Each year digital marketers get to enjoy a round-up of major marketing conferences and events. It’s no secret that the marketing world knows how to throw a first-class event. Chalked full of innovative and captivating keynote speakers, copious amounts of in-depth knowledge, and incredible networking opportunities to build up your identity are just a few of the reasons why no one hosts a conference quite like the marketing industry.
2016 was another incredible year for marketing conferences and networking events, but 2017 is already shaping up to be one of the best yet. In this post, we’ve outlined some of the best upcoming marketing conferences that should be on your team’s calendar.
May
World Social Marketing Conference
Location: Washington, DC, USA
Date: May 16-17, 2017
Focus: Social media marketing and its relationship to tracking and inspiring behavioural changes in marketing.
Conference Founder: Professor Jeff French, Conference Chair
Official Twitter Handle: @WSMConference
Official Site: http://wsmconference.com/washington-dc-2017/
Cost: Public Sector: $785.00 USD, Private Sector: $1,095.00 USD
Relevance Today: The WSMC focuses on capturing and spreading good practices in social marketing to increase efficiency and effectiveness on both operational and strategic levels.
Why You Should Go: Go for the first-class speakers! Notable keynote speakers for 2017 include the Chief of Communication for Development Section of Unicef, Rafael Obregon; Professor John Sterman, Director at MIT System Dynamics Group; and Elizabeth Fox, Director of the Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition, USAID.
2017 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference
Location: Napa Valley, California, USA
Date: May 21-23rd, 2017
Focus: Digital marketing, marketing strategy, content marketing and mobile marketing best practices
Conference Founder: PCG Companies
Official Social Handle: @DigitalMarketingStrategiesConference
Official Site: http://digitalmarketingstrategies.org
Cost: $995
Relevance Today: Geared at challenging the traditional marketing methodologies of the high-stakes automotive sales industry, the DMSC is an annual event that aims to integrate and advance digital marketing into team-based sales.
Why You Should Go: This is an event like no other. Coupling top industry thought leaders like Eddy Viola from Facebook, and marketing leadership guru Brian Pasch, the wine-and-dine splendour of the Napa Valley’s wine culture, and a plethora of imaginative workshops make this is a well-rounded and enjoyable event that’s sure to please.
Brand Innovators Summits
Location: All over the USA
Date: April – September 2017
Focus: Brand Innovators focuses on a plethora of important marketing topics and subtopics ranging from marketing innovation, content marketing, mobile technology and millennials, consumer engagement, and marketing to women.
Conference Founder: Brandon Gutman, @brandongutman; Marc Sternberg, @TheBrandMaestro
Official Twitter Handle: @Brand_Innovator
Official Site: http://brand-innovators.com/
Cost:
Relevance Today: The Brand Innovators Summits divulges huge knowledge about everything modern marketers need to know to target diverse markets of consumers, and accomplish goals through multiple different spectrums of marketing including content, social media, consumer experience and retail, and brand management.
Why You Should Go: Go for the opportunity to meet and engage with industry professionals who spill all the best practices, provide case studies and proof points to illustrate how the best of the best are able to leverage electronic and digital media to grow their brands.
SharePoint Fest Denver 2017
Location: Denver, Colorado, USA
Date: May 30 – June 2nd, 2017
Focus: Enterprise Content Management, Implementation/Administration, Business Value, Search, Business Intelligence, Office 365, SharePoint
Conference Founder: N/A
Official Twitter Handle: @SharePointFest
Official Site: http://www.sharepointfest.com/
Cost: $795
Relevance Today: This is a customizable experience. Being taught in-class means you can attend technical classes and workshops to mix and match what your organization needs most.
Why You Should Go: SharePoint Fest allows attendees to bring along a team of developers, IT pros and business teams to improve organizational skills – at a discount, no less. Taught by certified Microsoft engineers and trainers, over 80 classes and workshops spread over 4 days means SharePoint Fest can be used as a pseudo training seminar.
June
CRMC 2017
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date: June 7-9th, 2017
Focus: Retail, Retail Marketing, CRM, Retail CRM, Loyalty, Shopper Trends, Customer Experience, Consumer Marketing Strategies
Conference Founder: Created and hosted by Forma, s.r.o.; Kelly Eisinger, Director of CRM and Advisory Board Chairwoman
Official Twitter Handle: @CRMCRetail
Official Site: https://www.thecrmc.com
Cost: $800 – $2400
Relevance Today: Heralded as one of the best events in the modern retail marketing industry, This event is designed for retailers, by retailers.
Why You Should Go: The aim of CRMC is to help foster relationships and networking opportunities through a fast-paced agenda for attendees representing over 150 prime retailers like Sephora, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lucky Brand, Walgreens, Costco, Pier 1, and Steve Madden.
DIGIMARCON WEST 2017
Location: Santa Monica, California, USA
Date: June 14-15, 2017
Focus: Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Sales, Business Strategy, Marketing Technology, Content Strategy, Usability/Design, Mobile Marketing Automation
Conference Host: Search Experiences
Official Twitter Handle: @DIGIMARCON
Official Site: http://digimarconwest.com
Cost: $295 – $995
Relevance Today: Places emphasis on driving stronger customer engagement, increasing sales and improving the quality of leads generated from your digital marketing efforts.
