Mequoda Summit Agenda
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GENERAL
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BASIC
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INTERMEDIATE
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ADVANCED
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| Tue. | ||||
| 1-5:30 | ||||
| Wed. | ||||
| 8:30-10 | ||||
| 10-10:30 |
Networking Break
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| 10:30-12 | ||||
| 12-2 |
Lunch
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| 2-3:30 | ||||
| 3:30-4 |
Networking Break
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| 4-5:30 | ||||
| Thu. | ||||
| 8:30-10 | ||||
| 10-10:30 |
Networking Break
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| 10:30-12 | ||||
| 12-2 |
Lunch
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| 2-3:30 | ||||
| 3:30-4 |
Networking Break
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| 4-5:30 | ||||
| Fri. | ||||
| 9-12:30 | ||||
| 9-12:30 | ||||
Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 1 – 5:30 p.m.
Mequoda System Basics: Seven Essential Skills for Successful Online Publishing and Marketing
Who should attend: For anyone who wants a better understanding of online publishing basics, or needs a comprehensive review of the Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing System, this is the session you must attend.
If you’re new to online publishing, or you haven’t yet had a “total immersion” in the Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing System, this session is for you. In four information-packed hours (with a break for refreshments) we’ll provide a context for the profusion of content you’ll explore over the next three days. This is fundamental, step-by-step information that you must understand, including an overview of seven essentials:
Editorial Strategy: Leveraging Content & Reputation
Master the new media—websites, email, blogs, RSS feeds, audio programs, video seminars, conferences, workshops and more. Offer customers information and entertainment on multiple platforms, using a variety of business models and marketing channels.
We’ll show you how to offer users many products on many platforms, how to give them a free, robust online content, and a personalized marketing experience.
Revenue Strategy: Choosing the Right Business Models
The key to your online publishing success is choosing the right business model and supporting infrastructure. When you build the right framework, you lower operating costs and bolster higher revenue. Learn proven methods for maximizing your online revenue — from arranging sponsorships, to selling products and events, to securing profitable online advertising.
Audience Strategy: Attracting Targeted Website Traffic
Discover the scientific method for researching and choosing the right keyword phrases. It’s not guesswork when you use this strategy. Learn how to use the Google Keyword Competitive Index (KCI) to determine the relationship of demand to competition. Virtually no one else will teach you how to do an analysis of your competition.
Website Strategy: Converting Visitors into Subscribers
Discover how to design and create webpages that inform, entertain, and best of all, convert casual visitors into loyal subscribers and premium buyers.
Email Strategy: Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value
Discover how to create an optimal email publishing schedule that achieves a perfect balance between editorial and promotional content. Learn how to keep readers engaged with your email newsletter, while generating revenue through product sales and/or third party advertisements.
People Strategy: Organizing Around the System
Most publishers load more responsibilities onto their existing print staff but those in the know are hiring dedicated staff to run their online business units. Learn why it’s critical to isolate your online teams before you integrate and how to eventually leverage all your editorial assets, cross-promote print, Web and email circulation and create synergies for sponsors.
Reporting Strategy: Managing by Exception
In order to run an effective online business, you need to know what statistics you should be watching (both yours and your competitors). We’ll show you the key metrics you should know at the end of every day, week and month in order to keep in control of your online business, make the right changes at the right time, and generate the most profit for your online business.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 1 – 5:30 p.m.
Mequoda System Optimization: Achieving Incremental Constant Improvement with Testing, Tools & Tweaking.
Mequoda Innovation Roundtable 1 led by Bob Kaslik, CMO, Interweave
Who should attend: This roundtable is exclusively for online publishers who already operate a Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing System. Limited to 25 experienced publishing professionals.
If you already have a Mequoda System and you want to learn how to improve its performance, don’t miss this lively and informative session.
If you want to more fully understand the key tools used to manage performance testing, here’s an opportunity to discover some secrets from your peers and “the best of the best” online publishers. But please don’t expect to sit passively. Share your experiences in this moderated, interactive, peer-to-peer brainstorming session. Bring your specific questions for Don Nicholas and other highly experienced Mequoda System publishers.
This will be an open-ended forum that will cover multi-variant, sequential and split testing. Explore how to improve email conversion rates, revenue per thousand emails sent, and overall revenue per subscriber.
We’ll also discuss search engine optimization strategy, plus how to get the most from the OpenX ad server, Google Website Optimizer, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and email marketing systems such as WhatCounts.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 8:30 – 10 a.m.
Thriving in the Digital Future: Mequoda Summit Keynote Presentation by Don Nicholas
Don will present the most up-to-date, critical information you absolutely must have to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world. He will deliver an overall industry status report, scorecard and forecast. Additionally, you’ll discover how to get precise answers to pressing questions such as: How big is your market? How fast is your market growing? What is the seasonality in your market?
