SIPA's 25th Annual Mid-Year Marketing Conference | December 8-10, 2008
Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino | Las Vegas, NV



REGISTER NOW!

CONFERENCE PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Marketing Directors Roundtable (Full-day)
Moderators:
Denise Elliott, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.
Todd Lebo, Reports Business Unit Manager, MarketingSherpa Inc.

This full-day roundtable meeting is only for senior-level marketers.  Bring your marketing questions to the table, and you’ll walk away with proven solutions.  You set the agenda with a pre-conference questionnaire. Topics may include:

• Getting the most out of your marketing dollars
• Tips for creating killer copy — online and offline
• Effective landing page strategies
• Creative pricing models for bulk sales and site licenses
• Integrating your offline efforts with your online marketing
• Cost-effective pay-per-click campaign management
• Building e-letter lists and boosting the revenue per subscriber
• Or anything else you wish to discuss!

Making Money Online: How Publishing Entrepreneurs are Using the Internet to Make Millions (1:00 – 5:00 PM)

	Don Nicholas, Managing Director, Mequoda Group, LLC
	Kim Mateus, Senior Partner, Mequoda Group, LLC

In late 2008, it still seems evident that there are publishers out there leveraging the Internet to make millions of dollars online, while other publishers are still struggling to find a business model that works.

The publishers that are making money online did not land there by accident.

They arrived in this elite group by making good decisions and never losing focus of the Internet’s bottom line potential: an opportunity to touch an existing audience 24/7, reach and monetize an entirely new audience and collect valuable customer information.

In this intense workshop, we will discuss several case studies and reveal the strategies used by some of the most successful, most entrepreneurial website publishers. You will understand how the Internet can become your biggest and fastest growing source of new revenue and profit. The following are the strategies we will discuss:

1. Editorial Strategy: Choosing the Right Media Platforms
2. Business Strategy: Choosing the Right Online Business Models
3. Keyword Strategy: Attracting Targeted Website Traffic
4. Website Strategy: Converting Visitors into Subscribers
5. Email Strategy: Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value
6. Organizational Strategy: Integrating Media Teams
7. Reporting Strategy: Managing Revenue by Exception

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

8:30 – 8:45 AM – Welcome and Introduction from Conference Chairs

	RD Whitney, CEO, Caroo Media USA, Online media division of the Tarsus Group
	Leslie Davidson, Marketing Consultant, Davidson Direct

8:45 – 9:30 AM – Keynote – Social Media & Somewhat Obsession With Its Shiny Objects
Frank Gruber, CEO and Co-founder, TECH cocktail, Product strategist and social media expert at AOL

Social Media is life. It is entails many things yet is often defined vaguely. All aspects of Social Media will be discussed, including what it is and what it isn't. Life moves quickly and as we try to stay on top of all our responsibilities at work and at home, some slip through the cracks. Several bright shiny objects are available to help us stay connected, store and share materials, analyze and manage information, and make life easier and more sharable, because sharing is caring. A number of "shiny objects" used daily in social media will be discussed so each participant is able to stay connected, organized and sharing in this chaotic world.

9:30 – 10:30 AM – Roundtable Sessions

This is your opportunity to exchange great ideas with great people during two half-hour roundtable discussions on niche topics.  The discussions are your chance to share what’s working for you, learn from your peers and meet others with similar interests.  You will have as many as 20 topics to choose from.

10:30 – 10:45 AM -- Break

10:45 – 11:45 AM – Breakout Sessions I

1.1       Solving the Interactive Puzzle
Tim Bourgeois, CEO, PixelBridge.com

The interactive channel offers an abundance of opportunity for small and mid-sized publishers, but making online success a reality can be daunting. Intelligently allocating scarce resources to the myriad options available — baseline website infrastructure, blogs, video, webinars, podcast, search marketing, email marketing, analytics, etc. — is complex and a constantly moving target. In this session you’ll be presented with a framework for facilitating interactive investment decisions and learn how to assemble the necessary resources to make the most of your online channel.

Building your customer base has become harder than ever as traditional marketing channels continue to erode. You’ll walk away with from this session with a much better understanding of which interactive channels makes sense for your business, saving you time and money.

1.2        Successful and Practical Strategies for Social Media
Liana “Li” Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance

From Dell to Barack Obama both companies and people, including political candidates are using social media to reach out to their audiences on a more personal level to understand their thoughts, views and what drives them to do what they do.  The entire democrat primary season was launched months earlier through social media — with John Edwards utilizing YouTube, rather than normal media channels to announce his candidacy.  Barack Obama’s campaign energized the youth vote in ways never seen before utilizing such platforms as Facebook, Black Planet and his one in-site network. 

