Past couple days I was at the eMarketing Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. The three hour trip was long but the conference itself was ok. The demographic here are more older users. I was probably 1 of the 4 under 30 attendees at this conference. I didn't mind it but also there was a lot of users here who didn't know what a web link was.
Also, the majority of attendees also come from the internet agency area. I did not speak to any affiliates at the conference, sighs. It definitely was more towards small brick and mortar businesses and agencies.
Personally out of all the sessions I attended, only 2 was good and one keynote was really good. One presentation that I enjoyed was a speaker from Lijit networks. He explained that marketing is only focused on certain areas and not at the full picture. For example, we focus on just traffic sources and conversions, which makes sense. But there are other factors that play into that conversion.
When someone wants to buy something they search on Google or Amazon and gather information. They then find and gather informative information before they make a purchase. Which makes sense, users start with a thought to take action whether it is buying an item or filling out a form. Most consumers, don't Initially wake up with the thought to buy. I thought that was a good presentation.
Here is a picture from his slide, which showed the silos of opportunities.
The second day keynote was a female speaker and talked about seducing your audience. She walked in from the back and started heading out chocolate to a few selective people. Dressed up very sexy with a nice calming music in the background. She did a great example of show casing the title of her presentation, seducing your audience. So I thought that her engagement entrance played very well with the title, plus she was cute.
The overview of the presentation was basically playing a role with your consumer or audience and basically giving them something that they like, enticing the user with seductive techniques. I thought the keynote was good.
As far as the other sessions that I have been to, it was all for beginners. Everything at the conference was way too simple for me. Even with the SEO part of the sessions, they were very simple basic foundations, nothing really something where I had to write something down.
The second day I was getting so bored I started challenging speakers and asking generic questions about their simple practices. Most gave generic responses and some didn't understand my question or tactics.
I did meet some other great people there and we went out to dinner and I tasted the Rhode Island seafood there and it was good. One of the person's I met started to flirt with the waitress and it got so serious, she actually thought she was about to head to the hotel with him. Interesting night. Again it was a more older group and everyone went to bed early.
Some pictures.
