Wayne Lockwood: 3 Can’t-Miss Learnings at Marketing Nation Summit 2017

Friday 24 March 2017

3 Can’t-Miss Learnings at Marketing Nation Summit 2017

Author: Chandar Pattabhiram

The countdown is on! In just one month, I’ll be taking the stage for my fourth Marketing Nation Summit and I couldn’t be more excited.

This year is going to be bigger and better than ever before. What I love about Summit is that it gives everyone a chance to learn, share, and grow in the world’s most vibrant community in the world for engagement–The Marketing Nation.

And while it will be the best party in town (Train, anyone?), my favorite part is that no matter what stage you are in your career, you will walk away with more knowledge that you arrived with.

That said, here are three can’t-miss learnings that you can expect at Marketing Nation Summit 2017:

1. Innovation Always

This year’s Summit is for every marketer–anyone and everyone passionate about customer engagement and digital marketing. With more than 5,000 people in one place, marketers will walk away with how-tos and inspiration around how to innovate in two ways: within their current tools and by combining their technology with partners to win more in the Engagement Economy.

A core characteristic of the Engagement Economy is that there are more points of interaction between buyers and sellers than ever before, a trend that is not likely slow down. It is imperative for marketers to be able to adapt to new touchpoints as they develop and utilize new technologies to engage more effectively than ever before. With the theme of “Leading in the Engagement Economy,” our 2017 focus will be just that.

That said, it wouldn’t be Marketing Nation Summit without some exciting product and innovation announcements from Marketo. Next month attendees can expect news around our Engagement Platform, further innovation regarding sales and marketing alignment, a new vision for marketing analytics, and much more.

2. The Synergies of AdTech and MarTech

This year at Summit, we’re introducing a unique content track to specifically address one of the most powerful trends in today’s marketing industry: the convergence of advertising technology and marketing technology. To do this, Marketo has partnered with Adweek to bring together some of the smartest and most innovative brand marketers, AdTech executives, and even brilliant agency minds to speak to our attendees. Think Morgan Flatley, CMO of Gatorade and Propel at PepsiCo; Shiv Singh, SVP of Global Brand and Marketing Transformation at Visa; and Gunther Schumacher, President, Global IBM Brand Services and WW President and COO of OgilvyOne Worldwide.

We often talk about MarTech and AdTech coming together as a collision, but it’s really a perfect marriage. When occurring individually, digital advertising and marketing automation play two completely different roles in getting consumers to purchase products or services. When you bring these worlds together, marketers can personalize and contextualize their conversations with potential and current customers at scale. The net result: Marketers can maximize the value of every advertising dollar they spend. Personal, authentic, and at scale are three of the most important attributes of effective marketing in the Engagement Economy!

3. The Art of Storytelling

We’ve spoken a lot about the science of marketing, brought to you courtesy of technologies like Marketo. This year at Summit, you’ll also see a return to the art of marketing, which lies in effective and authentic storytelling. How do you make your brand, product, or service visually and emotionally appealing to your prospects and customers? You tell a story that connects with them in an authentic way and provides them with something valuable.

As a CMO, I find it incredibly valuable to take a break from metrics and hard numbers to remind myself that the true roots of marketing lie in effective storytelling. Marketing at it roots is all about using emotion as a weapon of mass influence to tell compelling stories and build lifelong connections with customers. And who better to learn from about storytelling than two artists who have truly perfected this craft: James Corden and Queen Latifah. The award-winning host of “The Late Late Show” on CBS and the First Lady of Hip Hop, respectively, will help marketing executives and practitioners alike to return to marketing as an art form.

Have I convinced you? If you haven’t signed up yet, register for Marketing Nation Summit.

I’ll see you in San Francisco.