Digital Marketing and Social Media Conference

In this all-day conference, participants will explore how strategy, systems, and technology work together to drive sustainable digital marketing results. Join us to build your marketing toolkit and take a time-out to learn more!

Why Most Digital Marketing Fails [and How to Fix It]

Most digital marketing doesn’t fail because teams aren’t working hard. It fails because there is no clear leadership, focus, or alignment.

In this presentation, Allison Michels explains why capable teams with real budgets still feel overwhelmed and frustrated by their marketing results. Drawing on 15+ years of experience inside growing businesses, Allison shows leaders what is actually breaking their marketing and how to fix it at the leadership level. This is not about trends or tactics. It is about clarity, ownership, and building a marketing system that supports revenue.

What Attendees Will Learn

• • Why marketing feels busy but ineffective
  • The leadership gaps that cause marketing to break down
  • What to stop doing immediately
  • How to align message, channels, and revenue with your ideal audience
  • A simple framework to guide smarter marketing decisions

From Overwhelmed to Organized: A DIY Framework for Marketing, Analytics, and AI 

In a world where every click, scroll, and impression can be measured — but few businesses know what to do with that data — this session bridges the gap between information and impact.

This session will guide small businesses and marketing professionals through practical strategies to turn analytics, automation, and AI tools into real business growth.

Attendees will learn how to connect key marketing data into actionable insights that drive higher engagement, conversions, and ROI. This presentation focuses on what works in today’s digital landscape, without requiring a massive budget or marketing team, while also helping often-overwhelmed business owners with improved simplicity and efficiency.

What Attendees Will Learn

By the end of the session, attendees will be able to do the following tasks:

• • Identify which digital marketing metrics matter for growth, as well as how to interpret them.
  • Use free and accessible tools (Google Analytics 4, Tag Manager, Meta Insights, etc.) to measure and improve campaign performance.
  • Understand how AI tools can streamline content creation, data reporting, and audience engagement while maintaining authenticity.
  • Apply a simple framework to track, test, and optimize their marketing across social media, email, and web.
  • Develop a plan for turning marketing data into decisions that generate measurable revenue or leads.

Local SEO: How to Get Found by Nearby Customers on Google

Local SEO is different from “traditional” SEO — and for businesses that rely on local customers, it often delivers the highest return on limited marketing budgets. In this practical, step-by-step workshop, we’ll break down how Google decides which local businesses appear in map results and local search listings, and what you can do to improve your visibility without needing a large ad budget.

Participants will learn how Google Business Profiles, online reviews, local listings, and website optimization work together to drive phone calls, direction requests, and leads from nearby customers. The session will focus on clear priorities, common mistakes, and realistic actions small businesses can take themselves.

This workshop is designed for business owners and marketers who want clarity on where to focus their local marketing efforts and how to compete locally, even against larger brands.

What Attendees Will Learn

• • Understand what makes Local SEO different from “regular” SEO and why it matters for local businesses
  • Learn how Google Business Profiles and local map results work — and how to optimize them correctly
  • Identify the most important on-site and off-site factors that influence local rankings
  • Learn how reviews, listings, and website content impact local visibility and conversions
  • Leave with a practical Local SEO checklist they can apply immediately

How Small Businesses Can Use AI and Automation to Capture Leads, Listen to Customers, and Follow Up Faster

Marketing often breaks down not because small businesses lack ideas—but because leads, feedback, and follow-ups live in too many disconnected tools. This session introduces automation as a practical way to simplify marketing workflows while staying deeply customer-centric. In this hands-on, beginner-friendly workshop, attendees will learn how to use Zapier to connect the tools they already use, automate repetitive tasks, and build simple systems for lead capture, follow-up, and customer feedback. The focus is not on replacing people with technology, but on using automation to free up time for more thoughtful, responsive marketing.

What Attendees Will Learn

• What marketing automation actually is
• How to automatically capture and organize leads from forms, email, and ads
• How to trigger timely, personalized follow-ups without manual work
• Ways to collect and act on customer feedback or reviews
• How to build a basic automated workflow step-by-step, no technical background required

Registration for Spring 2026

Location: Pyle Center, UW-Madison

Schedule: 8:30 am – 4:00 pm

Date: April 7, 2026

Fee:  WEDC and the Mainstreet Bounceback Program are supporting the $309 cost of this course for operating, for-profit businesses under 500 employees. These businesses should register here:

Businesses <500 Employees, Register here for Spring 2026

Fee: The cost of this course for nonprofits, pre-venture (not yet started) businesses, and those participants from a company of over 500 employees is $309. These organizations should use the link below to register: 

Pre-venture, Nonprofits & Businesses >500: Register Here for Digital Marketing & Social Media Conference

(Includes lunch; we cannot guarantee lunch for those who register less than 2 weeks ahead of the event)

Registration & Cancellation policies

• Payment will be required at time of registration. You must have either a credit card or valid UW-Madison funding string to be able to register.
• We cannot guarantee that a meal can be provided for in-person participants registering less than 14 days prior to the event date.
• Cancelations at least 24 hours before the program begins will incur a $25 cancellation fee. Cancelations less than 24 hours before the start of the program will incur the full program fee. To cancel, call registration at 608-262-2451. Please note that in the case of a cancellation (by either the participant or the SBDC), participants can only be transferred one time into a new course.

Disability Statement: Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made if requested at least two weeks in advance. Contact the UW-Madison SBDC office at sbdc@bus.wisc.edu to request accommodations.