Understanding Digital: CREATIVE will take place at the National College of Ireland in the city centre from 4-7 pm, followed by a drinks reception and  an opportunity for informal networking.  We’re hosting the event in conjunction with the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) as part of Design Week 2009.

For just €50 (€10 for current ICAD members) you get to share the expertise and insight of four leading digital creative minds.

Places are limited, and at that price they’re going fast so register now to secure yours.

The speakers

As well as Damian and myself… who’ll be hosting he event… our panel of speakers will explore how digital media can expand the scope of creative marketing online, facilitate interaction and ultimately improve the bottom line.

We’ll hear from Dave Birss, Creative Digital Director at Ogilvy London; Matt Butterworth, Managing Director of Folk Creative; Nick Suckley, Managing Partner of Agenda 21 Digital and Robin Grant, founder of We are Social.

It’s a line-up that Damian and I are very excited about. It promises to be a great event, and the drinks reception afterwards, in association with Design Week sponsor Bombay Sapphire will be a great opportunity to meet and chat with us, with the speakers and a great mix of people from inside and outside the digital media sector.

We hope you can make it, and look forward to welcoming you on the 05 November.

We all know how important training is to a successful career. Lifelong learning has become a bit of a “buzzword”, but we shouldn’t let its overuse dilute its significance. Whether it’s learning to use a new software package, how to implement the latest Health and Safety regulations or how to better mange our time, training helps us to realise our potential, and the right training can really give us a leg-up the career ladder.

The trouble, of course, is that these days we never seem to have enough time for learning… because were all so busy doing. People are chasing their tails from nine-to-five trying to cram 12 hours worth of of work into an eight hour day. And they’re the lucky ones – for many eight-to-six is a more likely scenario. We don’t even have time for a proper lunch break, let alone to contemplate a couple of days out to attend a training course.

How refreshing it is, then, when someone comes along and manages to shoehorn a couple of days worth of learning into an intensive half-day session. Talk about maximising the use of your valuable time.

Last week I was invited to attended just such an event – a half-day seminar on internet marketing at the Clarion Hotel in Cork. Called “Getting Results in Online Marketing”. It was being run by PraxisNow, one of Ireland’s leading internet marketing companies. This was a follow up seminar to the company’s seminal “Internet Marketing for 21st Century Business”, which I’d attended last October.

The internet is all pervading in business today, and a company website is practically de rigueur, but most webmasters and marketing managers know that their websites could be working so much harder for their business… they just don’t know how to make that happen.

To the uninitiated the world of online marketing can be a scary place. It’s shrouded in mystery – an arcane world of search engines, keywords and a legion of confusing acronyms. But with online stealing more of the marketing budget every year, if you have a career in marketing, are a business owner or look after the company website then you absolutely need to know this stuff.

Enter John and Noel Coburn of Praxis Now with their non-technical internet marketing seminars. The two seminars, each four hours long and both crammed with myth-busting, demystifying information, will open your eyes to the massive potential of the internet to drive targeted, pre-qualified business to your virtual door. And then they tell you how to make it happen.

The first seminar focusses on the basics of internet marketing and driving qualified visitors (traffic) to your website, the second more on what to do with that traffic when it arrives: how to turn visitors into something of tangible business value. The pace was frantic, the content intense, but at the same time absorbing and compelling.

John Coburn is something of an enigma. A presentation style that’s simultaneously energetic and relaxed shouldn’t be possible. It’s a contradiction; one that he manages to pull off effortlessly. As for the content, while there were one or two points that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with, on the whole this is an excellent follow up to the first seminar.

“Internet Marketing for 21^st Century Business” will give you a superb grounding in the basics of online marketing, “Getting Results in Online Marketing” takes things to the next logical level, covering things like how highly focussed landing pages can help convert traffic into measurable results, how to build relevance and authority in the eyes of users and search engines, and much more besides.

If you want to get more out of your website, or are looking for a thorough grounding in Internet Marketing, both seminars are well worth a look. For more details and seminar schedules visit the Praxis Now website or call 01 2360076.

