The marketing world has come roaring back after a COVID-19-induced lull, including marketing conferences. The early days of the pandemic pushed many companies to slash marketing budgets. By 2021, though, marketing spend had returned, growing 21.6% year-over-year.
Digital marketing has continued to dominate the promotional world, as well, with a growing majority of marketing funds heading online. While it’s a development full of exciting potential, the continuing shift to the internet is putting marketers under pressure to keep up with this new fractionalized and complex world.
Stay Up-to-Date By Attending Marketing Conferences
One of the best ways to keep pace with the latest marketing trends and updates is to attend the right marketing conferences. With that in mind, here are a few different in-person gatherings that your marketing team should have on their radar this year.
1. Keep Up on SEO at SearchLove
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key cog in most marketing strategies. One of the major challenges with SEO marketing, though, is the evolving nature of the marketing channel itself.
Google’s popular search tool and its algorithm are always in a state of flux. On top of that, the tool is always trying to cater to searcher intent — in other words, it doesn’t care about delivering on SEO investments. This makes keeping up with the latest SEO best practices imperative if you want to see results.
For those heavily invested in SEO (or even if you just have a foot in the water or you’re thinking of diving in), SearchLove is an ideal marketing conference to get up to date on all things SEO. The two-day, single-track event helps online marketers take their SEO knowledge to the next level. It is replete with opportunities to network, attend VIP dinners, and relax with like-minded professionals.
SearchLove will also feature high-quality, in-depth presentations from hand-picked industry experts. This year, the line-up of speakers and workshops will be addressing a variety of current SEO topics, from machine learning and GA4 to generative AI and, yes, even ChatGPT and Bard.
The resort-style marketing conference, which is entering its eighth year, will run for two days over March 13-14 in sunny San Diego. For those trying to move up those SERP rankings, this one’s definitely worth checking out.
2. Inspire Your Content at Content Marketing World
Content is still king, guys. And yes, that means we still need to invest in more than freelance writers and guest post strategies. In fact, as is the case with SEO, the way brands approach their content creation is changing — and quickly.
Content is less and less about keywords and links. (Although those are still important!) As the competition for keywords and organic search engine rankings heats up, companies are turning to quality and thought leadership as focal points for their content creation.
If you feel you’re lagging behind on your content strategy, you may want to book a spot at Content Marketing World. The 13th year of this energetic event is set to play out as a dual marketing conference and expo. It will take place from September 26 – 29 in the capital city itself: Washington, D.C.
The first day of the event opens with workshops, followed by a two-day conference and a final day devoted to networking. The event comes from the Content Marketing Institute, which exists to educate the content marketing world, partly through in-person conferences. If you’re in the content creation game (and who isn’t these days?), this is a buzzy event that will have your team’s creative gears spinning in no time.
3. Brush Up On Data at Marketing Analytics Summit 2023
IT departments tend to stick to their techy stuff, and marketers focus on promoting products and services. In most cases, the two departments walk separate paths. But data is the one spot where technology and marketing merge into a single vast sea of information-driven, promotion-based knowledge.
Marketing analytics is no longer a fun side project for marketers to dabble in, either. It’s a keystone element of every marketing plan, and its impact percolates down through every form of online outreach and digital marketing.
Like the other options on this list, marketing analytics is also a field that is evolving at a blistering pace. Attending the right marketing conferences is a great way to keep up with the changes. Enter the Marketing Analytics Summit 2023.
Billed as the “conference for digital analytics trailblazers,” this gathering has been a fount of wisdom for the marketing analytics community for 22 years. It is an event with a solid track record of taking marketing analytics to the next level.
This year, the group will be gathering in Las Vegas from June 19 – 22 to talk all things analytics. The event has speakers lined up from major brands, including Microsoft, Shopify, and Amazon. If your team struggles to capture, analyze, or implement your marketing data, this is a must-attend conference.
Marketing has always been a complex practice. But the diversity of the modern online marketing landscape has made ongoing education an essential activity for modern marketers.
Attending marketing conferences like those listed above gives you a chance to steep yourself in the latest and greatest developments in a lively and engaging atmosphere. It’s an ideal way to expand your mind and stay up-to-date without becoming isolated and overwhelmed in the process.
Image credit: Luis Quintero; Pexels
