Author: Megan Breinig

With four years of experience in PR and marketing, Megan Breinig has worked closely with clients such as the Phoenix Suns and the Arizona Lottery. Employing her strong writing skills, she has made key contributions to blogs and social media campaigns, and has implemented foundational PR strategy on behalf of her clients.

May AZIMA Member Spotlight- Mark Goldstein

Posted on May 11, 2016 by - Mission to Meet AZIMA Members

A Look Inside:

Q&A with AZIMA member and volunteer Mark Goldstein

Mark Goldstein, AZIMA member, volunteer and event photographer, offers his pro bono photography skills as a gift within the Arizona technology community. As the current President of International Research Center, Goldstein runs a technology industry oriented research and consulting practice and has done so for the past 24 years.

What is your Current Title?

 President, International Research Center

Tell us more about your day job

We provide consulting, custom research, business development, and strategic support for business, legal, and public policy clients in a variety of high-technology disciplines and arenas, harnessing global information resources for informed decision making. I build and manage virtual teams of professionals with various skills and competencies to meet clients’ needs. See http://www.researchedge.com/.

What do you do for AZIMA?

 Event Photographer

How did you get involved with photography?

My college degree is in cinematography. Even though that’s never what I did for a living, I remain an avid shooter for pleasure.

What is the best thing about being involved with AZIMA?

I learn so much at the monthly dinner meetings. Speakers are top notch and truly help extend my appreciation for and understanding of social media and various interactive technologies. Always worth the time and often quite illuminating.

If you could give one piece of advice to a new AZIMA volunteer, what would it be?

Keep an open mind and open heart. As you join long time volunteers, there are historical precedents and ways of doing things, but plenty of opportunity to contribute and move the ball forward. Relationship build too, there can be quite beneficial to your visibility in the organization and hopefully lead to new opportunities and friendships.

Teresa Taylor - Mark Goldstein AIIP Headshot 01 04_18_15 Crop

If you’d like to learn more about AZIMA and ways to volunteer or become a member, please visit our website http://joinazima.org/

January AZIMA Member Spotlight – Michael Arce

Posted on January 6, 2016 by - Mission to Meet AZIMA Members, Tips and strategy, Uncategorized

Breaking the Mold: How One Man Carved His Digital Career

“What do you do?” and “What did you go to school for?” are two overarching conversation starters at nearly every networking event and cocktail party. The real question is, do those two things have to be the same? According to Mike Arce, founder and CEO of Loud Rumor, if you love to learn and embrace constant change anything is possible.

For more and more professionals, finding the right career fit for their talents is more important than ever. Here is the story of an AZIMA member who decided to stop looking for a job to fill, and instead created a career that he finds fulfilling.

Being the founder of a swiftly growing internet marketing agency wasn’t always in Arce’s career plan. In fact, after leaving Arizona State University and owning his own personal training company, delving into the digital realm was arguably one of the farthest things from his mind.

It wasn’t until Arce’s cousin approached him to lend a hand in some business development efforts for her startup agency Crespo Designs, that the seed was planted.

(Enter Loud Rumor.) After falling in love with the industry, Arce and his wife, Marjon, started an internet marketing agency focused on helping small businesses gain new customers and grow their business. Loud Rumor originally found success as a web design company, they then developed a deeper passion for marketing websites, rather than creating them. With the addition of services like SEO,PPC, Facebook Ads, and YouTube Ads, Loud Rumor helps clients utilize their online presence to see real results.

While finding your niche is the first step, it’s certainly not the last on any professional journey. It’s also essential to stay on top of every trend in your industry. According to Arce, modern SEO has changed quite a bit and continues to adjust constantly. In fact, it used to be the main component of marketing plans for Loud Rumor clients.  While it’s still a component, more attention has to be put toward other adapting avenues.

Bringing on the right people is another thing that has kept Arce and Loud Rumor on track for success.

“The wrong people will demotivate you, and make you feel like nothing is going right.  I’ve been there. The right people keep you charged, hungry, and positive,” Said Arce “This includes the people you associate with outside of work. Make sure your circle is a positive one that loves to talk about ideas and creativity.”

Arce also recommends getting mentors, working on people skills as much as marketing skills, and overall taking care of your physical well being.

“If you don’t understand people, it’ll be very hard to find ways to attract them,” said Arce “Whether it’s clients, team members, vendors, or partners.”

Looking for a great place to network and meet like minded professionals in the digital marketing industry? Click HERE to join AZIMA today.

Mike Arce

Mike Arce
Title: Founder and CEO of Loud Rumor
Contact: [email protected]

January Board Member Spotlight – Ginelle Howard

Posted on January 4, 2016 by - Tips and strategy, Uncategorized

A Look Inside:

Q&A (unedited) with AZIMA Director of Member Benefits Ginelle Howard

Ginelle Howard, Independent marketing consultant and Arizona Interactive Marketing Association’s Director of Member Benefits, has worked both the agency and corporate side of marketing and has befriended Fortune 500 brands ranging from make-up to pet products over the past 10 years. Currently, her expertise in brand planning, marketing strategy and business development has led her to independent consulting.

Why do you think the world needs more women in leadership roles within the industry and in entrepreneurship?

Mainly, because I believe that women make fantastic leaders and are incredibly creative, intelligent, resourceful, intuitive and beyond capable. I’ve also never met a woman that wasn’t brave and I think that great leadership demands that of any individual.

