On a blustery November morning, nearly 400 MIMA members and guests convened at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis for the monthly presentation and networking event.

It was standing room only; the crowd buzzing with conversation beforehand, listening intently during the program (and laughing together at the speakers’ humorous comments) then asking thoughtful questions before departing. And if this kind of participation continues to increase, the nation’s largest regional Internet Marketing Association may need to start reserving larger venues – a la convention centers or sports arenas.

7:30 am comes pretty early for most peoples’ schedules. At that hour, what could possibly bring together so many marketers, innovators, entrepreneurs, creatives, new media types and others who are curious about latest developments in the interactive space where technology and business intersect?

In addition to the quality of the content, it might be the opportunity to share ideas and inspiration – over coffee and a tasty breakfast – with leading thinkers in our industry. If you have attended events before, you know. If you have not, make a point of attending a future event to see for yourself.

This month’s program, the Constant Challenge to Acquire and Convert, served up some classic marketing strategy with a heavy emphasis on contemporary interactive tactics. The information was presented by John Barton, Vice President of Creative Services of Sight Marketing and Tom Masterman, Associate Director, Earth Collaboratory Initiative for the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

Far from being a boring theoretical lecture or a dry technical discussion, John and Tom made their presentation equal parts education and entertainment. Effortlessly switching back and forth between the roles of straight man and comedian, it was like watching the Smothers Brothers* talk about what’s going on in the interactive world instead of current global geo-political affairs.

Indeed. Interspersing smart marketing ideas with smart aleck commentary made a fairly content-heavy presentation stream by effortlessly. And they wisely provided key take aways and practical “how to” ideas you can take back to the office and begin using right away. All in all, an excellent way to start the day.

Take away number one: Measure everything – don’t accept unfocused targets or unmeasurable social media.

Associated action item: Go to wefollow.com or twazzup.com and listen.

Take away number two: Be organized – coordinate tactics, separate measurement (drive traffic for each tactic to a different URL, use different key code, etc.) and plan for data-driven relationships.

Associated action item: List campaign elements and expected outcomes, then make sure you can isolate what is driving results for each.

Take away number three: Get personal – know the story for each individual … so you can write the next chapter.

Associated action item: Take your customer service manager out to lunch, and your sales manager out for drinks, and ask a lot of questions that will help you gain insights into your customers’ relationship with your products, services and brand.

For more details, please review the take away slide they provided.

* Cultural reference for the younger crowd: The Smothers Brothers were a popular comedy duo in the late 60s known for liberal politics and championing social causes. Look them up on YouTube. You’ll laugh at more than the turtleneck sweaters. And you might think about what is happening in today’s news.

On August 12, about 200 MIMA members and guests gathered after work at the Metropolitan Ballroom in Golden Valley to sip cocktails, snack on hors d’oeuvres and network. And a fine evening was had by all.

Our guest speaker for the evening was John Dames, Design Director at CoolFire Media who traveled up the Mississippi from St. Louis to share his experience as a designer who has “done it all.” From print design to motion graphics to commercials, and now, most recently, iPhone applications.

John’s philosophy is simple. “My goal is now and has always been to make stuff. Not talk about it, write about it or think on it. But find a way to get it done and execute.”

Sounds like a common sentiment from most of the designers I know. One of the first things he said by way of introduction to his presentation was that he wasn’t a public speaker. So the evening depended kind of heavily on samples from the CoolFire Media reel that he brought with him as examples.

With that in mind, here are some gold nuggets taken from an hour and a half of ramblings, tangents and free-association on the subject of designing across platforms. This was all good right-brain stuff, after all. You just had to really listen for it.

General observations
“When taking on a new design challenge, it’s okay not knowing everything about the tools you are using. What you don’t know means you innovate.”

“Less people, money, resources and time has forced the return of the holistic thinking role of a designer.”

“Talent can trump depth and infrastructure any day. With the right people you can accomplish great things with small teams.”

“Designing across platforms allows marketers to more effectively create the user experience they want their audience to have.”

“Designers are now taking a more defining role in developing the user experience.”

