AIMS Canada

Member Profile: Meet Tessa Mintz from Uthink/Studentawards Inc. Part 1 of 2

This is the fourth post in monthly series – The AIMS Member Profiles – in which AIMS volunteer and blog correspondent Eden Spodek interviews and profiles an AIMS premium member.

Tessa joined Uthink/Studentawards Inc. – an online advertising, market research data collection and scholarship management services company in the youth marketplace – as Director, Client Services in 2002 and promoted to VP, Account Management in 2004.

Q: Why are students attracted to studentawards.com and how do you keep them engaged?

A: Students join the studentawards.com community to find money for school; we are the leading online source of Canadian scholarships, bursaries and awards, as well as a fun destination for student “money-for-school” offers for all kinds of students, that don’t require them to be a “brainiac”.  What’s more, we take the work out of the search: we match each student’s unique profile with our up-to-date database of awards, putting them one click away from information and applications.  Students come to our service because their friends tell them to, plus they are finding us in all kinds of places on the web.

We keep students engaged by regularly updating their personal mailboxes on studentawards.com with new, relevant offers and we send them email alerts about relevant opportunities and upcoming deadlines – we do the work, they reap the rewards.

Q: Uthink maintains different websites for English and French students (studentawards.com and boursetudes.com respectively). Is the language the only difference or do you interact with English and French differently online, and if so, why?

A: Where content is applicable, we present it on both the French & English websites; plus, we make sure that the uniqueness of the Quebec education system is taken into account to ensure relevancy to the target when putting info onto boursetudes.com.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge marketing to a youth audience?

A: The biggest challenge for marketers to this demographic is to keep the message relevant, honest, and upfront.  Also, it is very difficult to build sustaining relationships with a group of people who constantly change their direction and their contact information. Adult assumptions are mostly wrong. With every survey we do, we are astounded with what this demographic considers “hot” and what is not.

Our approach to this challenge has been communicating with transparency and integrity – and has resulted in a trust relationship with the studentawards.com brand.  We make sure that every message our members see from us honours this trust and gives back in some way.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week…

Welcome to AIMS newest annual sponsor - Edentity: Creators of Agility

A warm welcome to the folks at Edentity as they join AIMS as an annual sponsor!

Edentity is the creator of Agility - a web content management system. A little bit more about Agility...

Agility provides unlimited creative freedom for your Web marketers, designers, developers and editors to capture and retain your Web audience.   It is a flexible Web content management system that puts you in control of your Web content. Agility helps you respond to the needs of your Web audience, and optimizes your site for performance and stability.  It provides tools for developers, designers and editors to quickly launch beautiful looking sites and to keep the content current. Agility is available as a hosted service which saves you the cost and overhead of managing the system in-house.  It a mature product developed by Edentity Web Systems and it is running sites for Corus Entertainment, Cineplex Entertainment, Rogers and Peel Regional Police.

As you probably know, AIMS is a non-profit association and we rely on the support of our sponsors. As a member of the AIMS community please support our sponsors and take a look at what they have to offer when you're in the market for the products and services they provide.

Podcamp Toronto 2007

Posted by Kathryn Lagden, AIMS Canada...

Kudos to the Podcamp Toronto organizers as they held a very successful event this past weekend. It was a jam-packed unconference with sessions all day Saturday and Sunday and social events in the evening. I'm not a podcaster (yet) but I certainly got a lot out of attending and met some interesting new people.

First session I attended was 'What to podcast' led by Jim Milles and Connie Crosby. We talked about lots of content ideas: interviews, commentary, how-to's, reviews, music (podsafe friendly of course!). We also talked about the difference between doing a personal podcast and business podcast. Like most things it was agreed that you get better as you progress and a few practice podcasts that never get played can be useful, especially for business podcasts.

I really enjoyed the session about building community led by Mark Blevis, Bob Goyetche, and Chris Brogan. It's a bit of a blur as I was also in the chat room (set up for the event) talking with a few others attending the same session and one person who was watching the live video stream at home. We talked about how the need to feel connected has always existed. That part isn't new. But the ability to connect and reach other like-minded folks continues to grow. Great story of how the Canadian Podcast Buffet (a podcast about Canadian podcasters) built a community.

