is very viral. Of the viewers that “stick”, 82 percent of them will share the campaign with their community, add or rate the lines. That is an outstanding metric which shows the conversion of lookers to doers. The viewers spread the campaign through social bookmarking, adding it to their MySpace pages, or by forwarding it to their friends.

While we can’t trace actual sales that result from the Pick-Up Line feature, the Anheuser-Busch executives approve of it enough to let it to run for two years. In interactive marketing, that’s like dog years. I like how nFusion runs the flavor buttons at the bottom of the screen with a new flavor tag for the latest version of Bacardi Silver. The new flavor tag refreshes the content.

Bacardi Silver’s interactive marketing accomplishes the goals of stickiness and engagement with its target demographic. It also has a timeless quality — the pick-up line, “You must be wearing spacepants, because you’re out of the world,” could have come out of the David Bowie disco days of the 70s. There’s no other explanation for such a bad pick-up line. Why do you think this campaign works?

About the Author

Brenda Hessney

Brenda Hessney is a successful Austin marketing specialist with a knack for quickly analyzing, planning, and implementing effective, cost efficient sales campaigns.