10 key takeaways from the Marquette University Digital Summit

1. Conferences = networking opportunity

Hundreds of students and professionals rubbed elbows at the Digital Summit, including participants from Laughlin Constable, Spotify, Google, Microsoft and more. Some Marquette students had the opportunity to get up close with speakers as student ambassadors by greeting them and introducing them. But anyone has the opportunity to network at a conference like the Digital Summit by sitting at a lunch table where you don’t know anyone, exchanging business cards and then following up with a LinkedIn connection or an email. You never know where it might lead. (Example taken from Media writing class).

2. Keep personality and character in brands

Laughlin Constable practices what they preach by keeping personality in brands. For example, they personalized the face of cancer in a campaign for Aurora, they’re proud of their local roots by transforming a concession stand into a mock super club, they’re unafraid to tell it like it is when it comes to beer, socializing and college student. (Example taken from Media writing class).

3. Using Youtube as an advertising platform

Paris Presents shows that expanding your brand to social media platforms like Youtube can equal growth and new success. They teamed up with Chapman sisters in order to reach a younger audience and sell they’re Real Technique brand of make-up brushes and other accessories. The sister’s now do Youtube tutorials, to further reach the audience of Real Techniques. Their channel, PixiWoo, now has 196 million subscribers and it’s still growing, which goes to show just how important expanding and personalizing your brand for the audience can be.

4. The importance of brand loyalty

Gartner goes beyond just selling their brands. They want their audiences to not only buy and own their goods, but also love and advocate. For example, Garnter includes a Bond Brand Loyalty in its Market Guide for Loyalty Marketing Platforms, a publication aimed at helping marketing executives understand how people approach loyalty marketing. Research done by Gartner also shows that 20 percent of future revenue come from existing customers which means business need and want loyalty in order to reach that existing 20 percent.

5. Make it personal and engaging

Laura Markewicz, from Laughlin Agency, discussed that in order to get audiences to engage you need to make what you are selling or wanting to promote personal and interesting. Even in her talk she that she could be more human and not just a marketer by being witty and different. She was able to set her company a part by being meaningful and not just telling people to be interested by giving them reason to instead.

6. Understand the consumer first

Many of the companies at the Digital Summit discussed how important the audience is to the business. Patrick O’Brien, noted that once they looked into their audience — the millennials — and understood what they looked for, that’s when Paris present expanded to Youtube. Paris Presents has their own media center online which shows that they are looking to their audience and going out of their way to cater to them and what they want to see.

7. Businesses begin with the students

Marketing is evolving and many of the presenter today touched on the importance of us — the students in the room. The first speaker Patrick O’Brien, form Paris Presents, made an important point that sure there are seasoned veterans but part of what makes businesses successful is bringing in fresh-thinkers and spiky haired kids. The Dean of the ollege of Communication at Marquette, Dr. Garner, also commented on how events like this were great opportunities for the students to grow and become apart of the marketing and digital world.

8. Technology going beyond an average search

Technology is growing expanding as is the digital marketing world. Consumers now don’t just sit on a computer and look for things they have phones and with just their voice can get to exactly what they want. Marketing strategies are now having to keep up with how fast people can find and search things and how technology is bettering and improving itself.

9. Technology is making way for new norms

Some things might seem to go too far on social media and online but eventually that will be the norm. Everyone is getting their information through social meadia and the internet and boundries are disappearing. Even companies are using the internet to get more research on their audiences and find out what they want from businesses. For example, the Tahzoo homepage shows that they are customer centered and tech enabled. They are finding new ways to get close and personal to their customers in order to keep them the focus of their business.

10. Power of streaming

Online streaming is a huge change in technology, and is now giving technology the power to shape and our behavior on things and our daily routines. People are even using technology in daily activities like showering. It’s important to remember that technology, like music, is becoming a more engrained part of people’s lives, especially in future generations.