AGENDA – 2015

KEYNOTE:
Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing

Marketers have long believed the best way to sell their products and services was by communicating a Unique Selling Proposition that positions the brand as superior to the competition through rational features and benefits. The truth is, we’re more feeling beings than thinking machines.

While the facts, figures and stats can play an important role in selling your brand, they are not the primary drivers. We need to tap our emotions and this webinar will teach you how. Douglas Van Praet will provide you with an actionable framework to create content that moves people. He will take you from theory to practice using tangible examples of the some of the most successful advertising and branded content ever created.

How to Convince Your Boss to Invest in Content Marketing

You totally buy in to the fact that content IS the new marketing – but the rest of your company is not as gung-go. Your executives just don’t get it. And they’re not about to approve the time and funds you need to me content marketing work.

How can you present a compelling business case to them? How can you get approval for something beyond a 30-day test? Join the session and you’ll see:

• Real case studies demonstrating the ROI for content marketing
• Examples outlining how to craft your pitch to your boss
• How to deal with objections
• How to educate the executives on what content marketing is
• How to prove the value of content marketing

Publish or Perish: An Analysis of Marketing Content Creation, Optimization , and Distribution Models

A CMO Roadmap for Managing, Systematizing, and Optimizing The Marketing Content Supply Chain to Drive Growth and Differentiation In Digital, Social and Mobile Sales, Marketing, and Media Channels.

Nearly every large enterprise today is increasing their investment in marketing content and deploying systems for distributing content through social, digital, and mobile channels. But rarely is this initiative done with a clear enterprise strategy, a business case, or ownership by marketing leadership. Should you be worried? How can marketing executives ensure this large investment in content marketing, digital marketing, social media, and sales enablement translates to measurable business impact and top line growth? This presentation will offer marketing best practices based on Forbes Insights’ evaluations of the content creation processes of over 250 global marketers, as well offer an overview of the emerging ecosystem of leading solutions that can systematize the process of creating, optimizing, distributing and tracking content effectiveness, including: digital marketing, digital media, sales enablement, and content optimization platforms to help marketers take control of the content problem.

Must-Know Secrets from Bad-Ass Publishers

Forward-thinking companies are thinking like old-school publishers: gather ideas, develop stories and publish a steady stream of content that engages readers and keeps them coming back for more. So what made the great publishers so great? Learn important lessons from William B. Ziff Jr., publisher of PC Magazine, PC Week and other widely read publications that broke the mold. Ziff-Davis editors didn’t write articles for the typical consumer or average business buyer. They carefully crafted content for “brand specifiers” and “volume buyers.” Greg Jarboe worked for Mr. Ziff and will share his mentor’s insights, which powered the growth of niche publications at a time when general-interest magazines were losing steam. In today’s multi-channel world of websites, blogs and social media sites, you can leverage these insights to reap ROI from this counter-intuitive approach to content marketing.

Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing

We’re moving into a new era of marketing, moving from product-centered content to customer-centric experiences that drive content strategy and performance. Our role as marketers is changing from the basics of describing products and services and into understanding how to develop, manage and lead the creation of valuable experiences for audiences. Brands are achieving remarkable content marketing performance goals much faster with delightful, sustainable experiences. These draw people in and make them want to engage more deeply and inspire them to share them with, and influence the decisions of, others. Content that’s centered on creating meaningful, relevant customer experiences is what differentiates brands and launches them ahead of others in their industry. Attendees for this session will learn:

• Leaping from product talk into content-driven experiences
• A framework for creating consistent and scalable brand experiences
• Examples of companies already focused on customer-centric experiences

Content Optimization: The Next Generation Is Now Here

Optimizing content for both readers and the search engines typically takes a lot of work, and a lot of time. Until now. In this session, you’ll see next-gen technology that does in seconds what used to take you days or weeks. In minutes, you’ll learn how to discover keywords that matter for optimization, instantly grouped in silos for planning and creation. In a few more minutes, you’ll find the articles in the social sphere creating all the buzz and mindshare you need. Put those two together and you’ve got the secret sauce to move your content planning and optimization in the right direction—Upward! Chair host Byron White will serve up an old-school content plan that took 400 hours to create. Featured speaker Mike Roberts will show you the future that’s now in the palm of your hand.

