MAMP Workshop Speakers Flex Their Marketing Muscles

Armed with handouts for note taking and strategizing, attendees at the February Miami Arts Marketing Workshop “Marketing Muscle,” hosted by the Arts & Business Council of Miami, were prepared to go back to their organizations filled with new ideas and concepts to empower their marketing plans.Three essential components of the marketing process were covered: consumer, content, and strategic planning, with keynote speakers teaching participants how to target their audience, effectively tell their story and leverage compelling content to their advantage.Presenters included Todd Paton, president at Paton Marketing; Sandi Abbott, owner of Xpresso Content Café, and Annabel Mendez and Elizabeth Monterrey of Marketites.Paton presented four key factors:

• Foundation: Website
• Lead Generation: Search Engines
• Reputation: Online PR and Offline Networking
• Communication: Email and Social Media

“Master these four and you will have huge success on the Internet,” Paton says.He then moved on to SEO vs. PPC and spoke about market and keyword search -- and spying on competitors’ sites to strategize for better search finds. He logged on to the spyfu.com site, showcasing it as a perfect tool to find top competitors and discover what their budget is on paid ads.Google and the tools they have available to find out how many people are searching for you are ideal, he says, because “you can put in different terms to find out what Google ideas list come up,” he says.Elance is a Website he uses to find freelance publicists to write releases for him, which he then submits to as many free distribution sites as possible.And he reminded everyone to “be proactive with raving fans and reach out to them to help in getting positive Yelp reviews,” he says.Sandi Abbott, a local expert of Constant Contact e-mail marketing, focused primarily on content marketing and engaging the audience in your story by working across all social media platforms, taking action, focusing on certain times to deliver your message, and knowing what devices readers are using.She encouraged attendees to incorporate hash tags into e-mails as well as Twitter, because “those Twitter hash tags become part of your sound byte,” she says.Also, incorporate live moments as well as Throw Back Thursday (TBT) or Flashback Friday messages into Twitter. And because 65% of e-mails are opened on the phone and 68% of content is viewed on mobile “it’s important to be aware that e-mail marketing is being viewed on a phone so use 11 point font for your copy and 22 points for headlines for best viewing and review before sending,” she says.Use different lengths of copy for different efforts and know that tweets are closer to 120 characters, because you need room for hash tags and handles. “Keep that in mind for folks who want to use your tweets,” she says. “Realize that it’s a community and so people will be drawn to extend your story.”Elizabeth Monterrey from Marketites introduced a very simple planning chart focusing on the digital marketing trifecta, which is earned, paid, and owned media.Owned media can be a Website, blog, or social media channels, while paid media is advertising including pay per click or paying an influencer to advertise. And earned media is what gives your company credibility, she explained.“A Website is your most valuable digital real estate media,” she says, “so the most important questions are -- is your Website useful, a good resource, reflective of your brand, up to date and easy to find?”Paid media is Pay Per Click, an advertising model that drives traffic directly to your site. “It even gives legitimacy to an organization’s site. It’s a way to guarantee you’ll always be at the top,” she says. And Ad Roll capitalizes on people that have already been to your site and also tracks cookies, plus it pays per impressions.She pointed out top e-mail marketing tools like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact and Emma, which all give access to real-time data, including what the visitors are clicking on. The data reports on Mail Chimp, for example, “help you know if you’re staying on track in terms of how e-blasts are doing.”Abbott, Monterrey, and Mendez then manned tables at the workshop, answering questions from participants and giving more insight. They had this to say about the one-on-one interaction:“I was happy to see so much interest from the participants. They were full of challenging questions that made the interactions intellectually engaging. The arts are different from my corporate experience, and I learn from the attendants too,” Mendez says.“Everyone had different marketing ‘pain points.’ People had really great ideas and marketing tactics already, I think for a lot of them it was learning about all the new marketing technologies available to make their marketing efforts more efficient and effective,” Monterrey says.“I had a few folks tell me that they really enjoyed the presentation and found it very informative and helpful. One person also told me that the presentation was very focused on the audience present and they appreciated it. I created this particular presentation specifically for MAMP, so I was very glad to hear that I hit my target!” Abbott says.As for participant Phillip Bracken, marketing and social media manager at Arts at St. John’s, he says “the best part of this MAMP workshop for me was the three-fold approach their guest speakers took: What to do, how to do it, and why it’s important. Pairing this with real-time advice from experienced facilitators is invaluable.”