2011 Is Looking Bright:
A New Year’s Message from Tom Martin and Rich Sturchio

So how does the new year feel so far? Seems like lots of folks were happy to turn the page. While 2010 was definitely challenging, in many ways it reflected the business climate in general. Uncertainty in business was expressed through clients’ tightening marketing strategies and budgets. After struggling through 2009, clients recognized the need to drive business, but the scope and pulse of those programs were not as strong as in those years when business felt bullish.

Yet, these are just the times when marketers get resourceful, and Cramer’s depth of experience and resources have proven invaluable for many of our clients. “We could shift channels swiftly, measure results and refine programs swiftly, which is what our clients needed to keep pace in the market. Many were managing marketing initiatives with less human resources, which required them to make choices on which programs to take on and which to delay. We expect this juggle to continue into 2011, and Cramer teams are prepared to manage through it,” remarks Rich Sturchio, Cramer President. “Additionally, many of our event clients with traditional live events ventured into online virtual events and webcasts to extend reach and test new markets. Cramer’s ability to work in all of these venues and bring the right balance of programming and production values together proved successful for many. Our depth of experience made many feel comfortable to venture forward for the first time, even when their own resources were minimized and they truly had to rely on the partnership for success,” noted Sturchio.

What is Predicted for 2011?

We are seeing greater opportunities for integrated campaigns—and for Cramer’s unique ability to fuse creativity and technology to shine. Industry analysts forecast that over 75% of marketers plan to include mobile in their marketing mix, and 9 out of 10 online adults use social media. We are keeping our eyes peeled to continue to ascertain how social media will drive business beyond awareness. We all know it is part of the mix, but the trick is how to use it to also drive leads. And, we are watching Facebook surpass Google while Americans watch more videos a month on YouTube than they conduct searches on Google. It’s an exciting landscape, and we have the means and vision to navigate through it with our clients. So we start 2011 with optimism and energy.

Cramer Strengthens and Realigns its Senior Team

That enthusiasm also springs from strategic enhancements to our Cramer team. Rich Sturchio has stepped into the role of President, a move that reflects his deep knowledge of our clients’ businesses and his ability to bring out the best in our team. Rich has brought strong leadership to Cramer for the past 22 years and has been instrumental in developing our creative team over that time. Rich has been setting the pace of Cramer’s growth and development over the years, building and growing key accounts. Tim Martin has been appointed to Chief Operating Officer, giving us the strongest possible management combination to lead the company at a time of tremendous opportunity.

We’re also pleased to announce that account services and sales have been aligned under the leadership of Ann Cave, our Executive Vice President of Business Development and Account Services. With over 20 years of marketing, business strategy, and sales experience, Ann was the perfect choice to help client relationships thrive. During her tenure at Cramer, Ann demonstrated her leadership abilities by building out Cramer’s strategic services division, including brand development, product launches, demand generation and sales enablement. She is a valuable asset to our clients and her colleagues.

Creative Services has a dynamic new leader in its Senior Vice President and Creative Director, Derrick Wood. With 18 years of success in both the corporate and agency sides of the business, Derrick has a unique understanding of how brands behave and how to leverage creativity to drive profitability. He has enhanced communications for well-known companies including: L.L. Bean, Fidelity Investments, Kraft Foods, Disney Interactive, Staples, the University of Phoenix, GMC and Pontiac. Derrick is already moving the company forward creatively with his expertise and leadership.

Please accept our best wishes for a healthy 2011. And we’ll do our part to make it prosperous for you as well.

Event Strategies: Watch This! Do You Think You Have Seen It All? Hear from Cramer Veterans for New Ideas and Insights

Face-to-face events: just when we think we have seen it all on the stage, we hear from Cramer veterans Rich Sturchio, President, and Derrick Wood, SVP Creative, on what makes for the most compelling programming for events, and how to keep them fresh, motivational and on message.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW >

Getting Personal: Beyond Segmentation
By Francois Laxalt; Marketing Intelligence Manager; Neolane, Inc.

Cramer is pleased to partner with Neolane, the premier marketing automation technology platform. In this article, learn how to achieve improved customer engagement and measure business value. Get tips, best practices and case studies to help you start planning a personalized campaign now.

If you missed it, download “Fight Marketing Fatigue Now,” where Neolane discusses the challenge of improving relevancy of targeted, personalized communications. Who cares, and how do you assure customers will care? Check out the case for one-to-one marketing automation.

So how do you use that technology platform that your procurement department helped select? How do you make the most of the tools? At Cramer, our job is to bridge the gap from technology to business solution by fusing the creative and production values with the right technology platform to drive your business. We feel confident that our strategists, technicians, user experience teams and creative teams help solve those challenges for our clients.

