Category: Midwest Digital Marketing Conference

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Win At SEO With Dave Rohrer At #MDMC18

Dave Rohrer is the founder of the Chicago-based digital agency NorthSide Metrics, where he helps various businesses improve their digital marketing to drive more quality traffic, leads, and sales. He is also a co-host of The Business of Digital Podcast, where he together with Mat Siltala discuss such topics as Paid Social, SEO, Content Marketing, CRO, PPC, Email Marketing and many others.
Dave has spent more than 10 years as a web developer, SEO manager, and online marketing manager, and more than 5 years at agencies where he worked directly with Internet Retailer 100 and Fortune 500 clients. He says about himself, “I am a proven online marketer that is able to see how all of the pieces work together to achieve success for a business. While I have a technical background, I prefer to utilize metrics, KPIs and data to drive winning client strategies.”
Dave’s session at MDMC18 titled “How to Win At and With SEO” will focus on the current changes taking place in SEO, namely, Mobile First, Local SEO and the growing number of ads. Dave will dig into how to win at SEO in 2018, which KPIs matter to SEO and other teams, and how to make them all work together.
Here are Dave’s answers from the pre-conference Q&A session.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
D.R.: Not having a plan. This goes from not having an overall marketing plan to not having a fully thought out plan on how to implement some new project or campaign. Digital allows you to move fast (content pushed to a blog in hours, social posts out in minutes, paid search campaign same day), so often there is no plan on what to do AFTER or even how to properly do it.
Q.2. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
D.R.: Twitter for daily reading and marketing updates. The Power of Habit book from earlier this year and the most recent book I have been reading that I like is UnBranding.
i. Twitter – yes, I still use and like Twitter (mostly). For a quick way to dig into not one website but a large number I still prefer it over any other source.
ii. UnBranding: 100 Branding Lessons for the Age of Disruption by Alison Stratten & Scott Stratten – it is 100 chapters and quick case studies in branding.
iii. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg – a great read into why people do what they do and how to make/break habits.
Q.3. According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing?
D.R.: The common mistakes will likely change a bit depending on where you are in a company, but I think these three are likely ones that almost any team will come across.
i. Team Silos – From Marketing to IT to CS to Sales – teams working together more and across more projects should be more common than not, but sadly it is so often the other way.
ii. Lack of QA – Whether you are rolling out a full product or the MVP version you still need to QA. If you are launching a new website or a new AdWords campaign you still need to check URLs and make sure that the robots.txt doesn’t tell Google/Bing to not index the site.
iii. Lack of Planning – SEO is often brought in very late to a project and often is brought in after the launch. I also often see IT, Social, or any other group not given proper heads up around deadlines and deliverables so that 36 hours before a campaign or project goes live those teams are emailed with a “WE NEED YOU TO DROP EVERYTHING AND DO THIS NOW” type email, Slack, Skype, text message and call.
Q.4.: Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
D.R.: In the realm of SEO there are 100s of tools with new paid and free tools coming out all the time. If I was hard pressed to only choose a handful these are three that I would highly consider worth it.
i. Sales Team/Customer Service – from a content ideation standpoint and understanding the problems your clients/prospects are facing these two groups have a ton of insight. What the marketing team or industry calls something is often now how a prospect thinks. So, when it comes to talking to them or hearing the WHY they are considering your product or service you can gather great insights into how to mold your marketing copy or perhaps an idea on a great blog post.
ii. Crawlers – There is a number out there – Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, Deepcrawl, Xenu, Page Modified, and others that vary in price from free to very expensive. What these tools do is crawl your site much like a search engine does. The insights into things you can do to help your SEO are often huge.
iii. Google Analytics (GA) or Google Search Console (GSC) – I personally use both on almost every project I work on and the data there while taken with a grain of salt is really one of the best tools to help with SEO (or any digital marketing project).
Q.5. If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
D.R.: For me, this may change a bit depending on the position or their experience but at the core, these are things I look at:
i. Drive and curiosity – no matter which specific area you go there is constant change. You must keep up.
ii. Data & Excel – From reporting to understanding trends in PPC/SEO the ability to dig into data is a big one for me.
iii. Writing or Coding – either one (or both) are often required to have a job in digital. And you don’t have to write a book or an application/website from scratch, but you do need to understand beyond the basics.
iv. Problem solver – often there is no right or wrong solution but simply a goal. Being able to use available tools and resources to solve a problem will win almost any boss over.
Q.6. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
Synergy or Synergize – take your pick I simply don’t like any version of the phrase (and never have). I don’t hear it daily anymore, but when I do I cringe.
 

