Shop online for your "TECH" wish list!

It's no surprise if you've been out and about to any of the major department stores this holiday season that tech gadgets and electronics have taken over the pages of their in-store ads and specials. I personally made the mistake of walking into a Target at midnight on Black Friday just to witness the madness and sure enough... it was a mad house! I was starring at lines 12-15 carts long with people hoisting their will-be gifts and gadgets. Hi-Def LCD TV's were selling for cheaper than I'd ever seen. MP3 players were almost being given away, laptop computers were hundreds less than their original retail price. I however, didn't take advantage of these deals because for the last few years I've been doing all of my holiday shopping online.

"There are several sites online where you can do your online shopping without the hassle of being trapped in line for hours. On top of that a majority of the online stores are offering FREE SHIPPING for the holidays, so it's a no brainer for me."

A few that I've used personally and would recommend are Newegg, which had a bunch of great deals on computers, portable hard drives, monitors and a pretty good breakdown of pricing and product comparisons. It also has some pretty good consumer feedback. Tiger Direct also has a wide variety of tech products such as, cameras, GPS devices, LCD TV's all at very reasonable deals as well. You can of course check out Target, Wal Mart or any of the larger department stores as well as most of them are offering free shipping to compete with other online distributors.

So, come time to make that purchase, remember to read user reviews, compare prices between stores and keep in mind that most stores are offering free shipping. No worries though! You can do all of this in the comfort of your own home, while sipping on your favorite holiday beverage, munching on holiday snacks and watching re-runs of holiday TV specials. Cheers!

Marketing and Software Technology Events for January 2011

Check out some of the Marketing and Software events that will be taking place around the word as we head into January 2011.

US Events:

Affiliate Summit West
January 9th -11th, Las Vegas, NV.
This three day conference includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.

For registration information visit: http://www.affiliatesummit.com/register/


Data and Dashboards
January 20th- January 21st, Washington D.C.
This workshop provides mid- to senior-level marketers with the knowledge to put data at the center of your marketing strategies. The format combines a review of dashboard resources, use cases and participant collaboration to provide actionable learning.

For complete event details check out: http://www.marketingpower.com/Calendar/Pages/2011%20TS%20Data%20and%20Dashboards-DC.aspx


Email Evolution Conference 2011
January 31st –February 2nd, Miami, FL
It's a cutthroat business. The stakes are high. The competition is fierce. This conference is focused on the ever-changing and evolving world of email marketing, providing you with the best ways to capitalize on the high ROI this low-cost communication tool can provide both on its own, and integrated with social, search, mobile, video and other email enhancers.

Top email marketers will model out-of-the box design and innovative cross-channel strategy. The challenge: cutting-edge, on-brand email that will catch the eyes - and clicks - of subscribers everywhere.

Visit http://www.the-dma.org/conferences/emailevolution/registration.shtml for an event registration and schedule information.


EMEA and ASIA Events:

SphinnCon Israel 2011
January 9th, Jerusalem, Israel
SphinnCon Israel is the premier networking event designed for SEOs, SEMs, SMOs and affiliate marketers to exchange ideas, influence the industry and build their networks.

To learn more about this event and the agenda check out: http://searchmarketingexpo.com/sphinncon


Click Asia Summit 2011
January 20th -22nd, Mumbai, India
With the US and Europe still struggling with the economic crisis, Asia has emerged as one of the growing group of economies that will dominate the global markets for the next few years. As a marketing professional, there is no way you can miss the changing face of Digital and Mobile marketing in Asia.

Click Asia Summit 2011 is designed to create a forum for some of the top marketing professionals to congregate and create a marketplace for ideas and services that will help Asian companies get the marketing edge.
For more information on this conference and expo visit: http://www.clickasiasummit.com/


Learning Technologies
January 26th-27th, London, England
Europe's leading showcase of organisational learning and the technology used to support learning at work. And it's now quite literally bigger and more vital than ever before.
With more than 200 exhibitors, over 100 free seminars and an audience of 4,000 learning and development professionals, it is the must attend event for anyone involved in organisational learning.

For highlights of what you can expect to get from this conference visit: http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk/

Predictions for Online Marketing Trends in 2011

While you're still focused on trying to make last year's cutting-edge online marketing trend ideas work, here is a list of marketing updates and activities that you will want to take into consideration for 2011's Marketing Strategy.

Online Marketing will get larger chunk of marketing budgets
Customers and prospects are increasingly going online early in the buying cycle to gather information, form relationships, and make decisions about how they will buy. As a result, businesses must move marketing budgets to where the customers and prospects are – online.

Social Media Marketing matures
Over the past few years many marketers have been experimenting with social media tactics, in 2011, businesses will be executing social tactics that are fully integrated into the overall marketing strategy. So if you’re business isn’t on Facebook or Twitter – then in 2011 you will definitely be behind the eight ball.

Mobile Marketing set to take off
Mobile marketing will keep growing as smartphones expand their range of functions. Mobile marketing can now move beyond mobile messaging; mobile email, mobile websites and mobile applications will become viable channels for marketers.The explosion will happen when the new devices, faster networks and new location-based technologies converge.

Personalized Marketing headed for the next level
Expect more personalization capability to be embedded in websites in 2011. For example, regular visitors to a website will see a page based on all the information collected from previous visits. We also expect that personalized marketing will be extended beyond the website to other marketing channels such as social media, mobile and email marketing.
Privacy discussion will heat up
Online marketing relies on a dirty secret – it needs cookies to track and target behavior. But consumers are rising up and demanding change. So much so, that legislation is now looming in Congress. Privacy experts don’t believe it will pass in 2011, but you can expect to see a much stronger emphasis on self-regulation.

More right touching
The idea of this concept is to have a multi-channel communications strategy that delivers the right message with the right value proposition at the right time across all communication channels thus touching a prospect at the right time with the right message for the right impact.

SEO will become even more complex
The task of getting your business on the first page of search results has become much more complex with the increasing number of competition between search sites and social sites alike. Also, with mobile search and geo-location search playing such a big role in 2010, the 2011 year is sure to be full of challenges and surprises for search engine optimizers.

Technology vendors are blurring the distinction between products and services
The technology vendor landscape is transforming quickly. Consolidation by big service companies means they will increasingly offer a buffet of services and products. This is making it very difficult for marketers to determine who does what. Marketers typically prefer best-of-breed solutions, but vendors push for integrated online suites runs.

Marketing Analytics will become more advanced
Google will continue to roll out improvements to its Google Analytics service. Social media tracking will improve with better metrics in place. With so many online marketing channels offered now it wouldn't be surprising if there was soon a central place or application that offers to integrate all the data from all marketing sources (web, search, video, mobile, and social conversations). An overall benefit to that would allow marketers to develop better strategies/actions.

The online marketing space has rapidly evolved through 2010, it will be exciting to see what 2011 holds.