Content Marketing World is making its way to San Diego! This is one of our favorite annual content marketing events, now in one of our favorite cities outside of Cleveland.
(Erika went to SDSU, so hit her up for food recommendations and places to visit!)
As you prepare for the conference, we wanted to share a few tips to help you make the most of the experience and recommend sessions from friends of the #ContentChat community. The conference is like one giant group hug, and we cannot wait to see everyone soon.
Download the CMworld app, and start planning your trip! If you still need tickets, use code HEALD100 for $100 off.
Tips for Making the Most of Your Attendance
CMWorld will go by fast, especially if this is your first year attending. We’ve found the following tips to be helpful based on Erika’s and my combined 12+ years of attending:
- Cushion your travel time. If possible, arrive over the weekend and leave on Thursday or later. This gives you extra time to get settled and explore the city, and you can use more time to catch-up with your friends and colleagues who are attending.
- Use the hashtag on social media. Use the hashtag on your preferred social media channels to connect with the conference community. If you’re attending alone, reach out and see who is willing to meet up. Our good friend Amy Fair (and last year’s Community Champion!) made several friends her first year by reaching out on social media looking for people who were also traveling solo.
- Sit by someone new during each session. It’s understandable to want to see your friends as much as possible, but challenge yourself to sit by at least one new person during each session. Introduce yourself and get some quick chatting in before the session starts. As you see those people around the event, don’t be afraid to say hi again.
- Prepare to take notes. Whether you prefer pen and paper or typing, be ready to jot down key takeaways during sessions. You’re going to receive a lot of information, so track the key takeaways and take photos of presentations for additional background. Erika brings different colored pens to make key points easier to skim and find.
- Bring your books. Authors of so many of our favorite books for content marketers will be at the event. Bring your books with you so you can ask for an autograph and have a valuable opportunity to chat with the author.
- Visit the expo hall booths. There are a lot of technologies available to help content marketers and content creators. The expo hall is a valuable opportunity to learn more about the tools available and how they may be able to help you or your organization. At a minimum, you can get some nice freebies and play some games.
- Create post event content. Once you return from the event, prepare social media posts or blog content to share your takeaways. These posts can help you stay connected with the community and meet even more people who may be future clients, partners, or best friends.
Must-Attend Sessions at CMworld 2024
The following is our highly subjective list of sessions we recommend you attend at CMworld 2024. These sessions are led by former guests and longtime friends of #ContentChat who have shown a proven dedication to sharing practical and actionable advice stemming from their real-world experiences.
Plan your schedule with a backup session for each time slot. Some sessions will fill up, and you don’t want to miss out on a session entirely or arrive late because you were unprepared to pivot.
Monday Workshops
Note: You need an All Access pass to attend multiple workshops and masterclasses. If you purchase a Main Conference Plus pass, you can attend one masterclass or workshop, or access the on-demand recordings.
Healthcare Masterclass: Build a Sustainable Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy in 2025 and Beyond
When: Monday, October 21, 9:00-10:30 a.m.
Content marketers in the healthcare industry face a unique range of hurdles and regulations, however, they also have incredible potential to deliver content that can connect their audiences to life-saving services. We always look forward to Ahava Leibtag’s sessions, and this a great option if you work in healthcare.
Technology Masterclass: Using the Technology You Have, Great… But Do You Have the Technology You Need?
When: Monday, October 21, 9:00-10:30 a.m.
It’s no surprise that technology is essential for scaling your content marketing success and keeping up with the competition… but sifting through the literal hundreds of options is a job in itself. This masterclass from Cathy McKnight will help you assess your current toolset and identify the best tools to futureproof your workflows.
The TL;DR Content Marketing Strategy Workshop
When: Monday, October 21, 9:00-10:30 a.m.
Robert Rose is one of our favorite content marketing visionaries, and his weekly This Old Marketing episodes keep us ahead of the ever-changing marketing and business landscape. Whenever you have the chance to see Robert speak—especially in a fairly intimate and hands-on session like this—do it.