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#MDMC18 Twitter Chats

The Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC18) offers various activities for the audience to get to know the speakers. One of those – twitter chats – take place every week. During the chat anyone can ask the speaker a question regarding their area of expertise as well as their session at MDMC18.
The first twitter chat was held on December 12, 2017 with Yuval Yeret, the Agile Marketing Practice Lead at AgileSparks. Yuval’s MDMC18 session called “Can elephants dance? Agile Marketing at Scale – CA’s story”, explains how large, traditional marketing organizations can adjust and quickly sense and respond to customer needs and market changes.
In the twitter chat with the MDMC18 audience, Yuval Yeret spoke about the benefits of agile marketing for organizations, among which are working in a more sustainable and meaningful way. He explained that when a company’s marketing department switches to agile marketing, they find time to be creative; they transform the way they are working and leading, and then end up contributing more revenue to the business. Yuval also provided the examples of software used by agile marketing teams, such as Scrum and Kanban, and discussed the benefits of both.
MDMC18 will hold many more twitter chats for you to learn more about the speakers and their sessions:

 Jan 9 @ 10 AM CST Chris Brewer, Online Marketing Giant
Jan 16 @ 2 PM CST Steph Nissen, Atomic Revenue
Jan 23 @ 12 PM CST Tom Harness, Harness Digital Marketing
Jan 30 @ 10 AM CST Mitch Canter, Vanderbilt University
Feb 6 @ 12 PM CST Mike Alton, The Social Media Hat
Feb 13 @ 12 PM CST Keisha Mabry, The Connection Curator
Feb 20 @ 12 PM CST Aleshia Patterson, Nonprofit Marketing Magazine
Feb 22 @ 2 PM CST Evangeline Schultz, Regenerate Marketing, LLC
Feb 27 @ 10 AM CST Ryan Brock, Metonymy Media
Mar 6 @ 2 PM CST Dre Baldwin, Work On Your Game, Inc.
Mar 13 @ 12 PM CST Kasim Aslam, Solutions 8

 
When taking part in a twitter chat with the MDMC18 speaker make sure to include #mdmc18 in your tweet to send your question.

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Learn How To Befriend Google With Chris Brewer At MDMC18

The co-founder of Online Marketing Giant & OMG Commerce, Chris Brewer is known to others as “The Idea Machine”. A superior problem solver and a highly creative business thinker, Chris has been a successful entrepreneur for over 15 years working with seven-figure companies in the digital, publishing and outdoor advertising industries.
Brewer’s company Online Marketing Giant & OMG Commerce is a Google Premier Partner agency based in Springfield, MO, which delivers online and offline marketing expertise, advice and education to businesses, franchise groups and e-Commerce brands worldwide.
Chris is the author of the book “Does Your Marketing Make You Money: 7 Quick & Easy Secrets to Create A Booming Business Now”. Brewer regularly coaches and speaks to entrepreneurs and small business leaders on business growth and marketing. He resides in Springfield, MO, with his wife of 22 years and two children.
During his MDMC18 session called “How To Befriend Google and Win”, Chris is going to share how a business can benefit from recent Google changes. Together with Brett Curry, Kasim Aslam, Michael Bartholow, and David Kidd, Chris is going to be a speaker at the SEO Panel.
Here are Chris’s answers from the pre-conference Q&A session.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
C.B. Failure to become educated about the basics of digital marketing is the number one mistake I see. Those that are educated don’t fall prey as easily to the wannabe’s and robo-callers so prevalent in digital marketing today.
Also, missing the basics of what Google gives you for free. I recently published a new playlist on our YouTube Channel that covers the 7 Ways To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjarl_N4Wzo&list=PLyhZzeaFTzwPRokVTnSJ7JSEs1dWxq5Bg
Q.2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
C.B. Voice-driven search has been a big one and SEO’s and businesses are still adapting to that. In 2018 Google is going to take more and more of the search traffic away from websites, so you have to be on your game in how Google wants to index your information. Over the coming years, audiences will continue to be fragmented and customized. Content tailoring to audiences will create some definite winners and losers.
Q.3. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
C.B. Purple Cow by Seth Godin.  It’s not new, but it is still very relevant.  Love Neil Patel…of course!
Q.4. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
C.B. Plan, plan, plan. Failure to plan your social media strategy and reassess it regularly is the key. When you don’t plan, you will fire without a target and miss every time.
Q.5. Share your favorite digital marketing case study. What did you like most it?
C.B. It’s a recent one. It’s not a huge client, but it was very fun. We took a musical group in Branson, MO, that has regional and some national recognition and completely overhauled their digital presence. We started with their database and their YouTube Channel. We created custom audiences from their database of nearly 1,000,000 customer/fan emails. It helped them skyrocket their iTunes & Spotify downloads without any help from a label. We accomplished their goal of selling out a venue outside their main performing area in a matter of days using Facebook Ads to the custom audiences we created.
Q.6. According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing?
C.B.:

