A wrap-up from #TMG22

On Wednesday May 11th 125 people connected in person and online to hear 6 talks and 4 panel discussions from leaders in sales, marketing and technology.

Here’s a selection of comments from attendees.

Sophie Groos

🍩 SO FULL of food-for-thought + food from NZ Tech Marketers Conference in Auckland today!

🥡 So many takeaways from the brilliant brains speaking today but I’ll just share a handful..

Ben Reid enlightened us on how emerging technology is shaping our lives - inspiring futuristic visions of how marketing will change and adapt.

Kate Bradley Chernis reminded us that people want to reach out to people and not companies. And also, humans have 5 senses but marketers mostly focus on sight. What about those other 4?

Siân Simpson had wicked insights on building communities and how powerful they can be to combat loneliness.

Oliver Allen got real about making sure we are ‘in the room’ before trying to sell by establishing a connection with your brand and why they need it first.

Shout out to Justin Flitter, TMG, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, amazing speakers, and the fun people I met for making it an awesome event.

Linda Tso

I attended the NZ Tech Marketers Conference 2022 ENGAGE last week! Still buzzing from all the cool insights we learned, and the people at my table were so nice 😭❤️ (hi!!)

Apologies for the tag-spammage ahead... here's my 2-min TL;DR of TMG22. Massive thanks to Justin Flitter and the whole TMG team for putting together such an amazing event! 🙌

⚫ Explore ‘dark funnel’ touchpoints; aim for the bottom of the funnel KPI’s, eg. number of meetings booked. Amanda Armstrong

🤖 Hyper targeting is out due to changing privacy rules; use 1st party data where possible. Watch generative AI for content creation, AR, VR, Metaverse uses. Ben Reid

🤗 Build a community based on your members’ *intrinsic motivation* - which can lead to revenue later, but revenue should not be your initial goal! Siân Simpson

🔊 B2B marketers disproportionally use SIGHT only – consider the other human senses. Sound drives deeper engagement – in both writing and audio media eg podcasts. Kate Bradley Chernis

💗 B2B is still marketing to Humans; don’t over-rely on rational/logical product information-based marketing. Couple messaging with emotion to build sustained brand growth over time. Oliver Allen

🤼 The ‘status quo’ is often the biggest hurdle so set realistic expectations and don’t try to force a sale or change in mindset too fast. Learn to love the (boring) products you market by considering the real-life effect for the person using it! Product Marketing Panel: Darren Hopper, Ryan Joe, Sharon Middleton, Matthew O'Sullivan, Tim Howell (sorry didn't note down which of you shared the above!)

CMO CEO Director Panel:
🥳 CMO: define the metrics that provide actionable insights. Wendy Thompson
👩‍💼 CEO: marketing as a function needs to be forward-thinking, look for trends and build a compelling story of what’s next, to help the business plan ahead. Karen Rolleston
🤑 Director: industry stats - martech spend is now 40% of IT spend, investing on martech tools is necessary. Frazer Scott

Can't wait to put these learnings to practice together with Jo Graham 💪😁

Adrian Yap

Why do I get lumped with the most exciting topic in Marketing? Privacy... Hmmm… I’m so glad that I had an amazing panellist in Natasha Mazey, PhDand Helen Shorthouse on the right side of the panel!

What I loved about NZ Tech Marketers #TMG22 conference was the ability to just meet and connect in real life.

Sharon Middleton

Special mention to my fellow panellists - it's a rare and very worthwhile opportunity to reflect on our product marketing practice with peers: Ryan Joe, Tim Howell, Darren Hopper, and Matthew O'Sullivan. I find it's through taking these opportunities where you can take yourself out of your day to day, ask yourself (or be asked in this case) and others in your field the hairy questions and compare notes where you can really take in some new learnings and stimulate fresh thinking.

Javier Yebenes

It was great to hear the story behind the TMG rebrand by David Bowles from @seven-akl , hear about privacy in marketing with Adrian Yap and Natasha Mazey, PhD, and discuss #ProductMarketing with Sharon Middleton, Ryan Joe, Darren Hopper, Tim Howell, and Matthew O'Sullivan.

The cherry on top, was the final panel with Karen Rolleston, Frazer Scott, and Wendy Thompson, talking about #metrics that matter to C-suite execs and boards. 🍒

Michael Friedberg

My first face to face event in a year! Great to be hanging out at the NZ Tech Marketers conference.

Lots of insights and robust discussion but Oliver Allen's presentation really resonated with what I am seeing in the market and among my clients.

It’s natural for marketing to target and convert the customers who are problem aware and ready to be sold to…but when that’s only 5% of your target buyers', revenue growth will soon plateaux.

So what about the 95% who are not problem aware and don't know who you are AND are certainly not ready to be sold to? This is where brand comes in. How? By building community, influence and trust in the 95% of the market that represents future revenue. But note, this is not about your product and what it offers.

If you are not thinking about these potential buyers and how you build brand affinity, then you're not thinking about future growth.

For [tech] marketers, the trick in brand building is creating an emotional connection with the people who interact with your brand BEFORE you present product messages and start selling.

Building brand affinity to those buyers who are out of market is hard to measure and therefore often put in the too-hard basket. Why? Because leadership teams are asking marketers to focus solely on sales activation (aka growth marketing) and not brand building.

So to all the CEOs of B2B companies - while you want marketing to be focused on revenue, they also need to be building your brand to support future growth. Just as you and your leadership team are focused on future cash flow (as well as current cash flow), this is how marketing supports that part of your business strategy.

Sian Simpson

Today I got to take the stage at the NZ Tech Marketers conference for 2022! It was so fun to be back in a room with my peers, sharing best practice on what I’ve been learning about community building in recent years.

We went on a journey together to explore what community building is, how you do it for your business, touch on some of the magic that I think is at the very core of building communities in my experience, share a bit of how to actually do it, and all importantly - how to measure it.

Key topics I covered on the holistic side - human nature, loneliness, intrinsic motivation and belonging. To the practical side - frameworks, canvases, community types and examples of who’s doing it well.

After a lot of research, its occurred to me that part of the reason why community is pushing into the business world is as a result of global feelings of loneliness, and people searching for authentic connection around their interests.

I think as businesses, marketers and community builders we should figure out how to go forth and build communities of influence that can serve business goals, and also make the world a less lonely place by taping into what is at the heart of us all - a desire to belong.

Thanks for having me TMG!