Strategies for success
1. Take a holistic approach to production. “Want to do everything. Be happy doing anything.”

2. Allow cross pollination of disciplines. “Don’t just execute ideas – feel empowered to have ideas and share them with others on the team.”

3. Encourage blurring of roles. “Who knows where design is going to take you. Listen to everyone.”

What is coming next culturally and business wise?
“More advertising and branding messages will be integrated into content.”

“The internet is becoming more codified, less of a content dumping ground.”

“Media is all independent of the medium it appears in.”

“Procedural culture is driving change – nothing stays the same.”

“Design will become even more relevant, to help facilitate effective communication.”

Conclusion
What gold nuggets did you leave with? Reply to this blog post with some of the highlights you found meaningful.

What a Ride!

In the past few months, MIMA has grown to more than 1100 members, and then some! It’s been a fast and furious growth curve for MIMA which started just over 10 years ago as a small salon gathering. See the timeline developed in conjunction with the 2008 MIMA Summit for a little retrospective on MIMA’s growth and evolution.

He’s Not Just a Number, He’s MIMA Member #1000
The MIMA Membership Committee dropped in for a surprise presentation to MIMA member #1000, Brian Haugen of Priority. See the video and See photos.

Brian’s number came up as part of Priority’s group membership earlier this year. With the help of several Priority players, including Brian Bierbaum and Dan Humiston, the MIMA Membership committee surprised Brian with the announcement. In thanks for his monumental membership, the MIMA presented Brian with a one-in-a-thousand t-shirt designed just for him and a highly-coveted pass to MIMA Summit 2009 (which opened for early-bird registration).

The 1000th member event was captured on video, with special thanks to Priority’s Dan Humiston for shooting/editing and to Buzz Cutz for contributing the music. The Priority team helped assure it was done in style, tiara and all.

Thanks to Brian Haugen, and to all MIMA members, for making MIMA a vibrant, 1000+ strong community.

Sincerely,
Ben Wallace
MIMA Membership Director

So where are you reading this blog post from? Your home in Minneapolis. Your office over the River in St. Paul? Or a coffee shop in Mexico?

You know they call it “the world wide web” for a reason. And as the infrastructure to support it expands around the globe – and as the technology to access it becomes more affordable and readily available – the Internet truly is facilitating communication across widely dispersed geo-political boundaries. So visitors to your website could be coming from anywhere on earth, really.

Lots of smart interactive marketing professionals recognize the Internet’s burgeoning capability to facilitate international transactions. Recently, 200+ members of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (and guests) met at W Minneapolis for our July event, featuring a presentation by Joe Kutchera an expert in online marketing and building sales in Latin American markets and founder of dotGlobal, an international e-commerce and media consultancy.

Joe spoke to the group about concepts related to localization and internationalization, using Latin American markets as an example. Here are select highlights from his full presentation.

Localization trends
Joe gave us some examples of how geographic boundaries can affect shopping behavior.

Price. According to Joe, who lives in New York City, many people in Manhattan cross the Hudson River to save on groceries and gas, because prices are less expensive and taxes are lower in New Jersey. Or compare the prices for the same products available on Dell’s U.S and Mexican online stores (both prices given in USD).
• Inspiron 13” – Dell.com: $499; Dell.com.mx: $665
• Studio Slim Desktop – Dell.com: $399; Dell.com.mx: $702
• Dell V305 Printer – Dell.com: $99; Dell.com.mx: $132
(Sources: Dell.com and Dell.com.mx, July 2009)

Availability. Joe shared several anecdotes about Latin American friends who frequently seek out U.S. sources to buy products because they often have greater selection and better quality. For a local example, who among us as creative and enterprising MIMA members have not crossed the St. Croix River on a Sunday afternoon at least once to replenish the liquor cabinet after a rollicking party the night before, because of Minnesota blue laws prohibiting alcohol sales on Sunday?

Internationalization trends
Joe provided a variety of figures verifying what we already know: the Internet is an increasingly international space. A look at the top 50 ostensibly U.S. websites shows that many are getting more traffic from abroad than from U.S. visitors. The New York Times web edition gets 42% of its readers from abroad, Twitter 51%, YouTube 81% and Facebook 82%.