  1. Failure to map a sales funnel for what you want to accomplish.
  2. Failure to test smaller batches before launching a full-scale campaign.
  3. Failure to educate themselves enough to know that what a third-party or in-house marketing team is telling them is true/accurate.

Q.7. Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
C.B.:

  1. SEM Rush
  2. Bright Local
  3. Google Analytics

Q.8. If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
C.B.:

  1. Google Adwords Experience/Skills
  2. Google Analytics Experience/Competency
  3. Ability to think strategically within an open mindset

Q.9. Who are three people you respect when it comes to digital marketing?
C.B.:

  1. Ezra Firestone
  2. Brett Curry
  3. Roland Frasier

Q.10. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
C.B. Anything related to bitcoins!
 

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Take a Deep Dive with Pre-Conference Workshops

MDMC is the largest digital marketing conference in the Midwest, featuring speakers from such companies as BuzzFeed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and many others.
This year MDMC18 will be bigger and better than ever: In addition to more than 100 sessions which will be held at St. Louis Union Station on March 27 and 28, 2018, attendees can participate in pre-conference workshops.
MDMC18 will host the total of 6 pre-conference workshops on March 26, 2018. Each workshop is a 3-hour “working session” that delves deeply into a particular digital marketing topic, such as LinkedIn, Paid Search, B2B Marketing Automation, Facebook Advertising, Content, and Email Marketing.
Thus, the workshop called “Harnessing LinkedIn to Grow Your Business” will be interesting for those striving at leveraging the company’s presence on LinkedIn to grow business. “Email Marketing” workshop will be of great use for those trying to learn how to use email to drive higher customer lifetime value and a longer-term marketing ROI. The workshop named “How to Create & Amplify Content that Converts” will benefit marketing specialists across multiple industries who need specific tools and tips on how to build a specific content strategy. The workshop will show how to accurately align content to specific target audience’s questions, problems and goals at each stage of the customer journey.
The pre-conference workshops can be purchased individually or with the main conference pass. Premium passes include access to one workshop. Three concurrent workshops will be held from 9 am to 12 pm and the remaining three workshops will be also held concurrently from 1 pm to 4 pm. Visit our website for more details about the pre-conference workshops.
 
 

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Work On Your Game With Dre Baldwin

Dre Baldwin is the world’s only “Work On Your Game” expert, who speaks, coaches and consults business professionals on Mental Toughness, Self-Confidence, and Self-Discipline.
Dre was a professional basketball player for 9 years. He has been blogging since 2005 and started publishing his videos on YouTube in 2006 – he posted a new video every day for 7 years in a row! So far, he has published over 6,000 videos: with more than 125,000 subscribers, his videos have been viewed over 40 million times.
Dre has given 4 TED Talks, published 14 books and more than 150 basketball programs. His “Work On Your Game” podcast is ranked among Top 200 Education broadcasts on iTunes.
Dre is going to be a Keynote Speaker at the MDMC18. In his talk, he will share how to apply the tools, which he learned during his career as a professional athlete, to the business world.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSz7UL4KDWk]
As usual, before the conference, we sat down with Dre to talk about social media and digital marketing.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
D.B.:
– Not doing it!
– Being too generic
– No human voice behind their material
– Having nothing unique and interesting to say
Q.2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
D.B.: Immediacy. With live streaming, stories and snaps, we can share more and more of our daily lives, and people will want more and more of it. Those who are best at it will have a following who is constantly awaiting the next update.
Q.3. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
D.B.:

  1. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
    1a. “Win Bigly” by Scott Adams

Q.4. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
D.B.: I don’t try to manage my time! There are 24 hours; no amount of management will change that. I just get it done, period.
Q.5. Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
D.B.:

  1. Cameras
  2. . Stories/Snaps
  3. 3. Email/blog posts

Q.6. If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
D.B.:

  1. Clearly understand my brand and message
    2. Have innovative ideas aside from my own
    3. Look for an edge, a way to be creative and new

Q.6. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
D.B.: “Influencer.” Everyone is always aiming to influence. And, having a lot of followers is not the same as having a lot of buyers. Companies are finding that out.
 

