Cool New Marketing Technologies: Caught and Served

Steve Gogolak

Director of Media and Webcasting

I’m a halfbreed. One part production groupie and one part digital media junkie. I’ve made a feature length film, more shorts than I can count (or remember) and I did all of that before the internet became a “thing” to participate in. Since then I’ve compressed video, authored DVDs, streamed live events, created wireframes, altered designs in Photoshop, written XML and, most of all, had a blast doing everything. I’m a halfbreed – and I’m okay with that.

Steve's posts

Is a mobile app right for my content?

By Steve Gogolak

We recently had an excited discussion on our corporate Yammer feed about mobile apps and what sort of content was appropriate for a custom app vs a mobile-optimized website. The conversation was sparked by our UX guru, Brian Yoder who posted an article from Wired Magazine titled “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.”

iPhone App Store Logo

I jumped on that idea right away because I see the line between apps and sites as pretty clear cut, noting that the article is “true, but i’m not sure that browser-based stuff is ‘dead’ completely.  It seems like people are going to apps for specific, recurring tasks while the “web” is being used more for seeking out information. there is also something scary about moving from an uber-compatible web to a lot of different, incompatible device platforms.” Read This Post

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Posted in Digital Marketing, Marketing Technology | 1 Comment »

Virtual Event Evolution – what will happen next

By Steve Gogolak

Fellow Virtual Event blogger Dennis Shiao has taken a fantastic step toward innovation by suggesting in a recent post that the community come together to develop a “wish list” of sorts for what virtual event platform companies should consider on their product road maps.   After Dennis twisted my arm (not really), I jumped in and contributed to the thoughts already laid out by he and Miguel Arias over at Imaste.  Check out our thoughts on the wiki Dennis created.

So here’s a good chance for you to weigh in down in the comments.  Perhaps consider answering one of these questions:

  • What do you hate most about virtual event technology?
  • What one current feature, if removed, would cause the world to end?
  • What is the one piece of technology you want inside virtual event platforms that isn’t there yet?

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Posted in Virtual Events, Webcasting | Comments Off

Why engagement matters more for virtual events

By Steve Gogolak

Watch the video

Raise your hand if you’ve attended a virtual event. Now raise your hand if, while attending that very event, you switched over to read email, browse something else on the web and, perhaps, even forgot that you had the even open in another window. Herein lies the greatest challenge the virtual even industry will face as the market becomes more comfortable with the idea of going virtual: engagement.

What is Engagement?

Engagement consists of behaviors exhibited by the event attendees that demonstrate an active level of involvement in every aspect of the event. That means that:

  • promotion and registration are part of the engagement
  • the experience of entering the event and being guided through content are part of the engagement
  • each presentation’s ability to hold the attendees attention is part of the engagement

In short, engagement isn’t something that happens in moments.  It happens over time across many channels and permeates the event experience.

So how do you plan for quality engagement?

Think like an attendee and create the experience first.  Map out, start to finish, what the entire experience will consist of from registration to pre-event gaming to the event itself and even the follow up.  Once you’ve mapped out the entire experience you’re ready to start creating a project plan that includes specific tactics to bring your experience to life.

How do we do it?

Glad you asked. We here at Cramer have a methodology for thinking about engagement during a virtual experience that we call eCAST. You can learn more about eCAST and hear an in depth discussion about engagement during virtual events in a video we produced specifically about this complex problem.

So how do you engage your attendees online?

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Posted in Creative Approach, Measurement & Analytics, Virtual Events, Webcasting | Comments Off