E-Aruba Business Seminar took place last Saturday, at the Renaissance Convention Center in Oranjestad, and this edition was sold out again, just as the three previous years. Over 700 attendees listened to international top speakers from Google, McDonalds, YouTube and Guinness Record/TV talk about how to catch the customer. The event production is led by Mark Benson from Infinity Media Aruba and Diederik Kemmerling from The Lab Digital Marketing Agency.
After the opening by sponsor Digicel Business a presentation on social media update and tips and tricks that drive business results was done by Ivy Lacle and Kemmerling from The Lab. Did you know Aruba has 46,000 LinkedIn accounts? A great opportunity for local business to connect with the customer, moreover as Facebook is still the main focus on the island at this moment. Also voice over-internet (VoIP) is gaining terrain when it comes to search on the internet according to data of The Lab.
Start-Up Winners
Some interesting facts came from Maciej Szczepaniak, he leads Global Strategy & Commercialization for Offline Measurement at Google.
He states that start-up companies are on the path of outperforming the giants within the industry, reason being is the traditional approach of ownership focus is being replaced by the experience towards the result. Good examples of this are Uber and Spotify. Customers, nowadays care more about the outcomes, not the ownership.
Funny fact is that the new generation is getting more obsessed with mundane things like the type of toothbrush or olive oil used rather than the car they drive. His presentation was troubled a bit by streaming difficulties, provoking his joke that fiber connection is very much welcomed on Aruba. His advice to businesses is to keep operating as a start-up, keep on testing and take risks and get to know your customer by collecting data. Currently people check out purchases on internet, but 85 % still buy in physical stores.
At the end of each presentation a panel discussion led by Benson took place with local professionals and the speaker with the opportunity for the audience to ask questions. It was a full house event where many students clearly took the chance to upgrade their knowledge of marketing and get insights of the industry. There were special reduced ticket prices for them, a good thing to stimulate education.
As the name obviously suggests, the well-organized event is entirely focused on online marketing. The dynamics between and the stats about traditional marketing lacked which might be an interesting topic for next year’s event, if it was only for the comparison. More news about the other three speakers in this week’s editions of Aruba Today. Stay tuned! Q
