Content Marketing World 2015

The Briteskies marketing team took on Content Marketing World last week right here in Cleveland! The fifth annual biggest gathering of content marketers in the world boasted a host of impressive speakers and sessions to inspire those in the industry. This year had the best turnout yet, with over 3,500 attendees from 53 different countries.

Organized by Cleveland’s own Joe Pulizzi, the Godfather of Content Marketing, this year’s lineup featured keynotes from John Cleese and Nick Offerman, as well as inspiring talks from Kristina Halvorson, Jay Baer, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, and more.

Getting out of the office and surrounding ourselves with like-minded professionals was a great opportunity to get creative and learn from others in the industry for Stefanie Rhine, Michelle Kowalski, Gian Genovesi, and myself.

“My favorite part was being surrounded by a group of people who are trying to provide better and more helpful content to their customers. I liked the focus on streamlining content and cutting out the unnecessary sales-y content and producing content that will actually help people,” Michelle said about her first Content Marketing World experience.

For Stefanie, it was all about showing off our hometown while gaining new insights.

“I love that Joe Pulizzi is in Cleveland and showcases our city to all of those who are visiting. I also love the energy, creativity, and sharing of ideas. It can be overwhelming but also exhilarating.”

While we could talk about all of the great things that we learned at the conference for hours, here are a few of our key takeaways and things we are excited to put into practice here at Briteskies:

In the panel “How Small Business Can Dominate with Content Marketing,” Joe Pulizzi mentioned that businesses don’t need to be on every platform, just the ones that make sense. That was really refreshing to hear after learning about roughly a billion new social media platforms that every business could be using. Joe suggested finding the platform that works for your company and being consistent about using it.
Nenad Senic said in his session that the best advice he ever received was to actually talk to the readers of your blog/magazine/publication, and see what type of content works for them. It seems like common sense, but having an actual phone call or conversation with your readers provides much better information than a survey ever could.
As Rajiv Chandrasekaran said, “Be authentic. If you’re not, consumers will see right through what you’re doing.”
While we discussed many different content strategies in the breakout sessions, this simple mantra from Jay Acunzo’s session stuck out: Don’t find customers for your content; find content for your customers.
Be bold! Don’t let fear inhibit you. Instead, push yourself to think not like a marketer, but like the customer.

After such an informative and fun event, we are already looking forward to next year! We can’t wait to see who will be headlining the keynotes and what surprises are in store for showcasing Cleveland to the content marketing world.

Thanks to Joe Pulizzi and the rest of the CMI team for a great event. See you next year!