Where could these visitors be browsing your website from? According to Internet World Stats, the top five most used languages on the Internet are: English (430.8 million), Mandarin (276.2 million), Spanish (124.7 million), Japanese (94.0 million) and French (68.2 million).

Indeed. For those of you who think visually — or for you verbal people like me who need context to put large numbers into perspective — try this on. The Minneapolis Star Tribune print edition reported two days after Joe’s presentation that China now has more people who are online than the entire population of the United States.

Opportunities for marketers
How are Latin Americans and Spanish-speaking people in the United States finding your website? By typing Spanish terms into their favorite search engines. Joe suggests making sure your SEO strategies include optimizing your site for Spanish (and other important international languages).

Look at your media plan. Joe said to think about your audience’s international language needs or professional interests horizontally across the vertical media channels in your strategy.

Target your messaging. Joe said there are a lot of ways to deliver messages to international audiences.
• By IP address or geographic region
• Re-target (follow up)
• Behavioral/linguistic
• Contextual (by subject)
• Profession/company/social network
• Country

Explore emerging g-commerce best practices. Joe said there is tremendous opportunity for marketers in the United States who make it easier for customers from around the world to buy their products.
• Give your visitors a choice of geographic denominations to transact in and make your offers available in multiple denominations.
• Give your visitors a choice of geographic locations to pick up products they order. If you do not have a physical presence in a foreign market where consumers are looking for your product or service, partner with a business there who can serve as a distributor for you.

I am pleased to introduce to you three new members of the MIMA Board of Directors. Katia Holmes joins the MIMA board as a Membership Director, and Betsey Kershaw and Christopher Pollard join the crew as Marketing Directors. I salute them with a big thank you! and wish them well in their leadership roles. For this introduction I asked each of them a few questions that will compliment their regular MIMA Board bios and provide a bit of an ice breaker and way to reach out and connect with them.

1. How long have you been a MIMA member and/or attending MIMA events?
2. What inspired you to seek a seat on the board?
3. Can you share any new ideas, approaches or goals that you have for building MIMA’s membership or marketing MIMA?
4. What social networks can other MIMA members connect with you on?
5. Do you have a website (your own or employer) you would like to share with folks?
6. mac or pc? care to comment on that? go ahead… have some fun with it….

Katia Holmes – Membership Director (joining forces with Ben Wallace)

1. Three years. My first MIMA event was August 2005. My second event was in 2008. The three year lapse was due to extensive travel and long hours. I am glad to be able to attend again.
2. I like what MIMA has to offer. I have enjoyed all of the events. I want to get the word out about how great the events are, the information and the education MIMA provides is wonderful for the Minneapolis community. Plus you guys serve great food and wine at the events!
3. Growing membership? Grow from within. During these crazy economic times it is going to be more difficult so it will be so much more important to show the benefits and value (i hate that word). There are a lot of companies, including agencies that want to educate their employees but can not send them to conferences because they are expensive. Well in their own back yard they have MIMA and for the same amount or less of a conference they can have multiple people join and learn.
4. I can be found on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter @katian I think that is it.
5. My employers website is ideapark.com
6. MAC! I have had too many blue screens of death to ever go back to a PC. PC’s are just such a pain. I love my MAC it is intuitive, where as a PC thinks in a box, and nothing good can come of that. Plus my first computer ever back in the 80’s was a MAC.

Betsey Kershaw – Marketing Director (joining forces with Christopher Pollard)

Christopher Pollard – Marketing Director (joining forces with Betsey Kershaw)

1. I’ve been attending events since 2004 and a member since 2005.
2. I want to give back to an organization that has given me so much.
3. MIMA has played a valuable role to help foster the development of an extremely talented interactive community. I believe Minnesota is a hotbed for strategic and tactical innovation and amazing creative work and thinking. I look forward to working with my fellow co-marketing directors to develop an integrated strategy to help spread the word about MIMA and its member’s good work.
4. Social profiles include:
   • Twitter: @chrispollard
   • LinkedIn
   • Plaxo
   • Facebook
5. Whoop Design: www.whoopdesign.com
6. My first computer was an Apple IIc. So, the answer would be Mac.

