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Digital Marketing Conference

Wednesday, April 29th 2015Indianapolis Museum of Art

#LOVEINDY

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YOUR CONFERENCE REVIEWTable of Contents

SPEAKERSKyle Lacy 3

Panel Discussion 5

Jeff Carl 7

Shane Snow 9

Matt Rogers 11

Josh Miles 13

Nikki Lewallen 15

Benjamin Cox 17

Halie Vining 19

Stedman Graham 21

Are you a master of digital marketing? Since 2007, MBO has given Indy business leaders access to learn from the best and brightest marketing technology minds in the world. On April 29th, hundreds of people gathered for its 8th program, the MBO15 Digital Marketing Conference, to get together and get inspired. The MBO15 Conference saw some of the nation’s best and brightest marketing minds coming together to talk about everything from strategy to execution. In this guide, you’ll find industry-leading knowledge on:

• Content marketing strategy

• Email marketing strategy, execution, and multi-variate testing

• Emerging technology and future disruptive tech

• And much more!

If you were in attendance, we hope you enjoyed the conference and if not, we hope to see you next year! Enjoy the notes and let us know what you learned!

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Technology Trends Disrupting Consumer BehaviorKyle Lacy, Head of Consumer Behavior, OpenView Venture Partners

“The customer’s experience is the only thing that makes you relevant.”

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TECHNOLOGY TRENDS DISRUPTING CONSUMER BEHAVIORKyle Lacy, Head of Consumer Behavior, Openview Venture Partners

What’s next? What’s the difference between trends and reality? As the head of consumer behavior at OpenView Ventures, Kyle Lacy attempts to answer that question every day. In his morning keynote, Kyle wanted to highlight the tech trends - and the trends influenced by tech - that will change the way consumers interact with your brand, website, and product.

“I think what’s next is changing much faster than we’ve ever experienced,” Kyle said.

The key to preparing for the future isn’t being a visionary, but rather being a good listener. Your strategy should be focused on what people are actually doing, not what you think they might do.

Moments MatterKyle opened his keynote by discussing moments. Becoming a great brand in the Internet age is about looking at every single consumer touch point and making it mean something. Take advantage of a moment of time–sometimes a very ordinary moment of time–and make it matter to your customers. These same principles apply to the conventional buyer’s life cycle. We as marketers and technologists have to build systems that allow people to interact with us in the moment, in the way they want to interact with us.

MobilityMobile is king, right? Not quite. Customer mobility reaches far beyond having a mobile-responsive site. Lacy pointed out some striking statistics, including the following:

• 1 in 5 searches on Google are related to location.

• 97% of websites fail at user experiences.

• 83% of US consumers research products while in-store on their phone.

The bottom line is that today, mobile is the smallest it will ever be. As cell phones get cheaper, more people will buy them and more people will be connected to the web.

The Audience Effect“Whoever owns the audience owns the experience.”

Companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple have the audience, and therefore the cash flow, to enter any market they want. We’ve seen this come to fruition in every B2C marketplace, especially retail. In 2013, one third of all Christmas gifts in the US were shipped for free. In 2014, that number had doubled.

What you’re witnessing there is Amazon defining demand. Not only is Amazon capturing more of the retail market, but they’re forcing retailers to play by their rules.

“Most people think [Google]’s main competitors are Yahoo! and Bing, but it’s actually Amazon.”

Collaborative ConsumptionOur entire economy is being rebuilt around the idea of sharing, and the most notable example of this, Uber, has positioned itself to thrive in competition with companies like Amazon.

In their last round, Uber raised $2.5 BILLION, meaning they have enough money to enter any market they want. Currently, their biggest investor is Google. Investors have valued Uber as if it’s larger than the entire taxi industry, but they don’t want to limit themselves to the taxi industry. They’re currently testing retail and food applications that could rival Amazon on price and deliver in mere hours.

For more takeaways from Kyle’s keynote, download his slide deck here: http://openview.vs/MBO15Trends

TAKEAWAYS• Americans spend 151 minutes/day on smart

phones - More than TV or laptops.

• 30% of the total mobile market is smart phone, meaning there’s a 70% growth potential.

