2500 marketers took over the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee last week for the 11th annual SiriusDecisions Summit, and our team was among them. In addition to making incredible connections at our booth where we helped attendees learn how to Run Marketing, we also made time to do some learning.
With over 100 sessions, there was a lot of information to take in, but we managed to digest a lot of it—along with a few dozen orders of fried chicken wings.
In the words of the Barenaked Ladies (who rocked the stage on the last night of the event), we are all ready to go home and make some SERIOUS DECISIONS.
We learned:
In the session, The Anatomy of the B2B Marketing Plan, Craig Moore and Marcia Trask showed us how to structure a marketing plan within only one page.
Our Serious Decision #1:
“I want to create the 2017 marketing plan on one page. Takes all the objectives, activities, etc and gives you a view of priorities. From there we can build the budget.” – James Thomas, CMO 
Awesome! A completed version of the 1-page #B2B strategic marketing plan #SDSummit pic.twitter.com/iGgJ9HcCGh
— Lauren Goldstein (@LaurenOnDemand) May 26, 2016
Marketers often confuse the information required to build a marketing plan with the plan itself. #SDSummit @fc_insights #marketing — Alison Rouse (@alirouse) May 26, 2016
There are no “building codes” for a b2b marketing plan says @marciatrask it results in plans aren’t actionable #SDSummit
— Ross Graber (@RossGraber) May 26, 2016
We learned:
Lisa Nakano and Bob Peterson took the stage together to talk about Aligning Customer Marketing and Customer Success and introduced us to the new b-to-b power couple and of course, how they can better align and work together.
Our Serious Decision #2:
“Time to cozy up to Customer Marketing because Customer Success and Customer Marketing are the new power couple.” – Jocelyn Brown, VP, Customer Success
Most attendees have both customer marketing and customer success functions 66% – wow @bobpetersonmn @lisanakano #SDSummit
— Ross Graber (@RossGraber) May 26, 2016
Customer marketing must lead in coordinating appropriate customer interactions & supporting customer growth @bobpetersonmn #SDSummit — Melissa Madian (@MelissaMadian) May 26, 2016
Advocacy roles: Customer success – identify advocates. Customer marketing – execute advocacy production. @lisanakano#SDSummit — Influitive (@influitive) May 26, 2016
We learned:
This SiriusLabs session with Nick Buck and Craig Moore on Campaign Planning operationalized the concepts of the strategic b-to-b marketing plan into a pragmatic approach to campaign development and implementation. The template provided is an excellent visualization of the campaign planning process from articulating business objectives to balancing budget distribution across program families and campaigns.
Our Serious Decision #3:
“To incorporate the data-driven approach to campaign planning to ensure the activities we plan are aligned to our objectives from both budget allocation and revenue generation expectations.” – Amanda Ovenden, Director, Marketing Performance Management
Campaign planning can be better using a simple plan on a page approach #sdsummit @cramoore pic.twitter.com/gy81Yrc4Nx — Isabel Montesdeoca (@mimdeoca) May 26, 2016
#SDSummit 45% of companies say comms is integrated with annual campaign planning process. Alignment still more theoretical than actual
— Chad Berndtson (@Cberndtson) May 25, 2016
We learned:
At the session on Customer Advocacy: Its Impact on Demand Creation, Jen Horton & Lisa Nakano talked about whether there is a way to pinpoint better demand performance in companies that invest in improving the customer experience.
Our Serious Decision #4:
“To look at our advocate communities and activities with fresh eyes and determine new ways to not only appraise and measure them but insert advocacy opportunities into different stages of the customer lifecycle.” – Kasia Finkelstein, Director, Customer Marketing & Brand
“Influenced revenue is an underrated metric” via @jenhorton – But oh so helpful for measuring customer advocacy programs! #SDSummit
— Heather Foeh (@heatherfoeh) May 26, 2016
Build Customer Advocacy into demand creation @jenhorton@lisanakano#SDSummit – https://t.co/hUyAkEHt7Npic.twitter.com/tZwTyQ2LCd — Bev at Centrify (@BevInTech) May 26, 2016
We learned:
During his session on Solving the Content ROI Conundrum, Ross Graber had us take a deeper look at content and showed us “what good look likes”.