Companies like Dell have utilized social media platforms and blog to help improve customer service, product creation and address major publicity issues.  Prior to doing this, over 50% of comments about Dell on the internet were negative, since implementation over two years ago, it’s dropped to under 20%.  Even smaller companies without huge advertising budgets are taking advantage of social media, such as Houlihan’s restaurant chain, who built their own community to help with customer relations.

Social media is a huge world and understanding who your audience is and where they ‘hang out’ is key to developing a successful strategy in social media.  From Social News to Social Sharing, from Blogs to Wikipedia there’s a lot to take in, but research is the key to building a great strategy. 

In this session you’ll see how you can employ some of the same ideas and bring successful strategy tips home to help start a social media campaign of your own.

1.3        35 Best Ways to Make Money Using the Internet
Stoney deGeyter, President & Founder, Pole Position Marketing

Without compromising rankings for conversions or conversions for rankings, how to develop and market websites to become the desired destination for searchers looking for the product, services, and/or information you provide.  This session will walk you through the seven building blocks of becoming a destination website, from disseminating expert information to site usability, to website design, to marketing your unique value proposition, to developing your authority, to creating your distinct voice, to establishing trust and credibility.

1.4        E-mail Surveys, E-mail Marketing and the Legal Issues to Consider Before Your Next Campaign
David Kearney, CEO, Boomerang.com
Plus a representative from Levine Sullivan Koch and Schulz, L.L.P.

Information providers are increasingly turning to e-mail as a more targeted but less costly way to reach customers. But e-mail marketing has changed, and continues to change, as new products and services make it easier to do. At this session, you’ll learn about the latest e-mail marketing and survey techniques that can save you time and money.

First, Dave Kearney from Boomerang.com, will talk about the latest e-mail marketing strategies available and how marketers can make better use of the information they gather from surveys. The latest technology allows you to integrate the information into your own database so you can streamline your processes, acquire more data and use it in more productive ways than ever before.

You’ll also hear from [[name to come]] of Levine Sullivan Koch and Schulz, L.L.P. about the legalities of e-mail marketing and the survey data you collect. While e-mail is more prevalent, there are also new legal issues to think about. It’s about more than just CAN-SPAM. This session will help you understand what you can and can’t do---legally---before you start planning your next e-mail campaign.

Noon – 1:30 PM – Lunch with Keynote Speaker: Maximize Your Landing Page Conversion Rates
Bob Lorum, Senior Research Manager, MarketingExperiments

Would you like to increase the conversion rates on your landing pages by 10%, 20%, 50%, 110% or more? Join Bob Lorum, Senior Research Manager of MarketingExperiments, as he reviews landing pages from a few SIPA conference attendees and provides actionable tactics and strategies they can apply immediately to improve their landing page conversion rates.

1:30 PM – 2:30 – Breakout Sessions II

2.1        Advanced Growth Marketing Strategies for the Web
Bill Baird, President, Baird Direct Marketing, Inc.

You’ve put in place the basic best practices for your website, your conversion funnel and your email.  But on the web, what’s working changes at the speed of light. Find out in this fast-paced session what new specific, concrete tactics have emerged in the past year as “musts” to maximize return traffic, registration, conversion rates and house email performance. This includes emerging creative tactics, offers, email marketing techniques, testing methods, site design tactics, social media strategies and more.

Not only will your grow your customer base but you will learn how to harvest more email addresses from your prospects for future growth.

2.2        SEO for Newsletter Publishers: Partnering with Google to Prioritize Online Content Development & Drive Targeted Website Traffic
Don Nicholas, Managing Director, Mequoda Group, LLC

In the days of old, editors had one primary responsibility: writing great content. Getting people to subscribe to, buy and read that content was someone else’s job. In the online world, things are much different. If an editor wants their content to be found and read online, they must learn to partner with Google. They need to understand what people are searching for that is related to the content they offer, and must write and produce content specifically to those search terms. It’s not easy, but it is necessary for online success.

But where to begin? What is the process for identifying, documenting and managing keywords and the editorial campaigns that should follow?

In this workshop, editors will learn how to research, analyze and monitor keywords. They will learn how to prioritize online content development around  those keywords to ensure they attract the targeted website traffic they deserve.

