Social networking and CRM are critical for this game portal marketer.

Markowitz is the marketing director for Ziff Davis Media’s 1UP.com, a video game portal and social network for gamers.  His expertise in multi-media marketing, audience development, promotions and community building are the tools he uses on a daily basis to drive 1UP to be the “must visit” destination for video gamers worldwide.

Prior to moving back to the USA, Markowitz joined RPMC Europe, an excitement agency specializing in sport and entertainment promotions. Markowitz has served as the marketing director for Sports.com, in London. He also has served as international marketing manager of SportsLine.com and sports marketing specialist for Sports Radio 560 WQAM. In 1993 and 1994, Bobby fostered marketing and hospitality relationships with corporate sponsors for the Doral Ryder Open and Honda Classic PGA Tour events held annually in Florida. Before entering the sports marketplace, Markowitz was a sales account manager with Citibank FSB.

iMediaConnection: What was your biggest online "win" this year, and how did you sell it throughout the company?

Markowitz: From a company standpoint, clearly the launching of 1UP.com, the first site ever to combine high quality content and social networking. We're able to highlight the two most important elements of the video games industry, the games and the gamers. I wasn't involved in the sell-through, but it's incredibly visionary and a bold play.  Marketing-wise, our efforts at E3 in which we used a shuttle bus wristband sponsorship and a "GameFace" photo shoot to drive E3 attendees to 1UP.com. Our online and print marketing teams worked seamlessly together to support the program at booth level. 1UP saw huge traffic spikes around E3, which I continue to debate was mostly due to outstanding marketing and not the hundreds of news, reviews and features our editors produced over three days, and over 2,000 attendees registered with 1UP.

iMediaConnection: How has your job changed this year?

Markowitz: I started this job in January so that's a change within itself. I've also found myself with less marketing staff than I'm used to, but this is offset by very enthusiastic and helpful colleagues in other departments like editorial, production, technology and sales.  Feels very start-up despite being part of a larger company.

iMediaConnection: What surprised you in the online world this year?

Markowitz: Google's opening stock price. Other than that, I'm continually surprised at how much influence the online universe has on our lives. 

iMediaConnection: Have you realigned internal structures and resources to simplify or increase integrated marketing?

Markowitz: I wouldn't call it realigning, more like reintroducing. An early version of 1UP had been live three months before I came aboard and it was crucial to integrate 1UP with the Ziff Davis Game Group publications. They are such a powerful force in the video game world and 1UP had to become a natural part of that family. Once that base was established, other parts of the marketing program were built to support and enhance.

iMediaConnection: How do you determine your marketing mix -- and how has the role of online in it changed?

Markowitz: Print plays a large part because I work for a publisher.  Search and targeted online campaigns get the lion share of the budget, but we also have strategic marketing partnerships with the World Cyber Games and Vgames and we have a presence at key events like E3, CES and Digital Life. We've also found a nice little niche with promotional contests to launch games and films. For example, we worked together with Disney to give away cast-signed prizes to those that joined the King Arthur Club on 1UP and supported it with online campaigns, bespoke emails and contest postcards distributed at theatres across the country.  We had over 1,200 folks join the club with many blogging about the film before release. 

iMediaConnection: What haven't you brought into the marketing mix yet that you want to try?

Markowitz: Radio, I'm a big fan and a past employee of the industry. I can certainly envision an all-gaming radio station, maybe online only at first, or perhaps on XM.  Also cable TV is of interest, especially targeted networks like G4/Tech TV, Spike and certain shows on MTV.

iMediaConnection: Have you seen specific evidence of online driving offline sales?

Markowitz: Yes, as part of Ziff Davis Media, 1UP is responsible for driving subscriptions of our leading gaming publications like 'Electronic Gaming Monthly,' 'Computer Gaming World,' 'Official PlayStation Magazine' and 'Xbox Nation.'  Additionally, we've partnered with Disney to drive ticket sales for 'King Arthur' and 'The Village' and we ran a huge contest with Ubisoft to launch the sales of the PlayStation 2 version of Tom Clancy's 'Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow.'

iMediaConnection: Are you using consultants, software, agencies or other tools to help with search engine marketing?

Markowitz: Yes, we recently contracted with Quigo for SEO because of the importance we put on search engine generated traffic. Earthquake Media has delivered some quality work for us on a variety of projects including targeted online campaigns and Stein Rogan created some killer print ads we ran in 'The Hollywood Reporter' during E3 and in 'Sync.'

iMediaConnection: What do you believe is the future of ad agencies?

Markowitz: They were here before I arrived on this planet and they'll still be here after I'm gone.  Passionate, quality agencies will always find clients.

iMediaConnection: What do we need to be doing as an industry to help you make Interactive marketing a bigger piece of your marketing pie?

Markowitz: Bake me a bigger pie stuffed with quality partnerships, sexy promotions and revenue-generating programs.

iMediaConnection: Are you being affected by any consumer-generated marketing (CGM) -- blogs, user groups, etc.? Are you using any blogs or other social networking tools to market?

Markowitz: Totally because 1UP.com built in a social network for gamers to support it's strong gaming content. This is the first time that content and social networking have been integrated from the get-go.  All 1UP members get their own My1UP page which includes among many things, a personal blog. 1UP Clubs also come with blogs for club members. It's incredible how much effort is put into these blogs and how much people have to say.

iMediaConnection: How important is CRM in your marketing efforts? Give us an example of what's working.

Markowitz: Important, but not strategically measured at this point.  Open communication is the nature of 1UP's social network and 1UP staff are in contact with our users on a daily basis via their My1UP pages. Newsletters play a big role in our CRM efforts, but we also have the ability to send our users internal messages as each 1UP member gets a mailbox where they send and receive invites to be friends with other gamers, join clubs, send questions to their favorite editors or share their thoughts on how I can be a more effective marketing director if I would just send them a free t-shirt.

iMediaConnection: What are you investing in now for next year's marketing program?

Markowitz: A new booth and photo ID card system integrated with our registration process to use at trade shows.  R&D for a Premium membership program.

iMediaConnection: Does anything still frustrate you about what online can or can't do?

Markowitz: Still too much waiting around for pages to load. 1UP had been guilty of that because we built the site specifically for broadband, but we've made adjustments. Also, filling in forms, member names and passwords...someone smarter than me needs to figure out a simple universal solution.

iMediaConnection: What blogs do you read?

Markowitz: In addition to the 1,000s I read on 1UP.com?  I've been following Electablog a bit, seems like the right time.

iMediaConnection: What are your daily "must-see" Web sites and why?

Markowitz: My round-the-Web in 30 minutes includes Drudge Report, CNN, NY Post, 'The Guardian,' 'Jerusalem Post' and 'Miami Herald' for news...ESPN, SportsLine, Soccernet, Sky Sports and Gatorzone for sport...The Sun, Netflix and All Music for fun...iMediaConnection, Marketing Sherpa and PCmag for work tips...Google when I can't find it, and of course 1UP and our competitors.  In use them to stay abreast of current events and it affords me plenty of ammo for networking functions and pub chats.

iMediaConnection: What are you reading these days, other than iMediaConnection.com, of course?

Markowitz: 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven,' 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' 'Sports Illustrated,' 'The Hollywood Reporter' and 'The Fiver.'