This deep thought from MIMA’s very own Tim Brunelle refers to the highly successful Ignite Minneapolis at Solera on April 22nd. With over 500 people in attendance to hear 23 five-minute presentations on topics from robots to mullets, it was surely a night to remember. Not to mention free beer and the who’s who of the Minneapolis advertising and creative community made a great mix for conversation and people watching.

As you know, MIMA loves to represent so not only were we a sponsor but two of our very own board members Michael Kraabel and Elizabeth Saloka threw caution to the wind and gave it their all for 120 seconds. We are all very proud here at MIMA so make sure to check them both out on Ignite’s YouTube channel.

Another Ignite sponsor, Catalyst Studios, has generously put together a video that highlights the night and leaves us wanting more (and yes there’s more). If you didn’t make it, not to worry because Ignite Minneapolis #2 is in June and it’s not too late to sign up to be a presenter – remember it’s only five minutes!

So, when is the next opportunity to go to a bar and learn something? Glad you asked because it’s just around the corner. Come join us along with MCAD for CATFOA’s “Living in a Post-Advertising World” featuring Michael Lebowitz at the Fineline on Monday, May 11th. Hope to see you there and hope you learn something!

Question submitted by Tricia Knigge from travelleaders.com…

Ten months ago my company went through the rebranding and name change process for one of our lines of business. The name we selected for our flagship travel franchise brand is Travel Leaders (www.travelleaders.com). Given that the name is very literal at the time of launch we felt a tagline further explaining our business was not necessary. Through the rebrand and naming process we developed strong positioning, messaging, a brand promise, imagery and logomark to represent the new brand. The tagline topic continues to be brought up by executives therefore I’ve been tasked with writing a recommendation about whether or not a tagline is necessary. Please let me know your opinion on having a tagline, is it necessary or not? If possible reference any articles, white papers, etc that you’ve read/written on the topic that may be useful.

Why would 280 ordinarily sensible internet marketing professionals get up at the crack of dawn and convene at the Mill City Museum? Sure, the camaraderie was great. And the breakfast wasn’t bad either. But those are only two reasons our MIMA monthly events have grown to be so popular.

The real attraction, as always, was the content – a presentation on user experience given by Nick Finck, co-founder of Seattle-based Blue Flavor, a web design company that focuses on creating great user experiences.

So what makes a great user experience? And how can you test your website? Nick described seven fundamental building blocks, and provided valuable insights about them, that you can put to use today.

Useable. This should be a top priority for page-driven design. Very simply, make sure functionality works effectively for all platforms and browsers.

Findable. Lots of developers work really hard to make search functionality as robust as possible. However information architecture and navigation design is equally important. Or even more so. Remember: if you can’t find something, it might as well not exist on your site.

Credible. Give website users an emotional reason to believe in you, as well as a rational one. A clean, professional visual design that provides clear, simple content can go a long ways toward creating a sense of trust.

Accessible. This is not just about avoiding unnecessary java script or burying content in Flash modules. Give users the option to explore your site content without advanced functionality. This includes making sure your site is accessible by people with disabilities.

(The Web Accessibility Initiative is a global volunteer organization dedicated to sharing strategies, guidelines and resources to help make the web accessible to all.)

And there is a strong business case for paying attention to accessibility. Not only can poor website accessibility lead to expensive, protracted litigation, it can lead to lost revenue opportunities when users are denied access to your site.

Desirable. It is important to think about holistic user experience. Do you really know what your users desire? Do focus groups. Then make functionality easier for users and create positive (not painful) emotional experiences for them.

Useful. This is another big issue in user experience. Lots of technologies exist that allow designers to develop cool effects, but make sure they serve a purpose greater than just serving up some eye candy. That means no gratuitous animation or delays to load graphics.

Put another way: don’t make users endure your site and don’t go overboard with the gimmicks. Make your site fast to load and make it easy for users to find the content they are looking for. Web users are trying to find information and solve problems, so they are not looking for a CD-ROM experience with your site.

