The Radisson Austin North has be bought by Holiday Inn. The location of the conference is 6000 Middle Fiskville Rd. Holiday Inn has put up temporary signs. The hotel is located across from the Austin Community College Highland Business Center.
See you at the conference!
“I just lowered my acquisition cost.”You may remember a series of commercials created for Cheerios® cereal, in which a regular guy goes around compulsively telling people that he lowered his cholesterol, ostensibly by eating Cheerios.
“I lowered my cholesterol,” he would say to bemused strangers. They would then look at him as if to say, “You lowered your social skills, too.”
If you are building a “conversion culture” within your organization, you want the people around you to be looking at you in the same way. Really. You need to be celebrating your wins while communicating to others the importance of “converting” suspects to prospects and sales.
“I just raised my conversion rate,” you might say to the Product Manager before the staff meeting starts. He will be polite, but you know he’s thinking, “Are you a in a cult or something?”
In a way, you are in the cult of conversion. With this simple statement, you’ve accomplished two things. You’ve given yourself a little pat on the back, and you’ve begun to indoctrinate the Product Manager you’re focus on.
Celebrating can be tough. Many of our victories are measured in small percentages. You can’t wait for the monthly executive meeting to let people know how you’re doing. Graphs and charts don’t really qualify as celebrating. Celebrate in the break room, after meetings, or over lunch.
“We got 40.2 more leads this quarter,” you might say to the PR Specialist, and they’ll think, “How do you get .2 of a lead?” Regardless, you’ve just communicated that leads are important.
“I just beat my best-performing control,” you could say to the VP of Sales, and she will think, “Wow. You give new meaning to the term ‘Control Freak.’” With time, she will come to understand that you’ve just taken another step up in your craft, and that her team will benefit.
Incidentally, you need to be a “Control Freak” if you’re going to play the Conversion game. Your control is your golden child, the page or process that is performing the best for you. You beat it by testing it against something new and seeing if the new one performs better. The control can be hard to beat, and a short dance is warranted if you do.
The challenge for conversion-focused marketers is that we tend to cast a critical eye on everything. Not content to sit on our laurels, we look for those things on a page or in an ad that may be suppressing clicks, causing people to abandon a form, or impeding purchases. Even when we get a win, we tend to go right into a critical analysis asking ourselves, “How could we do better?”
Celebrate your losses, too. It’s a fine thing to have tested a tactic only to find that it doesn’t perform well. That’s one mistake you will avoid in the future. Fist pumps are in order for failures.
“I just killed a really crappy landing page,” you might say to the guy in legal, to which he might reply, “Does that expose us to litigation in any way?”
He’ll learn. They all will. That’s how culture is built.
Hey, I just used the term “Control Freak” in a positive way. FIST PUMP!
Kerri Qunell is Vice President, Communications at Capital Area Food Bank. Kerri’s role is to educate the public, media and community organizations of the mission, activities, programs, events, and other CAFB services through public relations and communications programs. She joined the CAFB team in May 2005.
Previously, Kerri was the Community Relations Director for KEYE-TV, Austin’s CBS television station. She has also worked at Dell, SicolaMartin and the Austin Chamber of Commerce and has done freelance work for several local publications. She is a current contributing writer for Edible Austin magazine.
Kerri is a 2004 Leadership Austin graduate and a current Leadership Austin board member. She served as President of Young Women’s Alliance (YWA), served on the YWA board for eight years and was named “YWA Member of the Decade” in 2003. Kerri is active in the Association for Women in Communications.
Kerri was named a 2009 “Profiles in Power Central Texas Woman of Influence” by the Austin Business Journal and was the 2006 “Austin Under 40″ winner in the community service category. She is an alumnus of the Frank McBee, Jr. Fellowship Program in Civic Entrepreneurship and serves on committees with local organizations focusing on empowering youth, including Girlstart, YouthLaunch and Girl Scouts Lone Star Council. She serves on the Administrative Board for First United Methodist Church and is a regular guest speaker and mentor at Texas State University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
Kerri and her husband, Jason, are active with local organizations including Foundation Communities, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians and Austin Sunshine Camps. They have a five-year-old daughter, Avery Tessa.
Kerri will be part of our panel discussion for small business and non-profits on March 9.
Amy Lemen is an Austin-based writer and the founder of Writeous Words, a marketing communications writing consultancy launched in 1999.
As a copywriter, Amy works with both business and agency clients, writing case studies, website copy that turns browsers into buyers, whitepapers, contributed articles, landing pages and other marketing materials. As a journalist, she writes about real estate, travel and business for local and national publications.