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Learn About The Blogger’s Mindset With Mike Allton

 Mike Allton is a Content Marketing Practitioner at the Social Media Hat, and an award-winning Blogger and Author, who lives in St. Louis. He is also the Chief Marketing Officer at SiteSell – a company, which helps solopreneurs online. When talking about himself, Mike says: “My goal is to ensure that businesses are able to leverage the power and connectivity of the Internet to promote and grow their business.”
Mike has been working with websites and the Internet since the early ’90’s. Mike teaches a holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blog content, social media and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. He is also active on all of the major social networks.
In his MDMC18 session called “The Blogger’s Mindset – Find Topics, Write Faster, And Reach More People”, Mike will share his techniques and insider tips that have propelled his own blog and brand to the top. Mike will showcase how he promotes his content to get the maximum amount of exposure, increase the reach and drive more traffic to the blog. He will provide an insight into his strategic approach to blogging that ensures each piece of content is created for a purpose that fits long-term business goals.
Here are Mike’s answers from the Q&A session before the conference.
Q.1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
M.A. The biggest mistake that I see far too many businesses & bloggers repeat over and over is to make their social profiles all about themselves. They treat social networks and posts as a broadcasting medium when, in reality, they should be working to create relationships. That means sharing thoughts & ideas that promote discussions, and working to find ways to integrate their audiences into the posts themselves.
Q.2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
M.A. We’re watching Live Video become such a game changer for digital marketing.
Right now, it’s mostly businesses broadcasting and consumers, well, consuming. As the platforms evolve and consumer confidence and competence grow, they’ll begin to play a larger role in the creation of video. For instance, right now, the easiest way to broadcast live video to Facebook with guests is to use 3rd party tools like BeLive. That precludes audience members from joining the video. Yet the ability to allow audience members to “come in” was one the great features of Blab. As that, and other barriers, ease, businesses & consumers will be able to collaborate on video.
Q.3. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
M.A. I really enjoyed “Vlog Like A Boss” by Amy Schmittauer. And interestingly, I am *not* a vlogger and have no intention of doing that much video. I love to write! But, video is important, and I’m often a guest on videos or host other people in video interviews, and Amy’s book contained brilliant insights and clever ideas that even a rare video creator like me could appreciate and learn from.
Q.4. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
M.A. One of the most effective practices that I’ve adopted over the years is to create two documents for every campaign: a rollout or campaign overview doc, and a retrospective.
The rollout doc contains all of the campaign details, tasks, and sometimes even the copy that’s going to be used. Whether that’s landing pages, social media, email or blog posts, this single place is where you can plan out and fill out all of that information. The more complex the campaign, the more essential this document becomes, particularly if you’re managing a team.
And the retrospective is a simple review of everything that you did and what the results were. How many sales. How much traffic. What emails were sent, when, and what the results were.
Taking the time to document all of those things not only helps you run a current campaign smoothly, but also gives you a starting place for future campaigns! Whether that’s to duplicate & edit the rollout doc, or refer to the retrospective to see what worked and what didn’t the last time around.
Q.5. Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
M.A. Agorapulse, Tailwind, Canva
Q.6. Who are three people you respect when it comes to digital marketing?
M.A. Peg Fitzpatrick, Rebekah Radice, Jeff Sieh
Q.7. What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
M.A. Authenticity – not because being authentic is bad, but because more often than not, it’s used in a way that results in the opposite of what’s intended. Instead of someone being themselves, they try too hard to be “authentic” and end up stressing aspects of their personality that normally would not be so strong. Like someone trying to be the life of the party when, in reality, they’re much more laid back.

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How To Make Elephants Dance With Agile Marketing