A quick lunch with some fellow AIMS members and volunteers. Pictured from left to right is Gillian Hatton, Michelle Tampoya, and Eden Spodek.

I didn't attend the social in the evening at C'est What. But I did listen to Uncle Seth perform thanks to the live audio steam into Second Life. Sounded like they were rocking the house!

The Marketers Roadmap to Second Life

There is no shortage of discussion about Second Life. Some love it, some dismiss it. My first reaction months ago was "Second Life? I don't have enough time in my first life!" Since then curiosity saw me creating an avatar and attending a few virtual events. I've also heard from many AIMS members who are interested in talking about the marketing implications of this virtual world. 

So I'm pleased to announce that we'll be bringing this conversation about virtual worlds, specifically Second Life, to AIMS on March 21, 2007.

Date: March 21, 2007
Time: 8:30 - 11:00am
Location: The Diesel Playhouse (large theatre)

CC Chapman, Vice President of Marketing for Crayon, a new marketing company with an office (and whole island!) in Second Life will share his first hand experience as a resident, property owner, and business.

CC will kick-off the event with a general overview on Second Life:
-    Who are Second Life residents?
-    How does the Second Life population spend their time?
-    What are companies doing in Second Life?
-    Opportunities for marketers and brands in Second Life and other virtual worlds
-    What you need to know before setting up shop

Jay Moonah, Internet/Media technology consultant, musician, and podcaster will discuss building brand recognition in Second Life. He will share how his band, Uncle Seth, has built the band and developed relationships with music fans from around the world. Uncle Seth performs frequently in real life, Second Life, and occasionally does both at once.

After the presentation we’ll have 3 hands-on breakout sessions:
-    Taking the plunge – entering Second Life for the first time
-    I’m a walking, talking, sometimes flying avatar – Now what?
-    I’m a SL resident looking at possibilities for my business

Full details and registration on the website. Hope you can join us!

Drowning in Web Analytics Data? Personas can help you stay afloat, and more.

Posted by June Li, Founder and Managing Director of ClickInsight, and AIMS volunteer...

A common mistake made by those new to analyzing web traffic data is to collect lots of data.  When this happens, the analyst struggles to uncover meaningful, actionable insight that can help them advance their marketing goals.  Drowning in data but thirsty for insight.  There is a better way.

Don't collect lots of data.  Collect the right data.

How do you know what is the right data?  The right data helps you learn how you can serve your most important web visitors better.  Before you can meet your goals, your web visitors must meet their goals.  Identify who your most important web visitors are and then learn what they want to do.  Then measure using web analytics whether or not these visitors are succeeding on your website.  Focus on measuring their success at doing what they need to do.  Then slice and dice the data to find out how you can improve their success, and yours.

So it all starts with knowing and understanding who your most important web visitors are.  You can successfully capture this by creating personas that represent your most important prospects or customers. 

Where do you start?  Talk to your customers.  Talk to your frontline staff who work in call centers or sales offices.  What questions to they receive?  What concerns do they handle?  What do these prospects or customers need?  More information about persona creation and use is available on ClickInsight's website and blog.

And to fill in some of the gaps, attend the upcoming AIMS event “Marketing to YOUR Customer” on February 27.  It's not too late to register.  I love the comment in speaker David Cravit's AIMS interview that "The key to using online communication to improve your business is to understand the offline life of the 50+ -- who they are, how they behave..."  This applies to all visitors, whether they're 50+ or not.

Looking for research on enewsletters

I had a call this morning from a reporter looking for research on the growth of enewsletters. He's working on a piece for a US based in-flight magazine and is at the preliminary stage of looking for stats and research about enewsletters.

Any suggestions/recommendations?

(Be interesting to see what impact (if any) blogs have had on enewsletters).

Gender Neutral or Gender Specialized? Mirabel Palmer-Elliott weighs-in.

Sara Scurfield, AIMS volunteer and Online Program Manager at Advantex Marketing caught up with Mirabel Palmer-Elliott of Rogers Consumer Publishing Websites to discuss some of the upcoming features of her February 27th presentation for the AIMS event “Marketing to YOUR Customer.”