You will learn:

• How to analyze and determine potential keywords, keyword popularity, and keyword competition
• How to document all the various components for conducting keyword research
• The process of identifying primary keywords
• How to write online content that is search engine optimized
• How to use meta tags, meta descriptions and meta keywords to make your content easily found by Google

2.3        Cost per lead and co-registration marketing
Jay Schwedelson, Corporate Vice President, Worldata

More information to come!

2.4     New-wave PR– Panel of Experts

	Brent Skinner, CEO, STETrevisions
	Dana Todd, Chief Marketing Officer, Newsforce; Chair, SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization)

Publishing and PR have a long, symbiotic history together and their relationship continues to evolve. The Internet, fragmented editorial channels, and a growing demand online for news is causing the PR methods and goals to rapidly change, and the PR model itself is undergoing a metamorphosis. PR is embracing digital channels and online marketing tactics to foster not just editorial coverage, but also to drive traffic, SEO, buzz, awareness, and ultimately revenue. Learn the key differences between a PR campaign and a marketing campaign, and explore low cost and innovative new services which are exploding in the space. Discover how PRSEO can affect your visibility in news search engines. Come and learn from our panel of distinguished PR experts and return to the office ready to apply these highly effective methods to your own specialty information business.

2:30 – 3:00 PM – Break

3:00 – 4:00 PM – Breakout Sessions III

3.1        Discover the Holistic Marketing Guru in YOU
Christopher Spencer, Vice President, Immersa Marketing

From events to social networking and everything in-between, your mega-marketing prowess is limited only by your imagination. Low-cost, high-return integrated marketing is demanded in today's fiercely competitive environment.

From the boardroom to the home office, you are connecting your message by targeting through a much broader array of tools with greater global reach. There is no silver bullet, it is all hard work but the access is much more open and available to you as the Marketing Guru in the age of consumerism and technological obsession.

Learn how to connect the dots and gain your sea legs with Christopher Spencer, author, speaker and Vice President of Immersa Marketing, a global marketing agency and brand management company.

3.2        Online Reputation Management
Simon Heseltine, Director of Search, Serengeti Communications

How do you know what people are saying about your company?  Where could they be saying it?  What are they saying?  How should you respond?  This session will enable your company to understand how to monitor and respond to positive and negative mentions of your company, your products and your executives, while also helping you to avoid common online pitfalls.

3.3        Vertical Search as a New and MUST Media Adaption for B2B Publishers and Trade Shows
Jason A. Prescott, CEO, JP Communications INC.

Print publishers and trade shows have been very late to adapt to online strategies for their clients and readers / attendees.  Developing industry vertical search engines will add tremendous value to your organization and to clients and users alike.  Adapting to this model requires a different level of thinking, but with the implementation of a proper business strategy and infrastructure, the rewards can be significant.

See how significant your rewards can be by attending this session with its must have information. Don’t leave money on the table because you are having trouble navigating SEO. Let Jason Prescott take you through the maze of information and guide you to success.  

3.4      Beyond Google: Dramatically Reduce Your Marketing List Costs
Game-Changing Techniques for Building Prospect Lists from deep within the Internet
Donato Diorio, Chief Executive Officer, Broadlook Technologies

In this session, you will learn:

• How to access the 99.8% of the Internet is hidden from search engines like
  Google.
• Why you never need to buy another list.
• What is a real-time list and why is it superior to tradition lists?
• What really matters in a list?
• How to apply metrics and measure the quality of any list.
• How to build a sustainable process for list generation.
• What is on the horizon for List Generation?

4:00 – 5:00 PM – Keynote – Using Social Media To Create Successful Marketing Campaigns: A Cisco Systems Case Study
The power of Web 2.0 and Social Media can spread marketing campaigns like a wildfire. See how the recent Cisco ASR 1000 launch successfully used interactive and social tools as well as social media outlets resulting in Cisco's fifth most successful product launch in its history. Then learn how you can apply these same techniques—and realize similar success—to your information business.

5:00– 6:30 PM – Cocktail Reception

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

8:30 – 9:15 AM – General Session – Traditional Marketing: What’s Working, What Isn’t, And How to Integrate Your Marketing Mix
Leslie Davidson, Marketing Consultant, Davidson Direct
Mary Lou Probka, Vice-President of Marketing and Customer Service, Inside Mortgage Finance Publications, Inc.
Plus other marketing experts to be announced!