 Meet Yuval Yeret – the Agile Marketing Practice Lead at AgileSparks. The aim of Agile Marketing is to help marketing organizations become faster, as well as more flexible and responsive to the business environment they operate in, and Yuval’s role is to help such organizations improve their agility and performance in the digital age using Agile principles and practices.
Yuval joined AgileSparks as the Enterprise Lean / Agile Transformations Consultant in 2009, when he was living in Israel. Six years later he moved to the US to manage all the company’s growth and operations in the country. His list of clients includes companies such as CA Technologies, Siemens, HP, Amdocs, Informatica, Intel, CyberArk, Nice Actimize, Mimecast, and many others.
Yuval Yeret is the recipient of the Brickell Key Award for Lean Kanban Community Excellence, and the author of “Holy Land Kanban” – a book created out of the collection of his blog posts.
Yuval is going to be a speaker at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference 2018, talking about core aspects and effects of Agile Marketing. In his presentation called “Can elephants dance? Agile Marketing at Scale – CA’s story”, Yuval will explain how large, traditional marketing organizations can adjust and quickly sense and respond to customer needs and market changes.
Q1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
YY: Digital marketing enables you to move faster, learn faster. Applying old-style static marketing thinking to digital marketing leaves a lot of competitive advantage on the table. A business moving to digital marketing should also learn to move faster and be more agile – try things and iterate until you nail a win. Take advantage of the ease of experimentation and abundance of data that the digital ecosystem provides you.
Q2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
YY: I think the big changer in digital marketing will be the ability to harness the power of digital marketing to hone in on what an awesome marketing experience or even more generally an awesome customer experience looks like. Call it agile, call it growth hacking, call it whatever you want. Businesses that develop this capability and learn when best to unleash it will win more customers and achieve more customer success.
Q3. What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
YY: Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker tells a good story of how marketing can change in the digital age. I also found “The end of marketing as we know it” by Sergio Zyman a useful background to the disruption currently going on in the marketing space.
Q4. What are some social media time management tips that help you stick to your campaign goals without losing a lot of time?
YY: I love to use the “Pomodoro” technique. This is sort of a personal agile approach where you prioritize your backlog of activities – e.g. campaigns to monitor/create/tune, then you set a timer for 25 minutes, and for that time you focus solely on the activity at hand, disabling notifications, muting phones and any sort of communication, so that you can achieve flow. After that timebox expires you take a short break and then consider next steps – whether to go back to the same activity or move on. I combine this with a personal Kanban board that helps me prioritize and manage the flow of work I’m doing. (I’m using either Trello or a new tool called flow-e which actually extends my google inbox with a Kanban board )
Q5. According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing?
YY:

  1. Spreading too thin, trying to tackle too many channels and techniques at the same time.
    2. Relying on a few “digital marketing experts” that become bottlenecks rather than enabling everyone in marketing to do most digital marketing activities and letting the experts focus on both enablement work as well as really innovative, digital activities and breaking new ground.
    3. Forgetting that digital doesn’t replace the need for awesome creative. You can A/B test to death, but without awesome marketers that come up with good ideas to experiment with, you won’t get anywhere. The key to success in digital marketing is to mix the art and science.

Q6. Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
YY: MailChimp, Google Analytics, Buffer
Q7. If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
YY:
Flexibility/Versatility – the ability to work across a wide variety of tools/channels/activities – even beyond digital marketing. I believe in the concept of T-shaped marketers.
Wide perspective – I love to work with digital marketers that think like mini-CMOs. Analytic/Empiric thinking – Acknowledge they don’t necessarily know and naturally gravitate towards experimentation and trial and error.
Collaborative – they know how to work effectively with their peers in Product Marketing, Field, Digital Sales/SDRs.
Curious – always looking to learn or try some new approach/technique/tool
 

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Learn About Data Science with James Campbell at #MDMC18

 James Campbell is Principal and Experience Design Practice Lead at Slalom. “I help brands create things that humans love,” says James about himself. He is an award-winning Creative Director and Marketing Strategist, who approaches design through a broad lens, and brings together graphic design, copywriting, product design and brand strategy.
Throughout his career, James has helped companies connect with audiences, employees and investors by creating products and interactions that range from mobile apps to physical and experiential programs. He grew up on the North side of Chicago in 1980, and then moved to St. Louis, where he has worked as an art director, guest lecturer, and creative director.
James Campbell will be a speaker at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference 2018 where he will share his insights about Brand Science. In his session titled “Your Brand is a Hypothesis: Data Science and Creativity”, James will introduce a framework that melds Human Centered Design, Agile and Data Science practices to give brands unprecedented access to real-time insights about brand communication, product development, employee communication, and media management.
MDMC team sat down with James to talk about contemporary digital marketing realia. Here are some of his answers.
Q1. What are some big mistakes a business could make when it comes to digital marketing?
JC: I think the most significant mistake a business can make in the digital space is to think of anything as permanent, or even temporary. Because the medium allows marketers and communicators to access real-time behavioral information, there’s no reason to hold onto the illusion that people aren’t dynamic, and human. Annual cycles, brand guides that aren’t updated regularly, atomic libraries that fail to adapt to changing viewports and use cases – these things should be zeroed in on.
 
