Webinar Resources

Mark and I returned from Indianapolis Thursday evening  after attending "Connections '09: Success by Design", a one-to-one marketing conference where we learned a lot of new information about email marketing, social media integration, email + SMS, video in email, personalized marketing campaigns, and much more. In the future we'll be blogging about how we're using the new concepts and techniques that we have learned.

I haven't always done the best job after a conference or trade show of absorbing everything I learned and keeping up with the contacts I made. I was determined to do a better job this time of taking advantage of the opportunity afforded me and our company, by doing the following as quickly as possible after my return home while things were still fresh in my mind:

1. I put my photos from the trip into an album on Facebook and announced the link in our Webinar Resources Twitter feed, as well as my own personal social media tools.

2. I entered the contacts I made into my database and emailed all of them a link to the photos.

3. I organized all the takeaway information from the conference and retyped my handwritten notes (20 pages worth!), cross checking and adding urls to resources whenever appropriate. There were lots of whitepapers, slide presentations, blog posts and other resources to keep track of, and putting links to them in my notes I think will help me remember the context and get more out of the information.

4. I made an action item list of all the ideas I picked up for improvements to make to our marketing materials and strategies.

5. I posted my notes and links to pertinent materials on our private company portal, and sent a notice to all of our team members, so they can benefit from what I have learned.

What do you do after a trade show or conference to help you retain all the new information you have consumed?