While most of this SIPA conference focuses on electronic marketing, there are many publishers who are making money using tried-and-true methods. Direct mail, renewal campaigns, newsletter inserts, brochures, FFTs, and more, still have a place in your marketing mix. But publishers are being more judicious about the campaigns they put together, with a sharp eye on the increased costs associated with these types of programs.

This panel of marketing experts has seen and done it all and will provide tips and techniques for integrating traditional marketing with the increased use of e-mail and the web. What products sell better using traditional marketing? How can you reduce costs for these programs? What are the new “success” standards for traditional marketing campaigns? And much more.

9:15 – 10:00 AM – Keynote – Growing Revenue Profitably In A Multi-channel World
Sarah Rotman Epps, Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.

Specialized information publishers, especially those with legacy print businesses, face monumental challenges as they attempt to grow their businesses profitably online. Audiences are getting harder to reach, and they're not as willing to pay for digitized content. But digital channels also offer publishers the opportunity to grow their reach and engage with audiences more deeply, while pursuing new sources of revenue.

Here are just some of the questions Sarah will answer during her keynote address:

• How is digital migration changing audiences and their information consumption habits?
• How are publishers' revenue models changing?
• What strategies can publishers pursue to grow revenue profitably online?

10:00 – 10:30 AM – Break

10:30 – 11:15 AM – Breakout Sessions IV

4.1      Why Green Marketing?  Reduce costs, Enhance Brand and Increase Profitability
Kathleen Gilligan, Partner & Co-Founder, EcoStrategy Group

Companies today face a wide array of environmental issues, yet most midsize businesses do not have a coherent plan for addressing them. Without such a plan, companies expose themselves to unnecessary business risks and miss out on opportunities to reduce costs and improve their revenue and corporate reputation. Kathleen Gilligan of EcoStrategy Group will discuss the business benefits of a sustainability strategy and give tangible advice on getting started, managing stakeholders, gaining internal support, and choosing the right initiatives.

4.2      Testing Session: These Test Results Get You Market Share!
Bob Brady, President, Business & Legal Reports

The only way to ensure that your website is returning the best possible ROI is to test. In this session, we’ll be looking at testing and how to use multivariate testing tools on your landing pages—tools that let you change various elements of the page dynamically to see which tests better with people.

4.3      Getting the Most From Your Analytics: Using Your Analytics to Understand How Electronic Marketing is Performing
Joy Brazelle, Director of Analytics, Serengeti Communications Inc.

Sure, you send your email blast and pay a fortune to revamp your webpage but when you look at click-throughs and open rates do you really understand whether you were successful or not?  Using your analytics to understand how your online marketing, PPC and email campaigns are doing is critical to benchmarking your success.  And you can use this data to combat click fraud, improve your online marketing and find content for your next e-newsletter. This session will show savvy marketers how to analyze their data to better evaluate their marketing efforts and understand their customers and prospects.

4.4      How You Can Leverage Online Tools To Create Some Serious Marketing Buzz

	Ben Bassi, CEO, CommonPlaces e-Solutions
	RD Whitney, CEO, Caroo Media USA

The Internet has created an “information marketplace” with constantly evolving delivery methods and marketing strategies. With a variety of resources available, publishers face the challenge of getting information in front of the right audience at the right time—when they are ready to act. With the rise of user-generated content, search options and social networks on the web, there are seemingly limitless and often overwhelming opportunities for you to engage your audience.

You'll hear how your company and your customers can use vertical search, search toolbars and widgets to increase online revenues, drive more traffic to your website and engage more with your customers online.

Ben Bassi, founder and CEO of CommonPlaces, will show you how to leverage social media to drive traffic and conversions, build an online following and even convert your visitors into evangelists who will promote your content for you.

And, finally, RD Whitney, CEO of Caroo Media (a division of the Tarsus Group plc), will talk about the launch of a Facebook application to drive conference revenue and use other free online tools (Linkedin groups, YouTube, blogs and widgets) to create promotional buzzzzzzzzzz.

11:30 – 12:15 PM – General Session – Conference Crowd Sourcing: The Best Ideas from the 25th Annual SIPA Marketing Conference

There are so many great conference sessions to choose from, you can’t possibly attend them all! Plan to stay until the end to hear a “best of” wrap-up of all the sessions you weren’t able to attend. The conference chairs will share the key tips, tricks and best practices from their tracks, so you’ll leave with a collection of best ideas to take back to your office and test immediately. 

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