Internet World 2011

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Internet World is the UK’s biggest annual event for digital marketing and online business, which features an extensive and free education programme. Internet world brings together leading individuals from areas such as marketing, IT and eCommerce and features information on the following five subjects:

  • Digital and mobile marketing
  • eCommerce and mCommerce
  • Social media
  • Content management
  • Connectivity and hosting

With themed conferences on the following 6 topics:

  • Hosting/Web Design & Build
  • Online Advertising, Search & Affiliate
  • Email, Mobile & Web Analytics
  • Future of Social Media
  • eCommerce & fulfilment
  • Content Management

For anyone involved in managing or running an information service this really is an important show to attend, most particularly as marketing and brand management are such a key aspects connecting with the management of any modern information service.

Seminars attended:

 Summary of seminars

Inside and Outside: Technology for brand management and engagement – The Real Story Group (Jarrod Gingras, Analyst)

Jarrod Gingras’s seminar provided information in the Real Story Group and provided examples of a variety of available technologies and their capabilities. The Real Story Group is a company specialising in providing independent vendor evaluations for anyone interested in investing in content technologies. They provide extremely detailed evaluations of many services to aid customers make good decisions on the types of tools/services they purchase. The company was set up by Tony Byrne out of a frustration with the technologies available and how they were being marketed and the void between the marketing and the reality of their capabilities.

A key aspect of the company is to be one hundred percent behind the buyer and to be totally independent.  Therefore, they do not consult with vendors on their marketing plans and nor do they participate in vendor webinars. Subsequently, they are committed to providing information to help the buyer make the right choices with technologies that fit their needs.  The types of evaluation information they provide cover areas such as the following:

  • Digital asset management
  • Document and records management
  • Portals and content integration
  • Web CMS

The arguments for seeking independent and detailed information on products and services are clear especially due to the costs involved in purchasing and implementation of any new technology, and most especially due to the potential costs involved in making uniformed decisions

The Principles of Human Centric Marketing – One to One (Ian Karnell CEO and co-founder)

Ian Karnell’s seminar led you briefly through the different evolutionary stages of marketing through beginning with the brand centric marketing, consumer centric and then through to the human centric marketing, providing examples of advertising campaigns that were created along the lines of these various methods of marketing.  The human centric approach is essentially about focussing on human values (not corporate values) and engaging with customers as human beings and connecting with them as individuals.

Emerging trends in digital marketing

David Edmundson Bird MMU Business School

David Edmundson’s presentation featured a wealth of information on emerging trends in marketing and also touched on aspects of the future of digital marketing. Some key points from his presentation were as follows:

Emerging trends:

  • Digital marketing is going to get bigger (a bigger slice the marketing budget) and investment should be in social networking and social media (Digital marketing is about communicating to customers in a way that coincides with their new behaviour and their new behaviour is mostly in the digital environment)
  • The key will be digital experiences of the brand – experiential marketing (however trying to translate experience through digital marketing will be a challenge)
  • The main website is still extremely important but it is vitally important to invest and maintain the main website but it will need to be optimised for mobile
  • Unpaid advertising is growing as customers experience a brand best from someone else – consumers are increasingly trusting messages from contacts rather than the brand itself
  • General analytics are over but measuring CTR, hits and CPM traffic may not be helpful
  • Measuring engagement might be more useful
    • Measuring brand awareness
    • Measure the number of leads generated by a marketing leader
  • Market research remains important – research into how customers behave still needs to be carried out.
  • Listening to via networks is vital – reading blogs – creating blogs where customers can comment – people will trust you more if you let them be critical

The future of digital marketing

  • Marketing that targets the mobile will be important as the mobile phone will continue to be important to customers every year
  • Tablets will replace laptops for casual interaction
  • Neuroscience will become important to understanding customer behaviour

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