Alex Hillman of Indy Hall

Blake Jennelle of Anthillz

Chuck Sacco of PhindMe

Bill Roswell of KYW News

Audrey Julienne of Raison d’Etre

Steve Lubetkin of Lubetkin Communications

Chris Krewson of Philly.com

Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent

Ed Callahan of Coherent Sales Consulting

Beth Harte of OnPath Technologies

What a tremendous group gotten together to talk how marketing will be affected by technology over the next year. If you have not signed up for this event yet you should really consider it. My role you ask - I will be working with Audrey on the email marketing segment and along with Krista Bard  - President of CCPA I will be moderating the event.

For 1and1.com it’s a little too late and I’ll be removing all of our accounts from them, not because of any technical-related issue, but the way they treated us and our client for what I have discovered is a billing error on their end. I’ve since discovered a whole lot of disgruntled 1and1 clients who have had similar issues. So do some research first before you hand over control of your very valuable data.

My unqualified poll says a few things:

1) Most folks are not at all listening to commercial on radio or TV - duh!

2) Those that do did not remember anything “new” about Yahoo.

While very unscientific my conclusion - you need to do better than that.

Lets change to something really important for those of us in the Philadelphia area - what to watch tonight the possible clilnching game for the Phillies to go to the World series of the 3rd (meaningless) debate. I don’t know about you but after the last one I don’t see whay anyone - regardless of whether they have made up their mind or not, would watch. One of the big reasons for me - the 2 camps got together and decided on how they might be civil to each other and agreed to guidelines and within a few minutes had vialated everything.

Not a fan of Brokaw however he could not get control unless he had gotten rude - to his credit he tried but to now avail. Now my point - the game will be watched real time by the majority I predict. Those who want information on the campaign will be looking in the papers but more importantly -  in my opion - online and both camps have yet to quite figure that out yet.

Now how to connect Internet marketing to Sarah Palin. It seems to me that the Republican party is trying real hard to control the brand “SARAH PALIN”. What they fail to understand and many companies forget as well - with the advent of the Internet - you do not own your brand. You cannot continue to say we don’t care what is being said out there we will control things our way - wrong if you don’t embrace the media then the Internet will take over for you.

I ask all out prospects and clients - have you looked for what is being said about you online - pay particular attention to what is being said bad. Put into Google the name of your company and the word complaint after it. I may have blogged about this before but I am still surprised that very few actually are doing this - find out what is out there then embrace what is being said.

As for Sarah Palin - look for youself - thelonger that she is sequestered - the more she loses control of her message.

Anyway getting back to the story - the first half was all ASU starting out when JMU got the ball for the first time and first play was an interception.  JMU was losing on every part of the game - offense, defense, special teams, play calling everything. It wouold have been easy to call in the game for the second half and just hope that the score did not get any worse.

Instead JMU ran the second half kickoff bakc for a touchdown, next series they ran a long play for another touchdown. Final score 35-32. Now my point - instead of giving in they regrouped and came out with a different plan that obviously produced results.

This put into perspective a call we had with one of our clients earlier in the week. Though we have been communicating with them all along the communications was not getting to those in management and so a conference call was scheduled - once the management team understood that there a purpose in mind and that in order to be successful we first had to have a number of things changed in the code and structure of the site before the real SEO work could begin, then everything went smoothly.

Point - regrouping and listening to the users, the analytics, the management and communicating effectively the game plan can allow a slow start to come around to where everyone comes back to the same position.

If things are not going as you had hoped with your online strategy first look to see if all those involved are on the same page as you think they should be - then develop a plan to move forward - whether you decide to move forward or go a different direction.

Onve again the most important ingredient is communications to all involved.

Now back to my story - JMU had the highest hopes for this game and when they won they put on a tremendous fireworks display - I can only imagine that it would not have gone over very well if they had lost - what preplanning to have it ready and the faith ti know they would win as well.

Well done JMU

What is your internet marketing strategy? Do you have one or know where you are planning to go with your marketing plan? If you are like most people, the internet is somewhat mysterious. You want people to come to your website but you don’t know how you can get them there. Your internet marketing goal is most likely just to get as much traffic as possible to your website with the hope that someone will purchase your product. A goal is not a strategy.

This type of goal, while valid, may end up putting you in the poor house with regard to your internet marketing budget. If you are planning on spending time or money in your internet marketing plan, you will want to get a good return on investment. And in order to do that, you have to have a strategy.

Your website content, including video content and any data relating to your site should be optimized. This will give you a higher ranking in the search engines than if your site did not contain strategically placed keywords. Making your website SEO friendly by doing a web analysis of the site now should be first on your list when it comes to internet marketing strategy.

Second on the list should be to take advantage of free content plugs. This means using press releases, articles and even blogs as a way to market your website using SEO content. This will not only draw attention to your website, but can raise the rankings in the search engines. You should be able to take advantage of all of the free ways to market your site, including submitting links and even social networks.

Do not rely on email ads and pay per click ads, although they can get you started in your online business. They are only good for the short term goal. While they should be part of your internet marketing strategy, they should not be solely responsible for driving traffic to your website. You need to make use of the ways to spread SEO content around the internet and also make sure your own site is SEO rich as part of your internet marketing strategy to fulfill your internet marketing goals.

We attended some great sessions and chatted with some great people at Podcamp/Searchcamp Philly and will no doubt foster some of those relationships, relationships that were established from the previous event. Hats off to the organizers. Already looking forward to next year.

To get it off my chest - first rule about using press releases - have something to say. Now if you are not optimizing  your release, you may be wasting your time and money. Press releases can be distributed for free or for cost at hundreds of online sites, but they are worthless if they do not draw the attention to your website through search engine optimization.Incidentally we have found that just releasing for free is not nearly as effective as paying some money for a better release.

Press releases enable you to get a free sales pitch online. They can be distributed for free on a number of different internet sites. But if the press release does not contain the right amount of keywords or if they are not strategically placed in the copy, your press release that you worked so hard on, or even paid for, may be dead in the water.

A few of the right words in the right places can make all the difference in a press release. That is what SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about. It makes the most of your press release by allowing it to rank higher in the search engines.

Press releases can be a very effective way to market your internet business. Unlike news articles, press releases will allow you to post a link to your website (can someone say - “incoming link”) and play a huge role when it comes to internet marketing. Making the press releases easy to find in the search engines is something that takes knowledge of how the search engines work, how to use the right keywords and where to place them.

Get your website noticed by creating press releases that are search engine optimized. Web marketing companies can help you by not only writing SEO press releases for you, but also distributing them to the right channels. If you are not using SEO in press releases, you may be wasting your time and money by not taking advantage of the chance to get noticed in the search engines with the right copy.

Seo in the long run

While this may be over simplified the meaning is simple. SEO may cost more up front in the long run the ROI can be, should be and if done right will be a better return on investment.

That is not to jump into the fray about SEO with PPC - I think there are many ways they work together but in many of the clients eyes the question is one or the other and the answer depends on the expectations of the client. If they need answers and results right away then turn on the PPc campaign. If they are more patient and want longer term results then lets doe the hard job of real research and put together the right marketing mix online to warrant those results.