Examining the Ties That Bind Between Marketers, IT, Copywriters and Customers
At the much-anticipated Marketing Conference in Miami, Nov. 10-12, Greg Krehbiel of The Kiplinger Washington Editors will lead a session titled Top 10 Things Marketers Need to Know About IT. “With online marketing more important than ever,” the description reads, “marketing managers need to have a strong working relationship with the IT department…This very practical session delves into the most common and vexing problems in the IT-marketing relationship, and offers proven solutions from interviews with professionals on both sides.”
Krehbiel raised this very interesting topic on the SIPA online marketing forum a couple months ago, and the responses gave a glimpse of just how good a session this will be.
Brett Goetschius, editor and publisher of DealFlow Media, said that “Today’s digital information product companies need a CEO that is a CIM—Chief Information Marketer. I don’t know that it’s a job that can be delegated…Practically, I try to bridge the cultural and cognitive divides between marketers and tech by reminding tech that product managers are their number one client—they are there to serve them as if their jobs depend on it, which they do. That includes expecting and tolerating revision and scope changes, producing multiple iterations of marketing deliverables, and understanding that Rome, and Linux, was not built in a day, but incrementally over time.
“And I insist that product managers never approach tech staff with any project that has not been fully described in form and function in a marketing requirements document.”
A second highly anticipated session, Renewals Renewals Renewals, will be delivered by ace copywriter Robert Lerose and Carol Brault of Access Intelligence. Here are three tips from Lerose:
– Talk to a subscriber’s deeper needs. A well-respected health newsletter began inserting a buck slip to remind people that, in times of uncertainty, maintaining and improving their health is something they do have control over. This overarching feeling of putting power in the hands of subscribers became a convincing sales strategy.
– Make your renewal efforts personal. Technology has given us great tools, but don’t let them de-personalize your renewal series. Subscribers want to know there’s a real person behind those efforts.
– Let one effort in the series come from another subscriber. Take one of your best testimonials and, with the permission of the writer, turn it into a renewal letter. Then mail it with the subscriber’s name in the corner card. Or put “A Special Message from [Subscriber’s Name]” on the outside carrier. It’s personal, unexpected and intriguing. For a variation, send a collection of testimonials in one effort and let those subscribers sell for you.
And a third very anticipated session, Paid Content Websites: In-Depth Case Studies, will be led by Tom Cintorino of Northstar Travel Media, Gwen Tomasulo of National Journal Group and Bob Brady of BLR, Inc. Tomasulo is currently in the middle of a re-launching of their website, scheduled for mid-September “where we are adding a robust free component to a historically paid site.” Cintorino also finds himself in the middle of something important—“a significant upgrade to our paid subscription website, which should (and will) go-live by the end of October.” So there will be lots of fresh results to report.
Adds Brady: “Our strategy has been to take all the material we’ve been providing for years and years on paper or other formats, put it on the Web, and then provide a navigation system so our subscribers can find what they need whether they’re analyzing a problem, doing training, or creating a job description,” The Minimum Information Unit (MIU) on HR.BLR.com is the application that allows the subscriber to fulfill those goals. “Navigation and search are tremendously important,” stresses Brady, “because that’s how people find information. The challenge is building the architecture so that, once you post the information on the website, people can find it.”
SIPA has built the architecture for you to find a great deal of information, and it’s called the Annual Marketing Conference.
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Register today and save $100!
SIPA’s 27th Annual Marketing Conference
Wednesday – Friday, November 10-12, 2010
The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, Miami
Unbelievable Room Rates of $179 –
book now, last year we sold out!
Early Bird Registration Now Available
View complete agenda and expert faculty here
Questions? Contact SIPA at 703.992.9339 or email us.
Sign up today and we’ll see you in Miami!
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