Interview :: Bill Leake
By Guest Interviewer Matt Scherer
Bill Leake will be speaking at Innotech Austin on October 16th at the Austin Convention Center. A former McKinsey consultant and Dell veteran, Bill Leake draws on a deep expertise in both business and marketing to help increase revenues for a wide range of clients. He has been involved in driving provable revenues through Internet marketing techniques since the early 1990s when, as part of the management team at Power Computing, he built the first company to sell $1 million of product over the internet. Bill has guided Apogee Search from inception to its current position as the largest search engine marketing firm in the Southwest, and one of the 20 largest in North America.
Q: You have one of the most difficult jobs in Austin as the program chair for the eMarketing summit of this year’s Austin Innotech. After all, there are a lot of local and national marketing agencies who do excellent work in this space. How did you pick the speakers for this year’s panel?
Well, I don’t know that I’d call it one of the hardest jobs. We’ve got a great team that works on the eMarketing Summit, and I’m just one of many folks dedicated to bringing some of the best minds out there across the marketing landscape to Austin. The tough challenge is often how best to balance advanced material with basic information so that everyone can benefit from this program.
Q: How much has eMarketing changed in the past year?
Quite a bit. The fundamentals have stayed the same, but the marketing opportunities keep expanding. Over the last year, we’ve seen an explosion on things that can be done with video online, serious growth in mobile platforms, and ever-moving development across search, display ads, and email, the three “biggies” of eMarketing.
Q: How do you see the changes in eMarketing for the year ahead?
We’re going to see more search, more video, better tools, and of course, more integration of social media with the “traditional” eMarketing channels.
Q: There are a lot of traditional public relations and marketing professionals who don’t understand eMarketing. How can communications dinosaurs like me embrace the change in the communication process available with eMarketing channels?
For those dinosaurs out there, here are my five steps to successfully evolve:
Step one: Turn off the TV and go out on the internet for content.
Step two: Put down your print magazines and read them online instead.
Step three: Start commenting on blogs.
Step four: Play with Facebook.
Step five: Find things with Google.
Q: You mentioned to me when we set up this interview that this program is more tactical in its approach by saying you hoped that attendees would get three to five points from this event. If I am an experienced social marketing professional, what would be some of the take away messages that I would get in this program. And, if I am somewhat new to the process, what would make my participation worthwhile?
One key takeaway I’d hope that everyone gets is several actionable things that we all can do to help prosper despite the down economy. This digital universe has a huge advantage over traditional marketing in that it’s very measurable, for the most part. And in a time when every penny counts, this is even more important than usual. Also, this year is somewhat more geared toward the new tactics, as opposed to covering the basics, so this conference can not only help the attendees match the competition, but leapfrog ahead of others who didn’t make it.
Filed under: Interview
“How can communications dinosaurs like me embrace the change in the communication process available with eMarketing channels?”
Think ‘conversations’ or two-way communication. It’s about communicating and listening. Make yourself available, listen, contribute, and adapt to feedback.
Get an RSS feed-reader, subscribe to blogs of interest, comment and add value to the conversation.
Get Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter accounts (to start) and begin to connect and participate with the people around you.
If you are not ‘finding things on Google’ already, then I suggest you tap your grandchildren for guidance. Seriously Bill!
Heh, well I had you for the first four at least. I was hoping someone would call me out on the fifth (”find things on Google”) as I agree, if you’re not doing that yet, you’re seriously behind the times. BUT, I was assigned the term dinosaurs. I was half tempted to mention AOL and Altavista and Hotmail and Angelfire, but I managed to hold back. There are many dinosaurs who are still going to be intimidated by being told to “Get an RSS feed-reader”, and probably should be encouraged to sign up for Google News and Google Blog alerts instead.
And Bill, I never claim to know what I’m talking about — unless we’re talking ancient history, or some of the more obscure trivial pursuit categories, or science fiction.
Leake