Amy is a member of the Austin Interactive Marketing Association, National Association of Real Estate Editors, Society for Professional Journalists, mediabistro, and Freelance Austin.
When she’s not writing, Amy’s can usually be found running, drinking wine, hanging out with family & friends, or eating Mexican food – but not all at the same time.
Contact:
Web: www.writeouswords.com
Twitter: @writeouswords
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/0/18/a24
Amy will be co-presenting the breakout session on Converting with Content for the small business track on March 9.
One of the most powerful benefits of social media, in my experience, has been to give an amplified voice to the actions we take in the course of our daily lives. When used in an authentic and transparent manner, online tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter can extend the reach of traditional communications and reach audiences previously not always possible. Even more powerful, in my opinion, these new tools provide the ability for your audience to respond, engage in dialog with you and each other.
For Alan Graham, the founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, being among our homeless friends in Austin and other cities is the major portion of his daily life. Prior to his wholehearted adoption of social media, Alan was already very adept at word-of-mouth communication and carrying his message of compassion for our “brothers and sisters on the streets” using more traditional media. For him, taking what he and the organization were already doing and saying every day to the many people congregating on social networks was a natural.
I’ve had the privilege now to spend several “street retreats” with Alan on which we live among our cities’ homeless; eating with them at soup kitchens, sleeping on makeshift cardboard beds outdoors, and getting a small glimpse into what they experience every day. During these retreats we carry our smartphones and cameras and document our experiences for our friends and followers – in real time – allowing many others to share our observations and pass them along to their own friends and followers. We’ve tweeted, updated our Facebook status, recorded and uploaded YouTube videos, blogged, all while on the streets .
In between the street retreats we’ve followed up and given progress reports on the status of people we’ve met who are homeless. When severe weather has occurred, Mobile Loaves and Fishes and its evangelists have reached out to the developed networks and communities for quick action.
During this past year, the Austin Social Media Club teamed up with Alan and Mobile Loaves and Fishes to go beyond creating awareness and to help them bring a solution to a specific homeless person. After helping to spread the word about the Habitat on Wheels project on two separate street retreats, SMC and MLF were successful in raising enough money to purchase a permanent home for a member of the Austin homeless community. Peggy is now in a new RV and is no longer homeless. Social media played an indispensable role throughout the whole process.
Awareness of and solutions for the daunting problems facing our homeless brothers and sisters is being addressed utilizing social media and in a positive way. Follow Alan Graham @mlfnow to become part of his journey. He’ll welcome you with open arms. I’m @mikechapman on Twitter and I’ll be happy to share more of my experiences with Alan as well.
The biggest question most people have when considering a conference is “what am I going to get out of this”? And we are aware that this conference is no different. Sure, we are bringing you world-class speakers, but what are they going to talk about? What will you be able to walk away with?
To help answer that question, I want to share with you a little of what Rick Burnes (from HubSpot) shared with us from last year’s eMarketing Principles Conference. It was so good, that I wanted to share part of it here, the part that causes so many people to stop blogging altogether: writing posts.
Most frustrated blog writers fall into one of two camps:
Each blog post, regardless of the “flavor” of the post, should be on only one topic. Keep it short and sweet, no more than 600 words (there are exceptions). Don’t try to boil the ocean, but do try to provide useful, relevant information that would fit your readers. If you know who your readers are, or have given them a persona, think of them each time you write. Also, keep in mind the following “flavors” of posts, which will help you prioritize (and organize) your efforts.
Let’s keep things in perspective. The reason you are writing a blog for your business is to drive traffic to your site. Most of your traffic is likely to come from search engines. Therefore the foundation of your blog content should be built with keyword-rich posts, or as Rick calls them, “raisin bran” posts. With a little practice, you’ll eventually get very good at cranking these out. But don’t go on auto-pilot, you still want to make sure these posts are useful.
While the bulk of your blog will be built on raisin bran, your audience won’t be sustainable if you only write one type of post. So you need to occasionally throw in some “spinach,” posts that will help establish your organization as a thought leader. These may require some research and almost always have some links to other sources, but are solid, thoughtful posts. But moderation is the key here. Think of doing these once a month or so.
I’m from the Northeast originally, so I get the concept of roasts (although I’m vegetarian). But down here in Texas, we could also call this the brisket post. Regardless of what you call it, the idea is that this requires a lot of thought, effort, and time to put together correctly. This is your research paper, so choose your topic carefully. If you do it right, you will engage your audience in discussion, and lots of people will tell lots of other people about your blog.
Every now and again, it’s a good idea to stir the pot. Do something controversial and be different. You will likely get a lot of comments and links with this type of post, but don’t do this for the sake of getting attention. Be prepared to defend yourself and make a claim for your position. Be aware that too many of these types of posts could undermine your credibility, so use sparingly.
