The Evolution of Local Discovery

While 2020 brought us into a new decade, it also introduced us to an unfamiliar world of “social distancing.” Life has changed and this collective shift in behavior and practices has been coined the “new normal” as businesses and individuals alike pivot to adjust to the current circumstances.

While this shift has proven difficult, it’s not all bad news — many have found ways to adapt and innovate during this time. One such area of innovation is virtual events and conferences. Join us as we dive into how virtual events are evolving and where we have the greatest opportunity to shine.

Virtual events have shown us how much more efficient hosting a large-scale event can be. Is this trend here to stay and are in-person events really on the brink of extinction? Watch as we debate this highly relevant topic area to determine the future of events as we have known it.

In the rush to run “campaigns”, Marketing blends in the din of campaigns and loses sight of what’s truly important for creating lasting value. Successful campaigns become better and more efficient as they grow. They require less effort to continue to scale. Successful campaigns are those that build momentum. In this session we will discuss the blueprint for developing successful campaigns. We will share examples of successful campaigns that altered the shape of their industries.

In this session you will learn:

· How to build campaigns that are successful in the short and the long term

· How to identify and leverage the emotive and functional needs of our customers

· How to develop differentiated value proposition

We create content with the hope that it will resonate with our audience or at least grab their attention. But, we shouldn’t have to guess when it comes to what works and what doesn’t when creating marketing campaigns.

Join this intriguing talk as we discuss how to analyze your audience’s behaviors, what actually triggers them to engage, and how you can create a content strategy based on those factors.

Panelists:
Christa Martin, CMO at Chief Outsiders
Don Hobdy, Chief Marketing Officer at BridgeNet Insurance Agency
Pankaj “Rony” Srivastava, Founder & CEO at PracticalSpeak

It has been said that playing the long game is the best shortcut. While it may seem that building a brand, becoming a trusted marketing source, and making good on your commitment to quality content is time-consuming, it will save your marketing team time and money in the long run.

Join us for this in-depth session as we discuss the best practices for long-term marketing engagement and tips on building actual relationships with your audience.

Panelists Thus Far:
Jeffrey Pease, Brand Advisor at Message Mechanics
Ramatu Kandakai, CEO & Founder of Tutu Brand Strategies LLC.

Challenging traditional thinking about how customers make decisions, and what marketers need to do instead, Shirin Oreizy, Founder and CEO of Behavioral Marketing agency Next Step, discusses the psychology that drives customer growth and loyalty. We’ll cover how behavioral science can be applied to your marketing & growth efforts to drive adoption and increase engagement.

Talking Points:
An introduction to Behavioral Science (the study of how people really make decisions)
Is your customer a Spock or a Homer? (hint, most get it wrong)
Our research methodology for understanding your customers’ hidden motivations
Real-life examples of applying our Research methodology to increase customer acquisition and retention for both B2B and B2C brands

Do you follow all the best practices for email creation and still not get the response you want? That's because today there's more to success than targeted lists, compelling offers, and perfectly executed creative.

Today you need to know the decision-making shortcuts people use with email – the automatic behaviors that determine whether they open, read, and respond to it. Behavioral science research has proven people don't operate in rational, considered ways. Rather, readers cruise along on autopilot, with certain prompts sending us clicking in one direction or another.

In this example-jammed session, discover scientifically proven tactics that will get your target to open, read, and respond to your email without even thinking about it!

Discover:

• Two ways to position your message for faster response

• How to turn a small "yes" into a big win

• When "negative" messages can have positive effects

• Why you'll sell more using Social Proof

• The journalists' secret that boosts email readership

This webinar will take the audience through the modern consumer’s mindset and how the ‘power’ in the buying cycle has shifted over the years.

This shift has a profound impact on businesses today. We will walk through some key topics and examples that will help executives and marketers consider the best way for them to address these changes within their own company.

Today’s customer wants to be in control of their journey. In this webinar, Chief Marketing officer of Blurb, and former leader from Nokia, Hitachi and Adobe, Paramita Bhattacharya, will explain how to transform go-to-market through the lens of the customer and build a customer lifecycle journey and experience. How to breakthrough with a combination of content, design, technology and data and address each stage effectively – from acquisition, purchase, activation, retention and support – along with building longer term value.

