The Art of Marketing: Chicago

April 2, 2012

The Art of Marketing: Chicago

Filed under: Blog,Uncategorized — Jon @ 12:45 pm

Attention locals!

The folks at The Art Of are putting on a big event in Chicago that you won’t want to miss. Six of the most highly influential social media and marketing speakers today–Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Mitch Joel, Randi Zuckerberg, Keith Ferrazzi, and Avinash Kaushik–, are on deck for this year’s The Art of Marketing conference at The Chicago Theater on Tuesday, April 24th.
Here are the details:

When?

Tuesday, April 24, 2012
8:45AM – 4:45PM

Where?

The Chicago Theatre
175 N State St
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 795-0034
www.thechicagotheatre.com

Exciting, right? Well, 800-CEO-READ has two ways to make it even more exciting…

~~FREE TICKETS~~ Thanks to all who participated in the ticket giveaway!

We’ve got a pair of tickets to give away for the event. Leave a comment on this post telling us What You Think the Most Challenging Aspect of Marketing is Today. We’ll pick our favorite two this Wednesday (April 4) and hook you up with tickets.

SPECIAL DISCOUNT

If you don’t win the free tickets, we’ve still got something for you: Discounts!

Tickets are normally $399 for the event. But if you use promo code “800CR” when you check out, here’s the discount you’ll receive:

1-2 tickets: $349

3 or more tickets: $299

Click here to register, and don’t forget to use the code above to get the discount on your tickets!

To learn more about the event, visit The Art of Marketing.

Comments (43)

http://www.facebook.com/hughweber Hugh M Weber

I think the most challenging aspect of marketing today is focus. With so many channels and opportunity to share ‘content’, we often forget the most important part of storytelling is the listener. Marketers need to remember that ‘everything to everyone through every channel’ is the quickest path to failure.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=606516844 Michael Jantz

My challenge: getting and holding people’s attention, and doing it in a way that doesn’t feel contrived. We’re often trying to get people’s attention with a transparent motive that appears to benefit the organization more than the user. Even when we’re just trying to dialogue with customers for the sake of dialogue, it can feel like sales, where we’d rather have it feel like two or more people chatting.
Diana Stirling

While there are many (!) the most challenging aspect of marketing: tracking ROI & measuring the effectiveness…
http://www.facebook.com/mbazzoni Michael Bazzoni

The biggest challenge for me is where to invest my dollar. So, with so many different choices and so many different spaces it is difficult. Is Facebook, Google Ads or Pinterest the hot place now? What about Twitter? Then the next difficult question is which of these is the best place to hit my target audience. It is almost looking like you just throw money at each and see what sticks. The problem is that isn’t cost effective.
http://twitter.com/aewhite Austin White

I think the most challenge aspect of marketing is staying on message across all the difference communication channels and being able to present the right message to the right audience.
http://twitter.com/ImaginariumProj Imaginarium Project

Since I started consulting, the most challenging part of my job is convincing small-medium sized business owners of the need to shift from traditional marketing to interactive marketing. Quite a few of them don’t see the need to go social and since they’ve “been in business for years without it” they don’t see a need for it. This is true most times in the face of declining profits. –Nedra Bolder
http://www.TheMarketingSpot.com Jay Ehret

The most challenging aspect of marketing is the ability to pull the trigger on ideas that are outside the norm. It’s fun to brainstorm new ideas and strategies, but when it’s time for implementation, businesses tend to fall back on the familiar. The result is variation on the familiar rather than something that is different.
http://www.facebook.com/k.ryanbradshaw Ryan Bradshaw

Attention. That’s it in a word. The media and marketers bombard the public with so many images, sounds, and stimuli that it has desensitized us to marketing in many ways. In the past, marketing was like a massive bombing raid, hitting everything. Today it has become more strategic and focused. Marketers have several options, including increasingly raising the bar with “shock and awe” approaches, winning over consumers with grassroots movements, or providing outstanding products and customer service (or a combination of them). But, whatever the approach, you have to get their attention.
David Lippi

I think the biggest marketing challenge today is getting to real customer’s stories. We can get the tweets, the ‘Likes’, and even the SE and Social Graph data, but it’s hard to translate that into real stories. Real stories educate us and our customers about our products. They inform the messages we send and the messages customers receive. Real stories sell.
http://www.esrati.com David Esrati

Staying interesting and worthy of continued relationships.
http://twitter.com/jameyshiels Jamey Shiels

Convergence is the biggest challenge. While it’s a bit buzz wordy, it is the double-edged sword. First, the organizational challenge to get buy-in to an integrated approach to marketing that converges all the efforts into distributing a message and call to action across multiple platforms. On the consumer side, it’s managing the experience across all these platforms and screens and delivering an experience that engages them and creates an response to your message. Crazy but amazing times.
http://www.facebook.com/moyafabian Fabian Moya