Bottom line: Nick wonders how many dollars are lost in missed sales opportunities and how many customers are lost because excessive features and functionality get in the way. Not to mention the dollars wasted on developing them.

Valuable. Focus on providing features that make your site easy to use. Focus on developing content and processes that allow users to find the information they need or complete a transaction in as few steps as possible. Don’t treat users as a source of qualified leads to bombard with marketing messages and touch points. Limit the level of commitment you expect users to give to you and let them choose how deep a relationship they would like to have with you.

Three other gold nuggets Nick shared.

1) We need to think, “device agnostic.” We are no longer designing just for the desktop. With new technologies and new applications – and many more advancements on the horizon, we need to serve up information and experiences based on the context of the device/application the user is using and what they are trying to accomplish by using it.

2) We need to fail more. Because we are not pushing ourselves hard enough. And critical feedback is important too. The more we vet usability and experience, the better it gets. Always remember: “Failure is not falling down. Failure is not getting back up.”

3) We need to come together on behalf of our users. Information architects, interaction designers, visual designers, usability experts, accessibility specialists, content developers and marketing professionals would be wise to keep our audience in mind at all times. It’s not about us – it’s about the people who visit our websites.

The key take away. The one most important thing Nick wants you to remember:

By creating good experiences for our website users, regardless of what they are doing or how they do it, we can successfully accomplish our business goals. And that’s what we all get paid for.

At a recent seminar, I was struck by the number of people wondering, “Will these slides be posted?” Struck because the nature of this presentation was such that, without the presenter, the slides wouldn’t do you much good.

It got me thinking about our constant use of slide-creating software, and I realized there are three things that really bug me about it.

1. Slides don’t tell me what I need to know.
Several weeks ago, I followed a friend’s Twitter link to a presentation on SlideShare. I dutifully watched it, but at several points found myself thinking, “Gee, I wonder what she talked about on this slide.” A big ol’ screenshot of a web site probably provided great fodder for her insightful commentary, but didn’t do me much good as a passive observer. If audio would have been included, it would have been a different story but SlideShare doesn’t include audio. Watching a presentation with no one presenting ends up feeling like listening to one side of a phone conversation: you get the gist, but not the whole story. And entire stretches remain a total mystery.

As my pal @rrazor said, “Slides are often (hopefully?) the most content-poor part of a presentation. SlideShare is just a tease.”

Put another way, if I can get everything I need from your slides alone — why would I bother coming to see you speak? And, if I can’t get everything I need from your slides alone — what’s the point of putting them on SlideShare?

2. I’ve had just about enough of slide culture.
I realize I’m swimming against a cultural tsunami that cannot be stopped, but I really wish we could scale back our use of slides. PowerPoint is the ubiquitous format for communicating everything. And I do mean everything. I recently got an invitation to an event that was — you guessed it — a PowerPoint slide. From what I can tell, the ability for this organization to animate the crap out of every piece of text and embed a soundtrack is what really sold them on this format. A nice, clean PDF simply stating the details of the event pales in comparison.

A colleague sent me a deck of slides that had no business being on slides in the first place; it really warranted several pages of text (like a White Paper). Cramming that amount of information into a set of slides is just silliness: it’s an attempt to bullet-ize information that shouldn’t be communicated in bullets. Thoughts that should be sentences end up as half-sensical phrases and groups of thoughts that should be paragraph end up as dense bulleted lists filling up the slide. Why even try to put that amount of data in a slide?

Something about our ADD/multi-tasking/Twitter-ized lifestyles seems to have made us loathe to communicate information in anything other than small, bite-sized chunks. But, guess what? Not everything can be communicated that way. In 2003, Edward Tufte wrote an article titled PowerPoint is evil. The guy’s got a point.

(He’s also got a longer piece on this topic, which I’d highly recommend, including a fascinating look at some slides from NASA about the space shuttle Columbia.)

