The SIIA community gathered earlier this week in Atlanta, Georgia for our final Deciphering the Marketing Battlefield event of the year (previous event was held in June, Denver, Colorado). The invited group of marketing executives came together to discuss the fundamental and strategic components of marketing. The in-depth discussions centered around building a customer-centric growth engine, today’s email marketing, trusting data, building sales and measurable ROI from social media and scaling your demand generation.

Some key comments that stood out from the discussions:

·        Make your customers powerful and they will make you powerful

·        Customer Success is a growth engine

·        Marketing is the front line of customer success

·        Individual customer experience can define your brand

·        Anticipate needs to deliver personalized experience

·        Who ever said email is dead is wrong

·        Personalization! Personalize email

·        Data can tell you how and when to engage with each of your customer segments

·        Good content can help you stand out from the competition

·        Use content to become a trusted resource for customers during the buying process

·        Ensure you are delivering the right message at the right time – know your customers

One thing is clear, marketing in today’s world is much different then year’s past. We now live in a world where the customer reigns supreme. This was ever apparent as the clear arising from the event was that marketing MUST be closer than ever to the customer. We must understand and anticipate their needs during every part of the journey, from exploration to the time to buy. As technologies evolve and customers continue to become more buying savvy, marketers will need to be more creative and innovative in their approach.

My favorite thing about the SIIA Deciphering series is the amazing exchange of ideas and experiences. It is fantastic to see all the note taking and the dynamic interactions between the audience and attendees and Deciphering Marketing in Atlanta was no different.

SIIA’s Deciphering Marketing series will continue in 2017. Stay tuned for dates and locations.

View photo album from event below.

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the Software team on Twitter at @SIIASoftware.