Attending NEPA WordPress Meetup for March 2017

Last night was the NEPA WordPress Meetup for March 2017. It was a panel discussion regarding how agencies use WordPress with Jack Reager of Black Out Design (our gracious host, thanks Jack and team), Liam Dempsey and Lauren Pittenger of LBDesign in the Philadelphia-area, and your’s truly of Condron Media.

As these types of events typically do, the discussion meandered through many different topics including the reasons our agencies have decided to use WordPress as our platform for many of our projects, about how someone can get started using WordPress, about JavaScript and how it is the language that is currently eating the web, and even a bit about baking bread somehow.

One question that was posited by Phil Erb, our moderator for the evening, was what do the agencies or individuals get out of the WordPress community. Most of the answers were focused on what each individual gleans from WordPress-related events. If you’ve read my blog at all you know that I’m a strong advocate for attending events and that I think they have immense value. It was good to see all of the panelists agree on this point. I hope it spurs some in the audience to attend even more events and certainly more events out of the area and bring that energy and knowledge back to our nook in the mountains here in Pennsylvania.

It was a great meetup in a great space. Very glad to have been part of it.

Thanks to Phil and Stephanie for organizing the event, to Jack and his team for opening up their new space to us (they should be proud of the space they’ve created there, it is lovely), to Liam and Lauren for driving a few hours through fog and lastly to Liam for sharing his Duke’s pizza with me.

March 29, 2017

The exciting digital marketing landscape

Jack Reager of BlackOut Design, regarding the marketing panel we both took part in:

While we all share some similarities in terms of our background and types of organizations we’ve been a part of, what was most interesting to me was how we all use our knowledge not only to aid our clients, but at one point or another, to also help our own entrepreneurial endeavors. This is especially of note when it comes to the topic of digital marketing. While we look for solutions uniquely positioned for each of our clients, we all work daily to market our own businesses online too. In short we aren’t only working with the tools and techniques for our clients we are also leveraging them for our own organization’s goals.

I like Jack’s point here. The intimate knowledge a marketing firm must have to serve both their client’s unique interests and their own is manifold. And, it is a constantly moving target. Every single week there is a brand-new release of each of the front-running platform’s apps which add new features and capabilities. One incredible example of this is that Facebook’s Messenger app just passed version 100 this week.

It is an incredible time to be a marketer. Not only are small businesses getting far more reach for their money than ever before, they can also laser focus that reach and measure exactly where that spend is going with fine detail. To top it off, this capability also keeps the marketing firms honest and working really hard to squeeze every bit of return on their client’s investment. It is, quite literally, the very best time to spend money on marketing.

I’m so looking forward to this next decade.

December 23, 2016

Being on the “Ask the Web Marketing Experts” panel

Yesterday I was privileged to represent Condron & Cosgrove (more on this in January) at the NEPA Defense Transition Partnership panel discussion, through the Scranton Small Business Development Center, called Ask the Web Marketing Experts. I was flanked by other experts in the area including Jack Reager of Black Out Design, Gerard Durling of Coal Creative, and Ben Giordano of Freshy Sites.

Left to right: Jack, Gerard, myself, Ben.

The panel discussion lasted a few hours and ranged topics from the elements of an effective web site to how to find your voice with social media for your business. It was a great discussion and it was recorded. If the video is made public I’ll be sure to share it.

There were a few overarching takeaways from the panel. Here’s mine; Don’t write-off a new social platform simply because you do not use it or understand it. Don’t get stuck using the same marketing techniques for your business year-after-year. Just because you did one thing one year, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying something different the next.

Every social network that we use today was, at one point, written off by those that didn’t think they’d ever make a difference. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest – all of these got their fair share of shrugged shoulders in the beginning. Don’t be that person. Be willing to move and adjust as the market does. You’ll be able to do better marketing for your business.

December 14, 2016