Blog

A Letter from Your 2021-22 Chapter President

September 21st, 2021

by AMAWM

AMA West Michigan Members and Friends, Hello, my name is Trevor Wood. I am a Junior E-commerce Merchandiser at UFP Industries, serving HomeDepot.com and .ca. Previous to this role, I was the Merchandise Manager and Amazon Coordinator at Gazelle Sports for over 13 years. I’m excited to be jumping into the 2021-22 season as your President! This brings me to my first area of focus, filling our open board positions! So if you or someone you know is interested in helping an incredible group of people, send me a message at president@amawestmichigan.org – you can view other board opportunities here. If there isn’t a specific role open, but you’re still interested in volunteering, we’d always love some extra help and depth on our... Read More

A Letter from Your 2019-2020 President – Rebecca Dutcher

September 17th, 2019

by AMAWM

AMA West Michigan Members & Friends, It’s back to school time here in West Michigan, which means we’re getting ready to kick off our new season! After an incredible past season, we are thrilled to announce our 2019-20 season to you. If you’re connected to us on Facebook and other social channels, you know we’ve been busy this summer. We’ve been adding incredible podcasts sharing important information for marketers, including Customer Experience, Pace Layering, and our most recent episode on Data Privacy & Legal on the Marketers in Motion podcast, which you can listen to any time. What’s Next > This year, we’re bringing you “What’s Next” – this theme means we’re focused on providing leading information with emerging insights and practices when it comes to... Read More

How Brands Can Harness Influencer Marketing

April 2nd, 2019

by AMAWM

Influencer marketing has been a hot topic for marketers the past several years, and because it is still a fairly new concept, it has left many scratching their heads. Because influencer marketing is different from traditional advertising, and there aren’t clear industry-wide guidelines or guaranteed results, it isn’t surprising that some marketers have been reluctant to begin using this tactic. Given that influencer marketing has been massively successful for many brands, both big and small, and that many in the industry are eager to learn more, we invited three successful influencers for a panel discussion to our February 5th luncheon. Our panelists for this event, that gave attendees a unique perspective from the point of view of an influencer, were: Liz Della Croce, The... Read More

The Year of Experience: A Letter from Your President, Meahgan Pear (2018-2019)

August 22nd, 2018

by AMAWM

AMA West Michigan Members & Friends, Since April, our incredible board has been working hard planning a stellar season for our members as well as the greater West Michigan creative community, and we’re excited to share with you our goals for the 2018-19 season, or as we like to call it… THE YEAR OF EXPERIENCE. Our core focus this year is to create an unparalleled experience that empowers our members to be bold in their careers and achieve their professional goals, whatever those might be. Through our programming, thought leadership, and our strong network – we are dedicated to creating a place for West Michigan marketers to call home. This year, with experience at the forefront, we’re focused on providing you with the... Read More

In Customer Experience, Bigger isn’t Better; Better is Better

December 4th, 2017

by AMAWM

For far too long companies have focused on size. More profits. More subscribers. More customers. More leads in the funnel. Bigger, so the establishment believes, is better. I invite you to challenge that thinking for a moment. What if better were truly better? Charles Kuralt famously said, “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” He was right about Interstates, and if asked about business today, he might say, “Today, it is now possible to do business end-to-end without seeing or speaking to another human.” In many respects, technology has removed humanity from business and customer experience. I believe the most successful companies are those who embrace technology without losing humanity.... Read More

Marketing That Moves: AMAWM’s Mission for 2017 – 2018

September 7th, 2017

by AMAWM

Welcome back to another great year with the American Marketing Association of West Michigan. Over the summer, the AMAWM board got together, reflected on the previous year, and got to planning. Based on some surveys, general feedback, and conversations from members, it was clear what changes needed to be made and what our audience really wanted. This year, we have made it our mission to engage our audience in luncheons, workshops, networking events, and other resources that provide the education and take-aways they need to get their professional marketing efforts moving in the right direction. We want you to take what you learned and be able to apply it to real life marketing challenges. With that, AMAWM is proud to announce this year’s... Read More

Read and refresh! Good Reads for Marketers

August 7th, 2017

by AMAWM

Whether you’re reading beachside, poolside or inside somewhere air-conditioned this summer, soon to be fall – here are a few book ideas from some of our own AMA of West Michigan Board Members. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, by Ann Handley Jason Dodge, Founder of BlackTruck Media + Marketing shares, “A little known secret at BlackTruck is that we have an expanding collection of business and marketing-related books on the shelf.” One of the books Jason recommends is Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley. He likes her fresh approach to online written content. “Ann’s insight on content is straight and to the point,” says Jason. Reading Everybody Writes is a great... Read More

B2B Marketing: Don’t Waste Time on Boring Hard to Find Content!

April 19th, 2017

by Dan Gibson

A recent post from our national AMA headquarters offered some statistics and explanation on content created by B2B marketers, and how often it isn’t being used by sales people in their organization, mainly because they don’t know it exists or even where to find it. The article cites various challenges with content and the audience it should reach, both internally and externally. Key Takeaways What? B-to-B marketers and sales teams often aren’t on the same page, as 52% of marketing managers say sales teams don’t know where to find content. So what? Wasted content is wasted money; 38% of marketers say they aren’t sure if the content is serving its purpose. Now what? A first step to closing this gap is for organizations to discreetly measure... Read More

2016 Marketing Year in Review

January 10th, 2017

by Dan Gibson

You’ve probably noticed the vast amount of discussion around how terrible 2016 was. We lost several renowned actors, musicians, entertainers, artists, leaders, and innovators in a year that was also filled with many tragic events, and an intense, closely covered controversial political race. Did someone say downer? While we agree 2016 was rough, we want to take a look back at the bright side of 2016 from a marketing perspective, and kick 2017 off on a high note by sharing some milestones and exciting happenings the AMA West Michigan Chapter experienced. We also want to mention several marketing headlines, hot topics, and trends from that past year that we envision will continue to strengthen in 2017. AMA West Michigan Chapter Headlines: Welcomed our... Read More

Fantasy Brands That Will Lead You to a Championship

September 8th, 2016

by Dan Gibson

We’ve all heard of Fantasy Sports and we all know someone obsessed with their team, consisting of real life professional athletes. I’ve played fantasy football for several years (being called a nerd is nothing new to me) and I’m still hooked, excited, and hopeful to win the league I’m in and the cash prize that comes with the title. The NFL regular season starts tonight and right now, I’m confident my team is the best! Don’t ask me what I think next week though… As I was researching and preparing for my league’s draft this past week, I started to think of other applications for the “fantasy” concept and thought I would explore how it can relate to brands. Yes, also nerdy. As marketers, the wheels... Read More