One of the best attended Calgary Marketing Meetup Group events occurred on Tuesday, May 11th. Six panellists spoke to over 60 attendees, Conversation was spurred by reviewing Backbone’s “Technology Test” - an online multiple choice test that “will give you insight into the areas in which you are strong and those in which you could use some improvement. Consider it a health check: wire your company up to the virtual ECG and see how it performs”.
An attendee, who works in the automotive repair industry stated that due to the high level of competition in his industry, his company needs to respond very quickly to customer inquiries that come in online. Referring to an Inside Sales report, a customer is 100% more likely to use your services if contacted within 5 minutes of hitting your website.
The audience was mostly interested in the technicalities of online marketing. When the panel was asked about preferred web analytics tools Roger Kondrat of West17Media mentioned Crazy Egg and Clicktale, Yves Matson of Found Pages also stated that “there is hardly a drawback of installing Google Analytics". Statcounter was also a suggested tool for those that prefer an “analytics for dummies” type tool. A key area to check in analytics is your exit pages. “Pay attention to them, unless it’s your contact page” Michael C. Breuer, Technical Director, Calin Daniel Creative.
Attendee Jackie Dumaine, with The Stillness Room endorsed Facebook Advertising, Facebook Analytics and the new Like page. “Facebook gives extreme demographic data, for $5 a day the advertising is amazing”.
What to watch out for? “Mobile Marketing is in it’s infancy” – stated Steve Joyce of Local Search Heros. And apparently “Flash intros are dead!" Ernest Barbaric , Digital and Social Media Marketing Trainer and Consultant “they stall the customer’s need to get what they want”.
Mail Chimp was also mentioned several times as a worthwhile email marketing tool and service that can help companies avoid getting slammed into the Spam garbage pail.
Attendees also wanted to know what your home page MUST have. “It must have a call to action”. Ernest passionately stated. What do you want your customer to do? Buy your book? Book a meeting? It sounds simple, but this call to action is often missed.
The event was so jam packed with meaty and technical information that there was not enough time to delve into how to use Photography and Video online to market your business. Although the topics were touched on, both panellists Brett Gilmour of Gilmour Photography and Tish Bell of BizBoxTV didn’t get the opportunity to share their experience and knowledge...
Overall a fabulous event and fabulous info from a power panel, and all for only $10.
Thank you to Sandra Schultz of Ad Spots who helped organize and emcee the event.
Follow the Panellists on Twitter:
Tish @Tishsdish, Brett @ brettgilmour, Ernest @ebarbaric, Roger @Roger, Steve @localsearchhero, Sandra @sandraschulze, Michael – sorry I couldn’t find him on Twitter, leave a comment if you know his handle.
Join the The Calgary Marketing Meetup Group if you would like to attend future events.
by Shannon (sbk)
Twitter @sbkelsick
affiliate link) and runs Twist Image, a Marketing firm out of Montreal. Mitch produces some of the best marketing and tech content out there, his blog: 
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