Inaugural Online Marketing Summit 2007 Concludes with Buzz in Marketing Community

March 14, 2007; 09:32 AM
The first annual Online Marketing Summit, a “vendorless” conference focused on educating online marketers with actionable insight, recently concluded in San Diego, California, to significant industry buzz and satisfaction amongst corporate marketers. In a post-event survey of the 300 attendees, 93 percent planned to attend the conference again due to its high-impact content, top-notch educators and vendorless environment.

“In over 20 years of attending marketing events, I have never been to a conference that provided such valuable information without being pitched by vendors–it was the absolute best I have ever attended,” said Diane Schofield, Marketing Director of Del Mar (CA) Fair Grounds.

The Online Marketing Summit tackled subjects that marketers in companies of all sizes–from the Fortune 100 to mid-size manufacturers–are trying to understand and utilize in the most cost-effective way possible. Over 65 percent of attendees were interested primarily in learning about Search Engine-related marketing and 56 percent were focused on Web site usability. Additional educational topics included Web site analytics, e-mail marketing, and Web site strategy. During the conference, attendees built a consensus that online marketing is evolving and has not been “figured out” by one company.

Sandra Zoratti from IBM commented, “We as online marketers are just starting to figure out what works or does not when it comes to the new online medium. There are no hard and fast answers yet. That’s why conferences like this are so important.”

Zoratti was a featured educator of The Summit’s one-on-one instructional workshops. Additional instructors included industry thought-leaders: Jim Sterne, President of Web Analytics Association; Eric Peterson, author of “Web Analytics DeMystified”; John Favalo, Chairman of the Business Marketing Association; Aaron Kahlow, Managing Partner, BusinessOnLine; Dana Todd, President of SEMPO, Kevin Heisler, analyst with Jupiter Research; and Mike Metz of Cisco.com.

"I came to the Summit hoping to validate some of our marketing strategies,” said Nick Johnson of Uptime Software. “The strong content helped me accomplish that and identify new tactics we were not considering before. We now have a more effective marketing plan and a clear view of where we are and where we want to be in our marketplace.”

“I think marketers are tired of large conferences that provide little in the way of actionable insight, too big to connect with peers, and often give attendees a headache after being exposed to a whirlwind of industry pontification,” said Aaron Kahlow, Online Marketing Summit Conference Chair and Managing Partner of BusinessOnLine. “That is exactly why we developed the unique format for the Online Marketing Summit to focus on education and achieving results. It was created by marketers for marketers.”

To learn more about the Online Marketing Summit 2007, view transcripts of the presentations and register for Online Marketing Summit 2008, please visit www.onlinemarketingsummit.com or email Sabrina Gallier at Sabrina@businessol.com.