EMBA Internet Marketing Spring 2010

Sonoma State University’s School of Business and Economics Executive MBA Program

Date and time: Friday, 4/2, 1-5pm.

Location: Schulz 1121

Guests: Hardy Wallace, Dirty South Wine and Dominic Foppoli, Foppoli Wines.

Today’s class will cover 1) my story, 2) marketing before facebook vs. after facebook, 3) Internet marketing educational resources, 4) Class exercise/case study: Single Night, and 5) Hardy Wallace.

1) My story!  Every company/person/brand should have a story to tell, and every oversharing peep with a blog likes to talk about themselves, so here is my story.

• 1996: I made a personal web page: http://www.stanford.edu/~dmhoro
• 2006: I got on myspace
• 2007: I got on facebook, got an I got an iPod, heard a podcast about Gary Vaynerchuk, started watching WLTV (20:20), and started teaching marketing classes at Sonoma State.
• 2008: I attended the Wine Bloggers’ Conference, saw this awesome video, got on twitter, started a personal tumblr blog (http://DavidMarkHorowitz.com), WordPress.org blog (http://DrHorowitz.biz), and a WordPress.com blog (http://TheGlobalWineIndustry.WordPress.com).  I also started using Google Reader.
• 2009: I attended the Wine Bloggers’ Conference, saw this awesome video, found great web design tutorials like Chris Coyier’s CSS-Tricks screencasts and Jeffrey Way’s Nettuts tutorials, spent the Summer learning html and css, changed my personal tumblr blog to http://Dr-Horo.com, changed my WordPress teaching blog to http://DrHo.ro, changed my Wine Business Study Abroad class website to http://TheGlobalWineIndustry.com, and started my tumblr teaching website http://SonomaMarketing.net.  In the Fall of 2009 I taught Introduction to Marketing undergraduate students about Internet marketing.  I also taught the class Introduction to Wine Blogging with the Pinotblogger Josh Hermsmeyer.
• 2010: I had all of my undergraduate marketing students buy domain names at the beginning of the Spring semester.  My marketing research students have tumblr websites and my promotion management students have WordPress.org websites.  I taught the class Introduction to Wine Blogging again with the Pinotblogger, and now I’m writing a book chapter on how to teach students to be Marketing 2.Awesome and am trying to figure out which piece of the puzzle I want to focus on this Summer.  I’ve got a year subscription to Lynda.com and continue to use Google Reader to follow the blogs listed in my sidebar.

2) The marketing landscape before facebook vs. after facebook.

• Before facebook marketing books focused a lot more on consumer behavior theories–How Brands Become Icons, Coercion: Why We Listen to What ‘They’ Say, Born to Buy, and Buying In.  Successful marketing gurus drew upon theories from anthropology, psychology, and linguistics to find consumer hot buttons, dissect inner needs of consumers, and to identify euphemisms that would sell.
• After facebook marketing books are focusing on the Internet–CrushIt, The New Community Rules, and Groundswell.  Successful marketing gurus after facebook have created digital content, communities, forums, and apps.

3) The Internet marketing landscape is changing fast, but there are lots of great free and inexpensive educational resources online.  As EMBAs I think it’s important for you to recognize that your marketing employees need to be aware of how communication and communication technology is changing.  Your employees will need good Internet marketing skills (fundamentals), need to know how new technologies are being used in innovative ways (blogs), and will need to participate in online communities.  Just make sure that your employees don’t spend too much time chitchatting.  The more time you spend chitchatting online the less time you spend learning online.

• Internet marketing skills: Lynda, Total Training, etc.
• How technologies are being used in innovative ways:  Tuts+, CSS-Tricks, Smashing Magazine, etc.
• Wine Business blogs: The wine business websites in my sidebar.
• Get an rss reader: I use Google Reader and NetNewsWire.
• Participate in your online community:  Leave comments on blogs that you are interested in and link to content you find interesting.  How many of you have a personal website?

4) Class exercise/case study: Single Night.

• You are the marketing director for Single Night…
• Details from Dominic Foppoli
• Prepare a presentation in groups on how you would do the Internet marketing, social media, web design, etc. for Single Night.
• BE SPECIFIC!  Services, account usernames, domain names, people, roles, timeline, etc.
• Estimate costs
• How is this event going to be innovative?  Why would somebody write/blog about this event?
• How is your content going to be creative?  What is going to make somebody forward something to their friends?
• Here are some of my ideas…

5) Hardy Wallace.

• Feedback on your Internet marketing plans for Single Night.
• Hardy’s story.
• Hardy’s thoughts on Internet marketing and social media.
• Hardy’s current projects at Dirty South Wine, Michel-Schlumberger (blog) and The Natural Process Alliance (videos).

Q&A