Core Concept Workshop: Dollars and Sense: Finding Content ROI Without Losing Your Mind
When: Monday, October 21, 10:45-12:15 p.m.
Proving the business value of your content marketing is necessary for securing more budget and resources to scale your output and success. This session, led by our good friends Amy Higgins and Monica Norton, will empower you to quantify what’s really working and find new ways to increase ROI, with a guaranteed dose of humor and realism throughout.
Core Concept Workshop: Measure the Impact and Value of Your Search Optimization
When: Monday, October 21, 10:45-12:15 p.m.
Ready for a deep dive on SEO? Brian Piper will walk you through Semrush, Google Analytics, Looker Data Studio, and other tools to help you track the SEO metrics that matter. His session is perfect for staying ahead of the curve on SEO and turning your data into actionable insights.
Core Concept Workshop: Optimizing Content Strategy for Effective Go-To-Market (GTM) Planning
When: Monday, October 21, 10:45-12:15 p.m.
Pam Didner is a longtime community member who has joined us many times to share her insights on sales enablement and how content marketing fits into go to market planning. Her CMworld workshop will teach you the difference between sales-centric and audience-centric content and how to balance the two to move your business forward.
Deep Dive Workshop: Document Your Content Strategy
When: Monday, October 21, 1:15-4:15 p.m.
Without a content strategy, you’re committing random acts of content—which will fail to drive meaningful results for your organization. This 3-hour workshop with Michael Brenner will help you get your content marketing strategy in place and define the KPIs you’ll use to measure your success.
Deep Dive Workshop: Don’t Let AI Win the Writing Game: Power Up Your Human Skills
When: Monday, October 21, 1:15-4:15 p.m.
AI tools are best used as an assistant, not a replacement for human writers. Ann Gynn is a powerhouse writer who will teach you how to create better content that engages your target audience and improves your content accessibility.
Deep Dive Workshop: GA4 Level-Up! The Hands-on Analytics Workshop for Content Marketers
When: Monday, October 21, 1:15-4:15 p.m.
Google Analytics offers a trove of insights to help you understand your content performance and identify the right places to focus. The only problem: Many of us don’t know how to use GA4 to its fullest potential. This hands-on workshop with Andy Crestodina will walk you through the tool so you can uncover the insights you need to guide ongoing content marketing improvement.
Tuesday Sessions
3 Keys for Telling Compelling Content Stories with Surveys
When: Tuesday, October 22, 10:00-10:10 a.m.
Well-crafted surveys can fuel your content marketing for an entire year, and Michele Linn of Mantis Research is one of our go-to experts for discussing survey-based research and content marketing. She’ll join Tony Cheevers of Researchscape—several of my PR clients have partnered with Tony and Researchscape with great success!—for a Tech Talk session about how you can use original research as your differentiator.
Building a Community Through Thought Leadership
When: Tuesday, October 22, 10:20-11:00 a.m.
Thought leadership is powerful for cultivating an engaged audience, but there is a lot of confusion about what is and isn’t thought leadership. Michelle Ngome will give you a real look at how to build thought leadership through intentional storytelling, drawing from her experience as president of the African American Marketing Association. She’s a good friend of our community, and I left her 2022 session with a notebook full of ideas—you don’t want to miss this!
Is Love Blind? Crafting Content Relationships That Last
When: Tuesday, October 22, 10:20-11:00 a.m.
A session that blends pop culture with content marketing? Count us in! This is another opportunity to see Ahava Leibtag, where she’ll explain how to use content to build lifelong loyalty, with references to “Love is Blind.”
Tame the Content Chaos: Mastering Content Orchestration
When: Tuesday, October 22, 10:20-11:00 a.m.