Plus, learn the secrets to discovering answers to these questions: What keywords does your market use? Who are your top competitors? Who are your potential content partners? Who are your potential marketing partners? Where do you fit in the overall publishing paradigm? What successful publishing businesses are most like yours? Who should you choose for a mentor site?
Explore the latest online publishing trends, statistics, metrics, and case studies, as reported by Don from the Mequoda Research team’s continuous study of publishing industry best practices.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 10:30 a.m. – 12 noon
SEO Campaign Management: Using Free Content, SEO, PR and Link Building to Drive Website Traffic & Build Email Circulation
Every website needs traffic in order to survive and prosper. If you produce editorial content that you want Google to find and index, SEO campaign management is the single most important core skill for making money online.
In 2010, SEO Campaign Management is based entirely on painstaking research, accurate metrics, and a continuous process to meet the demands of an ever-changing Google search algorithm. Once you master the process, SEO Campaign Management will become part of your day-to-day publishing routine.
Discover how three publishing industry icons have integrated SEO campaign management into their marketing and editorial operations with enviable results. In this not-to-be-missed session, a “power panel” of Mequoda System Publishers will present their latest findings and best practice recommendations for SEO, blogging, email marketing, landing page design, copywriting and more.
Plus, we’ll deliver case studies that reveal how some Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing Systems have grown by 65 percent in just 12 months using these proven SEO campaign management techniques.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Social Media Strategy & Twitter: Exploring the Web 2.0 strategies and tools for marketing with blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Workshop led by Amanda MacArthur
If you’re dismissing Twitter and other social media sites as being inconsequential or irrelevant to your publishing business, you could be making a huge mistake and leaving big money on the table. Consider this: Twitter is now the second highest source of inbound traffic to Mequoda’s own hub website.
Join Mequoda’s Amanda MacArthur and a panel of other experts for the latest uses of social media to increase traffic and sales. Discover how to create a cohesive social media strategy for building a core of loyal followers, developing those online relationships, and circulating commercial messages. Hear from editors and marketers who have successfully employed these techniques.
This session is jam-packed with tools, case studies and best practices specifically for publishers who are looking to maximize their brand, traffic and revenues with Twitter and other social media.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Email Copywriting Secrets: Discovering How your Email Open Rates, Click-Throughs & Revenue Can Soar by 50 Percent Annually.
Workshop led by Mark Everett Johnson
Who should attend: If you’re a writer, editor, online marketer or other wordsmith whose responsibilities include email marketing, this session may be the best reason to enroll in the Mequoda Summit Napa today, without delay.
You’ll want to be one of the first, because as you register, you’ll be asked if you want to participate in this exciting session. Copywriting superstar Mark Johnson’s presentation is always unique. The participants in this interactive workshop will be invited to submit their email newsletters and email promotions in advance.
Mark will use your submissions to completely customize his presentation to precisely address your content, market, specific issues and challenges. You’ll discover Mark’s proprietary testing methodology for developing alternate copy platforms, headlines and USPs. Mark’s methods have routinely increased response rates by as much as 50-60 percent for a myriad of B2B and B2C clients, including Boardroom, Time-Life Books and Rodale.
Register early to make certain your copy is chosen for this priceless interactive workshop.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Building Online Partnerships: Employing Advanced Networking Techniques for Increased Audience Development & Higher Profits
Mequoda Innovation Roundtable 2 led by Don Nicholas
Who should attend: This roundtable is for group publishers and other publishing professionals responsible for business development. Limited to 25 experienced publishing professionals.
While it’s important for editors and audience development professionals to understand social media marketing (concurrent Intermediate Track), if you work in business development, or you’re a group publisher, this session is designed specifically for you.
Whether you call it content syndication, affiliate marketing, business development or partnership relations, there are deals to be made with professional colleagues and friendly competitors. All that’s required is some imagination and a willingness to share resources and negotiate alliances.
In this interactive roundtable, we’ll explore the little-known and sometimes unconventional marketing techniques designed to get maximum results from minimal resources. Specifically, you’ll discover how to find content partners with whom you can syndicate your editorial content, or whose content you can republish. Or find partners who are eager to sponsor your website.
You’ll explore partners who can sell your products, and whose products you can sell. And you’ll leave this session with a boatload of ideas, a pocketful of business cards, and a business development checklist of all the potential mutually beneficial business relationships you can structure with other publishers.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Managing your Online Reputation: Establishing Email Credibility, Maximizing Email Delivery Rates, & Maintaining your Email & Online Reputation
Mequoda Innovation Roundtable 3 led by Don Nicholas
Who should attend: Senior executives responsible for editorial, audience development, marketing, brand and public relations.
