Digital marketing event

Digital Marketing – From Google Tools to Social Media Networks
Thursday, 21 October 2010

(Joint Event between Bedford College and the Bedford branch of the British Computer Society)

We were very pleased with the success of our recent Digital Marketing event in the Studio Theatre at Bedford College - and delighted with the high turn out of over 110 delegates. 

The meeting started with an excellent talk on Search Marketing Essentials by Jeremy Chatfield, Merjis Ltd, Bedford.  Even with the rise of social media, search is still an enormous driver of online business and in his talk Jeremy discussed free and paid search and the relationship of display advertising.  Jeremy has extensive industry experience and a wealth of knowledge in the areas of search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising and this was evidenced in his comprehensive coverage of the subjects and in the response of the audience.

This was followed by an equally excellent talk on Social Media Marketing by Mark Cook, Search Marketing Director, Further Search Marketing Ltd, Norwich – advertised as “an exciting journey exploring the nuts and bolts of online interaction and how it’s possible to use people-power to fuel your marketing campaigns.”

Since Social Media is subject to discussion and debate within marketing departments across the globe – some for, but many against - it was appropriate that Mark started his presentation with ‘Why you should care about social media’ dispelling a number of myths and clouded thinking along the way.  This was then followed by a few warnings on how ‘not’ to use social media before finishing with a whistle-stop guide to building a social media campaign.  Mark provided a commonsense approach to a very important current topic which the audience could both learn from and engage with.

We were also grateful to Peter Dennis, Director of e-Marketing for the Swiss Investment Bank, UBS who join the question panel to share his experience of regulatory issues relating to online communications for corporate and institutional clients.

Jeremy Chatfield has kindly made his presentation (together with other information) available on his blog at:

http://blog.merjis.com/2010/10/22/search-marketing-essentials-talk/

Mark Cook's talk was similar to the excellent presentation he gave at the Fourth Chartered Institute of Marketing's (CIM) Digital Marketing Conference in July at Duxford Imperial War Museum, Cambridge.

A copy of this presentation is available on Further Search Marketing Ltd's website at:

We are very grateful to both speakers who freely gave up their time to attend our event and share their extensive experience and ideas.

From the feedback we have received the event was very well received and we hope to hold further sessions of a similar nature in the future.

“I just wanted to say that I found the seminar last night very informative.  I thought both speakers were absorbing and highly relevant to what I'm involved in at the moment.”

“I just wanted to say thank you for the SEO/Social Media event last night.  It seemed to go down very well with some really interesting points, and you had a great turnout.  It has given us a bit to think about!”

“The event was really informative and will really help me out with the websites I am currently working on.  I thought it was amazing - and seeing so many people there with a similar interest really made me feel part of a community.”

“Thank you and well done to you and the team for delivering a well organised and worthwhile event.  Good to see it was so well attended.”

Future events will be published on our IT Employer website.

We hope to meet you again at further events in the near future.

Speaker Information

Search Marketing Essentials

Jeremy Chatfield, Merjis Ltd, Bedford

Even with the rise of social media, search is still an enormous driver of online business.  In this talk Jeremy will discuss free and paid search and the relationship of display advertising.

Jeremy Chatfield was a former researcher and lecturer at the Open University in low energy housing and instrumentation.  Former Operating Systems R&D Manager - including several years at Dell's US headquarters.  Jeremy set up a commercial web site for a startup business in the US in 1994, and developed in house web analytics for search engine topping business.  By 1997, the business was earning about $1.6M from internet sales of a niche technical product from the web site.

On returning to the UK, Jeremy worked in Interim management and directorial roles.  He developed some patents in highly automated distributed directory services used for another private business before setting up Merjis in 2003.  Jeremy was the leading AdWords Help Forum contributor in 2005 to 2008, with more than 4,000 responses to user posted questions about AdWords.  He has managed paid search budgets of up to £375,000 per month, using a mix of software and human intelligence.  Jeremy is regarded by some Google staff as one of the best developers with the AdWords API. 

Since 2006 Jeremy has specialised in identifying the causes of sudden reductions in organic search visitors from Google, and has developed a keen understanding of on and off-site ranking factors for SEO.  He has been an expert witness in paid search, SEO, trademark and domain name usage.  Clients over the years have included BUPA, Thomas Cook, Skype, Gumtree, Qype, Car Phone Warehouse, Perrys Motor Sales, uSwitch and several other household brands. 

 

Social Media Marketing

Mark Cook, Search Marketing Director, Further Search Marketing Ltd, Norwich

An exciting journey exploring the nuts and bolts of online interaction and how it’s possible to use people-power to fuel your marketing campaigns.

Mark has 9 years experience in search marketing, setting up his own successful online businesses, before taking his experience agency-side and joining Further to set up the search marketing department where he has worked directly with blue-chip clients such as Expedia and Mazda.  Further is now one of the UK′s fastest-growing search and social media marketing agencies.  When not at work, Mark is busy designing, programming and marketing over a dozen of his own projects - from e-commerce to community sites.  Mark's main interest lies in finding new creative new ways to promote sites above and beyond the normal deployment of the many SEM tools.

 

And joining the question panel…….

Peter Dennis, Director of e-Marketing for the Swiss Investment Bank, UBS

Peter’s career began agency side in 1997, implementing some of the first online campaigns for clients such as Disney, Mazda, BSkyB, ITV.com and Barclays.  Over the last 6 years at UBS, he has been developing and implementing the on-line marketing strategy for the Investment Bank, specialising in online communications to corporate and institutional clients globally.