Who doesn’t like a little desert now and then? These posts show the world that you have personality, humanity, and can take a joke. Write these posts to change things up, make your blog fun, and maybe poke some fun at yourself. Use video, images, cartoons, or anything else you can think of.
Did you find that useful? Expect more of the same from this year’s group of speakers. We’re only 3 weeks away from the start of the conference – so register now before it’s too late!
When Matthew Parente of Aperio Marketing asked me to talk about conversion to an audience of folks from higher education, I was more than happy to take him up on the offer. I’ve worked for fortune 50 companies most of my career. In these organizations there was a always clarity about what we needed to do to “win.” When I started working in higher education, it quickly became evident that the ivory tower was playing by different rules. Winning seemed a nebulous concept for many, and was often expressed in broad and fuzzy calls for “excellence.” I still wince whenever I hear that word as an expression of an organizational goal.
But with state support dwindling, higher education is waking up and getting focused. For many universities and colleges winning is about creating an ecosystem that attracts donor dollars, top faculy and top grad students.
In today’s wired world it’s more than likely that the initial contact potential faculty, grad students and donors have with the university will be through the Web. This is why it’s so critical for deans, and department heads to understand that their Web sites are more than just an online brochure, but a powerful tool for attracting and building relationships with potential faculty, grad students and donors, and that by adopting a conversion approach, they can “win.”
I’m looking forward to talking with the folks at the conference about their experiences integrating a conversion approach on their sites, and sharing some ideas and examples of how The University of Texas at Austin has integrated conversion into its online activities.
The eMarketing Principles conference is 4 short weeks away. In the last few weeks, we’ve confirmed some new great presenters and we still have more surprises for you as we get closer to the event. But let’s recap where we are, or to phrase it as a question:
When you register for either our March 9 or March 10 agenda, you will get incredible breakout sessions lead by some of the best marketers in Austin, a panel from which a great board of directors could be made, and world-class keynote presentations. And that’s a lot. Here’s a fringe benefit – really, really good food. No kidding. Here’s what you can expect:
Last year you told us you’d love it if we scheduled the event before SXSW. We delivered. This year’s event leads you into one of the biggest events of the year. So don’t be afraid to tell us what you want – we are always listening and willing to implement any good idea.
Join us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or simply comment here on our web site. We look forward to seeing you soon!
Nan Matthews is the CMO for BestFit Media. She has 20 years experience in marketing communications and working with a broad range of businesses and industries. Joining the BestFit Media team in December 2009, Matthews most recently worked as Senior Vice President of Communications for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, marketing Austin and the Central Texas business community expanding local and national presence through media relations, marketing, web and community outreach. Prior to working for the Chamber, Matthews worked in a diverse range of business environments including the City of Luling, developing their downtown economic revitalization program Luling Main Street; National Instruments, working in the Corporate Design and Events group, developing international marketing collateral, and with events, coordinating more than 50 trade shows per year and the annual user conference, NIWeek; and owning her own graphic design and communications business. Additionally, she has volunteered extensively with non-profits including American Cancer Society, Goodwill Industries, Meals on Wheels, Texas Downtown Association and Kiwanis.
Nan will be co-presenting the membership/fund raising breakout session for non-profits on March 9.
Joshua Baer is the Founder of OtherInbox and Managing Director of Capital Factory and has been working to empower consumers on the Internet and improve email marketing best practices for more than a decade. In 1996 Baer founded SKYLIST, one of the first email marketing companies, in his college dorm room. In 1998 he co-authored RFC 2369, a technical standard for unsubscribe that has been adopted by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. In 2004 he created UnsubCentral to make sure consumers can always unsubscribe from commercial email. Baer currently runs the Deliverability.com blog and @deliverability on Twitter.
Baer first conceived of OtherInbox as a solution to his own email management problems. He soon realized that it was also an opportunity to address many of the pains of email marketing while keeping consumers in control and increasing transparency.
Already an active angel investor and startup mentor, Baer joined with other entrepreneurs to found Capital Factory – a summer program for startups that brings $20,000 in cash, $20,000 in free stuff, and 20 mentors to accelerate early stage technology companies. Baer is also the organizer of Ignite Austin.
Baer was recently recognized as an Austin under 40 Finalist, as recipient of a Texas Social Media Award and as the Austin Information Technologist of the Year. He holds Computer Science and Information Decision Systems degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Austin, TX with his wife and daughter.
You can find Joshua Baer on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Josh will be presenting “Turn Complainers into Champions” as our lunchtime feature, and will also be part of the panel for small business and non-profits on March 9.
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