Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference | AIM Halifax May 2010

6:00-8:00
Pre-Registration Cocktail
Grad House, 6154 University Ave.
Dalhousie Campus

7:45-8:45
Registration
Rowe Building, Atrium, Dalhousie Campus

8:45-9:15

Welcome & Introduction
Embracing the Web

Main Hall
Today's web takes a central place in most companies marketing plans. And well it should. The challenge is how to make the most of the opportunities it represents.  AIM welcomes several leading ‘outside' speakers as well as many of our own region's knowledgeable experts to its two-day Internet marketing intensive event.

9:15-10:15

How to Make Love to Your Customer Online

Main Hall

• Keynote: Mike McDerment, Freshbooks

We all suffer at the hands of big nameless/faceless companies who see past you straight to your wallet.  As a small guy, that just makes it too easy to exceed your customers' expectations.  Just pay them attention and treat them well!  Be passionate about each and every customer.  Just like pink became the "new black", Customer Service is the new marketing.  Customer Service is a mindset and the mindset should be to "Make Love to Your Customers. In this little talk Mike is going to show you exactly how to "date" your customers buy using all the online tools available to you as well of course face to face communications so make sure you have your breath mints!

10:45-11:45

Social media, How Can it Really Help My Business?

Main Hall
Malcolm Fraser, ISL
Hype, reality, confusion... there is a constant chatter about Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other forms of Social Media, and most business owners and managers are confused by the whole concept. Malcolm will discuss the impact of social media on web marketing strategy, and discuss the reality how this cultural phenomenon can be used to advance business objectives.

Local Search & Finding the Right Customers (Panel)

Advanced Strategy
Mark Harper, VP Strategic Relations, GenieKnows.com
There are more tools today than ever before for targeting Online audiences - our panel of experts discusses methods, tools, and tricks for targeting local or regional audiences, and hitting the right targets for maximum success.

Understanding Design Principles (for Non-Designers)

SME Business Room
Jeff White, Brightwhite Design
You're not 'artistic'. It's OK, I suck at accounting. Yet, Brightwhite Design is still in business after more than five years. I guess some things can be taught. The basic tenets of design can be co-opted by even the most colour- blind among us and used to create websites that work. In this discussion, we'll go over colour combinations, patterns, grid design, typography, free tools and much more. We'll look at real world examples and discuss just what makes a 'professional' design look pro.

Keeping it Snappy: Improving Website Performance

Designers & Developers
M. Jackson Wilkinson
Speed on the web is one of the most important elements of the user experience. Whether your visitors are using a high-speed connection or a slow mobile connection, it's up to designers and developers to deliver a fast and responsive experience. We'll look at a handful of ways to make your site perform its best, and how to make the user feel like it's performing even better.

11:45-1:15: POWER LUNCH (Special Event)

Power Lunch I: What Works Now?

• Keynote Panel: M. Jackson Wilkinson, Daniel Burka, Mike McDerment

Three of our invited speakers share their insights on what is working (and not working) in today's Online market.

1:15-2:15

Integrating Mobile and Online Strategies to Monetize your Network

Main Hall
Matthew Thornton & Alfredo Tan, Yahoo! Search Marketing
As Canadian Small Businesses grow and adapt to our ever-changing economy, developing and Online Strategy remains one of the most important business factors that a company must take into consideration when creating national and international products & services.  Integrating mobile into an Online Strategy early on in your company's development will enable you to reach the broadest audience and compliment your key go-to-market activities.  Being able to understand and implement Online Business Models gives your company a competitive advantage.  Differentiate yourself by understanding how to position your business in the Online Space and unlock the benefits of sponsored search, and using mobile to drive awareness.

Digital Reputation Management - Google is Your Business Card

Advanced Strategy
Savior Joseph, Colour
The world of public relations has changed dramatically with online channels quickly becoming the news source of choice. PR Professionals and business leaders need to understand where their audiences are getting news and information and how an online public relations strategy can increase relevant traffic to your website and enhance your brand reputation. This discussion will cover online PR strategies such as social media monitoring and interaction workflow models as well as discuss the importance of Search Engine Optimization.

Live Website Review Clinic

SME Business Room
Our panel of professional consultants will review audience websites live, showing strengths and weaknesses, making suggestions for how to strengthen the brand, message, search engine rank, or whatever strikes them.  Take advantage - in the real world, these guys charge big bucks to give out the same advice!

