The Bucksnorts Summit on New & Emerging Media

I had the privilege of attending the Bucksnorts Summit on New and Emerging Media in Chicago this week, hosted by Mike Maddock of Maddock Douglas - the Chicago-based agency of innovation. Others in attendance included members Callahan Creek, H.T. Klatzky & Associates, R-P Marketing Public Relations, Sanger Eby Design, Shelton Group, Stone Agency, Spiker Communications, Third Degree Advertising, and Wanderlust. Also at the summit were invited guests Marcel Media, Newfangled, Punchkick Interactive, Rachet, Sway, Vibes and a few others.

The by-invitation-only event featured presentations and discussions around a number of subjects of great importance to travel, tourism and destination marketers: web design best practices, web content strategies, RSS, search engine optimization, blogging, web 2.0 marketing, social media marketing, internet advertising, SMS and MMS, mobile phone applications and widgets, metrics for measuring ROI and a host of other new and emerging marketing media.

While many of these topics were not entirely new, what was discernibly different from my perspective was the conference’s focus: how to use these technologies in a cost-effective and affordable manner to build awareness for, drive business to, and create consumer loyalty for travel and tourism destinations.

The timing for this event couldn’t have been more opportune. We are now in a recession and, as travel and tourism marketers, we need to find ways of accomplishing more with less. These new media options give us ways of doing just that, and they come with tools to measure our ROI to boot. Up until now, the power of many of these technologies have been understood and available to only the largest of advertisers. Today that has all changed. Even those with modest budgets can take advantage them, too.