According to one industry authority, nearly 18 percent of invited email lands in junk/bulk mail folders. What’s your bounce rate? Do you get spam complaints? How can you be certain that your email newsletters and promotions arrive at the user’s inbox?
Email service providers can use email authentication tools to verify a sender’s identity, but that’s no guarantee of deliverability. What else must your know to be in compliance?
And what about managing your email and online reputation? Is your email credible? Your email reputation is just like your personal reputation. It’s a record of your email actions that’s used to predict your future email actions.
In this interactive roundtable, we’ll hear from industry reputation management experts who will discuss basic email technology requirements. Beyond that, we’ll explore the latest tools for monitoring your reputation.
Media training once was only for senior executives, but today, because of the sheer volume of content being created for online consumption, writers and editors also must be trained to represent your company in forums, blogs and chat rooms. This promises to be a most exciting and instructive meeting of peers for discussing and exchanging ideas and experiences.
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 8:30 – 10 a.m.
Managing Digital Media Transformation across Additional Platforms: Exploring Opportunities to Expand your Brand Using Video Technology, Blogging, Membership Websites, Digital Events & Digital Sponsorships
Discover how several leading publishers are expanding their brands digitally and profitably.
This power panel will include top executives from a leading craft publisher, a Christian publishing business, an art publisher, a women’s health website, and a loose-leaf B2B publisher who is succeeding with a membership website.
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 10:30 a.m. – 12 noon
17 Ways to Build Email Circulation: Developing your Online Audience is Job #1
Presented by Don Nicholas
Email circulation and revenue per email subscriber are the two key metrics for every Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing System. The first priority for system operators is building email circulation.
In this session, industry analyst and consultant Don Nicholas will take us through all the brilliant strategies online publishers are using to develop their audience. You’ll walk out of this session with a checklist that includes dozens of best practice examples that Don has either observed or helped to create.
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
SEO Copywriting Workshop: Writing Stronger, SEO’d Landing Pages to Attract more Traffic from Google and Maximize Email Conversion Rates
Workshop led by Peter A. Schaible
The rapid conversion landing page, or RCLP, as it is known, is the seductive mistress of online publishing systems. RCLPs begin an online relationship with a user (and potential paying customer) by giving away something of value — often a free downloadable report, spreadsheet, or some other type of information product.
The key to success lies in the copy. No one will find your landing pages if you aren’t including keywords your audience is searching for. Furthermore, no one will convert on your landing pages if the art of combining SEO copywriting with persuasive copywriting isn’t mastered.
Peter A. Schaible, is a master at exactly that. He’s written more RCLPs and SEO’d posts than any other living human being on the planet. He is extremely skilled at taking keywords and weaving them masterfully into his copy and this has resulted in thousands of conversions for his clients.
This session will begin with a quick review of rapid conversion landing page best practices, but the fun will begin when Peter does live SEO copywriting optimization for landing pages that you, a Mequoda Summit attendee, can submit in advance.
Each attendee who registers early for Mequoda Summit Napa Valley will be invited to submit a rapid conversion landing page in advance. During a live “hot seat” analysis section, you can explain what you wrote and why.
Mark Everett Johnson, Kim Mateus and other members of the Mequoda team will join Peter in giving feedback and suggested improvements for each RCLP submitted. They will suggest alternative headlines and creative copy approaches, pointing out both strengths and weaknesses in the process.
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Homepage Website Design: Increasing Website Traffic, Usability & Conversion Rates with Effective Periodical Websites
Workshop led by Kim Mateus and Nancy Horan
The Mequoda Research Team has studied hundreds of media websites in order to analyze the secrets of the most successful online publishers. Additionally, we’ve helped create dozens of media websites and online publishing networks for periodical publishers.
Usability testing, which employs eye-tracking cameras and careful monitoring of sample task completion, is integral to determining best practice design elements. Theories and hunches about what works — and what doesn‘t work — eventually give way to quantifiable observations about human behaviors in the interaction with media websites.
The resulting conclusions about any best practice are always measureable with a key metric, e.g., increased website traffic, higher email conversion rates, greater reader satisfaction, higher revenue per thousand, etc. We will review at least 17 best practices in media website design derived from careful observation, testing, and experience.
Sign up for this interactive workshop early and submit your homepage to be critiqued by our panel of usability experts, information architects, designers and copywriters and make suggestions for improvement. This is one-on-one consulting with industry experts at such a bargain price!
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Digital Product Strategy: Building your Digital Media Pyramid
Mequoda Innovation Roundtable 4 led by Don Nicholas
Following up on this morning’s general session, this instructive roundtable will enable our five initial presenters and 20 other experienced publishing and marketing executives to discuss their strategies for developing new brands, products, businesses and revenue streams.