Actionable Analytics

Designers & Developers
Stephanie Lummis, ISL
Do you want to attract more website visitors? Increase online sales, downloads or leads? Do both by understanding your website traffic stats. You'll learn how to spend less time analyzing the statistics and more time acting on them:

• Which statistics are worth analyzing
• How to interpret the statistics
• How to act on the data to increase website traffic and keep people on your site longer
• How to manage web analytics so it actually gets done

Google Analytics will be used as reference but this session is relevant to all stats software.

2:45-3:45

Presentation: Hearing and Acting on the Voice of the Customer

Main Hall
Eric Pierni, Kijiji
eBay Inc. was one of the early pioneers of the 'bottom up economy', the theory that all major business decisions come not from the CEO but rather from the CIC or Customer in Chief. The result was a culture where employees considered themselves stewards of the business and responsible to their main employer; the customer. The session will look at how Kijiji.ca leveraged the bottom up economy to build the largest and most visited free classifieds site in Canada. It will also examine the challenges of placing the customer first in a short-term profits driven business environment.

The Art of Persuading Your Online Customer

Advanced Strategy Room
Walter Melanson, The Property Guys
Are you looking to maximize how relevant you are with your customers? Then quit treating them like they are all the same. Learn how to create a "persona-based" strategy that will help you better align your organizations conversion goals. Persona techniques combine Hollywood style story telling with savvy business analytics to make outcomes and interactions more predictable. By allowing you to imagine their concerns, reactions, and questions - you will be better able to plan your interactions and shape your message.

Search Engine Optimization Secrets

SME Business Room
Rob Swick & Peter Sickles, AlphaSearch
Getting visitors to your site is vital to Online success.  Getting them to stay on the site is the next important step. This talk will show you the core tactics to drive high levels of web traffic and to make sure your website is doing everything it can to show your best image to your future customers.

Building the Mobile Web (Panel)

Designers & Developers
Developing for mobile is becoming increasingly common. No wonder when 80% of the world will access the web first through a mobile phone or PDA. How do you do mobile - and do it right?  What are the challenges and pitfalls?  Who needs it most and why?

3:45-4:45

Fail!

Main Hall

• KEYNOTE: Daniel Burka, Digg.com

I'll readily admit that I've made a lot of mistakes as a designer. Tons of small ones. And some big ones. I'm not terribly proud of any of my mistakes, but I am proud of the final outcome. Or, at least the outcome to date. The growth of Digg has been fostered by a healthy combination of successes and failures. Some things worked, some things didn't work so well, and some things just took some time to get right. How do we know what's working and what's not? What can we learn from both failures and successes? How are we gauging risk when we're planning? I'll discuss how iterative design strategies, effective communication with your users, and a healthy appetite for risk can help you build stellar products.

4:45-5:30
Kijiji Kitchen Party & Cocktail

Evening
Dinner in Halifax (plans TBA)

8:00
Coffee & Pastries

8:30-9:30

Don’t Listen to the Designer

Rob Swick, AlphaSearch
Today’s consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages daily. The Internet itself grows by a million pages a day.  In this deluge of information, how can you rise above the noise?  Where do you turn for guidance to make a strong Online brand? And most important - what are the rules for engaging customers and being heard and appreciated.

9:30-10:30

Persuasive Web Design: How to Engage Audiences with Color,
Shapes and Words

• Keynote: Molly Holzschlag, Web Standards Expert & Author.

Marketers and designers have long understood the need to use color, visual imagery and language to convey messages about products and services. In the past, most have focused on local rather than global use of these most powerful aspects of persuasion. In this session, Molly will examine color, shape and language in the context of a global environment, touching on what to avoid, what to use, and why. The results will help contemporary marketers become more adept at bringing their messages to global audiences in ways meant to encourage, inspire and persuade.

11:00-12:00

You Oughta be in Pictures. And Video. And Blogs. And 140 Character Updates... and...

Main Hall
Jeff White, Brightwhite Design
Social media is the term that's on everyone's lips these days, but how can you leverage it for your business? You know you have to be authentic, but you just can't stop selling your services when given the soapbox. This talk will show you how to exercise restraint and why it's important to be genuine. Jeff will offer real-world examples of how social media can impact your bottom line without making you look like you're selling snake oil.

Case Study: Selling the Stampeders Online

Advanced Strategy
Ryan Lejbak, Zu.com
Can a great website fill a football stadium? Our numbers show it helped. This case study will show how we combined a unique audience expansion strategy with the smart use of social media and rich media elements to increase fan support for the Calgary Stampeders football team online. The example highlights how having a client daring enough to explore new ideas (even the players got on board) helps open the door to a major win online. As the old saying goes, "Offense sells tickets, but good websites win championships!"

