More than 220 Santa Clarita business owners and entrepreneurs clamoring for more information on how to maximize digital marketing tools gathered Wednesday at the University Center at College of the Canyons.

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The importance of email marketing and other aspects useful in building digital-ad campaigns were discussed in the free, three-hour workshop JumpStart 2014.

“The key for us is to give information that’s actionable,” said Steve Tannehill, executive director for the Small Business Development Center at College of the Canyons.

“There’s a lot of information out there, and a lot of times, business owners, entrepreneurs go to something, and the takeaway is, ‘Wow, that’s a complicated topic — it’s really powerful,’ but they don’t do anything with it,” he said.

“Our goal was to give them actionable items that they could pursue,” he said, “this idea of three hours of successive training, all around a common topic to really create things that they could do and steps they could take coming out of the meeting, so they could actually apply it.”

Related article: Santa Clarita Marketing Event, ‘Jump Start 2014’ To Be Held At COC

Workshops included how to establish a social media marketing campaign, search engine optimization, photography tips, Web tools and YouTube-video marketing success secrets.

People will get bombarded with about 4,000 marketing messages, on average, in a day, said Dave Finstrom, of the marketing firm HUTdogs, which gave a presentation at the seminar.

“We need to be in that fray, and an affordable way to do that is email marketing,” he said, during his discussion on how to make emails more marketable.

“Emails need to be mobile-friendly,” he said, noting a high percentage of email users now check their emails primarily on mobile devices such as their cellphones. “And they should have bullet points for what’s on your website.”

This Santa Clarita event offered a chance for small- and large-business owners to meet SBDC, Microsoft, Constant Contact Santa Clarita, KHTS AM-1220 marketing experts including our Authorized Local Experts Team.

“The seminar was an amazing success,” said Carl Goldman, KHTS AM-1220 co-owner who presented at the workshop. “Having nine new-media professionals there for a workshop was a great way to do it, and we’re grateful that the Small Business Development Center and College of the Canyons invited us to share.”

It was also a great learning opportunity, Goldman said, noting that he was able to hear about issues and solutions that other business owners had.

One of the biggest costs of an email campaign is not the price, Finstrom said.

For about $20, Constant Contact can help business owners create a campaign that will help businesses reach about 500 people.

It’s a great deal, but it can’t be a stand-alone effort, he added.

“You have to commit,” he emphasized. “It’s not the $20 that’s the big investment — it’s the time.”

Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at community@hometownstation.com.

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