10 Most Common SEO Mistakes and 10 SEO Tactics to Win

We’re a search-happy world. Ninety-three percent of all buyers, both online and in-store, hop on a search engine prior to making a purchase. And 86 percent of searchers conduct non-branded queries. People are hungry for useful information, and they want to feed that hunger pronto. Your website can take prime advantage of this fact if you understand how content marketing optimization works and what falls flat. Despite the murmurs you may have heard, the Internet is not a “build it and they will come” environment. This session teaches you what it takes to capture as much search engine real estate as possible, including:

• The most common optimization mistakes we see
• How to create and optimize content your prospects are looking for
• Best types of content to create for search engines
• How to protect yourself against future changes

Creating Content with the Social X Factor

Customer passions are the key to unleashing the social X factor within your content marketing efforts. In this session, you’ll dive deeply into several cases from LIBBY’S® Pumpkin, Buitoni® and Krylon® Spray Paints that demonstrate how passion becomes the driver for social success. You’ll also explore how to find the insight, define the content delivery method and measure the impact of the effort of content marketing campaigns that tap into passion in strange and mysterious ways.

Automated Content Management Best Practices

Content marketing has created the problem of content management. With the need to create limitless content compounded with the need to promote this via cross channel content management has become a critical aspect of driving value from your content marketing efforts. In this session well outline the ways to manage your content distribution with via both paid, owned, and earned channels digging into new techniques such as micro actions, dynamic content, and real time bidding. Come ready to learn and prepared to leave with knowledge you can implement tomorrow.

Small Tactics that have BIG impact

We’re all itching for our content to go viral with likes, shares and mentions on all the authority sites. But that’s not likely to happen unless you understand who will help promote the content before you even begin creating it. If you can’t figure that one out in advance, the content may not be worth creating in the first place. Larry Kim will share a case study on how he generated 10,000 press pickups, 10 million unique visitors and media coverage galore, all by practicing a few tactics that will turn your content marketing on its head.

How to Make One of Those Insanely Viral Quizzes

Quizzes continue to reign as some of the most-shared pieces of online content in any given month. What makes quizzes so hot? Owen Fuller will fill you in, sharing lessons he learned from reverse engineering an inhuman amount of viral quizzes on sites like Buzzfeed and Qzzr. He’ll teach the secrets Qwizards use to drive social traffic and leads, including the keys to optimizing quiz titles, questions, imagery, calls-to-action and outcomes. He’ll wrap by taking you on a personal tour of the hall-of-fame of quizzes that rock — and make the cash register ching.

Million Dollar Deals in 25% of the time

You know content marketing is a must to fly these days, but you may have also found out it’s not always easy to make it soar. Delivering performance, measuring ROI and correlating investment to revenue is tough stuff. The reason? Buyers have changed. They’re standoffish, unpredictable, demanding and extremely discerning of what’s relevant and what’s not. They take their sweet time in reaching consensus and making purchase decisions. Buyers have the power. Or do they? Content marketers need to develop freakishly amazing content that engages buyers at different steps though the cycle. But what does this content look like? How can you place your company as the anchor for solving problems? What does it take to earn trust and convert browsers into buyers? You’ll find out when you dive into a real-world case study that resulted in five multi-million dollar deals in 25 percent less time than expected for a market expansion program. Learn why campaigns kill conversations, and why we need to listen and not sell. Discover how buyer personas drive strategies and shorten the buy cycles, boosting ROI. You’ll see how conversational competence increases intentional action. And leave with three amazing skills and tactics you can put to work for your company right now.

Can Your Content Make Real Money?

Evaluating content performance can be tricky indeed. Most folks start with “engagement” metrics like views, shares, and comments. As your content program matures, you may be able to link performance to leads and conversions. But what if you could link your content directly to revenue? No, we’re not kidding. In this session, Matt will explain how content marketing delivered over $2 million in gross profit, and how you can, too!

