I had hoped to write a few words about the IDM B2B Marketing Conference 2008 the day after the event [8 April 2008]. However, my hangover did not permit it – post event drinks are a must! Now it is Monday, I am feeling fresh and ready to share my thoughts…
We are big fans of the IDM. Over the past few years, they have made a great effort to cater for the needs of the B2B marketer. Not only do they run specific B2B marketing courses, but they also run this quality annual B2B Marketing conference.
It is hard work putting together an event programme, which is relevant to the wider B2B marketing audience – as the profession is huge and demands and needs vary massively. This year, the IDM managed to arrange an appealing and diverse mix of material, from covering an award winning campaign from the B2B Marketing Awards to Web 2.0 tactics and social media. The content was very well selected, with each area being current and poignant.
The highlight for me was the panel debate on Social media. They were a strangely attractive panel this year, not that that had any impact on how engaging the material was, but it was noted at how B2B is glaming up!
There is one thing though… there are at least 150,000 B2B marketers out there in the UK alone, yet this annual event only attracts 200 people. What is that all about? The event is really well run, well promoted and the IDM have a trusted brand in the market. I do not think the numbers reflect badly on the IDM nor the marketer, but the question I pose is where were the rest of you?
Is it that the B2B marketer is not motivated to go to conferences, per say, or he/she is looking for a different approach, maybe something more focused, or maybe companies are not supporting the marketer [financially] to attend? My money is on the latter.
Continual professional development within B2B marketing is essential, as times are changing rapidly. Understanding and harnessing new techniques and technologies are essential for continual growth – just knowing your 4 P’s is history. Marketers are not cheap to employ, so getting the most out of them/us can only be achieved by further ‘intellectual’ investment. Sales teams, lawyers, doctors, engineers etc all go to regular conferences to make sure de-skilling is avoided. OK, some professions have to go to events, due to legislative enforcement via CPD points, but the principle is the same. In short, an informed marketer will bring more to your business than one locked away in a cupboard.
In short, great event IDM and B2B Marketing is very proud to be a media partner and we look forward to watching its success in the future.
What a great day it was! Over 200 B2B practitioners listening to a really high quality conference programme - certainly the best I've been to in a while.
If I had to pick a clear favourite, it would have to be Chris Warwick, VP of acquisition marketing at Hoovers and the queen of search marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO). Not only was she the finest-looking speaker of the day, she was also exciting to listen to and learn from because she shared so much about Hoovers online marketing successes and challenges, warts and all.
Lifting up the hem of the corporate skirt is a good thing to do at conferences, because people are there to learn from best practise and mistakes.
Too few people do it, whilst some say they are going to do it and then don't. We don't go to conferences for a tease...
Top tip from her session which I personally took away were to keep links on each page relevant to the main content of the page, in order to optimise for search engines and rank higher on the stuff you want people to see.
Search engines only see same or similar words as related, so one has to keep the terminology clear and unambiguous and avoid being too creative with language.
SEO is a moving target as search engines are wont to change their algorithms from time to time.
It's such a complex minefield, but a few (free)...(yes, FREE)..online tools that are interesting to help audit one's SEO effectiveness are as follows:
Optimisation Purpose |
Free On-line Resource |
What the Search Engines See |
http://www.dlperry.com/what_search_engine_spiders_see.html |
Determine relative popularity of key words |
http://googlefight.com/ |
Link popularity check vs competitors |
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/default.htm |
Traffic ranking analysis from a toolbar download |
http://download.alexa.com/index.cgi |