SEM Canada Off, Vancouver Internet Marketing Conf Still On

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In case you were eagerly waiting for the SEM Conference in Calgary, you're going to have to wait a little longer. It has been postponed until October 2009. Apparently a major corporate sponsor is in the offing, but as you can guess, the big companies can't move fast enough to accommodate the short fuse that the conference has with it being originally scheduled for this September.

This is probably good, as being the first annual, there is a lot of ground work that still has to happen, that the relatively short timeframe didn't allow for. Better to wait and get everything ready and lined up, rather than rush it and risk a poor result. Also, the original date was VERY close to the Internet Marketing Conference in Vancouver, which attracts a VERY similar audience. IMC has not had a conference in Canada since Vancouver in 2002, and as a result, has a strong following.

We'll now have more time to prepare for IMC Vancouver, where we have both a speaking engagement on B2B search engine marketing, and a demo of ActiveConversion lined up. It's scheduled for September 11-12, 2008 at the Coast Plaza Hotel. Hope to see you there!

Labels: IMC Vancouver, Internet Marketing Conference, SEM Canada

posted by Fred @ 3:14 PM

Interview by Brian Carter

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Carter of Fuel Interactive, for the upcoming SEM Canada conference. I haven't had a chance to listen to it much, but it's a great way to cover alot of ground in SEM and online marketing.

Brian is the Director of Search Marketing for Fuel, based in South Carolina. Brian is an SEOmoz Pro Member and Google AdWords Qualified search marketing trainer, consultant, and speaker. Brian has more than eight years experience in the internet industry and is well known in the search engine marketing industry.

Being that one of our specialties in B2B and using SEO/SEM with longer sales cycles, we decided to cover those topics in detail. Brian was gracious to also ask me about www.ActiveConversion.com, which helps companies capitalize on search and online marketing.

The MP3 is around 45 minutes long, and I think you may find it interesting.

The interview is in his blog article which is here: http://adwordsconsultant.blogspot.com/2008/07/interview-mp3-with-fred-yee-of.html

Here is a condensed list of things we cover:

• Search marketing in the B2B space
• 2.5m businesses that could benefit from SEM
  
• Advantages of online marketing over offline marketing
• Why Microsoft would spend so much to buy Yahoo
• Branding vs. Niche direct marketing
• Case study: Evans Console who sells $250k consoles to NASA and FedEx
• Effect of interactive marketing on Yellow Pages
• The Calgary business scene, and search marketing scene
• Shifting from the part-time in-house to search marketing agency experts
• Conversion tracking for lead generation campaigns
• A more sophisticated way to track and stay in touch with long buying cycle sales prospects

Lightning round topics! Fred's quick opinions on...

• Twitter
• Yellow pages
• LinkedIn
• Local search
• Canadians
• Americans
• Calgary

Labels: activeconversion, b2b search engine marketing, Calgary SEM, fred yee interview, SEM Canada

posted by Fred @ 5:46 PM

SEM Conference in Calgary Sep 4-5

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A sign that search engine marketing has matured from a novelty and become a standard, if not vitally important part of marketing in Calgary and Alberta, is that the SEM Canada conference is taking place right here in September!

I think it's the first annual, and part of the reason is Laura Callow is helping to organize it. Laura's a transplanted Calgarian and she's bringing her 'big picture' skills she has from working with some of the largest companies in the world.

The website is up and running for this event, and early bird registrations are being accepted. It promises to be an excellent event, with speakers and panels that you would normally expect to see in San Jose, New York and London.

You can bet I'll be there as FoundPages is thrilled to participate in a conference that is geared toward something it has been evangelizing for the past 5 years. It will be great to invite our clients to something that has become important enough to warrant it's own conference in Calgary.

Visit the website and registration info. As things firm up, and the date gets closer, you can expect we'll update you more.

Labels: Calgary SEM, SEM Canada, SEM conference

posted by Fred @ 12:12 AM