What we learned at TOPO Summit and ABM Innovation Summit

When it comes to events, there’s a certain level of excitement we feel from learning about what’s on the horizon for this industry and sharing what we’ve learned with fellow marketers. Each event draws its own unique ecosystem of attendees, organizations, personalities and opportunities. The past month has had our team busy at two such occasions – here are the highlights from our attendance and two well-known industry events:

TOPO Summit: March 20 – 21st, Pier 27, San Francisco, CA

Kicking off the event circuit of the past few weeks was TOPO Summit. Providing valuable insights for so many areas of sales and marketing, this event is designed to bring together thought leadership for six areas of revenue generating business strategy: Account Based, Sales Development, Sales Effectiveness, Marketing Ops and Tech, Sales Ops and Tech and Executive Leadership. There’s basically something for everyone.

March 20th – Keynote presentation by Scott Albro of TOPO

Scott progressed into a hearty discussion of storytelling with “case stories” (case studies are over?) This slide provides a new perspective on case study templates that incorporates the way that people enjoy consuming information – a story arc. So long, Smart Art.

March 21st – Booth activity

Our team had a good time holding down the booth and engaging in some awesome conversations with fellow marketers.

There’s also always time for a Boomerang, especially when you’re excited to share our MightyGuides book, 9 Experts on Rethinking Demand Generation. Proof that it’s still nice to hold a book in your hands, this guide can act as a desktop accessory for content creators. Fear not the blank page – with expert opinions on how to use content for demand generation, it provides the right mix of inspiration and guidance to develop content that converts. We thought that was the right kind of tool for new friends to take with them when visiting our booth.

Overall, TOPO Summit is a great way to meet like-minded marketing and sales professionals who are receptive to growth and new ideas. We’re into that kind of thinking.

ABM Innovation Summit: April 11 – 12th, Pier 27, San Francisco, CA

A few weeks later, we were a Silver Sponsor and attendees of ABM Innovation Summit – thanks to the whiz kids at Demandbase who know how to put on a great event. As you can imagine, ABM was a bit of a talking point for this event, which is right in our wheelhouse.

Birds of a feather

Our topic, ‘Leveraging content syndication to enhance ABM strategies’ brought together B2B marketers to share best practices on ABM via content. What was great about these sessions was the ability of our fellow marketers to see beyond a siloed perception of ABM marketing as a function of CPC and display ads. Content can be hyper-targeted to decision-makers at the exact targets an organization needs to reach. And we know a way to make that happen, where marketers are only paying for the leads they want. (Can you guess what it is? Click to try it out.)

Oh, and there was a living legend in attendance (awesome!) Billie Jean King delivered an inspiring keynote and then hit tennis balls into the audience:

Then there was the booth – stocked with Nespresso and goodies for our fellow ABM buddies, we were able to talk shop with other marketers. A common talking point surrounds the somewhat antiquated perception that content syndication is not a go-to for ABM – as that mindset becomes a thing of the past, marketers are looking towards content development that speaks to the target audience in a way that is both personal, powerful and easy to digest (remember Scott’s case study slide earlier in this post?)

Between both events, we had a blast meeting new people and talking with other thought leaders in this space. There is always something that challenges marketers to think differently and each interaction adds dimension. We can’t wait for the next events – stay tuned for more recaps as 2018 unfolds.

Related posts:

How To Integrate Intent Data Into Your Martech Stack
How COVID-19 Has Impacted B2B Content Consumption
Why Your B2B Content Marketing Needs a Hybrid Engagement Strategy