#SDSummit In A Nutshell

While we weren’t tweeting furiously in sessions, we were chatting with B2B marketers at our booth. Although we have a detailed recap in the works, we figured we’d give you a quick briefing on some of the key takeaways by sharing some of our favorite tweets:

First, let’s start out with the hot topics and trends. There were many sessions focused on content marketing, but account-based marketing and predictive were common themes across many tracks and sessions:

SiriusDecisions started things off with a bang by unveiling its new Needs Aperture. While taking a photograph, we typically focus on a core subject and as a result, lose sight of what’s happening around us. The same could be said for our campaigns. When we focus too much on one specific persona or campaign goal, we don’t focus on other potential needs or trends that are emerging. The Needs Aperture is designed to help marketers get ahead of trends and be leaders:

Before you start campaign planning and content creation, you need to identify your goals and, of course, how to measure whether your goals are met. Measurement requires balancing (and tracking) content processes and actual performance. Ross Graber provided a great framework for measurement:

The nuances around creating a great campaign theme was also a topic that resonated with us. It’s not just about focusing on your core technology offerings or services, but applying value propositions and buyer needs in a creative way:

We were really excited to see a new version of the Messaging Nautilus, something we know well and apply at Content4Demand. Interestingly, SiriusDecisions changed “content preferences” to “interaction points.” This is because interaction points are actually trackable and you can easily identify trends along the buying cycle, while content preferences cannot be defined as hard facts:

Of course, sales and marketing alignment was discussed in detail. To ensure communication, collaboration and effective implementation, all teams need to be on the same page in terms of campaign audience, goals and strategies. Enter, the Marketing Plan-on-a-Page Template:

When discussing customer experience best practices, SiriusDecisions analysts noted that sales reps need to constantly share new insights and content:

But of course, successful sales onboarding and enablement also requires a variety of other training programs, tools and tactics:

There were a lot of sessions that touched on the value of influencers and advocates. On the surface, influencer programs seem like a hot trend but hard to actualize. However, SiriusDecisions provided a lot of great best practices for identifying influencers and advocates, engaging them, building relationships, using them for content creation and measuring their impact.

And of course, Content4Demand got some love from attendees for our election theme!