Marketers often struggle with having too many great ideas and areas they can focus on but a lack of resources to get it all done effectively. This session from Cathy McKnight with help you improve your workflow and remove bottlenecks in your content processes so you can unclog your content pipeline.
Content Upskill: Create Content that Resonates with Underrepresented Communities
When: Tuesday, October 22, 11:10-11:50 a.m.
Marketers in higher education institutions have an incredible opportunity to reach and uplift historically underrepresented communities. Longtime community member Mariah Tang of Stamats will join Jennifer Perez of North Orange Continuing Education to explain how teams can identify their niche audiences and understand their needs to deliver empathetic and actionable messages.
Remote Video Production: Fast and From Anywhere
When: Tuesday, October 22, 11:10-11:50 a.m.
Video content is a critical part of a successful content marketing strategy, especially considering how it conveys emotion and builds trust in ways that written words simply can’t. This session from Lee Judge will help you develop a strategy to create high-quality videos with global customers and experts without needing everyone in the same room. We have no doubt Lee will share plenty of actionable tips and practical recommendations, like he did when he joined us on #ContentChat to discuss why podcasting is a smart content marketing investment.
Scaling Content Creation: Operationalizing Your Content Supply Chain
When: Tuesday, October 22, 11:10-11:50 a.m.
Defining your content strategy is a significant lift, and then you have to come up with a way to effectively create and distribute all your great content. Andi Robinson will explain how to build an effective content supply chain, helping you align your production processes with the business goals and use technology that makes the process easier. We highly recommend Andi’s book The Content Puzzle… and the Missing Piece as an extension of this session!
A 3D Framework for Orchestrating Content that Works
When: Tuesday, October 22, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Struggling to balance the content requests (and urgent “priorities”) from your cross-organizational stakeholders? Carmen Hill will empower you with a strategic framework to tell a memorable and coherent story that addresses your diverse audience and stakeholder needs. She discussed story mapping for the B2B buyer’s journey with us a few months ago, and she and our consultancy founder have something very exciting in the works with Pamela Muldoon they’ll soon reveal!
An Introduction To Defining a Differentiated Brand Voice (And How AI Can Help)
When: Tuesday, October 22, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Many organizations lack a clearly defined brand voice that helps them stand out from the competition, and this creates some serious inefficiencies with their workflows. In her session, our consultancy founder Erika Heald will explain how to define your brand voice so you can show up consistently across channels, regardless of if humans or AI are writing your content.
The Biggest Mistakes Email Marketers Make (And How to Fix Them)
When: Tuesday, October 22, 3:00-3:40 p.m.
Email is one of the most effective channels for delivering personalized content at scale, but you may be unknowingly hurting your program’s success. Longtime community member Dennis Shiao and Ashley Guttuso will share real-world stories of mistakes you should avoid, helping you improve your sender reputation and use email to fulfill a range of brand goals.
From Chaos to Clarity: Optimizing Content and Marketing Operations to Maximize ROI
When: Tuesday, October 22, 3:50-4:20 p.m.
Don’t let chaos overrun your organization. This session from Pamela Muldoon and Brody Dorland will help you overcome your process inefficiencies and bridge the gaps that commonly cause misalignment and strategic disconnects. They’ll share practical steps and strategies to ensure smooth project management across departments and provide you with a proven framework to measure your content ROI.
Wednesday Sessions
3 Inconvenient Truths About Human Behavior—And How They Hurt Your Marketing Messages
When: Wednesday, October 23, 10:10-10:50 a.m.
Humans are hardwired to behave in certain ways. Want to learn how to use this to your marketing advantage? Nancy Harhut’s wildly successful book Using Behavioral Science in Marketing offers science-backed insights to help you craft more effective messages that stand out. This session will distill a few takeaways to help you gain a competitive edge. Having attended her session at CMworld 2022, I can personally attest that you’ll want to arrive early, because this session will fill up!
Data-Driven Strategy: Build Your Competitive Advantage by Knowing Your Customers Better Than Your Competition
When: Wednesday, October 23, 10:10-10:50 a.m.