Our technology channel partner, Neolane, is one of the best at marketing segmentation. As a team, we have helped our clients create impactful marketing strategies that are more engaging and measurable. But how do we really push the envelope to improve customer engagement beyond one-to-one personalization?

Click here to download Neolane’s white paper to learn more.

4 Proven Approaches:
Virtual Events and Today’s Business Challenges
By Steve Gogolak, Director of Media and Webcasting, Cramer, and Liz Kay, VP, Account Strategy, Cramer

Cramer’s Steve Gogolak just returned from the Virtual Edge Summit 2011, the premier conference for the virtual event industry, where he heard from event planners and marketers about their successful online event programs. The big buzz at the conference this year was all about successful engagement. How do we raise the bar on attendee engagement to increase the impact of online event programs? Steve spoke on a panel with marketers from Microsoft and Oracle about ways to create successful online programs and the tools used to get there. Learn more about Steve’s insights on how to successfully plan and execute online events.

Today’s business environment is bringing new and tougher challenges to event planning, creating a real need for virtual and hybrid events solutions. At Cramer, clients tell us that competition for attendees’ time is increasingly intense, thanks to tightly packed schedules and shrinking travel budgets. At the same time, companies are looking to maximize their resources as well as their impact. So how do we address these critical business issues? Here, we work closely with clients to create innovative solutions that are both effective and efficient. Virtual and hybrid events in particular have helped our clients solve critical business issues like lead generation, sales enablement, key customer retention and internal communications. Following are four examples that show the wide use of virtual events to drive business.

1. Lead generation: extending reach with virtual events

Virtual events offer a rich, dynamic solution for companies looking to extend their reach in a way that is both effective and efficient. At Cramer, we helped a leading technology company transform their annual in-person event into a virtual experience. Leveraging pre-recorded presentations, we provided a rich palette of programming for the virtual platform. Attendees watched keynote addresses, participated in small-group breakout sessions and “met” with IT developers in demo areas. The result was a significant increase in overall attendance rates: the virtual event drew 3 times the number of attendees as the live event, and each attendee spent an average of more than 360 minutes over 3 days learning about the company’s new offering.

2. Enabling and empowering sales

To maximize their effectiveness, sales teams need constant motivation from senior leadership. However, time out of the office, travel expenses and cost constraints are causing companies to rethink face-to-face events in terms of ROI. Clearly, there is something important and unique that occurs at large live events in terms of relationship building. The question is how to retain this quality while extending reach within a virtual experience. For one B-to-B client, a hybrid event proved to be the answer. They kicked off the year with a national sales meeting. A key supplier virtual event followed six months later. Content from the live event was easily transported into demonstration areas on the virtual event platform, allowing for online conversations with sales reps as well as thoughtful and targeted questions and answers. For some who might be embarrassed to ask questions publicly, the virtual space made vendors more accessible.

Metrics for this approach were impressive. More than 2,800 attendees participated in the virtual event, which was structured regionally to manage time and resources. With 32 key supplier booths, sales reps visited an average of 26 booths each, totaling nearly 75,000 booth interactions (83% of the opportunity).

3. Retaining customers

If you have a product or service that needs constant upgrades like software requires, virtual events are an ideal way to provide customers and clients the information they need, while taking advantage of up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. Cramer has always encouraged clients to see their live events as more than just a moment in time. For one high-tech company, the strategy was to follow up their live event with ongoing chat rooms and blogs to continue the conversation. Ultimately, they were able to leverage insight from these conversations to drive keynote topics for the following year’s live event.

Currently, another software company is taking this approach one step further. Understanding that a major user conference is key to their success in 2011, they are utilizing a virtual event platform to test content, keynote speakers, and various features in advance. In doing so, they hope to gain valuable key customer insight and buy in. For this client, the virtual event experience goes beyond a flat landing page, microsite or online bulletin board. It tests assumptions by bringing the experience to life in a way that will drive the key customer experience, and help them recognize the value of the face-to-face event.

4. Internal communications and sales training

Virtual events are ideal for large organizations with dispersed teams that can’t easily be brought together. They provide a dynamic and interactive format for information to be exchanged that is far more engaging than intranet solutions. This proved true for a leading bio pharmaceutical company that needed to communicate timely product launch information to their entire team, including their sales force. By using a virtual event platform, they were able to provide an impactful experience that allowed executives to speak into the camera and, ultimately, directly to the team, increasing motivation and message importance. This approach also took the “hearsay” equation out of the mix. An ongoing virtual platform allows this company to supplement executive sessions with best practices, downloads, podcasts and even surveys and testing. It is a strategy that is paying off in a fast-paced and competitive environment.