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Growing Indianapolis’ Digital Marketing Revolution Beyond IndianaPanel Discussion

“It’s a true community of people who want to start their own business.”

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GROWING INDIANAPOLIS’ DIGITAL MARKETING REVOLUTION BEYOND INDIANAPanel Discussion

Looking at the marketing technology landscape, we’ve become a boom town for the niche. With that boom, however, it’s important that we learn from those who have built successful companies already. This panel, filled with some of Indianapolis’ best and brightest technical marketers and executives provided insights on how the next great marketing tech leaders can build their business more effectively.

Perfecting Your Management StyleHow do you manage creative technical nerds in order to build a great company? Our executive marketing panel shared their thoughts on effective leadership and management for your staff.

On one hand, you have collaboration. The mantra for Kevin Bailey is “Get together, get inspired, empower your staff.” He likes to focus on empowering his team to do their job right, without his guidance. He also prides himself on a questioning style of leadership. Every time he works on a project, he wants to ask why and push his team to innovate.

On the other hand, there’s transparency. The best lessons learned can come from “getting naked.” Shawn Schwegman talked about “Naked Lunches,” where his team would get together and talk candidly about what problems they were having, no holds barred.

Every company wants to disrupt and redefine their category, but most companies are afraid to take the necessary risks because of fear of losing customers. If you want to live in that space, you have to understand that it’s okay to be hated. Don’t delay. Fail fast and embrace change.

Helping Clients Embrace ChangeWhen doing client work, you’re working within such a huge complex environment. It’s not uncommon for clients to say they want to make big changes, but they’re often unable to embrace the risk associated with those moves. How to you

help your clients embrace the change they need to make?

Always start with areas of strength when looking to make changes. If people say no, “our business is different,” start with areas of strength and internal teams that are willing to make change and evolve from there.

If you’re looking for a change agent within the C-Suite, CMOs have the shortest lifespan in any company. A great way to motivate CMOs to take action is through a “war” approach. Their life is on the line, give them the tools to protect themselves.

Growing Your Business In IndianaAt the end of the day, all five of these leaders chose to grow their business in Indiana, and they would all do it again. They all spoke about the amazing support network and mentorship opportunities in the state. Organizations like Verge do a great job of nurturing this community and allowing support to flow from mentors to mentees.

While Indiana is a conservative state and that can lead to branding challenges for several Indy-based corporations, overcoming that obstacle is not insurmountable:

“Build a culture that feels like the world and no one cares where you’re from.”

TAKEAWAYS• Managing marketers is more about

empowering than micro-managing. Focus on how you can give your team the reins.

• If your client wants to innovate, you have to push them to embrace the risks necessary to accomplish true disruption.

• Don’t get distracted. Focus on the things that work, don’t waste money on things your customers don’t care about.

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Multivariate Testing: How to Streamline Variable Testing for Digital Marketing ChannelsJeff Carl, Email Marketing Manager, Angie’s List

“Multivariate testing allows you to take months worth of A/B testing and get results instantaneously.”

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Most marketers are using some form of testing to determine which is the best message to send to their customer, but do they go far enough?Marketing professionals understand the importance of effective A/B testing, but few people actually care enough to use multivariate testing to perfect their message. It’s used in several more scientific industries, but it’s rarely used in marketing, which is where it could have the largest effect.

What’s most remarkable is that effective multivariate testing takes about the same amount of time as effective A/B testing, but the effects could be astronomical.

For those of you who may doubt the method, multivariate testing cured scurvy, won a Nobel prize, and helped Angie’s List sell more stuff… It will probably work for you as well.

How to Run a Great Multivariate TestA/B testing is tried and true, and it makes things better, but every incremental gain takes longer and longer to arrive at the best solution. With multivariate testing, you can find the best results instantaneously instead of after months of A/B testing. So how do you do this?

1. Isolate specific elements you want to get results on. This can be imagery, copy, design, etc. Find what you want to get results on and use multiple variations of each item.

2. Measure results through permutations. Create ads, emails, or landing pages with every permutation of these elements. This allows you to effectively A/B test every single variable on the page and see what works and what doesn’t.

3. Generate weighted results to find optimization. You can leverage weighted results - including things like open rate, CTR, and conversion rate, in order to find an optimal solution, which may be something you didn’t even test.

