If you read my blog post yesterday and inferred that I was at a marketing event, you were right. Day 1 of the Inbound Marketing Summit Boston (#ims09, if you’re following on Twitter) was packed full of sessions, with titles like “7 Steps to Social Media Measurement,” “Getting the Word Out: PR 2.0,” and “Ingredients of a Viral Video.”
From our perch overlooking the Patriots’ field in Foxboro, MA, fellow Percussionites Vern Imrich, Peter Webster, and I took in the knowledge tsunami and met marketers in nearly every vertical.
Here are some highlights and key takeaways from the day:
Great insights from the Innovative Marketing Programs Using New Media panel:
AJ Gerritson from 451 Marketing suggested that killer content is the crucial element in a marketing campaign, but search is the go-to platform. If you can get killer organic search results and complement them with social inbounds, you’ll be knee deep in quality leads.
He also observed that a lot of blocking and tackling needs to get done for quality search results (like a solid landing page strategy, relevancy, and meta information), but the result is always great ROI.
HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan’s presentation on closing the loop between sales and marketing.
Brian outlined the changing landscape of “interruptive marketing avoidance” with a salient metaphor. In the 1950’s, TV viewers were a captive audience. With the advent of remote control, viewers could for the first time avoid interruptive marketing by changing the channel. Then came pay-per-view. Brian narrated us into the digital age, where search engines are the new remote control, and interruptive marketing as a standalone tactic is all but dead.
Valeria Maltoni’s presentation on writing content for the web.
Valeria Maltoni is the real deal. Read her blog, Conversation Agent, follow her on Twitter. She know’s what she’s talking about, and you’ll learn a ton about marketing and communications. When asked about concerns that embracing social media means giving consumers the ability to criticize your brand: “I prefer for people to say ‘You suck’ because then I can go in and say ‘Hey, let’s have a conversation about that.’” Right on.
Tim Street’s talk “Ingredients of a Viral Video: How To Make Your Video Online Wildly Popular”
I have always believed that there’s no such thing as a “viral button,” to steal a phrase from one of my colleagues, but Tim gets us pretty close. He identifies spectacle, story, and emotion as elements of a surefire viral video. I would add humor – check out one of my favorites from Ikea:
Tim also introduced me to a tool which makes it easy to syndicate web content online: Tubemogul. Check it out – looks like a great way to streamline your video marketing execution and leverage great analytics while you’re at it.
Day 2 has just started. It seems like it’s on it’s way to be just as good. See you there. And, if you’re around and read this in time, shoot me a message on Twitter – @percussion and let’s see if we can connect.
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You do love those tsunamis! I am relieved that people are talking about the shortcomings of interruptive marketing. I tried to watch an episode of Top Chef on TV last night and could not believe the amount of commercials! At this point it’s WAY easier and less painful to evade ads by downloading episodes after the fact. But then again, if more companies made fun ads like Ikea, I might be more interested in watching…