Imagine That offers free educational seminars designed to provide attendees fundamental principles and practices to assist in marketing efforts. These classes are taught in an informal and collaborative environment. Participants are encouraged to ask questions and to provide feedback throughout the seminar. If you would like to sign up for a class or want more information on any of these topics contact us using the contact button below.
Available Workshops
Your Instructors
Jeff McElhattan - Lead Instructor
Jeff studied Computer Science and Technical Communications at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. In the 1980's and 1990's, he worked as a freelance programmer, developing applications for government, insurance companies, and educational institutions. With the advent of the World Wide Web, Jeff broadened his programming expertise to the Internet and by 2002, was building dynamic web solutions for small businesses. He holds a B.S. degree in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix and a M.S. degree in Internet Marketing from Full Sail University, one of the top digital media schools in the United States.
Tom Fellner - UX/UI Design
Tom has a degree in Marketing Communications from NorthEast Wisconsin Technical College. In 1993, he began working as a graphic production team leader at Schreiber Foods, Inc. focusing on everything from web design and videography to project workflow optimization. As the CEO and lead web designer at Imagine That, Tom brings his expertise and passion for user experience design, web development and brand strategy to Imagine That customers.
High Performance Websites
Is Your Website an Expense or an Asset?
Length: 1.5 hours
Cost: Free
Course Description
Building a successful and profitable website doesn't happen by accident; it takes more than good coding and artistic design. A successful, high-performing website applies the best practices from multiple disciplines so that your customers are motivated to take action when they come to your website.
Good web design for business:
- Has pre-established goals with associated metrics
- Empowers users to take action quickly and engage your company
- Addresses the user’s needs and wants
- Is optimized for mobile devices and considers the mobile experience
- Is optimize for lead generation
Course Objectives
In this seminar, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind good website design for business.
Upon completion of this seminar, participants will:
- Understand the basic concepts behind web design
- Know home page fundamentals
- Understand the components of the AIDAS marketing model
- Understand how a website’s information architecture ties in to the AIDAS marketing model
- Understand the basic principles behind good UX (user experience)
Digital Marketing
Not Your Grandma’s SEO
Length: 1.5 hours
Cost: Free
Course Description
Digital Marketing (DM) is leveraging a variety of technologies and online platforms to create a cohesive marketing presence for your business. DM brings together the best of social media marketing, content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) to produce an online marketing presence that extends your business brand reach and drives more traffic to your website.
A good digital marketing plan:
- Identifies and addresses the needs of the target market
- Uses a variety of platforms for communicating a consistent message in different ways
- Establishes clearly defined goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine if a plan is successful
Course Objectives
In this seminar, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind Digital Marketing for businesses.
Upon completion of this seminar, participants will:
- Be able to define Digital Marketing and understand how it might apply to and benefit their business
- Understand the components of the AIDAS marketing model
- Understand how a digital marketing strategy addresses the various stages of the AIDAS marketing model
- Understanding the various components used in digital marketing online: social media, websites, content marketing, blogging, and search engine optimization
Branding Your Business
Your Brand is More Than a Logo
Length: 1.5 hours
Cost: Free
Course Description
Your brand and the messages that surround it are your best (or worst) marketing assets. With consumers being inundated with 5,000 marketing messages per day, only strong brands will be heard above the noise.
A solid brand strategy:
- Helps you more effectively engage your target market
- Separates you from your competitors
- Builds confidence, trust and repeat customers
- Guides your business decisions
- Determines your business’ worth when it comes time to sell
Course Objectives
In this seminar, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind building a strong brand.
Upon completion of this seminar, participants will:
- Know what branding is and understand its importance
- Understand the importance of creating a brand legacy
- Understand the importance of brand cohesion
- Learn about brand repair strategies
- Know what brand archetypes are and why they matter
- Learn how to develop their unique value proposition
- Understand best practices and trends in logo design
Building a Solid Brand Strategy
Your Brand is More Than a Logo
Length: 5 hours
Cost: $199/person
Course Description
Your brand and the messages that surround it are your best (or worst) marketing assets. They are the gut feelings users have about your business, its products and services. With consumers being inundated with 5,000 marketing messages per day, only strong brands will be heard above the noise.
A solid brand strategy:
- Helps you more effectively engage your target market
- Separates you from your competitors
- Builds confidence, trust and repeat customers
- Guides your business decisions
Course Objectives
In this workshop, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind building a strong business brand; they will perform a series of tasks that help them begin to develop their brand strategy.