Q2. What do you think is the next game changer in digital marketing, such as a new, modern tactic, tool, or aspect of marketing? How will it evolve in the coming years?
JC: While many people will point to automation, personalization or AR/VR/Blahblah – I think the next real shift will come in content, likely through dynamic content and scientific content development. We can now use targeted deployments to test ideas, multivariate measure, and validate hypotheses about product design and consumer behavior.
 
Q3: What is your favorite marketing book you have read lately? Or, what are a few of your favorite marketing blogs?
JC: I always recommend finding communities before you find reference material, so once you’ve found others like you that you can bounce ideas off of, these two books should keep you busy for a while: “UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products” by Brand Nunnally – a local boy done good, and a great reference to have on hand when planning a project or getting out of a rut; “Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut – it explains everyday things in terms that give light and wonder to what it means to be human.
Q4: According to you, what are the top three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging digital marketing?
JC:

  1. Buying a tool and expecting change to happen through computer magic.
  2. Annualized media buys pushing lazy, old-school content.
  3. Building a new capability or launching a new brand without also changing the internal culture around it.

 
Q5: Which are your three favorite digital marketing tools?
JC:

  1. Crimson Hexagon
  2. R
  3. GoPro Hero5

 
Q6: If you were looking to hire a digital marketer, what are the top 3-5 skills you would be looking for in a candidate?
JC: One obsessive area of expertise and the curiosity and desire to learn about everything else.
Q7: What’s the industry buzzword that annoys you the most these days and why?
JC: Solutioning – because it’s not a word at all, and it’s dreadfully ironic that the user hasn’t found a better solve.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Get an Internship

By: Pablo Romero

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Choose the first podcast listed to listen to this episode.

If you’re a junior or senior, you have probably been asked if you have had an internship yet. Every year as summer approaches, many students get ready to start their journey into the corporate world and gain experiences and connections that will help them get ahead. However, sometimes students are unsure about internships, the hiring process, benefits and tradeoffs. Do internships really give you an edge? Are they worth it even if you are not paid?
“In Your Business”, the official podcast of UMSLBusiness, had a chat with a few people that have had different experiences with internships. Lisa Fikki, UMSL Internship Director with over 20 years of experience in the industry, talks about the help you can get at UMSL. Spencer Schmitt, a recent graduate who did not pursue an internship as an undergrad, talks about how that affected him. Finally, Taylor Ernst, a current student who has had multiple internships and is currently an HR intern with the St. Louis Blues, shares the experience he has had.
Even though they all have different views, all three agree that internships are really helpful and here are five reasons why internships matter.

  1. Gain formal experience

According to Lisa Fikki, internships provide students with the actual experience in their field. Most students only have the knowledge they have received at school, but they have never had experience in the office setting. Internships help students with this, and the more experience you have, the more confident you become, which helps you in the long run. The soft skills learned in the workplace can really give you an edge.

  1. Employers look for students

Internships are an opportunity for employers as well. Students tend to be open-minded and eager to get new experiences. This is why employers look for students for intern positions. They like to develop future employees while they’re “fresh”. Even though employers prefer students while they are still at school, it is fine if you get an internship post grad: It’s all about the experience that you are adding to your academic knowledge.

  1. Learn the little things

Spencer Schmitt talks about how he decided to skip an internship to make some money instead. He waited to just get a job after graduation, which worked out well for him, but he said he still feels that an internship would have added an edge to his experience. Internships help you get an insider look at the office life. There are many little things you learn as an intern, such as email and phone etiquette, formality, office life and even delegating and managing.

  1. Resume Builder

Students are always looking for ways to make their resume stand out. Having an internship on your resume does exactly that, as it shows you have had some experience under your belt, and you know how to act in the workplace.

  1. Confidence Booster

Not only do internships look good and give you great workplace experience, but they also build your confidence as a result. This confidence comes in handy during interviews, networking events, career fairs, etc. Taylor Ernst knows this first hand. He recalls how during his first phone interview with MasterCard he was nervous and couldn’t express himself the way he wanted. After some coaching from UMSL Career Services and going through a few interviews, he became more confident and was able to land a position with the St. Louis Blues.

  1. UMSL tools

Getting an internship while you are at UMSL is pretty easy if you really want to. Lisa Fikki highlights that the Office of Career Services offers everything from mock interviews and resume workshops, to etiquette banquets, which can help you get ready. They are a great asset if you are looking to land a summer internship.
Go here to listen to the full podcast.

