I budget a lot of money on seminars every year, I feel my education is important to me and my business. Although IMA is fairly a new trade association, I continue to be impressed with the conferences that is put on. This year’s conference, which I’m still thinking about, was no exception.
I didn’t have the opportunity to go to all of the ASD & IMA seminars (this photo by IMA president Fred Neff is of just one of the well-attended seminars).
Because I’m familiar with videos and blogging, the rest of the social media venues and networks intrigue me most. So I found this video extremely powerful, and I hope you’ll take the time to watch it.
I keep remembering what Rick Wilson of Miva Merchant (an IMA diamond member) said: social media is a “circle of life.” It’s about the three C’s: connections, then conversation, and then conversations. So if we can build a community of supporters for our businesses and give them good content, they can help us tremendously with our marketing.
Here are some free tools I learned about at the conference:
Backtype.com, which is a real-time tool for you to keep tabs of what people are saying about your business
Alterian has a freemium version of its monitoring service for you to monitor your social media venues
Here is a free tool that helps you with documents, www.docstoc.com
Here is a preview of just one session from the 2010 IMA Conference….
Have you ever shopped on a website and couldn’t find the checkout link? Have you wanted to add another product and couldn’t figure out how to do it? Were you required to fill out a lengthy registration form that seemed to never end? And then you finally got to the end only to find out that the products were out of stock? Does this describe YOUR checkout process?
Customers want to buy your products and they want the process to be quick and easy without any hassles. Rick Wilson, MIVA Merchant will be presenting “Top 10 Tips for Designing a Great Checkout Process” at the Internet Merchants Association Conference in Las Vegas, March 2-3, 2010. This is just one topic that you don’t want to miss!
We all think we are the best person to grow our business. The best person for SEO, the best web designer, the best IT person, the best at everything we do. But the problem is that your competitors think the same. The e-commerce industry moves so fast that it is actually impossible to keep up with all the trends and changes. You need help; we all need help to stay ahead of our competitors.
I have taken my education very seriously the last few years and to be honest, the improvement in my bottom line is the proof that it was well worth it. I have gone to business seminars, web design conferences, SEO conferences and many marketing seminars and to me, the cost of being away from my business and the conference expenses were worth every penny. A conference can cost up to thousands of dollars and when you spend this kind of money, it is important to make sure that this investment is going to help your business grow.
One of my favorite conferences that I look forward to every year is the one from the Internet Merchants Association (IMA) which will be held in Las Vegas, March 2-3,2010. It is presented in conjunction with the ASD/AMD Sourcing Show where IMA offers free business seminars to the attendees. This year on the 1st & 2nd of March, IMA will present titles that include “The ABCs of Web Design”, “Big Ideas for Small Businesses” and “Get Found in Search Engines: SEO 101″ to just name a few.
Rick Wilson, Vice President of MIVA Merchant will present an important topic at the IMA Conference, “Top 10 Tips for Designing a Great Checkout Process.” I look forward to hearing what expert Rick has to say about the checkout process. The checkout process for your customers is so important and if your customers “don’t get it” then you can be out of business quickly.
While I love to blog, I am not consistent with the “other” social media stuff. I really do understand it but there has to be a way to make it more financially viable for my business. “Nine Ways to Make Your E-Commerce Site More Social” will help me pull it all together and complete my 2010 plan for my business. Another title that I am looking forward to attending at the IMA Conference in March is “How 21st Century PR Can Build Your Brand”.
I hope you can attend the IMA Conference, March 2-3 in Las Vegas. If you do attend, track me down and I will be happy to buy you a few drinks in the IMA Networking Suite.
Good morning from San Antonio. It is good to be home, but now I have to get to work putting all this new information to work in my business!
If you missed the last day of the conference, you missed out on some great information. Michael Levit from Vendio was the first presenter “Cross Channel Selling Costs and the Effects of eBay’s New Pricing.”