Beyond that belief, I think it is important for women to continue to strive for gender equality in the workplace and one of the most significant ways that women can work together to achieve this equality is to take a seat at the leadership table. Of course those seats can be hard to come by and that’s why entrepreneurship provides such an enriching and empowering option for women in business to carve out their own leadership and creative path.

How would you describe what the industry is like for those considering a marketing career?

In marketing there is never a dull moment. It’s not a routine field. It can be like riding a rollercoaster without always or (maybe more like never) having a seatbelt. The industry constantly changes and requires you to be a relentless and avid learner, which I love. What I enjoy most about the industry is that it involves an incredible convergence of worlds that in other fields you wouldn’t get to always experience so heavily. Art, science, psychology, sociology, technology and pop culture are all such major influences in a way that is very unique to the industry.

How is adapting technology changing the frontier of your industry?

In some ways it has changed everything and in other ways nothing has changed. There are more niche areas and the overall marketing umbrella is becoming much more expansive then it was in years past. Our ability to reach consumers is certainly much faster and we are able to connect with people on a significantly larger scale. And sure, the mediums and platforms we use to communicate are more varied with the advanced development of mobile technology, app culture, the continued boom of social media, and the vastness of opportunities the web presents, but these technologies do not create great marketing. Good copy is good copy in and of itself, not because it was shared on social media. Brilliant brand strategy isn’t brilliant, because it was put on a landing page using key SEO search terms and followed by a hash tag. Creative ideation and strategic insights will always be the pillars of the industry’s frontier and I don’t think any adapting technology will ever change that.

What is a tip that has helped you stay on top of your game?

I learned a lot from my first job. I used to observe everything I could from the CEO of the company. I learned that you have to be able to talk and understand all aspects of the business and stay very knowledgeable on a wide variety of industries. He taught me that it’s not enough to know marketing and to be able to talk marketing. You really have to be able to understand the nuances of many other businesses. No one can be the expert in everything, but always increasing your knowledge outside of your world as much as possible will help keep you in the game.

Any advice for someone looking into a career in this field?

Find a mentor. Heck, find five. There is nothing else I would recommend more highly. Also, I’d say to become clear and poignant about your own brand. I think developing and portraying a strong sense of who you are and what you stand for as a creative talent and overall human being is so important. It allows your distinct point of view to flow out naturally and authentically. I think when those things are very clear within you and you can articulate them well, that other people take notice and want to be a part of it. The most successful brands in the world do that and when someone starting out in the field can do that too it’s very powerful and will take you places.

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Ginelle Howard
Title: Director of Brand Marketing for Yandy
Contact: [email protected]

We Like it When they Give us Big Data: Forecasting Campaign Success With Staffan Hulten

Posted on November 2, 2015 by - Uncategorized

First impressions are everything. When thinking about the elements needed to make a great advertising campaign, many start off with contemplating messaging, visuals and platforms for distribution. But the Vice President of Research and Analysis of Media (RAM) Staffan Hulten takes a different approach. He recognizes if you don’t catch the attention of the audience within seconds, the campaign is in jeopardy of failure. This makes understanding each member of the client’s audience from an independent level essential for campaign success.

We’re excited to highlight Staffan as our expert speaker for the October monthly AZIMA event and pick his brain about what it really takes to forecast the success of any ad campaign.

Using big data to create meaningful and memorable campaigns for audiences is key according to Hulten. As a founding partner of RAM, he works closely with traditional and digital media clients to develop robust research panels that truthfully mirror their client’s viewers, readers and listeners. This helps to dig down into the roots of the media medium and determine the most effective ways to reach their key audiences with their campaigns.

According to Hulten, with over 75 million interviews locked in and an additional ½ million interviews being added to their database every month, RAM is the Ikea for media data. This data gives RAM the ability to identify industry fallacies to provide valuable consultancy and education so their clients can focus on what matters most: generating results.

“A code that is placed on print and mobile ads can be monitored to measure different individual aspects of a user,” said Hulten. “Not many people want to know that they are being shadowed, but we can see exactly what they do and how frequently they do it.” That information is helping analysts and big brands learn.

Hulten notes that not everything users do online is being watched. Select things are examined to better understand consumer habits. Another big change in the industry is the ability to evaluate device preference. RAM evaluates their panel members by listing out the devices they use, which allows them to ensure a more accurate representation of preference and frequency of usage for devices and browsers.

Hulten stresses how important it is to get information from the individual level rather than the browser level. Tracing something like “reach” which is measured differently for every channel is not as accurate as measuring memory traces. Asking panel members and people if they remember a campaign and gathering data on that is much more relevant.

“If I let go of 1 million balloons outside of my hotel, I would have a reach of 1 million,” said Hulten. “But if no one sees it or resonates with it, it won’t have any impact. There are often huge campaigns with no impact at all.”

Staffan grew up in Sweden, moved to East Africa for several years then moved back to Sweden, where he attended University and currently lives. He and his partner founded RAM after noticing a big hole in the media evaluation market. What surprised them most was even though they were focused on print, any other form of media was simpler to provide feedback on. So they set out to make a system that made monitoring more lateral.

When he is not advancing campaigns with tactical data, you can find Hulten enjoying guitar music festivals and practicing his juggling skills for laughs. He advises colleagues and individuals entering this field to be open and very quick to understand and adapt to what really counts. Traditional measurement evaluation is still important, but analysts should be aware that they should monitor the things that result in impact or change

If you are interested in learning more about the world of marketing, be sure to attend our monthly events by signing up as an AZIMA member here: http://joinazima.org/join-azima/