IMS Marketing Summit | March 30-31 | Omni Hotel

The DMA Atlanta and the Integrated Marketing Summit have joined forces to offer you a two-day conference, March 30-31, 2010 to be held at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta.  

Is it possible to make money with social media? Or is it over-hyped?  What are the most advanced techniques for B2B lead generation? How can I use Twitter to generate incremental revenue for my brand?  What are the 7 deadly sins of paid search?  Is public relations dead? Or is it more important than ever?  There have been more changes in marketing over the past 5 years than there have been in the previous 100 combined. Do you know everything you should about the newest trends in marketing? Do you have the all the tools you’ll need to grow your sales and revenue? Or are you going to sit on the sidelines and hope the good old days of the :30 television spot come back?  If you’re interested in staying up-to-date on the newest tools, tips and techniques in marketing, then you’ll want to take part in the Integrated Marketing Summit.  On Tuesday, March 30th, IMS has invited over 35 speakers to cover 14 topics and 2 keynotes in a convenient and affordable one day event at the Omni Hotel, CNN Center.

When Tuesday, March 30, 2010 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM     Where Omni Hotel CNN Center 100 CNN Center, Atlanta, GA 30303

Speakers include:

• Steve Woods, CTO & Founder of Eloqua Author of Best Seller
  Digital Body Language
• Ekaterina Walther, Social Media Strategist for Intel PR in a Social World presented by PR Newswire
• Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, a division of BKV 

Over 30 speakers – 14 sessions and panels, 2 keynotes –  the most current expertise and information in a one-day, interactive format at an affordable registration of $249.  That’s what IMS brings to you!

  Learn More…  To Register…

Letter from the DMA Atlanta President | Alex Marchetti

By Alex Marchetti  President DMA Atlanta | President Whitestone Marketing  “The overwhelming reality of our time is not how much is changing-it is the extraordinary pace of change itself”, states Stan Rapp in his book, Reinventing Interactive and Direct Marketing.  Rapp goes on to explain his definition of iDirect, “the twenty-first century growth engine crafted at the intersection of digital technologies and direct marketing practices.  iDirect is interactive, information-driven, individualized, insightful, iterative and is grounded in what the Internet makes possible as never before.  iDirect Marketing is today’s most responsive, affordable, and accountable approach to attracting brand believers and exceeding your revenue goals”. For those that attended the January luncheon combining the iDirect experience with iBranding, the experience of building brand equity in the digital era, was demonstrated by Michael McCathren from Chick-fil-A.  Michael explained to us that marketers are no longer the sole owners of brands.  Michael states, “Your customers busily peck away at the computer keyboard to create their personal Internet brand, an iBrand of their own, with its own set of brand equity components.  The winning marketers of tomorrow will know how to raise the value of their customers’ Internet equity.  One-to-one marketing has become Brand-to-iBrand marketing”. And let us not forget with the flood of data being generated and the shift to data-driven, relevant customer engagement, we can now provide valuable insight into customer lifetime value. I share these thoughts and wish to inspire each of you, as direct marketers, to be prepared for the change and embrace the next era of marketing.  “Everyone’s industry is not simply changing; it is being redefined, creating historic opportunity for the prepared and profound threats for the unprepared.  Absolutely no one, no matter how big, how well established, or how successful in the past, can afford to do business the same old way”, states, Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive .  “Here’s all that is certain about the future: it holds profound unpredictable change.  Abandon yesterday.  The change leader must put every product, service, process, and market on trial for its life”, also states Drucker.  With those words I encourage you to attend the Thursday luncheon with Stan Rapp and learn from one of the DM greats!  We strive to bring our members, “best in class speakers” that will allow us, as marketers, to excel through education. To register…

DMA Atlanta Volunteer Close Up- Ken Borgerding

by Jonathan Freed | Hub Labels

Name: Ken Borgerding                                                                                                     

Birthplace: Casper, WY

Family: Connie- wife, Ryan 15 and Hannah 13

Occupation: National Dealer Consultant- Wilmer (based in Dayton, OH)

Education: B.S. Marketing

Member Since:2008

 What is the most helpful step(s) you took to advance your direct marketing career? Network, network, network

