Aaron will be speaking about “Technical” at Searchfest 2009 which will be held March 10th in Portland, Oregon. Get your tickets now.
1) Please give me your background and tell us what you do for a living.
I consider myself and educator and advocate for spreading the word on online marketing best practices. I run a new educational consortium called the Online Marketing Institute built to validate educational best practices and “certify” marketers for such. Many know my efforts behind the Online Marketing Summit (which is coming to PDX in June as part of the 22 City Whistle Stop National Tour starting in May); lastly, we are working with leading bloggers like yourself to bring the best content to light at our Online Marketing for Marketers blog. I guess if I have to go further, I do write for ClickZ column and many other pubs as well as speak at many of the marketing events. The only other professional element people tend to like is my being named top 40 under 40 Entreprenuers 2 years ago by Metropolitan magazine. Personally, I just had a son in January and now reside in San Francisco.
2) How can a traditional marketing pro evolve into an effective online marketer?
This is one of my favorite questions. I think it’s quite simple and easy. It all starts with fully embracing the online medium. Get involved, get engaged. Using facebook, blogging, (linkedin does NOT count), researching best practices and attending shows like Search Fest are the way to start. Once one prioritizes Online marketing and educating oneself, the rest really comes down to discipline to sticking to the learning process. The good news is if you commit yourself to a year of learning, you will soon find yourself becoming known in the office as the expert and what a great career differentiator. It would be alittle too promotional for me to recommend our own educational efforts, so would advise just do some research on the web to start and begin the networking process and asking peers where they get their info.
3) Why is transparency so important in online marketing?
Well that would be to assume that I think it is. I do subscribe to the theory in general. Meaning when you write on the web, whether it be a blog, a forum, content on your own website, et al.. you need to fully disclose who you are, what you intent is and really allow people to see the real you, not some fake persona or marketing ploy of course will back fire. Remember the web is more than just a broadcast/marketing platform and medium it started and will continue to dominate as a fully duplex communication tool (i.e. TV/Radio/Pring only one way) so integrating the two is critical to remember and if we forget, the voice on the end of this communication receiver will respond negatively if they respond at all.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.