KEYNOTE
Content that Sells

Titles. Copy. Buttons. Calls-to-action. All this content we carefully create and gleefully publish on a single web page has a defined purpose, namely engagement, motivation and conversion. Based on our selection of words and images, and layout on the page, conversion rates can sink or swim. Sales can drop or pop. But what are the right words that stop readers in their track’s, motivate action instantly and drive conversion and sales? Join Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization, in a journey discussing the A to Z’s of conversion with lots of data and case studies that’ll guide you through the methodology and technology need to boost your conversions. Beware, Tim may battle the kingliness of content with a sword of data that puts your readers, prospect and customers in control of the content kingdom. You’ll learn that if you’re not testing what works and what doesn’t in magical and mysterious ways, you’re likely wasting lots of money, and time.

Content Planning for Industry Domination

Without a plan, nothing really works. That’s especially true with content marketing. But designing a plan that works for you and your organization can be one heck of an undertaking – unless you follow the right steps. Step one is self-assessment of your resources, budget and buy-in from the powers to be. Step two is to get everyone on the same page with a plan that defines methodology, technology and action-ology that delivers on your plan’s defined performance goals. In this session you’ll review a content plan that flourished, and one that flopped, taking tips from both you can apply to your own plan development. You’ll learn how to capture your brand essence, define your target audience and survey the competition and their content. You’ll see how personas fit into the mix, and how you can use them to stir up hot topic ideas.

Building a Revenue Program Architecture

Business buyers are increasingly relying on online content and social networks to support their buying process, revenue teams are responding by rethinking how they engage customers across the revenue lifecycle. This modern approach requires a closed-loop process that engages the right content at each stage of the buy-sell process. Yet designing an integrated content marketing program is hard. How do you design a program that uses the right mix of bought, owned, and earned media and deploy it across the end-to-end marketing-sales process? In this discussion we will share a framework for how to build a “Revenue Program Architecture” along with tips on ways to avoid the pitfalls.

• What is content curation?
• How can curation boost the success of your content marketing strategy?
• Who is doing a great job at content curation today? (detailed case studies)
• What tactics can you execute now to improve your own curation efforts?

JEFF MESNIK | President, Contentmx
Thursday, May 14 2:30-3:20PM
Room: Miranda 5

Content Marketing is a Team Sport

When it comes to content marketing, you need a dream team to win the war on the web. But what does that team look like? You might be surprised. Learn how one person can now do it all if necessary, using essential tools and platforms required for success. Find out how a whole team can succeed, with all members on the same page and primed for victory. Explore the fresh cast of characters that are joining the team, including authors, creators, curators, experiential(s), polishers, zeniths and more. You’ll discover the “center of excellence” required to align your players for the WORD CHAMPIONSHIP of content marketing.

Creating Story-Driven Brand Experiences

Brand storytelling is shifting the focus of how companies look at content creation and content marketing. Leading companies understand why they need to create value through story-driven experiences that capture the heart – and not just the heads – of audiences. Brands that realize success through storytelling do so because of their ability to tell delightful, sustainable stories that draw people in and make them want to know more. Story-driven experiences connect with people at the times, places and in ways that are relevant to them, help convert them into customers and ultimately brand loyalists and evangelists. Attendees for this session will learn:

• Why creating story-driven experiences is the key to enticing, engaging and delighting audiences
• How to create and tell a brand story instead of selling a product or service
• Examples of brands that set audience expectations for storytelling

Case Studies in Social Optimization

The success of a content marketing piece is decided on by the people it will reach. In this session, you’ll learn how to use data to find your potential audiences in social media, as well as why and how to optimize social media platforms to increase that reach. You’ll be introduced to case studies that demonstrate how optimizing your social media for content marketing can benefit you and how connecting your content to real people can be a great asset.

