NEWS

Marketers from across the world joined together virtually at this year’s Digital Marketing Kickoff Event 2020, the 5th annual event took place on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th May 2020. The event was founded by Ben Harmanus & Julia Lenhard in 2016.

” Why are women less visible than men in the digital economy?”

The answer was creating an online conference that focused on marketing technologies, tactics, and trends- 100% female speaker line-up. This event has consistently received positive feedback across social networks. An event acclaimed for its uniqueness was undoubtedly unique as marketers, and digital leaders learn to adapt to the ‘new normal’ following the on-going global Covid-19 pandemic. This year’s edition featured three conferences in three languages taking place in German, English, and French each with individual speakers and presentations.

The focus of this article is to share insight into some of the Marketing Leaders who addressed the English version of Digital Marketing Kickoff on Wednesday the 27th of May 2020.

Let’s Start…….

1. Inclusion and Diversity

“Diversity means differences and Inclusion mean Belonging”

Listening is at the core of any good strategy relating to Diversity and Inclusion. There is no simple structure to build inclusive and diverse company cultures it a process that takes time to develop. Still, the starting foundations come from the internal makeup of a company from the leadership, recruitment, values, awareness, and education at the heart of this strategy with the external makeup looking at how you are attracting & engaging with your existing and new customers. Allowing for Diversity and Inclusion can lead to increased innovation, allow for better decisions, grow financial results, and drive practical problem-solving. The key message delivered to the conference was everyone has a role to play to drive and promote the conversation on Diversity and Inclusion.

Read Now Diversity wins: How inclusion matters By Mckinsey and Company.

This presentation was delivered to DMK2020 by Katja Toropainen, Founder, Inklusiiv. Learn more about Inklusiiv

2. Building a Customer-Centric Approach

“For years, companies have structured their business strategies around the funnel “

Assuming as marketing professionals and leaders, that the term Marketing Funnels is all something we are familiar with as a term and model within our agencies and business.

Introducing yourself and business to the Marketing Flywheel, unlike the funnel the advantages of the flywheel are it can store and release energy that in turn can help to drive customers’ growth in their business. When you think about your business as a flywheel, you make different decisions and this, in turn, allows you to make adjustments to your strategy.

“Basically implementing the Flywheel allow everything to keep spinning with in your buisness”

With all funnel strategies, you must evaluate and analyze the strategy regularly. The structure of the flywheel allows for the core foundations to be adapted to best fit your business and customers’ own requirements.

Remember: The road success will have many bumps along the way. Just because your working with the flywheel funnel, do not think it’s an instant strategy fix. Instead, you need to take the time to invest in transparent, easy-to-understand processes that have at its heart the customers you serve. With this in mind, you are somewhat on the path to finding yourself at the top of the market.

“Trust is like an eraser. It gets smaller and smaller after each mistake”

While the world is amidst the grips of the current global COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of empathic leaders has never been even more critical to help us steer towards a direction of positivity. It can be said that the current epidemic has opened a window of change amongst our industry as we learn to adapt towards a new normal but allowing us to address as leaders and professionals our values at the heart of our business and companies.

Tickets are on sale for Hubspots Inbound2020 Conference.

This presentation was delivered to DMK2020 by Inken Kuhlmann Rhinow, Marketing Director, EMEA, Hubspot. Learn more about Hubspot

3. Consumer Research in Age of Social Media

“In today’s world, a marketer’s job is never done.” 

The importance of customer research cannot be understated when developing effective campaigns, and the next speaker highlighted this throughout her presentation.

It is imperative when understanding how your customers are connecting with your brand. Customer research if not correctly implemented could account for around 70% of companies missed revenue and goals as they have not adequately conducted qualitative persona interviews (Cintell Benchmarking Report).

A balance depending on your requirements is essential, with 71% of companies are said to exceed revenue and lead goals as they already have documented personas to support the customer journey. Therefore, the budget allocation should similarly align with the Customer Journey. Approximately 34% of the budget is spent on the awareness stage and just under half (49%) on the consideration stage. Therefore, there is little surprise why social listening and analyzing your customers’ interests is essential to building a good marketing campaign. In the past, many marketers might have once used traditional methods to collect customer opinions and views. Nowadays, companies go far beyond conventional methods using complex collection methods to build a picture of the customers and their lifestyles to ensure they create relevant content to increase engagement and the possibility of attracting new clients to the brand and products.

Afterall content is king! But particularly crucial is ensuring you understand and think about how they view the content. So what devices and channels are associated with people or customers seeing your campaign, and how this might help bring further insight to help drive a campaign. After all, you won’t find people view Instagram posts on a smart tv (well it’s unlikely!).

This presentation was delivered to DMK2020 by Angela Wiesenmüller, Marketing Director, EMEA, Meltwater. Learn more about Meltwater

4. How Customer Insights Can Fuel Your Buyer Journey?

“1 in 3 marketers say getting attention is their top challenge.” 

Gary Vee famously reflected on his obsession with reaching consumers, regardless of technological advancements or market disruptions. Research suggests that 82% of people trust the voice of customers over brand or product messaging (SurveyMonkey 2019). Therefore grabbing the attention of your consumer is vital. Content that’s developed with data is more likely to be 74% trustworthy, 73% persuasive, and 44% more fun for customers to read.

Remember to use market research to build a clear picture of the market and customer, this adds creditability to the content created and generated. Gathering and enriching your feedback mechanisms is essential, this will help to ensure the very people you need to win over, trust you. At the same time, don’t forget to deliver incredible experiences by gathering feedback across marketing channels. As marketing professionals and leaders, there is no point of us all being similar, so thinking differently-promote and drive innovation and in turn, solve challenging customers brief.

90% of consumers said that “listening to customers” is the most important way companies can fuel innovation.

This presentation was delivered to DMK2020 by Sarah Din, Director of Product Marketing, SurveyMonkey. Learn more about SurveyMonkey

Final Thoughts.

Digital Marketing Kickoff 2020 was an experience like no other conference A powerful concept which allows a platform to promote the best female marketing professionals and leaders around the world. Digital Marketing Kickoff may be only in its infant years. But, you’d hardly know with the professionals and leaders that grace the speaker’s stage, making it an annual affair to share best practice and network. Although this year’s event meant virtual canapés were in order, I’m already looking forward to DMK2021. Hopefully, if you have not already joined a DMK Woman Summit, 2021 will be the year you join this great event.

Thank You

Thank you to all the staff at Hubspot and Partners- Slack, LinkdIn, Meltwater, SurveyMonkey, Trello & Facebook for making the event possible during the current Covid-19 pandemic.

Thank you to Ben Harmanus & Julia Lenhard and speakers – Katja Toropainen, Inken Kuhlmann Rhinow, Angela Wiesenmüller, Sarah Din, Christina Keller, Jennifer Shaw-Sweet and panel discussion lead by Sarah Shilling featuring Susanne Ronnqvist Ahmadi, Stella Garber, Éadaoin Murphy, and Erin Kurland