This month Dowsocial attended the Digital Marketer Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 in San Diego. It was three intense days of learning and considering how to apply the latest digital marketing trends to our business but also to our clients.
Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 brought together 4,000 digital marketing experts and business owners to hear some of the brightest and most effective digital marketing speakers and influencers give their take on what is working now and the tactics and techniques to grow the digital agency of the future.
The conference was designed so that there were multiple seminars going on at any one time. Although the itinerary was designed so that you could choose the “track” most appropriate to your business the challenge was making sure you chose the right talk for your business.
Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 Speakers
Ryan Deiss
First there were the keynotes from Ryan Deiss on Days 1, 2 and 3 where he laid out his vision for the future of the industry moving forwards and how digital marketers should highlight the complexity and skill of their work as a profession.
This positioning will provide an interesting perspective when working with smaller businesses, many of whom try and bolt on social media and digital marketing in-house without support, but would not dream of doing the same with their digital marketing.
Perry Belcher
Then there was Perry Belcher with his unique delivery style and killer approach to copywriting a real inspiration to act now and get some awesome content out into the marketplace. We attended as many of his talks as possible and they were worth the price of admission on their own.
Nicholas Kusmich
Another inspiring talk with immediately implementable tips was the talk on Facebook ads by Nicholas Kusmich. With a high energy style he was an engaging speaker and dropped a lot of knowledge fast.
We hope by taking on his tips we will ensure that Dowsocial and our clients do not engage in “Facebook Philanthropy”. We think his site and blog are well worth a visit – http://nicholaskusmich.com/
Roland Frasier
His tips on the software and tools available to digital marketers was really helpful, and we are bound to spend the next few months.
Molly Pitman
As a huge fan of the Perpetual Traffic podcast we were upset not to get a chance to hear Molly speak directly due to scheduling clashes. However, the Manychat applications and the role of Facebook messenger are going to be key development areas for our clients and an immediate action.
Sue B Zimmerman
Instagram is still an evolving platform for our clients, but Sue really broke down what businesses need to know about the platform and what is working now. We have already implemented some of the tips she dished out. Check out her free Instagram strategy guide
Marcus Murphy
Hearing Marcus talk about the importance of LinkedIn was music to our ears. Many marketers seem to ignore this platform (they find it too hard) so it was refreshing to hear a voice that shares our passion.
I look forward to seeing how DM go about implementing LinkedIn within their product framework. At Dowsocial we have set a goal to train 100 businesses on the platform by the end of 2017.
Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 – Key Takeaways
Digital Marketing Is A Complicated Profession
The days of online marketing being simple are long gone but the stereotypes around digital marketers as cowboys are not.
The positioning tips from Ryan Deiss will help our company explain the value and simplicity that our company bring to small and medium sized companies in Peterborough and across the UK.
Automation Is Increasing But Is Not Taking Over
As a company that has long been frustrated by the misunderstanding of the automation opportunity in marketing. It was reassuring to hear Ryan Deiss talk about the importance of Human to Human interaction.
ManyChat and other chatbot functionality suggest that this technology is going to give email marketing a run for its money in the next few years. Knowing the right approach though to avoid overcooking the potential is going to be a fine balancing act for businesses and marketing professionals to tread.
At the end of the day though, people buy from people and that will always be the closer in our opinion. Automation should help open the door and start a conversation not close the deal.
Capturing Attention Is Getting Harder & More Nuanced
The sessions we attended were primarily around content. Organic traffic is still possible but it requires a strategic approach to creating quality content. Companies are going to have to work harder on capturing the attention of their target audience and be more strategic in how they reach them.
Email marketing is becoming tougher and split testing campaigns can make a huge difference to ROI and as Facebook reaches saturation. There is a need to be constantly refining and testing strategies to ensure that the costs are kept to profitable levels.
If you want to see videos of everything from T&C you can get them here
Traffic & Conversion Summit 2017 Conclusion
Attending the Traffic and Conversion Summit 2017 was one of the most valuable investments that Dowsocial has made in the last 12 months. The discussions reinforced a lot of our thinking but also gave us lots of new perspective and tactics that we can implement within our businesses.
We left the event feeling inspired and are ready to take that drive and ambition to our clients in the coming weeks and months.
We are highly likely to return next year.