CIM Marketing Event at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Durham

CIM North East 'Your Marketing Show'

The North East branch of the CIM held a very interesting event at the The Radisson SAS Durham entitled 'Your Marketing Show'. With an interesting combination of speakers Your Marketing Show, provided delegates with some worthwhile tips and suggestions on improving their own marketing. I was there as a photographer to cover the event but also was very interested in any tips I could pic up about marketing a small business. The the conference photography went very well indeed. I got lots of graet candid shots of the speakers and even set up some pictures outside.

The Radisson in Durham is a fine venue for conference and event photography with light rooms and a huge central atrium.

Take home messages that I thought most relevant to myself and business like my own.

•With the rise of social networking don’t forget the use of traditional forms of marketing such as newspaper promotions/competitions and ‘lumpy’ mail.
•Using social media to promote your business is about depositing knowledge and time to reep the benefits slowly. Not just about shouting about your products. It’s about involvement in communities. Something that I suppose I knew but like all people I’m often short of time so it’s always worthy of repetition.
•Take time to add comments and favourite people and their work to draw hits back through your site.
•The use of viral video can be a fun way of getting indirect marketing but should never be a direct marketing tool. I already have plans for one !
•Never underestimate LinkedIn as a great way of sharing knowledge with your potential colleagues and customers.
•Slideshare.net has some great free marketing info.
•Taking pictures and notes at the same time requires three arms.

I had a very interesting day although some of the terminology was a little bit industry specific. It took me ages to figure out that B2B marketing meant Business to Business. Duh!. Although I’m only a mere photographer so I suppose I have a awful lot to learn about marketing and PR. Here are a few more photographs from a really interesting day.

Here are some photographs from the conference.