Wednesday, June 13


9:00 AM - 4:00 PM (lunch is included)

Click on title for details



"DIRECT MARKETING IDOL"

Have you got what it takes to be a D.M. Creative Super Star?

Ever wonder how creative teams come up with award-winning, results-driven ideas? At this entertaining workshop, not only will you learn how, you'll be right in the creative competition yourself!

Start with Coaching. Warm-up with a morning seminar featuring 21 ways to generate breakthrough creative. (This is the same material The DMA described as "One of the best sessions presented" at their annual conference. )

Audition -- Time to strut your stuff! Over lunch, you'll join a group and get a "real world" assignment from a "real life" client. Then on to the Semifinals. Your group will generate creative concepts, using a toolkit of templates (expert agency creatives will be on hand for guidance). And then The Finals: Show what you've got to the judges. If you're in the winning group, you'll get plenty of fame, fortune and maybe even a record contract.

Alex MacAaron
Creative Director and Queen B
Plan B Marketing Communications
Alex MacAaron brings more than 20 years of direct marketing expertise to Plan B Marketing Communications, a full-service creative agency. She has received dozens of advertising industry awards and is past President of the New England Direct Marketing Association. She co-authored The New Marketing Conversation.

Walter Bumford
Creative Director
Plan B Marketing Communications
Walter Bumford has helped Plan B achieve great success for Bell Atlantic, Bay State Gas, GTE Internetworking, Cambridge Savings Bank and TUV America. He has art directed everything from direct mail to billboards and websites.

Dave Gordon
Senior Art Director and Illustrator
Plan B Marketing Communications
With more than 15 years of design experience, David Gordon focuses on creating direct mail and print campaigns from initial concept through final implementation. He is also the creator of "Gordy," a very popular comic strip.

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BEYOND THE BASICS OF DIRECT MARKETING

Anyone who wonders, "Is my marketing working?" will find this Workshop of great value. Your day begins with examining exactly how integrated direct marketing works...how marketing has evolved...the inevitable rise of digital and social media...managing relationships across multi-channels...how marketing analytics can improve marketing performance....and more.

Then you'll learn the strategies for data in this new direct marketing world. You'll find out how to set up a customer database and how to set data strategy. You'll get important advice on how you can control data quality and how to use data to scope your program deployment. Finally, you'll discover how to keep your campaigns going at Lightspeed by implementing effective multi-channel campaigns, using advanced online and offline multi-variant testing methodologies and utilizing campaign calculators to measure your costs and profits.

Mary Kay Galle
Cross-Media Marketing Specialist
Vermillion
At Vermillion, printing, creative and marketing services have merged and a return on investment is key. Drawing on a dozen years of experience, Mary Kay Galle helps clients plan and implement cross-media campaigns, automated web to print direct mail and more.

Christine J. Erna
Exec. Vice President
Fulfillment, Print & Mail Solutions Inc.
With more than 20 years of experience, Christine Erna began her career as a Mail Piece Design Analyst with the U.S. Postal Service and today, brings strong and deep professional experience to executing effective direct marketing programs for her clients.

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SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING: ACCESSING THE CRITICAL MOMENT

Search engines have become the No. 1 resource consumers and business decision-makers use to find and research products and solutions. That's why there's no other point of consumer or prospect contact with the ability to access the "critical moment" when your target audience is seeking exactly what you're selling.

It's vital that you ask, "Do I have a strong presence on the search engines?" and "How do I get my website's listing into the top search results on the major properties?" This workshop will help you answer these critical questions and maximize your organization's presence by using both paid and organic (free) search engine listings. You'll focus on the statistics, strategies, tactics and benefits in order to assess your company's search engine presence, find out how to convert search engine traffic into customers and leads...and more. Plenty of case histories will help you gain an in-depth understanding you can take back to the office and put to work.

Harry Gold
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Overdrive Marketing Communications
Since 1995, Harry Gold has been at the forefront in developing successful online programs for various agencies and Fortune 500 companies. He's helped General Motors, Harley Davidson, John Hancock, Dow Jones, LoJack, Cognos and many others. He's a recognized subject matter expert and columnist for ClickZ.

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SURVIVAL SKILLS FOR THE LIGHTSPEED WORLD

The Reversal of Marketing: Discover What Marketers Need To Know -- and Do -- To Prosper In A Lightspeed World

Traditional marketing efforts are no longer keeping up with the times. Greater media fragmentation and consumption, more channels, new tools, new practices and greater share of accountability make it much harder for marketers to effectively reach consumers. And because the consumer has evolved, the once-savvy marketer has lost control. Both newcomers and old pros need to update skills for this new landscape. Come here to re-engineer your career, by adding functional skills as well as "soft skills" like networking, reengineering yourself for the future and making alliances for future success.

Sheri Taylor Gilchrist
Vice President of Marketing
Captivate Networks, a division of Gannett
An accomplished direct marketer and CRM strategist for over 20 years, Sheri Taylor Gilchrist sits on the NEDMA Board of Directors and has worked with over dozens of marketing organizations including RadioShack, Dell, Citibank, The Boston Globe, American Express and others.

George Mercer
Facilitator
Marketing Professionals Network
George Mercer is a long-time DM copywriter and marketing consultant who has, over the past 12 years, established a career coaching/counseling practice that assists marketing professionals in identifying the right career directions, and making the right choices once they do.

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DIRECT MARKETING 101

Here's an outstanding opportunity to train staff members who are newcomers to direct marketing, and update and refresh old-timers. Starting with a definition of direct marketing, this fast-paced day is designed to give plenty of put-right-to-work ideas. Offers a thorough understanding of what makes DM work. Reviews the strategies, tips and advice needed to maximize the effectiveness and profitability of direct marketing campaigns. Shows you how to create direct mail and email that gets read, with offers that motivate enthusiastic action. Provides wisdom on smart response-boosting testing and analysis.

This NEDMA-sponsored program costs a fraction of what you'd pay for comparable training from the national DMA!

Pat Friesen
President
Pat Friesen & Company
Pat Friesen is a direct marketing creative strategist who says she's never met a product or service she didn't like. And that includes Hershey's Hasbro Toys, Procter & Gamble, Hallmark, Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and The Popcorn Factory. With over 25 years of in-house and agency experience, she runs her own direct response firm, writes a column for Target Marketing, is a member of the national DMA and has helped scores of companies all over the country achieve success. Her seminars are widely applauded as extraordinarily informative and inspirational.