This Week's Favorite Marketing Links

I spent the last couple of days attending Innotech's e-marketing summit in Portland (my home town). I will say, this was time very well spent. I came home with my notepad filled with good ideas that we can apply today and in the future to our blogs and businesses. Since it's Friday and time for links, I wanted to share two highlights from the tradeshow.

1. I showed up at 7:30 am (gasp) just for yesterday's keynote by Don Tapscott, author of just-released Wikinomics. He believes that business will soon be revolutionized, and he shared a glimpse into our future where most work is done through collaboration. I, personally, am fascinated by futurists, especially those who have proven to be right on target in the past. Something tells me that Mr. Tapscott has another best-seller on his hands, AND that we'll be doing business much differently within the next few years.
2. The other session I really enjoyed was Paul Colligan's titled: "New Media Monetization in 47 Minutes or Less". This guy practices what he preaches, and he seems darned good at it. He's built his online reputation as the leader in podcasting, which has translated into sales of his books, directories, videos, etc. His session provided lots of practical tips and real things that bloggers, podcasters and others who dabble in social media can do to be more successful. Good stuff!

Don't you love it when research comes along that is totally in-line with, and supports your beliefs? This article that reports on recent CMO Council research does just that! I think the name says it all: "Churn Happens as Marketers Don't Leverage Customer Data and Analytics." It reports on how so many large companies don't have a clear understanding of their customers and that they don't have strategies in-place to grow their customer relationships. Yikes! On the other hand, it appears that there may be more of a need for people like Nancy and I, who specialize in data and analytics (sorry for the shameless plugs!).

For those multichannel marketers out there, you may want to take advantage of Kevin Hillstrom's spreadsheet that he's offering on his Mine That Data blog. I haven't downloaded it yet, but it promises to help you calculate a "Multichannel Purchase Index" to see how you are faring with your channel strategy. Sounds interesting!

Happy Fridays to all!