Mike spoke about the importance of creating and running your own website store. Get your webstore established now, as internet retailing is only going to get more competitive in the future. He gave us valuable information on how to market a webstore through SEO, SEM and CSE’s (comparison shopping engines).
Next up was David Platt from Infopia presenting “Converting Browsers into Buyers”.
David cited a survey done amongst internet shoppers that pinpointed the 6 Problems Encountered Shopping Online.He also gave us several do’s and don’ts on creating a website as well as how we can learn from the websites of the big companies who spend thousands of dollars on research.
The last presentation I was able to attend was presented by Suzanne from AGenius Marketing on “Building a Successful Website.” Suzanne gave a great presentation about keeping your website fresh, how to choose a designer and shopping cart and the importance of continually testing your site.
There was so much information presented in these seminars that I am glad I took detailed notes as I know that I gained thousands of dollars worth of information from just these three speakers. I hope everyone reading this blog will seriously start making plans for IMA’s conference next year. Your investment will be returned tenfold.
Howdy. Day 2 was very fast paced – my head is still spinning from all the information that was presented by the speakers as well as conversation with other members.
Upon registration, some of us received canvas tote bags compliments of BuySafe with the IMA logo on one side and the BuySafe Logo on the other. In my bag was the book “eBay Power Seller Secrets- 2nd Edition” by Debra and Brad Schepp. This was exciting to me as I am quoted in this book! I will be available for signings later today
The first presentation was given by Matt Singer of TalkMarket – How to Create an Effective Video Presentation. We learned tips and tricks to create an effective video designed to keep the potential buyers attention and convert them to a sale.Video marketing is the new internet marketing vehicle.If you’re not doing it – it is something you need to seriously consider!
The next presentation was by Justin from Google – Optimize your Existing Adwords Account to Increase ROI. This was a very fast paced presentation that was very technical. IMA will be obtaining the PDF presentation to post to our members. Because this was a very technical presentation, I can’t say I understood everything, but I took lots of notes because I know this information will come in handy down the road.Others who are using Google Adwords were amazed to find out they were not using all of the tools at their disposal.
The next two presentations I missed as I was working on my video for TalkMarket. They were the Wall Street Panel and SEO by OrangeSoda Marketing. Hopefully we’ll get some other attendees to write about these presentations.
While I was practicing for my TalkMarket video guess who walked into the room? Ina from AuctionBytes! It was exciting to meet her and talk to her. She said she will follow up with me to possibly include a link to my video in one of her blogs or newsletters! Also helping me was a very nice lady from Vendio, Crystal & Darol from 4Ever Funky Footwear. I haven’t seen my video yet as they were still editing it last night, but I’m very excited about it. Several attendees had videos made and we will hopefully see them today.
The last presentation was the KeyNote Address by eBay. Unfortunately, Stephanie Tilenius was unable to make it, so the presentation was given by Jim Ambach, VP Seller Experience. He did a great job. This presentation talked a lot about the recent changes that have been made by eBay as well as the future changes they’ve already announced.I got the distinct feeling that eBay IS listening to sellers, although they may not agree with everything sellers believe should happen.I also believe that eBay is trying to bring back buyer with these changes.
Howdy everyone! Beautiful weather today in Vegas – the sky is blue and the mountains are gorgeous.
Yesterday consisted of walking the tradeshow and meeting up with other IMA members at the Hospitality Suite. I think just about everyone was there, or so it seemed from the roar! The Events Committee did an excellent job making sure there was plenty of food and drinks for everyone.
I met a gentleman from TalkMarket last night and discussed their marketing strategy. It sounds like they have a great concept with video listings being marketed to hotel guests. We will learn more today at their presentation.
Steve introduced me to Kimberly Maul, writer and editor of MerchandEYES Blog, the officisal ASD/AMD blog. We are discussing linking our two blogs in order to bring more information to readers of both blogs.
Today will be a busy day with more tradeshow walking in the morning and then seminars in the afternoon. I will post again tomorrow morning with information from the seminars.
