Hello PMN members!
It was about a year ago when I decided to pursue a passion and start my own agency (Conversa Marketing) dedicated to helping leading brands understand and embrace social media. And what a year it has been! I’ve been blessed with some great clients and amazing strategic partners and overwhelmed by the support of friends and family who believed in my dream.

In our first year, the PMN and Conversa Marketing surpassed goals that I thought would only be possible in another 2 or 3 years. We grew like crazy, added quickly to our client roster, and hired some of the best people in the business. More importantly, the work we did for our clients at Conversa Marketing was not only innovative but enormously effective. It wasn’t long before I realized we were onto something big and I needed to expand our footprint in order to take advantage of the social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) opportunity before us.

That opportunity is now a reality. Meet ThreadMarketing, StrongMail’s new email and Social CRM agency. ThreadMarketing is a roll-up of the incredible talent I have had the pleasure of working with over the past year. They include the creative talent at Magnetik as well as some additional resources. In the 25 years I have been in the direct and interactive marketing space, I have met few people who have the consistency, creativity and attention to detail as the folks now part of StrongMail’s ThreadMarketing.

So why ThreadMarketing? Today email and social media have become the preferred mediums by which many consumers and brands connect and communicate. “Thread” is really all about creating a bond and continuous conversation. ThreadMarketing was established to help leading brands strengthen this bond and to provide the guidance, creativity and tools necessary to build relationships and drive brand advocacy. It is social CRM in practice -- leveraging the data and insights gained from marketing activities to build more relevant conversations that drive results.

How do we help leading brands? Our approach is guided by a simple, yet powerful framework. ThreadMarketing helps leading brands Listen, Learn, Engage, and Influence key consistencies so they can work smarter not harder. Our key services include strategic consulting, listening and monitoring, proprietary research, segmentation strategy, data collection and surveys, databases and loyalty engine design/development, lifecycle program development, award-winning creative, website development, campaign execution, community management, and innovative loyalty and participatory marketing programs that drive success.

It is an incredibly exciting time for our team here and we are lucky to have a great owner like StrongMail. Having served on the Board of Directors of StrongMail for more than two years, I have had an inside view into the passion, innovation and incredible leadership throughout the company. With a client base of more than 500 blue chip clients like Traveolocity, Wal-Mart, Zappos, Intercontinental Hotels, Tesco and more, we now have a platform that will allow us to scale and scale fast. I’d like to once again thank my clients and strategic partners (Castrol, Alliance Data, Equifax, Modern Media, Steel Media, Radian6, Milyoni, Mindshare and Ogilvy) as well as StrongMail’s Board of Directors for their unyielding support - I have learned an incredible amount from all of you. Special thanks to Rob Krin and Sam Cece who were early believers in me and my dream and my entire team at Conversa Marketing. They took a leap of faith with me and supported my vision and I’m forever grateful. Also special thanks to Mitch, Jackie and Ben Diamond whose business advice, generosity and support I will never forget. Finally – I’d like to thank my incredible wife who has been such an amazing woman and supporter. I’ve yet to meet anyone with more patience. Thanks for listening, supporting and helping me – I love you.

So today we begin a new chapter. Twenty five passionate people (and growing) who are ready to redefine the way marketers Listen, Learn, Engage and Influence. Ready to see how ThreadMarketing can help your brand? Check out the press release and new website.

Best, Michael

I’ve got a new gig. A blog on the newly designed eM+C website called Conversations. Why Conversations? Well, I’ve been in the communications business for over 10 years now -- first in email marketing and now in social media -- and the one thing that has stayed true over all those years – a marketer’s desire to build an ongoing dialogue with prospects and customers. The power of building a true conversation cannot be underestimated. When done well, conversations have the ability to not only drive engagement and sales – but create a whole new army of advocates for your brand. That is why I believe conversations will be the single most powerful word in marketing for the next generation. It’s also why I’ve named my new company Conversa Marketing.

Conversa Marketing’s mission is to help marketers build marketing programs that ignite conversations, cultivate relationships and drive commerce on the social internet. The meteoric rise of the social web for many marketers is new ground. Consequently, the thought of engaging customers and the fear that those conversations may not go as intended often causes the most experienced marketers to cling to the traditional marketing channels they’ve become most dependent upon. So, how to break free of old habits – to build a conversation in this new error of marketing? Like any good rehab, it starts with a solid 12-step program – the topic of my first eM+C column. Click here to read the blog and start your recovery.