The Online Marketing Summit will be here in Houston next Wednesday, May 20th as part of their 18 city “Whistle Stop Tour.” We’ve found a few reviews online from marketers that have attended in other cities that might be helpful in learning what you can expect and what the experience is like attending.
So which of you fellow AMA-ers are going next week? Let us know. If we can get a small group, maybe there can be an informal meetup afterwards to share notes and thoughts.
If you haven’t registered yet, just a reminder that you get 20% off with the AMA Houston discount code!
Events / by
Robin Tooms
Today at the May luncheon, we announced the following honors for April:
- Board Member of the Month: Jo-Anne White, Frank White Photography
Jo-Anne is our New Member Services Chair, but really she does so much more. In fact, she has recently “stepped up” to take on additionally responsibilities and fill in where needed. She’s enthusiastic and loves to greet our members and volunteers at our events.
- Volunteer of the Month: Jose Monterrosa, Imagina Communications
Jose has been a great help on our recent Multicultural Marketing SIG events. He’s been invaluable in connecting AMA Houston to supporters and speakers so that we can put on these events!
Thanks to you both and to all of our volunteers for your help!
Board Leadership, Membership / by
Robin Tooms
Please welcome our New Members. The following professionals joined AMA Houston in April, and we are glad to have them as part of our community:
- Alex Barclay, Henry Technologies
- Gentry Braswell, Braswell Business Communications Services Inc
- Richard Cisneros, Saurage Research Inc
- Bill Courtney
- Tracy Donaldson, Compendium Blogware
- John Elias, Choice Energy Services
- Leah George
- Melissa Hebert, Wood Group Logging Services
- Cynthia Hilborn, Eagle Burgmann
- David Hoyt, Tangelo
- Fred Lepovitz, Parker Hayden Inc
- Lauren Levicki, Special Surgery of Houston
- Diana Lovshe
- Shawn Mayo
- Katelynn Nguyen, Cultural Consumer ConneXion
- Lawrence Nodee, The Guardian
- Rick Owen
- Patricia Pinckney, Peralta Pinckney Associates
- Ellen Ramsey, Lone Star Exhibits
- Brian Reeves, Port of Houston Authority
- Beth Robbins, Excalibur Exhibits
- David Schiller, Athletic Orthopedics and Knee Center
- Michelle Stephenson, VMS Communications
- Lee Wheat, Whole Wheat Creative
- Cynthia Wieties, American General
- Kathy Yale, Total Seminars Inc
Membership / by
Robin Tooms
Penny Todd - AMA Houston Past President, Susannah Moore Griffin, and Sherri Scott - current AMA Houston President
On April 8th, Sterling Bank Vice President and Corporate Communications Manager Susannah Moore Griffin gave attendees at the American Marketing Association’s monthly luncheon inspiration on how to market successfully during a downturn.
“Staying nimble and looking for new ways to engage your customers is essential to facing the challenges of this economy,” she noted to a crowd of well over 150 in-house marketers, agency executives and other marketing leaders at Houston’s Junior League. She lead the group through an overview of the ways a marketing leader can look past conventional mindsets and methodologies to reinvent the relationship to be even stronger in hard economic times.
And Griffin should know. Her team at Sterling Bank has focused on being able to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and create a maintainable competitive advantage in the face of constant change and a host of larger competing institutions. “But just because you can’t outspend the competition,” Griffin contends, “doesn’t mean you can’t outsmart them.”
Marketers in the financial services sector have had to contend with shrinking marketing budgets, growing market uncertainty, restrictive credit trends, changing technology, mergers & acquisitions, toxic assets, slowing national growth, widespread bank failures and a changing regulatory landscape.
Griffin noted that staying light on your feet in terms of implementation, while maintaining constant awareness in your target audience and competitive positioning, can help you overcome competing institutions even if they can outspend you.
Despite industry challenges, Houston’s Sterling Bank has maintained its marketing momentum by keeping the focus on the objectives, challenges and changes amongst its customer base–and looking for innovative ways to communicate and support them with their commercial and consumer endeavors. Since going public in 1992, Sterling Bancshares and its wholly owned subsidiary Sterling Bank have grown from $290 million to more than $5 billion in assets.
View more photos from this event on our photo gallery site.
Events / by
Robin Tooms
