The TechCouncil of Southern CA and SIIA gathered last week in Irvine, California for the year’s first Digital Marketing Boot Camp. The invited group of marketing executives came together to discuss the fundamental and strategic components of marketing. The in-depth discussions centered around marketing’s new mission, managing the marcom stack, understanding marketing analytics, turning social media into action, today’s email marketing and strategies for content marketing.

If there was one distinct theme of the day it was to deliver the right message, at the right time, via the right channel. Some key topics and comments that stood out and should get your marketing juices flowing:

·        Marketing’s Mission

o   The mission has always been the same (right message, right time, right channel) but the onus is on marketers to get it right

o   Fundamental question to ask is if you want the company to be customer focused or market focused

o   Your brand needs to be disruptive to be competitive

o   Marketing should not be left to the marketing department, everyone MUST be involved in creating and promoting the brand

o   The roll of marketing is larger than ever before, it spreads farther into the buyer journey

·        Customers

o   Customers are no longer brand loyal, they are experience loyal

o   Consumer attention spans continue to shrink

o   Customers still demand human interaction, don’t treat them like robots

·        Managing the Marcom Stack

o   Look at the buyer journey to evaluate what you need

o   Fundamentally you need to start with your CRM, then determine what you need to compliment it

o   Know what you really need – the more tools you pile on the more likely you will be distracted

o   Adopt tools and platforms that enrich your data

·        Marketing Analytics

o   Have milestone metrics

o   Use user input to determine the right message, right time, right channel

o   Devil is in the data

o   No matter how much date you have, if it is not useful, it is not good data

·        Email Marketing

o   Email marketing is not going away, it just needs to be smarter

o   Turn your dumb database into a smart database

o   Be more specific than ‘just click baby’

o   HTML email for lead gen SUCK

o   How smart you are about your list will determine if you stand out

·        Social Media

o   VIDEO IS KING – think of video as a digital form of snacking

o   Social provides huge opportunities for B2B sales

o   Facebook is the B2B secret

o   Experimenting with low dollars can go a long way

·        Content

o   Craftsmanship of content – no matter how simple, make it really well crafted

o   If your content is not being shared or commented on, take it down – it is not compelling or interesting

§  But make sure you give your audience an opportunity to see it – post everywhere, put dollars behind it

o   Use your frenemies as a channel to share content

·        And maybe the most controversial comment of the day: Today’s IT Person is Tomorrow’s Marketer

One thing is clear, marketing is not a field of dreams, where ‘if you build it, they will come’. It takes strategy, a willingness to experiment with new tools and tactics and a clear understanding of the customer journey. We can learn from each other as we progress through this evolution and these boot camps provide an amazing opportunity to ask leverage peers to advance our businesses.

My favorite thing about the SIIA Marketing Boot Camp 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.

SIIA’s Marketing Boot Camp series will continue in various cities across US in 2017.

View photo album from event below.

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