Our Serious Decision #5:
“To determine success for content we produce, work to understand what the buying stage it is meant for and the target audience it was intended for – and then define success criteria. Ross reminded me that context is key to all aspects of content.” – Sam Melnick, Director, Customer & Marketing Insights
“The thing about unfindable content is that it doesn’t get used.” 65% of content goes unused. ?@RossGraber #SDSummit — Alex Rynne (@amrynnie) May 25, 2016
Consumption -> outcome -> to impact. The Content measurement metrics spectrum @RossGraber #SDSummit — Marcia Trask (@marciatrask) May 25, 2016
.@RossGraber talking about building content process not just focusing on the performance. (Sounds a lot like Run vs Do Marketing) #SDSummit
— Sam Melnick (@SamMelnick) May 25, 2016
We learned:
In their session, The Art and Science of Identifying and Prioritizing Customer Needs, Jeff Lash and Rachel Young reminded us that definitions matter. They reminded us to work within our organizations to really define needs.
Our Serious Decision #6:
“I loved the quote about how need is a desired outcome that has business value for a persona. As I am about to do some work on our Customer Journey, this resonated. I’m going to be looking for opportunities to create and validate business value for each of our personas as they engage with us.” – Jocelyn Brown, VP, Customer Success
A need is a desired outcome that has business value for a persona. Organizations must define need as what, who and WHY? #SDSummit
— Melissa Madian (@MelissaMadian) May 25, 2016
Bad and Good examples of organizations understanding ‘the need’. Desired outcome, business value, persona. #SDSummit pic.twitter.com/misSZS3V61
— Tim Clarke (@TimxClarke) May 25, 2016
We learned:
The Merkle Inc Case Study with Ron Park (Merkle Inc) and Ed Abrams (Samsung) shared the buyer journey that Merkle helped Samsung develop. The key interesting perspective here was personas developed by their key motivations when involved in a purchase decision: Aspirational (driven by achievement, recognition, and building a legacy) and Preventative (driven to preserve functioning operations and systems, maintain stability, and peace of mind). Those personas then need to be prioritized and considered throughout the buyer journey.
Our Serious Decision #7:
“We’re going to start by reassessing our buyer personas to ensure that they reflect true distinguishing motivators in making buying decisions. Next, we’ll ensure that the messages that will resonate with those personas are consistent but also optimized for specific buyer decisions stages.” – Amanda Ovenden, Director, Marketing Performance Management
“Look at personas from a position of action-ability” (aspirational/preventive) vs such specific attributes #SDSummit
— Vivek Ramgopal (@VivekRamgopal) May 24, 2016
Love that @Samsung‘s #B2Bmarketing team chose “motivations over role” to identify their buyer #personas#SDSummitpic.twitter.com/OdbO25w4HT — Richard Hill (@RHsays) May 24, 2016
We learned:
When Colin Day, VP of Global Demand Generation, took the stage, he talked about London, trains and even his socks, but he also shared a lot of great inferences from his long and continuous transformation at FIS Global.
Our Serious Decision #8:
“Marketing really is an orchestration and you have to play the long game (particularly at large global orgs) to make a huge impact. But at the same time you need to move with urgency otherwise you just get stuck in limbo. What I’m taking back to the office is to be a bit audacious in goals, but work a system and process to get there.” – Sam Melnick, Director, Customer & Marketing Insights
Transparency was 1 of the biggest issues faced. We invested in best-in-class technologies to create visibility @cday_uk @FISGlobal #SDSummit
— Ross Graber (@RossGraber) May 26, 2016
As a planner, I’d say there’s no time for just-in-time marketing. Glad @FISGlobal operationalized #marketing planning @cday_uk#sdsummit
— Matt Senatore (@MattSenatore) May 26, 2016
We learned:
We saw the results of the SiriusDecisions survey on digital advertising in the session on Digital Advertising and B-to-B Demand Creation. Presenters Jennifer Horton and Jonathan Tam also shared best practices in measurement for different channels and optimization.
Our Serious Decision #9:
“We have the opportunity to optimize results from digital advertising by closely integrating which channels we use when, and the messages we’re delivering, as part of the overall buyer journey. We can also leverage digital advertising measurement to learn more about our audience by what they engage with, where.” – Amanda Ovenden – Director, Marketing Performance Management
Digital advertising diagnostic map helps you tweak platform #SDSummit @jontam13 pic.twitter.com/8JcdjGH9Uh
— Stacey Piper (@Stacey_Mktg) May 25, 2016
34% b2b marketers using digital advertising in #nurture#SDSummit — Heidi Bullock (@HeidiBullock) May 25, 2016
We learned:
How much we love country music.
Our Serious Decision #10:
Our CMO has decided to take up guitar lessons. So if you know anyone in Vancouver who teaches, let him know.
Well folks, that’s all for now. Time for our team to get back to the office and get serious about implementing these valuable takeaways into our SiriusDecisions frameworks. But first, tell us: what was your biggest takeaway from the conference?
The post 10 Serious Decisions We Made After #SDSummit 2016 appeared first on Allocadia Marketing Performance Management.