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My Take On The (MDMC17) Midwest Digital Marketing Conference 17

By: James McMinn
It’s been a while since attending the MDMC 17 conference. This is the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference which has grown year over year by large numbers. 2 years ago I had never heard about MDMC. Last year I attended and you can read my take on the 2016 conference here. The 2017 version grew to a two-day event, with one day being geared more towards a career fair and afternoon keynotes, which were placed back to back during the second half of the day. Just like last year, it’s taken me a while to process the entire event so I can accurately review or at least give you my take on the conference. I will start off right away by saying I learned a lot again this year and will do my best to attend if/when there is MDMC 18.

MY TAKE ON DAY 1 MIGHT BE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT FROM EVERYONE ELSE’S

Like I said this year was a 2-day event with the first day geared towards the career fair in the morning. My take might be slightly different from other people during this time because I volunteered for the first 3 hours of the day. I arrived early, found my t-shirt that was provided for each volunteer and went to my assigned area, which we received at training a few days before that. My designated area during my volunteer time was the career fair and helping out with the talks that were going on in the same room as the career fair.
My day started off tame as I was there an hour before any of the events actually started. I was told that I would basically be directing traffic, but to expect and be ready for the unexpected. That was the best advice that I received because directing traffic was a huge understatement. As soon as people started pouring in I was asked every question you can possibly think of and if an attendee needed to find something I was personally showing them where to go. This meant running back and forth through the entire event hall, but it also meant I had a great networking forum that I had not considered.
Every single person I helped I tried to spark up a conversation, make a connection and exchange businesscards. It worked well as I then recognized a great number of people and was recognized throughout the conference. This led to even more opportunities to socialize/network or at least have some interesting conversations. We all know how marketing people are ;).

THE MIDWEST DIGITAL MARKETING CONFERENCE CAREER FAIR SPEAKERS STARTED

Once the speakers started to speak in the career fair room, they only had a curtain separating them from the fair itself and there were a lot of audio issues. This was pretty much out of everyone’s control. The people that needed to know about it were notified and they worked on fixing the issue. The second issue that happened was a 2 part problem.

  1. The area the speakers were in was not big enough to fit everyone. This left a lot of people sitting on the floor, especially after one speaker was done and more people were coming in to see the 2nd speaker. It created a problem because most people whom watched the first speaker also wanted to see the 2nd speaker along with about 50 new people. (We apologized about this and the conference organizers promise to have this problem fixed next year).
  2. A traffic jam was created for the entire career fair because the new people could not get into the allotted space and the line was out of the door. This caused a big traffic jam and what seemed like a lot of unhappy people.

But, it was OK. A Few other volunteers and myself decided to just move the curtain about 5 to 10 feet towards the career fair. The area was not being utilized and it just made sense. Now everyone had more room, but they didn’t have chairs.
This sent the same volunteers and now the organizers of the conference on a mission to find chairs. We were told by everyone that there were no chairs, however out of nowhere a maintenance man that works with the hotel showed up and asked how many chairs we need. My answer was “at least 50). After getting a blank stair or possibly the I really want to hurt you right now look, he said OK and returned with at least 50 chairs.

With that, problem solved, the speakers continued, most everyone that wanted one had a seat and the career fair continued like nothing ever happened.

THE CAREER FAIR

At this point, things started to calm down a little bit and I was able to mingle a bit and actually walk up to people and ask them if they needed help. Volunteering was quite invigorating and I must say it set a good tone for the rest of the day.
Cullen sitting behind the table at the career fair during MDMC17 otherwise known as the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference
The company I work for, Matchbox Design Group, had a table at the career fair and I was able to do a bit of talking with my coworkers at the same time as helping others. Before I knew it my volunteering time was over. I have to admit I was tired both physically and mentally after everything that was thrown my way so early in the morning. But, that time was over, so it was time for some lunch and to enjoy the rest of the day at the conference. Oh and to the event organizers, KUDOS, because just 3 hours wore me out, I cannot imagine weeks of this.

ADMIRING OUR SPONSORED DECALS AND SWAG BOX GIVEAWAYS

Matchbox Design Group's Snapchat contest to win a swag box at MDMC17 in St. Louis
Another thing that personally made this year different for me was the fact that we were sponsors. This meant we were able to put 2 different floor decals in the main exhibit hall. We could pretty much put anything on them we wanted, but instead of just using them as branding advertisements, we decided to have some fun and do a Snapchat treasure hunt.
This was not necessarily our first idea. We had a long brainstorming session, which eventually led us to put our Snapchat code on one of the decals. We also wanted to draw more attention to the decal. So we went with “fake money”. I mean what get’s people’s attention more than the possibility of free money?  The entire idea was to use the money to lure people to our decal and then let them know they didn’t find any money, but if they follow us on Snapchat and follow our story throughout the day they could win a cool “SWAG BOX”.