4. Test optimal solutions and iterate. Once you’ve found an optimal solution, test it and continue to iterate.

MULTIVARIATE TESTING: HOW TO STREAMLINE VARIABLE TESTING FOR DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELSJeff Carl, Email Marketing Manager, Angie’s List

TAKEAWAYS• While A/B testing is effective, it’s not ideal

when you have many variables you want to test for an optimal solution.

• You can run multivariate tests in the same amount of time that you can A/B test by leveraging built-in software capabilities.

• Multivariate testing can generate optimal results that you didn’t even test.

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The Evolution of Media: How Technology & Content Can Impact a Brand & the Bottom LineShane Snow, Chief Creative Officer, Contently

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

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THE EVOLUTION OF MEDIA: HOW TECHNOLOGY & CONTENT CAN IMPACT A BRAND & THE BOTTOM LINEShane Snow, Chief Creative Officer, Contently

Why do stories matter? As a bestselling author and the Chief Creative Officer at Contently, Shane Snow has some ideas, and stories, on just that question.A Native American proverb reads, “Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

Why? Why do those who tell the stories rule the world? Why not those who make the food or those who write the laws? Furthermore, why would we trust storytellers more than people who have been trained to lead?

Because we, as humans, are uniquely programmed to understand and remember great stories. Great stories make us care and help build relationships between us and the world around us.

Academic research from the University of Wisconsin illustrates that stories has an impact on people’s personal relationships, including sympathy, empathy, and compassion. This is the same reason that people are willing to fight and die for their country, because of the stories they’ve been told that foster patriotism and connection to their fellow countryman.

We’re programmed for stories because oral tradition helped us survive as a species (as seen in The Storytelling Mammal).

In the old days, publishers needed a lot of capital. You needed talent, a printing press, and trucks. Today, however, you just need the Internet and a story to tell. This has led to companies adopting content marketing en masse, but what makes it work is effective storytelling. Technology is no longer the barrier. Today, the barrier is telling a great story that resonates with your audience.

So how can your business tell great stories that build relationships with people?

• Tell stories about shared interests and values These should be directed to people who don’t know you at all. These “top funnel” individuals should get to know your character, not your product or services.

• Tell stories about your company and your customers These should be directed to people who know who you are, but not necessarily what you do. These “middle funnel” individuals should get to know what kinds of results you get people and how you do it.

• Tell stories about your products and services Finally, these people get to know about your products and services. They should be in the market and interested in what you’re doing today. This is the bottom of your conversion funnel, and these stories should convert into sales.

• Make content that is timely, seasonal, and evergreen Timely stories are about what’s new right now, seasonal is predictable and usually annual, evergreen content is always relevant.

While all of this is relevant, not any story will do. Just as we’re built to understand stories, we’re built to sniff out deception. Follow ethical principles when telling your brand’s story and make it as authentic as possible.

TAKEAWAYS• Storytelling is our most powerful tool to

communicate in a lasting, meaningful way.

• 70% of consumers prefer to get to know a company through articles and stories than advertisements.

• Content marketing is three times more likely to generate leads than traditional marketing.

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Big Data & Beyond: How to Engineer State-of-the-Art Interactive Marketing SolutionsMatt Rogers, President, RocketBuild

“Manual data processing is like manual clothes washing… We have a machine for this, people!”

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How important is “big data?” Well, it depends on who you ask. As an engineer first and a marketer second, Matt Rogers places more value in the right data.

This isn’t news to anyone, but “Big Data” is an overused buzz-word. Unless you’re working at IBM, it pretty much means nothing. Data as a whole, on the other hand, means opportunity. More specifically, the right data means the right opportunity.

So how do you get at the right data? The typical conversation comes from giant data crunchers who try to take a lot of data and make it meaningful. That’s hard, expensive, and implausible. It’s more important to get the right data than to get a lot of data.

So what’s the key to capturing the power of data, even if you’re not IBM? Know what you want to know.

As marketers, we talk a lot about design, copy, etc, but not enough about what it is we’re trying to learn from marketing activities. Engineers and scientists like to learn from everything they do, and we can learn a lot about our craft from their process.

