A blog created by UMSL Marketing B.A. and MBA students.
By: Janéa Hampton
At the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference last month I attended the session “Managing a Global Brand in a Multicultural World” by Veena Ramesh of Johnson & Johnson. This was a very insightful presentation because I didn’t realize how much actually goes into global marketing.
Continue reading “Managing a Global Brand In a Multicultural World-Recap”
By: Robert Aguilar
We would like to introduce you to one of our speakers at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference, Jennifer Phillips. Jennifer is the Director of Marketing Cloud Excellence at Salesforce. She has been with Salesforce for over 7 years and in the marketing industry for over 15 years. Jennifer partners with higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations to deepen their success with Salesforce marketing / digital products. The goal at Salesforce is to better connect businesses with their consumers. They have developed the world’s #1 CRM platform which is cloud based. In their own words, they “help your customers love you.” We got the chance to interview Jennifer and find out some of her thoughts on the current state and future of digital marketing.
What does content mean to you?
Content is information delivered to add mutual value to organizations and their constituents / customers. Sounds boring, but done right it’s anything but!
What is the digital “word of the year” for 2016?
Measurable. This is something that has been common in many of the communications I have had in preparation for the conference. Many people are discussing and trying to develop more ways to measure your marketing successes and shortcomings.
As everything moves to mobile and social, it seems like the web is dying. Should we still care about the web?
We must care about the platforms important to our constituent / customer groups. If we fail to meet them – in an interesting and fulfilling way – “where they live”, we break their trust. Success is delivered to organizations who know and nurture the platforms their target audiences stand on.
What do you see as the next big disruption in the world of marketing and communications?
Effective 1:1 marketing is creating a new paradigm of the curated consumer experience. Continued evolution on the delivery method of just in time communications, will create the next new normal for consumers – hyper-personalized customer experience.
For more on Jennifer check out her speaker session in the academic/social media track at 2:55 p.m. at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference 2016. She will be speaking about “Delivering Effective Digital Student Experiences,” something we are very passionate about at UMSLDigital.
We’ll see you in April!
We would like to welcome Jerry Bernhart as one of this year’s speakers at MDMC16!
Jerry is Principal at one of the leading executive search firms in the nation, Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC. His company has served thousands of clients ranging from startups to Fortune 100 corporations in the U.S. and abroad for over 20 years. The company specializes in the fields of Ecommerce, Digital Marketing, and Multichannel Direct Marketing.
We are happy that Jerry Bernhart could join us as one of the Breakout Session speakers at MDMC16 on April 21st. Check out some of the highlights of our interview with Jerry below:
What does “content” mean to you?
“It’s original.”
Who wants to read something that they’ve already seen at a million times? No one! You need to give your audience something that they can’t find anywhere else.
If you’re creating content on a topic that’s been written about for a while, try to put your own spin on it or explain it from a different point of view. Adding original thoughts will help your content reach new people.
“It engages.”
You want your content to engage the reader. By the end of your blurb, they should have learned something or been entertained. By engaging your reader, they will want to keep reading what you post and possibly even share it with their friends or followers.
“It’s actionable.”
Your content should also give the readers a call to action that will tie up why they’re on your website looking at your content. You can ask them to “call now” or “sign up now” for your newsletter; whatever is best for yourself or business.
So what about digital metrics for gauging how well your content is being received?
Jerry tells us that he puts the most emphasis on Bounce Rate (single-page sessions or sessions in which the person left the site from the entrance page without interacting with the page) & Average Session Length.
In Jerry’s line of work, it’s important that he grabs the attention of current & future clients immediately; “I know that the longer they are there, the stronger the impression I will make.”
Looking at Bounce Rate and Average Session Length will show you whether your landing page is appropriate, what content is working on your website, and if people are staying on your website.
For more insights from Jerry, check out his book Careers In eCommerce and Digital Marketing.
By: Casey Kleekamp, UMSL MBA Student
I recently attended an UMSL Digital Marketing Seminar: “Blogs to Buzz” hosted by Danielle Smith – A digital correspondent, host, storyteller, speaker, media trainer, vlogger and author! The seminar was not only very insightful, but totally fun and engaging! I enjoyed her style (both teaching style and fashion style – ha!) so much that I immediately started following her on Twitter and Pinterest.
Danielle shared tons of information on Blogging – the history of blogging, how marketers should be leveraging blogging, how to get started, and how to go beyond just a blog utilizing it on all social media platforms.
The takeaway from the seminar that could be applied easily and quickly to your blog and our very own UMSL Digital Mindshare Blog is Jason Calacanis’ “5 Tenets of Content Perfection.” Calacanis is an entrepreneur, blogger and keynote speaker for the digital industry worldwide (so I’d say his advice is pretty solid!).
Here are the 5 Tenets. Plus, I have included ideas on how the UMSL Digital Mindshare Blog could bring them to life.
1. Speak in Real-time: Talk about current events and show that you are “in the know.” There is so much going on in our world today and there is so much news every second of the day that UMSL Digital Students should definitely be “in the know” and most importantly, be able to connect it back to UMSL and our digital marketing program. An example shared in Danielle’s class is Evernote. On their blog they wrote about Fantasy Football. Evernote and Fantasy Football you ask? After reading the blog post, it all made sense. Evernote told their readers how to get the most out of Fantasy Football by using Evernote to stay organized.
2. Think Fact-Driven: Pretty self-explanatory.
3. Use Visuals: Blog posts with images = 94% better. Pretty simple right!? Even for this blog, since unfortunately I wasn’t able to take personal photos, I used visuals that hopefully have made reading this post a little more fun?! Danielle might have thought it a tad bit weird if I was snapping photos of her during the seminar – right?
4. Be Efficient: Resources. Let’s get smart with the important questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How? One thing that really stood out to me in the seminar was “micro-blogging.” I love the idea that we can create a blog and then pick “pieces” of it to share out across other social platforms. Or use “story-telling” where you can write several blogs all at once on one topic and then post one blog at a time over a period of time. Seems pretty efficient to me!
5. Curate: Discover and share the best. For UMSL, we could have someone focused on looking for fun, informational and engaging content to repurpose and connect with UMSL Digital.
After reading my own post, I realize it’s not rocket science what I’m talking about here, but it does take time to get organized and plan. I hope this was helpful and that UMSL’s Digital Blog can continue to be a source of great content for digital marketers and beyond.
And just in case I didn’t say it enough – take the Digital Marketing Class and Danielle Smith’s “Blogs to Buzz” seminar as soon as you can. You will NOT be disappointed!
All seminar course descriptions and dates are here: http://umsldigital.com/courses.
By Breanna Menendez-Phillips
Brand building is not just for businesses or corporations. Branding can also be personal – this type of branding is all about YOU. Personal marketing is not just about the way you present yourself, but also the way you behave within your networks.
Continue reading “Personal Branding Checkup”
As every marketer knows, “Content is King”. This phrase continues to be more true each year as both search engines and consumer expectations of brands change. To help us take a deep dive into the importance and power of having a strong content strategy, we sat down with a St. Louis specialist, Matt Kamp. Continue reading “The Changing Content Marketing Landscape: An Interview With Matt Kamp”
September 4, 1998 – Things Changed. Google was launched. On that fateful day new careers were born while others would soon find out that they would need to forever change the way they do business or perish. Since that day in the late 90’s we have come a long way in the world of Search Engine Marketing. Gone are the days where we would buy links or change a few keywords and rankings would double. Those days were simpler, easier times. Welcome to the dawn of the new era of SEM – where content rules. Continue reading “Status of the SEM Industry”