Vzines (embedded video in online newsletters), issue-based periodicals, membership websites, webinars and other innovative digital products will all be up for discussion.
What’s paid? What’s free? What’s working? What’s not? How can you cut down engineering time? How can you be more efficient at recycling, reusing and repurposing editorial content?
Come to this session prepared to talk about your test sites, new product development ideas — even your failed products. Let this private, intimate assembly of professional colleagues help you make your digital programs better, more efficient, and more profitable.
Thursday, April 8, 2010, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Why Mequoda Systems Fail: Hiring, Retaining & Compensating Digital Rock Stars
Mequoda Innovation Roundtable 5 led by Don Nicholas
Even the best information publishing businesses are far from foolproof. In fact, they’re talent-dependent.
The Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing System is comprehensive, well-documented, tested and proven. It’s used by companies making millions of dollars in such diverse areas as investment advice, handcrafts, health, cooking, and human resources. Yet, in ever sector were publishers succeed, some also fail. And we’ve discovered why.
What makes the difference is talented people.
Some consultants will tell you that a great system should perform well, regardless of who operates it. And that might have been true in a manufacturing environment.
But we would tell you that excellence is more about people than about systems. We can teach you the system, show you the benchmarks, and give you the software. But if you want to have a great company, you need both phenomenal systems and phenomenal people.
In a business whose work is to enlighten, inform and entertain — where we create and disperse intellectual property — the value of the product is a reflection of the brilliance of your writers, editors and systems designers. Everything else is only a delivery system.
Please come to this session with an open mind and the intellectual honesty to confront some hard choices. Are you building an effective team or sabotaging your own success? Discover how to hire, train, organize, retain, motivate and compensate the best people for successful publishing enterprise.
Friday, April 9, 2010, 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Keyword Research & Targeting Workshop
Led by Kim Mateus
Limited to 25 participants
Here’s your opportunity to get personalized, hands-on coaching in how to research your own keywords and related keyword universe using the free Google Keyword Tool and the Google search engine. Learn how to quantify volume and competition, plus discover how to identify and target potential keyword phrases that could be used to increase the amount of traffic you get from Google.
At the conclusion of this session, you’ll understand how to write SEO-friendly headlines, subheads and body copy. You’ll know how to use a freemium-based SEO strategy to both attract traffic and to convert that traffic into email subscribers. And you’ll walk out with a list of keyword phrases that you can use to launch your first freemium-based SEO campaign.
When you participate in this workshop on keyword research, you’ll be assigned to a three-person team and asked to build out and find alternate clusters for previously documented case studies. You’ll title and target your first SEO campaign special report, and share your process with the entire group in a round-robin presentation.
Following an analysis and critique, you’ll work with others to build out new clusters for their publications, as well as complete a titling and targeting exercise that will enable you to launch an effective SEO campaign for your own brand.
Friday, April 9, 2010, 9 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Maximizing Revenue with Website Advertising: Packaging & Pricing Online Sponsorships
Presented by Dan Ambrose, one of the publishing industry’s most experienced sales coaches
Driving online revenue with optimized ad sales is a deliberate process that requires configuring your infrastructure, content, marketing, research and sales.
Ad sales expert Dan Ambrose should know. He has made a career of unraveling and demystifying the complexities of publication ad sales. He is one of the magazine industry’s most talented sales coaches, and has literally written the book on Internet sales.
Dan will present case studies of companies that have mastered the complexities of how to price online advertising and build sponsorships.
Discover how to target customers who are an excellent match for the content your Mequoda Online Publishing and Marketing Systems delivers.
Your Mequoda System website is a perfect candidate for custom sponsorship packages. You can create scarcity and exclusivity, and develop a broad range of attractive offers, including email impressions, web impressions, lead generation, video sponsorships, and live event sponsorships. When you know how to package, price and sell valuable online sponsorships, the profit potential of your online publication will skyrocket.
Dan worked on the founding of iVillage.com, About.com, MediaBistro.com, and Beliefnet.com. He has consulted with Primedia Magazines, Smithsonian, Children’s Television Workshop, and many others.
Dan directed marketing, sales and administrative management of multi-magazine advertising packages for Hearst’s largest and most important clients, running approximately 3,500 advertising pages annually. He was also responsible for the creation of the first “Electronic Rate Card,” on computer disk, which was used by advertising media planners to instantly price Hearst magazine packages.
Hundreds have paid $1,000 or more to attend Dan Ambrose’s media sales training seminars. Now, in just three hours, you can discover for yourself some of Dan’s extraordinary Internet ad sales wisdom.