Any advice you’d offer a novice who wants to move up in direct marketing? Learn as many aspects of the business as possible- creative, data mining, one to one marketing, production and data analysis

 Professional Experience:  20+ years sales experience with 15 in print mostly on manufacturer’s side

 Volunteer Experience: DMA, Catholic Heart Work Camp- 2009 Mission Trip to New Orleans, Green Energy Council- Atlanta Ambassador, Highland Ridge Home Owner’s Association- Vice President and past Director

 DM Forecast for 2010: Businesses must market their products and services to survive and grow.  There has been significant market consolidation but the strong will survive if you have viable business plan and strong execution.

 Toughest Marketing Project: While I was employed at Avery Dennison, I had the opportunity to work with Xerox and Neiman Marcus on a project for a custom integrated form/card solution.  The customer wanted to upgrade their gift card that is offered for online gifted orders. The challenge was to integrate the reinforced card into the existing Picking Ticket and run smoothly through high speed monochrome equipment.  R&D, testing and approval took over 18 months.

 Favorite DM Package: All in One mailer from Avery Dennison. One sheet containing labels, response card and return envelope.  It gets folded and wafer sealed then put into mail stream.  Versatile enough to run on laser desktop all the way up to digital production equipment.

 Wish I’d known then… The grass is not always greener on the other side.  Everything, and I mean everything, has its advantages and disadvantages.

 Favorite Restaurant:  Pappadeux

Favorite Films: Caddyshack

Significant Books: Getting Past No, Selling to the Very Important Top Officer, What Color is your Parachute?

Favorite Musical Groups: Counting Crows, Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Johnny Lang

Favorite Websites: HGTV.com, iheartradio.com, LinkedIn.com, saleshq.monster.com

Leisure Interests: running, landscaping, HGTV

Email Deliverability—What’s Your Credit Score?

by Allen Nance | Mansell Group

What’s your credit score? Relax—we’re talking email credit score, specifically your email deliverability credit score. Just as payment history, credit history and amount of debt all combine to make up your credit score, there are specific pieces that also make up your email deliverability credit score.

Why is this important? As inboxes become more inundated with messages, Internet Service Providers such as Yahoo and Comcast are looking beyond just content to determine if a message should make it to the inbox, or be sent to the dungeon of the junk folder—or worse yet, not even allowed onto the server. A sender’s delivery reputation is quickly becoming the “golden key” for getting into the coveted inbox.

What affects your deliverability reputation? Several things do—some of which may surprise you. Your IP address is one element that affects your deliverability score. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to monitor. You can use a free web-based program like Sender Score to enter your IP address and see what your current “score” is.  It’s a good idea to periodically check this, as your score can fluctuate over time. The higher your score, the better your chances are of getting in to the inbox.

The second main component of your delivery reputation is related to your list maintenance and hygiene practices. Just as you would not want outdated or wrong information on your credit report, you don’t want old or bad addresses on your email lists. A large number of hard bounces can often lower your email deliverability score and hinder your inbox success rates.

Somewhat surprising is the fact that email volume also plays a role in your delivery reputation. It’s not so much your actual volume numbers, but rather the consistency of your volume that matters. If you generally send around 100,000 messages a week and that number suddenly jumps to 1 million, that is going to raise a potential red flag to ISP’s.

Perhaps more obvious is the impact of complaints and feedback loops. When someone hits “report as spam” on one of your emails, that information is fed back to the ISP’s and negatively affects your sender reputation—thus lowering your chances of making it to the inbox. If you get enough of these complaints, the ISP could choose to blacklist or block you. To avoid this, it is crucial that you provide easy and obvious opt-out mechanisms—and adhere to them!

 So how do you make sure your credit score stays up? While there is no fool proof method for ensuring perfect deliverability all of the time, you can definitely make a difference by following these key strategies: Monitor your IP addresses, keep clean and up to date mailing lists, keep an eye on your volume consistency, and maintain good opt-out procedures.

The email inbox is just going to become more and more difficult to reach in the coming months, so give yourself the best chance for success by employing some of these key strategies now. You will be glad you did!