3. If we really cared, we’d write it down.
Most of the time, when I hear people ask, “Will this be posted online?” what I think they are saying is, “Do I really need to take notes?” These days, we’re so busy tweeting and live-blogging during presentations that we’re only paying half-attention to the presentation itself. So, we want the slides to remind us of the half that we missed. Maybe I’m being old fashioned, but whatever happened to taking notes? If a presenter says something that you think is really important, WRITE IT DOWN. Is it really that hard?

There is one situation I can think of where I found slide sharing helpful. At an Adaptive Path seminar years ago, they distributed several workbooks. One of which was a printout of the presentation in small-slide format with an area for notes next to each slide. This was actually helpful; while the presenter was talking, I jotted down information related to what he was saying. There was so little data on the slides (compared to the oceans of data coming out of the presenter’s mouth) that the slides alone wouldn’t have been any good. The slides plus my notes were okay, but still not half as good as attending the seminar itself. So maybe that’s what’s bugging me: people mistaking the slides for the presentation. The two are not the same. And if they are, the presentation wasn’t worth whatever you paid to attend.

Am I wrong?
What is with our obsession with sharing slides? Maybe someone who voraciously devours presentations posted by other people can help enlighten me: what am I missing here? I can’t imagine asking Al Gore to send me the slides for his presentation, An Inconvenient Truth. Rather than striving to create slides to post for everyone to see, shouldn’t we strive to create presentations that are so engaging that our audience closes their laptops and listens?

I spend most of my time encouraging people to use technology. This week, I’d like to challenge you to not use PowerPoint (and Mac users — that means no Keynote, either). Let’s see how long we can make it.

[cross-posted at the Geek Girls Guide]

Chances are you have a number of different inboxes, all competing for your attention. Professional and personal e-mail accounts. Voicemail and instant messaging at the office, your mobile device and at home. And now there’s all the social media inboxes – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, YouTube, Flickr – the list goes on and on.

Talk about your inbox insanity.

While many internet marketing professionals thrive on exploring ways to use these tools to generate and share content, we are a clear minority. Indeed, a vast majority of our customers and prospective customers are finding the proliferation of inboxes overwhelming. And as a result, 1:1 social media networks are beginning to fragment in the same way traditional media did before.

These are all insights Jeffrey Rohrs, Vice President of Marketing for ExactTarget, shared with about 150 MIMA members and guests at our February workshop. Speaking to us on a snowy morning at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis he also shared these observations on the current state of email marketing, some tips for successful practice and a vision for the future.

Observation one – Marketers are not in control. Consumers now scan and delete messages that do not appear relevant to them to manage their busy inboxes. Plus, they appreciate the greater control over the source of messaging they receive offered by social media inboxes. So email marketing messages must become more personal and less promotional to be opened, read and acted upon.

Observation two – Marketing communications increasingly exist by invitation. This is especially true for Millennials.

Observation three – Invitations are easily revoked. Remember the recent Burger King “angry Whopper®” offer for a free burger to anyone who got rid of ten Facebook friends? Demand was so high, they had to shut down the application.

Observations one, two and three demonstrate that permission and relevance matter. Fail to heed this simple rule and risk being deleted from the inbox or dropped by the consumer.

Tips for implementing a successful email marketing program
• Create conversations, deliver meaningful offers and don’t push for the sale
• Give consumers the information THEY want and the respect THEY deserve
• Don’t “pollute” the inbox with irrelevant communications
• Position your communications as customer service opportunities
• Create “subscribers” who opt-in and look forward to your communications

Based on these observations and tips, Rohrs said to be effective email marketing programs must be built on smart use of market data. Shockingly, he cited research from the CMO Council 2008 that reveals that few of us are prepared to succeed.

• Only 6% of CMOs surveyed said they have excellent knowledge of their customers.
• More than 50% of CMOs surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of their customers’ demographic, behavioral, psychographic or transactional data.

Clearly, these numbers need to change. Rohrs suggests marketers strive to transform from thinking like siloed businesses to thinking like publishers. Based on this concept, he and his firm, ExactTarget, believe that the future of email marketing will belong to those who take an agnostic approach where subscribers rule.

Key take aways
• Serve individuals
• Honor their unique preferences regarding communication, content, frequency and channel
• Deliver timely, relevant content that improves their lives (always send value)