Technorati Tags: Internet marketing Ireland,online marketing,digital marketing,training,seminar,Praxis Now

There’s a positive vibe, and the course material (6MB or so of PDF files) has been provided on a 1GB USB memory stick. It’s a refreshing change to see that sort of added value — a 1GB stick is a genuinely useful little extra, whereas the 64MB or 128MB sticks that often accompany seminars and events just end up cluttering up drawers when you get home.

Well, the seminar is about to start… more later.

For more details check out Getting Results in Online Marketing on the Praxis Now web site.

Increasingly businesses around the world are harnessing the power of the internet to reach out to consumers in new and exciting ways. Studies show that more advertising spend is being diverted online – and that search is the biggest online channel by far. Keeping abreast of the latest trends in search engine marketing is vital for marketing professionals, web masters, website designers and developers, business owners, media buyers and just about anyone else involved in marketing today.

Search Marketing World is hosted by leading Irish interactive marketing agency, Interactive Return, and offers a uniquely Irish perspective on the global phenomenon of search engine marketing. More details are available on the website at www.searchmarketingworld2008.com, or by telephone on 01 672 9022 (9am – 4pm Mon-Fri).

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Marketing,Search Marketing events,search marketing Ireland,Interactive Return,Chris Sherman

Did you know that, according to research, around 80% of all Internet users find the web sites they’re looking for using a search engine? And that in the month of August 2007, in North America alone, the three main search engines fielded a mind-boggling 6.7 billion search queries between them?

That’s more than one search for every living person on the planet.

When it comes to Internet search, the figures are simply staggering – and if you’re a marketer the case for tapping into this burgeoning pool of online prospects is an incredibly compelling one. Having your company web site “pop up” at the top of the search engine listings at precisely the time your potential customers are looking for your products or services is the nearest to marketing nirvana you’re ever likely to get.

There’s no doubt that making effective use of internet marketing techniques like search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and e-mail marketing can revolutionise your business, but where do you start? For many website owners, traditional marketers and corporate managers the world of digital marketing is a mystery. It’s a world full of technical jargon and seemingly arcane techniques that have always been the preserve of a select few professionals… until now.

Enter PraxisNow, a company whose half-day training seminar “Internet Marketing for 21^st Century Business” aims to demystify this complex and often confusing subject, making it accessible to a mainstream audience.

I attended the seminar at the Clarion Hotel in Cork on the 25^th October, and from the very beginning it was obvious that, while the atmosphere was informal and friendly, this was a very professional and polished operation. From coffee and registration through to the the wrap-up some four-and-a-half hours later the entire process was managed flawlessly.

The conference room was packed with some sixty delegates who spanned every possible facet of the internet marketing equation. There were one-man start-ups, traditional marketers looking for the inside track on this digital revolution, corporate managers from large organisations and practically everyone in between: people from all sorts of levels, in all sorts of businesses and from all walks of life.

I couldn’t help thinking that, with such an eclectic audience, keeping everyone engaged and attentive would prove a challenge for any presenter. It is testament to presenter John Coburn’s skill and experience that he managed not only to keep us all engaged and attentive… but also entertained for the duration.

This was a four hour seminar with just one 15 minute coffee break, and yet at no point did it seem to flag. John took us briskly through the ins and outs of digital marketing, explaining the fundamentals of SEO, PPC and e-mail marketing in a way that was informative and easy to grasp. He illustrated his points with real world examples and deftly fielded questions from the floor. The four hours simply flew by.

If you’re looking for a primer on digital marketing, then “Internet Marketing for 21^st Century Business” is for you. It delivers a very effective introduction to the topic, provides the perfect foundation for those who want to explore the potential of online marketing for themselves, and gives those who’d prefer to engage the services of a professional internet marketer the knowledge they need to make informed decisions.

For more details visit the Internet Marketing for 21st Century Business page on the Praxis Now web site or call (01) 2360076.

Sounds like just the ticket to kick start my research, and I have to say I’m looking forward to the event. I’ll be posting a review of proceedings here after the fact — so be sure to check back.