As a follow-up to my post last week on the top 10 Mobile conferences you should be considering for 2008, here’s a list of Interactive Marketing conferences you need to consider in order to stay current:

1. Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit ‘08, Februrary 24-26, Miami. Email may be for old people, but unlike print, it’s not dead. Yet. Stay current with the ever-changing email marketing landscape and discover Email tactics and strategies that really worked from
   47 seasoned marketing professionals at world’s largest email conference.
2. F.O.W.A - future of web apps, February 28 - March 1st, Miami. Coming to the east coast for the first time, the agenda covers a wide array of topics including open social and applications that go beyond the web browser.
3. SXSW Interactive, March 7-11, Austin, Texas. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology.
4. Media Summit, March 12-13, New York.  The International conference on Media, Advertising, Mobile, Interactive and marketing. Produced by digital hollywood, this conference has something for everybody.
5. Advertising Age Digital Marketing Conference, March 18-19, New York. Ad Age’s Digital Marketing Conference brings technology down-to-earth with real world case studies and compelling dialogues between prestigious speakers and panelists who are the thought-leaders in the field of digital marketing.
6. Web 2.0 Expo, April 22-25, San Francisco. Conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies.
7. Internet World, April 29-May 1, London, UK. Seminar streams covering key areas including Search, Email, Web 2.0, IPTV, Online Advertising, eCommerce, Mobile Marketing, Connectivity, Content Management, Analytics, Usability, Affiliate Marketing and much more. Awarded best business exhibition at the 2007 Event Awards.
8. Mesh, May, Toronto. Connect, share, and inspire at Canada’s premier web conference.
9. Gnomedex, August, Seatle. The Blogosphere’s conference! Featuring hundreds of the world’s leading bloggers, podcasters, and tech-savvy enthusiasts.
10. CMA digital marketing conference, October, Toronto. Information has not been posted on the CMA website yet - but this is a key event to participate in every Fall.

Have I missed any conferences that you consider critical for any Interactive marketer looking to stay current…or even a bit ahead of the curve? Comment, SMS, or send me an email with your suggestions.

Steve Levy, President of Market Research in Eastern Canada for IPSOS Reid, declared at this week’s CMA digital marketing conference that there is no mobile marketing in Canada. According to their research, 27% of Canadian marketers agree that mobile marketing will be very important in the future with 9% indicating they are practicing it now. Steve indicated he didn’t know how anybody could actually be doing mobile marketing now as Canadian carriers don’t yet support it.

I had an opportunity to speak with Steve after his presentation and suggested that his definition of Mobile Marketing was likely different from the 9% practicing it in Canada today.

He pointed out that when he walks by a retail outlet he doesn’t get coupons or messaging sent to his mobile device - which is how he defines mobile marketing. His definition really refers to location based services (LBS) or sometimes referred to as location based messaging (LBM). LBS / LBM does work in Canada across all carriers for those with built-in GPS in their devices (like the Blackberry 8800), but all the examples I’ve worked with require you to download a supporting application to your mobile device to make it work. Related to this are QR Codes (or Quick Response Codes) which are already rampant in other countries. Oh, another interesting stat from the Ipsos-Reid survey, 29% of marketers believe that QR Codes will be a part of many campaigns in the next three years. I’ll cover more on LBS & QR Codes in an upcoming article.

Mobile Marketing is more than LBS and QR Codes, although it is true that the future of Mobile Marketing could revolve around them.

Mobile Marketing is about creating conversations and creating engagement with audiences through the Mobile channel. Put another way, mobile marketing is about amplifying branded events, extending product or service experiences and extending the reach of a campaign which may already include TV, print, web, and email.

When I give an overview of Mobile Marketing to our clients, I tend to break it out into four channels:

1) SMS (or text messaging) & MMS

2) Downloading (ringtones, video & images) & Applications

3) Mobile Web

4) Mobile advertising

Of course others may define or categorize the mobile channel a bit differently, but I’ve found that using this approach can bring clarity and focus to your conversations. Over the coming weeks, I’ll provide my point of view of how to leverage each of these channels into your marketing mix. This year’s CMA conference had its moments, but I’m looking forward to next year’s conference where I’m expecting a location based message to be delivered from centre stage.