For example, Netflix is capturing tons of data on everything you do (and what you don’t do). Before they launched the product, they knew they needed to know all possible information, including when you rewind and fast forward, where you pause, and what you search for but don’t watch. This is how they create their original content, by analyzing all of these data points, but how can your business replicate this approach?

Currently, marketers aren’t relying on data enough. Today, marketers depend on data for just 11% of all of their customer-related decisions. They’re collecting tons of data from a lot of data sources, but they’re really not doing much with it. Data tends to be disconnected in silos that cannot communicate with one another.

What’s most important for marketers to realize is this: Every customer interaction is an excuse to collect data about them. That means it’s our job to engineer our data systems smarter and cleaner from the get-go. This is where marketers and engineers would get along, and where there are incredible opportunities to build better experiences through clean, viable data.

Bottom line: By building a well-planned, comprehensive system and experience, you can collect clean, unified data that can help you make meaningful decisions for your future marketing campaigns.

BIG DATA & BEYOND: HOW TO ENGINEER STATE-OF-THE-ART INTERACTIVE MARKETING SOLUTIONSMatt Rogers, President, RocketBuild

TAKEAWAYS• While data is important, “Big Data” has

become an enigma to many marketers. Don’t worry about leveraging “Big Data,” worry about leveraging the right data.

• The best companies in the world (like Netflix) are making most of their content creation decisions based on information they know about their users. For some, this is truly big data, while for others it’s simply collecting the right data.

• Marketers aren’t using data enough. On average, marketers depend on data for just 11% of all customer-related decisions.

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Culture Shift: Fostering a Culture of Subject Matter ExpertsJosh Miles, Founder/Principal, Miles Design

“What if, as marketers, you could convince subject matter experts to work with you to create content?”

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CULTURE SHIFT: FOSTERING A CULTURE OF SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTSJosh Miles, Founder/Principal, Miles Design

You probably have a lot of subject-matter experts at your company, but they’re not on your marketing team. So how can you get your marketing team to work with your experts effectively? When you have highly-talented subject matter experts in your organization, it can be extremely difficult to market them.

Whys that? Well, there are several reasons…

• They’ve probably never done it before

• Marketing is not billable, and

• They’re busy… Really busy.

While it’s difficult, it’s also extremely important. Having great subject matter experts on your team buys you a “halo effect,” driving business not because people like your brand, but because they like the brilliant people you’ve hired. At the end of the day, your subject matter experts are downright necessary in 2015, because of the rapid growth of technology. When all of your prospects’ questions are Google-able, you have to move upstream to deliver value. This means that, like it or not, you need to be marketing your best employees and helping them build their personal brands if you want to grow.

If you do this well, you can create “Combustible content.” What does that mean? Combustible content isn’t exploding today, but has the potential to blow up in the future. It may be something your experts have been creating all along. Whether it’s a conversation, a personal tweet, or an email, your experts have probably been creating great content for YEARS! If you can’t find great content, check your sales staff’s sent email.

You can help them do this by:

• Walking them through the content marketing process, helping them understand what combustible content is and why it matters.

• Helping them promote their personal brand and showing them what’s in it for them.

• Finding things that they’ve already done that can serve as great content moving forward. Is there anything else that comes to mind that you can create alongside your experts?

Remember, this will be a process. You have to sell this to your busy, important subject matter experts. They have to buy in to the idea. They’ll have questions and concerns, but once you start, you’re more likely to succeed. As Seth Godin says, “The enemy of creativity is fear, but the enemy of fear is creativity.”

Ways You Can Capture Expertise From Your Team

• Have them write.

• Interview them.

• Ghost write for them.

• Capture images or video.

Teach your company how to help by teaching your company what constitutes great content.

Create a system for sharing with marketing and teach your SME’s to be ambassadors for marketing.

If none of this is resonating with you, that’s okay. If sharing expertise isn’t part of your culture, maybe expertise isn’t part of your brand. There’s no need to force thought leadership if it doesn’t fit with your brand and how you want to share your story.

TAKEAWAYS• Creating great, combustible content goes

much further than blogging. You need to create a culture of subject matter experts who have great ideas that they want to share.

• Content marketing is tough… 54% of marketers say they can’t figure out how to make enough quality content, 50% can’t produce it consistently, and 49% can’t figure out how to measure it effectively.