Jeremy came up with the idea of a Swag box instead of bag and proceeded to design them for the treasure hunt, Remember we love designing here at Matchbox!

The idea went over great, we got a ton of engagement with at least 50 new Snapchat followers. Not to mention when we had conversations with others throughout the day and the next day they usually brought up our decal and let us know it was a great idea. (This is me tooting our own horn on a job well-done team).

SNAPCHAT GEO FILTER

On top of our sponsored ad, we decided to make a Snapchat Geofilter that people could use when taking snaps during the first day. The Geofilter had our name “Matchbox Design Group” on it and mentioned the conference. The analytics for that Geofilter can be seen below. I have to say we were pleased with the outcome, especially sine the filter cost around $25 for the entire day.

MATCHBOX DESIGN GROUP’S GEOFILTER AND THE AREA WE TARGETED

This is the Matchbox Design Group Geo filter that we used on Snapchat for people to use when taking pictures

THE MATCHBOX DESIGN SNAPCHAT GEOFILTER METRICS

Here are the analytics we saw from our Snapchat filter for just a few hours
Not too bad for our first try at something like this if I do say so myself. We hope to continue to grow our Snapchat following and come up with new/original ideas to utilize our social media platforms. We are going to focus on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to increase engagement. Wondering what our filter looked like in action in case you didn’t get to use it that day, or just didn’t make it to the conference. Here you go!

MATCHBOX DESIGN GROUP’S MDMC17 SNAPCHAT GEO FILTER IN ACTION

Matchbox Design Group's Snapchat filter we used at MDMC17 in St. Louis
BACK TO DAY ONE OF THE CONFERENCE

The second half of day one was very well put together and had several very good keynotes from some amazing speakers. But, I am skipping ahead, because I need to tell you about the food! Again this year the conference had food trucks and they did not disappoint. Everything else about the way the conference was set up was very similar to last year. There were exhibitors in the main hall, the breakout speeches were separated into rooms away from the main hall and the food trucks were right outside. Did I mention the food trucks?
The rest of the first day involved a lot of caffeine (I think I kept Red Bull In Business On This Day) and listening to some really good keynotes. Unfortunately, because I was so tired, I did not do a good job of taking notes and actually paying attention to where each speaker was from. What I can say is that each keynote was good, very informative and had great content. This is one of the main reason that I will be buying the audio/slides that are offered by MDMC themselves. Also, Day 2 is a major reason for buying the audio/slides as well. Mainly, because there were several talks happening at the same time that I wanted to see, but couldn’t. So, for me buying the talks is a no-brainer this year (this is not a promotion to buy).
I skipped out on the last keynote, drove back to the office and walked back over to the conference after party, which was being held at the offices of Momentum. The party was a lot of fun, how could it not be when free food and alcohol is provided. Not to mention they had so many gaming systems it was hard to figure out where to start. Momentum also had their own small game going so you could win a Nintendo Switch. If you were able to go to all of their gaming stations (most of them VR platforms) you could fill up your entry with stickers. (The VR stations they had set up were absolutely amazing by the way) I believe only attendees that were able to get all of the stickers were eligible to win the new Nintendo system. I have to say I spent more time socializing and having a few drinks than worrying about getting the stickers.

DAY 1 CONCLUSION

My overall thoughts of the first day are still kind of all over the place. I really enjoyed meeting everyone in the morning while helping during the career fair, however at the same time it kind of wore me out. I absolutely enjoyed all of the keynotes that I was able to attend, however, I was so tired and knew I had to be alive to make it to the after party, I turned into an old man and left a bit early. I’m glad I cut out of the conference early because I met a lot of cool people at the afterparty, some I already knew and some I didn’t. I ran into one of my favorite people, Marissa Lather and realized she was having (a possible) alcohol related conversation with Chris Strub. Of course, this meant I had to throw myself into the conversation because as far as I know, the only 2 people at the conference with SnapChat Spectacles were myself and Chris Strub.
We had a great conversation and now not to end this abruptly, but I’m going to end this abruptly. Let me skip ahead to the end of the party. I downed a few drinks, walked home (I live close) and prepared for day 2 of MDMC 17. I have to say day 1 was a success and as soon as I can I will write about day 2. Trust me when I say day 2 was amazing as well. This blog originally appeared on Matchbox Design Group‘s blog.