Everyone in business aspires at engaging others at some point, internally or externally. In fact, engagement is so widely addressed that it’s becoming a big word that often means very little. So let’s define it meaningfully, by using science. What does it really take for the brain to be engaged?

An intriguing approach to understanding engagement is to view it from the angle of its absence. So what do we know about the psychology of boredom? Is it possible for the brain to be bored in the age of overstimulation? The answer is yes. As scientists, we used to believe that boredom was defined by the absence of stimulation. Now we are discovering that too much stimulation can have a similar effect. So how do we prevent the brain from getting bored – therefore staying engaged with your message and your cause? The good news is that the brain does not want to stay bored for too long. From an evolutionary point, we cannot afford to stay bored. This keynote offers three evidence-based, practical guidelines, which you can use immediately to create meaningful engagement for your internal and external audiences.

Increasing an intent to purchase is often the missing piece of an impactful, business-focused marketing plan. Join us for tips + tricks on how to stack the deck in your favor to create an effective event plan that gets sales + marketing on the same page in order to move the needle.

The friction between marketing and sales is real. A recent survey found nearly half of B2B marketers said their sales team doesn’t understand what is important to the marketing team, and 31% of B2B salespeople said their marketing team doesn't understand what’s important to the sales team.

Although sales and marketing serve different functions, it’s when they work together that companies see substantial improvement on important performance metrics: sales cycles are shorter, market entry costs decrease, and the cost of sales is lower. So how can these two teams stop battling and work better together?

Join Michael Collins CMO and Managing Director of CFA Institute for a fireside chat to understand how removing friction in favor of collaboration and staying laser-focused on customer needs and engagement can position for long-term marketing AND sales success.

Moderator: Marissa Pick, Founder of Marissa Pick Consulting LLC

It’s an age-old argument that sales never appreciates the leads that marketing delivers. There are never enough, and when leads are flowing in, the quality is not good enough. Conversely, marketing feels exhausted because they have done everything possible to deliver the best outcomes. This session will outline 7 ways to improve relationships and overall lead performance.

1. Planning alignment
2. Definitions alignment
3. Performance tracking and alignment on metrics
4. Regular meetings to discuss performance and refinement
5. Persona and buyers journey alignment
6. Messaging alignment
7. Respect each other as professionals in our trade

Session takeaways
• Best practices for collaboration
• Concepts to factor into performance tracking
• A few deep breathing techniques in case all else fails

In this session I will share practical tactics on and quantitative business outcomes from operationalizing ABM to achieve optimal marketing and sales alignment.

Take aways:
- Morning Coffee Dashboard
- Quantitative Business benefits of Marketing and Sales alignment
- 5 Imperatives of sales and marketing alignment
- 5 pillars of optimal Working model

The more you exploit the symbiotic nature of the relationship between marketing and sales, the more streamlined both organizations will be.
In this webcast we will visit what premium research tells us about the state of sales and marketing alignment. We will recast that thinking. We will think beyond alignment to symbiosis - the relationship or “living together” of two dissimilar organizations. Are marketing and sales so dissimilar in today’s environment?
This thinking applies to B:B, B:C and B:B:C organizations.
Takeaways:
In this interactive webcast, we will exchange ideas about strategic and very tactical steps that marketing and sales can take together to
• Streamline processes
• Improve CX
• Reduce time to close
• Increase profitable organic growth.
#wereallinthistogether!

No matter who you market to, they most likely have the same desire: to find out what the other guy is doing.
The pandemic brought on a world of uncertainty, and amplified that desire even more.
In this session, you’ll learn how Keywee’s marketing team doubled down on data-driven insights to drive high engagement and high quality leads for their sales pipeline amidst the chaos of the past year.

Engaging your audience on social channels can be a challenging puzzle, but when sales and marketing work together to develop effective messaging and visual content to cut through the noise to reach your customer, your business will see substantial improvement on overall performance metrics and customer engagement.

The human brain process images 60,000 times faster than text and 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visually based. Visual social marketing is the new standard for driving a deeper engagement across social media channels. This session will cover lead generation tactics for social media and give you clear tools & tips to get your marketing up to speed for the remainder of 2021.

Key Takeaways:
Review ways of developing visual content for social media channels to implement within your business planning.
Review B2B Lead Generation Tactics for Social Media.
Gain creative ideas to easily develop content to leverage without needing huge budgets.
Explore consumer engagement strategies to boost overall brand images and your company’s bottom line.