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LinkedIn: Work It!Nikki Lewallen, Executive Director, Rainmakers

“If we all learn to leverage LinkedIn to become better networkers, we can be 1 degree of separation from anyone in Indianapolis”

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LINKEDIN: WORK IT!Nikki Lewallen, Executive Director, Rainmakers

As someone who has spent a lot of time in business development, Nikki Lewallen has become a bona fide LinkedIn expert. How can you leverage LinkedIn to show up in more searches and drive more business?As the largest professional network in the world, LinkedIn has become a hot button for marketers to try to drum up business. By focusing on these fundamental aspects of your LinkedIn experience, however, you significantly increase your ability to leverage the network.

Professional headline This is the most valuable real estate on your profile. Most people just use their current title, but it’s already listed on your profile. You can leverage this headline in a much more targeted way to brand yourself as an individual. Who are you, what do you do, who do you serve? You should answer all three of these questions in your professional headline.

Google and LinkedIn are good friends. LinkedIn is a very high-ranking site that typically shows up above your website in search results. This means even on Google, your professional description can be your first impression when people are looking for you.

SkillsThe skills section is peculiar for many. Am I adding too many? Not enough? Why are people endorsing me for things I didn’t add. If you want to limit what people can add, make sure you add all 50, otherwise other people can endorse you for things that they don’t choose. This then becomes the foundation of your endorsements section, which helps you show up in searches for various skill sets.

SummaryThe summary is about you as an individual. This is where you can start truly building a relationship with people. You get 20,000 characters to introduce yourself and make a personal

connection with people who are looking for you. Believe it or not, people do read this! Make it count!

Advanced Search OptionsFirst and foremost, never ever use the conventional search bar unless you know who you’re looking for. They can be overwhelmed by the number of people who pop up for a simple search. Instead, hit “Advanced” to the right and you’ll see a variety of options pop up. This allows you to narrow your results by geography, title, industry, etc.

If you take the time to master these basics, you’ll be set for LinkedIn success!

TAKEAWAYS• LinkedIn has over 347 million users,

making it the #1 online B2B social media platform.

• 87% trust LinkedIn as a source of information affecting decision making.

• Headshots make your profile 11 times more likely to be viewed and 61% of active users are C-Level professionals, business owners, and business development professionals.

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Three Fundamentals to Meaningful Brand ActivationBenjamin Cox, VP Client Services, xiik

“Great ideas have soul, and when executed well, move people to feel and to act.”

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As a VP of Client Services, Benjamin Cox is focused on finding meaning in his client interactions every day. That evokes the question, what does a meaningful brand activation look like and how can I recreate it for my brand? We fall in love with stories of meaning and truth, so why do we shy away from them in a business context? Great ideas create action and change, and that activation brings brands to life. Organizations with strong brands regularly outperform the S&P. Most people worldwide would care less if 73% of brands disappeared tomorrow. In today’s world of marketing and technology, that’s a shocking statistic, but that’s reflective of a cynicism that doesn’t believe the promises that brands make.

Advertising and promotions used to be much more separated, but today brand activation shapes our consumers’ experiences, and over 40% of marketing expenditures are around brand activation.

• Meaningful ideas start with a great insight All meaningful ideas are built around empathy and a deep understanding of those around you. Putting empathy into action is built around mapping your empathy by taking reactions from your work into what people say, do, feel and think about it.

• Meaningful activations create instant value You’re not just creating with your competitors, you’re competing with every other marketer. If you’re only focused on utility and not soul, it’s hard to have a meaningful activation.

• Meaningful connections happen one at a time This is a common vice for long-winded copywriters and lengthy product spec sheets. Keep it simple. Tell one attribute of your story at a time. What’s most important for people to know right now?

THREE FUNDAMENTALS TO MEANINGFUL BRAND ACTIVATIONBenjamin Cox, VP Client Services, xiik

TAKEAWAYS• Telling a great story is about a lot more

than great writing. To tell a great story about your brand, it’s of paramount importance that you focus on authenticity.

• If you want to create a meaningful brand activation, you need to provide great, instant value.

• You can’t blast out meaningful connections. They happen one at a time and they’re unique to each individual.