Live Website Review Clinic

SME Business Room
Our panel of professional consultants will review audience websites live, showing strengths and weaknesses, making suggestions for how to strengthen the brand, message, search engine rank, or whatever strikes them.  Take advantage - in the real world, these guys charge big bucks to give out the same advice!

My Boss Doesn't Get It: Championing Internet Marketing to the Man

Designers & Developers
There are some people out there that still just don't get it. And while they hem and haw about spending money on Internet marketing you're crying in your Stella while you watch your competitors leap ahead in the Online world. Arrrghhhh! Attend this panel and learn how to you convince those slow adopters that they need to get with it.

12:00-1:30 POWER LUNCH (Special Event)

Power Lunch II:  Branded Entertainment is The Future of Online Advertising

David UK, Heavy.com
Advertising today has moved away from the intrusive online model and toward less interruptive formats such as video commercials, sponsorship and branded entertainment which assist audiences in accessing new content. We will view successful case studies where top Canadian and Global brands have utilized online video and branding to deliver quality content in a clever and impactful way reaching targeted audiences challenging traditional television models. In this new frontier of digital video, Branded entertainment will rise as the future of marketing and entertainment to a consumer that is wary of advertising and overwhelmed by the clutter of online messaging.

1:30-2:30

Tourism Marketing Panel

Main Hall
If you're not online, you're not in the tourism business.  The online channel is so important for tourism, it's hard to survive without it. Learn what smart tourism businesses are doing to make themselves leaders in the online marketplace.

Pomegranate Phone Campaign: Changing the Way People Think About Nova Scotia

Advanced Strategy
Stacey Jones-Oxner & Albert Ianni, Bristol
Nova Scotia Come to life, the place branding initiative for the province launched a viral marketing campaign in September 2008 in an effort to get people talking about Nova Scotia in a new and positive way. More than 1 million visits later, the Pomegranate Phone campaign is still being blogged about around the world.

Email Marketing for Fun & Profit

SME Business Room
Steve Lionais, ISL
Email is still a ‘killer app' with the power to reach a huge audience efficiently and quickly.  Whether for lead generation, CRM, or sales, email marketing is developing as a total online advertising solution.

2:30-3:30

Is Print Dead? (Panel)

Main Hall
Panel
There’s no question that print is facing major challenges – from newspapers and catalogues to flyers and mail-outs, more and more publishing is shifting Online. What does this mean for these industries – and for companies trying to get the word out? Can online and print work together? Or is print dead?

Hustlin 101: Business Metrics for your Website

Advanced Strategy
Dan Martell, Flowtown
You wouldn't run a company without simple financial reports; ex: Revenues, Profit Margins, AR / AP, however most companies are o.k with having a website and not know what's going on.  Analytics aren't inherently actionable, auditable & accessible (3 A's of metrics).  In this presentation we'll review the key metrics that will drive your website to new levels.  You manage what you measure. What are you measuring? 

Going Social

SME Business Room
Joel Kelly
For smaller businesses, social media presents both challenges and opportunities. This session will discuss ways to make your business, product or service, more 'social'.  Through case studies showing how social media has grown businesses, and how businesses have come to terms with the social web.

Yahoo PPC Marketing Lab: Free $100 Start-up PPC Account

Designers & Developers
Yahoo! Canada Search Marketing Team
Learn how to start using pay-per-click and begin advertising Online before you leave the session! Yahoo! Search Marketing will take you step-by-step through the sign-up process, teaching you best practices and giving you a $100 credit towards click charges on all new accounts. Terms and conditions apply.

3:30-4:30

Marketing in a Downturn (Panel)

Main Hall
Technology has had its up and down, and marketing and advertising have ridden along with it. The current global slowdown is also showing effects on businesses and advertisers. Our panel discusses how to get the most return from your marketing, and to not just survive but thrive in this economy.

Writing for the Web

Advanced Strategy
Rob Swick, AlphaSearch
Content is king - still!  But being king isn't just about having content - that content needs to be smartly organized and structured for the web.  On top of that, content plays double duty in attracting web traffic through search marketing and other means. Find out how to optimize your content for a web-based audience.

Making Youtube a brand builder and other interesting ways to use video to promote your business

SME Business Room
Julian Gibbs, Firefly Digital
Video producer, Julian Gibbs will offer up a series of tips that will help you capitalize on The Internet's biggest Video sharing site.  Julian will also present some alternatives to Youtube and how they can not only support your brand but build an audience for your online offerings.

4:30
Closing Cocktail