Last week, we had the opportunity to attend and sponsor Emma’s Marketing United conference at The Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn. (No, we didn’t see T. Swift.) The week was filled with spectacular views of the Nashville cityscape, energizing keynotes and a whole bunch of email marketing insights. We did our best to soak up as much knowledge as possible. Here are our favorite moments, messages and takeaways from Marketing United 2016:
Each morning of the conference began with a strong cup of coffee—or three—and a keynote from a major marketing heavy-hitter. All of the nearly 600 conference attendees crowded together in the main hall to hear war stories, best practices and insights from the likes of Ann Handley of Marketing Profs, Scott Harrison of Charity Water, and Scott Stratten of UnMarketing.
Each marketing expert tackled marketing problems from their own unique perspective. To us, hearing these different perspectives highlighted the importance of integration and the need for examining internal marketing processes, recognizing similarities between different departments and learning to integrate and collaborate towards a shared outcome.
There’s nothing worse than going to a conference and not learning anything new. This definitely was not the case at Marketing United. The break-out sessions at Marketing United proved to be engaging and enlightening. It’s always interesting to witness marketing chiefs present on their work and provide their perspective. So often, they’re the Oz behind the curtain, crafting messaging and strategies of which we only see the final product.
Jay Jhun of IBM crooning the audience in his session by remixing Imagine by John Lennon into an e-mail marketing ballad.
Jay Baer signed his book 'Hug Your Haters' following his session, with the biggest retweeted quote of the conference, reminding us where it all starts: “customer service is the new marketing...”
The hottest marketing tagline came from Josie Fox at Tito’s Vodka where their marketing motto is: “if you have a liver, we deliver." (We're always a fan of humor.)
Ann Handley: If your logo fell off your marketing, would people still know it’s yours?
Interacting with sponsors should be a key part of any conference attendee’s schedule—and not just for the free swag. Chatting with Ah So Designs, Privy and Litmus gave us an inside look at just how organizations, SaaS companies and businesses in marketing and technology are staying ahead of the curve.
Planning for Marketing United 2017 has already started. Put it on your calendars: April 19-21, 2017 in Nashville, Tenn. If this year’s Marketing United conference was any indication, next year is going to be just as epic.
This blog post was written by Ryan Camissa, Business Development Coordinator for MightyVerify. Follow him on Twitter at @ryancammisa.
