SIGMA::BLOG

Last week, marketers from all around the tri-state area converged in New Jersey at our Fuel for Thought conference to learn, share experiences and develop ideas to get a handle on social media marketing.  There’s a lot we covered/learned from each session and we’ll be sharing key highlights and materials here on our blog.

We’ll kick-off the first conference recap with John Battelle’s (CEO/Founder, Federated Media) keynote on “All Media is Social.  Now What?”  John’s keynote was brilliantly right-on-topic to get us all kindling new ideas.  Here are four key areas he covered:

1.  The Rise of Conversational Marketing: First we declared our intentions (what we want) through search.  Then we declared our relations (social graph — who we are as defined by how we are connected to other people) on sites like Facebook.  Finally, during the past year we declared our utterances (what we are doing, what we are interested in, etc.) on sites like Twitter.  When you put all these declarations together — intention, relations and utterances, you have an economy of conversations. (more…)

A year ago, we launched the Fuel for Thought Series with the goal to create a forum for marketers where we could share the most relevant trends, insights and smart practices that would fuel growth and innovation for their brands.  We made a promise to keep all content unbiased and free of sales pitches to ensure an authentic, no-strings-attached environment for marketers to engage.

Our first event last year focused on finding the optimum digital marketing solutions.  Geoff Ramsey, CEO/Founder of eMarketer shared his Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn and it sure got our attendees engaged in various discussions to help them jump-start planning in the right direction for the coming year.  Today, we’re thrilled to see that many of the attendees have implemented steps built from those insights/conversations into their marketing programs.  We as an agency also applied those insights and it helped us innovate and grow during the downturn. (more…)

How should marketers tackle the economic downturn, diminishing budgets and changes in consumer habits that are happening everywhere?  Many companies/brands have already cut back on their marketing/advertising efforts, while others are taking this moment to reassess, reinvent and revitalize their brands/companies.

I’m a firm believer that challenges open doors to opportunities, and opportunities bring innovation with possibilities to further advance and emerge as a leader – as many brands did during the Great Depression.

As eMarketer CEO/co-founder Geoff Ramsey puts it, “Consumers are still consuming.” They are still out there, looking for deals and recommendations to make product choices. They are relying on all available resources to find what is right for them. For marketers, the good news is there are more options than ever to make a connection with customers.

Below is a compendium to Geoff Ramsey’s presentation at the Fuel for Thought event in November. It’s based on his recent whitepaper Digital Marketing Now: Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn that is available for free at eMarketer.

That’s it for today.   I hope we sparked some new ideas and look forward to seeing your test programs in market.

We launched the Fuel for Thought Series last week, a morning event hosted by Sigma Group, our trusted partners eMarketer and IncBizNet to present an overview of the current digital media landscape and provide clarity and insights on best practices for optimizing interactive programs.

Our thanks to Geoff Ramsey, CEO/Founder of eMarketer, for an enlightening presentation and sharing his Seven Strategies for Surviving the Downturn.

It was a pleasure to meet and greet our distinguished guests. The dynamic Round Table Discussions could have extended well into the afternoon if time permitted. (more…)

Businesses both large and small face similar challenges in today’s highly competitive marketplace: how to gain visibility, grow, innovate and connect with consumers — but do it all with less, with minimal risk, while bringing in fast results.

The convergence of digital and emerging media offers exciting new possibilities to connect and converse with consumers and stimulate brand awareness. But at the same time, it brings new challenges: with media fragmentation and brands being unleashed into unfamiliar frontiers, success depends on employing new marketing approaches and strategies. (more…)