Attending conferences can be such a “high” — meeting people, learning new ideas, and talking, talking, talking gives me an adrenalin rush.

This year I had the honor of presenting “Beyond Title Tags: Turning Clicks into Leads” during NEDMA’s Wednesday “workshop” day. Thursday I moderated the panel, “Direct Mail Strategies: What’s Hot, What’s Not in B2B, B2C, and Not-for-Profit.” Here’s Beth Negus Viveiros’, editor of Direct Magazine, write up of the session: Live From NEDMA: Technology Needs to Make Sense, Say Direct Mail Pros. 

Thank you, Pat Farley, Pam Sullivan, Jonathan Kranz, and Bob McCarthy. You made my job as moderator very, very easy.

My colleague, Margie Dana, wrote a great newsletter issue this week about why one should read the Wall Street Journal. Dana, who publishes the weekly, “Margie’s Print Tip,” talks about how reading the WSJ keeps her abreast of the print industry:

The technology coverage in the Journal is also excellent. Whether it’s a piece about Internet searches on cell phones or a discussion about Microsoft vs. Apple, I consider this newspaper’s coverage invaluable to me, a print industry follower. It’s here that I find out how today’s kids are getting their information and communicating with each other. It all relates to this field.

Being a huge WSJ fan myself, I immediately emailed her to say I agreed with her 100%.

Whether it’s learning how P&G connects with its female audience or how Wal-Mart hires female executives for its stores in China, I learn something new almost every day just by reading this paper. I often clip articles that pertain to projects I’m working on and will email colleagues about articles they may have missed.

But can reading the WSJ make you a better copywriter? I say, “Absolutely!” One, the WSJ offers a wealth of article ideas for those of you who blog or publish e-newsletters. And two, you learn about new technologies and methods of communicating that (if they aren’t already) will affect how you write copy in the near future. Wikis? Podcasts? Websites designed for the “third screen”? (Anne Holland of MarketingSherpa has an excellent blog post about this very topic.) You’ll find something about these topics and more in the WSJ.

More importantly, however, by becoming a regular reader you’ll pick up the cadence of good journalism. As Dana says, “The writing throughout the publication is the BEST.” If you want to improve your writing (something I’m constantly working on), then reading and emulating the WSJ is certainly a good place to start.
 

Canadian online marketer Barbara Ashton, publisher of the About Women blog, emailed me late yesterday in response to the MarketingSherpa special report which just came out: “How to Market to Canadians Online — Advice, Data, Legal Info and Useful Hotlinks.”

Barbara writes, “After reading your MarketingSherpa article, I thought you might find my recent experience with Macy’s of interest.”

In a nutshell, Barbara’s Canadian postal code caused a mailing SNAFU so she never received her statement and (this part I love), she can’t make an online payment because . . . she isn’t an American citizen and lacks a social security number.

This type of thing popped up in a few of the interviews I conducted for the MarketingSherpa article: U.S. retailers, for example, will alert their U.S. and Canadian customers to in-store promos via email, but the promos are only good in U.S. stores — even though the retailer also has Canadian stores.

Thanks, Barbara, for alerting me to your blog (a very fine one indeed) and for the kind words. I love getting fan mail!

After sitting on the fence for months (ok, make it a year) about whether I should start a blog, I finally got my butt in gear and put one together. My main inspiration for this endeavor came from two people: David Meerman Scott, who writes a terrific blog, Web Ink Now, and blog evangelist Bob Cargill. Unfortunately, Bob is taking a break from his blog, the New Marketing Commentator, but you can read his archives. 

Although I publish an e-newsletter each month, I feel constrained by its limited frequency and its format. So my main goals for this blog include posting about B2B marketing tactics I encounter on a regular basis, to have fun, and to build better connections in the community.

Thank you David, Bob, and Cathy for your inspiration (and prodding), and most important, thank you to Jessica Albon who did the design and held my hand throughout the process.