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Content Strategy: The Research & Data Behind Successful Content MarketingHalie Vining, Client Success Director, Relevance

“What is the sentiment around your brand, good or bad, and how are you using both?”

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CONTENT STRATEGY: THE RESEARCH & DATA BEHIND SUCCESSFUL CONTENT MARKETINGHalie Vining, Client Success Director, Relevance

Are you struggling to make your content strategy work? Do you have a strategy at all? As the Client Success Director of Relevance, Halie Vining wants to make sure you’re building a strategy and sticking to it.

Where are content marketers falling short? 62% of B2B marketers said their content marketing was ineffective. Do people have the resources to create great content? Do they have the resources to promote and share great content?

Much of this comes from a lack of content strategy. Only one third of marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. How can you take the guess work out of marketing. How can you make more of your decisions data-driven and built to help your clients succeed?

Where do we start, what do we do, and what do we find? Here’s where you can start.

AudienceLooking at who your audience is and how you’re going to reach them is key for success. Make sure you’re focusing on things like:

• Brand Immersion • Keyword Research • User Generated Content Analysis • Customer Interviews • Customer Surveys • Expert Interviews • Analytics Assessment

This leads to effective audience segmentation and a greater understanding of customer pain points.

CompetitionWhat are your competitors doing? Can you compete with them? How do you know? These are the basic things you should be doing when assessing your competitors.

• Content Inventory • Sentiment Analysis • Keyword Gap Analysis • Site Architecture and Navigation Audit • Local SEO Evaluation

This puts you in a position where you can ensure that your site is up to snuff with the competitors and you’re ranking for what you should be ranking for.

MediaBacklinks are king, right? So how do you get them? These analyses are the most effective way to help you build media relationships.

• Industry Publications Analysis • Industry Social Influencers Analysis • Industry Experts Analysis • Paid Media Analysis • Social Engagement Analysis

This helps you identify top content and the best possible opportunities for your content. What topics and formats should I be creating?

TrendsWhat’s trending and how can you leverage that? Start by running the following:

• Sentiment Analysis • Angle • Subtopics • Compelling Questions • Resources Linked to • Experts Quoted

This can help you understand, and capitalize on, patterns and find compelling questions to answer.

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Identity LeadershipStedman Graham, Author, Educator, and Entrepreneur

“If you’re doing the same thing over and over every day, you’re doing nothing.”

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IDENTITY LEADERSHIPStedman Graham, Author, Educator, and Entrepreneur

How can your company, your brand, and your team be a leader in the marketplace? Stedman Graham is an author, educator, and entrepreneur who focuses in transforming followers into leaders through identity development who focuses on just that. To Stedman, leadership is everything. A lack of leadership leads to bad employees and a loss of control within your company. If leadership is weak, the employees become weak. At the end of the day, it’s hard to be a leader when you’re always working.

If you’re doing the same thing today that you did yesterday, you’re really doing nothing. You turn off your brain and fail to shape your own future. When you don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you’re going and you have to entrust someone else to tell you who you are.

Stedman grew up in a poor small town yet was able to attend college on a basketball scholarship. Despite his circumstances, he not only earned his Bachelor’s Degree, but also his Master’s, in addition to playing basketball in Europe. He spent much of his early college career working to spite the authority figures who doubted him in high school, but eventually realized that he was better served living for himself and not living for the labels that others place on him.

So how can you overcome the obstacles and doubters in your life? Center yourself around the most powerful word in the English language… Love. Love is undefinable and omni-changing. It’s something that can overcome any obstacle. This seems a little abstract, though. How can you “organize” love? Focus on loving and appreciating as much as you can in the 24 hours you get in a day.

From there, build a plan. If you’re not able to write it down and share it with others, it’s not real. This allows you to work hard and generate consistency, helping you develop layers of your own personal brand.

But how can you overcome the fears that you face every single day? Every day, you’re faced with the challenge of negativity or positivity… whether to adapt to change or be crippled by it. This is dependent, in large part, by your support structure. “Build your dream team.” Find great mentors (or rather, let them find you), so you can grow exponentially.

TAKEAWAYS• Center your life on love.

• The world sees you as you see yourself.

• Become a self-directed, life-long learner.

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