Online Marketing Summit - Recap

Search Marketing Blog

Online Marketing Summit - Recap

The first three months of 2008 at EngineWorks are proving to be incredibly action-packed! New client launches. Traveling and presenting. Integration of a new bid management platform. Refinement of our service offerings (more to come). And, most recently, exhibiting at SearchFest ‘08 here in Portland. Unfortunately, all this activity has prevented me from providing a recap my presentation at the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) in San Diego on February 21, 2008. Now, that I have a slight break in between SearchFest (03.10.08) and SES New York coming-up next week, here is a quick review of my experience at OMS.

The first thing I noticed was that the presenters of this conference place a tremendous value on search marketing education above all else. So much so, that there were no vendor booths or promotional activities at the venue. This was a unique experience for me, given that I am used to larger industry conferences, such as Search Engine Strategies, which place a significant emphasis on exhibitor space and vendor promotion. I truly enjoyed this facet of the conference.

In addition, the event was very well organized, adequately staffed, and professional orchestrated by the OMS crew. I was also impressed with the level of participation from the attendees.

Here is some of the personal insight that I was able to take away from OMS :

Companies of all sizes (but, especially big advertisers) are still attempting to separate the value of Social Media from the hype.
B-to-B Social Media is difficult to execute, but not impossible.
The majority of business attendees at OMS still do not grasp the most pertinent concepts of search engine optimization (SEO).
Many attendees are still having difficulties tracking the performance of their search engine marketing campaigns.
Most attendees have not considered that SEO would be far more effective if incorporated prior to Web site development.

(Photo courtesy of Patty Mooney at Crystal Pyramid Productions. Thanks Patty!)

Overall, I highly recommend attending the next Online Marketing Summit. The event is especially valuable for individuals and companies that are new to search engine marketing. OMS provides a unique venue for frank and open conversations pertaining to the latest advancements in search engine marketing strategies.

I’m already looking forward to next year!

If you also attended this year’s Online Marketing Summit, I would love to hear your opinion of the event. Drop me a reply to this post.