Content Marketing World 2022: Must-see Sessions for Building an Effective Customer Journey

Call it the customer journey, the marketing funnel, or whatever other term you prefer. Regardless, our job as content marketers is to use content to take someone, who may never have even heard of our brand, all the way to purchasing our product.  And if that isn’t enough, we need to provide content so they may continue to have success using our product, hopefully turning them into one of our biggest fans.

To make it even more challenging, the funnel has become increasingly more complicated as has the process of filling it. There’s a lot on the agenda at this year’s Content Marketing World 2022, running from September 13 to 16 in Cleveland, Ohio and from September 21 to 23 online. Here’s a few sessions that should help you in creating a better customer journey using content.

Psst! We’ll be at #CMWorld Booth #433. Will you?

Content Marketing in a Cookie-less World

What It’s About

This session is packed with examples and options for content that converts and drives the customer journey across platforms and strategies including SEO, long-form content, video, social media, Amazon, e-commerce portals, retail e-stores, websites and Martech apps.

Takeaways include:

• Personalization options
• Content and commerce best-practices
• How the content journey maps to the customer journey
• Focus on audience and distribution
• Creating Google-friendly content

Why You Should Go

What happens when third-party cookies are no longer available? If you’re worried that the party’s going to be over, then spend some time at this session to learn about the possibilities of first and second party data. What’s most interesting about this session is that it promises to be “packed with examples and options for content that converts.” Real-life examples and experiences are always far better than theoretical pontifications, in my opinion.

About the Speaker

Jacqueline Loch

EVP Customer Innovation, SJC Content

Jacquie is a content strategy and media executive specializing in delivering multi-platform content marketing solutions and ROI for brands across social media, digital, video, print, SEO, custom research and e-commerce. With over 25 years of experience, she is a branded content solutions expert who drives engagement and results for clients, and cultivates C-level relationships. @jacquelineloch

Meeting the Customer Where They Are: Content Delivery in the Digital Environment

What It’s About

Shifting strategies to digitize your customer journey has never been more important. This session will discuss how to approach this challenge and think differently about your marketing content, your digital partners, and how to organize your team internally to accomplish these goals.

Takeaways include:

• Understanding a complex customer journey
• How to deliver content that meets technical customer needs
• Why educating your audience is a marketing priority
• Building a technical roadmap for marketing success
• How to shift from website focused distribution to multi channel (getting internal buy-in, roadmap, implementation)
• How diversifying content distribution channels builds a community

Why You Should Go

Although still prominent, search (meaning Google) is not the only game in town. There are so many more places and opportunities to reach customers than ever before. This session offers a wonderful chance to hear first hand from a couple of practitioners that have successfully diversified their content delivery channels beyond search.

About the Speakers

Ashley Quinlan 

VP Digital Marketing & Global Distribution, Samtec

Ashley Quinlan oversees the Global Distribution Channel and Digital Marketing for Samtec, a $1B interconnect manufacturer known for superior service and bleeding edge technology. Her vision for the evolution of the customer journey has propelled Samtec as a leader in the digital space with unprecedented growth, and is responsible for Samtec’s place as the first manufacturer to market in many emerging platforms in the electronic components industry.

Daniel Williams 

CIO, Samtec

Daniel Williams serves as the Chief Information Officer at Samtec, Inc., an industry leading electronic component manufacturing company. As Chief Information Officer, Williams is charged with the creation of strategic IT initiatives that position Samtec as a leader in the manufacturing and design automation industry. Previously, he served as the Digital Marketing Director at Samtec. In this role, he led Samtec as the first manufacturer to have integrations with the top industry vertical search engines and PCB design software tools.

Building a Better Content On-Ramp for Your Customer’s Buying Journey

What It’s About

Is your customer on a journey or a jaunt? Are you asking them to renew their contract—or to make a career-making (or breaking) leap of faith? It may sound obvious, but different customer journeys call for different content maps. And the old TOFU, MOFU, BOFU route just doesn’t cut it. Before cranking out the same old formulaic itinerary for early, mid and late stage content, stop to consider where your buyer is starting and where they need to go.

Takeaways include:

• Question status quo assumptions about the right content mix
• Understand and identify different types of demand
• Tailor content and tactics to meet buyers where they are

Why You Should Go

There was a time when things were much simpler, Take the buyer’s journey for example, where the funnel was just three stages. But with the wealth of content being published and the choice consumer’s have (and have to make), that journey has become infinitely more complicated. Thus, your approach needs to become more sophisticated. This session with Carmen Hill is a great way to get started thinking about how to make that transition.

About the Speaker

Carmen Hill

Founder and principal strategist, Chill Content

Carmen is founder and principal strategist for Chill Content, an independent consultancy that helps marketers connect brand to demand through strategic storytelling and customer-focused content. In a career spanning two decades, she helped build an award-winning content marketing practice at a leading B2B agency, working on campaigns for global clients such as Adobe, Google and Xerox. @carmenhill

Optimizing the content journey with DAM: How Red Roof created a better digital experience for their customer

What It’s About

Over the past few years, hospitality and tourism brands across the globe have invested heavily in their online experience to drive an optimized guest experience. A hotel’s website is often the first impression a potential guest has with your organization, which means it’s key to offer an experience that’s both informative and easy-to-use.

