The Whitelist

Smart marketer at SP Summit

Very exciting time here outside of Atlanta at the SP Client Summit.  The pre-

Smarter. Has smart marketers working for him (Brad's boss)

conference ‘boot camps’ have wrapped up and the welcome reception is just getting underway.  Met some very savvy marketers already, and decided to do some ‘pre-release’ polling of what might be coming out from being under wraps as the ‘big release’ scheduled for tomorrow…

Brad Parmerter and Barry Burmaster of Trans World Entertainment have been clients of SP’s for over 5 years – this is their first Summit, and when asked ‘what game-changer do you think might be coming?’, they said that since the demographic they target is 18-34 yr olds, it’s all about SMS/mobile/and Tweeting, and that they’re hopeful the release is geared around that front.

Terry Sartor of UPS, a local Atlanta here at his 1st SP Summit

Terry Sartor is here from UPS (came all the way from downtown Atlanta), and was in the email-intensives ‘boot camp’ as he is tasked with getting up to speed fast on email.  He’s been doing online marketing for years within different divisions of UPS, but is new to email.  Top takeaways for him were getting a handle on the email measurements and analytics to prove ROI (coincidentally, the very topic I’m presenting on for Weds) and is keen on putting the best-practices he learned today about layout and design elements of content into production.  “WAIT!” he said.  “SOCIAL!  So critical for us, that’s a really important topic to bring some back some expertise on.”

Others that commented in passing said they would wish that the new release has something to do with getting a higher level/deeper involvement of engagement with their audience.  I think they’re onto something here…

So off to snack and drink and schmooze.  You’re quasi-official blogger signing off for now.

Some email marketers scratch their heads wondering how email fits into the Web 2.0 world. And they cringe to think the age of email might be over with the popularity of Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. But they should sleep well, because email marketing can be an integral part of social media.

Chad White has a great article on leveraging email marketing to get more from social media to engage customers and start conversations that lead to conversions.
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