[Part of the AMA Milwaukee Marketing Advice Column Series]

[Q:] How is my small agency supposed to keep up with all of the new marketing technology out there?

[A:] It used to be that marketing and technology were worlds apart. Now, it’s a weekly challenge to keep up to speed. To meet the challenge, local firms, like Coalesce Marketing & Design, Inc. of Appleton, subscribe to many daily email updates, such as AAFSmartBrief and AdAgeDaily and network with local technology experts to keep their office ahead of the curve.

Here are a few more ideas on how you can keep your firm ahead of the curve and ready to serve up the latest marketing trends.
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• Setup a weekly or monthly ‘lunch and learn’ program for your staff to discuss emerging marketing technology and require attendance!
• Develop a program to circulate marketing technology articles throughout the office as required reading.
• Build an internal weblog or wiki where anyone can post links to marketing trends or articles and promote free-flowing idea exchange.
• Designate staff members to attend conferences such as ad:tech, OMMA, and the AMA HotTopic events to glean the latest information on marketing trends.

In addition to those tools, be sure that your firm keeps up with the weekly publications like Ad Week and BrandWeek, as well as popular websites like MarketingVox.com and TechCrunch.com.