Next week, the Gartner Marketing Symposium arrives in sunny San Diego, California. This is one of the top marketing events of the year, bringing Gartner experts and hundreds of business leaders together to learn about the latest marketing research and strategies.
But with so many top experts and business leaders to learn from, how do you choose which sessions to attend? We’ve combed through the agenda to identify seven speakers and sessions we’re looking forward to at the conference.
7 Sessions Not to Miss at the 2019 Gartner Marketing Symposium
1. Rethinking Customer Relationships (Keynote)
Brent Adamson, Gartner, on Monday, April 29, 2019 at 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM
In this Keynote, Brent Adamson, bestselling author of The Challenger Sale, will dive into how customer relationships are evolving and why marketing strategies that worked in the past are no longer effective. We're looking forward to learning about Gartner's latest research into customer relationships, and learning from Brent Adamson about what kinds of interactions customers actually welcome from brands and suppliers today.
2. How Caterpillar Transformed the Buyer’s Experience (Case Study)
Kevin Espinosa, Caterpillar, Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 11:15 AM - 11:45 AM
Selling a broad range of highly complex products through an expansive worldwide network of independent dealers is no easy task, even for the world's largest construction equipment manufacturer. We're excited to hear Caterpillar's Kevin Espinosa talk about how Cat revolutionized the customer experience—and their sales channel—by injecting high-impact digital interactions throughout the buyer's journey.
3. Language Shapes the Way We Think (CMO Circle Lunch)
Lera Boroditsky, University of California, San Diego, Monday, April 29, 2019 at 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
If you’re attending the CMO Circle sessions, be sure to sign-up for the Monday lunch with cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky. Her TED talk on how language shapes how brains functions has been viewed over 37 million times. This lunch sounds like a must-attend if you're on the CMO Circle track for the chance to learn about why words matter from Lera Boroditsky. We anticipate the discussion will result in many insights that will apply to creating marketing content that will help customers along their buying journey.
4. Mapping the B2B Buying Journey (Workshop)
Alex De Fursac Gash, Gartner, on Sunday, April 28, 2019 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Today, nearly seven people are involved in purchasing decisions in many organizations. So even if you have a prospect who is really interested, the sale could be derailed if they can’t get buy-in from other leaders. That's why this workshop, led by Alex De Fursac Gash of Gartner, sounds interesting for its focus on "buyer enablement” and how to create content assets that prospects can use to overcome common purchase barriers within their organization.
5. Tactical and Practical Steps to Customer Experience Journey Mapping (Session)
Cassandra Nordlund, Gartner, on Monday, April 29 at 11:15 AM - 12:00 PM
The more your team understands how a customer interacts with your company at each stage of their buying journey, the easier it is to tailor your messaging, content and strategies to their needs at each stage. That's why we're looking forward to hearing Cassandra Nordlund from Gartner talk about building customer journey maps. We look forward to her advice on how to use customer journeys to improve the customer experience and get buy-in with executives for marketing initiatives.
6. The Martech Stack (Networking Meetup)
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 at 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Building the right technology stack to meet your marketing needs can be a challenge. This networking meetup sounds like a perfect chance to talk to other marketers over coffee about what technology they really love and what’s next on their MarTech roadmaps.
7. Marketing and Sales - Building a Partnership (Networking Meetup)
Wednesday, May 1, 2019 at 10:15 AM - 11:00 AM
We frequently hear from our customers that they're looking for ideas how to build better relationships between sales and marketing. This networking event looks like a great way to ask other Gartner attendees about what is working in their organization to solve this common challenge. Come ready to question your peers about what is working in their organization and to share your own successes.
What sessions are you most looking forward to next week at the Gartner Marketing Symposium? Share in the comments below or tag us on Twitter at @modusengagement so we can connect at the conference. If you can’t make it to the Gartner conference this year, but still want to learn more about Modus’ sales enablement platform, let’s set-up a time for a personalized demo.