Why You Should Go: This is the largest digital marketing conference series in the world – as a premiere conference event, DIGIMARCON invites some of the most sought-after keynote speakers in the world. Each event includes hands-on product demo’s, workshops, speaker series’, and huge networking opportunities.
Digital Marketing World Forum – London
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date: June 19-20, 2017
Focus: Inbound Marketing
Conference Founder: Six Degrees Events Ltd
Official Twitter Handle: @DigiMarketingWF
Official Site: https://www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/global/
Cost: $115 – $230
Relevance Today: The Digital Marketing World Forum only focuses on the latest-and-greatest. They showcase the latest in digital marketing technologies and strategies, as well as Virtual Reality, artificial intelligence, eCommerce, and influencer marketing.
Why You Should Go: Over 1000 attendees, three different conference streams and over 20 esteemed speakers representing brands and organizations like Forbes, Ricoh, HSBC, The New York Times, Telegraph Media Group and Virgin.
Call to Action Conference
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Date: June 25-27, 2017
Focus: Digital Marketing, Conversion Strategy, Content Marketing, PPC, Email Marketing, Copywriting
Conference Founder: Unbounce
Official Twitter Handle: @unbounce
Official Site: http://calltoactionconference.unbounce.com
Cost: $299
Relevance Today: CTAConf does its best to offer a new kind of marketing conference, embracing an aura of problem-solving, knowledge sharing and relationship building. Hand picked speakers deliver a powerful mix of digital marketing know-how in digestible and memorable single-track events.
Why You Should Go: At only 4-years-old, the CTAConf is already featuring internationally renowned speakers like the ‘Wizard of Moz’ Rand Fishkin, Facebook’s Marketing Expert Mari Smith, and Co-founder of Unbounce Oli Gardner. Plus, they’re polite and thoughtful like most Canadians – providing breakfast, lunch, after parties, swag, and full recordings of every session so you don’t miss a thing!
July
World Domination Summit
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Date: July 11-17, 2017
Focus: Goal realization and acquisition
Conference Founder:
Official Twitter Handle: #WDS2017
Official Site: https://worlddominationsummit.com
Cost: N/A
Relevance Today: Inspiration and unique perspectives are critical to marketing initiatives in 2017 – this event is specifically focused on helping you realize your full potential .
Why You Should Go: In it’s 6th year, WDS 2017 is arguably the most unique conference on this list – World Domination is less about marketing as it is about finding ways to boost your own self-fulfillment in everything you do, from travelling to writing your first book, to living the best life possible. If you’re looking for some serious inspiration from unconventional thinkers to influence your marketing strategy – this is the place!
Digital Summit – Portland
Location: Portland, Oregon, USA
Date: July 12-13, 2017
Focus: Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Leadership, Marketing, Advertising
Conference Founder:
Official Twitter Handle: @DigSumPortland
Official Site: http://portland.digitalsummit.com
Cost: $295 – $995
Relevance Today: Digital Summit Portland is designed specifically to ramp up your customer strategies and practical solutions to issues stemming from content creation, search and SEO, email, mobile & video applications, as well as social media.
Why You Should Go: Attend for the brilliant speakers from brands like Apple, Facebook, Google, eBay, GM, Pinterest, Moz, Gap, PayPal and more. Not to mention some amazing content and productive networking cues thanks to over 40 available sessions and workshops. Also, there’s some nice perks like open bars, cool swag, and free WiFi.
MozCon
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA
Date: July 17-19, 2017
Focus: SEO, brand development, CRO, mobile, analytics and customer service, content and social marketing.
Conference Founder: Rand Fishkin, the Wizard of Moz
Official Twitter Handle: @Moz, #MozCon
Official Site: https://moz.com/mozcon
Cost: $1,049 – $1,549 – Discounts for groups of 5-9 @ $899
Relevance Today: A focus on SEO means helping your brand evolve its approach to interpreting digital info, and tailoring your digital approach to help your brand rank better online.
Why You Should Go: You’ll have the ability to connect with Moz staff, speakers and industry leaders, aside from benefitting from the conferences reputation as a forward-thinking, next-level event that focuses on ranking higher and deciphering search results to make data-driven marketing choices. And, the Moz robot, Roger, will be there.
August
The Content Experience
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Date: August 22-13, 3017
Focus: Content optimization
Conference Founder: Uberflip
Official Twitter Handle: @uberflip
Official Site: http://contentexperience.uberflip.com
Cost: $529 – $749
Relevance Today: Learn how to create, manage, and optimize content experiences for the entire buyer journey from leading industry experts – like Jay Baer from Convince & Convert; Oli Gardner from Unbounce; and Ann Handley, Chief Marketing Officer with MarketingProfs.
Why You Should Go: The Content Experience is all about learning what it takes to create change and build an incredibly efficient team and providing actionable tips and information to grow on your existing content and its usability. Plus, if you’re from the US, the Canadian price tag is a great perk to heading north.
