I stumbled out of the Market to the Max conference with an extra hundred bucks in my pocket, some good ideas in my head and a fist full of business cards. So all in all, I’d say it was a good–but exhausting–day and well worth the time, money and effort.
Not to mention the popcorn. The popcorn was really, really good.
Tim Armstrong from Google is just finishing up. There’s a big picture of a cow behind him. Over the cow’s head it says “Collective Wisdom.” What did I take away from this talk? That google really will rule the world.
Brian Tinter from Drugstore.com is talking about customer personalization. He’s a smart guy. He’s figured out that demographics re often bunk and that personalization is about a lot more than giving customers what they think they need.
I’ve also had a massive lunch and won a $100 in the raffle. Not a bad day so far.
I wasn’t able to sit down and blog during it, but my pre-lunch session was Jane Shanklin from Starbucks talking about “Brewing the Starbucks Brand.” It was a packed room–over packed actually. And she gave some good insight into how Starbucks (and Starbucks in-house creative in particular) does their marketing.
Big takeaway? When you’ve got 97 percent brand awareness you can do some pretty funky stuff.
No wi-fi in the lunch room, but I’ll get this posted asap.
Nothing like typing out a 500 word post and then having it disappear when you close the powerbook lid.
I’ll go for summary instead:
I’ve been to two sessions since my last post. One was by a woman from Starbucks. She talked about the big S’s way of rocking and rolling on the creative end of things. My favorite bit was when they ran a tube from a Starbucks way up to David Letterman’s office so he could have coffee whenever he wants.
Lunchtime was a tremendously guy named John from Drugstore.com. Key takeaway? Demographic targeting isn’t worth much. One to one marketing isn’t the same as personalization. I’ll need to dig through his notes more when I get home.
And now I’m in “What do you stand for and how do you talk about it?”
It’s ethically delicious. I love it.
Oh, and I won a hundred bucks in the raffle.
Yay!
How do you become highly valued? I’m watching a guy from Fresh Perspectives preach the concept of “Becoming highly valued.” He’s good. He’s energetic. And he’s saying stuff that totally jibes with my own sense of of marketing.
Core concept: Performance doesn’t always lead to satisfaction.
Computers and cell phone performance has gone through the roof. But customer satisfaction is at an all time low.
How do you become valued, then?
Value Reinforcement Marketing.
This is the real product that these guys are selling. The idea? Pay more attention to your customers. Not your prospects, but your actual customers. Folks who have actually bought from you.
Interesting guys. I want to work with them.
“Every form of new media that is successful in collecting an audience eventually sells ads.”
One of the core concepts of Donna Wells’ speech is this: The playing field is being leveled. The days when only big companies (the king and his men) could afford to market well are long gone. Today–with eMail, Online ads, SEO, Podcasting, Micro Radio and more–even the little guy can get in there and be competitive. Safe to say I agree with her. Safe to say the idea makes me tremendously happy.
Big idea: We’ve moved from a marketing monarchy to a marketing democracy.
Donna Wells from Expedia is speaking. And she’s awesome. She’s got big bright powerpoints full of startling pictures and is telling the tale of king marketing. How good is she? So good that I’m going to stop typing and start paying attention.
I’m not one to get up early, but this morning I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30 in the AM to shuffle my way down to the Bell Harbor International Event Center. I’m at the Market to the Max Conference (http://www.markettothemax.com.
It’s a sold out event and the conference room I’m in right now is packed full of classy and bespectacled marketing pros. I forget his name, but the guy who’s doing the intro? Not so great and charming. But at least he knows he’s not so great and charming. He’s admitted it. He made it a bit.
David Johnson from Mindopera greeted me at the door wearing oversized clown shoes. They look good on him.
Really, I think I’m just here to try and win a new iPod.
I’ll be blogging as the day goes on. More later.