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will:
- Know what branding is and understand its importance
- Know what brand archetypes are and why they matter
- Learn how to develop their unique value proposition
- Understand the importance of brand cohesion
- Learn about brand repair strategies
- Understand the importance of creating a brand legacy
- Define their core business values
- Identify their brand archetype
- Define their unique value proposition
- Create a demographic profile of their target market
- Define their business mission statement
- Learn how to perform a competitor analysis
- Begin writing their Brand Strategy document
- Understand the best practices and trends in logo design
Search Engine Optimization 101
Keywords and Onsite Optimization
Length: 5 hours
Cost: $199/person
Course Description
Keyword research and targeting are at the heart of good search engine optimization (SEO). Being able to match your website’s content with user intent in search is the goal of search engines; good SEO helps search engines to see the relevance of your website’s content for a user’s query.
A good SEO strategy starts with:
- Solid keyword research to determine how users are looking for your products and services
- Taking advantage of SEO structures in header sections of your website’s pages
- Correctly optimizing non-textual content on your pages
Course Objectives
In this workshop, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind keyword research and perform a series of tasks that help them begin to develop their brand strategy.
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will:
- Understand the basic principles behind good keyword research
- Setup an AdWords account to use for keyword research
- Know how to conduct keyword research using Google AdWords Keyword Planner
- Use Excel to organize keyword data
- Understand the basic principles behind good onsite SEO
- Know what elements to optimizes on the pages of their websites
- Completely optimize one page on their website
- Be introduced to third party keyword research tools
Search Engine Optimization 102
Analytics & Webmaster Tools
Length: 5 hours
Cost: $199/person
Course Description
Analytics data provides webmasters with essential information on how users are employing a business’s website. Since search engines seek to provide the best search results to users, analytics data can be utilized to improve a website’s performance in search results.
Correct interpretation of analytics data involves:
- Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and know how to interpret those KPI’s in analytics data
- Monitoring website performance in Webmaster tools to quickly identify problems with a website and address them before they negatively impact search results
- Determining course adjustments as analytics data provides new information and user data
Course Objectives
In this workshop, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind using Google Analytics to help them understand user behavior on a business’s website. They will learn how to adjust SEO efforts to maximize search results as well as perform a series of tasks to implement Google/Bing Analytics and Webmaster Tools into their SEO strategy.
Upon completion of this course, participants will:
- Create a Google Analytics Account
- Create Bing and Google Webmaster Tools accounts
- Be able to navigate these programs and know how to respond to the data each presents
- Understand and implement Google’s universal tracking code
- Understand the basic analytics of KPI’s
- Understand analytics segmentation to determine which analytics data is relevant to their SEO goals
- Know how to make adjustments to their SEO campaigns based on search results and analytics data
Social Media Marketing 101
“Follows and Likes and Tweets - Oh My!”
Length: 1.5 hours
Cost: Free
Course Description
Social media provides ways for businesses and consumers to connect like never before. Social media is arguably the most important tool for monitoring a brand’s health. In using social media, a business can discover what the market is saying about it.
A good social media marketing plan:
- Targets social media determined by the business’ key demographics and target markets
- Integrates social media into other online marketing channels
- Systematically and methodically produces a good mixture of content
- Promotes engagement and content sharing
Course Objectives
In this seminar, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind social media marketing.
Upon completion of this seminar, participants will:
- Understand the leading social media platforms and their audiences
- Understand what each social media platform offers businesses for marketing tools
- Understand the basic principles behind social media marketing (push, campaigns, engagement)
- Understand the main verticals and how reviews play into social media marketing
Social Media Marketing 102
Leveraging SMM to Grow Your Brand
Length: 5 hours
Cost: $199/person
Course Description
Using social media in marketing (SMM) is more than gaining likes, follows or circles. It is understanding online consumer behavior when it comes to social media, and using the correct social media platforms to reach your target market.
A solid SMM plan includes:
- Determining the role social media plays with the rest of your online marketing channels
- Branding your social media channels to accurately reflect your business brand and brand message
- Establishing an editorial calendar that helps you leverage social media for key events and seasons throughout the year as it fits your business
Course Objectives
In this workshop, participants will learn the fundamental principles behind using social media as part of their marketing strategy.
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will:
- Understand the demographics of major social media platforms
- Create social media accounts for those platforms that best fit the participant’s business
- Create an editorial calendar for SMM
- Understand the role SMM plays in search engine optimization
- Understand and use the various analytics offered by social media platforms
- Understand and use SMM tools to simplify SMM efforts
- Develop a strategy for using social media in brand repair and brand management