Connect to Convert 2017
Location: New York City, USA
Date: August 21-23, 2017
Focus: Customer acquisition through customer experience and retention
Conference Founder: LeadsCon
Official Twitter Handle: @leadscon
Official Site: http://www.leadscon.com/connecttoconvert/
Cost: $895 (early bird) – $1,195
Relevance Today: Focuses on optimizing pay-per-call campaigns, click-through rates that help to drive more sales, increase inbound leads by boosting shares and viral marketing. Further, Connect to Convert helps attendees to better understand leveraging paid search as a channel for qualified B2B lead generation.
Why You Should Go: To learn and better understand the world of vertical media and direct-response marketing through lead generation and performance marketing.
An Event Apart
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date: August 28-30, 2017
Focus: Digital design, code, content marketing, practical branding.
Conference Founder: N/A
Official Twitter Handle: @aneventapart
Official Site: https://aneventapart.com/event/chicago-2017
Cost: $$1,045 – $1,340
Relevance Today: Helps to streamline diverse roles within organizational structures – like writers/editors, project managers, strategists and marketers – to work towards comprehensive and multidisciplinary digital content campaigns
Why You Should Go: This event boasts an “intense” and rigorous agenda – so attend this conference if you thrive in a fast-paced environment. Attendees of this event are typically passionate and deeply connected to their work – sound like you?
September
Content Marketing World 2017
Location: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date: September 5-8, 2017
Focus: Content marketing
Conference Founder: CMI founder, Joe Pulizzi
Official Twitter Handle: @CMIContent
Official Site: http://www.contentmarketingworld.com
Cost: All Access: $1,995 (early bird) – $2,495 (on site). Conference: $1,095 (early bird) – $1,495 (on site) Workshops, Industry Labs, and Post_show video Access all have their own pricing lists in addition to the conference.
Relevance Today: Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focusing on creating and distributing valuable and exciting content that helps to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – it’s used by the vast majority of marketers these days.
Why You Should Go: The largest content event has over 4000 attendees decent on Cleveland to hear over 200 speakers and mingle with reps from over 550 companies all geared specifically towards implementation of a strategic content marketing plan.
Agents of Change
Location: Portland, Maine, USA
Date: September 15th, 2017
Focus: Search, social and mobile marketing
Conference Founder: Rich Brooks
Official Twitter Handle: @agentsofchange
Official Site: http://www.theagentsofchange.com
Cost: $99 – $179 (early bird)
Relevance Today: Agents of Change is geared towards increasing visibility online and generating more quality leads and business through digital channels and your website.
Why You Should Go: This one-day event can easily be squeezed into the tightest and busiest of schedules, and its minimal price tag is quite reasonable given the exceptional quality of keynote speakers – like Jay Baer and Rich Brooks – and over 15 sessions scheduled for the 2017 edition.
INBOUND 2017
Location: Boston, MA, USA
Date: September 25-28, 2017
Focus: Inbound marketing
Conference Founder: Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Sheh, co-founders of Hubspot
Official Twitter Handle: @INBOUND
Official Site: http://www.inbound.com
Cost: $399 – $1,899
Relevance Today: Hubspot is arguably the biggest marketing optimization agency on the planet, and their approach to training, content, branding and education is unparalleled. They know what they’re doing.
Why You Should Go: Well, Michelle Obama is a keynote speaker this year – as well as Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Sheh, co-founders of Hubspot. Then there’s the humanized, personal, inspirational nature of Hubspot and its content marketing principles. Over 19,000 people attended last year.
October
B2B Marketing Forum 2017
Location: Boston, MA, USA
Date: October 3-6, 2017
Focus: Business to Business marketing
Conference Founder: Ann Handley, Head of Content at MarketingProfs
Official Twitter Handle:
Official Site: http://mpb2b.marketingprofs.com
Cost: $1,495 (conference) – $2,395 (all-access)
Relevance Today: B2B is all about meeting the needs of another business, ultimately through demand for products and services made by your business.
Why You Should Go: If you’re a B2B marketer, this is the conference to attend. Chalked full of leaders, innovators and speakers that want to share the secrets of successful B2B practices through creative workshops, networking, and some reputably great after-hour parties.
SMX East
Location: New York, NY, USA
Date: October 24-26, 2017
Focus: Search Marketing
Conference Founder: Curated by the team at Search Engine Land
Official Twitter Handle: @smx
Official Site: http://marketinglandevents.com/smx/east/
Cost: $399 (bootcamp), $895 (workshops), $1,795 (all access), $2,595 (all access + workshops)
Relevance Today: Search marketing is the biggest area of mobile and digital marketing geared towards immediately implementable actions that drive traffic, convert visitors, and grow businesses.
Why You Should Go: Affectionately referred to as “home” for dedicated search marketers, SMX East is the largest SEM expo available, and doesn’t believe in dumbing down their content – high-level, advanced content is always the focus on SMX East, curated by Search Engine Land, the publication of record for search marketers; they know what they’re talking about.