Red Roof has taken on this challenge head-on to exceed guests’ expectations, while streamlining internal processes. Growing to over 670 properties over the years meant Red Roof needed a way to showcase each location’s unique features on its website. With a focus on operational efficiency for all marketing content, the organization took its digital experience to the next level.

Takeaways include discovering how this brand:

• Streamlines the process of intaking images of its entire portfolio in one accessible location
• Optimizes its web experience while not compromising on image quality
• Unites its external creative agencies and its internal digital teams on their loyalty program campaigns with the same on-brand content

Why You Should Go

Remember the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”? Today, images play a key role in many situations – it’s not restricted only to the travel industry. Anyone can put a photo in a blog post. But if you want to learn to employ them successfully at scale, this is your opportunity.

About the Speakers

Dennis Wright

Field Marketing Manager, Bynder

Dennis Wright is all about brand’s digital experiences and content that drives it. As Head of Field Marketing in North America, he is responsible for the message and programs designed to expand Bynder’s business and solidify the Bynder platform as the DAM leader in the market. Dennis believes that every brand can thrive through exceptional content experiences with the right tools in place. @asianprodigy

Abbie Gillespie

Global Brand Specialist, Red Roof

As Global Brand Specialist for Red Roof, Abbie collaborates on planning, development, production and delivery of all brand collateral and relate communication media as well as e-commerce strategies. This includes brand wide promotions and activations, design and implementation of digital content, as well as other marketing initiatives needs for the brand.

Fight the Fatigue: How to create engaging digital experiences That connect and convert

What It’s About

“Digital fatigue” is just another way of saying “bad experiences”. In this session, Mark Bornstein, VP of Marketing with ON24, will share a new vision for how companies are engaging audiences in a digital world. From webinars to virtual events and digital content experiences, see examples of how modern marketers are creating experiences their audiences love and discover how they are turning that engagement into the insights and data that need to accelerate the buyer’s journey.

Takeaways include:

• How to optimize webinars and virtual events for maximum audience engagement
• How to make digital content channels more experiential
• New formats for creating “programming” for every audience
• Keys to converting audience engagement into actionable data

Why You Should Go

A bad experience can easily cut the customer journey short. If you’re struggling with producing effective virtual events, or you’re unsure what your customers think of them, this session is worth visiting. While webinars have been around for what seems like forever, virtual events are relatively more recent. While they can offer a worthwhile experience, that only holds true when they’re done right. What better way to learn than from ON24’s VP of marketing.

About the Speakers

Mark Bornstein

VP of Marketing and Chief Webinerd, ON24

As VP of Marketing and Chief Webinerd for ON24, Mark is the world’s leading voice for webinar marketing and is the host of the ON24 “Webinar Best Practices Series” which has thousands of followers. Mark has over 20 years of marketing experience with leading brands including Cisco and GE Access and presents at conferences around the globe. @4markb

Ahead of the Trends: Tapping Emerging Forms of Content to Freshen Your Content Mix and Captivate Your Customers

What It’s About

Four highly experienced women from four well-known brands talking content. Who wouldn’t want to attend? Especially on a subject like this! Capturing audience attention continues to be a major challenge for content marketers. This is a great opportunity to gain some insightful and varying perspectives on new types of content and their delivery.

Takeaways include:

• Why a content hub/blog is still critical for a brand—but you need to expand into other content areas to reach your goals
• Other areas where content is becoming increasingly important for brands and audiences
• A look at newer mediums and opportunities
• Goals for your “experimental” content — it’s not all about conversions (at least not yet)

Why You Should Go

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.”

About the Speakers

Kelly Johnson

Senior Director of Content Strategy, Lever.co

Kelly Johnson is currently the Senior Director of Content & SEO at Abra.com — a global crypto wealth management platform whose vision is to create an open, global financial system easily accessible to everyone. She has nearly 20 years of experience in building successful SEO-driven content strategies for a range of tech companies in the Bay Area, including TechRadar, Reputation.com, and Forge, to name a few.

Amy Higgins

Senior Director, Content Strategy, Twilio

Amy is a data-obsessed, award-winning, strategic content marketing leader with over a decade of experience managing high-performing content marketing, community, influencer, and social teams. She loves creating strategic approaches that attract, engage, inspire, and help educate audiences throughout their complete buying journey. When she’s not online, she enjoys crafting jewelry, hiking the tallest mountain, or diving the deep blue sea. Connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn. @amywhiggins

Jessica Bergmann

VP, Content Strategy & Customer Marketing, Salesforce

Named 2021 B2B Content Marketer of the Year by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), Jessica is a marketer known for rallying global teams around content strategy. Jessica lives by the motto “no random acts of content” and gets equally excited by incredible storytelling and great workflows and taxonomy.  Jessica’s team oversees Salesforce global brand content and its media products, including The 360 Blog, Vantage Point magazine, and Salesforce+, the first digital streaming service for business. @jbergmann

Nisha Menezes

 Principal Content Strategist, Atlassian

Nisha leads campaign and digital content strategy for Atlassian’s global network of 700+ channel partners. From program management to execution, she uses her critical thinking and communication skills to refine and scale the company’s approach to marketing enablement worldwide. Before this role, Nisha has been working across the B2B and ad tech industry for 15 years, and was one of the early pioneers of introducing social advertising at Autodesk.