The theme for Marketo’s Marketing Nation Summit “Inspiration in the Nation” was just that – inspiring. A bustling exhibit hall was filled with over 6,000 B2B and B2C digital marketers looking to expand their grasp on the digital ecosystem. Over 100 live sessions featured insightful commentary, plus there were keynotes from Arianna Huffington, Phil Fernandez and John Legend. Joining CAKE as a sponsor, the event offered a lineup of over 100 companies including Hootsuite, Bizo, Invoca and many more. On the brink of the newly announced CAKE/Marketo integration, CAKE was thrilled to participate in this event and we made the journey to San Francisco with three goals in mind:

Reach – As the digital landscape evolves to new heights, we sought out to engage with other marketers and find out how they navigate the shifting tides of marketing to acquire new customers with innovation and personalization.

Learn – When thousands of thought leaders gather in one location, the amount of knowledge and insight readily available is unbeatable. Having attended a good portion of the sessions and keynotes, it was encouraging to hear first-hand trials and tribulations from large brands blazing the digital path.

Educate- With $137.5 billion spent in digital advertising in 2014 and little insight into its performance, the opportunity to educate the growing digital market is huge. CAKE sought out to take our experience and proven metrics to teach marketers about the essentials – track, attribute and optimize your marketing performance.

Here is what CAKE received in return:

Phil Fernandez – Putting Data In The Driver Seat

In a powerful keynote by Marketo’s CEO, Phil Fernandez, he stated that “more than 80% of marketing executives worldwide say they need to restructure marketing to meet future business needs.” Marketers are obsessed with reaching new customers, however instead of connecting with them we are irritating them by sending them generic emails from complete strangers. We are operating under the mindset that “one-size fits all,” yet consumers like you and I enjoy personalization. We need to move away from mass advertising to engagement marketing, where we value each individual’s customer journey. He walked keynote attendees through the customer journey from quickly executed and high-targeted campaigns all the way to building long-lasting relationships that drive retention, loyalty and brand advocacy. While most marketers tend to focus on the immediate impact of their performance and its direct ties to ROI, “more than 75% of marketing executives worldwide say they will be expected to manage the end-to-end customer lifecycle.” In a digital ecosystem where customers are all taking different paths to acquisition not only is it important to tailor their unique journeys, but it is also imperative to track each step along the way to make informed metric-driven decisions. As a side note, if you consider yourself to be a part of the 75% of marketing executives listed above, join CAKE president, Santi Pierini and Marketo’s Director of Business Development, Mike Stocker on Tuesday, April 28 at 10 am PST for a live webinar focused on the Customer Lifetime Value. Register here!

Arianna Huffington – We are Human, So Treat Us Like One

Over 75% of healthcare costs are due to stress related, preventable diseases. In many workplaces there is a collective delusion that burnout is really the only path to success. While this theory may ring true on a project with a tight deadline where sleep is the first thing to go, it might also mean that poor planning went into working out the timeframe. Bill Clinton once said, “ In my long political career, most of the mistakes I made, I made when I was too tired, because I tried too hard and worked too hard.” Arianna Huffington boldly stated that the key performance enhancement components to a successful work environment are 1) sleep 2) meditation and 3) renewal. Paralleling how an effective and healthy work environment fosters innovation and creativity, we as marketers need to engage our consumers with the same set of standards. Content and creatives need to be interesting. Quality content rises to the top of publications while the mind-numbing content quickly gets lost among the shuffle. Find out what drives your customers, what makes them tick and develop interesting, engaging content that will keep them coming back for more.

John Legend – Marketers Need a Melody

Perseverance is key. At the age of four, singer/songwriter John Legend continuously begged for piano lessons and was continuously told “no” by countless record labels. That didn’t stop him. With over 24 different music awards to his name, John is quickly becoming a legend of his own. Throughout his keynote he suggested that marketers apply similar concepts to their content creation.

1. To be great, you have to study the great – learn from those that have paved the way before you. Study their successes and failures, and innovate.
2. Remove the structure and get inspired – we are all human. We have our unique journey and interests so create meaningful marketing that appeals to human interest.
3. Write a lot – we can write copy all day long, but “will it resonate” is the true question? To create a single album, John writes 80 different songs. “Write the gibberish for the lyrics and fill them in later after the melody is done.”

Marketer’s First was a huge success and attendees walked away feeling excited about the future for our customers and the individual journeys they will take. We at CAKE are very excited to take what we have learned and put it into practice so we can continue on the path to high engagement and long-term customer retention.