Webinar: Put Your Web Site Front and Center

In these technologically focused times, customers rely on informative, user-friendly, and eye-catching web sites to make critical purchasing decisions.

During the next IAAPA webinar, Thursday, Oct. 22, at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sharon Swendner, president of .Com Marketing, and Norris Clark, director of sales and marketing, at Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, New Jersey, will discuss why and how you should focus on your web site as your core marketing vehicle. Topics will include evaluating web traffic, using search engine optimization (SEO), employing social media tactics, and learning basics of web design, plus more.

In the Queue editors recently caught up with Swendner, who shared a few insights into what webinar participants can expect to learn from this session.

What will be the main focus of the webinar?
We’ll be providing an overview of what we’ll share in more detail during the whole-day seminar at IAAPA Attractions Expo (see details on the Institute for Marketing: Nuts and Bolts of Internet). We’ve got eight topics areas: online strategy, web design, e-mail marketing, SEO, pay-per-click, social media marketing, online banners, and future trends. In each area, we’re giving a taste of the content in the full-day seminar.

What is the best audience for this content?
It’s really geared toward people who are responsible for or executing online marketing—the business owners or marketing/PR people. It’s not for the technical person who’s writing code.

Why should today’s marketing departments be thinking seriously about online and social marketing strategies?
Especially in the travel industry, people care more about what other people say that what you say through user-generated content. Tripadvisor developed around sharing what people think. Nowadays you’re not in control of your brand; your brand is what people perceive it to be, not what you want it to be.

What can marketers expect to take away from this session and apply to their businesses right away?
They’re going to walk away with a better understanding of the core online tools and fundamentals and what’s important in developing an online program from a strategic level and an integration level.

What lessons from this webinar would be helpful for small, family-owned operators who might not have a full marketing or web department?
The basic things they can do themselves. Everybody needs a web site; we’ll give them a lot of backbone in how they think about their online presence and how they use it.

Expo Discount: All webinar participants will be eligible for a $50 discount off registration for Institute for Marketing: Nuts and Bolts of Internet Marketing, which will be held Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Be sure to attend the webinar to find out how to get your discount.

For more on IAAPA’s e-learning programs, click here.