Marketing is facing many challenges: justifying Marketing ROI, audience fragmentation, the emergence of new channels to reach customers. But I think that, in the next decade, marketing will move more quantitative (data based) decision models, and we are already seeing this trend take shape. Therefore, the biggest challenge ahead for marketing as a discipline will be the integration of new technologies such as Analytics and Big Data in every stage of the marketing process. It will be particularly chalenging because it will involve changes not only in the tools that will be used, but also in the way marketers work on an everyday basis, as well as in the way marketing is actually conducted.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rose-Kilsdonk/1238313786 Rose Kilsdonk

The most challenging aspect of marketing today is keeping your passionate edge while you are surrounded by the big, established, stuck tribe of lizard brains. Please – I need some Godin tonic!
David Ezell

The most challenging aspect of marketing is always staying outwardly facing. New social media outlets mean new tactics, approaches and audiences, but I think a lot of companies forget that the these are vehicles to reach your audience, not means to talk about yourself. In a time when information is more quickly and easily accessible than ever before, we have to remember that the customer is always first, and we should listen.
http://www.jawbrain.com/ Jason Williams

The most challenging aspect of marketing today is the ever-growing outlets and opportunities to engage the consumer. Social media is booming, mobile devices are growing by leaps and bounds, it’s difficult to keep up. Along with these seemingly infinite touchpoints are the growing list of supporting marketing services. SEO, social media analytics, etc. Marketing roles are quickly being strung thin across these platforms, but there is not the investment in new human resources to help grow with the trend.
Joy Stauber

I think the biggest challenge is getting true attention in order to connect with an inundated audience. People have many messages coming at them from many directions and devices in the course of their busy days. How do you cut through all that to connect and develop a genuine relationship with them?
http://twitter.com/edgardojimenez Edgardo E. Jiménez

The biggest challenge is information overload and finding ways to manage all the market, industry and customer data in way that can positively impact the business.
http://twitter.com/digitaldamsel digitaldamsel

Biggest challenge? Figuring out the WHY before doing the HOW of marketing.
http://twitter.com/welltalkradio Kris Costello

Treating people with respect will gain one wide acceptance and improve the business.

Tao Zhu Gong 500 B.C., Assistant to the Emperor of Yue, 2nd Business Principle

The most challenging aspect of marketing, is taking the time and effort required to truly connect with your audience, taking the time to get to know them and their needs. Not just bombarding them with a slew of emails, promises and Ads.
http://www.facebook.com/ideaprogrammer Niaz Uddin

Behind the Scene:

From office to bedroom, playground to theater, shopping mall to park,
hospital to educational institutions, blog to forum, and social media to search
engine; everywhere we go, we get interrupted via advertisements as well as other
marketing tools.

If the focus is customers, target is providing superior customer
value, objective is maximum satisfaction, goal is sustainable growth and mission
is innovation then the challenge is ‘Stopping these Interruptions’

A New Trend:

The world has been changing from analog to digital. Books have
been changing to eBooks. Marketing has become Viral Marketing. In addition to
offline, we now live in virtual worlds like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so
on.

Hence, Social media is actually a REVOLUTION.

In this point of view the challenge is to ensure the better uses
of ‘Artificial Intelligence’

Punch Lines:

Considering every single facts and figures, the Most Challenging
Aspect of Today’s Marketing is ‘Stopping the interruption via using artificial
intelligence to get the customers those who are interested to listen to the STORY ’

After then, focus, attention, ROI, relationship, segmentation, targeting, positioning
etc. come.
http://profile.yahoo.com/GDU5NBYSXGNJLHHEXQYBIQKBG4 Richard

The biggest challenge of marketing our new business is proving to customers over and over, once they find their way here, just why their experience here is really different than the last place they went.
Marty Isaac

Maintaining relevance. Yes, you need to understand needs, and of course you need to frame your relationship with permission, but unless you remain continuously relevant, busy consumers will tune you out.
olivay

The biggest challenge, in my eyes, is engagement. How do we motivate customers to invest their time in a brand.
http://nowbizgrowth.com/ Les Dossey

Keeping up!
http://twitter.com/Compassbook nathan kuiper

Creating trust in an increasingly skeptical market … Buying behavior continues to evolve.
Budget-conscious buyers are increasingly turning to the Internet, due
to its easy accessibility, cost-effectiveness and extensive reach.
Instead of walking inside stores, consumers are spending more time
researching products and services online.
As a result, brand
loyalty is declining because physical stores often can’t compete with
the prices and inventory offered on websites.
Even when people
venture insides stores, mobile devices such as smartphones and iPads put
other offers at buyers’ fingertips. This easy access to information
makes it necessary for businesses to have a strong online presence that
helps prospects address their frustrations, beliefs and desires.
The challenge is creating this information and making sure it’s readily available to prospects wherever they might be.
http://davidhorneis.com/ david horne

Most challenging aspect of marketing today is helping people make the mental leap that marketing is baked into everything they do across all parts of the organization. HR, Operations, Development, Sales, etc are all function of marketing today. Understanding this and the courage to act on it is challenging for most.
MelCirone

Choices, absolutely. We are overwhelmed by recommendations, advice, experts, gurus, consultants, you name it, who tell us that that latest, greatest, most important marketing vehicle is out there and we must grab hold NOW. It’s exhausting. We’re trying to keep up in a world that changes daily and we are always behind and not terribly sure that if we kept up it would make any difference. But we listen to the experts. And try anyway.
http://www.velorastudios.com Catalina B.

