Relationship Marketing Congress offered inspiration, trends and marketing passion!

Jelle Quirynen, insights on the Relationship Marketing Congress in Belgium.

Last week EmailGarage was present at the Relationship Marketing Congress organised by Stichting Marketing.
It was a very busy day, presenting two EmailGarage sessions, participating in the Marketing Café, and visiting other speakers and discussions.

We presented our MarketingSherpa Email Summit ’08 Revisited for the second time in Belgium at the beginning of the day.
In the afternoon we offered the attendees a temporary overview of our Email marketing Survey 2008, in combination with a general email marketing suvey conducted by iVOX. As a visitor of this presentation I could clearly discover enthousiasm and positive noise on the results in the audience. Email remains a hot item in future interactive marketing!

Later on this month we will provide you with the final results of our survey.

Stichting Marketing also organised a Marketing Café on online media and new trends that could be visited by the congress’ participants during the day. The concept was based on an informal discussion session in a bar (including a fresh beer or soda, to inspire people’s minds:-)) with intensive interaction managed by different online media experts who answered all questions and gave as much advice as possible. Topics were social networks, blogging, search marketing, personal reputation management, etc. I really liked this way of communicating with the audience! A small group of interactors created a very active discussion with a cross-fire of questions, based on visitors specific branches, interests and target groups.

Next to all this I also visited some other presentations at the congress.
De Post, the Belgian post mail handler offered the results of research work on the complementarity of direct mail and email. I will write another blogpost about the evolution of email and print later this week. Definitely useful feedback and a confirmation that email is following the right road!

Other presenters talked about biotic customer relationship management, customer driven strategies, optimising customer experience, and a lot more. Interesting insights, I am curious about the evolutions on these topics!

The Relationship Marketing Congress finished of with ‘lessons in love’. A presentation from Frans Reichardt, director Holy Cow! Direct Communications.
A great presention, brought with charisma and passion, containing one specific message: always be ready for your customer. Know what they want, and be there whenever they need you!

Jelle Quirynen