Discover the Hero in Your Data / How Data Shapes Content Strategy

It’s all out there: Mountains of data on your company, conversions, customer behavior and competitive conditions that help you understand content marketing performance and drivers. But those mountains don’t do you much good if you’re not sure how to climb them. What are the key performance indicators? What tools should I use to harvest the data? And how can I put all the data together to change content strategy, content creation and performance measurement? Discover how the right data supports big picture company goals like more traffic, more leads and more sales to demonstrate results and validate your content expertise. Get all the mountain-climbing gear and strategies you need with this session that’s all about the data.

Experience Optimization: How to Build a High-Converting Content Experience

From landing pages to SEO, as marketers we’ve been focused on increasing conversion rates and optimizing our online marketing initiatives. But when it comes to content, many organizations simply publish and forget. The reality is that creating great content isn’t enough. You also need to create a great content experience that’s engineered to accommodate your goals—whether that means boosting engagement, generating leads or retaining customers. In this session, we’ll talk about the key elements to consider when optimizing your content, including the user experience, the engagement path and the content itself, as well as how to maximize the potential of your premium content for lead generation.

Hello… is it me you’re looking for?

You know you’ve got something the world needs to hear about… but how do you make sure you’re reaching the right people, at the right time, and with the right content? We’ll take a look at the steps to create your buyer personas and how to use them effectively to find your audience, focus on the right channels and spend your time where it matters most (ROI anyone?). This session will be packed with actionable tips and real world examples so you can apply what you learn to your business.

How to Generate Great Leads on a Small Budget

If you’ve got a million-dollar marketing budget, generating leads is easy. If you don’t, it can be more of a challenge.

In this presentation you’ll learn how to generate leads on a shoestring budget from a guy that has been called the ‘one man lead generation powerhouse.’McKay will discuss how to start a content marketing program from scratch, what content to create, how to promote it, and how to build brand awareness. He’ll also give you a step-by-step plan for generating leads at your business. In addition he’ll tell you who to hire to make a massive impact on your content marketing plan immediately.

And perhaps most importantly, he’ll give you the tools you need to measure the efffectiveness of your marketing. The bottom line is simple: you don’t need a ton of money to generate leads.

Channel Amplification Tips and Tricks

You’ve created content and you’re ready to share it with the world. Now what? And where? And how? Looking at case studies from Sphero, this session will begin by providing you with tips and tricks on how to optimize your content for engagement on different distribution channels. Then it will give you specific strategies to use with tools like Outbrain and Snip.ly that will help amplify your content and get your audience to take action.

Secret Tactics for LinkedIn

You have the relevant content, but need to reach the right audience, fast. Ads don’t work. Spam sucks. And time is the enemy. #PsychologyThat’s where LinkedIn comes in – new developments in the platform have caused content promotion to become extremely successful. Learn to get your content in front of exactly the right eyes, and do it on your own. Discover how to work the system to maximize your spend, and decrease user acquisition cost 10x that of normal paid channels with the new founded knowledge. Best of all, learn it from a proven pro that manages and consults for the world’s most sophisticated LinkedIn advertising accounts.

Trigger Connotation to Convert

Connecting the words we write and the images we publish with buyer decisions is challenging. Influencing behavior seems largely guesswork, and a moving target. Until now. In this session, you’ll tap into the latest neuromarketing trends to discover the secrets that activate a field of unconscious correlation that triggers behavior largely outside of our control or awareness. Metaphors, as it turns out, trigger clouds of connotation, tap into our emotion, bypass rational thinking and put browsers into the buying frame of mind in strange and mysterious ways. Learn how to engage readers, bypass roadblocks and trigger connotation that converts flawlessly, again and again.

Improv Your Content with Comedy

You probably don’t associate content marketing success with comedy. But when you start tracking content marketing performance, particularly in the social sphere, you’ll want to take a second look. Lessons learned from the comedic stage can be directly applied to content marketing success. Comedians have a unique way of engaging audiences on an emotional level. In this session, you’ll learn basic principles of improvisation that will enhance creativity, promote collaboration, and unearth new methodology to make your content more engaging and conversive. Come prepared to participate or spectate in a series of basic improv exercises that will open your mind to this new approach. Remember, the goal is less about being funny, and more about putting fun to work for content marketing success and performance.