First, we need to realize we’re not just marketing professionals, we are visionaries, communicators, motivators, designers, trend spotters and, first and foremost, people. Then the challenge is to learn more, keep up with the market and social changes today, become more responsible and build sustainable businesses that truly serve individual goals and values.
http://www.genyjourney.com Tyler Durbin

The most challenging aspect of marketing today is being genuine when connecting with consumers. For marketers, it’s unnatural. For more and more consumers it’s preferred. But, that’s today. I’m anxious to hear from the speakers about how they feel the conversation with consumers will continue to evolve.
http://twitter.com/Soundcaresser Kevin Browning

As difficult as many of these previously listed challenges are, there has never been a better opportunity to connect to your audience in an engaging & genuine way. We’re all competing against more clutter and more consumer choice but never has such a robust set of tools been at our disposal.

If you can dream it, you can execute it. The challenge is being bold enough to believe in your vision and follow through. Drive fast, take chances.
http://www.runningquest.net Clynton

The most difficult thing to do in marketing today is to remember everything we say and do is meaningless, until people (clients, customers, etc.) give it meaning. We don’t own that meaning, we just like to think we do.
Donielle Buie

The most difficult part of marketing today is being authentic so that people know the real you, like what you stand for, and trust what you say. If you fail, they they don’t know who you really are (because you haven’t been honest), they don’t like who you are projecting, and they don’t trust you because you aren’t real.
RPGBSt

The biggest challenge is overcoming impatience.

Problem solving takes time, and the best solutions may not ultimately be the buzz word/silver bullet tech du jour. The marketing landscape is changeable, customizable, fragmented, and impatient, and the pressure to hurry/be first isn’t necessarily helping people market smarter–it’s just changing their expectation for what looks like “work”, and how fast it needs to happen.
http://twitter.com/conceptking Paul Marran

The biggest challenge in marketing today is integration. With so many brands having multiple agency partners, it’s not only a challenge to get all involved parties to agree to a strategy, but also to simply get them to get along.
netscribe

The most challenging aspect of marketing today is battling the shallows to connect people and quality content.
Miguel Guevara

…knowing what to do, and how much, to engage the audience.
http://twitter.com/oscarramirez oscar ramirez

In today’s competitive market, we have to look not just the product, but the service, the relations, and not just one platform but hundreds to build strong brands. I think the most challenging aspect of marketing is the complexity of human connections and creating memorability, trust, conversations, virality, and love into our products and services.
http://twitter.com/fredassociates Fred & Associates

Most challenging aspect? Just one? How about an over-stimulated, over-marketed, over-commoditized, lack of authenticity landscape!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=746534595 Pearl Klein

The most challenging aspect of marketing today is tuning in to your authentic inner voice in order to honestly talk about the value you provide the world. Most of us are taught not to “brag” or “act conceited,” but as we move into a world where more and more people are self-employed or starting businesses, we need to take a stand about the ways we matter to others.
http://twitter.com/Ilana221 Ilana Rabinowitz

The biggest challenge for marketers (especially in big companies) is that our organizations were developed to function in ways that are no longer relevant. We have too much structure, formality, and corporate-speak in our communication. We aren’t designed for the real-time, always on world of social media. We aren’t comfortable being open. We aren’t designed to be spontaneous. We persist in thinking of the people we are speaking to as an audience instead of a community. Our entire business structure needs to change to be relevant.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1435877836 Lisa Malmarowski

I believe the most challenging aspect of marketing today is keeping all of the balls in the air. The possibilities for connecting authentically with customers has exploded via various social media outlets, and it changes weekly. Speaking as someone that works in a small to mid-sized company, just having enough hours in a day to respond to all of communications while keep events rolling, etc. is daunting.
http://twitter.com/IMBornToSoar Rekha R. Bhandarkar

As a small business owner, the most challenging aspect of marketing today is finding a way to really connect with each person I could provide value to and then maintaining that connection without being over the top or in your face. I use my experience as a consumer to define and formulate the marketing strategies that would convey my message authentically.
http://www.800ceoread.com Jon Mueller

Thanks for the great comments, everyone! We’ve selected the winners of the tickets and contacting them now. Thanks again for participating, and if you don’t hear from us, do take advantage of the special discounts we mention in the post. Hope to see you there!