‘The Marketing Nation Summit’ that concluded last week provided a world of insights, knowledge and excitement!

Team Position² loved the event and is already looking forward to the next one. We had a lot of fun but, as you know, we’re serious when it comes to business.

For all you folks who couldn’t attend the summit and for those who can’t get enough, here’s a quick recap…

Day 1 – April 7

Kicked off with an early morning run. Followed by on-site Marketo certifications where users could choose from one of four tracks that included – from basic forms, landing pages, emails to advanced and multi-stream nurturing.

The day ended with a business mixer where event participants and exhibitors got an opportunity to network and explore new technology integrations.

Day 2 – April 8

The excitement went up several notches on the second day with all the high-powered sessions lined up!

Ann Handley from MarketingProfs on Content Marketing

The morning session at 8:00 was illuminating with Ann detailing the aspects that content marketers can and can’t take from traditional publishers. She said that though there is plenty to take away, content marketers should go beyond that. Ann’s 5-point action plan:

• Experiences matter, not just narration: Add real-life examples instead of just narrating to your customers. It makes a lot of difference. Give them a feel of using your product.
• Talk to your customers directly: Connect with your customers by using words like ‘you’, ‘we’ and ‘us’.
• Experiment with your content marketing channels: Figure out your ideal content marketing mix. But also invest in different channels and learn what’s best suited for you.

• Have a can-do attitude: You can do a lot with even small budgets and teams.
• Be active in real-time: Participate in conversations as they happen or kick start them yourself.

Dayna Rothman from Marketo on Lean Content Marketing for Lead Generation

The session covered a wide variety of topics, from ideation to customers’ buying stages to creating the best content with small teams or budgets.

But but but…the keynote address by Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was still waiting in the wings.

Phil Fernandez spoke more about Innovation in the Nation, this year’s theme. Besides highlighting the fact that many strong industry players were Marketo users, Phil also provided cool insights into marketing automation and new features of the Marketo platform:

• Real-time personalization: This allows marketers to personalize content for every member of the audience and helps succeed in creating unique, individualistic customer experiences.

• Marketo’s new SEO capabilities & the Marketing Calendar: Marketo’s SEO capabilities will enable you to optimize your site’s SEO and work on competitor comparison. Watch out for its launch by the end of this year.
• The Marketing Calendar will allow you to view, plan, map, adjust and trigger marketing programs in one place.

Post Phil’s session, Hillary Clinton took to the stage. She spoke on a number of topics ranging from inclusion of women in the technology industry to the infancy of the internet and how innovation needs a certain level of risk taking.

Day 3 – April 9

The last day of the Summit was not lacking in excitement. The keynote address was by Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez (again) and General Electric’s CMO, Beth Comstock.

After Phil Fernandez announced Marketo’s Revvie winners for this year, Beth Comstock took center stage and spoke on innovation and rapid changes in marketing:

• Practical innovation: It’s important to understand what people actually need and keep innovating to satisfy that need. Ideas don’t count unless something is done about them. The future has to be today…
• Innovation does not end: How do you instill ambition and accountability in your company? Dream big and scale. The journey of innovation involves offering powerful outcomes.
• Marketing is growing in power: Marketers are innovators and integrators. We need to be where the market is moving to. Marketing needs to be a vital function with a growth agenda.
• Mind sharing: Join hands with others in your system, solve problems as a group and expand your company expertise. Marketers are incubators of new businesses.

DJ Waldow from Marketo on Being Human

Marketo’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, DJ Waldow emphasized the importance of the ‘human’ element in marketing communication with examples:

• Email subject lines and copy: Make them humorous, conversational and creative.
• Videos: Personalized videos that help establish a rapport between company and customer are great. Though they may not be scalable, you can try them for important prospects and customers.

• Out-of-Office Replies: It helps communicate with your connections better if you’re more human.
• Email opt-out landing pages: Instead of ultimatums, personalize landing page copy and offer unique options.

Moz’s Cyrus Shepard on New Opportunities in SEO

Cyrus said Google has been energizing SEO and the new changes in the field can be good opportunities:

• Keywords to concepts: It’s the meaning behind the keyword that matters. You need to be contextually relevant to search queries.
• Schema, markup and meta data: Google promotes sites that follow content structure, like authorship and reviews. The increase in CTR’s is beneficial and social annotations and data make searchers more attentive towards search results.
• Web pages to awarding authority: Google is now moving away from blindly placing importance on web pages. The trend is to identify and reward experts who provide solutions through their content.
• Links to endorsements: Google no longer cares about link building activities. Person-to-person endorsements are more important.
• Page views to user satisfaction: Google measures bounce rate, time spent on the site, pages viewed per visit, shares, mentions etc. to understanding user satisfaction levels.

Whew! That’s some heavy lifting! We do hope you’ve picked enough points of interest from this post…

What was your experience at the Summit? We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with us!