MIMA – A Year in Review

The end of the year is upon us (can you believe Christmas is only 7 days away?), and we couldn’t let you ring in the New Year without leaving you with a quick overview of the digital disruption  of 2015.

Throughout the year, MIMA presented interactive marketers throughout Minnesota some great speakers with equally great topics, ranging from Brand Storytelling in the Digital World to Reimagining the Future of Advertising.  The highlight from 2015, however, was the ever disrupting MIMA Summit, The Disruptors!

2015 MIMA Summit – The Disruptors

We laughed, we tweeted, we selfied (with Oliver Luckett), and we disrupted! Whether your interests lie in content, mobile, design, paid and social, data, or the digital mix, there was sure to be something for all 1,000+ attendees. The goal was disruption, and disrupt we did.  Some of our favorite take-aways from this year’ summit included;

1. Jessica Jackley’s talk on changing the world. Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, touched the hearts of many in the crowd during her presentation. Early in life, Jessica changed the narrative about what’s possible for people in this world. And now with Kiva, she’s living the mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Her microlending nonprofit has generated over $700 million in loans. Jessica defines entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources, and that great work starts with listening to people. Her book, Clay Water Brick, details learnings from building businesses in the world’s poorest countries.

2. We can use Mad Lib to steer content Strategy!  It is often hard to align your strategy with content, but what is sometimes even more difficult is deciding where to start. Mobile first? Content first? HOW ABOUT REASON FIRST.  Have fun while you strategize and use a simple Mad Libs to make sure the people working on content also understand the strategy. It looks something like this: The Content We Produce Helps Our Company Accomplish {Goal]} And {Goal} By Providing {Adjective} And {Adjective} Content That Makes {Audience Description} Feel {Emotion Or State Of Mind} Or {Emotion Or State Of Mind} So They Can {Task} Or {Task}.

3. Fifty percent of communication is visual. The brain processes images 60K times faster than text, articles with images get 94% more views, and this year alone there will be more photos taken via phone than ever before. So I guess we can go back to the old saying of “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

We dropped all 10 highlights from the MIMA Summit in our October blog post.  Click here to relive the entire event!

Brand Storytelling in the Digital World

Alix Hart, acting CMO at Symantec

We started the year with one of the most important branding strategies the marketing world is facing today – Brand Storytelling in a Digital World .   Alix Hart, acting CMO at Symantec gave us the inside scoop at our March event. Hart spoke about how being agile and flexible enables you to join the conversation at the right time. “Think like a newsroom,” she said.  Be ready to respond and act.

Another important aspect is to identify your brand story. Think about how you can make every moment you’re talking to customers useful. Determine what you want to be known for and what you don’t.  Hart also recommended having clear guidelines on what should and should not be talked about.  You don’t want to your team talking about something you don’t want to be known for. And last but not least, use social and search insights to support your content decisions. Have a communications loop with customers and your marketing team to provide even more insight. Then, use that information to create and deliver a relevant brand message.

Reimagining the Future of Advertising

Vikram Tank, Google Art, Copy & Code

One of the most popular events of the year was with Vikram Tank from Google as he shared with us what Google knows about the Future .  That’s what I said, the FUTURE! His Google Art, Copy & Code team actually knows how to use trending data to try and solve what will happen in the next 3-6 months. Tank taught us that we as humans have begun to thrive in this media abundance. We’ve developed better filters, and when we engage with content, we go really deep. And that’s the trick us marketers and advertisers need to solve – to be able to provide the content and tools for our customers to go deep with us.  A few quick tips that Tank left the MIMA audience with:

1. Learn Behavior: You need to know your customers inside and out to learn their behaviors. Once you know your customers at this level, you’ll discover what drives them to engage with content and what stories are most meaningful to them.
2. Find your Moment. Timing is everything. You could have the best story, but if you don’t present it to your audience at the right time, then it’s irrelevant. To find your moment, think about finding the right combination of place, text, and time. You have a very short time to capture users during an ad, even as short as 15 minutes. Know when your moment has arrived and take advantage of it.
3. Be Simple but Deep. Your fans are hungry for engagement.  Tell your story as simply as possible and provide the right tools for your audience to engage. If you know who your audience is and their behaviors, you’ll know which tools will propel engagement.

Unlocking Your Customer: Predictive Marketing

Jeff Marcoux, CMO of Lead Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft

Microsoft impressed the MIMA community by giving the group a sneak peek into their newest innovations in customer experience and interaction center prior to hearing the CMO of Lead Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft, Jeff Marcoux , speak about predictive marketing .

According to Marcoux, customer-centric personalization (marketing) is here.  The more personalized we can make the experiences, the better we can understand our customers and what they’ll do next (similar to what  Vikram Tank  from Google taught us).  But, in order to do that, we need to understand the power of the data and figure out how to unlock our customer in a data-complex world.

First, we need to gain insight into the right data. Data and analytics shouldn’t be used to analyze what happened; it should be analyzed for what we do next. Instead of asking, “What happened?” ask, “How can we make it happen?” Use the data to enrich your processes and create a better customer experience. Look at what the data tells you about what your customer will do next and enhance that experience.

There are four keys to creating a better experience with your marketing: customer-centered, personalized, integrated and optimized.

1. Put yourCustomer at the Center to make your marketing valuable to the consumer and help them move along the customer lifecycle.
2. Make every piece of contentPersonalized to your customer – show them what they need before they need it.
3. Develop anIntegrated approach so your content works together on all channels, including broadcast, digital, social and print.
4. Optimizeyour marketing to work for you to help achieve your goals.

Jessica Jackley, Alix Hart, Vikram Tank and Jeff Marcoux are just a handful of the thought leaders that graced the MIMA stage in 2015. To relive the rest of 2015’s monthly events check out Mima’s event recaps, click through the presentations or watch the full event videos.

Did you join us for any of the MIMA events this year? Tell us about your favorite memories from 2015. Which speakers inspired you the most and why!

As we look forward to 2016, be sure to stay tuned to the MIMA website for the latest scheduled events, networking opportunities and job postings.  Become a MIMA member to gain free access to all of our monthly events and stay up-to-date on all the latest happenings in the digital community.

We’re also introducing many new member programs in 2016, including the recently launched MIMA Mentorship Program . We’re currently in phase I of the program but will be expanding it for 2016. If you’re looking for someone to help navigate this fun exciting world of digital, become a member now!