The Houston Interactive Marketing Association is having their annual conference on 090909, and I’ve been invited to speak on “transitioning to digital.” We did some research on Houston companies in the Inc. 5000 last year, and discovered that there are some very big, very profitable (as long as oil is over $75) companies doing business with websites that look like they were done in the ’90s. As we say in Texas, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” So, my job is to help the marketing managers figure out a rational path from brochure ware to true interactive lead gen, and help them tune in to the right signal amidst all the noise on search marketing, social media marketing, SEO, PPC, Twitter, etc. Should be a great day, hope to see you there.

Early bird registration for the Interactive Strategies ‘09 conference ends on July 3rd.

Lots of marketing folks have produced articles about the tendency for businesses to cut their marketing budgets when things take a downward turn.  Marketing is often considered an expense (although WE consider it an investment) and is one of the first areas to be cut when budgets are slimmed down.  Okay, hacked away to decimal dust.   What is one thing you CAN do if your budget has been reduced to near nothingness?  Referral Marketing.  It can be cheap — free even! — and benefits are realized very quickly.  This article, “The Power of Referrals,” from e-Myth Worldwide gives lots of good rationale for referral marketing, including steps you can take to increase referrals to your company.  Be sure and read the comments left by their readers, as well.  Oh, and if you know of any B2B companies that could benefit from increased traffic to their websites, you know where to send them!