Customers have much higher expectations today than ever before, and they expect our organizations to reach them with highly personalized content on the channels of their choice. This session from Zontee Hou will teach you how to uncover the customer insights you need to deliver effective content and stand out from your competitors. You can get some early teasers of this session in our recent conversation on how to create more personalized content marketing, which includes learnings from Zontee’s new book Data-Driven Personalization.
The B2B Marketer’s Secret Weapon is Content That Closes Deals
When: Wednesday, October 23, 11:50-12:30 p.m.
Sales enablement needs to be a part of every content marketer’s strategy. This session from our friend Bernie Borges—who chatted with Erika about orchestrating a fulfilling career change as a midlife marketer—will explain how to align content with sales to continually justify your content marketing investments and gain the leadership buy in you deserve.
Inspiring Marketing Innovation: Fostering a Culture of Creativity
When: Wednesday, October 23, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Many teams strive to craft “creative” content, but what does that actually mean? And how can you nurture an organizational culture that supports creativity? Melanie Deziel, who has written several great books and resources on creating better content, will teach you how to unlock your team’s creativity and overcome the common hurdles so your team can continually innovate your approach.
Looking Back to See Ahead: Understanding What Content is Actually Engaging Your Audiences
When: Wednesday, October 23, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Content measurement is a critical ongoing practice for teams to understand what’s working and how to shift strategy to ensure content is delivering on the business goals. This session from Phyllis Davidson of Forrester will help you get your measurement foundation in place and learn what drives engagement with your audiences.
Midjourney Masterclass – Move From Beginner to Midjourney Master in 40 Minutes
When: Wednesday, October 23, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Amy Balliett has joined us several times to discuss creating memorable visual content, and this session will teach you to use the popular text-to-image generator tool Midjourney to its fullest potential. Amy will teach you how to craft effective prompts and create designs that align with your brand identity.
The Work Before the Work: The Messy Middle on the Path to AI Innovation
When: Wednesday, October 23, 2:10-2:50 p.m.
Many marketers are burnt out. As organizations have shifted constantly to stay ahead of industry shifts, our teams are worn down from constant pivots. But there is a healthy way to approach change that can motivate teams and help them feel valued. This session from Jenny Magic, co-author of Change Fatigue, will show you how to approach change management in a way that creates realistic timelines and empowers team members in the process.
The Anatomy of a Survey: How to Conduct Better Original Research
When: Wednesday, October 23, 3:00-3:40 p.m.
In addition to Michele Linn’s 10-minute session, this is another opportunity to learn how to use surveys to fuel your content strategy and elicit better responses from your audience. Michele will explain three survey question types you should consider and teach you how to write better questions for meaningful answers.
The Benefits of a PR Approach: How to Get More Bang from Your Content
When: Wednesday, October 23, 3:00-3:40 p.m.
Organizations often see content marketing and public relations as separate investments, but the best results for both come with an aligned strategy. Michelle Garrett, whose book B2B PR that Gets Results is a must read, will discuss how to make the most out of your content investments by leveraging owned content for earned media wins.
You’re a Marketer, Not a Lawyer, But Here’s What You Need to Know about AI
When: Wednesday, October 23, 3:00-3:40 p.m.
Most marketers are not legal experts, but we make decisions daily that could introduce legal risks to our brands—especially when working in highly regulated industries or using AI to support our content workflows. This session from Ruth Carter will help you understand the top considerations around AI, privacy, and content marketing, hopefully keeping you out of legal hot water.
Keynote with Issa Rae
When: Wednesday, October 23, 4:05-5:00 p.m.
You may recognize Issa as President Barbie from Barbie or Issa Dee from the hit TV show Insecure. In addition to her many accomplishments, Issa is the founder of HOORAE Media. This keynote session is a rare opportunity to learn more about her entrepreneurial journey.
