What Content Marketing World Was Like from My Booth

Yep, you read that right.  I was as new as it gets, new to Content Marketing World, new to the field of marketing, and new to video production.

As my previous career as Project Manager and ScrumMaster for software projects came to an end, it was time to do something new.  My husband, Jeff Julian, has made a name for himself in the Agile Marketing arena and he has put a lot of faith in me to learn what it will take to help him build a new community for marketers.  On top of all of that, he trusts that I have an eye for producing our video podcast.

To kick off this new community, we started with a big showing at Content Marketing World with our own booth.  The Enterprise Marketer Podcast was hard to miss with all the lights, monitors, and a big poker table.

Our journey out to CMWorld had one large bump.  We were hit by a semi-truck that totaled the car we brought with us and did a significant amount of damage to our RV.

But after it was smoothed out, fun and excitement were around the corner.  The first people we met up with in Cleveland was the staff of Content Marketing Institute, and boy do they have all their ducks in a row.

As we pulled up to the convention center, they are there to help us unload and get to our location, making it so much easier and that was just what we needed.  Jeff and I got right to work putting up our set and making sure everything we needed was there for the morning to come.

Day One

The day started a bit too early for this sleepy girl. We finish the last bit of odds and ends just before our first guest arrived.  In the background of our shot, people are trickling in to get registered, and the buzz is starting to fill the halls.

Our first guest is on her way, and I have to say, I am just a bit nervous as I have never done this before.  "This" being, producing a video podcast that others in the venue will be watching.   Thankfully, Jeff is prepared with video backups to make sure we capture it all, just in case.

First things first, I have to find my rhythm just like anything else Agile to the rescue. In my mind I am running agile all the time.

• To Do: 19 interviews on the current schedule, work the floor, keep track of names, find interviewees for Thursday, line up the camera’s, ooh the list goes on and on.
• In Progress: the current interview, the disks are in, the record buttons are on, switch camera angles for the live feed.
• Done: well nothing is done yet but in about 20 mins this interview will be done, and we will have a new item to put in the To Do

As the interview wraps the ToDo's change to:

• To Do: take out the disks, transfer data to drives, backing up drives, put in new disks, reset cameras.

All of this with a few new tasks mixed in happens over and over again as the interviews go on throughout each day.

Today we were able to sit down with some great folks, including Rebecca Lieb, who tells us all about her recent research and how marketing teams are integrating contextual content and tips on how you can get off to a great start.

Day Two

As I didn't have an all access pass to visit the sessions of my choosing, one might say that I missed out.  Sure I might have missed a few things, but I got personal lessons one right have another from some of the greats marketers in the industry.

First up today was Carla Johnson of Type A Communications. Jeff and Carla discussed what it takes to create content for your employees, who these days get ignored by many employers.

One of my personal favorite talks from our second day of recording was with Andrea Fryrear.  This has nothing to do with her talk on Agile at all, just kidding, it had everything to do with it.  As I stated, my life moves through columns.  She does a fantastic job of teaching teams how to be Agile and how to get started, she brings it to life with ease.

Speaking of Agile the running board in my head keeps on moving.

• To Do: take out the disks, transfer data to drives, backing up drives, put in new disks, reset cameras.

Keep it up girl goes through my thoughts as I'm trying to make Jeff proud. I'm working hard to get it all captured, especially for our next guest, Joe Pulizzi.

Joe told us all about the orange revolution and why it started. He's also working with a new parent company at Content Marketing Institute. He also told us about his new book "Content Inc." and how new entrepreneurs can hit the marketplace just like Content Marketing Institute.  We got a great one-on-one lesson from the "Godfather of Content Marketing."

The day continues with Mark Masters, Matt Heinz, and Jennifer Harmel.  The last show of the day was Jeffrey Rohrs, who told us all about how location plays a huge role in what we show our customers and when.  The Jeffs went on a bit of a journey talking about Pokemon Go, and how it has changed the way we reach our audience.

The other interviews we had lined up were in the wind, but Jeff and I didn't mind as we had several people stop by the booth to talk about our set up. Many people signed up to be on our show the next day which was a relief to put that in the Done column.

As the day came to an end, we were ready to hit the cocktail hour and visit with a few friends. Brock and Brody from DivvyHQ, and Lee Ann and Lindsay from Sitecore were just a few.  We talked shop but, in the end, we just got to know each other a bit more and learned from each other.

Day Three

I woke up at 5:00am on the third day to realize this is hard work. Some might think they only see us sitting and talking.

What they might not know is that a lot goes into each interview.  Back in Kansas City, I made a 160+ page book with all the speaker bios and schedules. This was all in anticipation that we would land a few more interviews.  All the work paid off as we were ready for anyone who came up to chat, but oh my it’s a lot of work.

Our schedule is full and I couldn’t be happier.

First, we get our day started with a smile.  Jessica Best is our panda, she brings us such joy and makes waking up to do a podcast fun.  She is passionate about helping companies send out marketing emails with excellent ROI and she even told us a few of her secrets.

Ira Apfel talked to us about his venture in video podcasting, Christoph Trappe told about his storytelling in the medical world, Nichole Smith let us see behind the curtain of Dell, and MJ from Microsoft allowed Jeff to geek out about search engines.

The afternoon was just as busy with Corey Morris, Michael Turner, Buddy Scalera and Rand Fishkin from Moz.   As this day came to end, we were wiped, but pumped about the closing keynote.

The closing keynote was none other than Mark Hamill, yes you read that correctly, Luke Skywalker was on stage.  He told us how having a voice in Hollywood could make or break your career.  An actor has to work hard to pick the right roles and keep his voice heard.  He never made it sound easy, just like the rest of us we have a voice, and we need to keep it.  It's ours, no one else's but ours.

Packed Up and Ready to Go

So in the end, I learned a ton without leaving my booth and never stepping foot into one session.   You too can see everything I did by listening to our podcast. As this is being published, every show has not been published yet.  It takes about 4 hours to produce each show and Jeff is working hard to publish a new one every day.

So what is next?  We are getting everything in order for our podcast trip.  This time we are heading to Boston for the MarketingProfs’ B2BForum from October 18^th -21^st!

If you weren’t able to make it to Content Marketing World, go to http://emktr.co/mpb2b16 to listen to the shows we produced and see the tweets from the influencers at the event.

Lastly, if you have something you want to write or record, we would love to have you as a member of our community.  Visit our Join the Community page and let us know more about you.