SS: How does Rogers Consumer Publishing treat genders differently online?

MPE: Gender is not always the biggest differentiator online.  It is definitely a characteristic of what we monitor, but we find the most important differentiator is what the user is doing online.

Having said that, women tend to be more functional and men tend to be more informational online. We can use this information to delve deeper and overlay new targeted features and a different tone and manner for our different sites.

SS: What advice would you give to people that are trying to be more conscious and targeted with their messages as they translate from print mediums to web?

Online goes deeper into what we deliver in print.  For Rogers’ publications, online content is either a) solution oriented (recipes, workouts, checklists) or b) Fun (quizzes forums, etc).

Not only is this content easiest to deliver online, it is available 24/7 and engages readers at a deeper level.  Quizzes and communities are huge online.  People become very passionate about certain topics and we are able to learn a lot from these readers about what they want to see and hear in all our channels.

Are 50+ Canadians Online?

Marketing Magazine's Online Daily and eMarketer both reported on a recent news report from Ipsos Reid that indicates older Canadians don't have as much access to the Internet as their younger counterparts.

"Only 61% of Canadian adults ages 55 and older have access to the Internet from any location, compared with 88% of adults ages 18-54. Not only are older Canadians less likely to be online, those who are spend less time on the Internet than do younger adults — nearly 35% less."

Sara Scurfield, AIMS volunteer, recently spoke to David Cravit, Senior Vice President, Marketing, 50Plus Group and discovered what 50+ Canadians are looking for online - it all comes down to information. And the good news is that the 50+ Canadians that are online are prepared to have their credit cards at the ready!

David Cravit will be discussing this further and sharing his insight on what makes 50+ Canadians click next week at our event - "Marketing to YOUR Customer - What are the key drivers of online behaviour from different groups or personas?"  

Recommendation for company to host website and handle billing?

AIMS member Christine Perl is working with an e-commerce start-up and is looking for recommendations on hosting providers. She sends in the following..

I am leading the start-up an e-commerce business and am looking for a company to host our site, handle the billing and provide phone support for the billing questions. My understanding is that a hosting company can provide all 3 services.

Who does AIMs use to host their site and handle the billing? 

At AIMS we use Wild Apricot (a hosted website provider) and Paypal. Before our website relaunch last summer we used eApps to host the website and IATS to process credit card payments. In both instances all billing related questions are directed to me.

Anyone have recommendations for a company that will host a website and provides billing and phone support?

Top-five things they don’t tell you about blogging…

Posted by Rebecca Muller, AIMS member and volunteer, and author of The Direct Approach blog...

I recently dipped my big toe into the blogging ocean after the forehead-slapping moment where I realized I’d been talking to clients about something that I hadn’t really made a huge effort to participate in. Sure, I comment on blogs, read books and industry news – but that’s not “practical” experience…

A lot of people speak about how easy blogging is, and in a way that’s very true. Setting up a blog with something like Blogger is easy. You can be up and running in about two minutes. It’s the “marketing” and “best-practices” parts that are a little more challenging.

Being one who can swallow my pride, I thought I might share a few things I’ve learned so far, recognizing that I still have a long way to go…

1.    Feedburner, although not all that intuitive at first, is your best friend. Don’t get your RSS (little orange button) subscription set up from anywhere else. (Feel free to read my post for a more detailed explanation of what went wrong and a good laugh.)
2.    Most “free” stats have additional tracking that you can turn on if you know how to find them. Really take some time to surf the admin settings in your account.
3.    Most free stats are usually a day behind and often aggregated, unless you pay for the additional packages – so don’t despair if it looks like there’s no one reading at first.
4.    Set up a Technorati account and claim your blog! This gives you access to more (yes, more) tools to help increase your blog’s visibility.
5.    Start taking ginseng – or something else to help you remember the multiple passwords and accounts you need to set up for tracking and tagging among other things…

Anyone can become a blogger, but becoming a respected and knowledgeable blogger takes a lot of effort and dedication. I don’t pretend to be there yet, but hope to continue to take cues and inspirations from my industry colleagues to get there one day. My advice to anyone thinking about starting a blog – yes, do your research, but then go for it! There’s no time like the present to learn a new skill.