Last month, the vendor marketing team at Gartner Digital Markets attended the 2018 Gartner Digital Marketing Conference in San Diego, California.
The annual conference promised (and, spoiler alert, delivered) sessions that would teach attendees how to “bring [their] marketing vision to life as a customer-centric strategy, that delivers real results for the business.”
To get the most out of our experience we decided to divide and conquer sessions that related to our individual interests. Each member of the team has written about their time at the event, and how the sessions challenged them to follow the conference’s theme, “Think Big, Execute Smart, and Deliver Growth.”
Keep reading to find out our takeaways from this year’s Gartner Digital Marketing Conference.
Vendor marketing team:
Melissa Slago Raeside, Vendor Marketing Director:The Gartner Digital Marketing Conference was amazing for me because the content covered all areas of marketing. The sessions touched on how to create content that matters, how to maximize reach and capabilities through modern marketing technology, and how to navigate your way through the ever-evolving marketing trends like AI and comprehensive account-based marketing.
As a marketing leader, I have to be on top of all things marketing. I need to know about all the innovative strategies, while also overseeing execution, and measuring efforts to uncover what is working well and what needs attention. The choice to bring my whole team to the conference, each of whom is responsible for a different program, was a great one. We were able to spread out and attend different sessions relative to our roles, and then connect and share what we had learned. It was interesting to hear the synergies in what we needed to consider when developing and executing our marketing plan, while also learning from each other.
Overall, I learned that our team, and Gartner Digital Markets as a whole, is taking the right steps in how we are revolutionizing our marketing organization. I think we are moving in the right direction and have put the right value on what we invest in and how we execute. Having an entire conference, including some of the brightest minds and most experienced experts in the field, focused on expanding your mind to new possibilities on how to be best in class was an amazing experience.
For anyone in leadership considering going to the 2019 Garter Digital Marketing Conference, I strongly advise you to bring your team. You will not be disappointed!
Kari Test, Vendor Marketing Manager:I really enjoyed the Gartner Digital Markets Conference, and was impressed that so much of the conference’s content centered around the conference theme: "Think Big, Execute Smart, and Deliver Growth."
Not only did the presenters share the latest trends, statistics, and best practices in digital marketing strategy today, they also provided actionable insights on how to use these findings to prepare our businesses for the future. I enjoyed the sessions that shared real-world examples of businesses that have tapped into innovation and created brand experiences that focus on the customer first—such as Netflix, Tesla, and Airbnb.
Additionally, it was clear that you can’t overlook the importance of data for developing engaging, personalized, and analytical marketing content. A lasting impression from the conference, for me, is the notion that being on the edge of new technology matters, but it’s not everything. Strategy, people, complementary tools, and a designated workflow must all align for marketing to be successful, and we must all remember that “great leaders are also great students.”
Caroline Malamut, Vendor Marketing Manager:“When everything is a strategy, nothing is.”
During a session held by Gartner analyst Ewan McIntyre, I was forced to take a step back and really think about if what we’re doing today actually fits into his definition of strategy. In today’s digital world, we, as marketers, are forced to balance the idea of coming up with two to three year strategic plans along with the constantly evolving landscape of technology, customer expectation, competitors.
The Gartner Digital Marketing Conference encouraged me to continue to stay up to date with the latest technology and how that can (and can’t) help your marketing team to hit strategic goals. We need to facilitate constant feedback from our customers and drive our product forward; no one knows or advocates more for your product than those users! Stay on top of what your competitor is doing to innovate in the industry, without getting caught up in the little battles they may win along the way.
Overall, I learned that marketing strategy is not static; it needs to evolve as both external and internal factors affect the way we all do business. As McIntyre stated, growth and comfort don’t coexist; you and your strategy must be adaptable to the inevitable changes your marketing team and business will experience.
We all start with a deliberate strategy, but sometimes the unrealized strategy that emerges from unexpected situations is the strategy that can drive your business forward.
Lauren Welschenbach, Vendor Marketing Specialist:Brand marketing is essential for business, but difficult to measure. During my time at the Gartner Digital Marketing Conference, I focused on brand marketing and its impact on a successful marketing plan.
At its root, there are three ways to measure brand: brand equity, brand health, and brand impact. These are the three key ways to make sure your brand will grow and sustain that growth. They must work cohesively to make sure your business is represented by the message you have created and want your customers to know and tell their network. I learned the importance of surveys and how data collection can help with brand awareness and improvement. Implementing new programs and technology can also greatly help with organizing your brand and customer journey.
A piece of advice I'll pass along, and continue to keep with me through my business career, is “don’t put technology above strategy.”
As marketers, we always want to have the cutting edge and stay in front of trends. Technology is necessary for us to do our jobs well and efficiently, but when using new technology to improve we need to focus on the strategy and goals of our projects first and then align them with technology.
Jade Thomas, Vendor Marketing Specialist:Most of the workshops I chose to attend were focused on the customer experience. Sessions included how customer experience can weave seamlessly into multichannel marketing, the customer experience pyramid, and why the future of marketing is personal.
A good customer experience provides customers with their wants and needs on appropriate channels to lift satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. Businesses need to make sure that they are aligned on how they define customer satisfaction, and its relationship with business outcomes, starting at the very top of the organization. A crucial part of defining customer satisfaction is mapping out your company’s B2B customer journey. This “parallel commercial engine” needs to have a consistent messaging digitally and in person between both your sales and marketing teams.
The most interesting stat I learned is that 81% of B2B marketers know that customer experience is important, however, only 47% have established customer journey maps and prioritize customer experience efforts. We need to continue to prioritizing customer experience as it is something that's becoming more and more crucial to sustaining retention and revenue growth.
Casey Briglia, Vendor Marketing Associate:While at the Gartner Digital Marketing Conference, I chose to attend sessions related to the programs I work on: social media and content creation. There were three elements to the overall conference theme, "Think Big, Execute Smart, and Deliver Growth."
While in a session about social media marketing, I learned to make sure that your social media content matches the platform you're posting on—to me this highlighted the “execute smart” portion of the theme. This idea seems simple enough, but it’s contrary to what most marketers learn in school. We’re taught to identify a target audience and create a customer persona who would ideally fit that target audience.
The reality is customers are complex creatures and change based on the moment and mindset they’re in. The execution becomes smart when within a campaign we create different posts, all for the same viewer, to fit their mindset while they are in each social space. For LinkedIn, the post would reflect a professional mindset, and on Instagram it would be more casual—the content needs to change accordingly.
Throughout the sessions, the speakers did an amazing job of delivering information that reiterated the conference’s theme. They brought new ideas to light, while also discussing the next steps for us, as marketers, to “deliver growth.” I really valued my time at this year’s Gartner Digital Marketing Conference, and can’t wait to see what they have to offer next year.